All the leaves are dead. It’s the first thing Lily notices- the fact that, even in late August, leaves are turning brown and dropping and everywhere the car wheel rolls over, something crunches beneath them.
“Lighten up!” Her older sister, Petunia, calls to her, seeing the expression on her face. Lily sticks her tongue out in response.
Lily doesn’t want to lighten up. She wants to run back to Maryland, where the cornfields are just starting to yellow and greenery still surrounds her old home. Instead, she’s somewhere in Maine, driving up a large, tree covered hill to where a small circle of cabins sits. She knows they sit there, because she’s visited these cabins before. Many, many, years ago, back in the summer of ‘58, when the cabin under the “Evans” name still belonged to her dear, departed, grandparents. Their small family stayed there the whole summer that year. Now they’d be there “until the foreseeable future,” as her father said.
Lily wasn’t stupid. She knew that they weren’t going back to her small hometown in Maryland. That she’d be stuck in Maine until she graduated or died of boredom.
“There it is!” Her mother points to a small cul de sac ahead of them. Through the trees, Lily can make out the three houses that make it a cul de sac instead of a road, and the gravel circle that connects them.
“Finally,” she mutters. After a nearly day-long drive, they were here.
“Watch the attitude, maybe?” Her mother asks, a forced sweetness to her voice. Lily knows she is trying hard to like this place. That she didn’t want to leave their small corner of the world, that she liked her friends and the small town life she had built for herself after working so hard to leave the very place they were coming back to. Lily knows it all, and she still wants to spit something venomous back, jump out of the car, and hope it runs her over.
The only thing stopping her is her lack of retort, so she just curls into the window more, and tries to tune out any sounds. She doesn’t have to for long- the car soon rolls to a stop outside of a small cottage. Her father pulls into the driveway, and Lily is out of the car as soon as she can open the door of the truck. The U-haul is already there, sitting next to them.
Lily’s first impression of the house is…quaint. There’s potential for a flowered pathway on the walkway to the door, and more opportunities for flora to grow all around the front porch and most likely the backyard, too. Lily knows there’s a pond behind the house, from her aforementioned previous visit, but that she can’t even swim in it.
Lily walks through the door, and up to the second flight of stairs, to where her bedroom is.
“The last one on the left!” Her mother shouts up helpfully, from where she stands in the doorway at the bottom.
“Thanks,” Lily says softly, hardly even responding. There are only two on the left from where the stairs branch off into the upper floor. One, about 2 feet away from her, and on the same wall she stood next to. The other door, further down, was on the opposite side of her, and presumably hers.
“We figured you’d want the one looking at the backyard,” her mother says, appearing behind her. God, how did she do that?
Lily lets out another thank you, because she does, and opens the plain door. She’d have to do something about that- her old door, back home, was covered in acrylic paint, filled with designs of mostly flowers and other woodsy things.
The room was furnished. Lily doesn’t know why she is surprised at that. Of course, the U-Haul was still waiting to be unloaded, and her things with it, so it didn’t make sense, and maybe she did have reason to be confused after all.
But it did. This was the room she had slept in 8 summers ago, the same bed, the same dresser, the same rug.
“It was mine as a little girl.”
This time, Lily wasn’t as spooked by her mother’s voice. A soft spoken and petite woman, June Evans had the capability to shock those around her when she spoke. Sometimes they simply forgot she was there- other times she just couldn’t be heard when she “snuck up on” them.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily admits. The sturdy oak bed frame, with a deep blue quilt, blended with the wooden walls and blue shag rug. The dresser was the same wood, along with the vanity and the nightstand. It all blended in a perfect combination of oak and navy blue.
Looking closer, Lily could tell there were small, intricate flowers painted between the dresser handles. Bluebells. One of her favorites, along with Lilies, of course.
“If you want it, it’s yours,” June says, before stepping out of the room, presumably to her own, the one on the right side of the stairs. Quickly, Lily checks Petunia’s room, just for comparison. It is decorated mostly the same, but with birch wood and light green. She chuckles. Petunia will hate it.
Ducking back into her room, Lily considers trading out what’s in her room for her plain, uncoordinated bed and dresser and comforter. It would be familiar, yes, but not nearly as appealing.
“I’ll keep what’s in there,” Lily tells her mother. Her mother smiles, before saying her father will take her old things to a local donation center. Someone else will get more use out of them. Lily doesn’t mind- she didn't have much attachment to the other things, anyways, but asks her mother to save her old comforter. She agrees, and Lily goes back to her new room happy.
While in it, Lily decides to browse the shelf in there for a book to read. It was barely 5 o’clock, and dinner wouldn’t be anytime soon, so why not? She’d finished the book she was reading during the car ride, and since it was her room, she figured the books were hers.
Maybe Lily had reacted too soon to the move. Her old best friendship, with an…odd boy named Severus, had been one of convenience due to the proximity in which they lived and their shared love of school, which they both attended in the same grade. Who knew what her new neighbors were like? She could hardly remember anyone from her previous summer.
From the window that doesn’t look into the backyard, Lily can see the house to the right of her own. An elaborate home, a ranch house, it’s surely the largest in the cul de sac. A window faces her own, framed by curtains already pulled back. Through it, Lily can see the bedroom of what she guesses is a teenage boy, due to the sensual posters inside. Women in different poses and unclothed as much as possible before it’d be illegal to be seen even at a beach.
Lily looks away, and her cheeks burn. She will not be friends with the boy who lives in that house- her parents would never approve. One look into his room, filled with those posters, and it’ll be right back to Maryland. Of course, not actually, or else Lily would show them the posters immediately, but it would be another reason to go back, and another reason to restrict what little freedom she had.
She goes back to reading the book she found on the shelf. Covered in cobwebs at first, it is an old copy of Romeo and Juliet, something Lily has surprisingly not read yet. She is only about 20 pages in when her mother calls her down for dinner, her voice always so startlingly loud for such a small woman.
