Three arrived, and Velma was trying to find the sand dune again.

"Look for a sand dune with a clump of grass on top, which eliminates about half of them, and with very disturbed sand at the base, which should give us a few clues."

The group split up, each searching a random sand dune. Velma especially felt a bit stupid, examining sand dunes, but she knew this was important.

Shaggy yelled suddenly, standing at the base of a sand dune about three quarters of the way down the beach.

"Like, this one might be it!"

Scooby barked next to him.

"Reah, reah!"

The rest of the gang ran over. Shaggy was pointing at a patch of sand that should have been smooth, but instead gave the impression that someone had dug it up and then done their best to smooth it out.

"This is the right area…" Fred mused. He pulled out a spade from the backpack with the spade in.

Velma watched carefully as Fred dug at the dune. Something caught her eye, reflecting the moonlight that bathed the beach in its glow back at her.

"Fred, stop for a second… What's that?"

Fred leaned on the spade, panting slightly, as Velma leaned down and picked up the object that had caught her eye, which she distinguished as a beautiful silver locket with a lily engraved on the top.

With trembling fingers, she opened the locket.

A little note was inside. She read it out loud:

"To Lily, the love of my life: I am so sorry. Johann."

The gang stared down at the note, which was written in a shaking but still elegant hand. Daphne broke the silence that descended.

"Well, at least we know it's the right sand dune…"

Fred nodded.

"That must be the name of the man we saw last night. Johann."

Shaggy looked up. "Like, there's a beach stall called Johann's Munches; me and Scoob ate there a couple of days ago…"

He had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

Velma stared down at the locket still, something growing inside her.

Suddenly she was Lily, walking along the beach, with the landscape as it might have been ten years ago. A man stopped her, he was clearly drunk and she tried to edge away from him, but he went down on one knee and asked for her hand in marriage; she gasped and screamed, but his eyes flashed red, he pulled something from his belt, it was a stonemason's hammer, and she was screaming, she shut her eyes tight as he pulled the hammer back-

"VELMA!"

Daphne and Fred were crouched next to Velma, staring at her with wide eyes, and Shaggy and Scooby looked concerned and confused.

Velma looked round, confused. She was lying on the floor in front of a sand dune, with her friends clustered round.

"I think…"

She swallowed. The gang were still watching her with something approaching wariness.

"I think I just experienced the last few moments of Lily's life."

Shaggy gaped. Scooby shook his head, looking confused. Daphne also looked confused. Fred looked a little frightened.

Velma related what she saw, shakily and a little hesitantly.

"I think this Johann was driven mad with hopeless longing, he was in love with her but she would never fall in love with him; he was definitely drunk. I think he killed her, and then buried her here and returns every year, on the anniversary of her death…"

Fred's face changed; Velma saw something dawn on it.

"No…"

"Huh?"

Fred swallowed.

"The date of her death was a full week ago."

Velma shook her head.

"She… I don't know, but I just think that this is the night that Lily died on. I can't explain it, I just know it. Lily- Lily's telling me her story."

Fred turned away and carried on digging. Velma couldn't read his expression, but she couldn't think she'd done something to upset him or anger him.

Suddenly there was a dull thunk from where Fred's spade was cutting into the sand, a wood-like sound.

Velma leapt up and started scrabbling at the area as Fred took a well-deserved break, leaning on the spade. When she glanced up she saw the expression was gone from his face.

Slowly her hands uncovered metal: a small plaque reading Lily Roper.

"We've found Lily," Velma murmured, as Fred started digging with a vengeance around the area.

Slowly a wooden panel appeared, and a lid. Fred stood back, his face white despite the digging.

"This is out of our league. We need to get the police now; we've found Lily, but she isn't alive."

The others silently agreed, sitting on the sand in front of the grave as Fred pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

As Velma looked out to the sea, looking at the ripples illuminated by the soft moon, she felt a strange mix of emotions: sadness that Lily was dead after all, that she had been murdered despite a strange hope she'd held to her; happiness that she had been found after all these years, and her mystery could be solved as she'd said and her killer could be brought to justice; a longing for her to be alive again, not lying as a corpse in the newly-uncovered coffin; and above all, a strange exhilaration that it was her and her friends who had done this, they had been chosen by Lily because of the work they did and loved.

When the police arrived, none of the gang looked into the coffin as they opened the lid. They didn't want to see, Fred and Velma especially.

A police van arrived to take the coffin away to a nearby police station. The police asked if the gang could also drive to the station. They needed to know what had happened, how the gang had found the coffin and the locket, and overall what clues they had to this mystery.

A silent gang piled into the Mystery Machine and headed after the van that bore the girl who used to be Lily Roper.