Lily Read online

“How have you sinned?” he went on. “Have you taken the Lord’s name in vain? Have you had evil thoughts? Have you given in to lust?” He licked his lips, the tip of his tongue protruding as if he were waiting to taste her answer.

  “I’ve killed,” Lily said simply.

  The man looked at her. “Killed?” he said, puzzled. “You mean you’ve killed an insect, or a mouse. Maybe a cat?”

  Lily shook her head. “I killed my father,” she said.

  The man glanced around the room. He leaned back in his chair and tapped on the table. “What do you mean you killed your father?” he said.

  “I touched him, and he died,” Lily explained. “Now everyone I touch dies. I see them dead. It’s because of sin. I can feel it inside me.”

  The man wiped his hand across his forehead. “Where is your mother?” he asked. “Are you alone?”

  “I don’t know where she is,” Lily answered. “I came to see Reverend Everyman. Someone told me he has magic in his hands. Like I do. Only his magic heals, and mine kills. That’s sin, isn’t it?”

  The man was staring at her, and Lily could see that he was afraid. She wondered if, like some of the others, he could see the other girl inside of her. She decided that she should leave, and stood up.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and stood.

  The man jumped up. “Wait!” he said. “Please, wait here. I’m going to get someone who can help you.” He grinned nervously at her, as though he were looking at a dangerous dog. She felt sorry for him, so she sat back down. The man ran out of the tent, almost tripping in his haste to leave.

  A few minutes later, the man returned. He had with him another man, who was short and very thin. He was dressed in a black suit that wrapped his body like a shroud, and his face was pinched. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose like a weathervane on a dilapidated barn roof, and his hair was combed over one side of his head. The clown was speaking to him and gesturing toward Lily.

  The man approached the table and sat down. He looked at her silently for a few minutes, then spoke in a voice like a flame being blown out. “Hello, young lady,” he said. “I am Mr. Sims. Edgar there tells me that you have something you’d like to talk about.”

  Lily’s throat was dry. The calmness she had felt inside the tent with Silas Everyman had vanished under the gaze of the strange man who peered at her as though she were a painting on a wall. His voice floated on the air like smoke, and it made her feel like choking. She pressed her back against the chair and tried to remain calm.

  “My name is Lily,” she said. “I killed my father. I have sin in my hands.” She held her hands up for the man’s inspection. It was the first time she had called the power inside her by this new name, and it made her ashamed.

  Mr. Sims regarded her with a look of both puzzlement and amusement. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “Young lady,” he said gently. “I don’t know what happened to your father, but I’m sure you’re a very good little girl. You do not —“

  “I see death,” Lily interrupted. “I see death through my hands and it comes true.”

  Mr. Sims sighed. “Look,” he said. “If you would like me to pray with you, I would be more than happy —“

  Something inside Lily snapped. She knew that Sims didn’t believe her. Reaching across the table, she grabbed his wrist and closed her fingers around it. Instantly, she saw him in a bed, alone in a dark, damp room. His skin was shrunken around his bones, and he looked like a skeleton wrapped in tissue paper. She knew that he had died of something that had taken its time eating away at him from the inside.

  “Cancer,” she said, the word coming to her from deep in her throat. “You will die of it. In two years. Already it is in you.”

  She let go of Sims’s hand and sat back in her chair. He was holding his wrist with his other hand, rubbing it as if in pain. On his face was a look of utter astonishment.

  “H-How do you know that?” He looked frightened. His hand trembled. “How do you know?”

  “I saw you. I saw you dead, and then the word for it came to me. It is true, isn’t it?”

  Sims looked down, but he didn’t answer her. After a moment, he looked up. His eyes were wet with tears. “You’d better come with me,” he said. He stood up, smoothed his suit, and motioned for Lily to follow him.

  “Will you be able to help me?” Lily asked as they left the tent and began to walk through the rows of smaller tents. “Can you take the sin away?”

