Even now, no one was really sure what the Moons were, though there had been plenty over the years willing to venture an opinion, throwing around words like voodoo and witchery. Not that the good people of Salem Creek professed to believe in witches. Those superstitions had died more than a century ago, along with practices like pricking and dunking.
But the Gilman girls had acted as a touch paper, reigniting speculation and long-buried wives’ tales. The murders went unsolved but the whispers lived on, while Althea’s beloved farm withered for want of customers. Rhanna had been the first to go. Lizzy had moved to New York City a short time later, a twenty-eight-year-old freshman bound for Dickerson University—and a life as far from Moon Girl Farm as she could get.
And now Moon Girl Farm was hers.
She sighed as she surveyed the grounds, struck by the glaring signs of neglect. Behind the house, neatly parceled flower beds had long since gone to weed, leaving a smattering of stunted blooms visible through the damp, green overgrowth. The herb rows had fared no better. But the neglect ran deeper than just the land. Beyond the ruined fields, the old stone cider house that served as Althea’s apothecary had grown shabby as well. The slate-paved courtyard had once been filled with racks of potted herbs and bright summer flowers. Now crabgrass grew between the pavers, and the racks sat empty, the windows coated with grit. What must it have been like for Althea to see it shut up? To know her life’s work was at an end? And to bear it all alone?
Across the fields, the old drying barn stood like a sentinel, its vivid indigo-blue boards now weathered to a dull blue gray, the hand-painted clouds and milky white moon decorating its west-facing wall faded to little more than ghosts.
The skyscape had appeared almost overnight, a manifestation of Rhanna’s unpredictable and often outrageous muse. The fanciful artwork had caused quite a stir with the locals. An eyesore, some said, too hippie-dippie for the likes of Salem Creek. But the barn had eventually become something of a landmark, even appearing once in Yankee magazine as part of a feature on the hidden treasures of rural New England.
Even now, dulled by time and weather, the sight of it brought a smile. It had been her main haunt as a teenager—her alone place—cool and quiet, and blissfully off-limits to customers. It had also been an ideal place to set up a makeshift lab to work on her perfumes. Now, like the rest of Moon Girl Farm, it had become a shadow of its former self.
Lizzy shook off the memories as she headed for the car and her suitcase. She was hungry and tired after the drive, and still battling the remnants of a wine headache. There’d be plenty of time for recrimination after she’d scrounged up something to eat.
The elements had taken a toll on the house, the sage-colored boards weathered to a shade that was more gray than green, the window lintels sagging and porous with rot. And yet here it stood, weather weary, but proud somehow, as tenacious as the woman who had built it more than two hundred years ago.
The door groaned as Lizzy turned her old house key in the lock and pushed inside. She stood still for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom of the entry hall. She’d forgotten how dark the house was, especially at the front, where the boughs of an ancient ash tree blocked the sunlight. But it was the stillness that struck her most, the sense that with Althea gone time had somehow stopped moving forward.
The parlor was exactly as she remembered: the tweedy settee under the front windows, the pair of worn wingbacks flanking the brick fireplace, the mismatched collection of pewterware on the mantel—and the portraits lining the opposite wall. They were crudely rendered, for the most part, the work of various amateurs over the years, but each framed face bore a striking resemblance to its neighbor. Dark hair worn plainly, skin pale enough to be called translucent, and the telltale gray eyes that marked all the Moon women.
She had grown up under those watchful eyes, their collective gaze so intense that she had often avoided the room as a child. Each face tells a story, Althea would say, before quizzing her on the names. Sabine. Patrice. Renée. Dorothée. Sylvie. Honoré.
The unexpected scuff of feet brought Lizzy up short. She turned sharply, surprised to find a mahogany-skinned woman standing at the base of the stairs. She was tall and strangely beautiful, with a high forehead, broad cheeks, and salt-and-pepper hair shorn almost to the scalp.
“She said you’d come,” the woman said, after a weighty moment of silence.
“Who are you?”
