The Last Will of Moira Leahy

by Therese Walsh

  “Who’s the Roman sun god?”

  Noel shrugged, his face framed in the long rays of some god whose name neither of us knew. Still distant. Still different. Maybe he’d understood my Italian diatribe after all.

  “Come on.” I nudged him with my knee. “You’re Garrick Wareham’s grandson. Don’t tell me he didn’t make you take a class or two in mythology.” I thought I remembered him studying this at Betheny U, along with ancient civilizations and art history. Thinking back to those days always took me too close to the edge, though. Too close to Before, to the days of plenty and daydreams and hope and wholeness, when I’d pretended to be Alvilda, daughter of the king of Gotland.

  “Why haven’t you done this before?” Noel asked, and I felt momentarily disoriented. I ran my palm over the grass.

  “What?”

  “Come to Rome. Gone anywhere. You speak so many languages, so why not?”

  “I don’t know.” Clouds drifted in flocks today, and I found myself hunting for Alfred, the dragon who always eluded me. Maybe he only came out in Castine, for believers like Moira. “I guess I didn’t want to go it alone.”

  A pause, then: “Sol.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Roman sun god.”

  I stood along with him, though I felt a little thrown, like a pebble skipped over the Tiber. “Thanks.”

  We walked in silence until I knew my sense of direction hadn’t failed me again. There stood a fountain, a high bell tower, a church lined with archways and medieval windows. Santa Maria in Cosmedin. I knew cosmedin meant “decorative,” ornamental like cosmetics, but Santa Maria looked rather plain to me.

  “Let’s stop here,” I said, trying for casual.

  “Where’s here?”

  “Let’s find out.” I led us past a sophisticated nativity scene to a portico and columned walk. There, at the end of it, sat a large, round, ancient face. “Bocca della Verità,” I said, like an introduction. “The Mouth of Truth.”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  I smiled. “Anyone who puts his hand into the mouth and tells a lie will have it snapped off by marble jaws.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Talkative today.”

  “I never should’ve gotten out of bed this morning. I see that now.”

  “So, go stick a hand in.”

  “For what? I’m an open book.”

  I clucked at him when he pocketed his hands.

  “That’s mature.”

  But it worked, because he stepped up to the mask, shot me a doleful look, then placed his hand inside the mouth. I wanted to know so much. Why was he ignoring his investigator? Why didn’t he open that FedEx? Why had he stopped sending me postcards?

  “Why didn’t you finish my painting?” I asked.

  “Your painting?”

  “The one in your studio. Why didn’t you finish it?”

  His jaw slackened. His hand fell.

  “Hand in.” Good heavenly Sol, I couldn’t believe I’d asked about that. Still, now that I had, I would have my answer. I recalled the half-finished work, my frustration over finding it abandoned. “You’re speechless.”

  “Just about.”

  “That’s not an answer, you know.”

  He hesitated. “I needed more material.”

  “More paper? More paint?”

  “More knowledge.”

  “What—”

  “Uh-uh.” He withdrew his hand. “You’ve had two questions already. My turn.” His smile expanded and drew up on one side—a man who knew the game now and wanted to play.

  The mask’s hollow eyes and nostrils looked ominous, lined with the dark veins of time, but I put my hand inside the cold marble and waited.

  “How did you find that painting?”

  “I—uh …” There was nothing more backward-of-brilliant than stumbling into your own trap.

  “Speechless?”

  I said it, fast. “I thought you were in your studio because of the light, so I went in and saw you weren’t there, but everything was picked up so neat, and everything was off the walls, and I kind of freaked out and decided to mess things up a bit, to pretend like you were there, and so I took some paper down and started to paint, and after I filled one page, I turned to another, and that’s when I saw it. Me. There I was.”

  He stayed still as stone himself—probably because he couldn’t process what I’d said or imagine the scene. Because it was so unlike me. I still didn’t know why I’d done it.

  “The keris,” I said. “The keris made me do it.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in the keris.”

  “I don’t.”

  He dragged a hand over his face. Maybe I’d finally confounded him. “Did you feel better?” he asked. “After?”

  “After what?”

  “After you’d played in the paint.”

  “Yes.” I pulled my hand from the mouth. “Now you.”

  “But—”

  “That was three questions. You owe me one.”

  He groaned, but put his hand inside the marble. “Interrogate away.”

  I felt less concerned now, since I’d humiliated myself already, about delving into the personal. “Truth. Why have you been out of touch? Were you planning to stay in Europe forever?”

  He dipped his chin. “I haven’t met my goal.”

  His mother. I nodded. “You’re no closer to finding her?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “It’s the best I can give right now.”

  “And what about Garrick?”

  “What about him?”

  “He doesn’t know why you came here, does he?”

  “He didn’t, no.”

  I knew the answer this time but asked the question anyway. “He knows because of me and my big mouth over Thanksgiving, right? I didn’t know you hadn’t told him, Noel. I didn’t think asking about her would—”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I never asked you not to talk about it. You didn’t know.”

  Had Garrick made the investigation difficult? Maybe this was why Noel had been so remote. I was reconsidering asking about that unopened FedEx when he stepped back, his eyes black beneath the shaded portico.