“Ah, I remember that play,” June says, as she sets a large bowl of stew in front of Lily. She’d brought the script/book down with her. Petunia and Lily’s father, a formidable man named Dudley, were already at the table, waiting for June and Lily to arrive to say grace and then start. Lily doesn’t mind the stew- she can see a bit of beef sticking out of it, and any stew with beef is good stew.
Lily chants with the rest of her family, joining hands as they uttered the prayer.
“Amen,” they chorused, before digging in. The stew was perfectly fine stew, nothing special nor extraordinary about it, but-
“Mother, what meat did you use for the stew?” Petunia asks, her face perplexed.
“Don’t be silly Tuney, it’s beef,” Lily answers, laughing softly. Petunia’s eyes narrow.
“I’m well aware it looks like beef, yes, but it tastes rather different, wouldn’t you say?” Petunia says, her voice mimicking the way her mother’s sometimes got, in terms of politeness. This? It was barely concealed annoyance, masked in a guise of simply being inquisitive and observant. Lily had not tried the beef yet, so she did so at Petunia’s request, finding it to taste odd, but not entirely unlike beef.
“Not completely different, no,” Lily says. Her bad mood from earlier has completely disappeared, now replaced with one more easy going than the sarcastic, moody girl from before.
“It’s my fault, girls,” June says, butting in. Lily and Petunia both steal a glance at their father- his face has gotten slightly redder, and they know it's due to their bickering. They send a silent thanks to June, who nods in understanding. “This beef must have been old, or expired in some way,”
“Oh, of course,” Petunia says, while Lily nods in agreement. Their father simply grunts, shoving a large chunk of it in his mouth.
“Thank you for the delicious food, Mother,” Lily says, to keep conversation going. June smiles at her.
“Like she said, lovely stuff dear,” their father agrees, to the surprise of all the women at the table. Their father is a man of few words, even less so since he lost his job and forced them to move to this place. Maybe, in some form, this is a way to redeem himself, Lily thinks.
In the end, Lily collects the dishes; “There’s no need to neglect former routines just because we are not in our former residence,” her mother has reminded her. Lily and Petunia had their system of alternating days, and that was not to be forgotten.
While her father parks himself in front of the TV, Lily goes upstairs to do what she should have been doing the entire time she waited for dinner- put her things away and get settled into the new room. A notepad there, on the desk, next to a metal jar of pens. Long sleeve shirts, folded and put away in the top drawer, next to the short sleeved. Everything in its place, everything set up, just how it should be.
Lily closes the curtains as she changes into her nightgown, preparing for her first night of rest in the new home. Not everything was put away yet, of course- stew was not made if her mother had more than just a pot, a spoon, and some ingredients- but it would be soon, and Lily figured it was time she started to settle into that.
One might think sleeping next to nature is comforting, and maybe they are right. In a meadow, surrounded by wildflowers and fawns that stay to the edge of the forest, you may find yourself lulled to sleep by a warm sun and comfortable grass, and you may feel safe while you do so. But in the middle of the forest, surrounded only by wildlife who have no hesitation to get as close as possible, there is nothing comforting. An owl you may regard with interest in daylight is a predator under the cover of darkness. The fox you may try to catch a glimpse of when his red fur glints in sunshine is not the same fox when his fur is indistinguishable from his snout.
One noise in particular concerns Lily. She’d heard stories of peacocks, their mating call sounding like a woman screaming for help. Of ravens mimicking humans, mocking them with their distorted sounds.
But this, this maddening whispering, she can’t recall what creatures make a sound like it.
Roaches, crawling across her floor? No, the house had no pests. June made sure of that, getting it checked multiple times before they officially lost their old home and moved in.
So what is that strange noise right outside her bedroom, and why does it sound like it’s whispering her name?
____________________
“Did you sleep well?” Petunia asks, as Lily comes down the stairs. Petunia is already at the table, a bowl of Cheerios in front of her.
“Not at all,” Lily responds, opening the fridge to get out milk for her own bowl. “Huh,” she comments, looking at the date on the carton.
“Hmm?” Petunia questions, straining her head to see what Lily is looking at.
“The expiration date - the milk has just expired,” Lily says, showing it to Petunia.
“Only by a few days though, and it smells ok,” Petunia shrugs, but Lily opts for half a muffin instead. Swallowing it down with water, she asks Petunia if she heard any odd noises the night before.
“Nothing I wouldn’t have heard in Maryland,” Petunia says nonchalantly. Of course, there were sounds on their farm in Maryland. Crickets, owls, the normal animals. These animals, they seemed different. More daunting. As if they were taunting Lily on purpose. “Did you?”
Lily shakes her head. It won’t do to be seen as crazy, or to start hearing things the first day.
“Do you know where mother is?” Lily finally asks, after sitting at the table in silence for a few minutes. Petunia is reading the Newspaper, so she doesn’t mind, but Lily’s leg has been bouncing up and down for nearly the entire time.
“I think she’s off to the market,” Petunia answers, not caring to offer any more context. Petunia can be aggravating like that sometimes, but that’s sisters for you.
“Well, thank you for the help, Tuney,” Lily says, going back upstairs and grabbing a tote bag. Inside, her book, a pack of breath mints, a water bottle, and a few hair ties and such reside.
“Are you going exploring?” Petunia asks, when Lily comes back downstairs. Lily has changed by now, out of her pajamas and into a green, long sleeved shirt, paired with an equally colored flowy skirt. They had come in a set, something she had bought in a cute store back in Maryland. Green looks best on her, she knows, because that’s what everyone tells her. It brings out your eyes, they say. It matches your hair .
Maybe it was just the outfit, and the way the white lace bordered the ends of the slightly too long sleeves and the hem and tiers of the skirt. Maybe it was the fact that it left less to the imagination than most of her other outfits. Either way, she loved it.
“I think I will, get a feel for the property and such,” Lily says as she leaves, shutting the door softly behind her. Out of the twilight lighting, the house looks more hopeful than it did before. The early morning sun shines such promising light, it’s hard not to be inspired.
A small wooden cross, surrounded by a few rocks, sits near the far edge. From what Lily understands, a hamster is buried beneath it. Along the edge of the pond, which Lily walks around first, there is a small dirt trail that Lily follows into the woods. Of course, she has some hesitation. Imagine what odd creatures could be in these woods, just based on what she heard last night.
