Lily Nightingale's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Lily had followed the lullaby all afternoon, past the gate and into the woods. She found the silver stream and traced it, just as the song said. But the sun dropped fast behind the hills. Now the trees stood black around her, and the path was gone. Her tabby kitten pressed against her leg, mewing. Oliver stumbled behind her, hands deep in his coat pockets. "We're lost," Oliver whispered. "I can't see the stream anymore." Lily pulled the lullaby from her pocket. The dark blue words had vanished into shadow. She could not read a single line. Fear climbed her throat. Then a howl split the night, long and cold. A figure hovered between the trees. It wore a hood, and two red eyes burned inside it. The kitten hissed and arched its back. Lily knew, somehow, that it had watched her for a long time. It had waited outside the orphanage walls. Now she had walked out, and it had come. "Lily," it said. The voice was flat and low. "I waited. I was there the night you came. I wait no more." Oliver grabbed Lily's sleeve and pulled her back. The figure drifted closer, hands reaching from its sleeves. Lily's feet caught on a root. She fell hard into cold leaves. The red eyes slid above her. "Run," she told Oliver. He didn't run. He stayed. Lily's hand touched something warm in the dirt. A flower. Its petals glowed, red and gold and blue, shining like soft fire in the dark. She tore it from the ground and held it up. The figure flinched. The red eyes pulled back. "The light," it hissed. "No. No light." Lily climbed to her knees and pushed the glowing rose toward it. The figure shrank between the trees. It could not cross into the glow. It hovered at the edge, howling, trapped behind the shine. "I come back," it said. "In the dark, I come back." Then it folded into the shadows and was gone. Oliver crouched beside Lily, shaking. The rose lit both their faces. The kitten crept out from under a bush and climbed into Lily's lap. "What was that thing?" Oliver breathed. "It knew my name," Lily said. "It said it was there when I was born." She looked at the rose. Its glow spread a small circle of light on the forest floor. By that light, she could see the path again. She could see the three tall pines ahead, black against the sky. Lily stood. She held the rose before her like a lantern. The dark had hidden the way, and now she had a light to follow it. "Stay close," she told Oliver. "It only comes in the dark. As long as this glows, we keep walking." They stepped toward the pines. Behind them, somewhere in the black trees, the howl rose again.