The Last of the Moon Girls(9)
“Were you here when she . . .” Lizzy let the question dangle, unable to say the word out loud.
“I was.”
“And her ashes—that was you too?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Lizzy put down her towel, her throat full of razor blades as she captured Evvie’s soapy hand. “I don’t know what to say except thank you. For being her friend. For being here. For doing the things that needed doing. It should have been me. It should have been family.”
Evvie looked up from the sink, her chin wobbling as she blinked away a film of tears. “It was,” she said thickly. “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes you just recognize someone. That’s how it was with your gran and me. We were kin. A special kind of kin.”
Anyone looking at Evvie, at her mahogany skin and copper-flecked eyes, would have a hard time believing she could be any sort of kin to Althea. And yet Lizzy had no trouble believing it.
“I’m glad she had you, Evvie. That she had someone with her who loved her.”
Evvie’s face softened. “You go on up now. I’ll finish here. You look done in.”
Lizzy nodded. Done in didn’t begin to describe how she felt after the events of the last twenty-four hours. She dried her hands, and was about to head to the hall to retrieve her suitcase when Evvie stopped her.
“Almost forgot. I’m in your old room, so you’ll need to use Althea’s. Bed’s been stripped, but there are sheets in the hall closet. I’ll move your clothes and things in there tomorrow.” She paused, running a critical eye over Lizzy’s skinny jeans and trendy black boots. “You’ll need real clothes around here.”
Lizzy accepted the critique of her wardrobe but balked at the idea of sleeping in Althea’s bed. It felt wrong somehow, intrusive and disrespectful. “I’ll use Rhanna’s old room. It’ll only be for a few days.”
Evvie shook her head. “Can’t. Rhanna’s room is more storage than bedroom these days. Besides, your gran would be happy to know you were in her room.”
“I don’t think—”
“Go on now,” Evvie pressed softly. “She’d want you there.”
Althea’s room was at the head of the stairs. Lizzy closed her eyes briefly as she took hold of the knob, steeling herself for the flood of emotions she knew waited on the other side of the door. She lingered in the doorway, picking out small, familiar details: the volume of Rumi that had been Althea’s favorite, the bit of stag antler they had discovered one day while walking in the woods, the carved wooden bowl of wishing stones on the nightstand.
In the end, it was the dressing table that finally drew her into the room. It had been her favorite spot in the house as a child, the place where her love affair with fragrance had begun. Geranium, jasmine, patchouli, sandalwood—an endless array of scents to blend in fresh, new ways, like an artist’s palette for the nose. As far back as she could remember, Althea had spun tales about the strange talents of the Moon women, each uniquely gifted with her own quiet way of being useful in the world. And one day, while sitting at this dressing table, Lizzy had discovered her own brand of quiet magick—the glorious, mysterious alchemy of fragrance.
She had known instinctively that fragrance was its own kind of medicine, that its natural abilities to elevate mood and evoke emotion could be enormously effective in restoring a sense of well-being. She had also gleaned—thanks to her unusual gift—that every person possessed their own distinct scent, like fingerprints, a set of olfactory markers that acted like a kind of signature. It was a discovery that eventually became the foundation of her entire career.
On her fourteenth birthday, she had announced her intention to bottle Althea’s love for the land. It was an impossibly childish idea—capturing emotions like fireflies in a jar—but Althea hadn’t discouraged her, despite the fact that she hadn’t a clue where to begin. She had simply followed her nose, eventually settling on lavender because it smelled like earth, and bergamot because it smelled like sunshine, and together they smelled like Althea. A few months later, she made good on her intention, unveiling a simple, dual-note fragrance she’d named Althea, after the woman who had inspired its creation.
She’d found the bottle in one of the dusty secondhand shops downtown, and saved her lunch money for two weeks to afford it. It was still on the dressing table, square with a heavy base and a long, tapered stopper. It had been refilled many times over the years but was empty now, save for the sticky brown resin at the bottom. She lifted the stopper anyway, hoping for a telltale whiff of her grandmother, but was disappointed to find only the cloying tang of oxidized oils.
A fresh wave of grief washed over her as she returned the bottle to the dressing table, the ache of Althea’s absence moving through her like a physical pain as she wandered to the low-ceilinged nook that had served as a storage larder before Althea fitted it with shelves and a chair for reading. Over the years, her grandmother had acquired many cherished possessions, but none more cherished than her books. Her guilty pleasures, she had called them, perfect for whiling away the frigid New England winters.
And then there was the bookcase: glass-fronted with three tiers, and doors that locked with a tiny brass key. Lizzy bent down to peer through the glass. The books. As a girl, she’d been in awe of them, or at least of what they represented. All those Moon women—spinsters to the last—sitting by their fires night after night, scribbling secrets meant only for walkers of the Path. And now, like Moon Girl Farm, they belonged to her.