Nevertheless, she persists.
The leaves were still dead. She had hoped, that away from the road, the trees may have changed some. They would be lucious and green, and she could blend in with them- that was another nice thing about green.
But they weren’t. They were falling, rotting, dying, everywhere. Covering any remaining greenery on the path. It is infuriating.
Nevertheless, she persists.
Lily passes by logs, some so old they were their own ecosystem. A mound of mold, decay, and insects joyously using what they could from it.
She continues, ignoring those logs. She even finds another small pond, where the trail finally stopped. She had to have been walking for at least 20 minutes, at a slight downhill elevation. The journey would be worse on the way back, she knows, but she drinks nearly a quarter of her water then and there.
“Enjoying the trail?” A voice, feminine, asks from behind her. From where Lily sits on a lively tree trunk, she jumps up quickly, fumbling with the right words.
“I’m awfully sorry, I was just following a trail from my own house,” she explains, looking at the woman who spooked her. She must have the same talent as my mother , Lily thinks. The woman stands in the shade of a few pines, on a small patch of needles and grass. It’s the only greenery around for at least a few miles, Lily is sure.
“It’s ok. I don’t get many visitors, anyways,” the woman responds, bringing her face closer to the light, yet not fully in it. Lily can barely make out her eyes, glinting in the shade.
“Oh. I’ll just be leaving then, leaving you to…what it is that you’re doing-” Lily says, flustered, packing up her things. Her tote bag is a mess now, she knows it, but she doesn’t care. She feels terrible for bothering this woman, who’s voice is so addicting. Slightly gravelly, yet soft, and smooth. Purposeful. It’s an odd thing to notice, and to describe with such adjectives as “addicting,” Lily knows, but there’s not much else that she can think to compliment her on.
“No, stay,” the woman says, reaching her hand out of the darkness to beckon Lily closer. “I don’t mind, and I’m sure I’ll meet you sometime later,”
Lily thinks about it. The woman could be a murderer, or someone trying to lure her into a scheme not suitable for her. Lily knows of the dangers, but goodness, her voice is addicting, and her hands look so soft. Lily can already imagine how it will feel to hold it, take it, keep it for her own. Lily shakes the thoughts out of her head as she takes the woman’s hand. Surprisingly rough, Lily thinks, but not at all unappealing because of it.
“You have a name, do you not?” The woman asks, shaking Lily’s hand. Or she grips her hand differently, while moving it up and down.
Lily nods, “Lily. And yourself?”
It’s the polite thing to ask, after all.
“Mary,” the woman answers, “you said you live around here?”
“Just up the trail, the house in front of the pond it connects to,” Lily gleefully directs Mary in the right direction, using her hands to guide along the parts of the path she remembers. A light of recognition goes off in Mary’s eyes, which Lily notices are unusually dark.
“Your eyes are beautiful,” she blurts out, immediately wishing she could shove the words back in her mouth. She knows she should not be saying things like that, not to another girl. It’s different than complimenting a new dress, or deciding which eye shadow looks best with said dress. Lily stares deep into the eyes she just complimented as she says it, before shyly looking away. She doesn’t do that with friends. And now, the same red stains her cheeks as what she felt when she looked into the teenage boy’s. Lily wishes it would go away, knowing how looking red washes people out when doing so with hair as vibrant as her own, but it only persists when Mary gently grabs her face, pulling it back to look at her.
Lily comes to the realization, in that moment, that Mary’s hands aren’t just rough. They’re cold, like ice. She gave her chills.
Now, with her staring into her own eyes, Mary says, “So are yours.”
Lily murmurs a thank you- it’s all she can do without her voice cracking. Mary drops her hand. Both of them, stuck under the cover of greenery and shade, don’t know what to say next.
“Do you live around here, then?” Lily finally asks, after working up enough courage to get her voice to work correctly again.
“Behind those trees, just over there, there’s a few cabins,” Mary answers. Lily interprets it as a yes- she must live in another cluster of homes, tucked into the forest like a small bookmark in the bible.
“Much like my own, then?” Lily asks, just to be sure. Mary nods.
“Say, how old were you again? It would be good to have a familiar face around when I start school,” Lily says. It would be, yes, but she’s also curious. Mary looks 16, about her own age, but her mannerisms give the impression of someone older.
“16,” Mary says, with just a moment’s hesitation, “but I won’t be going to the high school.”
“Well, that’s a pity,” Lily comments, disappointed. “Would you know anyone who is? I would quite like to meet them, and if you could introduce us, it’d be rather kind.”
Mary nods, “I would, but not today. My skin…burns easily, and all this sun wouldn’t be good for it.”
Lily looks around. The sunrise glow has left, showing the true gray skies of that day. A few spots of sunlight make their way through leaves and branches, but not many. Mary’s skin must be awfully sensitive, Lily thinks, but she doesn’t question it.
Lily and Mary spent the rest of the day under there, sheltered by pine needles and shade. Friendship blossoms when watered with constant questions, both girls curious to find out everything they could about the other. Secrets are shared under the cover of darkness, and the assumption of what they said wouldn’t really matter. Lily talked about her family- her dad, as emotionally distant as he was, but who still tried to provide. Her mother, formerly a housewife, but possibly forced to get a job due to their situation. About how her sister, though grown apart from Lily now, used to be so close to her.
Mary gave gossip about the town, neglecting to mention much of her own family, but allowing details such as being an only child to slip, and her parents living in recluse with the same skin condition as herself.
They giggled over the posters in the teenage boy’s room, and Mary informed Lily about the boy who owned them; “Sirius Black,” she said, when Lily had asked his name. “He only does it to make his parents mad- they can’t figure out how to get them down!”
Mary told her about the family on the other side of Lily, the Potters.
