The Last of the Moon Girls

by Barbara Davis

  “Whose faces?”

  “The dead people.”

  Lizzy felt goose bumps spring up beneath her sopping clothes. She grabbed the steering wheel, squeezing tight. “You were talking about a little girl.”

  Rhanna nodded, swallowing thickly. “She was holding this little stuffed lamb, hugging it the way they do. When she saw me watching, she held it out to show me. It fell out of the stroller and landed on the sidewalk. I bent down and picked it up. When I gave it back to her, our fingers touched. That’s when I saw it—when we touched.”

  “What?” Lizzy prodded. “What did you see?”

  “The girl. All of a sudden my head was full of noise—sirens and those horrible horns the fire trucks blow. And then I saw her. She was still in the car, in her car seat, covered with blood and broken glass. And the lamb. It was on the floor of the car. It was a split second, like a single frame from some hideous home movie, but it was her, Lizzy. It was real.”

  “It wasn’t real, Rhanna. It was your imagination.”

  “No.” Rhanna pressed a hand to her eyes, shaking her head in denial. “It was on the news a few days later. A mother and a little girl hit by a drunk driver on Spaulding Turnpike. They showed her picture. And the mother’s. It was them, Lizzy. It was her. The girl from the park. Some guy in a Suburban got on going the wrong way. The drunk guy lived, but the mother and little girl died at the scene.”

  Lizzy fell back against her seat, trying to digest what she’d just heard. “And you saw it? You saw the accident?”

  “Not the accident, no. I never see that part. Just . . . after, when they’re already dead.”

  Her response was so matter-of-fact that Lizzy found herself groping for words. “I don’t understand . . . how . . . You’re saying it’s happened more than once?”

  Rhanna nodded miserably. “Yes.”

  The windows were completely fogged now, and the car felt steamy and claustrophobic. Lizzy used her sleeve to wipe the windshield, knowing she was stalling for time, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference. “Do you know . . . how?” she asked finally.

  “The first time—with the girl—I thought I caused it. That I’d made it happen. I felt like a monster. And then it happened again. A guy at the drugstore went home and had a heart attack after I bumped into him at the lunch counter. And then again, with a kid I went to school with.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know. After a while I lost count. Dozens, I suppose. And every one of their faces is burned into my brain. Do you have any idea how many ways there are to die?”

  Lizzy remained silent. There was simply no way to answer a question like that.

  “I get how crazy this sounds, Lizzy. Like something the old me would have said to get attention, but I swear I’m telling the truth. Even I wouldn’t make up something this hideous.”

  “Did Althea know?”

  Rhanna shook her head. “I was already enough of a handful. I didn’t want to add crazy to my repertoire. Besides, it’s not really the kind of thing you want to share, is it—that you’re some kind of freak who sees dead people? They put you away for saying things like that, and I didn’t want to go away. Not then. And in the beginning I didn’t even know what it was. It only happened to people I physically touched, and even then it could take weeks.”

  Fourteen. She’d been about the same age when her own gift had appeared. But that was nothing compared to what Rhanna had just described. “I can’t imagine . . . You must have been terrified.”

  “I never knew when it was going to happen again—or with who.” A sob escaped her, like an unexpected hiccup. “So many faces. Every time I closed my eyes. And then Lonnie Welden introduced me to vodka, and I found a way to deaden the images. It helped for a while, until it didn’t anymore. Then I had to find other things.”

  “Drugs?”

  Rhanna shrugged. “Drugs. Booze. Guys. Anything to numb me. And then I found out . . .” She looked away. “And then you came along. A baby. How could I have a baby when I had this thing inside me? What if . . .”

  “No, don’t,” Lizzy said, cutting her off. “We can do that later. Why are you telling me this now? And why did we have to come here for you to do it?”

  Rhanna stared at her hands, palm up in her lap. “I saw them, Lizzy. I saw the Gilman girls.”

  It took a few seconds for the words to actually register. “What? How?”

  “I don’t know how. I’ve never known. It just . . . happens. It was a Friday night and I was with Jimmy Swann at the Dairy Bar. We were waiting for them to make our frappes when the girls showed up. They got in line behind us. All of a sudden the oldest one—Heather, I think—brushed up against me. And I saw them. Both of them.”

  Lizzy closed her eyes, trying to imagine the unimaginable.

  “They were in the water,” Rhanna said softly. “In the pond. I knew it was our pond because there was something shiny on the bottom. It was the charm bracelet I’d lost a few months before.”

  Lizzy stared at her, unable to blink. “You knew. All that time they were missing, you knew where they were.”

  “I wanted to be wrong, Lizzy. I wanted to be wrong so badly. And for a while, I thought I was. Two weeks later, nothing had happened. Then another week passed, and another. It took five weeks for them to even go missing.”

  The memory of Susan Gilman’s tearstained face suddenly loomed. “How could you keep something like that to yourself? Their poor mother was out of her mind.”

  Rhanna pulled her knees up, curling in on herself. “You don’t think I know that? Every day I had to watch that poor woman crying for her little girls, begging someone—anyone—to bring them back safely. And all the time I knew where they were—and that they were never coming back. But what was I supposed to say? That I’d had a premonition? And then what?”