“Evangeline Broussard. Evvie.”
“You sent the letter.”
“I did. Twice, as a matter of fact.”
Lizzy lifted her chin, chafed by the unspoken censure. “I moved.”
Evvie seemed in no hurry to respond. She regarded Lizzy through narrowed eyes, sweeping her from head to foot. “You forgot to tell your gran.”
Lizzy closed her eyes briefly, startled by the mingled tang of vinegar and spoiled peaches that seemed to radiate from the woman.
Disapproval.
It was a thing she had. The ability to read a person based on scent, like reading an aura, but with her nose instead of her eyes. It had started around the time she hit puberty, a common time for such gifts to ripen, Althea had explained.
The episodes had been overwhelming at first: jumbled scents that hit without warning, and rarely made sense. It took a while, but she’d eventually learned to decipher what was coming through, and even use it to her advantage, like a radar ping alerting her to possible threats. But her skills had grown spotty since moving away, as if leaving the farm had somehow diminished her reception. Now, suddenly, she was picking up a signal again, and that signal was disapproval.
“I meant to let her know, but I . . .” Lizzy let the words trail, annoyed that she felt the need to explain herself to a stranger. “What are you doing here?”
“Could ask you the same.”
“Yes, but I’m asking. And since this is my grandmother’s house, I think I’m entitled to an answer.”
“I was her friend,” Evvie answered flatly. “Who else would’ve written that letter?”
Lizzy tipped her head to one side, trying to read this strange woman. She had a peculiar lilt to her voice, her words rising and falling like the notes of a song. It was lovely and musical—and slightly unsettling. Or perhaps it was the woman’s copper-flecked green eyes that made it difficult to meet her gaze straight on. “I assumed Evangeline Broussard was someone who worked for Althea’s lawyer. Or the funeral home. I didn’t expect to find you here.”
Evvie grunted. “Makes us even, I guess. Why are you here? Now? After all this time?”
Lizzy groped for an answer, but the truth was she didn’t have one. At least not one she felt comfortable sharing. “There are some things of my grandmother’s I wanted to take care of personally. Things I know she’d want me to have.”
Evvie’s eyes narrowed again, but she made no reply. Instead, she offered the barest of nods before turning away, her battered UGGs scuffing the floorboards as she headed for the kitchen.
Lizzy followed, noting for the first time that Evvie was wearing one of Althea’s floral aprons. “Are you cooking something?”
“Supper.”
Lizzy watched as she lifted the lid from the soup pot simmering on the stove. After a taste, she pulled a jar of something from a nearby cabinet and sprinkled a pinch into the pot.
“You live here?” Lizzy asked as the truth slowly began to dawn.
Evvie turned, still clutching her spoon. “I do. Unless you’re here to give me the boot.”
Lizzy stifled a sigh. She was too tired to do battle, especially with a stranger. “I’m not here to give you the boot. I didn’t even know you were here. Were you . . . her caregiver?”
Evvie laid down her spoon and wiped her hands on her apron. “She didn’t pay me, if that’s what you’re asking, but I suppose I was. It’s what friends do for each other—give care.”
Lizzy felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry, I’m just trying to unde
rstand.”
“You hungry?”
Lizzy blinked at her. “What?”
“Hungry?” Evvie repeated, as if speaking to a particularly dull child. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I guess . . .”
“Good then. Set the table.”
They ate in silence at the kitchen table—a rice dish of some sort, made with tomatoes and beans, and plenty of spice. It was delicious and exotic, full of ethnic flavors Lizzy couldn’t place. And thankfully it contained no meat, sparing her the potentially awkward vegetarian discussion.
“She never told me she was sick,” Lizzy said when the silence grew heavy. “I would have come if she had.”
Evvie nodded as she drizzled a wedge of corn bread with honey. “She knew that. It’s why she didn’t tell you. Even at the end, when I begged her to let me call you. She was a stubborn old thing. Said you were too. Somehow, I don’t have trouble believing that.”
