Two months?

Yes, two months.

She remembered, because she had eagerly been keeping track of the days left until her tenth birthday. One day, one scratch on the bamboo pole, starting from the evening Uncle had patted her head and commented, “It’ll be ten more weeks until the great event, hm?” She’d never been good at keeping track of the days. Thank heaven Uncle had visited.

There were fifteen scratches on the bamboo pole the day it happened. Mother had shouted from outside, startling her just as she carved her daily line down with a pebble. Her whole body jerked; the line traveled just enough to the right to be noticeable, and she was left with a rather ugly, rather crooked fifteenth day. Her line had an angle. A corner. Corners were bad, Mother always said.

A thief. A scream. Frightened horses broke free from their owners and charged down the path, cart rumbling behind them. They trampled both her sister and the green onions Mother had asked her to buy from the market.

Yulan remembered, because she’d gone with the rest of the family to find out what’d happened. Before Father covered her eyes so she wouldn’t see the body, she recalled spotting a green onion lying in the road that looked just like her fifteenth line. The stalk was broken, jerked to the right just enough to be noticeable. An angle. A corner.

Now, two months later, she was almost ten years old, and her parents had asked her to play her flute tomorrow at the celebration. Problem was, she had always been part of a pair with her sister, and she couldn’t imagine playing alone. It was almost an insult to her memory, a very painful and unreasonable demand. A deaf man could no sooner listen to her song than she could play it alone.

It was impatient. Her flute, that is. Since the funeral, Yulan had left it at the top of the dresser beside her sister’s, for even imagining how its notes would vibrate her lips and her ears tore her heart apart. With each mark she scratched into the pole, the agony lessened, but she hadn’t touched it again until today.

Out here between the splotches of sunlight on the ground, only she and the waving bamboo stalks were allowed to listen.

Yulan wet her lips, gently rubbing the flute in time with the wind’s cold strokes on her skin. The smoothed wood felt like an old friend.

It was an old friend who wore a playful frown, crossing its arms together and leaning forward to tease her. “Hey, why haven’t you been playing with me lately? I’m starting to think you don’t like me anymore!”

“That’s not it,” she promised. “I’m sorry. I still like you.”

“I don’t believe you.” A scoff. A pout. “Prove it, then. Prove that you’re still my friend.”

Yulan raised the flute to her mouth, positioning her fingers across the holes just as she’d seen her sister do and learned to do herself, and blew.

Their song had been fashioned for two players. Sometimes they played in tandem, sometimes in turns, but their tunes were never separate.

Perhaps it was because they were sisters only two years apart, or because they were good flute players, or perhaps a combination of both, but it had always been so easy to enter that place once the music began, that wondrous place where they floated amongst their own notes, connected to each other by a string. Inside that place, they could read each other’s thoughts, sense each other’s every inhalation. The song’s tempo remained the same, but the dance of their fingers slowed before their eyes, and they were able to decipher each individual step across the holes.

Despite her sister’s absence, Yulan entered that place, carried by the sound of her flute.

It was hard to see in here now. She held her rhythm steady to her chest and searched the darkness. The far end of her string whipped around in the emptiness, unanchored. It had been two months, but it couldn’t possibly be too much to hope that she’d find her sister here.

Yulan missed a note in her nervousness; the wondrous place lurched. Her finger slipped, she missed a note again, and the place rocked backward, suddenly more dangerous than wondrous. It threatened to toss her out. “You don’t belong here,” it said. “Who are you? I don’t recognize you. Get out.”

“Let me stay,” she pleaded, tucking her rhythm close to her chest so it couldn’t escape. The beating of her heart clashed with the tune. “I came to find my sister. Please let me stay here.”

“No,” it said. It lurched again. She almost fell over. “It’s too late. Get out.”

It was difficult to play alone. She didn’t recognize this once-wondrous place anymore, either. The air felt strange, broken, like something was missing. Yulan thought she remembered, in this spot, she could float really well, but now when she stepped there, nothing met her foot and she plummeted for a few terrible seconds before she was able to catch herself and climb away. She didn’t know where she was going. She stumbled through the dark, unsure whether she was moving towards the entrance or wandering deeper into the place that no longer welcomed her there.

Her eyes felt wet. Blinking hard, she held her rhythm steady to her chest and willed herself to keep playing, to stay inside that place. Maybe the string would find something to anchor onto and prevent her eviction.

Then, faintly at first but the sound growing stronger, she could hear the shadow of her sister’s flute behind her own. Like hands, they supported her frightened notes along the air, keeping them adrift in the right direction, filling in approaching gaps so they wouldn’t fall and break. Yulan’s body stopped shaking, and she swallowed more and more courage as she felt her way around the gradually receding darkness.

The string was taut. It’d found something.

There were fingers dancing around wooden holes in front of her eyes, and instinctively, she adjusted her tempo to match them even though she couldn’t see them that clearly. The tune melted so well into her own, different but not separate. Her heart beat quickly, but out of familiar excitement, not fear.

A thought rippled through the string. What’s this, meimei? You’ve been lazy about practicing, haven’t you?

“No,” she said, even as guilt squirmed inside her stomach.

Aiya, you always were a bad liar.

Yulan heard laughter above the floating duet. Her sister’s voice.

Startled, she jerked, her fingers slipped, she missed a note; the wondrous place picked her up and threw her out.

Her lips were tingling. When she raised her head, light hit her fully in the eyes, and she winced, lifting a hand to shield her vision. She hadn’t realized the sun had moved, but now that she was aware, she noticed how warm her skin felt. The wind still stroked it, but she was immune to the chill.

Yulan rubbed her flute, taking comfort in the wooden feel of an old friend.

She smiled and wiped her eyes. The echoes of her song had already faded, but she could still hear the shadow of her sister’s flute between the waving bamboo.

--

A/N: My latest attempt to sound profound. I was actually watching a video on Youtube with two sisters playing a Chinese wind instrument called hu-lu-si together. It was quite nice. And then for some reason, my thoughts turned morbid and I wondered what it would be like if one of the sisters wasn't there. And this one-shot was born. Yeah, I'm weird.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.

- Meimei - little sister