Lily Summers's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Lily held the dried petal to the morning sun. It flickered orange, alive with light. But when she turned in a slow circle, nothing changed. The glow never brightened toward one peak or dimmed toward another. A dead petal could shine, but it could not point. Without a living flower to follow, she had no idea which mountain to climb. She needed someone who had known her grandmother better than the neighbors did. One name kept coming back. Her grandmother had spoken of an old friend from her younger years, a woman who had helped half the village into the world. Lily wrapped the petal in cloth and went to find her. The retired midwife was kneeling in her garden when Lily arrived. Agnes Fairweather pressed a seedling into the dirt with her thumb, gentle and sure, the way she must have handled a hundred newborns. She looked up through round glasses and smiled. "You have your grandmother's eyes," she said. "And her habit of arriving with a problem." Lily knelt beside her and unwrapped the petal. "It glows," she said, "but it won't show me where to go. Grandmother's song says to follow the flower that never ends. I don't even know which peak." Agnes went still. She took the petal and held it to the light, and her hands trembled. "I haven't seen one of these in sixty years," she said. "Your grandmother and I climbed for it once, when we were girls. We were fools and we nearly froze." She laughed softly, then her face turned serious. "The flower only grows in one place," Agnes went on. "On the north peak, above the tree line, where the snow melts into a bright pool. The living blooms grow at the water's edge. A dried petal can't guide you. But I can tell you the way, because I walked it." Lily's heart jumped. "You remember the path?" "Every step." Agnes brushed dirt from her knees and stood. She went inside and returned with a folded square of cloth. She spread it on the garden bench. On it, in faded ink, ran a line of the trail, the melt pool, and a small drawn flower. "Your grandmother made this after we came home. She left it with me for safekeeping. I think she meant it for you." Lily traced the drawn flower with one finger. The north peak. The bright pool. A living bloom that could finally point the way upward. "Thank you," she whispered. Agnes closed Lily's hand around the cloth. Her smile faded. "Take warm clothes and go before the season turns. The melt pool freezes early. Once the ice covers it, the flowers sleep, and no one can wake them until spring." She squeezed Lily's fingers. "You have days, girl. Not weeks." Lily folded the map into her pocket beside the petal. She knew the peak now. But the cold was already coming, and the flower she needed would not wait.