Lizzy looked down at her plate, toying with her food. What was it about the woman that made her feel like a naughty schoolgirl?
“She wanted you to want to be here,” Evvie said finally, licking honey from her fingers. “And if you didn’t, she wanted you to be happy wherever you were. That’s how much she loved you. Enough to let you go.”
Lizzy put down her fork and wiped her mouth. “I didn’t just leave her, Evvie. I went away to school—like I’d always planned to do. I never hid the fact that I wanted out of this town. When I got accepted to Dickerson, I knew it was time. Althea was sad that I was leaving, but she understood.”
“She knew that if she tried to keep you, she’d lose you for good. And I guess she knew best, ’cause here you are—finally.”
“Then why the shot about me leaving?”
Evvie turned coppery green eyes on Lizzy. “I didn’t take a shot. Least not the way you think. It isn’t the leaving I have a problem with. I get that part well enough. It’s the staying gone that gripes me. Everyone’s got a right to go looking for themselves, but once they manage it, they should come back home and deal with what’s past, look things squarely in the eye.” She paused, pushing back her plate, then fastened her eyes on Lizzy’s face. “Or maybe you haven’t really found yourself.”
The remark chafed, as it was almost certainly meant to. But there were things Evvie didn’t understand.
“There was a reason I wanted out of Salem Creek, Evvie. Something happened—”
“I know all about those girls,” Evvie said, cutting her off. “And what people thought, and what they said, and how they treated your gran. I know about your mama too, how she lost her mind that day in the coffee shop and said those awful things about cursing the whole town. How she packed up her clothes and hightailed it out of here, leaving everything in a shambles. I know it all.”
Lizzy only needed to meet Evvie’s eyes to see that it was true. She did know it all. Or almost all. “Is there still talk? About Althea, I mean. Do people still think—”
Again, Evvie cut her off. “I didn’t hear it through the grapevine, if that’s what you’re asking. Your gran filled me in. As for this town, I don’t know what they think. I can tell you no one’s ever uttered a word where I could hear it, but then they wouldn’t be likely to.”
The sudden intensity in Evvie’s voice took Lizzy by surprise. “Why not?”
“They know better, I expect.” The ghost of a smile appeared, showing teeth as white and even as a well-knotted string of pearls. “I think they’re a little scared of me. Not too many faces like mine in Salem Creek.”
It was Lizzy’s turn to smile. She had no trouble believing people in Salem Creek were afraid of Evvie. She was nothing if not formidable. And yet there was something about her that was inexplicably comforting, a curious sense of the familiar.
“Tell me about my grandmother,” she said softly. “How long was she sick?”
“Dishes.”
“I’m sorry?”
Evvie pushed to her feet, scraping her chair across the oak floorboards. “We can talk while we do up the dishes. Bring your plate.”
Lizzy finished clearing while Evvie filled the sink. It felt strangely good to be back in the kitchen where she and Althea had spent so many happy hours, like stepping into a pair of old slippers you hadn’t worn in a long time, and for a moment she could almost forget the terrible chain of events that had changed their lives forever. Almost.
“So my grandmother . . . ,” Lizzy prompted, accepting the dripping plate Evvie was holding out.
“Her liver,” Evvie said, fishing another plate from the soapy water. “It just gave out. She finally broke down and went to the doctor, but there wasn’t much they could do. Sometimes we just wear out. And she didn’t want any heroics. You know how she was. Never one for a fuss.”
“Were you here when she . . .” Lizzy let the question dangle, unable to say the word out loud.
“I was.”
“And her ashes—that was you too?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Lizzy put down her towel, her throat full of razor blades as she captured Evvie’s soapy hand. “I don’t know what to say except thank you. For being her friend. For being here. For doing the things that needed doing. It should have been me. It should have been family.”
Evvie looked up from the sink, her chin wobbling as she blinked away a film of tears. “It was,” she said thickly. “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes you just recognize someone. That’s how it was with your gran and me. We were kin. A special kind of kin.”