“The boys are our age, but you wouldn’t know it with the way they act,” she giggled, her and Lily bursting into laughter at random intervals. “James Potter, that’s his name, he’s always planning something or other,”
Lily interpreted that as a warning of sorts, although a little mischief wouldn’t be entirely unpleasant to get into. It may even be fun, depending on their attitudes with it, and if Mary could come along. The girls were already fast friends, their bond only strengthened by the admissions of lack of friends in the town.
“We’ll have to be friends then, best friends,” Lily said, locking pinkies with Mary, who nodded vigorously.
“Of course,” she agreed.
All in all, it had been an enjoyable day. Lily had discovered Mary’s pond was swimmable, having normal levels of algae unlike her own, and they made plans for a night of swim, that very night. Perhaps Lily’s eagerness to be friends with Mary had clouded her judgment, but it wasn’t like they could do it on a sunny day, could they?
Coming home, Lily drops her bag in her room, hurriedly washing up for dinner. She rushes to the table, just sliding in in time for her mother to set yesterday’s stew in front of them.
“Stew? Again?” Petunia asks, her eye twitching. It’s an unfortunate habit of hers, one that makes it clear when she finds something disagreeable.
Lily vaguely wonders if maybe there's a reason her parents favor her over her sister, then banishes the thought. It is selfish, no matter if it’s plausible.
“Yes,” June grits out, speaking through her teeth. “It’s healthy, and very easy to make.”
“So you’re only making it because it’s easy?” Petunia challenges. June looks to Lily’s father for help, and he abides.
“Petunia, let’s leave your mother alone, shall we?” He asks, a threatening tone beneath the guise of politeness.
“Oh, so you’re in on this! It’s all we can afford, isn’t it then?” Petunia exclaims, before banging her fork on the table and stomping up to her room. It’s worth noting that she had kept her things from Maryland- the only changed thing about Petunia’s room is the color and size.
Dudley starts to get up, but June stops him. “Let her go,” she says. “She’s going through a lot, the move is hard on her.”
Lily wants to tell Petunia to lighten up. To tell her mother that everyone in this family was going through a lot, that the move was hard on them all. She is angry with everyone in the house about it, even herself, because she has still found the best in it and it doesn’t make sense to be grateful for something that has upended her life.
Lily starts, and her mother and father join her. They finish, and dig in. It is just as it was the day before, but there is no argument over what beef is used today.
Instead, her father asks about her day. “Did you enjoy it, your first day in our new home?”
A bit of stew falls from his mouth as he speaks. It is disgusting, Lily thinks, but she ignores it when she answers with a simple yes.
“Did you meet our neighbors?” He asks, and June looks at her with interest as well, having not yet met them herself. Lily knows she is planning to tomorrow- ingredients for muffins were bought at the market, and her mother loves to bake muffins. Usually, it would be customary for the preexisting inhabitants of the neighborhood to bring something over, introduce themselves, etc, but June does things a certain way and who is anyone else to question it?
“Not quite; I met another girl, but she explained them a bit to me,” Lily explains, choosing her words carefully. She knows her father does not think of gossiping highly, so she must lie, although she knows he regards that in a similar way.
“Not gossip, of course?” He checks. He must- how could he not?
“No, just giving me bits of their character,” Lily answers. It’s not the whole truth- they dissected those characters, piecing them together and reasoning out their scandals. Her father doesn’t have to, can’t, musn’t, know that, though.
“Hmm,” he says, thinking of it. He must decide that it’s not a sin, because he says no more about it.
“What did you find out?” June asks, rather riskily. Lily looks at her father, trying to gauge his reaction to the question. His expression has remained neutral- he is ok with it. Lily sighs, before explaining, “Both of our neighbors have sons the same age as me, best friends. Mischief makers, pranksters, too,”
This gets her father’s attention. “Boys? Your age?” His eyes narrow, and Lily’s cheeks begin to redden at the implications. She does not want to be the same as one of the girls in the posters.
“Yes. There’s no need for worry, though. I am much too focused on my studies to bother with troublemakers,” Lily says, appealing to her father’s weakness, her education. She knows relying on that as an excuse to not ponder about what her love life is like will work. It is not entirely a lie, either- she was a straight A student in Maryland, and she plans the same in Maine.
“Good. You should stay away from them. Is this friend of yours…” he grasps for the name.
“Mary.”
“Got it. Is Mary staying away from them as well?” He asks. June has gone silent at this point in conversation, after hearing the name. Her chair scratches against the floor as she hurriedly gets up.
“Excuse me. I- I, forgot something in the kitchen,” she says. Her fork clutters to the floor- she has clearly dropped it, but Lily and her father don’t comment on it.
Lily ignores the behavior, answering her father’s question with a firm nod. “She has some skin condition, so she can’t even be in the sun.”
It is then that her mother comes back, a new fork from the kitchen drawers in her hand.
“You should stay away from Mary,” she states. There is no hesitation in her voice. Just a strong willed, end of discussion tone that would usually make Lily not even try to debate the statement. But Lily has plans with Mary, plans she now knows she can’t ask her parents about, and she doesn’t want to stand up her new friend.
“What? Why?” Lily asks, her voice hurt. “She’s my only friend here, and it’d be rude to leave her. She says she doesn’t have many other friends.”
“See? Everyone else can see she’s a bad influence,” June has regained her composure by now, wiping the side of her cheek to clean up a stray bit of broth, before setting it back in her lap. “It seems like she is well connected to those boys, and gossiping about them?”
LIly is angry. She has made it clear there was no gossip involved, and the implications of Mary and Sirius and/or James leave a sour, bitter taste in her mouth.
“We didn’t gossip,” Lily tries to argue, but her mother holds her hand up, a clear sign to stop. Lily can make out the familiar scar on her palm, the two dots that have been there as long as Lily can remember. She knows she should stop arguing now. That she should blindly follow her mother’s instructions, and leave Mary alone. But she can’t . Mary is alluring. Addicting was the right word to use when she first met her. Every minute Lily hasn’t seen her, she wants to more.
Her mother sniffs with disapproval. “Fine. But I’m warning you- stay away from that girl.”
It was Petunia’s turn to clean up the dishes, but Lily does it anyway, due to her sister’s temperamental mood at the moment. The rest of the dinner is silent, but maybe her parents will be too busy comforting Petunia to realize she is gone.