  Sims didn’t answer her as he turned a corner and headed for an all-white tent set apart from the others. A large man stood near the entrance, and he nodded at Sims as they entered. He glanced at Lily, then snapped his eyes straight ahead once more.

  When they were inside, Sims pointed to a chair and told Lily to sit down.

  “What am I waiting for?” Lily asked him, sitting down.

  Sims hesitated, looking at her over his shoulder. “For the Reverend.”

  Before Lily could ask another question, he ducked through the tent opening and was gone. Lily saw the shadow of the guard move to block the only way out, his broad back looming against the whiteness of the wall.

  The chair was uncomfortable. The wooden seat was hard, and the ground upon which the tent was pitched was uneven, so that every time she moved, the legs of the chair wobbled. Despite this, she didn’t get up. Instead, she tried to keep perfectly still. She closed her eyes and breathed in the hot, dry air. The tent smelled of dust, and Lily found herself wondering if this is what it felt like to lie in a coffin.

  She opened her eyes. Outside, people were passing by the tent in both directions. Their shadows were reflected on the cloth walls, and their murmured voices came and went. Sometimes they laughed or called out “Hallelujah!” This made Lily feel more hopeful, although she couldn’t say why.

  She wondered what Revered Everyman would think of her. More, she wondered if he could truly help her. She hoped that he could, that he could remove or stop or banish the thing inside her. Maybe then, her mother wouldn’t fear her. Maybe then, they could return home.

  She sat for a long time. One leg went to sleep, and she pinched the skin of her calf to wake it. Finally, the tent flap opened again and the Reverend entered, followed by Sims. He stopped in front of the chair in which Lily sat and looked at her for a moment. Then he smiled widely. “Mr. Sims tells me that you need my help,” he said.

  Lily nodded. “Can you take the sin out?” she asked.

  The Reverend laughed. “Now, what makes you think you need me to do that?” he asked.

  “I can feel it,” she said. “Inside of me. It’s growing. She’s growing.”

  Everyman’s eyebrows raised. His brow furrowed. “She?”

  “The girl who calls death to her,” said Lily. She glanced at Sims. “I showed him.”

  “Yes, he told me,” said Everyman. “Can you do that again? Tell me how someone will die?”

  Lily shook her head. “I don’t want to. Every time I do, it makes her stronger. I want you to stop her. To stop it.”

  The Reverend nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I understand. But first I need to be sure.” He turned and called out, “Anna, come in here.”

  A woman entered the tent. Her face was not wrinkled, nor her hair gray, but to Lily she seemed somehow older than all of them. Her skin was sallow, and her hair greasy. She wore a faded, patched dress and no shoes. For a moment she stared at Lily with flat, fearful eyes, then dropped her stare back to the dirt floor.

  “This is Anna,” Everyman told Lily. “She works as a washer woman for the caravan. Anna, give Lily your hand.”

  Anna shrank back, but was urged forward by the Reverend’s hand on her back. She held her hand out toward Lily. It was trembling. Lily didn’t want to touch it.

  “Go on,” the Reverend told Lily. “It’s all right. It’s just a test. To make sure that you really need my help. I can’t help you if I don’t know for certain that you’re telling the truth.”

  Lily, a
fraid that he might turn her away, raised her hand, palm up, and Anna lowered her hand to meet it. As soon as their flesh was joined, Lily’s head was filled with a vision. She saw Anna bent over a tub of dirty, steaming water. Clothes floated in the tub, and Anna stirred them with a long wooden stick. Then she coughed, and spittle flew from her mouth, flecking the clothes and water with blood. The coughing continued until Anna collapsed, pulling the tub over as she fell so that the water splashed across her crumpled body. Lily pulled away. Anna, startled, put her hand to her mouth as a gasp of fear escaped her lips.

  “What did you see?” Everyman asked Lily.

  “Blood,” said Lily, not looking at Anna. “She’s coughing up blood. It’s in her lungs.”

  There was silence as the Reverend looked at Anna. “You’ve never seen this girl before, is that right?”

