Lily Whitmore's Arc

Chapter 16 of 17

Rose slept an hour on the church wall and woke with a plan. She would walk Lily into the village square and stand before the constable and tell him her son was a murderer. Lily walked beside her in the sun. Her feet pressed the dirt. Her hand held her mother's hand. For the first time in six weeks she felt like a daughter and not a question. The constable's office was a small room behind the granary. He was a heavy man eating bread at his desk. He looked up when Rose came in with a girl at her side, and his eyes passed over Lily and did not stop. Rose said her daughter had come back to tell what happened. The constable set down his bread. He looked at Lily again. He said, "What girl." Lily stepped forward. She said her name. She said Orin had written her a note and lured her to the clearing and killed her there. The constable looked at Rose. He did not look at Lily. "Ma'am," he said. "There is no one with you." Rose reached for Lily's hand and held it up. The constable saw Rose's hand in the air, holding nothing. Lily understood then. The potion tied her voice to her mother's blood. Only her mother could see her. Only her mother could hear her. To the constable she was empty air. Rose's face went gray. She said, "She is right here." The constable said, "Go home and rest." Outside, Rose sat on the granary step with her hands over her face. Ollie came around the corner of the building. Will was with him, and behind Will drifted a small pale ghost girl Lily had seen once on the slope. "You need another witness," Ollie said. "One he can't laugh at." "He can't see any of us," Lily said. "He can see a body," Ollie said. "You have one now. In the hollow. With your name on the stone." Elspeth Moonwhisper stepped out from the shade of the granary wall. Lily had not seen her since the cemetery. The old witch's robe hung around her bare feet. "The grave will speak," Elspeth said. "Take him to it. Make him stand on the earth. A ground-reader can pull what a killer buried into the killer's own hands." Selene Nightwhisper came up the lane behind her, quiet as a shut door. "I can compel him to walk," Selene said. "One dose. He will not remember refusing." Rose lowered her hands. "Then we take him to her grave," she said. Lily looked at the closed door of the constable's office. Her confession had failed. Her body had not. She squeezed her mother's hand and felt her mother squeeze back. The plan was no longer a witness. The plan was the ground.