3 May 2024 part 3

Yes I skipped over part 2; that is a short, religious poem that I was less than satisfied with. I will be posting that Sunday, so it’s still coming, just not here.

Over all, I was much happier with this attempt. Still not perfect, by any means; I think Lily is still not “present” enough. Not sure how to change that, or if that’s even what needs changing. Just a thought.

The moment Lily began weeping over her little boy, Ida could restrain her own tears no longer. Losing Eric had been hard enough; to lose Johanne as well… Ida couldn’t bear it. Within the depths of her heart, she pleaded, “Why not just take me as well?”

So lost in her own thoughts as she was, Ida almost missed it when Lily started singing. A chill swept over the room, the light of the fire grew dim, but there was a softness to it. Ida thought it was like she hadn’t noticed the chill until someone wrapped a warm blanket around her. She almost moved in closer, so she could actually make out the woods, but something held her back.

Then Ida noticed that for the first time since the fever took him, Johanne was breathing steadily. His pain was gone; he was at peace. Ida looked up in wonder at Lily, but before she could speak, a translucent figure entered the room. Ida’s eyes went wide. “Eric?”

Her husband gave her a sad smile, then knelt beside Lily and Johanne. Johanne’s breath slowed, then stopped, and then the boy stepped out of his body into his father’s waiting arms.

As Eric stood up, Ida followed, and tried to follow them out the door. Eric raised a hand and shook his head. He said something, and though Ida couldn’t hear him, she knew what he said. “Not yet, my love. Not yet.”

With even more tears flowing down her face, she whispered, “I love you.”

“And I you.” Eric flashed her another sad smile, then turned to leave, one hand holding Johanne’s. The boy waved goodbye to his mother, and the two strode out into the dark.

Ida took another look at Lily. She’d heard the rumors, of course; Lily was a strange girl, even disregarding her unnaturally pale skin. This pretty definitively proved the rumors true. To her surprise, though, Ida found she didn’t care.

Lily noticed when the boy stopped breathing. She continued her lullaby for just a bit longer, before her sobs grew too powerful to contain. She curled in on herself, but only a few moments after she stopped, she felt a hand on her arm.

When Lily opened her eyes, she found Johanne’s mother, Ida, smiling up at her, tears streaked down her face. “Thank you, little one,” Ida said. “Thank you for everything.”

More than a little confused, Lily passed the boy’s corpse to his mother. “I… I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

For a long time, the silence lay heavy between them. Then, with a softer, sadder smile, Ida said, “I’m not so sure you didn’t, at the end there. Now go along home; you need rest.”

She stood up, taking Johanne out to bury him. At the threshold, she turned to look at Lily. “And tell Astrid that if the two of you need anything, especially with certain secrets, you both are always welcome here.”

Lily didn’t quite know what to make of that, but she nodded. Presumably Mama would know what she was talking about.

3 May 2024 part 1

This was my first attempt at concluding this short story for Perish Song and Lily. I wasn’t particularly happy with it; it put too much emphasis on the sorrow and grief of the situation, with very little on either Lily or the comfort Ida and Johanne found. And I think there were connections that needed to be more explicit.

Ida watched as Lily wept over her boy, and nearly started to weep herself. She’d known it was a hopeless fight, and watching the young girl push herself to her limits to try and give Johanne even a slightly better chance broke Ida’s heart.

So when Lily started to sing, Ida was surprised. She couldn’t make out the words, but she watched as Johanne relaxed for the first time since the fever took hold of him. The air stilled, as if the world paused to listen to Lily’s song. Goosebumps covered Ida’s arms, though whether from the strangeness or the sudden chill, she couldn’t say.

Whatever reservations Ida had, though, stopped completely when the spectral form of her husband strode past her into the room. He nodded at her and smiled, then knelt beside Johanne. The boy’s body stilled, and then his spirit sat up, and looked around. Ida would never forget the expression of sheer joy Johanne’s face when he saw his father there.

Ida’s husband helped Johanne to his feet, and the two bowed to Ida before they turned to leave through the back door.

“Wait!” she called out, and rushed after them. As soon as she stepped outside, however, she was greeted by a wall of fog encircling her home. 

Her husband turned back, and held out a hand to stop her. He said something, though Ida couldn’t hear it, and gave her a sad smile. Then he took Johanne’s hand, and the two left, walking into the fog out of sight.

Ida nearly followed them anyway; what was the point of living when her whole family was gone? But she shook her head and turned back into the house. A few moments later, Lily’s song finished, and warmth flooded back into the area.

2 May 2024

The summer before she turned 18, however, a plague swept through the land. Many people claimed it was a graveborn curse, and fear ran rampant. By the time their little village was hit, people were already reaching their breaking point.

“Do you think it’s actually a graveborn curse?” Lily asked.

For a moment, Astrid didn’t respond. “No. It spreads too slowly for one of theirs, and leaves too many alive. It’s spreading farther, too.”

When the village did get hit, it was hit hard. Lily was one of a small group unaffected, and she worked herself past exhaustion trying to help and save as many people as she could. Every once in a while, she’d start to worry about catching the disease herself, but she always pushed the thought out of her head. And somehow, Lily never did get sick.

On one particularly hard day, she was tending to a young boy. Johanne. His father had lost to the disease just the day before, and Johanne himself was fading fast. 

Lily did everything she could think of. She banked the fire and wiped his sweat. Nothing worked. When she tried to feed him medicine, he coughed it back up. All he could do was lie there and groan in pain.

Something broke inside Lily, and she clung to the boy and wept. Unbidden, the words to an old lullaby came to her lips, and she started to sing, eyes closed.

30 April 2024

This is when I figured out who I wanted my Perish Song protagonist to be. This was inspired in large part by the AFK Arena series’ concept of graveborn, along with the trope of the little girl with the doll you see right before her town gets destroyed, leaving the heroes to find only a doll in the wreckage. That girl is my main character. Though I do worry that this trope loses power as far removed from the story as it is.

Lily didn’t remember much from before her mama, Astrid, adopted her. She had only been six or seven at the time, after all. She knew it had been during the [Gravewrought] wars; Astrid had saved Lily’s village from the undead, only to come back a few days later to find it had been destroyed. Lily didn’t remember how she survived, or even what had happened. The only vague memory she had of that time was when she had offered the cool, scary lady–Astrid–her homemade doll. The dolly Lily still had tucked away under her pillow.

She knew after Astrid had found her, she retired to a small town to try and raise her. Lily was pretty sure Astrid had been someone important before her retirement, because a lot of men and women came through just to see her. Lily didn’t mind; it meant she basically had a bunch of aunts and uncles out there.

They lived a simple life; Astrid worked as a woodcutter, and if she wasn’t helping with that, Lily helped out at the bakery with her best friend. On some level, Lily was aware the other townsfolk thought her strange, but she was cheerful and friendly enough that only the bitterest of them gave her any grief. Though Lily did get tired of hearing she was too pale and need more sunlight.

Astrid had only given one rule to Lily; she wasn’t allowed to sing. At least, not anywhere there was the slightest chance someone could overhear her.

“I’m serious, Lily; if you ever sing in front of people, you’ll be lucky if they stop at hanging you. It’s far more likely they’ll burn you at the stake or worse. Do you understand me?”

Lily, who’d been eight at the time, nodded. Even now, roughly nine years later, she remembered that day clearly. She’d started singing to herself while they were out cutting wood, when Mama got really scared and put her head over Lily’s mouth. Lily also couldn’t forget the dead squirrel she noticed nearby while they were leaving.