Untrue

Chapter One: With a Lily in Your Hand

The sun was too bright, the grass too green. Every flower bloomed when she wished they would choke on the water they drank. The world was happy, and she was not. There was no solace found in the white lilies she tossed at her feet, her chest tightening when they came to rest against two short stone pillars in haphazard piles.

Lily was as pale as her namesake, not with rage, as she had been a day earlier, but with grief.

They had to die in spring. She thought to herself, If only to pain me further. The remaining bouquet of funeral flowers were crushed in her suddenly tight grip. She wanted to dig up the earth again, to see if either of them were still breathing.

Lily thought she was mistaken when she returned home with her flower basket filled with medicinal herbs to find them dead. Several shouts and tears shed later, she realized that she was not.

The pain was dull, and sawed at her innards as she did bread with a dull knife. Her heart was stale, it seemed, because it could not make a cut clean enough for her to die as well.

She resisted the urge to sit down in the fresh earth and dirty the only black dress she owned, but soon gave into it. While the world around her was smiling, Lily felt the time-honored tradition of mourning settle on her shoulders like a funeral shroud.

It made her quite near sick, but she did not feel the need to wretch. Everything inside of her that could be rid of was already gone. For good or ill, Lily was empty.

"Michael." She said, more to herself than the grave marker with his name carved into it. She had never been a very skilled stone-smith, and had always preferred carpentry. Making their coffins had been no trouble.

She put her hand to the dirt. It was soft underneath her pale hands, and crumbled as she dragged her nails through it, imbedding it deep under her nails.

"Watch over Jane, please." Lily finally croaked, dropping the few flowers still clasped in hand at the base of the second marker. "A-and," Her eyes stung, but nothing came from them. No tears poured down her cheeks as they had when she found her husband and daughter dead. "Wait for me."

With that, Lily stood, brushing off her knees and leaving the clearing that was just far enough from her now empty home. She could not see them from her window, and did not want to.

As she unlatched the door, letting the door swing open of its own accord, Lily nearly lost her footing on the steps leading up to it. She fell to one knee, not bothering to gasp at the pain that laced through it. She simply stood up again, as she had from the earth, her face as expressionless as she could manage.

Loneliness was a constant ache in her ears. Even when her baby and husband were alive, if not quite unwell, the sounds of them in pain often motivated Lily to try harder, to go a little further to the Moor and find more helpful herbs.

All of her searching, all of her sleepless nights had been in vain, and the deepest reminder of that was the deafening silence.

Lily did not know what do with herself as she shrugged off her thin shawl and let it drop near the door. She heard the fence just outside creaking in the gentle breeze, reminding her that she would have to fix it.

Her legs did not want to do what she told them to, it seemed, as she instead approached her kettle and put on a pot of tea. The gurgling noise of the water boiling did not calm her as it had many sleepless nights during the first year of her new life as a mother.

Jane was a happy baby, quite pretty with a wide smile. However, she did not rest easily, and Lily often found herself patting Michael's arm in reassurance before rising to tend to her child. Sitting alone in the kitchen with her daughter, battling tears of exhaustion, Lily would turn to the little brass kettle and to the sounds it made for comfort.

The gurgling noise reminded her of what Jane used to 'say' when you put her anywhere near the outdoors. She would nearly screech with excitement, clapping her chubby hands and struggling to find the right expression for her joy.

She and Michael would smile at their child, perhaps the greatest adventure either of them had ever been on. Jane was a symbol of their unity, of their love. She would outlive them, there was no doubt in Lily's mind at the time. She would have children of her own, and so it would go on, and Lily would never fear death because a piece of her would remain.

Despite the distance between them, Lily had never felt closer to her mother. She who toiled away under the king's boot, scrubbing and cleaning and dreaming. Lily wondered if her mother felt the same way for her, the same special brand of hope when she saw her daughter run to her, face bright. Lily supposed so, although she was uncertain if that hope would have died in the many years they had been apart.

As for her father, Lily couldn't say either, she had not seen him since her tenth birthday. He was born in a stable, or at least mother said so, and the scullery maid said that his fondest wish was to die on horseback. A merchant by trade, it was a cold day in summer if Lily were to catch sight of him riding through the kingdom's gates.

