The Last of the Moon Girls(5)

A warrant had been issued, a pair of small straw poppets found. Voodoo dolls, the paper had called them, because they bore an eerie resemblance to the missing girls, right down to the color of the coats they’d been wearing the night they disappeared. But they hadn’t been buried as the tipster claimed, only left out under a full moon, along with a small cloth bag of salt and caraway seeds. A protection ritual, Althea had explained to police, an offering to help guide the girls safely home to their parents.

They’d searched the pond next. An hour later, the bodies of Heather and Darcy Gilman had been dragged up from the bottom while half the town watched from behind a line of yellow crime tape. The ME’s findings hadn’t been long in coming: a fractured skull for one girl, a broken neck for the other. Both homicide.

Decades-old rumors resurfaced with a vengeance, sometimes whispered, sometimes not. Spells, potions, naked rituals held at full moon. Virgin sacrifices. Many circulated by people who’d known Althea all their lives. There wasn’t a shred of real evidence, which was why no case had ever been brought, but that hadn’t stopped the tongues from wagging. Or prevented the good people of Salem Creek from holding a candlelight vigil—one nearly half the town had shown up for—to pray away the evil in their midst. Innocent until proven guilty—unless your name was Moon.

And now the woman they’d suspected of murder was dead. Had there been a sigh of relief? A day of feasting proclaimed by the mayor?

Ding-dong, the witch is dead?

Yes. Definitely wallowing now, and maybe just a little bit tipsy. She should probably scare up something to eat, but the idea held little appeal. Instead, she headed down the hall with her purse and her newly filled glass, intent on a long, hot soak before bed.

She tossed her purse on the bed and peeled out of her clothes, then turned to retrieve her wineglass from the nightstand. The contents of her purse had spilled out over the comforter, including the journal Evangeline Broussard had sent along with her letter. The sight of it hit her like a blow to the solar plexus, the kind that doubled you up even when you knew it was coming.

Althea was gone.

Grief overwhelmed her as she sagged onto the bed and picked up the book, her tears so hot and jagged she nearly missed the sheet of paper that slid from between the pages and into her lap. She blinked at it, her tears shuddering to a sudden halt. The words were splotchy in places, but there was no mistaking Althea’s taut script.

My dearest Lizzy,

If you’re reading this letter, you know that I’m gone, and why I asked for your book to be sent. Your happiness was all I ever wanted—and all I want for you still—but it would be a lie to say I didn’t hope that happiness would be found at Moon Girl Farm. I’ve never stopped wishing you home, wishing that one day you would come back to the land we both love so well, and to the Path the Moons have walked for generations. You showed such promise as a girl, so many gifts. But you were afraid of being different—of being special. You wanted so badly to be like everyone else that you were willing to throw away those gifts. But gifts like yours can’t be thrown away. They’re in you still, waiting to be called up. Waiting for you to come home. Ours is a long and undiluted line, but I fear that line will soon be broken, our legacy lost forever. You’re all that’s left now, the last and best of us. But there are still things to learn, things there wasn’t time to share before you went away. Broken things that need mending. Hidden things that need telling. The books are here, the teachings of all those who came before you. And you are their steward now, the keeper of our secrets. It’s my hope that one day your book will be there too, shelved beside mine, so that gifts like ours will not be lost to the world. But that choice is not mine to make. It’s yours. We all of us have a story—one we tell knowingly or not with our hours and our days. But as I said all those years ago, no one should write your story but you. Whatever you choose, know that you are always in my heart, and that this is not goodbye. There are no goodbyes, my Lizzy, only turnings of the Circle. Until then . . .

A—

Lizzy was still crying as she folded the letter and slid it back between the blank pages of the journal. They were the kind of words that should never have to be written, the kind that should be said only face-to-face. Not that her grandmother’s letter held many surprises. She had always known what was expected of her—the same thing that was expected of every Moon girl. She was meant to produce a daughter and train her in their ways, to ensure that the line remained unbroken, because that’s how it had been done for generations.

There were no Moon men. No brothers or sons, or husbands either. It hadn’t been planned that way—or if it had, no one ever said so aloud. The Moon girls had just never been the marrying kind, preferring to keep their own company, raise their own daughters, and focus their energy on the family farm.

But precious little had remained of the farm by the time Lizzy left for school—or of the family for that matter—and she doubted the eight years she’d been gone had done much to repair that. Besides, she had a life. One she’d worked hard to build. Let someone else rebuild the farm, someone who actually wanted it.

But Althea’s words echoed back to her. The books are here, the teachings of all those who came before you. And you are their steward now . . .

Once again, it came down to the books. That’s why Althea had arranged to send her journal. It wasn’t just about her story. It was about all their stories, and the duty that now fell to her as keeper of the Moons’ secrets. Always, always duty.