LILY’S MOTHER SAID. Lily pressed the receiver hard into her cheek, and tried to make herself as small as possible against the lodge wall. The only public phone in all of Camp Atropos was located just outside the door to Jo’s office, and you had to get Del’s permission to use it. Luckily, Del had left her alone when she said she needed to discuss a personal matter with her parents. “I can’t quite hear what you’re saying, Lily Belle,” her mom went on. “I heard her fine,” Lily’s stepfather, Steve, replied. Lily could picture them perfectly, sitting at the kitchen table with her mom’s mobile between them, on speakerphone. Lily’s mother, a Talented multitasker, would be drafting a shopping list and mending a hole in Steve’s sweater while mopping a coffee spill with her foot, and Steve would be twisting apart a sandwich cookie. He could do it perfectly every time, so that all the cream ended up on one side, no messy breaks.
