The Last of the Moon Girls(55)
Take from these scribblings what you will. They are the musings of an old woman who wishes with all her heart to see you happy, but longs to see her life’s work carried on too. We each have many destinies to fulfill. Being your grandmother was one of mine, and I would be remiss to stop teaching you now, simply because my feet no longer leave prints in the earth. And so I will say what is on my heart, because it is what I have always done. One day, perhaps soon, you will find yourself at a place of choosing, torn between the life you were born to and the one you’ve made for yourself, between your duty and your dreams.
And yet the two are not so far apart as you think. Trust your heart. Trust the magick. It’s in you still, tightly furled, waiting to be coaxed out into the light. You look around at what you’ve been left, which isn’t much just now, I’ll grant, and see only decline and decay. But nothing is ever too far gone, my Lizzy. Nothing is beyond rebirth.
A—
TWENTY
August 7
Lizzy came awake with a jolt, eyes wide in the cocoonlike darkness of Althea’s room, wondering what had startled her from sleep. There was no light bleeding under the door, no footsteps in the hall, no sounds that should have awakened her. She closed her eyes again, listening to the quiet, hearing only the familiar sounds of a house settling in for the night.
When she was a girl, she used to lie in the dark and imagine the house as a living thing, listening to its ancient bones creaking at the end of a long day, the ticktock of its clocks, steady as a heartbeat, its dark windows looking out onto the street like so many sightless eyes. And the curtains, sighing in and out at the windows, as if the house itself were breathing.
They were stirring now, rippling on the barest of breezes. Lizzy watched the hypnotic push and pull, feeling the subtle tug of sleep returning. And then she caught it, a faint whiff drifting in through the screen—smoke.
Her pulse ticked up as she threw back the covers and scrambled to the window. To the east, toward the apple orchard, the horizon glowed an eerie shade of orange. The breeze came again, pushing into the room, the bite of smoke unmistakable now.
The orchard was on fire.
Panic prickled through her veins as she dragged on her dirty jeans and shoved her feet into the work boots at the foot of the bed, then bolted out into the hall to bang on Evvie’s door. “Call the fire department! Tell them to go to the orchard!”
And with that she was gone, thundering down the stairs in her unlaced boots, out the mudroom door, and across the empty fields. The smoke grew thicker as she approached the orchard, the sky glowing a hideous red. She nearly stumbled when she spotted the flames, jagged bright tongues licking from tree to tree with astonishing speed.
A sob caught in her throat as she stood at the edge of the conflagration, nauseated by the smoke and the sickening crackle of timber being devoured. The heat was savage, kicking up a wind that scorched her cheeks and eyes. In some tiny but still-functioning corner of her mind, it occurred to her that she should move back, but her legs refused to obey. The orchard shed was already engulfed, its roof on the verge of buckling. Over the roar of the flames, she caught the sharp pop of a window exploding, and then the growing wail of sirens.
There was a distant flash of red lights from the street as the pumpers pulled up. The sirens had barely stopped blaring when a handful of firefighters rushed in trailing hoses. Lizzy watched numbly as one team fanned out to circle the shed, and another went to work on the trees. One of the men spotted her and broke ranks long enough to order her to clear the area. Moments later the shed gave way, caving in on itself with a dry groan and a roar of fresh flames.
At some point Evvie arrived in her bathrobe and UGGs. She wrapped an arm around Lizzy’s shoulder and dragged her close, her face shiny wet.
“How could it happen?” Lizzy muttered hoarsely. “In the middle of the night—how could it just go up in flames?”
Evvie dragged her gaze from the flames, as if coming out of a trance, then lifted her eyes to the smoke-filled sky. “Clear as a bell,” she pronounced ominously. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Lizzy wasn’t sure who she was expecting when she answered the door the next afternoon, but it certainly wasn’t a man flashing a badge. She stared at him, her eyes still bleary from smoke and lack of sleep. “I’m sorry. Can I help you?”
“Guy McCardle,” he announced briskly. “With the Salem Creek Fire Department. We’re here about the fire last night.”
Over his shoulder, Lizzy caught sight of a white SUV at the bottom of the drive, its doors emblazoned with the letters SCFD. She hadn’t expected anyone to bother about a shed fire, but she supposed there were procedures that had to be followed.
“Yes, of course. I’ll walk you to the orchard.”
“I’ve got two of my men headed there now, actually. But I do have a few questions.” He stepped away, motioning for her to follow, then picked up the pace when she fell in beside him. “It’s my job to investigate the origin and cause of last night’s fire,” he explained as they cut across the barren herb fields. “To process the scene and collect evidence, then conduct an investigation.”
Lizzy eyed him dubiously. “I’m not sure there’s much to find. It was just a shed, and there’s not much left.”
“You’d be surprised.”
She was about to respond when she caught the stench of smoke and scorched apples on the breeze. She forced herself to keep moving, telling herself that nothing could be worse than actually watching it burn.