The journey, the idea, is daunting, of course. She has a flashlight, she has a cute (also green and flowered) bathing suit, but the noises she heard the other night terrify her. She reassures herself that they are just animals, nothing more. There is nothing in those woods that can hurt her, right?
Her motivation for Mary to like her is only just stronger than her fear of wild creatures, so she gives herself one last look in the mirror, a testament of her vanity, throws a shawl on and a towel in her hands, and sets off.
Getting out is easy. It’s ten o’clock according to the clock outside her door, and her parents are long asleep. The stairs are mercifully creak-less, and the sliding glass door that leads to the backyard is quiet, perfect for stealth.
Her flip flops, that she slipped on at the door, slap against her heels as she walks. The night is warm, surprisingly, the moon full, lighting her way. For all intents and purposes, she is lucky. Crickets dancing are the only sound she hears, thank goodness, or she might have been spooked and lost her nerve. Mary hadn’t given a specific time, so Lily hopes she’s not too late.
A 20 minute walk has never felt longer to anyone, ever. Every rustle in the bushes, every animal noise, every time she is reminded the forest is alive, makes Lily want to run back to her house and crawl under the covers.
Nevertheless, she persists.
The pond reflects the soft glow of the moonlight beautifully, lighting up the small clearing with a pearly, incandescent glow. Lily looks around, searching for the girl who lured her out to even be here. As soon as she does, Mary steps out from a nearby curtain of vines. She is dressed in nearly the same as Lily, as goes the style of the 60s, yet her 2 piece is deep red and not patterned.
Lily can’t take her eyes off her. Evidently, Mary feels the same, and Lily is addicted to the way Mary’s eyes roam her body. They stay the same for a few moments, absorbing each other’s mood and breathing in the fresh night air. Oh, how the moonlight shines on what they’re doing.
“Mary,” Lily nods cordially. Her bathing suit is not the same as her own- it hangs lower, and Mary’s dark skin is unreasonably shiny, reflecting the water and moon on her exposed stomach.
“Lily,” Mary smiles back. “You know how to swim, I assume?”
Lily wants to say no. Wants to know how it would feel to have Mary’s cold, hardened hands caressing her bare skin. Wants to know what it would be like to be so close to another body, especially one as gorgeous as Mary’s.
“Yes,” she breathes. It’s impossible to lie to her- it would be venom in her mouth.
“Then let’s get started,” she grins mischievously, before diving straight in, her body slicing through the air impossibly as she lands in the water.
Lily sets her things down, before getting in. The water is cooler than she thought- but not freezing, or entirely unpleasant. It reminds her of the swim classes she used to take early in the morning, before the pool had warmed up yet. Bearable, but noticeable.
Wading in, she tries to ignore how her toes feel sinking into the mud, or every slimy thing she feels rush past her bare legs, and eventually stomach.
“Cold, isn’t it?” Lily laughs, splashing slightly as she wades further in, her feet eventually coming off the muddy floor and kicking towards where Mary lays on the water.
“One might say,” Mary responds, laughing along, as her hands make small movements in the water. No fish linger around where she floats- something that unnerves Lily a bit, but that she is overall thankful for. Mary lays on her back, her face and body tilted towards the opening in the trees the moon shines through.
The silence, or silence they have, (an entire choir of insects are chirping freely, blending with the general forest sounds and larger mammal noises) is comfortable. Electrified. Peaceful. A plethora of emotions, ranging from passionate to content, run unobserved through both of the girls, who are now both floating on their backs, their hands millimeters from connecting.
Lifeguards warn pool goers to get out when someone hears thunder. It’s well known lightning travels fast through water- it’s a great conductor. Put a toaster in a bathtub and everything in it (both the toaster and the bathtub) is fried. So it only makes sense that their hands would eventually connect, and it’s a miracle the spark from it didn’t kill all the fish in the pond when it happened.
They don’t utter a word to each other. Sometimes, when you find the person just right for you, who fits with you like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, you don’t have to speak in those moments. Just not let go.
Lily can’t wrap her mind around the fact she’s only known Mary for a day. She feels like she’s known her for lifetimes- like they’ve lived lifetimes together. Briefly, Lily imagines a few of them. What she and Mary would do in those lifetimes. Would they learn magic at a school for witches? Be superheroes to large cities? Escape zombies together? Perform at rodeos across the world? Beg each other not to go to war? Watch as the other marries a man?
Ideas, scenarios, fragmented pieces of imagination, they’re all dangerous to imagine when you’re someone like Lily. You can hold hands, half naked under moonlight, tasting the practically palpable electricity in the air, and still wonder what the other is thinking of. You’ll wish, hope, yearn for it to be you, of course, and sometimes it is. Other times, those fragmented pieces cut you. Slice you open. By that time, where’s the other girl to stitch you up?
Lily can feel Mary’s eyes on her, all over her, but mostly on her face.
“Tell me I’m not crazy,” Lily murmurs, to Mary, the moon, or herself, she doesn’t know. She just wants some kind of response. She looks over at Mary, searching for an answer on her face.
All she sees is a pair of pink lips making their way closer to hers, and all she can taste is something resembling cherry, presumably chapstick. Mary came prepared. All she can feel is one cold hand, cupping her face as she leans into the kiss. She can’t breathe, it’s that good. No, that’s not it- she can’t breathe.
Lily resurfaces, gasping for air, her legs kicking frantically under her. In her haste and eagerness to kiss Mary, she’d forgotten they were in a pond, and therefore under the possibility they could drown.
Mary’s finger is at her lips, shushing her, telling her not to say anything, as she lays back down on the water. Lily obliges. What else can she do? Thank her?
This time, it’s not the water that connects their hands, it’s Lily.
This would be a perfectly good place to end their story. Leave anyone with no doubt in their mind that Lily and Mary end up living happily ever after, kiss a thousand times more, and meet under moonlight every night for the rest of their lives.
However, it’s not where their story ends. This is only the beginning, a taste of cherry and pain, although short lived.
