She put a hand to his lips, cutting him off. “I’m staying, Andrew. I’m not going back to New York.”

“You’re . . .” He grabbed both her hands, as if afraid she might run away. “But Rhanna said . . . What made you change your mind?”

Lizzy smiled up at him. “Nine generations of Moon women, a dandelion—and you.”

He frowned, clearly puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

“The things you said—about me planning to slip out of town without saying goodbye, the part about the FOR SALE sign—it’s all true. That’s exactly what I was going to do. But this afternoon I was packing some of Althea’s things, and it hit me. I can’t walk away from what those women built, what they made, who they were, what they endured so that I could be here. They’re part of my story—and I’m part of theirs. I don’t think I understood that until today. They’re my legacy. Not this place—not the buildings or the land—the women.”

“What about your job?”

“I can make perfume here.”

Andrew stared at her, his expression guarded. “You’re going to just walk away from your life in New York?”

“I am. I’ve spent the last hour walking in the woods, trying to reconcile what I want with what I promised myself all those years ago, and here’s what I realized. My mother was right. I’m allowed to be happy, and this is my chance. You’re my chance. And the rest of it’s just crap. I’ll call Luc tomorrow and tell him he needs to find a new creative director.” She reached up to touch his face, inhaling the warm amber scent of him. “I want to write my story here, Andrew—with you, if you’ll still have me.”

His arms went around her, his breath warm against her mouth as he pulled her close. “I love you, Elzibeth Moon. I loved you when I was eighteen, and I’ll love you when I’m eighty. Those are just the facts.”

He kissed her then, his mouth achingly tender as it closed over hers. She had nearly walked away from this—from him. From everything they could have and be together, to return to what her grandmother called half a life. How could she have ever considered it? Althea had spoken of blank pages, reminding her that how her own pages eventually got filled was a choice only she could make. And now she had chosen.

“I plan to hold you to that,” she whispered between kisses. “The part about loving me until I’m eighty, I mean.”

He stepped back just a little, grinning down at her. “What happened to not being cut out for happily-ever-after?”

Lizzy slid out of his arms, took his hand, and led him to the shade of Althea’s favorite willow tree. “This happened,” she said, picking up The Book of Remembrances from the bench and handing it to him.

Andrew glanced at the handwritten page, then back at Lizzy. “This is the book you told me about, the one Althea left for you, with all the pressed flowers.”

“It is,” she said, smiling softly. “Read the last page.”

Gardenia . . . for secret love.

Dear Lizzy,

I was twenty-two when I met Peter Markey. We met at the fair one day when he nearly ran me over with a handcart. I thought he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. Dark haired and blue eyed, with a smile that made me go weak at the knees. He was there with his father, a photographer working one of those dress-up booths. He asked if he could buy me a cider. I knew my mother wouldn’t approve, and that I should say no, but I didn’t. The next day we met again. By day three, I was in love.

We saw each other as often as we could. He lived in Somersworth, so it was hard. But we managed, sneaking off whenever we both had a free hour. We’d go to the pictures—that’s what we called it in those days—or dancing at this little place in Dover, where no one knew us. I told my mother I was with my friends, but she figured it out. I think she knew about the baby before I did. When I told her Peter wanted to marry me, she forbid it.

She reminded me of Sabine’s story, and why our kind must never marry—because no man must ever be allowed to rob a Moon of her power. Our loyalty, she said, must be to our legacy and our land. And to our daughters, who must be raised to be strong, self-sufficient, and solitary. She told me that if I followed my heart, I would be betraying that legacy, that our line might be weakened, perhaps even lost—because of me.

I broke it off, and never told Peter about the baby. If he had known I was pregnant, he would never have gone away. But he did go away. Two weeks later, I learned that he joined the marines and shipped off to Vietnam. I hurt him so badly, and he never knew why, never knew he had a little girl—or that her name was Rhanna. He was killed just before she was born.

I’ve never spoken of him to anyone, but I’ve never forgotten. You’ll find a cigar box at the back of my closet, where I’ve kept a few small treasures from our time together. A photo he took of me the day we met. A beaded bracelet he gave me for my birthday. Ticket stubs from the first picture we ever saw together—Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. And a lock of his hair, given in exchange for one of mine. It seems silly now, but that’s how it is when you’re young and in love. Perhaps I should have gotten rid of these things—Rhanna should have been remembrance enough—but I couldn’t bear to let them go.

So there it is. I’ve told you all of it. I should have told Rhanna. He was her father, after all. But she was always so distant. And then you came along. By the time you were old enough, I wondered if it even mattered. I’ve been ashamed for so long. Not because I’d been ready to break faith with all the Moons before me, but because I did break faith with Peter—and with myself. I broke a good man’s heart—a man I loved—for the sake of someone else’s beliefs. I let someone else write my story.

Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how things might have been if I’d followed my heart instead of the rules. We’ve been taught that to love is to give ourselves away. But that’s wrong. We lose nothing when we love. It’s only in refusing to love that we pay, and lose the most precious part of ourselves. That’s why we’ve come—to love. Because that’s all there is. It’s all love—and it’s all magick.

I’m tired now, and my Circle has drawn to its close. I must lay down my pen. But I leave you with these last words. Love, my Lizzy. Love wherever it may lead, and write your story. Write it with your whole heart, and give it a happy ending.

A—

EPILOGUE

January 24

Lizzy smiled as she switched on the lamp and sat down at Althea’s writing desk, warmed by the faces peering out at her from the collection of silver frames scattered over the polished surface. A candid shot of Rhanna at work on one of her sketches, her hair fastened geisha style with a pair of paintbrushes. A black and white of Althea at twenty-two, clutching an enormous stuffed poodle—the kind won at fair booths by lovestruck young men. A grinning Peter Markey, Althea’s lost love and the man Lizzy now thought of as her grandfather, boyishly handsome with his Brylcreemed wave of dark hair. And the most recent addition, taken on her own wedding day, her hair woven with a chain of wildflowers, her smile radiant as she slid the ring onto Andrew’s finger.

She had borrowed an embroidered hankie from Evvie, and carried her grandmother’s cherished copy of Rumi’s The Book of Love, as her something blue. Althea hadn’t lived long enough to see her married, but the mingled scents of lavender and bergamot had filled the air as they spoke their vows on that sunny afternoon.

A distant hammering broke the quiet: Andrew working in the new drying barn. It would be finished by spring, and then a new mural would appear. Moonflowers this time, Rhanna had decided, with lots of stars and indigo sky as their backdrop.

The landscape of Moon Girl Farm was already changing, reinventing itself for the next generation. Salem Creek was changing too. A pair of commemorative benches had appeared in the park last fall, anonymous gifts to the town of Salem Creek, complete with neat bronze plaques. The first honored the memories of Heather and Darcy Gilman. The second, inscribed with the words HARM NONE, was dedicated to the life and good works of Althea Moon. Eight years ago, the names Gilman and Moon had become inextricably linked, but at long last the whispers were over.

Lizzy lifted her pen, then paused to peer out the window. The sun had been down for hours, the winter sky a velvety, unbroken black. It was the first new moon of the new year, the sacred space between waxing and waning, between nothingness and becoming. It felt right, somehow, to begin it tonight, at the beginning of the moon’s birthing cycle. She smiled softly as she turned back the cover of the journal, blank for so long, and began to write.

The Book of Elzibeth