Epilogue

**6 years later**


**Nokosi**

“Lily?” I call, scratching the scruff of my chin. “Where are you? You little beast.”

I hear her giggle quietly from somewhere in the trees and chuckle to myself.

“Lily?” I call again softly, standing tall so as to try and catch a glimpse of the top of her black hair. “Come out, come out wherever you are.”

She giggles again and I see a flash of her pink jacket as she runs away from me.

“Come on, Lily,” I whine. “Dinner’s ready. I’m hungry. I’ve been working all day.”

“Gotta find me first, Papa!”

I race around the tree I saw her blur past.

This is getting tiresome.

“Lily,” I snap, feeling irritated now. “If you don’t get your butt here right now...”

“Okay, okay,” she grumbles, crawling out from under a bush. “Bossy boots.”

I grab her and lift her over my shoulder. “Who are you calling bossy boots?”

“You, Mr. Stinky.”

I swing her down into a cradle carry and she laughs, looking up at me with light brown eyes, just like mine, Nash’s, my father’s, and grandfather’s. To say they’re a dominant eye would be an understatement. Her hair is long, sleek, and black but braided into two perfect braids. She looks like me, but as promised on the day I got her, she kept her mother’s smile.

It’s my greatest joy each day seeing my heart smile and she is so easy to amuse.

“I love you.” I tell her this often because once upon a time I didn’t say it often enough.

Suddenly Lily gasps and scrambles out of my arms and onto her feet. “BINGBONG!” She races back towards the trees.

“Come on, Lily,” I push my hand through my hair.

“I’ll be one second, I forgot BINGBONG.”

Bingbong is this ridiculous-looking purple caterpillar stuffed animal that Nash brought her back from England. It’s funny because he was the homebody that never wanted to leave and he’s the one that has travelled the world. I, however, have stayed here with my daughter and father and I don’t regret a single second of it. I never want to be anywhere else.

Lily screams, it’s loud and sudden and not a scream of joy.

I don’t think, I just react, racing towards the sound, thinking the worst.

“LILY?” I yell, terrified. My feet hit the dirt, my legs carrying me faster than they ever have before. “LILY!”

No answer. Where was she hiding before? THINK, DAMN IT!

I look around, feeling my breath come out in quick, short bursts.

“LILY, PLEASE!” I beg, pushing on, deeper into the trees. She knows these woods; she wouldn’t have gotten lost. She couldn’t have gotten so far that she can’t hear me when I call.

WHERE IS SHE? I can’t lose her. No.

“LILY!”

“Right here, Daddy,” she says from my right, strolling from around a huge red alder tree without a care in the world, the purple toy under her arm.

I grip her shoulders and check her for damage. “What happened?”

“I slipped down the slope,” she replies, smiling, eyes shining with innocence and happiness. “But I’m okay, Mommy saved me.”

She’s said about her mother before, of course she has. She’s a little girl with only my aunts, and Mackenzie, Lilith’s sort of frenemy who stepped up to help after she found out about Lily.
I don’t know what I would have done without her to be honest. She’s been a constant, despite her busy life and crazy journalism job. I always thought she’d be a detective.

Lily is always obsessing over her mother and asking about her, and a few times she has claimed to see her. Usually on her birthdays.

It’s all wishful thinking of course.

“Did she?” I ask, raising my brow.

“Yeah,” she implores, nodding her head excitedly. “She told me to be more careful.”

“Well then, she’s very smart.”

“And beautiful.”

I laugh and pinch her nose. “The most beautiful woman in the world.”

She catches my humor and scowls at me. “You don’t believe me.”

I cup her cheek and smooth away her frown with my thumb. My hand is so big compared to her perfect little head. “I believe that you love your mommy so much, that you want to see her wherever you are.”

“She knew you wouldn’t believe me too, she said all you have to do is howl and she’ll howl back.”

I chuckle nervously, because that’s a bit eerie.

We still do the howl like I did as a teen, but it’s rare, and it’s mostly just something my family shares with Lily. She enjoys it.

“She did, she said she’ll howl so you know she’s okay and she’s happy and so you’ll know I’m not telling tales.”

Her imagination is insane. I just hope not as insane as her mother’s.

That was a joke Lilith definitely would have found funny.

“Come on.” I pick her up and prop her on my hip and we exit the trees in silence.

We get to my little cabin, the one Lilith and I were supposed to have, and I push open the heavy door then place my daughter on her feet.

I turn back to look at the trees, so thick and beautiful and peaceful.

Then, on a whim, and because why not? I cup my hands to my mouth, tilt my head back, and howl loud and long at the setting sun. Lily joins in, her little voice not carrying as far as mine, but it still lingers in the following echoes.

She giggles and holds my hand when I let it drop and I wait forever, watching the sun set for a few minutes, eyes scanning the trees, hoping she’ll maybe come back to me.

Nothing comes back to us, not a sound, not a shuffle, not a whisper, so with sadness we turn to go inside.

But then…

It happens.

Something howls back. A long, high note. It sounds just like Lilith. Exactly how I remember. Or maybe now I’m the one with the insane imagination.

It makes me feel emotional, even now after all these years I still wish she could be by my side.

“See, Daddy?” Lily asks, tugging on my hand and grinning with excitement and wonder. “That means she’s safe and happy.”

With tears blurring my eyes, I pick my daughter up and hug her tight. “It sure does, Lily-bug.”

I close the door behind us, saying goodbye for the last time.