"Keep that hair short."
That's what Lee had said to her that fateful day. She'd lived up to that request to the best of her abilities over the past eight years. Clementine sat in her room, holding a pair of scissors in her left hand. They were rather blunt, and the handle was pretty rusted, but they would have to do. She'd found them lying around in the music room while AJ played outside with Tenn.
She raised the scissors to the back of her head, the weak light of the sun hitting its surface and illuminating her face. She took a couple of strands of hair in her right hand and attempted to cut them. Unfortunately, left was not her dominant hand, so the result was her hair being pulled harshly without shortening its length. Swearing under her breath, she tried again and got the same result.
She had sprained her right hand a couple of days ago while on a hunting trip, and Ruby had advised her not to use it. She had to keep her hair short, however, so she was properly frustrated. Clementine exited her room, the scissors in her hand, and made her way to the music room. In there she found Louis sitting on the piano stool. He was writing something on a sheet of paper and sticking out his tongue in concentration.
"Preparing your next masterpiece?" she teased, leaning on the doorframe.
Turning his attention to the girl at the door, he grinned, "You could say that."
She approached him and sat next to him, planting a small kiss on his cheek and making him blush. She loved when she made him blush, which was not often, so she smiled. Louis looked forward and stretched his fingers, playing a sweet melody with a slow tempo. Louis looked at her hands and his eyebrow shot up.
"What are you doing with those?" he inquired, "Oh my god, you're actually stabbing me in my sleep, aren't you? Hold on, I'm not sleeping," he mused, frowning. "I'm so confused."
Clementine chuckled, shaking her head. "No, I'm not stabbing you. I was wondering if you would cut my hair."
"Cut your hair?" he repeated, stopping his music.
"Yeah, I usually do it myself, but my hand is fucked." She gestured to her right hand. "And I didn't want to bother AJ now that he and Tenn are starting to hit it off."
"Of course, you can count on me," he quipped with a smile. Clementine handed him the scissors and he sat up from the stool, standing behind her. The girl removed her hat and placed it over the piano, loosening the hair ties she'd gotten from Lilly all those years ago. Louis raked his fingers through her curly hair and sighed.
"You have beautiful hair," he complimented, "Don't know why you'd cut this."
Through blushed cheeks, Clem said, "Long hair gets you killed. Shorter hair means you won't get grabbed as much."
"Well, I've never been grabbed and look at my beautiful hair," he replied, tossing his dreads dramatically over his head.
"Better safe than sorry," said Clem simply, nodding.
Louis frowned, but began his work nonetheless. He gently grabbed a couple of strands of hair between his fingers and slowly used the old scissors. It was as though he was afraid to hurt her, which was most likely true. While he meticulously worked on her hair, Clem looked around as much as her eyes could see without actually moving her head.
She'd never really examined the music room, other than the piano and the boy that came with it. To their left, hundreds of books towered over them on neatly organized shelves. Based on the amount of dust they had collected, Clem guessed that none of the kids were very avid readers, except for a few books near the middle of the shelves that seemed to have been moved recently.
"Don't you guys ever read?"
"Read?" he snorted, looking up for a moment and frowning at the heavy amount of books. "Aasim's the only one who ever takes these out. He treats them like a fucking treasure."
"He does?" Clem smiled at the image of Aasim fiercely protecting the library from walkers.
"Once, I tried to take a couple for the fire, and he wouldn't let me take them. In the end I told him that we didn't need seven books on economics, so he let me have a couple," he said proudly, snipping another curl from her fringe.
"I understand, though," she told him, "Books are one of the only things tying us to the world that came before. I wish I had a library like this over the years," she mused, scanning the shelves. "It would have made teaching AJ how to read easier."
"Ugh, I can't believe you're taking Aasim's side," he complained, rolling his eyes. Clem just chuckled and scanned the rest of the room. Beside the heavily boarded window was a rather ornate looking chair with a cape covering the back. On top of it was a white mask, its hollow eyes looking straight at Clementine.
"What's that?" she pointed at it, just as she heard the snap of the scissors over her left ear. Louis raised his head, following her finger. When he caught sight of the mask, he chuckled.
"That," he said, leaving the scissors on the stool and walking toward the chair, "Would be my Halloween costume from a couple years ago."
"You dressed up for Halloween?" she questioned with a bemused expression. Meanwhile, Louis took the black cape and draped it over his shoulders. He took the white mask and put it over his face. Clem now realized that it only covered half his face.
"We all did," he told her. "Marlon thought it would be a good idea to scavenge costumes throughout the year and see who came up with the best one. To take our minds off the shortening food supply, I assume," he reasoned with a frown.
"And what would you be?"
"You're kidding," he exclaimed, his mouth agape. "You've never seen this in your life?"
"Nope."
"It's the phantom of the opera, Clem," he told her, stretching out his arms and showcasing his cape for her.
"Never heard of it, but it sounds scary," she teased, leaning back on the stool. "So what did everyone else dress up as?"
Louis took off his costume and set it on the chair. He came back to her, grabbing the scissors and resuming his work.
"Well," he said, thinking hard. "Violet found a jacket and an eye patch. Dressed up as a pirate."
"I can see that," she replied, picturing her in her mind's eye.
"Tenn got Mitch to find him a policeman's hat and went with that. Aasim didn't want to dress up; he said it was a waste of time."
"Sounds like him."
Louis scratched his chin, remembering. "Then there was Marlon, who got a cowboy hat from one of the supply runs, and somehow managed to make a makeshift whip out of a rope. Said he was going as Indiana Jones."
"I don't know who's a bigger dork," she teased, smiling, "You or Marlon."