  “Never,” Anna whispered.

  “And what she says,” Everyman continued. “It’s true?”

  “Yes,” said Sims when Anna failed to answer. “The physician confirmed it just this morning. Anna has tuberculosis.”

  “You can go,” the Reverend told Anna. “Sims will see to you.”

  The woman and Sims departed, leaving Lily alone with Everyman. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow. “How long have you been able to do this?” he asked. “To see how people will die.”

  “Not long,” Lily told him. “Since my birthday.”

  “Who knows about this? Your mother and father? Friends? Who have you told?”

  “My mother knows,” Lily said. “My father is dead.” She wondered why he didn’t remember this.

  “Anyone else?” asked Everyman.

  Lily thought about Alex Henry. Should she tell the Reverend about him? Her mother had instructed her never to mention the village. “No,” she said. “No one else. Until now.”

  The Reverend nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

  “Is it sin?” Lily asked him. “Can you help me?”

  Everyman, ignoring this, said, “Where is your mother now?”

  Lily gestured toward the big tent. “Out there. Somewhere.”

  “We’ll need to find her,” said the Reverend. “You can tell Sims what she looks like when he returns. He’ll take care of it.”

  “So you can help me?” Lily asked.

  Everyman nodded. “I can. But it won’t be easy. This is the Devil’s work, make no mistake about it.”

  Lily didn’t understand what he meant, but he sounded so certain that she believed him. She remembered him talking about a devil before, in regards to the girl with the marks on her skin. Was this the same? She wanted to ask, but the Reverend was talking again.

  “Don’t you worry. The Devil is no match for me. I’ve tamed him before, and I can tame him again.”

  “And Jesus,” said Lily. “The King. He can help?”

  “Of course. Of course he can. Me and Jesus, we can fix anything.”

  Relief flooded through Lily. She stood up, knocking the chair over, and ran toward Silas Everyman with her arms flung wide. “Thank you!”

  “Stop!” the Reverend commanded.

  Lily did so, standing a few feet from him and wondering what she had done wrong. He held his hands out towards her. On his face she saw an expression of fear, which a moment later changed to a smile. He chuckled gaily. “I don’t want to get my suit dusty.”

  Lily looked down at herself and saw that she was indeed very dirty from her long day. She smiled back at the Reverend.

  “All right,” Everyman said. “Now, why don’t you sit back down and we’ll wait for Sims to come back. Then you can tell him all about your mother, and he can go find her.”

  “And then you’ll take the sin out of me?” asked Lily.

  The Reverend pointed to the chair. “You just sit right there. I’ll take care of you. I promise you that.”

  Lily went to the chair, righted it, and sat. She placed her hands in her lap. “I’ll wait right here.”

  “That’s a good girl,” said Everyman. “And here, while we’re waiting you can look at this.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small booklet, which he tossed into Lily’s lap.

  “What is this?” she asked, picking it up.

  “That’s the Wordless Book,” the Reverend told her. “It explains how sin works, and how we’re going to save you.”

  Lily looked at the first page, which was nothing but pure black.

  “That’s what sin is like,” Everyman said. “Just blackness. That’s how you are inside. Like a night with no stars.”

  Lily understood this. She did feel black inside, filled with darkness and no light. But she’d also seen nights with no stars, and knew that they could be beautiful too. She was about to ask the Reverend to explain further, but he spoke first.

  “Turn the page. See how it’s all red? That represents the blood of Jesus Christ.”

  “Blood?” said Lily.

  Everyman nodded. “The blood that was spilled when he was hung on the cross. Surely you know the story of how Jesus died for your sins.”

  Lily shook her head. “Until today, I’d never heard of Jesus the King.”

  “Well, we’ll fix that soon enough,” said the preacher. “All you need to know right now is that he died for you.”

  “Like an offering?” Lily asked. She knew about offerings. Her father had made them to the sea before setting out. Not that it had helped him in the end. But that was the thing about offerings — sometimes they weren’t accepted. But you made them anyway, because sometimes, her father had once told her, the willingness to make them was more important than the result.

