The Sullivan Sisters

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  Murphy could see that, despite her annoyance, Claire was intrigued too. She stomped up each step, trying to look stern, but once she reached Murphy, her face turned traitor.

  “Whoa,” she said.

  “Right?” Murphy agreed. She pulled a book from the shelf—The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas—and raised it over her head like a sacred tome, spinning more giddy circles. “A secret library! A castle turret!”

  Then, feeling serious, she turned to Claire. “Do you think Uncle Patrick lived in this place by himself? I would get creeped out. Too many places for intruders to hide.”

  “Guess I’m not the only paranoid one,” Claire muttered, pulling a book from the shelf and opening it. “Wow,” she said, splaying a hand on a page. “First edition. This could be worth a lot.”

  “Hey!” came a shout from downstairs. Eileen.

  “Up heeere!” Murphy sang. She felt ecstatic, or maybe delirious; she had stayed up all night. She couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that something magical was going on. She was in a grand house, with her sisters. They were sharing this moment together, making a memory. Eileen and Claire were paying attention to her. It was their first sister road trip, and the best one yet.

  Eileen appeared, black-lined eyes popping the way Claire’s had.

  “It’s ours,” Murphy whispered. “All ours.”

  “It won’t be yours for another four years,” Claire said helpfully.

  “Yeah, but Eileen will share, won’t you, Leenie? We can fake our death, blow up the Caravan, and come live here. No one will have to know.”

  “Sure,” Eileen said distantly. “We’ll fake our deaths.”

  “What’s that?” Claire asked Eileen, who was holding something to her chest.

  “I, uh, found it one of the bedrooms.” Eileen turned the object for them to see.

  It was a picture frame, containing a color photograph. In it, three boys faced the camera, a fierce swath of sun on their faces. Two had fair hair—one blond, one tinged red. Freckles clustered on their noses, and their blue eyes seemed to shine. The third had dark eyes and darker hair. He wasn’t smiling like his brothers. Because they had to be brothers, Murphy decided.

  “It’s us,” Murphy said reverently, tapping the centermost brother—the one who looked the youngest.

  “It’s Dad,” Claire said. “Can’t you see? And Uncle Patrick, I guess. And … I don’t know who the other one is.”

  Murphy was in the midst of a revelation: If Mom had lied about Uncle Patrick, what else could she have kept hidden?

  “We could have ten uncles,” she whispered. “Or fifty aunts. Maybe Mom wasn’t even a foster kid. She could have a secret family too!”

  “Don’t be silly, Murph,” said Claire, though she sounded less certain when she asked, “Could Dad really have two brothers?”

  “Dunno,” said Eileen, drawing the frame back to her chest. She was wearing a weird expression. Almost like she was … scared? But that couldn’t be right. Eileen didn’t get scared about anything.

  The expression faded as Eileen shrugged and added, “We’re not here for a history lesson.”

  At that moment Murphy’s stomach growled. Only, it was bigger than a growl. More like a roar.

  “Shit, Murph,” said Eileen, arching a brow.

  “I told you I was hungry.”

  She really was, and now that Murphy was thinking about food, an undeniable, ravenous hunger took over. A body wasn’t meant to stay up through the night, she guessed, with only Dr Pepper for nourishment.

  As though confessing, Claire said, “I’m kind of hungry too.”

  “What time is it, anyway?” said Eileen.

  Claire pulled out her phone. “Almost six. That’s early enough for some places to start serving breakfast, right? Starbucks opens at four on weekdays.”

  “You would know that,” said Eileen.

  Murphy winced, expecting a fight, but it seemed Claire was too busy with her phone. She tapped at the screen, brow creased, and after a few moments resurfaced to say, “Here’s a place. A diner. They opened at five. It’s only”—she checked the screen—“a two-minute drive from here.”

  Eileen shrugged. “So we’re doing this?”

  “Why not, I guess,” said Claire. “I’m not riding three hours home on an empty stomach.”

  “You know you’re treating though, right?” Eileen smirked.

  Claire rolled her eyes and said nothing as she pushed past Eileen and headed downstairs.

  “Is there a website menu?” Murphy called, following them to the first floor. “Does it say they have cheese curds?”

  “A two-minute drive, Murph,” Eileen said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  The sisters reached the parlor, where Murphy realized she was still holding The Three Musketeers. She set it on a sideboard and joined her sisters at the French doors. That’s where Claire stopped, fists on hips, and asked, “What do we do about this?”

