The Last of the Moon Girls

by Barbara Davis

  “There’s plenty who think that way, little girl. You just don’t remember. You’d rather focus on the ones who gave your gran a hard time.”

  “It wasn’t only Althea who had a hard time.”

  Evvie nodded. “True enough. They came at you as well. But it wasn’t all of them. There were kindnesses. People who spoke out, who never bought a word of the lies. Your gran remembered that right up until the day she died. Maybe it’s time you remembered it too.”

  Calendula . . . for the healing of scars.

  My dearest girl,

  You’ve returned to the pages, seeking answers or comfort, perhaps both. How I wish I could be there to soothe you, the way I used to when you were little and smarting over some unkindness. You’ve been through so much in your short life. But then, being born into our clan, what choice did you have? You never wanted to be like us. Not when you learned the cost of it. I can’t blame you for being bitter. You have a right to that, and more I suppose. Isolation can be a terrible thing. And what girl doesn’t have her dreams? A white dress. A church full of flowers. Happily ever after. But we’re warned early on that those dreams are for other girls. Normal girls. And we none of us were ever that. Our path was mapped out eons ago, not a better path, though a different one to be sure. And for most of us, it was enough.

  But not for you, my Lizzy.

  You were never comfortable in the Moon skin. You wanted something else. Anything else. I think I knew it before you did. And though I hoped you’d change your mind one day, I was determined to let you find your way. I never pushed. Your mother taught me only too well where that can lead. You were all that was left—my hope and my pride. And so, I gave you your head, as they say, hoping with all my soul that one day you’d find your way back to your roots—to our roots.

  And then the girls went missing . . . It took twenty-four hours for the fingers to start pointing in my direction. I was the one. Because I had to be, didn’t I? The crone living at the edge of town, who grows herbs and mutters spells. I poisoned them, strangled them, hexed them with my dark powers. But the police had no case, no way to bring me to their so-called justice. And so the people of this town punished me in the only way they could, with their tittle-tattling and their cold shoulders. They crossed the street when they saw me in town and chased me from their stores—and you watched them do it. Day after day, week after week. As if things weren’t already hard enough for you, you had to end up with an accused murderer for a grandmother. You never spoke of it—you were far too stoic for that—but I could hear you through the wall at night, crying into your pillow, and it broke my heart to know what it was doing to you.

  Time leaves its wounds on us all, battering us in ways we do our best to hide. But you could never hide anything from me. I saw the wounds, felt the pain of each lash you suffered in my name. And I watched the scars begin to form, and watched you hide behind them. Because you don’t feel in the scarred places. There’s no registering of pain, just numbness meant to protect against future cuts. You shut yourself off from it, erected a wall around the soft parts of yourself. And in my desolation, I let you. I watched you slipping farther and farther away from me—and from yourself—until I barely recognized the tender girl I’d loved and raised.

  And now that you’ve been thrust back into all of that, your wounds, I fear, have reopened. But you must remember what it all meant, where it came from, and why. It wasn’t about anger or even hate. It’s never about those things. It’s about fear. Of anything that doesn’t fit into their tidy notion of what’s right and good. We upset the balance, you see, because we walk our own path and live our own truth. It’s always been a rough road for those who live differently from the herd. We’re seen as Other, a threat to the proper way of things. And so they label us, and they lash out. Because as long as they’re lashing out, they don’t feel their fear.

  Knowing this doesn’t make the knives easier to bear, but it does help us understand—and perhaps forgive. And you must forgive, my darling girl, and give up your scars. Bitterness is a subtle poison. It lulls with its righteous indignation and its false sense of power, then turns on you and burns your heart to ash. But forgiveness is balm to the wounded heart.

  And love. We must never forget love.

  Not only as something we feel, but as who we are deep down in our marrow. Which is why fear must never be allowed to eclipse it. Like most things in my life, I learned this the hard way, and am sorry to say I had to learn it more than once. To love truly is to risk the deepest cut, but it’s always a risk worth taking.

