She doesn't notice Nyani until she feels a gentle hand touch her shoulder. She looks up with a start.
"Oh, Nyani, it's you. What's up?" Lily slows her walking pace a little.
"Nothing much, just wondering where you're going," is not what Nyani says, as she cannot speak. Wisps aren't capable of communication.
"I'm visiting a friend," Lily answers anyway, "well... a grave. I visit her — it — every year on my birthday." Lily focuses on the ground again, fiddling with the barrette in her hair for a moment before turning back to her friend. "Do you want to come with?"
Nyani continues walking slightly behind Lily, a sign that yes, she wants to come with.
"Her grave isn't in the forest. She's in Calla's garden," Lily says grimly.
Calla is a tall, dark haired woman who lives in a mansion she inherited from her grandfather. She owns a beautiful, massive flower garden in her backyard which is open to visitors. In this town, it's common knowledge that when people pass away, they're planted in the Gravewood Forest, where a tree grows from their body marking their grave. This practice is common enough that its normal to feed newborns gravewood seeds which stay in their bodies and does not grow until death. However, a body is not always recoverable. Sometimes someone goes missing, or their body is too ravaged (torn, burned, etc) to be planted, or they just plainly have nobody to plant them. It is these cases in which Calla takes pity on the dead and adds them to her garden. There are not literally bodies in her garden like the Gravewood forest; a loved one being "in Calla's garden" is shorthand for "there was no body to bury". No one knows how Calla is able to know who dies and when, especially when it's someone who had no family or had gone missing. Upon being asked, Calla simply goes quiet and still, closing her eyes. The conversation typically ends after that.
Lily explains all of this to her curious friend as they approach the aged mansion. Despite Nyani's lack of expression, Lily understands that she loves to learn new things. The two girls walk up the steps toward the mansion's front door, turning to follow a stone pathway which leads around the building to the grave garden. When they reach the open gate, Nyani suddenly freezes up.
"Nyani?" Lily asks with concern, "Are you alright?"