  “Something like that,” the Reverend agreed. “Now the next page, it’s white. That’s what color your soul is once Jesus washes away the sin.”

  Lily ran her fingers over the snow white paper. “How does he wash it away?”

  Everyman cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. “He just does. Don’t you worry about that right now.”

  The last page was yellow. Lily waited for the Reverend to explain its meaning.

  “Heaven,” he said. “And the crown of gold you get when you arrive there.”

  “Where is it?” asked Lily. “Heaven. Is it a town, like Salvation and Pilotsville?”

  The reverend shook his head. “I’m going to have to have a long talk with your mother when we find her. No, Heaven is where Jesus lives, and where we go when we die if we believe in him and do what’s right.”

  Lily shut the book. It didn’t make sense to her, and she had questions, but before she could ask them, the tent flap opened again and Sims reappeared.

  “Ah,” said Everyman, sounding relieved. “You’re back. Good. I have a job for you.”

  F O U R T E E N

  BABA YAGA PICKED up the book. It had been dropped by one of the clowns, and was lying in the dirt. She dusted it off and opened it to the first page.

  She had seen wordless books before, of course. She had several in her library at home. Some of them contained powerful magic in the form of pictures and symbols. Others were tricks, containing words that were hidden and could only be read in the light of a full midsummer moon, or by pricking one’s finger and feeding the words with blood. She recalled one that could only be read with a dying breath. It had taken her several years and the assistance of a hundred or more souls to get through that one, although now she forgot what it contained. She would have to read it again.

  This book was…different. She felt no magic in it. And yet she’d seen the faces of those who looked at it transformed. Many had wept. Some had laughed. A few had fallen down as if struck dead. The clowns had consoled them as necessary, but mostly they had just smiled their painted smiles and waited to take the books back again.

  She turned to the red page. What had the Reverend said about blood? Something about Jesus the King dying on a cross as an offering. Well, that was hardly new. Kings had been doing things like that forever, usually unwillingly, although she’d known a few to do
it for the sake of a harvest or to curry favor with one of the gods. Sometimes it worked, although mostly it didn’t. Gods were like that. But people kept trying.

  What had this king died for, this Jesus? For the sins of the people? That seemed to be the message of the book, if the white page was to be believed. But this hardly made sense. Surely the people could do their own dying, were in fact doing it every second of every hour. So what was the point?

  Obviously, it hadn’t worked.

  And why was it only kings who did such things? She’d never heard of a queen attempting it. Probably they were more sensible, or too busy. Only men had time to think of such foolishness.

  Then there was the gold. Gold she could understand. Gold you could hold in your hand and count, or fashion into useful things, or use to lure the greedy into a trap. It had weight and value. Blood did too, of course, but in a different way. Gold was simpler. And it could be carried in a sack.

  It made sense to her that Jesus might promise gold to those who followed him. That was a good way to win favor with people. Although if they had to die before getting the reward, that made it problematic. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it simply meant that Jesus the King never had to make good on his promise. With some interesting exceptions, the dead seldom complained about broken contracts.

  She tucked the book into one of her pockets to look at later. She still had questions. But at the moment she was hungry. Hoisting the Reverend up and down had caused her to work up an appetite. She sniffed the air, found a promising scent, and set off after it, wondering if she might find an oven somewhere about, or at least a fire. Raw would do, but she preferred roasted.

  F I F T E E N

  LILY LAY ON HER BACK, looking up at the night sky. Her mother had been found, and was now talking to the Reverend Silas Everyman inside the tent. Lily had been sent outside with Mr. Sims. That had been two hours ago. She was first taken to a large tent in which people were eating. There she was seated at a table of clowns and given a bowl of soup made with vegetables and a sandwich containing cheese and meager slices of some kind of meat. Neither was particularly good, but she was hungry and so ate quickly and eagerly. The clowns did not speak to her.