When the sun first begins to show, they are already back at shore, no longer dripping, their lips both red and bitten, hair a mess from fingers constantly combing through it. The pond made such things possible for hair as curly as Mary’s.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” Mary asks, as Lily starts to walk away, back to her house before her father wakes up and realizes she’s missing.
“And every one after,” Lily promises. She doesn’t mean to- like many things with Mary, she can’t help it.
Lily hurries up the path and back to her house. It’s nearly five am, and her father will be up soon. She can possibly get three hours of sleep before she has to wake up for good, and then she’ll go right back to Mary.
Luckily, she is not caught by anyone in her family. The doors and floors do not creak, and her hair and body are dry enough to not leave a large impression on anything.
She falls asleep fast, and that night, even her dreams are filled with Mary.
The next day goes much the same as the previous one, save for one small interruption before Lily’s trip to the pond.
“Hey! Hey, you there!” Someone, distinctly male, shouts. Lily turns around- a teenage boy with unruly hair and slightly crooked glasses has called her name. Next to him, a boy with shiny black hair stands.
Lily gives them an odd look, figuring they are the infamous James and Sirius. She was warned to stay away from them, and she knows that Petunia won’t hesitate to tell their parents if she doesn’t do exactly that. Thinking quickly, she beckons them into the woods. Although confused, they follow her down the path just a bit.
“Yes?” She asks, when she finally judges it safe enough and out of sight. She is glad that they followed her- it would have been rather awkward if they didn’t.
“You’re one of the girls who just moved in, right?” The boy with the messy hair asks. Lily nods.
“And you keep on taking this path? Tell me, are you meeting anyone who lives at the cabins down there?” The boy with the black hair asks.
“It’s a fact, I am. What’s it to you?” Lily questions, defensive. If another person tells her to stay away from Mary, she might have to actually listen to it.
“And does this person have curly brown hair?”
These questions are getting specific, Lily thinks, but nods again. They pump their fists in the air.
“Score! I knew moony could do it!” One of them says. The other one looks just as excited.
“I’m sorry? Is moony a nickname for Mary?”
“Mary? Who the hell is Mary?”
It doesn’t occur to her to find it odd they don’t know Mary, just that maybe she’s said too much. She can’t risk exposing them, not when something so glorious has just started, so she simply says, “My friend, the girl who lives at the cabins down there,”
“Girl? There’s only Remus- that’s Moony- and some old couple.”
They must be lying; it’s the only explanation.
“Listen, it’s not our business. But let us know if you…meet a guy named Remus,” The messy haired one says, “I’m James, by the way. James Potter.”
“And I’m Sirius. Black.”
Lily nods at both of them. “Lily Evans.”
More does not need to be said, due to the fact it won’t be necessary to introduce either of them to Petunia. Besides, she really does have someplace to be.
“Goodbye!” She says hurriedly, before running off further down the path. She can hear the guys mumbling to themselves as they walk back up the path, but decides to ignore it. They were quite odd, with all that Moony business, but she’d much rather hang out with Mary anyways.
“Mary!” She laughs breathlessly, already crawling into their spot in the shade. Mary is, of course, already there, and she greets her with a smile.
“Sleep well?” Mary asks, as if she already knows the answer. She probably slept the same, Lily thinks, and responds, “Not too bad, but not too long, either.”
“Fair enough,”
They kept up quiet conversation, whispering little things to each other, before Lily laid down.
“Just to watch the leaves above,” she says, but soon enough her eyes are closed and her breathing is deeper.
While she sleeps, Mary trails small patterns across her face, etching roses and hearts in small lines on Lily’s skin. She doesn’t blame her for falling asleep- it was a late, exciting night. Mary had met a hundred other girls like her, needing that one person to show them what she was missing, and Mary was willing to oblige. But Lily? Lily was different.
She was soft. She wasn’t going to leave Mary for a husband and kids, like most girls had. She wasn’t going to drive a wooden stake through her heart if she found out, like all girls had. Or at least, Mary hoped she wouldn’t. She could already feel it, their connection. See the golden lines of their souls intertwining, mixing and burning brighter than ever. That gold, it washed over everything. Everything in her world.
Mary had read about soulmates before, of course she had. When necessary for prey and avoiding suspicion, she was an avid church goer, and you can’t be surrounded by the spiritual for decades without adopting some of their beliefs. Mary hadn’t thought she could have one- a vampire with a soul at all was a laughable idea, and one so connected to a human’s? Freaks of nature is what they were, but Mary supposed they both already were, considering their current relationship. Legs, shaved, kicking at each other playfully in a pond, under moonlight? Hands with painted nails, holding hands with painted nails?
After two hours, Lily wakes up, much to Mary’s relief and dismay. Her face is so lovely, so relaxed, so peaceful when she sleeps, but those eyes when they open…
Helen of Troy herself, a woman Mary had met, could not have been as beautiful as just Lily’s eyes.
“Finally awake?” Mary asks with a smile. Lily rubs her eyes, blinking them open slowly.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Two hours, give or take some. You’re so beautiful when you sleep, it would have been a crime to wake you,” Mary says, laughing softly at the way Lily’s cheeks turn red. After a whole night of new experiences, compliments and kisses given freely, it’s still so easy to make her blush.
“Are you not at all tired? Or sore, at least?” Lily questions, surprised. Her own legs burned that morning as she awoke. This is where Mary should tell her- how she’ll never have to sleep again, how her muscles are already so strong. How she doesn’t get tired, because she doesn’t need to.
“I don’t get tired easily, you could say,” Mary responds instead. She can’t surprise Lily with the information- that was her near-fatal flaw in the last hundred or so relationships.
“You’re lucky. I fell straight asleep last night,” Lily says, then yawns again. Mary wants to say that she knows. That she could see her so clearly, that she already knew how beautiful she was when she slept, but she doesn’t. It’s simply another thing that, revealed too early, could unravel the whole thread of gold tying them together.
There’s only two weeks before school starts. 14 days of lounging around, of romance, of moonlit swims and shady days, before Lily has to leave. One of those days will be taken up by hunting, Mary knows this, and so she’s already planned ahead a lie to tell Lily. It hurts her to do so, but it is necessary.
