Page 5 of The Music Demon

“Head is spinnin’.”

“In a good way?”

“Do no’ know yet. Seems like I just found out I’m a creature who can be in Ireland one minute and in, um…” She looked around. “Texas the next. Just found out I can ask a flower to grow from nothin’. Now you’re sayin’ you can travel around in time…”

“You, too. Obviously.”

“You mean that I can accompany you when you do magic tricks with time? Or do you mean that I can, em, actually…”

“You can go anywhere you want so long as it’s anchored by Earth’s history and the dimensions that are attached to this reality.”

“So I could go to my parents’ handfastin’?”

“You could. If you have a good plan for what you’re gonna say if somebody asks who you are.” Lyric cocked his head. “Would you like to do that?”

After mulling that scenario over in her head, she answered carefully. “No. Seems like it might be an intrusion.” A light flashed in her expressive eyes. “Is that why you said I could no’ find my own way back?”

Lyric nodded and quietly waited for her reaction.

“So teach me what I need to know to, em…”

“Navigate time as well as dimensions?”

The gravity of that proposition settled over her like a weight. “I’m just an elf,” she whispered.

Lyric treated her to his most disarming grin. “Not anymore.”

“Tell me how you brought me here and how to get back to March 17th, demon.”

“Lyric,” he corrected. “I will, Shivaun. For a kiss.”

She looked incredulous for the space of a single second then laughed in his face. He loved the sound of her laugh almost as much as he would have loved the feel of her lips on his.

“That is blackmail, demon.”

“Lyric,” he corrected then shrugged as if to say there was no misunderstanding on that score.

“So.” She lowered her chin, but her eyes were playful. “You abducted me for the ransom of a kiss?”

The demon smiled in a way that would have elicited a ‘yes’ no matter what was being suggested. “Let’s not be overly concerned with labels.”

Cocking her head, she said, “Did you kiss my sister?”

Lyric put his hand to his heart. “I did not kiss your sister, Shivaun. Honestly. After I heard your name, I didn’t want to.”

“Why no’?”

“I knew I had the wrong twin.”

That answer seemed to pacify, perhaps even please, the young demon.

“I will kiss you so long as you understand that I would’ve done so with or without the threat of leaving me here in… On… In April 1st.” She shook her head. “Wait. If I said no kiss and just waited for fourteen days, then time would catch up to me. Wouldn’t it?”

“Yes. That works if you’ve travelled to the near future. What if you’ve traveled to the distant future? What if you’ve traveled to the past?”

She thought that over as the band assembled a drum kit, placed mics, amps, and stands where they wanted them, then performed a sound check over jukebox music.

As darkness settled over the evening, the lights in the trees made the night seem magical for Loti Dimension. The parking lot filled as customers began to arrive and the scent of cedar was replaced with that of burgers on the grill, slices of Idaho potatoes in the fryer.

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