The Last of the Moon Girls

Lizzy considers calling Andrew and telling him about Dennis hitting Helen but decides against it. At his house, she eats some cheese and realizes that the butcher paper used to package the cheese is like what was used for the note with the doll. Lizzy calls Roger, leaves a message, and goes to the Moon Girl Farm barn to work on making perfume. When Roger calls her back, Lizzy tells him about her encounter with Helen and Dennis, as well as her idea about the butcher paper.

Roger says that there was a suicide note when Hollis died, but it went missing. One officer, Gaffney, saw the note and thought it sounded like Hollis felt guilty about something. Roger thinks that Hollis might have killed Heather and Darcy, and Dennis might have covered it up. Lizzy realizes that Helen was trying to warn her, not threaten her. Roger tells Lizzy to call Andrew and be on the watch for his call. Lizzy puts off calling Andrew and goes back to working on her perfume. She senses that she isn’t alone.

Lizzy realizes that Dennis is in the barn with her, tells him to leave, and moves toward her phone. He says that the murders and his family are none of her business. She says that she didn’t know Hollis, and Dennis tells her that she should have never come back. He admits to leaving the doll, setting the fire, and leaving his knife. He says, “A man does what he has to” (325), and Lizzy reaches for her phone. She grabs it and tries to run around Dennis to the door. He grabs her arm, she hits him, and he hits her. She falls and loses her phone.

Dennis starts flicking his lighter and pulls a Molotov cocktail out of his jacket. Lizzy looks around for a weapon and begs Dennis not to set the place on fire. He says that he and Hollis already paid; she can’t make them pay again. Dennis starts to light the cocktail, and Lizzy throws a beaker of alcohol at Dennis. It hits the lighter and burns up Dennis’s sleeve. He drops the cocktail, and it goes up in flames. The fire overtakes Dennis and starts to spread throughout the barn. Lizzy crawls out the door and hears sirens outside.

While Lizzy is assessed by paramedics, she tells them about Dennis. As the ambulance starts to leave, Rhanna pulls up in the driveway, and Lizzy asks her to come in the ambulance. During the ride, Lizzy forgives Rhanna. She is given acetaminophen and diagnosed with a concussion at the hospital. Rhanna says that she knew something was wrong, so they left the festival early. Lizzy tells Evvie and Rhanna that Hollis murdered the girls and that Dennis protected him. She gave her statement about this to a detective before they came into her room. Lizzy wonders if there’s more to the case, and Evvie tells her that she’s completed her quest for the truth.

Arriving at the Moon Girl Farm after the fire is out, Andrew sees the medical examiner’s vehicle. He rushes toward the barn, where firefighters are carrying a body bag out the door. He asks them who died. One firefighter says that they don’t know; they have to identify the body by its teeth. However, the firefighter says that the woman who lives at Moon Girl Farm is in the hospital. Andrew rushes there. A nurse tells him what room Lizzy is in and offers to tell Rhanna that Andrew is here.

Rhanna comes out to the waiting room and tells Andrew about Lizzy’s concussion, Dennis’s death, and Hollis’s guilt. Rhanna has the hospital staff admit Andrew to Lizzy’s room, and she then leaves with Evvie, claiming that Lizzy is supposed to only have one visitor at a time. Andrew tells Lizzy that Roger called him to check on her when she didn’t answer his repeated calls. After Andrew tried calling Lizzy and couldn’t reach her, he started driving back from Boston. Lizzy says that she’s tired, and Andrew allows her to rest.

Lizzy is released from the hospital after midnight. Rhanna helps her clean up and gets her settled on the settee. In the morning, Lizzy tries to stand, but Rhanna stops her and offers to get the coffee for her. Andrew comes over and expresses regret for not having connected Dennis’s comments and the threats sooner. Evvie and Rhanna are busy cleaning up the fingerprinting dust, which Lizzy forgot to mention while in the hospital.

Helen comes over with her daughter. She apologizes for Dennis’s actions and for her silence. Hollis told her about how he and Dennis used to hang out with Heather and Darcy and drink. Fred would watch Heather sleep and walk in on her when she was changing, so she wanted to get out of the house and party. One night, Hollis tried to become physically intimate with Darcy, and she rejected him, wandering off toward the part of the property where the cannabis is grown. In the present moment, Evvie takes Helen’s daughter, Kayla, out of the room.

Helen continues the story: Hollis found Darcy throwing up from the alcohol. His father came to run the trespasser out of the illegal crop, and he hit the back of Darcy’s head with his shotgun. Heather and Dennis came over and saw Darcy on the ground. Heather started screaming, and Dennis’s father told him to make Heather stop screaming while pointing the gun at Dennis. Dennis refused to hurt Heather, and his father pointed the gun at Hollis. Dennis strangled Heather to death. His father told Dennis to put the bodies in the pond and weigh their pockets down with stones.