  “Your turn again,” he said.

  What had started as a game of sorts had evolved into a battle. I needed a white flag. I put my hand inside the marble.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “Pain,” I answered without thinking, the word rising up and out from some inner wellspring of truth. I cringed, hating the implication of it: that I was weak, that I couldn’t take a bruise or bump or cut. That wasn’t truth. It wasn’t that sort of pain. I closed my eyes, saw the water behind the door, and felt, for a second, what it would be like to be naked in the crosscurrent.

  “What kind of pain?”

  I would’ve been glad for a chance to take the answer back, refine it, if only it led to light.

  Tell him.

  “What should I say?” I asked.

  “The truth, Maeve.”

  “The pain of regret.” I shivered, exhausted. “Loneliness.” My voice became a shadow of itself. Noel moved closer.

  “Who’s Moira?”

  He might’ve punched me.

  “Who’s Moira?” he repeated.

  Truth.

  “My sister.”

  “The sister you lost?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d told him that much—that I’d had a sister once, but I’d said no more. I wouldn’t linger in the past. He got that. It was like an unspoken deal between us, not to prod into those parts of one another’s lives, the secret pains. His mother. My sister. A golden hush we’d shattered in minutes with mouths of truth.

  “You know her name. How?” This, I’d never shared.

  “You shouted it last night.”

  The dream. The malformed bird. The bus. The little girl with the red hair. My hand slipped from the Mouth, landed against my thigh.


  “‘The pain of regret.’ Is Moira why you regret?” he asked, and I felt jerked under his magnifying glass against my will. “Is Moira why you haven’t traveled, because you’re going it alone, without her? Is Moira why you work all the time, why you won’t let anyone in?”

  I clutched at my shirt, the thin cotton over my heart. “Stop saying her name.”

  “I can’t believe she’d want that for her sister.”

  “You didn’t know her! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!” I struck his chest—once, twice. But instead of pushing me off, he touched my face. My hands calmed as reflexively as they’d knotted. “I’m sorry.” Mortified.

  “It’s all right, Maeve.” His eyes softened. “Thank you.”

  “Thank me? For hitting you? I’m sorry I hit you, I didn’t mean to hit you, I was just, just—”

  “Thanks for giving me a little more material.”

  I understood then why he hadn’t finished the painting, just how much of myself I’d withheld. But that was then. Truth had torn something open in me and more of it surged out.

  “I missed you, Noel. So much.”

  He winced, and it was like his eyes cleared of some horrible cataract. He looked at me—really looked at me—and my Chinese Brother mouth smiled, my lungs filled completely for the first time in months. It was then, enfolded in his tight hug and with my face buried in his coat, when the angels began to sing. At least they sounded like angels.

  Noel and I stepped through the church entrance and inside a sanctuary lit with candles. There, atop a mosaic floor, stood a choir garbed in rich yellow robes. I thought about Sri Putra for the first time in hours, wondered if he could be up there, trying to tell me something in a song. But there was no sign of a short Javanese man or a pillbox hat.

  The question of what Sri Putra had intended for me here faded as harmony meshed with melody, as voices rose and fell, as soft tones gave way to boisterous ones.

  Christmas Eve. I’d nearly forgotten.

  Another song began, a lone bagpiper’s reedy chant that droned solemnly outside of the church. These different concerts might have been cacophonous, yet they were not. Somehow, each remained rich and beautiful, and became all the more poignant for its place in the crosscurrent.

  Out of Time

  Castine, Maine

  OCTOBER 2000

  Moira and Maeve are sixteen

  Autumn took hold of Castine. The wind whipped, the leaves dropped, and the sea churned gray. Moira tried not to think about Maeve or their rift. She worked to keep her mind sealed. But though her time with Ian—full of kisses and whispers in the hammock at night—fed a yawning need within her, her deception cost.

  Her appetite abandoned her, and her head hurt more often than not. She dreamed of discovery. Once naked in a tree with the entire town and Ian below chanting, Witch, witch, witch. Once called out before the whole school, made to take up the saxophone, and blow through a broken mouthpiece until frogs leaped from the bell.

  One night she dreamed dogs and men with guns chased her. She ran all the way to a foreign sea to escape them, and swam until her muscles screamed agony. Somehow, Maeve’s hands found her and lifted her up each time she thought she’d drown. But when Moira found a lone island and safety, Maeve didn’t emerge beside her. Instead, her twin’s body bobbed facedown in the deep, her head en-wreathed in sodden strands of flame.

  Moira shrieked when she woke to Maeve hovering over her.

  “Are you all right?” Maeve asked.

  “No, I’m not all right! You scared the crap out of me!”

  “It’s your fault. You called my name.”

  Moira wrestled with the covers. “I’m fine. Just go.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing? I know something’s going on, you know.”

  “Don’t be a drama queen.”

  “Well, I do feel a little like a queen lately.” Maeve tipped her head. “I thought maybe I’d ask Ian on a date.”

  Moira’s chest felt thrust into her throat. “Maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe he already has a girlfriend.”

  “I don’t know,” Maeve said. “He seems to like me pretty well. At school or at The Breeze, he smiles at me in a way I don’t see him do with other girls. That says something, right?”

