Chapter Two: All Those Years Ago
He stumbled off the porch, a great slab of concrete surrounded by a flourishing flowerbed. His shoes grazed the flowers, a soft mound of greens and whites and yellow, strips of red, all held in place with an edging of leaning orange bricks, faded and chipped.
Ted Serling, age three. He jogged down the sloping backyard. His feet tripped under him and he fell back on the lush St. Augustine grass. He stood and wiped the grass from the back of his pants, which were damp from the dew. He heard her laugh.
Aunt Lilith waved. A few yards ahead, passed the manicured lawn and myriad of flower beds and fountains, standing in front of the trees. Imposing sentries of gray wood, the gate he was never allowed beyond.
She smiled. To him, she seemed tall, standing completely straight like one of the trees. She leaned down as he approached. Hair gray and white, she had a smile that would shed the years. Her hands, soft, wrinkled, and veined with age, brushed over his hair. She wore a white buttoned blouse, one that never picked up an ounce of dirt despite the hours Lilith spent in her garden.
He took her hand in his, holding it for a moment. His dark, hers pale.
"You don't look like me," Ted said.
"No one looks alike," Aunt Lilith laughed. She got on her knees and then sat beside him. She hugged him to her side.
"We're different," Ted said.
"Well," Aunt Lilith cooed. "You're human."
She smiled wider. So did he. Ted looked up at the trees. Bones and skulls were nailed to them, or held fast with bailing wire. Some arranged in patterns. Aunt Lilith told him they formed special letters. In the eyes of the skull, his aunt had been placing sunflower blooms.
Ted pointed to them.
"They keep us safe," she said.
He nodded. He looked at the flowers in the basket on the ground next to his aunt.
"And those," she said. "Those make them pretty. Now, go play. DB will be along shortly."
Ted ran. Aunt Lilith stood up. "Now Ted, don't go too far."
* * *
Ted remembered in dreams. But she ever forgot. The sun had not risen yet, the air in the backyard crisp. December drew close. Short days and long nights awaited them. She didn't see him, but she knew DB watched. She'd called him Mazz until Ted christened him DB. She could now call him nothing else.
"I know you know," Lilith whispered. To Ted, she would look as she did. But when she caught a glimpse of her face, whether her true one or the image she created for people to see, she saw age. She could see the weight of time and knowledge, a heaviness that worn out every living thing, starting from the heart and working outward.
She had been alone in these woods for far too long.
She felt an energy stir inside her chest, a hope. Ted was coming home.
"We need him. I need him. Don't you agree?"
No response. She wasn't surprised. DB had not spoken since the day he led Ted away.
Lilith reached out, her hands stroked the fresh bones adorning the tree. They felt cool and wet to the touch. Dew, or a residue from the boiling and preparation? She hummed, picking up a small wicker basket and placing one sunflower bloom after another into the empty eye sockets.
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