Lilith's Arc

Chapter 14 of 40

Morning came, and Novalee's drawing sat where she'd left it the night before. Lilith found her daughter at the low table, staring at the bright shapes on the paper. "Whose is this?" Novalee asked. She turned the drawing over in her hands. "I don't know how to draw a whale." Lilith's chest went cold. Last week Novalee had drawn that whale for an hour, laughing at its crooked tail. The spell had taken the memory overnight. It was gone, and Lilith had not written it down. She carried the drawing to the book in the stone sanctuary. She opened to a blank page and lifted her pen. But her hand shook. She had recorded so many memories now, and still the spell reached past her records into the ones she'd missed. She could not write fast enough. She could not guess which memory the spell wanted next. A soft light filled the doorway. A goddess stepped in, small and pale, with silver hair and a white gown stitched in gold. Lilith knew her. Once, a man had stolen the memories of her whole family so they would remember only him. Lilith had sat in the dirt outside her house, too empty to cry. This goddess had found her there and given the memories back, then sealed them behind a spell that still held. "Mnemora," Lilith said. "The spell is taking them again. From inside my own house." Mnemora looked at the drawing, then at the book. "You are chasing the loss," she said. "You write it down after it goes. That is too late." "I don't know how to be faster." "You cannot outwrite it." Mnemora set a small hand on the open page. "But I can hold what you record. I keep memories. I sealed your family's once. I can seal this book." Lilith stared at her. "So the spell can't reach what's written?" "Written and sealed by me," Mnemora said. "The spell may still steal from their minds. It cannot touch the record. What you save here, stays saved." Lilith knelt and wrote Novalee's whale onto the page. The crooked tail. The hour of laughing. The color she'd reached for, sea foam green. When the ink dried, Mnemora pressed both palms to the book. Gold light ran along the edges of the paper and sank in. The page went still, like water with no wind on it. Then Lilith read the whale story aloud to Novalee. Her daughter listened, quiet, and slowly her eyes changed. "I made the tail wrong," Novalee said. She almost smiled. The memory had come partway back. It was not whole. But it was recovered, and now it was safe. Lilith closed the sealed book. The spell would keep stealing. She saw that now with no fear. Every memory she wrote down could no longer be lost for good. The race had changed. She only had to reach each memory before the spell did, and write it down in time.