The months during school are the worst, although not for Mary usually. Rainier days means not having to worry about her skin sparkling, as it always did in the sun. Now, however, they were terrible. She had nothing to do but study and think while Lily was away, and she lamented it every second of every day. Weekends were fun, until December, when it started to snow.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back here tomorrow,” Lily sighs, frowning, as she looks at the snow piling up outside their cover of trees. She had stopped coming to swim back in late September- it just wasn’t possible. Instead, Mary spent long nights in her room, to make up for lost time. Mary couldn’t turn Lily- she knew she’d never be strong enough. So she prepared for years of going without her face. It was the best solution, and Lily never minded. “Just don’t let my parents catch you,” she’d say, then fall asleep, all while claiming she wasn’t tired.
“Would you want me to come visit you?” Mary asks, offering an alternative to continuously sneaking through the window.
Lily thinks it over- she knows what her mother said about Mary, but what if there was a way for Lily to convince them this was a different girl?
“Hmm, you’d have to go by another name,” Lily mused, “like Elizabeth, or something like that.”
“Why ever so?”
Lily laughed, explaining her mother’s reaction the first night. She swore she could see Mary pale some, but eventually agree to it.
“I’ll go by Marlene- it’s close enough, and I knew a girl by that name,” she says eventually, after brainstorming a couple. Lily tries to hide the feeling of jealousy, one that is now trying to creep inside her. Who is Marlene? A friend? Something more?
Mary laughs at the expression on her face, “Don’t worry, it was a long time ago. We were just friends.”
Just like that, their plan is set.
Lily goes home first, to tell her parents about her friend, “Marlene,” who will be joining them for dinner.
“Is that who you’ve been hanging out with?” Petunia asks, a mischievous glint in her eye. She knows Lily has been with Mary, Lily can tell, but she smoothly lies and nods.
“Is she going to be staying the night?” June looks out the window as she asks, the snow coming down faster and heavier than earlier that day. It’s darker than it should be, but really that’s just better for Mary.
“I guess so,” Lily responds nonchalantly. But the snow is worrying her. Will Mary be able to make it in time?
Right on the dot, the doorbell rings as June sets dishes down for dinner. It’s not stew tonight, luckily, but chicken.
“If I would’ve known she was coming,” June says, as she sets a dish of just cooked vegetables in front of a mismatched chair they pulled from the garage, “I would have gotten extra. But I didn’t, so she can have vegetables or nothing.”
Lily nods. If Mary wants any chicken, she can have her own.
Lily gets the door, greeting her as Marlene and pulling her into a quick, non questionable hug. It’s what friends do. Not hugging would have been more suspicious, and that was the last thing they needed.
Just as June carries out the meal, the large rotisserie she’d prepared all day, Mary steps into the room.
Glass breaks, the large plate shattering against the wooden floor as June stares, speechless, at the form of Mary, equally as pale, although it’s not as obvious on her darker complexion.
“Mary.”
June doesn’t ask it. Doesn’t question if who she’s looking at is actually Mary. There is no doubt in her mind.
She’d escaped Mary for 20 years. Moved to Maryland, found a nice husband, settled down. She had fled, yes, but it was worth it. Mary couldn’t be back.
“That was my mother’s name. Did you know her?” Mary asks innocently. June can see right through it.
She knew what Mary was. Had seen her pick the flesh off a deer in the woods, teeth bared and ripping into the animal as she gulped. Had seen her bloodstained mouth as she looked at her, then seemingly transported next to her.
“It’s not what you think,” she had said, trying to grab June’s arm with her bloodied hand. June had yanked it back.
“You weren’t just drinking the blood of a deer?”
“You don’t understand. It’s better this way.”
“Better? I just saw you tear off flesh with your teeth. ”
“Would you rather it was your own? Your mother’s, father’s, a human’s?”
June remembers the chilling way Mary phrased it. Like she wasn’t.
“Why? Why would you do that?” June had begged, searching for an answer in eyes that were no longer honey, but black. Like 5pm on a winter’s night, when it was supposed to be twilight, but you couldn’t see 5 feet in front of you. False Twilight, fittingly, is what her parents had called it.
Her answer was given when Mary smiled, her pointy, long canines sliding into her gums, well oiled by crimson liquid.
“Marlene. I know I look similar to her,” Mary says, back in the present time.
“Mother, are you well?” Lily asks, looking concerned. Her daughter, her wonderful daughter, caught by Mary’s trap too. She had warned her- she remembered now, the first time Lily had come home speaking of a Mary who couldn’t handle sunlight. Warned her to stay away, but didn’t stop her when she heard the sliding glass door open that night.
Mary had never asked her anywhere at night. It gave her hope that maybe she would be kinder to Lily, cherish her more.
“Pick up the goddamn chicken, woman,” Dudley, always so gruff, huffs. “I’m getting hungry. Marlene, Lily, sit down. You too, June.”
June watches Mary throughout the meal. She picks at her vegetables, ever so slightly hiding them under the tablecloth in who knows where to make it seem like she was eating. June grips a wooden knife in her hand, not letting go.
Conversation was almost entirely non-existent. Petunia and Mary, try as they might, could not hold a conversation, and dinner was an awkward affair.
As soon as she finishes, June grabs Lily, and pulls her into the hall.
“She will not be staying,” June says harshly, her nails digging into the skin where she holds Lily, struggling against the grip.
“Mom!” She says, her mouth dropping.
“I told you to stay away from her. Far away.”
“Mom! What is your problem! That’s Marlene, Mary was her mother ,” Lily tries to explain, but she is chewing on her cheek and she is lying and it makes June want to scream. To lock her in a tower and never let her out.
“You know, and I know, that’s Mary.”
“Why are you making such a big deal out of this? How do you know her?” Lily nearly yells, but doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense to her.
“She looks the same as she did 20 years ago, that’s how,” June answers simply. Lily rolls her eyes, infuriating June even more. “She’s my age. That’s impossible.”