  Lizzy nodded, reluctantly conceding the point. No one would have bought that. Not coming from Rhanna.

  “You can’t imagine what it was like, Lizzy, knowing they were out there and having to keep it to myself. I was like the guy in that Poe story, hearing that heart beating under his floorboards, terrified I’d be found out, knowing what people would think when I was.”

  Bit by bit, it was falling together. “It’s why you stopped going to the pond to swim,” Lizzy postulated. “And why you got weird all of a sudden about being touched.”

  “Yes.”

  Rhanna’s tortured whisper spoke volumes. Last night, when she asked about the episode at the coffee shop, Rhanna had bristled about people pointing fingers and acting like they knew what happened to the Gilman girls, when the truth was no one actually knew anything. No one except Rhanna. But she’d left that part out of last night’s discussion.

  Seeing the dead.

  It was inconceivable. And yet she’d heard of such things. People who worked with police to find missing children, using the gift of sight to solve crimes and ease suffering. Was that what this was? A gift? Rhanna certainly didn’t seem to think so.

  “You could have told Althea,” Lizzy said quietly. “She would have understood.”

  “Seriously?” Rhanna seemed genuinely stunned by the suggestion. “She would have gone straight to the police. You know she would have. Because that’s who she was, always doing the right thing no matter what it cost, trusting things to work out like they should. But they didn’t.”

  “No,” Lizzy said, almost under her breath. “They certainly didn’t.”

  “I’m not asking you to forgive me, Lizzy. I don’t deserve that. Not after everything else that’s happened. I just . . . needed you to know.”

  Lizzy remained silent as she studied Rhanna. She’d never seen her like this, stripped of her rebel’s guise and shaken to the core—achingly raw. It wasn’t easy to look at, but it was the first time she’d actually felt a connection to the woman who brought her into the world. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all. They had both been born with gifts they never wanted, had both done everything in their po
wer to run away from those gifts, and had both failed miserably.

  “I can’t believe you kept this to yourself all these years. I think I would have gone mad.”

  “I thought I might,” Rhanna said, pulling in another shaky breath. “But I found a way to deal with it.” She dragged her purse off the floor and, after a bit of fumbling, produced a black leather-bound book. “I drew them.”

  She laid the book in Lizzy’s lap and slowly withdrew her hand, as if afraid it might explode. Lizzy recognized it immediately. She’d received one just like it the day she turned sixteen. And here, apparently, was her mother’s.

  “The Book of Rhanna,” Lizzy said solemnly.

  “We’re supposed to use them for recording our journey, to write about our gifts and how we use them. I drew mine instead. So I could get the faces out of my head.”

  Lizzy wrapped her hands around the book but didn’t open it. “Did it work?”

  “Not as well as vodka.”

  Lizzy held her breath as she looked down at the book. It felt hot against her palms, the leather slick with perspiration. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was inside, to know the kinds of images that had lived in Rhanna’s head since that first premonition nearly forty years ago. But she had to see them, didn’t she? To know they were real—to know it was real.

  The first sketch was in pencil, crude but accurate enough to recognize what she was looking at: a little girl awkwardly slumped in a car seat, eyes closed. And the lamb.

  The sketches improved as Lizzy continued to turn the pages, the details becoming sharper and cleaner as Rhanna’s artistic skills improved over time. Bodies in every imaginable position, their faces eerily still in death. A heavyset man in a plaid shirt, crumpled on a kitchen floor. A runner sprawled facedown on what looked to be a jogging path. An old woman lying in a heap at the bottom of a staircase. It was terrible, like something from a nightmare. And for Rhanna it had been a nightmare. One she’d never shared with a soul.

  Lizzy turned to look at her. “All of these?”

  Rhanna nodded mutely.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said softly, because she was. And because she didn’t know what else to say. So much made sense now. Her sudden withdrawal, the haphephobia. She couldn’t fathom living with those kinds of images in her head.

  She closed the book, unable to look further. “Are they in here? The Gilman girls?”

  Rhanna shook her head. “I was afraid to draw them. What if someone found it? What would they think?”

  Another valid point. A drawing like that would have raised a lot of questions—none of them good. “Does it still happen?”

  “Sometimes, but not like it used to. I move around a lot, and steer clear of close connections. It’s easier that way. I know it’s not me causing it, that I’m only seeing what’s going to happen whether I’m there or not. But it’s hard not to feel at least a little responsible.” She bunched her shoulders, then let them drop heavily. “Some gift, huh?”

  “I’m sorry you had to deal with it on your own.”

  “It was my choice. And it’s not an excuse for all the crap I put you and Althea through. Anyway, now you know.”

  “Now I know.”

  Lizzy started the car and flicked on the defroster to clear the windows. She was right. It wasn’t an excuse. But she couldn’t help thinking of Althea’s words concerning Rhanna, and how eerily true they suddenly rang. You made up your mind about her years ago, leaving no room for the possibility that there might be more to her story. More than either of us will ever know.

  Once again, Althea had been spot on.