Anyone looking at Evvie, at her mahogany skin and copper-flecked eyes, would have a hard time believing she could be any sort of kin to Althea. And yet Lizzy had no trouble believing it.
“I’m glad she had you, Evvie. That she had someone with her who loved her.”
Evvie’s face softened. “You go on up now. I’ll finish here. You look done in.”
Lizzy nodded. Done in didn’t begin to describe how she felt after the events of the last twenty-four hours. She dried her hands, and was about to head to the hall to retrieve her suitcase when Evvie stopped her.
“Almost forgot. I’m in your old room, so you’ll need to use Althea’s. Bed’s been stripped, but there are sheets in the hall closet. I’ll move your clothes and things in there tomorrow.” She paused, running a critical eye over Lizzy’s skinny jeans and trendy black boots. “You’ll need real clothes around here.”
Lizzy accepted the critique of her wardrobe but balked at the idea of sleeping in Althea’s bed. It felt wrong somehow, intrusive and disrespectful. “I’ll use Rhanna’s old room. It’ll only be for a few days.”
Evvie shook her head. “Can’t. Rhanna’s room is more storage than bedroom these days. Besides, your gran would be happy to know you were in her room.”
“I don’t think—”
“Go on now,” Evvie pressed softly. “She’d want you there.”
Althea’s room was at the head of the stairs. Lizzy closed her eyes briefly as she took hold of the knob, steeling herself for the flood of emotions she knew waited on the other side of the door. She lingered in the doorway, picking out small, familiar details: the volume of Rumi that had been Althea’s favorite, the bit of stag antler they had discovered one day while walking in the woods, the carved wooden bowl of wishing stones on the nightstand.
In the end, it was the dressing table that finally drew her into the room. It had been her favorite spot in the house as a child, the place where her love affair with fragrance had begun. Geranium, jasmine, patchouli, sandalwood—an endless array of scents to blend in fresh, new ways, like an artist’s palette for the nose. As far back as she could remember, Althea had spun tales about the strange talents of the Moon women, each uniquely gifted with her own quiet way of being useful in the world. And one day, while sitting at this dressing table, Lizzy had discovered her own brand of quiet magick—the glorious, mysterious alchemy of fragrance.
She had known instinctively that fragrance was its own kind of medicine, that it
s natural abilities to elevate mood and evoke emotion could be enormously effective in restoring a sense of well-being. She had also gleaned—thanks to her unusual gift—that every person possessed their own distinct scent, like fingerprints, a set of olfactory markers that acted like a kind of signature. It was a discovery that eventually became the foundation of her entire career.
On her fourteenth birthday, she had announced her intention to bottle Althea’s love for the land. It was an impossibly childish idea—capturing emotions like fireflies in a jar—but Althea hadn’t discouraged her, despite the fact that she hadn’t a clue where to begin. She had simply followed her nose, eventually settling on lavender because it smelled like earth, and bergamot because it smelled like sunshine, and together they smelled like Althea. A few months later, she made good on her intention, unveiling a simple, dual-note fragrance she’d named Althea, after the woman who had inspired its creation.
She’d found the bottle in one of the dusty secondhand shops downtown, and saved her lunch money for two weeks to afford it. It was still on the dressing table, square with a heavy base and a long, tapered stopper. It had been refilled many times over the years but was empty now, save for the sticky brown resin at the bottom. She lifted the stopper anyway, hoping for a telltale whiff of her grandmother, but was disappointed to find only the cloying tang of oxidized oils.
A fresh wave of grief washed over her as she returned the bottle to the dressing table, the ache of Althea’s absence moving through her like a physical pain as she wandered to the low-ceilinged nook that had served as a storage larder before Althea fitted it with shelves and a chair for reading. Over the years, her grandmother had acquired many cherished possessions, but none more cherished than her books. Her guilty pleasures, she had called them, perfect for whiling away the frigid New England winters.
The Last of the Moon Girls Page 3