The Last of the Moon Girls(7)

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.