  This couldn’t be happening, Moira thought. It wasn’t possible. Did Maeve know? Was she taunting her, or was she serious about making a play for Ian? “I thought you hated him!”

  “Everyone can change. Right, Moira?”

  It took a lot of effort, but Moira didn’t swallow the pool of saliva in the back of her throat. “Don’t do it. Mom wouldn’t like it.”

  “Oh, I think there are probably ways to sneak out if I had to. Mom doesn’t need to know a thing. But I’d have to be careful about the moonlight. It reveals so much.” Maeve’s shrewd gaze pinned her, and Moira couldn’t help but swallow then. “Tell me what you’re doing,” Maeve demanded. “Are you in trouble?”

  I’ve kidnapped you, and bound your mouth and wrists! Moira thought. Can’t you feel the cuts on your skin? Stop me!

  But Moira’s words, when they came, sounded calm and cold. “It’s none of your business if I’m in trouble. Stay out of it and leave me alone. I might call for you in my dreams, but I don’t need you. I’m fine without your help.”

  The pain in Moira’s stomach intensified when Maeve took her pillow and a blanket from her bed, and left the room without another word. This couldn’t go on forever, yet she couldn’t imagine its end. Couldn’t bring herself to apologize for her words or actions, either. Not yet. Not with so much at stake.

  INTERMEZZO

  Visions of home danced relentlessly in my head on Christmas morning. Moira’s music was back, too—the song about twinkling stars she’d always played on this day. I couldn’t handle that. Good-bye, song, I thought, surprised and a little disappointed when it receded easily. A mild headache took its place.

  “Damn eling,” I muttered, but I picked up the phone and dialed anyway.

  “We’re not here right now. Leave a message and we’ll get back to you,” said my father’s timeworn voice on the machine. I waited for the beep.

  “I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.” That I miss you. Love you. Wish you were here. “Merry Christmas.” It wasn’t until after I hung up that I remembered it was 2:00 a.m. in Maine. Idiot.

  My phone rang a short while later, and I surged for it. No one answered my greeting, though. Like the night before my father’s arrival in Betheny, I sensed someone on the other end, waiting, listening. Breathing.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  The phone went dead; I left it off the hook.

  Christmas Day continued with a whimper. Noel had left a note under my door.

  Merry Christmas, sleepyhead. My caffeine addiction had less patience for you than I did, so I left to satisfy it. Will bring back something appropriately festive for breakfast.

  —N

  Maybe I should head to Trastevere before he got back. The empu had yet to reach out to me; I’d called the front desk frequently to check for messages. This, however, could be the perfect day to reach him. It seemed unlikely that empus would celebrate Christmas, and nearly everything that wasn’t a church would be closed for the holiday.

  The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that Putra would be home, and so that’s how Noel found me upon his return—my feet stuffed into shoes and the keris in my hand.

  “No. It’s Christmas,” he said, easily reading my intent.

  “But—” I started, and he lifted a big white bag. The scent of warm pastry and coffee had me wavering on the threshold. “Later then. After breakfast.”

  Without answering, Noel set up a little table for us near a window in his room. From the bag, he produced napkins, paper plates, and something wrapped in wax paper that left a sigh of powdered sugar in the air, dancing like dust motes.

  “I could use a little break,” he said when we sat. “I didn’t sleep well la
st night.”

  “I’m sorry. I can go alone, though. I was planning on it.”

  “What do you say we take it easy today? I know we’re in Rome, I know you’re anxious to see the empu. But it’s Christmas. A rest day. Can’t we have that?” Something showed briefly in his expression, made me swallow the leap-ready words on my tongue. Distress? Alarm?

  “Where did you go this morning? What happened?” I asked.

  “I went to the bakery and bought naughty things. And those are the only two questions you’re allowed today.”

  I caught a whiff of warm-cherry scent. “All right. Today, an intermezzo, but tomorrow it’s back to Putra’s. Tomorrow,” I repeated firmly. “No matter what.”

  “Tomorrow,” he said, producing two Styrofoam cups bleeding coffee at the lip. “No matter what.”

  I was only halfway through my tart when Moira’s song surged in me again, and again I pushed it back. My headache worsened. My appetite disappeared. I pinched a piece of my pastry and watched as filling oozed out in a gruesome cherry death.

  “You all right?” Noel asked. I wasn’t one to let confection go to waste, and he knew it.

  “Just feeling a little far-flung today.”

  “Sorry. You know you didn’t have to come here for that keris.”

  “Well, I—”

  “You could’ve had it appraised by an expert in the States—”

  “But—”

  “—or sent it to Java and found a real empu.”

  I pointed a cherry-coated finger at him. “Putra is a real empu. Besides, I can’t put the keris in the mail. What if it’s lost?” I asked, then licked my finger clean.

  He sighed as he deposited a small wrapped box with a looping red bow on the table before me.

  “What’s this?”

  “A Maeve Leahy tactic. When things get tense, give a gift.”

  “What a good student you are.” I lifted the present, gave it a shake. “Could it be a tiny, rectangular panettone?”

  “No. Go on.”