Rowan by Josephine Angelini Page A

Samantha was dead, and Lily was pretty sure that she had killed herself. Fear shot through Lily as she considered whether or not her version of Samantha would do the same someday. If she were distressed enough, she might. Say, if one of her daughters disappeared into thin air, for instance.
    “I have to go back,” Lily whispered. “Please. I don’t belong here.”
    “But you do, Lily. You do. And you will stay,” Lillian answered calmly.
    “We can’t keep her here,” Juliet hissed at her sister disbelievingly. “Enough, Lillian. I don’t know what the shaman taught you in those secret meetings—yes, I know about them,” she said when Lillian shot her a surprised look. “Don’t worry, I’m the only one who does. I assumed you were sneaking around for a reason, so I never mentioned it to anyone. Not even Rowan. But we brought the shaman here to help Mom, not so you could do whatever it is you’re doing.” Juliet threw her hands up, staring at Lily. “This is wrong. You have to send her back to her world.” A half-hysterical laugh escaped Juliet’s lips. “I can’t even believe I just said that.”
    “Juliet. I know this is a shock for you,” Lillian said slowly. “But I brought her here for a reason. And when she gets past her fear, she’ll realize that she wants to stay.” Lillian’s tone was icy and final.
    “But I don’t!” Lily exclaimed. She felt like she was choking. “I want to go home!”
    “To what?” Lillian asked derisively, her sweaty cheeks flushing red with anger. “A world that makes you sick? Armies of reckless doctors and scientists who don’t have a clue what to do with you because they only know how to cut and destroy?” Lillian said the words “doctors” and “scientists” with sneering hatred, but her brief, passionate tirade was curtailed by bone-rattling coughs.
    Juliet tried to soothe her sister, but Lillian pushed her hands away. Lily watched, silent and still, as Lillian fought the paroxysm, and after several painful moments of gasping, she could speak again.
    “Or maybe you want to go back to your Tristan? That fickle prettyboy who doesn’t want you? Or back to the family that would be better off without you?”
    “My mother,” Lily said, her voice catching. “She’ll—”
    “She’ll suffer more with a sickly daughter like you in her life than out of it. Believe me.” Lillian’s eyes drilled into Lily’s, cold and unrelenting. “You’re useless in your world. Worse. You’re a burden. But here, where you belong, you could be the most powerful woman in the world.”
    Lily didn’t have much experience with hate. She didn’t even hate her dad for abandoning her, even though no one would have blamed her if she did. But as she watched Lillian finish her bitter speech and fall back against the pillows, she realized that she hated her. Lillian looked so pathetic, but Lily couldn’t help hating her. In fact, she’d never hated anyone or anything as much as she hated this evil other self in the big white bed.
    “And what are you going to do to keep me here? Tie me up? Put me in a dungeon?” Lily asked, trying her hardest not to think how similar her vicious tone, even the cadence of her sentences, was to Lillian’s. A thought dawned on her. “You said you brought me here for a reason. You need me, don’t you? You need me so much, you can’t even stop me from leaving.”
    “By all means, go,” Lillian said with a calculating smile. “Run along.”
    Lily turned and walked away from the bed, marveling at her own audacity. She had no idea where to go. She felt light and strange, like her blood had filled with cold bubbles and her belly with slippery rope. Her vision shrank in from the sides, collapsing until all she could see was the door. Lily lunged for it, praying that she didn’t faint first.
    “Lillian!” Juliet cried.
    “Let her go,” Lillian said. “She needs to go.”
    “She could get hurt out there. It’s too dangerous,” Juliet