The Last of the Moon Girls

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.
Evvie turned, still clutching her spoon. “I do. Unless you’re here to give me the boot.”
Lizzy stifled a sigh. She was too tired to do battle, especially with a stranger. “I’m not here to give you the boot. I didn’t even know you were here. Were you . . . her caregiver?”
Evvie laid down her spoon and wiped her hands on her apron. “She didn’t pay me, if that’s what you’re asking, but I suppose I was. It’s what friends do for each other—give care.”
Lizzy felt her cheeks warm. “I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry, I’m just trying to understand.”
“You hungry?”
Lizzy blinked at her. “What?”
“Hungry?” Evvie repeated, as if speaking to a particularly dull child. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, I guess . . .”
“Good then. Set the table.”
They ate in silence at the kitchen table—a rice dish of some sort, made with tomatoes and beans, and plenty of spice. It was delicious and exotic, full of ethnic flavors Lizzy couldn’t place. And thankfully it contained no meat, sparing her the potentially awkward vegetarian discussion.
“She never told me she was sick,” Lizzy said when the silence grew heavy. “I would have come if she had.”
Evvie nodded as she drizzled a wedge of corn bread with honey. “She knew that. It’s why she didn’t tell you. Even at the end, when I begged her to let me call you. She was a stubborn old thing. Said you were too. Somehow, I don’t have trouble believing that.”
Lizzy looked down at her plate, toying with her food. What was it about the woman that made her feel like a naughty schoolgirl?
“She wanted you to want to be here,” Evvie said finally, licking honey from her fingers. “And if you didn’t, she wanted you to be happy wherever you were. That’s how much she loved you. Enough to let you go.”
Lizzy put down her fork and wiped her mouth. “I didn’t just leave her, Evvie. I went away to school—like I’d always planned to do. I never hid the fact that I wanted out of this town. When I got accepted to Dickerson, I knew it was time. Althea was sad that I was leaving, but she understood.”
“She knew that if she tried to keep you, she’d lose you for good. And I guess she knew best, ’cause here you are—finally.”
“Then why the shot about me leaving?”
Evvie turned coppery green eyes on Lizzy. “I didn’t take a shot. Least not the way you think. It isn’t the leaving I have a problem with. I get that part well enough. It’s the staying gone that gripes me. Everyone’s got a right to go looking for themselves, but once they manage it, they should come back home and deal with what’s past, look things squarely in the eye.” She paused, pushing back her plate, then fastened her eyes on Lizzy’s face. “Or maybe you haven’t really found yourself.”
The remark chafed, as it was almost certainly meant to. But there were things Evvie didn’t understand.
“There was a reason I wanted out of Salem Creek, Evvie. Something happened—”
“I know all about those girls,” Evvie said, cutting her off. “And what people thought, and what they said, and how they treated your gran. I know about your mama too, how she lost her mind that day in the coffee shop and said those awful things about cursing the whole town. How she packed up her clothes and hightailed it out of here, leaving everything in a shambles. I know it all.”
Lizzy only needed to meet Evvie’s eyes to see that it was