Lizzy wasn’t sure what she felt as she ended the call. Sadness, revulsion, and anger all seemed to be warring for a place in her gut. Jenny had confirmed Susan’s version of things with startling clarity, painting a picture of Heather Gilman that asked more questions than it answered. Why had she cut her friends dead, and broken up with her longtime crush? And why had she suddenly stopped wanting to go home? Was it mere teenage angst, or something darker?

She pulled up Roger’s number and hit “Dial.” It rang four times before kicking over to voice mail. For a retired guy, he certainly kept busy. She left a message, saying she’d spoken to Susan Gilman, and wanted to run some things by him.

A knock at the door sounded as she hung up. She expected to find Evvie, her arms filled with the packages she’d gone to pick up from the post office. Instead, she pulled back the door to find a plumpish woman in sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

The woman smiled nervously. She smelled of bread dough, warm and yeasty. A good smell. A safe smell. “I doubt you remember me. My name is Penny Castle. I work at Wilson’s Drugstore, at the lunch counter.”

Lizzy didn’t remember her, but she smiled back. “What can I do for you, Ms. Castle?”

“Nothing, probably. But I thought I’d try. Your grandmother used to make me a tea for my migraines. It was the only thing that ever gave me any relief. When I heard you were back, I couldn’t help hoping—well, praying, actually—that you’d come back to reopen the shop.”

“I’m sorry, no. I only came back to put the farm up for sale.”

Ms. Castle’s face fell, but she nodded. “I can’t say I blame you. Still, it’s a shame. The end of an era, some might say. She had such a big heart, your grandmother. Never turned a soul away. Even the ones who couldn’t pay. It wasn’t fair, the way people . . .” She trailed off, pressing her fingers to her mouth. “I’m sorry to go on. It’s just that she was such a good woman. You’re like her, you know? Not just your looks, but the light in you. Althea had that. Anyway, thank you for your time, and I’m sorry to bother you.”

Lizzy felt a pang of sympathy as she watched Penny Castle walk away. How many others were suffering for want of Althea’s remedies? And where would they turn?

She was about to close the door when she saw Evvie’s battered station wagon lumbering up the drive. Evvie climbed out, arms laden with packages, and a bag brimming with several loaves of fresh bread. A canvas tote dangled from her wrist.

“I stopped off at the farmers’ market on the way back. How does spinach salad with fresh strawberries sound for supper tonight?”

Lizzy relieved Evvie of her packages and turned back toward the house. “It sounds good. It’s already way too hot to cook.”

In the kitchen, Evvie set about opening her parcels—beads she’d ordered from a supplier in Vermont—while Lizzy pulled out a colander and began rinsing the strawberries. They worked in silence for a time, but Lizzy couldn’t get Penny Castle’s face out of her head.

“We had a visitor while you were gone,” she said at last. “A woman looking for some headache tea.”

Evvie looked up, clutching a bag of what looked like green agate beads. “Happens sometimes. People hoping there might be some of your gran’s remedies lying around.”

“Her name was Penny Castle. She heard I was back, and hoped I was going to reopen the shop.”

“And you told her you weren’t?”

Lizzy blinked at her. “What was I supposed to tell her? By the end of the month, there will be a FOR SALE sign out front. It made me feel bad, though. She said some awfully nice things about Althea. About how she helped people, and never turned anyone away. Judith, from the coffee shop, said the same thing.”

“There’s plenty who think that way, little girl. You just don’t remember. You’d rather focus on the ones who gave your gran a hard time.”

“It wasn’t only Althea who had a hard time.”

Evvie nodded. “True enough. They came at you as well. But it wasn’t all of them. There were kindnesses. People who spoke out, who never bought a word of the lies. Your gran remembered that right up until the day she died. Maybe it’s time you remembered it too.”

Calendula . . . for the healing of scars.