He brought her things, little gems of no value or perhaps a doll, but what he did bring that had worth was her mother's smile.

It was like the rising sun, so full of joy and elation that it had to be rare, or else it was forced. Lily nearly lived for that smile as a child, and that same passion thrived into her teenage years when the visits from her father slowed to a halt.

Her mother said that he did not love them anymore, that he had found someone new, and that Lily was to have a half-sister. She did not know how to feel about that besides what emotions her mother showed. Rage fueled her tenth year, followed by prolonged periods of crippling sadness.

Lily did not know why she cried when her mother did, when she beat the walls with her fists in blind anger shortly after her mother retired to her room with bruised knuckles. She did not know her father, she did not love him. Her mother did, however, as much s Lily loved her, and her pain was her daughter's pain.

When she was just past nineteen, Lily was certain she had destroyed all chances of seeing her mother smile again when she gathered enough courage to tell her that she was leaving home to get married.

While Lily's passion did not lie in horses, it still flourished in her love of plants and trees. Specifically what she could make from the wood they so generously gave. Lily kept a knife at her hip and a small block of wood nearby should she get he urge to carve something.

She met Michael in the valley outside the gates while collecting herbs to sell. She didn't say a word to her mother for seven months until he had asked her to leave for the woods with him.

Michael too loved nature and what beauty could be wrought from it, as most humans did. He was kind and quiet sort of intelligent, preferring to silently revel in his superior knowledge of things a farmer's boy should not.

Lily's mother had been the closest thing to grief-stricken that the young woman had ever seen. She turned red and cried for over an hour in her room while Lily packed, tears pricking at her eyes.

Her mother never asked her to stay, however nor did she force her from the home. She merely said that she would be waiting. Lily did not know if she was being malicious in saying so, as her mother's eyes had grown quite cold.

Either way, sarcastic or not, Lily left, and thus began her new life.

The whistling of her kettle threatened to give the woman another strand of white hair to fret over, as she jolted from her place at the kitchen counter to reach for a mug. The tea itself, once the blend was added, tasted far more bitter than Lilly remembered, as if there truly was no way to console her.

Lost in thought again, she barely noticed the sound of fluttering wings as a cloud brushed over the sun, temporarily shading the glade where her home was built.

Lily turned towards her window as she caught sight of something black landing in the square space. It stood out against the homey, brown shutters and the cream of the wallpaper, whatever it was, prompting her to investigate.

Closer inspection found the mass to be a raven of medium size. Its feathers were an inky black, deeper and darker than the dress Lily wore. It spread its lovely wings, making her take a step back from the creature.

She felt a strange sort of peace that tea could not give when she laid eyes on it. The brightness of the world around her clashed so horribly with her own fresh misery. Ravens' were black, they were dark, they were what Lily yearned to see.

Lily could not be lonely if she knew that others around her were as well. If the trees began to die and the sky grew as dark as it did over the Moors, perhaps then she could be calm, she could be happy once again.

She was not the sort to revel in misery as her husband did his own hidden knowledge, but to know that pain is shared, even by those who did not know its cause, was a comforting thought.

In light of the circumstances, lily did not chase the raven away. She held out her hand, taking a step closer. It shied away, ducking its beautiful head and shifting on its feet. Lily hushed the bird as she moved nearer as it began to crow.

"Keep still." She muttered, too lost in thought to be surprised when the bird obliged. "I won't harm you." Lily added as an after thought before her fingertips brushed the dark feathers on the crown of its head.

It hurt to do so, but Lily offered the bird a little smile.

"Do you know how sad I am?" She asked it through the forced upturned corners of her mouth. The bird cocked its head to the side. "Sad enough to wish the world was as dark as you." Lily answered him, letting her hand fall to her side, turning away.

Lily did not notice the raven shuffle a bit again, as if it was offended. She did not want to care about anything save her misery, and so she did not.

She did not spare the creature a glance as it took flight from her window. Lily did not think of it as it left her alone again. She did not blame it.

Just a bird. She thought to herself, but that wasn't right. Not a bird, a raven. She corrected. A raven who now carried her pain on its wings, and had every intention of returning.