Lily Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 11 of 17

The sun cleared the ridge in a thin band of pink. Lily's body lay in the leaves at the edge of the pit, whole and pale, and she had maybe an hour before the light found her. Orin was on the ground with his knee bent wrong. Mr. Echo stood over him with the brass device. Marrow wiped her hands on her jeans and looked at Lily, then at the body, then at the sky. "We have to bury her," Marrow said. "Now. Not here." "Not here," Lily agreed. The clearing had held her twice. She would not lie in it a third time. But she did not know where a grave was supposed to go, and the light was already climbing the trunks. The girl in the red top pointed downslope. A woman was walking up through the pines toward them. She had long white hair and a wooden staff with a pale stone at the top. She moved without hurry. When she reached the edge of the pit she stopped and looked at Lily's body, then at Lily herself. "Meridian Gravesight," she said. "I find beds for the ones who don't have them." She pressed her jaw with two fingers. "Your spot is close. My teeth are already sore." She turned and walked south along the slope. Mr. Echo lifted Lily's body under the shoulders. The girl in the red top took the feet. Marrow gathered the shovel Orin had dropped. Ollie stayed at Lily's side. They followed Meridian through the pines while the sky went from pink to gold behind them. Orin called something after them. No one turned. Meridian stopped in a small hollow ringed by low stones. Lily had passed this place before without seeing it. Now she saw it clearly. Small headstones stood in a soft row. Lanterns sat between them, burned low. Someone had planted flowers at each marker and kept them watered. Pale blooms grew at the far end that seemed to lean toward Lily as she came close. A patch of bright petals near the gate moved with butterflies. At the near edge, a ring of wilted stalks bent over cracked stone. "Here," Meridian said. She tapped the ground between two blank markers with the end of her staff. "This one was kept for a girl who was found. Now it's kept for you." She stepped back. Marrow began to dig. Mr. Echo joined her. The girl in the red top laid Lily's body straight in the grass and folded the hands. The sun was on the tops of the pines now, but not yet in the hollow. They lowered her in before the light reached the stones. Marrow packed the earth. Meridian set a flat rock at the head. Lily stood over her own grave and felt the cold she remembered from the forest lift by a small degree, but she did not scatter, and she did not rest. A question she had not asked yet was still in her mouth.