“He might just. And he’ll probably be mad. But you knew you were going to make folks mad when you decided to do this. Are you having second thoughts?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think about how I’d feel if I were in the Gilmans’ shoes, and someone came along and made me relive it all. It seems cruel, especially when it’s not likely to amount to anything. I’m just wondering if it’s worth it.”
Evvie lifted her apron and dabbed the corner of her mouth. “You might be right. It might come to nothing. But what if you’re wrong? What if there was something somebody forgot to tell the police? Something that could have made a difference? Neither of them was in a good place back then. But time’s passed. They can look at it now, through clearer eyes. Maybe there’s something, some tiny bit of a memory stuck way down deep, and you showing up could shake it loose.”
“That’s a lot of maybes, Evvie. What if I’m just stirring up trouble for trouble’s sake?”
“Trouble.” Evvie scowled at her. “That’s what you’re worried about? Stirring up trouble?”
“I’m trying to do the right thing. To be compassionate.”
“You want to do the right thing? Help those little girls move on.”
Lizzy tipped her head to the side, eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“I said you need to help those girls move on. You’re worried about Mr. Gilman, but have you ever thought those girls might rest easier if someone caught whoever hurt them? That all this time they’ve been hovering between this world and the next, waiting for someone to figure out what really happened? And your gran—she might just feel like she’s got some unfinished business herself, things tethering her to this place, instead of where she’s meant to be.”
Lizzy lowered her spoon back to her bowl. “The other day—” She broke off, waving the thought away. “Never mind. It was nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing from where I’m sitting.”
“All right. The other day, when I was coming back from the pond, something weird happened. All of a sudden it was like she was with me. It was so real I felt like I was going to turn around and find her standing there.” She forced herself to meet Evvie’s gaze. “I smelled her, Evvie. The perfume I used to make for her—I could smell it.”
“They say smells can trigger memory.”
“They can,” Lizzy agreed. “The olfactory and memory centers of the brain are closely connected. But this didn’t feel like a memory. It felt . . . real.” She rolled her eyes and heaved a sigh. “Listen to me, carrying on like a crazy person. It is crazy, right?”
Evvie’s mouth softened, not quite a smile but close to it. “Maybe. But sometimes the craziest things are the truest of all. Just because we can’t explain a thing doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
Lizzy stared at her, still trying to wrap her head around this enigmatic woman, with her all-seeing eyes and strange half smiles. “Sometimes you say things, Evvie. Things that make me wonder if you’re . . .” She caught herself, waving away the rest of the thought. “Never mind.”
Evvie pushed back her chair and stood. “Come with me. There’s something I need to show you.”
Lizzy followed her to the backyard, past the greenhouse with its newly replaced glass, and the vegetable garden with its chicken wire fence and gate, finally coming to a stop before Evvie’s pastel-colored bee boxes.
Lizzy eyed them warily. She’d never developed Althea’s fondness for bees, or anything with wings and a stinger. She held her breath as Evvie laid a hand on the lid of one of the hives, a smile softening the corners of her mouth. Lizzy held her breath. She didn’t know a thing about beekeeping, but even she knew you were supposed to wear some sort of protective gear—a smock, gloves, one of those pith helmets with the netting. Evvie had none of that. She just stood there, barefaced and bare armed—and began to sing.
The hairs on Lizzy’s arms prickled to attention. It wasn’t a tune she recognized. The words were foreign and had a faintly French lilt. She stood spellbound as Evvie closed her eyes and let her head fall back, holding perfectly still as the song poured out low, lush, and achingly sweet. And then she slowly began to raise her arms, holding them out to her sides. An invitation, Lizzy realized. She was calling them to her.
One by one the bees came, hovering around her like a soft, humming cloud, eventually lighting on her arms, her neck, her cheeks. It should have been terrifying, but somehow it wasn’t. It was lovely and magical, and suddenly Lizzy understood.
She’s one of us.
It explained so much. The inexplicable sense of the familiar she’d felt almost from the beginning; those sharp, all-seeing eyes; her remark about family not always being about blood. Of course she and Althea had hit it off. They were sisters under the skin, walkers on the same path.
“Come meet my bees,” Evvie said, as if nothing remotely extraordinary had occurred.
Lizzy eyed the humming bodies still clinging to Evvie’s arms and shook her head. “Thanks. I’m good.”
“They’re happy. They won’t hurt you.”
Lizzy sucked in a breath, holding it as she inched closer. “Aren’t you supposed to have one of those smoker things?”
“Don’t need one.”
“You’re not afraid of being stung?”
“Nope.”
Lizzy couldn’t stop staring. Magick or not, it was hard to comprehend what she was seeing. “The song you were singing just now—what was it?”
“It’s called ‘Galine Galo.’ It’s a Creole lullaby.”
“You sing lullabies to your bees?”
“They like it.”
Lizzy cocked an eye at her, skeptical. And yet it was plain that Evvie’s song had not only attracted the bees, it had lulled them. They seemed almost . . . affectionate. “Have you always been able to do this?”
“Long as I can remember.”
“How on earth did you know to sing to them?”
Evvie shrugged. The bees on her shoulders stirred, then resettled. “Don’t know. Just