  Forgive me, Lizzy, for my preaching. Now, when so many years have passed. There were things we never spoke of, things that might have made that time easier for you. But I was struggling with my own wounds then, and my own fears. And so I must say them now, in the hope that you’ll remember them when you’re tempted to harden your heart. Salve your scars with love, my girl, whatever comes, and keep your heart open. Love—even love that cannot be returned—is never cause for regret.

  Love always,

  A—

  SIXTEEN

  July 28

  Lizzy stared at the desiccated flower resting in her lap, golden once, now nearly leached of color.

  Calendula . . . for the healing of scars.

  Once again, Althea had known exactly what to say, and when to say it. She’d been cautioned not to hurry through the book, to come back to its pages when she was ready. And this morning, when she opened her eyes, she had felt the familiar pull, beckoning her to read—to remember that fear often masquerades as hate, and that forgiveness is balm to the wounded heart. Could she forgive?

  Evvie was right. Not everyone in Salem Creek had turned their backs on the Moons. There were some—people like Penny Castle and Judith Shrum, like Andrew and his father—who had refused to believe the whispers. But the steady stream of baseless lies was easier to remember, the betrayal carved indelibly on Lizzy’s memory. That people who had known Althea all their lives could have abandoned her so completely was still incomprehensible. But they had, falling away one by one, leaving her to the mercy of public opinion. Except there’d been no mercy.

  But what of the others? Those who had spurned the rumors but kept a careful distance? Who’d never quite found the courage to speak out? Who had simply remained invisible? Where did they fall on the scale of betrayal? Where did she fall?

  The question continued to gnaw as she closed the book and went downstairs to make coffee. Evvie glanced up from her seat at the kitchen table, where she was painstakingly applying labels to about two dozen small jars of honey.

  “Breakfast?”

  “No thanks. Coffee’s all I need.” Lizzy filled the basket and pushed the brew button, then propped a hip against the counter to wait. “What’s with all the jars?”

  “Getting another batch of honey ready to take to Ben at the hardware store.”

  “Didn’t you just do that a few days ago?”

  Evvie dropped her gaze. “And what if I did?”

  Lizzy cocked her head, studying Evvie through narrowed eyes. She was wearing lipstick, a shimmery shade of coral that set off her eyes. And dangly jade earrings. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as why you won’t look at me all of a sudden. Or why you went all moony just now when you said Ben’s name.”

  Evvie glanced up, chin jutting. “I did no such thing!”

  Lizzy propped her hands on her hips, grinning slyly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were sweet on old Ben. Why else would you be making another trip so soon?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with being sweet on anybody,” Evvie grumbled petulantly. “He puts the jars out on the counter and his customers snatch them up. Can I help it if folks know a good thing when they taste it?”

  “So the lipstick’s just a coincidence?”

  “Oh, hush up and drink your coffee!”

  Lizzy swallowed a grin as she pulled a mug from the cupb
oard, then waited for the final drops to splutter into the pot. “Have you been out to the shop recently?”

  Evvie seemed surprised by the question. “To the shop? Not recently. Why?”

  “I was just wondering what was still out there.”

  “You’re thinking about Penny Castle’s headache tea,” Evvie said knowingly. “Might be some left. Far as I know, it’s just like your gran left it. She used to go out every day and putter around, not that many ever came to buy. But she went out every morning. Even after she got sick. After a while, it got to be too much. One day she locked the door, hung up the key, and that was that. We never spoke about it, but I know it broke her heart. This place, that shop and her herbs, were her life. And you, of course. But you were gone by then. The shop was the last of it.”

  Lizzy spooned a bit of sugar into her mug, stirring as she moved to the table. “Can I give you a hand?”

  “I’ve about got it finished. But you can grab me that box off the floor, so I can pack it up and get it out to the car.”