"Oh, definitely Marlon," Louis defended himself. He snipped a few stray hairs from her right side. "He had a huge collection of comic books back in his house."
"And what did you have?"
"My room didn't have anything special, really," he confessed, raking his hands through her hair once more. "I didn't really have a passion, until I arrive at Ericson's."
Clem looked down at the keys of the piano. The way they worked was a mystery to her, but Louis seemed to see beyond the white strips of ivory. He could look at them and find a combination of keys, and concoct a beautiful melody seemingly out of nothing. Some of the keys were rather yellow after years of decay, and the wood above them was carved all over.
She examined the most recent carving, made by them a couple of months ago: A letter C and an L, surrounded by a heart. She had always wondered why people did that sort of thing in movies, but now she understood. It was a testament of their relationship, she thought with a smile. Next to the heart were other carvings, some of them rather obscene.
One of them read 'Fuck the adults' with the E written backwards. She wondered how well they were actually treated before the world went to shit. Most of the carvings were mostly the same as that one, but there was one that struck Clementine's attention. It was much like their own carving, though without the heart.
'L + M 4ever'
"What's that one stand for?" she asked him, pointing. Louis stopped his work and followed her finger, and smiled.
"That would be 'Louis and Minnie forever," he informed her. "We were sort of a musical duo back in the day."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I didn't always have my amazing voice," he began, earning a small chuckle from the girl. "But Minnie did. So we would mount small shows for the other kids. She would sing and I would play. We always said we would tour the world together one day," he finished sadly.
"I'm sorry," was all Clem could say. Before she could come up with another question, Louis spoke up.
"Hey, Clem? Would you like a dreadlock?"
"Excuse me?" she asked, bemused.
"I left this chunk long enough for one, and I know you'd totally rock a dreadlock," he argued.
Clem thought about it, fingering the long lock of curly hair that hung loosely from her right. The rest of her hair was at shoulder length, and it wasn't such a long tuft of hair in the first place…
"Sure, what the hell," she said finally, smiling when Louis's eyes lit up and he began working on her hair again. He tilted her head to the side and began curling her hair, humming along to a tune as he did. While he did that, Clem looked over at the piece of paper on the piano. It was only then that she read the title at the top.
'Ode to a Clementine'
"And what might this be?" she said, intrigued.
"It's a new song I'm working on," he told her. "It was supposed to be a secret, but oh well."
"Oh, sorry," she apologized, blushing.
"It's okay," he assured her, smiling, "Want to play it while I do this?"
"Are you crazy?" she exclaimed, flinching when her movement made Louis tug at her hair. "You may be able to read this, but to me it looks like gibberish."
Louis laughed and shook his head. "It's actually pretty easy, I can teach you. You won't even need to read the paper"
Clem considered it, thinking about the last time Louis had taught her a song on the piano, and how well it had turned out then. "Okay, what do I do?"
"First, place your right hand over this set of keys," he pointed at it, and she did as he said, "and your left hand over this other one."
"Like this?"
"Exactly. Now, with your left hand's middle finger, press the A key – it's that one – at this rhythm." He tapped his foot loudly on the floor, and she tried to follow along as best she could.
"It's not a very melodic song," she commented, looking up.
"That's just the bass, silly," he teased, smirking, "Now with your left hand…"
He showed her the complicated combination of keys that she had to play, and she made an effort to follow. As she slowly got through the sets, she started to hear the musical appeal of it. It had a medium tempo. Her right hand played a soft swinging melody in the higher keys, while her left hand was focused solely on that low A key. According to Louis, the song was supposed to capture 'Clem's essence'.
"What do you mean, my essence?" she inquired, hey eyebrows rising. All the while, though she didn't realize, she kept playing without having to look at the keys.
"Well, the bass represents your down-to-earth attitude in life," he explained, pointing at her left hand. "You're level-headed and straightforward, like that sound."
"And your right hand represents your spirit." He gestured to it, which was playing the soft melody one more time, and her eyes followed. "You're sweet and beautiful and caring. I couldn't find anything more beautiful than the pentatonic A-scale."
Flabbergasted, Clem looked up at him with wide eyes. "I don't even know what that means," she said, chuckling nervously, "But that was beautiful. Thank you."
"The pleasure's all mine, my lady," he said, bowing dramatically, "And would you look at that, I'm done."
Clem raised her hand, fingering the dreadlock that fell over her right shoulder. It felt rough, and twisted around its middle. She checked the length, and deemed it appropriate, smiling at Louis. The boy raised a finger and rushed out of the room without saying a word. When he came back a minute later, he was holding a hand mirror.
"Here, see for yourself."
She took it from him and raised it in front of herself, turning her head slowly. The haircut itself had turned out amazingly. There weren't any spots too short or too long, and her fringe didn't obstruct half her forehead like it did when she cut it herself. She decided then that Louis was a much better hairdresser than her.
The dreadlock looked darker than the rest of her hair; mostly due to its thickness, she thought. She flung it over her shoulder and let it rest comfortably on it. Somehow, she felt it made her look more mature. "I love it, Lou," she exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear.
"I'm glad," he said sheepishly, planting a kiss on her cheek.
Blushing, she looked away from him. "Stop it, I have a reputation to maintain," she teased, grinning despite herself.
"Sure you do," he shot back, crossing his arms and smirking at her.
Years later, Clem has kept that dreadlock in her head. Every now and then, she'll ask Louis to cut her hair when it gets too long. He always asks if she would like to cut it out too, but she refuses every time. That dreadlock has been a constant reminder that Louis loves her unconditionally, and it calms her down to stroke it at night after a nightmare.
She named it her Lucky Dread.