The Last of the Moon Girls(31)

“I said you need to help those girls move on. You’re worried about Mr. Gilman, but have you ever thought those girls might rest easier if someone caught whoever hurt them? That all this time they’ve been hovering between this world and the next, waiting for someone to figure out what really happened? And your gran—she might just feel like she’s got some unfinished business herself, things tethering her to this place, instead of where she’s meant to be.”

Lizzy lowered her spoon back to her bowl. “The other day—” She broke off, waving the thought away. “Never mind. It was nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing from where I’m sitting.”

“All right. The other day, when I was coming back from the pond, something weird happened. All of a sudden it was like she was with me. It was so real I felt like I was going to turn around and find her standing there.” She forced herself to meet Evvie’s gaze. “I smelled her, Evvie. The perfume I used to make for her—I could smell it.”

“They say smells can trigger memory.”

“They can,” Lizzy agreed. “The olfactory and memory centers of the brain are closely connected. But this didn’t feel like a memory. It felt . . . real.” She rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “Listen to me, carrying on like a crazy person. It is crazy, right?”

Evvie’s mouth softened, not quite a smile but close to it. “Maybe. But sometimes the craziest things are the truest of all. Just because we can’t explain a thing doesn’t mean it’s not real.”

Lizzy stared at her, still trying to wrap her head around this enigmatic woman, with her all-seeing eyes and strange half smiles. “Sometimes you say things, Evvie. Things that make me wonder if you’re . . .” She caught herself, waving away the rest of the thought. “Never mind.”

Evvie pushed back her chair and stood. “Come with me. There’s something I need to show you.”

Lizzy followed her to the backyard, past the greenhouse with its newly replaced glass, and the vegetable garden with its chicken wire fence and gate, finally coming to a stop before Evvie’s pastel-colored bee boxes.

Lizzy eyed them warily. She’d never developed Althea’s fondness for bees, or anything with wings and a stinger. She held her breath as Evvie laid a hand on the lid of one of the hives, a smile softening the corners of her mouth. Lizzy held her breath. She didn’t know a thing about beekeeping, but even she knew you were supposed to wear some sort of protective gear—a smock, gloves, one of those pith helmets with the netting. Evvie had none of that. She just stood there, barefaced and bare armed—and began to sing.

The hairs on Lizzy’s arms prickled to attention. It wasn’t a tune she recognized. The words were foreign and had a faintly French lilt. She stood spellbound as Evvie closed her eyes and let her head fall back, holding perfectly still as the song poured out low, lush, and achingly sweet. And then she slowly began to raise her arms, holding them out to her sides. An invitation, Lizzy realized. She was calling them to her.

One by one the bees came, hovering around her like a soft, humming cloud, eventually lighting on her arms, her neck, her cheeks. It should have been terrifying, but somehow it wasn’t. It was lovely and magical, and suddenly Lizzy understood.

She’s one of us.

It explained so much. The inexplicable sense of the familiar she’d felt almost from the beginning; those sharp, all-seeing eyes; her remark about family not always being about blood. Of course she and Althea had hit it off. They were sisters under the skin, walkers on the same path.

“Come meet my bees,” Evvie said, as if nothing remotely extraordinary had occurred.

Lizzy eyed the humming bodies still clinging to Evvie’s arms and shook her head. “Thanks. I’m good.”

“They’re happy. They won’t hurt you.”

Lizzy sucked in a breath, holding it as she inched closer. “Aren’t you supposed to have one of those smoker things?”

“Don’t need one.”

“You’re not afraid of being stung?”

“Nope.”

Lizzy couldn’t stop staring. Magick or not, it was hard to comprehend what she was seeing. “The song you were singing just now—what was it?”

“It’s called ‘Galine Galo.’ It’s a Creole lullaby.”

“You sing lullabies to your bees?”

“They like it.”

Lizzy cocked an eye at her, skeptical. And yet it was plain that Evvie’s song had not only attracted the bees, it had lulled them. They seemed almost . . . affectionate. “Have you always been able to do this?”

“Long as I can remember.”

“How on earth did you know to sing to them?”

Evvie shrugged. The bees on her shoulders stirred, then resettled. “Don’t know. Just did. My mama used to sing that song to me when I was little, and it always calmed me. Guess I figured if it worked for me, it would work for them.” She paused, pursing her lips to blow gently on one arm. “Go on,” she said softly, clearly talking to the bees. She turned to the other arm and blew again. “Go. Go. I’ve got work to do, and so do you.”

Lizzy watched, fascinated as the bees obeyed. When the last bee departed, Evvie bent to remove the lid from an old enamel washtub at the base of the hive. Inside was an assortment of tools. She pulled out a curved blade and set to work, prying one of the frames free, carefully lifting it out, shaking off several clinging bees.