  THIRTY

  August 16

  Lizzy rolled down her sleeves as she stepped outside and headed toward the barn. The breeze was cool, on the verge of chilly as the sun slid low, reminding her again that summer was slipping away—and that she’d already been here too long. Chuck Bundy’s son was on the mend, and they had an appointment the day after tomorrow to discuss options for listing the farm. Finally, she’d be able to stop dodging Luc’s calls and tell him she was making progress. Sort of.

  Human resources had responded to her request to use the balance of her accrued time off for extended leave. Years of skipping vacations and a generous rollover policy had allowed her to accumulate almost eight weeks, but she’d already burned through four of them, which left her with four. Not much time considering all she still needed to do.

  A week had passed since Rhanna’s revelation at the cemetery. It was a day neither of them was likely to forget, but it had clearly been therapeutic for Rhanna. She’d spent the next day, and a good part of every day since, out in the shop, experimenting with whatever she could find in the cabinets and drawers. She was also painting again. And perhaps most telling, the unsettling pong of damp earth that used to cling to her was beginning to dissipate, a sign that she’d begun to release the pain and guilt associated with Heather and Darcy Gilman. There was no way to know what the future would hold when they went their separate ways, but for now, at least, it felt good to think that Althea would be pleased. And maybe that would have to be enough for all of them.

  Lizzy ducked into the barn, propping the door open behind her. Rhanna’s question about missing the actual hands-on part of perfume making had gotten her thinking. She’d played it off at the time, but the truth was she did miss it. So much so that she’d been toying with the idea of re-creating the Earth Song scent Rhanna had been so fond of as a surprise. She was also mulling over ideas for a scent for Evvie. Something warm and subtle, with a hint of the exotic—a citrusy top note balanced with myrrh, neroli, and jasmine.

  But first she’d need to clear her old workbench and sort through her equipment—see what was salvageable, trash what wasn’t, then make a list of ingredients she’d need to get started. She’d also need to start hunting for just the right bottles, preferably vintage. They would be parting gifts, mementos of Moon Girl Farm’s last summer. She wanted them to be special.

  As she approached the workbench, she was surprised to see the old chambray smock she had filched from Althea still hanging from its nail, like an old friend waiting patiently for her return. It would need a good washing before she could wear it. She was about to pull it down when she heard the scuff of footsteps. She turned, surprised to find Andrew behind her.

  “Hey.” He raised a hand as he came toward her. “I pulled the window to work on the frame, so I had to put up a tarp. I came to see if it held after last week’s downpour. I didn’t expect to find you in here.”

  “I’m thinking of starting a new project, but I needed to clear my workbench first.”

  “What’s the project?”

  “A gift for Rhanna. A perfume she used to like. I’d like to make it a surprise if I can, so I’ll need to work out here—in secret.”

  “So things are better with you two?”

  Lizzy shrugged. “We talked through some things. It wasn’t exactly a lovefest, but I understand some things I didn’t before. Things she’s never told anyone. I think it’ll give us both some closure when we leave.”

  “Any idea when that’ll be?”

  “Not yet. I’m still mulling my options. Basically, I have two. Spend money I don’t have to fix the place up, or list it as is and wait months—maybe years—for it to sell. Unfortunately, the property taxes are due in January. Which means I’m probably looking at a mortgage either way.”

  Lizzy smothered a groan when her cell rang, already knowing who it was. She slid it from her back pocket, checked the number to confirm, then tapped “Ignore.” “My boss,” she explained sheepishly.

  “Luc?”

  He’d pronounced the name with a swishy French accent. Lizzy dismissed the snark with a roll of her eyes. “Yes, Luc. I’ve been dodging him for days, so he’s been leaving me messages. He wants to know how long it’s going to take me to wind things up here, and I don’t really have an answer.”

  “He’s pressuring you?”

  Lizzy half shrugged, half nod
ded. “It wasn’t supposed to take this long. I thought I’d be done in a few days—a week at most. It’s been a month and I’ve barely scratched the surface.”

  “You thought you’d be able to pack up decades of family history in a week?”

  “I thought it would be . . . easier. Not just the packing, all of it. I didn’t know the place was falling down, or that Rhanna was going to show up. And I certainly never planned on playing detective in an eight-year-old rerun of Cold Case Files. Luc’s been incredibly patient, but at some point he expects me back.”

  “So what’s the deal with you two?”

  Lizzy blinked at him, caught off guard by the question. “There is no deal. He’s my boss.”

  “Are you sure? Because the last time I asked, you fumbled your answer a little.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” She waited for a response. None came. He wasn’t buying it. “All right. We were seeing each other for a while, but I called it.”

  “You make it sound like a baseball game—called on account of rain.”

  “I got a promotion. A big one. And I didn’t want everyone thinking . . . you know. So I ended it.”

  A crease appeared between his brows. “You ended a relationship because you were worried about what people would think?”

  “It wasn’t a relationship,” she corrected evenly. “Not in the way other people classify them. Luc isn’t a commitment kind of guy, and that suited me just fine.”

  Andrew’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You weren’t looking for a commitment from him? Or from anyone?”

  Lizzy turned away, feigning interest in a bottle of ylang-ylang oil, its contents long since evaporated. “Let’s just say it’s not part of my plan.”