My dearest girl,

You’ve returned to the pages, seeking answers or comfort, perhaps both. How I wish I could be there to soothe you, the way I used to when you were little and smarting over some unkindness. You’ve been through so much in your short life. But then, being born into our clan, what choice did you have? You never wanted to be like us. Not when you learned the cost of it. I can’t blame you for being bitter. You have a right to that, and more I suppose. Isolation can be a terrible thing. And what girl doesn’t have her dreams? A white dress. A church full of flowers. Happily ever after. But we’re warned early on that those dreams are for other girls. Normal girls. And we none of us were ever that. Our path was mapped out eons ago, not a better path, though a different one to be sure. And for most of us, it was enough.

But not for you, my Lizzy.

You were never comfortable in the Moon skin. You wanted something else. Anything else. I think I knew it before you did. And though I hoped you’d change your mind one day, I was determined to let you find your way. I never pushed. Your mother taught me only too well where that can lead. You were all that was left—my hope and my pride. And so, I gave you your head, as they say, hoping with all my soul that one day you’d find your way back to your roots—to our roots.

And then the girls went missing . . . It took twenty-four hours for the fingers to start pointing in my direction. I was the one. Because I had to be, didn’t I? The crone living at the edge of town, who grows herbs and mutters spells. I poisoned them, strangled them, hexed them with my dark powers. But the police had no case, no way to bring me to their so-called justice. And so the people of this town punished me in the only way they could, with their tittle-tattling and their cold shoulders. They crossed the street when they saw me in town and chased me from their stores—and you watched them do it. Day after day, week after week. As if things weren’t already hard enough for you, you had to end up with an accused murderer for a grandmother. You never spoke of it—you were far too stoic for that—but I could hear you through the wall at night, crying into your pillow, and it broke my heart to know what it was doing to you.

Time leaves its wounds on us all, battering us in ways we do our best to hide. But you could never hide anything from me. I saw the wounds, felt the pain of each lash you suffered in my name. And I watched the scars begin to form, and watched you hide behind them. Because you don’t feel in the scarred places. There’s no registering of pain, just numbness meant to protect against future cuts. You shut yourself off from it, erected a wall around the soft parts of yourself. And in my desolation, I let you. I watched you slipping farther and farther away from me—and from yourself—until I barely recognized the tender girl I’d loved and raised.

And now that you’ve been thrust back into all of that, your wounds, I fear, have reopened. But you must remember what it all meant, where it came from, and why. It wasn’t about anger or even hate. It’s never about those things. It’s about fear. Of anything that doesn’t fit into their tidy notion of what’s right and good. We upset the balance, you see, because we walk our own path and live our own truth. It’s always been a rough road for those who live differently from the herd. We’re seen as Other, a threat to the proper way of things. And so they label us, and they lash out. Because as long as they’re lashing out, they don’t feel their fear.

Knowing this doesn’t make the knives easier to bear, but it does help us understand—and perhaps forgive. And you must forgive, my darling girl, and give up your scars. Bitterness is a subtle poison. It lulls with its righteous indignation and its false sense of power, then turns on you and burns your heart to ash. But forgiveness is balm to the wounded heart.

And love. We must never forget love.

Not only as something we feel, but as who we are deep down in our marrow. Which is why fear must never be allowed to eclipse it. Like most things in my life, I learned this the hard way, and am sorry to say I had to learn it more than once. To love truly is to risk the deepest cut, but it’s always a risk worth taking.

Forgive me, Lizzy, for my preaching. Now, when so many years have passed. There were things we never spoke of, things that might have made that time easier for you. But I was struggling with my own wounds then, and my own fears. And so I must say them now, in the hope that you’ll remember them when you’re tempted to harden your heart. Salve your scars with love, my girl, whatever comes, and keep your heart open. Love—even love that cannot be returned—is never cause for regret.

Love always,

A—

SIXTEEN

July 28

Lizzy stared at the desiccated flower resting in her lap, golden once, now nearly leached of color.