Page 108 of Creeping Lily
Surprise flashes across her face, but she takes it. That’s what I love about Lily—she doesn’t argue when I give her something heavy to carry. She holds it like it matters. Her fingers skim the cover, and there’s a quiet hunger in her eyes, like she’s about to pry open something no one else has touched in years.
She sinks into the armchair. I sit beside her, close enough that my knee brushes hers, close enough to remind her she’s mine whether she’s reading to me or bleeding out beside me.
“Where do you want me to start?” she asks. “First entry is January eleventh, 1981.”
“That old,” I murmur. He’d been at this long before then. That’s just when he got arrogant enough to write it down. Stupid man. The first name in this book was always going to be his own.
Her breath stutters. I see her hand grip her shirt, knuckleswhite. Her lips part, then press into a thin line. She shuts the book fast, like the words on the page might burn through her skin if she stares too long.
“What do you think you’re going to find, Titan?” she asks quietly. “What’s in here that you need so badly?”
“What is it?” I demand.
She just shakes her head.
I hold out my hand. “I can read it myself.”
She doesn’t give it back. She just opens it again, slow, like she’s bracing for something that’s going to hurt.
Her voice shakes when she starts. It makes me want to take the book from her, shield her from every ugly word inside—but I don’t. I let her read, even though every instinct in me is screaming to protect her from this.
The words scrape the air between us. And as she goes on, I start to wonder if I’ve made a mistake—if asking her to share this weight with me is a cruelty I can’t justify.
Because Lily isn’t like me. She still has pieces of herself that haven’t been blackened or burned away. And what’s inside this book? It might just take them from her.
She starts to read.
“Eleventh January 1981.
Matthew Rosewood, 1118 Navarro Crescent, East Millgate.
8 years. Blonde, blue eyed. Red and white striped long sleeve shirt, black pants.
Deceased thirtieth June 1983. Burial site: cremated.”
She flips the page and starts reading again.
“Sixteenth October 1981.
Nathaniel Rush, 6/913 Colebee Street, Houston.
Three years. Brown hair, blue eyes. White short sleeve t-shirt, khaki overalls. Taken from Grovehouse Fairground.
Sold: Seventeenth October 1981”
Mary and James Pipwaite – 83 Shallowater Road, Lackey”
She turns the page again and starts on another entry. Her voice trembles, breaking with each word.
“Fourth March 1982
Freida March and Doris Somersby”
“How many pages are there?” I cut in, halting her voice mid-sentence.
Lily blinks, startled, and looks up at me like I’ve pulled her out of another world. She flips through the book, her fingers grazing each brittle sheet, eyes scanning the thickness as if she’s weighing the truth. “About a hundred and seventy,” she says finally, her voice carrying that quiet certainty only a real book lover could muster.
She adds, “Only one entry per page,” like it’s supposed to soften the blow. It doesn’t. Not even close. That just means one neat little confession per leaf—each one a wound waiting to be reopened, a name tied to a crime someone thought they’d buried for good.
