Lilith's Arc

Chapter 20 of 40

The book warmed again the next morning. Lilith opened it and saw the thread eating a new page. Novalee's name. A memory of her first steps, taken across the cottage floor. Lilith had until the thread finished. And her daughter still would not sit for her. Not for her mother. Only for Mnemora and the gold light. Lilith understood the trap now. Every reading needed the goddess to stand guard. Novalee watched the light, not the words. She trusted the light, not the mouth that read. If Lilith kept calling Mnemora, her daughter would never turn back to her. The spell would keep stealing, and each theft would push the girl further away. So Lilith did the hard thing. She called Mnemora, but not to guard the reading. "Teach her to seal her own memory," Lilith said. "Let her speak it to you. Not me." Mnemora studied her. "You want her to trust me instead of you." "I want her to keep the memory," Lilith said. "Even if she keeps it away from me." Mnemora knelt to Novalee's level. "Your mother is losing your first steps. The thread will take them from you too. You can save them yourself. Speak them aloud to me. I'll seal them." Novalee frowned. "I don't remember my first steps." "She does." Mnemora nodded at Lilith. "She has to say them first, so you can hear. Then you say them back to me. Then they're yours to keep." Novalee's jaw set. "She has to say them. Then I keep them." She looked at Lilith. Still no trust. But she wanted the memory more than she hated her mother's voice. "Say them. Fast." Lilith read. She read the wobble, the small hands reaching, the way Novalee had laughed when she fell. Novalee listened. Her lips moved, catching the words. Then she turned to Mnemora and said them back, plain and shaking. Gold light rose from the goddess's palm and closed around the memory. "It's yours now," Mnemora said. "No one can take it. Not the thread. Not her." Novalee held the words to her chest. The thread on the page went dark and thin, then gone. The memory was saved. But Novalee had not looked at Lilith once while she sealed it. She had looked only at the goddess. Mnemora stood. She met Lilith's eyes. "She'll come to me now. Every time. You made me her keeper." "I know," Lilith said. "There are more pages," Mnemora said. "Hadley. Gabe. Tre. The thread doesn't stop. And each time I seal one, they'll trust me more than you." She paused. "You're giving them to me to save them. But a keeper of memory can hold a family. If I hold theirs, whose family are they?" Lilith had no answer. Novalee slipped her hand into Mnemora's, not her mother's, and the goddess did not pull away.