June shakes her head, but doesn’t let go of Lily, which annoys her. “Lily, I’m going to need you to listen to me very carefully. Do not run, or scream, or yell.” Despite the fact she doesn’t want to be, Lily is intrigued. Intrigued by who this mystery woman of a mother is, with her strong grip and terrified eyes. “Mary, for all intents and purposes, is a vampire.”
Lily does not want to scream or run. She wants to laugh, play off her mother’s hysteria as a fit of insanity. She wants to have a reason to not believe her, but she can’t come up with one.
How else would her mother recognize the face? The papers, their criminal section featuring a photo of her soulmate?
The worst part was, it made sense. The icy touch. The sunlight allergy. The seemingly never sleeping. Never eating. Lying about where she lived. Her It made sense and it didn’t, and what June said next didn’t help.
“She should be dead. I stabbed that stake so far through her, and it should have worked, it should have worked, ” June grits out through her teeth. “I buried her myself.”
Just for a moment, Lily remembers the hamster grave sitting near the pond, and wonders if maybe it wasn’t for a hamster.
Lily finally shoves away her mother’s grip, who is already so distracted by that point that it isn’t even tight. She ignores the dinner table, the rest of her family sitting around it, Mary sitting around it, and walks straight through the sliding door.
She doesn’t bring a coat. It’s noticeable immediately, the snowflakes caressing her cheek, mimicking Mary, feeling like Mary.
That cold. Always the cold. It was barely 6:15, but it was dark and freezing and the noises from the first night are coming back.
She stumbles through the white haze, careful not to fall into the freezing pond.
The cross, sticking out of the dirt, is easy to find. The rocks surrounding it, easy to move.
“Lily,”
The whispering. Something, someone , whispering her name, the same as the first night.
“Lily,”
Lily is clawing, clawing, clawing through frozen ground. Digging, digging, digging through snow.
She can’t feel the fingers that do their job. In the darkness, she can barely see it, either. She can only blindly hope that they’ve frozen in a shape beneficial to do so, and that they don’t fall off by the time she finds what she’s looking for.
She doesn’t know what she hopes to find. Proof that her mother is lying? Proof that she isn’t?
Lily pulls rocks out of the ground, hoping to find something more solid, more substantial. She has made a tiny hole in the unthawed ground.
“Lily,”
This time, she gathers the strength to face it. To face her. To face the face that has haunted her every waking moment since arriving.
“Mary.”
“What did June tell you?”
Lily doesn’t want to answer. Can’t. Won’t risk confirming what she knows, now, to be true.
“Your fingers are blue,” Mary says suddenly, reaching out for them, then pulling her hand back. Her cold hands won’t help, she knows, but in the twilight, she doesn’t think Lily can see them at all.
“You think she buried me here. She did.”
Lily’s face falls, and Mary feels guilty about her finding out this way. She was going to tell her soon, but softer than this. Kinder. Warmer.
“About a hundred girls have tried to kill me that way,” Mary says softly. “But you can’t. The wooden stake to the heart? It’s wrong. Aim for the stomach. That’s where we digest the blood, what we need.”
“Blood?” Lily’s voice is small. A punch to the gut, or stomach, because it’s killing Mary to hear her like this.
“Only animals. I haven’t killed a human, at least not in the past 200 years,” Mary swears. “I can’t be sure what June told you. Probably something about how we also had a relationship.”
Lily nods. Her fingers are turning blacker. Mary wants to care, to tell her, but she doesn’t.
“It was nothing like ours. You have ignited a spark in me, woken me up from a slumber I didn’t even know I was in. If soulmates existed, my soul would be tied to yours by every single fiber in it.”
“A hundred?” Lily finally questions, after a few minutes of silence. Her mind is blank, the cold making her spaced out and unstable.
“I’ve been around longer than I’d like to admit to. I have been doing this since the stars started shining, but never once have I felt something like what I feel with you.”
If she could be warm, Lily would, she thinks. Her whole speech, about soulmates and stars, is quite literally heartwarming.
“Which is why, now,” Mary says, picking up the cross from where it sat on the snow, already covered in a thin layer of snowflakes, “I have to do this.”
If Lily could scream, she would have. But her vocal chords are frozen to her throat, her fingers, hands, everything blackened beyond saving. Where is her mother? Her father? Petunia?
The sharp end of the cross, where it was struck into the ground so many years before, penetrates her abdomen. No trickles of blood spur from the puncture.
“You can bury me, for real, tomorrow. When you can dig,” Mary says slowly, choosing her words carefully. Lily shakes her head.
“I can’t,” she rasps. “Won’t- be able to.”
Slowly but surely, she drags herself over to Mary, laying down next to her.
“Lily. No. You can’t do this, you-”
“And you can?”
The effort of talking, exposing her voice to the air is choking her.
“I see you. I see you as you see yourself, in all the books you read,” Mary says, her voice breaking. If vampires could cry, Lily is sure Mary would be.
“I see myself as Juliet, then. I am ruined by you, Mary. These hands,” Lily holds up her hands, the black spreading to almost her wrist, “they will never work again. I can realize it now, the disease.”
Lily isn’t sure if she’s talking about her own hands, or Mary’s affliction.
“We are nothing,” Mary says, heartbroken, looking at Lily for one last, long glance. Nobody will know when they find them.
“We are everything, ” Lily responds. Her voice is nearly gone.
“Hey Mary?” She asks, as she feels the death creeping up her arm. “I would meet you under a thousand golden moons, if you asked me to.”
Despite everything, Mary laughs, and Lily’s last thought is about how beautiful of a last sound it is to hear.
Tomorrow, when the neighbors come out to go sledding, they will find these freaks of nature.
They will probably cry for Lily, and wonder if Mary is the curly brown haired girl Lily mentioned.
The cops will come. Lily does not know what they will think when they find them outside, or whatever is inside that prevented Mary from saying that her family could dig the hole.
They will be buried side by side, or at least Lily hopes they will. From that dirt, maybe, just maybe, a flower will grow. A golden, moonlit flower, a freak of nature, and it will bloom just for them.