When they got to the pond, Darcy was still alive. Hollis and Dennis held her underwater until she drowned. Dennis is the one who made Helen hide Hollis’s suicide note, and Helen knew that Dennis was behind everything that was printed in the newspaper. He hit her and threatened to hurt her daughter if she said anything. Andrew offers to pay for a lawyer for Helen, and she reluctantly agrees and thanks him. Lizzy plans to wait until Susan is physically recovered and then tell her what happened to give her some closure. She hopes that Fred will feel guilty for behaving inappropriately around his daughter, as this behavior led to her hanging out with Dennis and Hollis.

After Helen leaves, Andrew puts his phone on speaker and calls Roger. Andrew fills Roger in about Helen’s confession. Roger says that he might be able to get her a deal; he’ll make some calls, and she shouldn’t confess to anyone else in the meantime. After the call, Andrew offers to get Lizzy soup, which reminds her of when Evvie asked if Lizzy had “someone to fix her soup” (353). Lizzy turns down the offer, noting that she will be leaving soon, as she got a loan for repairs and Rhanna is getting them a new realtor. Before he leaves, Andrew says that he’ll make a list of contractors for her.

In the past week, Helen has made a deal with the district attorney for immunity, and Andrew has left for Boston. Meanwhile, Lizzy heals. On the day when the remains of the barn are going to be demolished, Lizzy and Rhanna go out to look at the barn one last time. Rhanna’s mural is completely destroyed. As the workers get started, Lizzy tells Rhanna that she was making perfume for her in the barn when Dennis came by, but now it is destroyed. Rhanna is just glad that Lizzy is okay and that they’ve been able to spend time together. Lizzy is also glad that they have reconnected.

After the demolition is complete, Lizzy tells Rhanna that she’s leaving in a few days. She says that Rhanna and Evvie can stay at the farm and use the insurance money from the fire to keep it up until it sells. Rhanna hoped that Lizzy would change her mind about selling and that they could reopen the shop together. Lizzy tells Rhanna that she slept with Andrew and that Andrew knows they practice magick. Rhanna thinks that Lizzy should reject the Moon family tradition of never marrying, marry Andrew, and be happy. Lizzy goes to the house.

Inside, Evvie cleanses the house with white sage. Lizzy tells her that she is leaving soon. Evvie says that she’s moving in with Ben, whom she loves. Evvie also encourages Lizzy to be with Andrew. However, Evvie says that the decision is Lizzy’s in the end. Lizzy starts packing up the Moon family books, starting with The Book of Sabine. She stops, looks at her own blank book, and doesn’t know what to do with all of Althea’s heirlooms. Lizzy feels the presence of her ancestors and feels claustrophobic. She takes the Book of Remembrances to the garden.

The entry begins with a pressed dandelion, representing resilience. Althea says that her book will end soon. Although there has been a lot of historical sexism and discrimination toward people on the Path, she urges Lizzy not to stay in the shadows but to find her truth and live without apology. Althea says that she didn’t always live her truth, and she starts to divulge a secret.

After reading the secret, Lizzy changes her mind about her future. To walk in the light, she will have to leave Chenier, be seen, and follow her heart. She smells Althea’s perfume and feels her presence.

Rhanna texts Andrew to tell him that Lizzy will be leaving soon and that he should come say goodbye to her. He drives back to the Moon Girl Farm. Rhanna directs Andrew to find Lizzy out back, and Lizzy walks out of the woods. Andrew explains to her that he got Rhanna’s text and needed to see her one last time. Lizzy starts crying and says that she is staying at the farm; she wants to be with Andrew and carry on her family’s legacy. Andrew tells Lizzy that he loves her and kisses her. She shows him the entry in the Book of Remembrances that changed her mind.

The last entry starts with a pressed gardenia, which represents secret love. Althea confesses that she loved a man named Peter and became pregnant through her relationship with him. Althea’s mother convinced Althea not to marry Peter and to raise the child, a daughter, alone because it was the family tradition. Peter didn’t know about the baby and joined the Marines. He died in Vietnam before Rhanna was born. Althea includes information about where to find a picture of Peter and some trinkets of his.

Althea regrets letting someone else write her story and losing Peter. She tells Lizzy to not be like her and instead follow her heart. Love is “all there is. It’s all love—and it’s all magick” (378).

Lizzy and Andrew get married. During the ceremony, Lizzy smells Althea’s perfume and feels her presence. Andrew begins rebuilding the barn, and Rhanna plans a new mural of moonflowers for it. The city erects benches with plaques commemorating Heather, Darcy, and Althea. Lizzy begins writing in her book, The Book of Elzibeth.

She writes to her unborn daughter about how Althea told her a fairy tale about the Moon family when she was very young. Lizzy didn’t want to have the real discussion about their magick lineage when she got older; she wanted to be normal. So, she left the farm until Althea died. Lizzy explains that the Moon women have special gifts and that they use these gifts to help others. This completes the “Circle” (382). Their family doesn’t attend a church; everyone is a part of the divine. Lizzy’s daughter is coming to earth not to make magick but to be magick.