  Lizzy fetched the box and began filling it. “Ben will really sell all this at the hardware store?”

  “Every lick. Folks around here believe in buying local, even if it is from a woman with a funny accent and skin the color of old wood.” She shot Lizzy a wink as she hefted the box up into her arms. “You could come.”

  “To the hardware store?”

  “Might not be a bad thing to show yourself around. Let folks know you’re interested in something other than Fred Gilman.”

  “Actually, I have something I need to do. Or at least try to do.”

  Evvie removed her glasses, giving them a wipe with her apron. “Another meeting with your real estate man?”

  “That’s next week—I hope. No, this is something else. A favor I owe.”

  She waited until Evvie’s station wagon rattled down the drive, grabbed the key from the hook beside the mudroom door, and headed for the one place she still hadn’t been able to make herself go—Althea’s apothecary.

  The squat stone cottage had been built as a cider house in the 1820s, fashioned of rough-faced granite fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. Over the years it had served as many things: a dry cellar, a pottery shed, even a quilting room, but it had been relegated to storage when Althea decided to clear it out and set it up as a shop. She’d done a job of it too, creating something straight out of a fairy tale, complete with a curved stone path, ivied trellis, and flower boxes for the windows. In its heyday, it had drawn customers from all over New England. Now, the window boxes sat empty, the path grown over with weeds.

  So many memories shut up in one place.

  The key turned easily, but the door was swollen and required a series of lunges before finally yielding. Lizzy cringed as she stepped inside. The windows were rimed with grit, allowing only a murky wash of light to filter in, but it was enough to see that everything was coated in a fine layer of dust, the corners crisscrossed with cobwebs. She cringed as she crossed to the light switch, registering the queasy crunch of mouse droppings underfoot. She flipped the switch, and the overheads blinked on. A third of the bulbs were out.

  Not much had changed in the years she’d been gone. She scanned the shop: the back wall lined with shelves, the glass-front cabinets flanking the front windows, the butcher-block worktable running down the center. And Althea’s remedy book—a kind of cookbook filled with recipes for treating all manner of ailments.

  Lizzy picked it up, experiencing the same wave of reverence she’d always felt for Althea’s gift as a healer. For an instant, she caught the blended scents of lavender and bergamot, soft and fleeting, like a sigh hovering briefly in the air. A sign of welcome? A nod of approval? Or merely her imagination? Lizzy couldn’t say. But as she opened the book and began to page through, she realized it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was here, hoping to do some good, and that, somehow, Althea knew and was glad.

  The pages were chock-full of remedies. There were preparations for colic, for cramp, for night sweats and sore throats, for skinned knees and achy joints, and, finally, a recipe for migraine tea. But she didn’t need a recipe; she needed the finished product.

  There wasn’t much left on the shelves: a handful of dropper bottles and a smattering of salve tins. She moved to the drawers, where Althea kept more-specialized remedies in sealed plastic bags, carefully labeled and filed alphabetically by condition. It took a few minutes to comb through the packets, but she finally found what she was looking for—migraine tea.

  She squinted at the date on the label, but it was too faded to read. Time had definite effects on herbal potency, as did exposure to light and air, but these had been stored in airtight bags and kept in a dark cupboard. With any luck, they had retained at least some of their medicinal properties. And if not, they wouldn’t do any harm.

  She was about to leave the shop when she had an idea. She turned back, running her eyes over the shelves until she found what she was looking for: lavender and clary sage oils. She tucked the small blue vials into her pocket, already composing the instructions in her head on how they should be used. A few drops of each sprinkled on a warm compress, or added to a pot of boiling water to create a steam. A soothing and therapeutic complement to Althea’s tea.

  The lunch crowd was beginning to thin by the time Lizzy arrived at the drugstore. Penny Castle was busy behind the counter, clearing plates and topping off coffee mugs. She had just dropped off a check to a man in bib overalls and a Patriots cap when she spotted Lizzy.

