Lilith's Arc

Chapter 13 of 40

Lilith swam home with the record heavier in her mind than her arms. She had built the book to speak lost memories back. But she did not know one thing. The binding tied her family together like knots on one thread. If the spell stole a memory of her from one child, could her song still reach that child? Could it hold them if they no longer knew who held them? She had to test it before the day came. She had to know the song still worked. She reached the shore and found her family in the small stone sanctuary where she kept the book. Tre stood in the doorway, holding Hadley against his chest. Novalee sat on the floor with a bright drawing. Gabe leaned against the wall, still, watching. He always watched before he moved. Lilith knelt and began to sing. Her voice carried her intention, the way it always had. She sang each of their names into the thread that bound them. Then she reached deeper. She touched the newest memory the spell had taken from Gabe, a small one, a morning she had already lost track of. She sang toward the empty place, testing whether her song could still find him through the gap. The thread pulled tight. Gabe pushed off the wall. "Stop," he said. His voice cracked. "Who told you to sing that?" Lilith held the note. "It's me. It's your mother." Gabe stared at her. His eyes searched her face and found nothing to hold. "I don't know you," he said. "I don't know that song." The song had reached him. But the spell had traded away the memory of Lilith herself. The thread still connected them. The knowing did not. He felt the pull and hated it, because it came from a stranger. Tre stepped forward, Hadley crying now against his shoulder. "Lilith," he said. "What did you do." "I tested it," she said. Her hands shook. "I had to know if the song still reached them." "It reached him." Tre's jaw was tight. "Look at his face. He doesn't want it." Gabe backed toward the door. Novalee stood and grabbed his sleeve. "That's Mom," she said. "That's Mom, Gabe." He looked at his sister and let her hold his arm, but he would not look at Lilith again. Lilith let the song die. She had her answer, and it was worse than silence. The binding held. Her song still crossed the gap. But the spell could take the very memory of her, and then her voice would land on a son who felt only a chain from someone he feared. She opened the book to the first page and wrote Gabe's name at the top. Under it she wrote the truth in plain words: I am your mother. She would have to read it to him now. She would have to make a stranger's son believe her before she could ever sing him whole.