Lily Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 12 of 17

Lily stood over her own grave and would not lie down. The cold in her chest had eased, but a hard knot sat under it. She turned to Meridian and said the question out loud for the first time. "I need to ask him why." Meridian pressed her jaw again and nodded. "Then he has to come here. A grave holds a question until it's answered. After that it holds you." Marrow sat back on her heels beside the fresh mound. "He can't walk. His knee is wrong." Mr. Echo said he would bring him. He went back through the pines with the girl in the red top. Lily waited between the small headstones. Lanterns sat low on the ground beside each one. Someone had planted flowers along every marker and kept them watered. A patch of bright blooms near the gate lifted with butterflies as the sun climbed. Lily could not feel the warmth, but she saw it move across the stones. A girl in a black dress stepped out from behind the far row. Her hair was long and white. Her eyes were dark holes. "Selene," she said. "I walk here between moonrise and dawn." She held out a glass bottle. Inside, liquid turned in two colors. "Truth serum. One dose. He drinks, he answers plain." Lily asked why she would give it. Selene said, "I know what a stolen answer costs. Take it." Mr. Echo came back with Orin between him and the girl in the red top. Orin's leg dragged. His face was gray. They set him on a flat stone at the edge of the hollow. Marrow tipped Selene's bottle to his mouth. He tried to turn his head. Mr. Echo held his jaw. He swallowed. His eyes went wet and wide. Lily stepped in front of him. She was not solid, but he saw her. He flinched. "Why," she said. His mouth worked. The serum pulled words out of him in a flat voice that was not quite his. He said their mother had promised him the house and the garden. He said she changed the promise in the spring and wrote Lily's name on the deed instead. He said he took the note back from her pocket after. He said he thought moving her body twice would be enough. He said he was sorry, and the serum made even that sound like a fact and not a feeling. Lily listened to all of it. She did not forgive him. She did not need to. The knot under her chest loosened and slid away. She looked at Marrow and Ollie and Meridian and said, "That's the answer." The grave at her feet seemed to breathe out. But she did not sink into it. She stayed standing. Meridian frowned and tapped the flat stone at the head of the mound. "Your name," she said. "There's no name on it. A grave without a name won't close."