  There was a flash of surprise, followed by a smile. She pointed to an open stool. Lizzy stepped forward but didn’t sit. Instead, she pulled a brown paper bag from her purse and handed it to Penny. “I found this in Althea’s shop, and wanted to bring it by.”

  Penny’s face lit as she peered into the bag. “My tea!”

  “There were only three packages, but I brought them all. There’s a chance it’s lost some of its potency, so you might want to steep it a little longer than you’re used to. I also threw in some aromatherapy oils I thought might help. There’s a note in the bag on how to use them.”

  “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. How much do I owe you?”

  “Consider it a gift,” Lizzy said, waving the offer away. “For old times’ sake.”

  Penny reached across the counter to give Lizzy’s arm a squeeze. “I know you’re not staying, but it’s good to see you back in Salem Creek. And to see that you turned out so much like your grandmother. She’d be so proud of you.”

  Lizzy felt a surprising lightness as she drove home. Not much had gone right since her return to Salem Creek, but bringing Penny Castle her tea had been both right and good. Such a small thing, a handful of herbs and oils. But for Penny, it wasn’t small at all. It meant relief, a place to turn when conventional medicine fell short, which to someone in chronic pain must feel like a miracle. Was that how Althea felt every day—like a miracle worker?

  The question was still with her as she made a quick U-turn and pulled into the Nature’s Harvest parking lot. Evvie had said something the other night about her grandmother making peach ice cream every summer when she was a girl. It wouldn’t be homemade, but it would be a nice treat after supper.

  It was early afternoon, and customers were scarce. Lizzy headed for the freezer section, grabbed a gallon of Hood peach, and made her way to the checkout. She had just put the ice cream on the conveyer belt when she looked up to find the woman working the customer service desk staring at her.

  She was thin and pale, with shoulder-length hair the color of dirty dishwater. Lizzy didn’t recognize her, but her name badge read HELEN. Helen’s eyes slid away when she realized she’d been caught staring, but they soon returned, lingering brazenly this time. Lizzy held the stare, trying to decide if what she saw in the woman’s face was curiosity or aversion. Not that it mattered. She’d grown up with looks like that. All the Moons had. And yet it surprised her that one glance from a stranger could still make her w
ant to slink away and hide.

  SEVENTEEN

  July 29

  Lizzy breathed a sigh of relief as she left the county registrar’s office. She was nowhere near through with the red tape, but at least she’d gotten the ball rolling. It had taken days to round up and sort through Althea’s financial papers, which consisted of a battered accordion file, a pair of dog-eared ledgers, and a shoebox filled with canceled checks and loose receipts.

  On the upside, in the drawer of Althea’s writing desk, she had discovered a manila envelope containing property tax documents, a declaration of trust, a beneficiary deed, and a boilerplate “Last Will and Testament.” Everything she’d need to handle the deed transfer—and apply for a mortgage if it came to that. Of course Althea had seen to it all.

  She’d know more once Chuck Bundy came out and had a look around. If he ever came out. She had called his office this morning to touch base and had been dismayed to learn that he hadn’t returned to work yet. His son had undergone a second surgery, and the possibility of a third hadn’t been ruled out. She had asked that her good wishes be passed along. She could hardly begrudge the man time with his son, but she couldn’t let this drag on much longer. If he didn’t return to work soon, she’d have to find another Realtor. Maybe she’d talk to Andrew when he got back from Boston, ask if there was someone he’d recommend.

  Her cell phone rang. She checked the display. Roger. It had been two days since she’d left the message about her conversations with Susan Gilman and Jenny Putnam, and she’d begun to wonder if he’d decided to steer clear of the case entirely, perhaps on the advice of his brother.

  “Hey, Roger.”

  “Sorry for the delay. I was out of town wrapping up an investigation when I got your message. I take it you have some thoughts to share about Heather Gilman.”