In which things come to a head at last. Last part here.
Tag: ms. lilly
Ms. Lilly, 5/?
Previous part here!
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“…no idea…what….I don’t…can’t tell…”
From the couch, Willow could hear bits and pieces
of Uncle Dipper’s conversation with her parents. Acacia was sleeping on the
couch next to Willow, her mouth open and releasing drool on to Willow’s leg.She looked out from under her book down at her
older sister. This was just a period nap thankfully, and not a nap that
resulted from, say, your English teacher draining the energy from you somehow.
Acacia had gotten over that after two days, and was back to climbing onto the
roof of the house and using the zip line course she and Mom had put up last
year.
Ms. Lilly, 4/?
previous chapter here!
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“Bag check for Willow’s eyes!”
Grunkle Stan barked out a laugh, but his niece
didn’t even protest or crack a joke back about the even bigger bags under his.
Instead, she buried her head in her arms and curled up in the corner of the
living room that Mabel had piled thirty pillows and made a little balcony over.
Willow was wrapped up in the biggest sweater she owned, an old one of Henry’s
that she swam in, and had a blanket around her. Her long hair hung limp and she
was pale and wan.Stan didn’t need weird mind shit to know that there
was something wrong with his niece. He was going to regret this in the morning,
but Stan lowered himself onto the floor next to Willow, making sure to sit
against the part with lots of pillows“What’s got your goat kid?” Stan asked.
Ms. Lilly, 3/?
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The next two months passed in a blur for Willow.
There were lunches with her siblings and her
friends, afternoons spent at the arcade with Vierna, going to see Aunt Grenda
at the pet store and almost getting eaten by a basilisk.There was card games with Grunkle Stan, Uncle
Dipper taking her out to blow up hay bales, another three sweaters from Mom and
trips to Bend with Dad.And there were lessons from Ms. Lilly, lessons that
taxed her, made her feel like she was being stretched thin.It had taken two weeks before Willow was finally
able to shield herself well enough to prevent Ms. Lilly from blasting through the
walls she had erected around her mind.But she didn’t even get a chance to relax before Ms.
Lilly began her next round of lessons.
Ms. Lilly, 2/?
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She didn’t talk to Ms.
Lilly after class next day, or the day after that either. If there was one
thing that she learned from Grunkle Stan (well, she learned lots of things from
him but-), it was that it wouldn’t do for the mark know how eager you were, how
interested.“They need to come to
you kid,” he had told her one day when she was eight and she had interrupted a
high stakes game of poker in the Library on accident. “They’re fish, and you’re
the fisherman. Now hand me that card off the floor.”She couldn’t quite do
that since Ms. Lilly was her teacher and a person in authority, so after a
week, she stayed behind after class, staying in her desk even as her sister and
friend and classmates left.Ms. Lilly finished
erasing the chalkboard and turned around. Today she wearing a white dress with
long sleeves that cinched at her waist, and a necklace with a black lacquered
rose hanging from the chain.“Oh, my goodness, hello
Willow darling! I did not see you there.”Willow looked down,
feigning shyness. “I…I thought about what you offered me…” she started
tentatively, hesitating between words.Ms. Lilly moved across
the room, sitting down in the desk next to Willow, a look of grave concern on
her face.“Willow, this is a big
step you are taking, it’s okay to have taken your time to think about it.” She
took Willow’s hand in hers, cold and clammy. “I’m not mad darling, I promise.”
Ms. Lilly, 1/?
Whereupon Dipper does not actually know everything, new friends are introduced, and Miss Willow Pines meets a new English teacher who is more like her than she first thought.
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Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in and feel the motion of this rock spinning in
the void, feel the slight shift of the plates in his bones.Breathe out and winds blowing wildly the next continent
over in time with the air leaving his body.Breathe in and wonder if he should let the plants he felt
under him take root within him, wondered if it was better for the ground to
swallow him, to let him sleep forever, free from the pain of-Suddenly he was soaking wet, skin stinging with the touch
of holy water, and Dipper shot up, broken from his reverie.Mabel stood next to him on their front lawn, an empty
water bucket in her hand.“You scared Willow,” she said, kneeling a bit to offer
him a hand up. He took it with a wince and Mabel easily pulled him to his feet,
noticing the plant roots poking from his back.
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