  “How do you mean?” asked Murphy.

  Claire narrowed her eyes. “I mean, if you broke in, there’s no good way to lock up.”

  Murphy snorted. “I don’t think you understand the concept of picking a lock.”

  “Why does it matter?” Eileen said, looking bored.

  “It matters,” said Claire, “because if Murphy could sneak in, then anyone could.”

  “And the chances of that are … ?”

  “Doesn’t matter what the chances are. It’s possible, and I’m not risking anyone’s safety.”

  “Stop using that as an excuse,” groaned Murphy.

  Then, because she could see where this was headed, she did the unthinkable. She broke the code of magicians: She revealed the how of her trick.

  “What’s that?” Claire asked, squinting at the small object Murphy had removed from her coat pocket.

  It was, in fact, a latchkey.

  “I found it under the doormat,” Murphy explained.

  “You didn’t break in?” said Eileen. “You used a fucking key?”

  They really had to rub it in, didn’t they?

  “Yeah, whatever.” Murphy pushed past them, out to the porch.

  “Then what was all that ‘magician’ talk?” Claire demanded shrilly.

  Eileen, by contrast, was grinning. “Nice,” she said, nudging Murphy’s shoulder.

  That mollified Murphy a little. Eileen hardly noticed anything Murphy did, let alone called it “nice.”

  “You are ridiculous,” Claire told Murphy, joining the sisters outside. “Why didn’t you tell us the truth to begin with?”

  Because it wouldn’t be magical. That’s what Murphy wanted to say but didn’t. It would sound too silly aloud, even if it was true. She closed the double doors and, using her key, locked the dead bolt from the outside.

  “There,” she said, turning haughtily to Claire. “We’re safe. And we didn’t even break the law. Feel better?”

  Claire muttered something about how they had still, technically, broken in. Murphy rolled her eyes, secretly grateful Claire hadn’t demanded to have the key. That would’ve been such a Claire thing to do. Anyway, Murphy had to concentrate on her goal. It was a resolution that had been forming throughout her house tour: She was going to use this stuff—the road trip, the house, the diner. They were the wand, the top hat, and the glitter in her magician’s toolbox.

  Murphy wasn’t naive. She knew that, sooner or later, Eileen would leave the garage for her own place, and Claire would head to college, and Murphy would remain behind.

  She had nice memories of Claire and Eileen from when they were younger. Memories like Cayenne Castle. She wanted more of those to hold on to when they left home.

  Operation Memory Making—from here on out, that was Murphy’s task. One that required magic to the highest degree.

  “Come on,” Eileen said, with the house secure. “Let’s get some food.”

  The sisters clambered down the back porch, rounding the house.

  And that’s when they
made the discovery:

  The Caravan was gone.

  THIRTEEN Eileen

  Damn,” said Eileen. “They told me that emergency brake was faulty.”

  The sisters stood staring at the place where the van had been parked on the bluff’s asphalt incline. Now, it wasn’t there.

  A real vanishing act. One that Murphy, with her bizarro magic obsession, could appreciate.

  Claire, however, was making a choked-up sound, like she’d gone into anaphylactic shock. “How,” she wheezed. “How could it be gone?”

  “I told you,” Eileen said, “the brake is messed up. Van must’ve rolled down the hill.”

  “B-b-but—” Claire sputtered.

  Eileen didn’t wait for an end to that sentence. She headed down the hill, calling back to the others, “It had to have stopped somewhere!”

  Eileen would be lying if she were to claim, right then, that she wasn’t worried. Of course she was. The Caravan was a piece of shit that she hated wholeheartedly, but it was also (a) the sum of her life savings, and (b) their only way back to Emmet. It couldn’t be simply gone, and worse than that, it couldn’t have crashed. It had to be okay.

  Eileen wouldn’t show that she was freaking out, though. Claire was clearly losing her goddamn mind, and only one Sullivan sister could lose it at a time. She had to keep it together for Murphy, and for herself.

  It was slow going down the bluff—an effort that strained Eileen’s calves and nearly sent her tripping—but at last she reached the base of the hill. That’s where she found the Caravan.

  The old junker was okay. From the looks of it, the van had slid all the way down the road, but it had curved inward, away from the cliffside, and ended up perched on a grassy embankment. Beyond that was a row of foreboding hemlock trees, a reminder of what could have been a sorrier end.

  “Oh, thank God,” cried Claire, joining Eileen. “It’s okay, right? It’ll still run, won’t it?”

  That was when Eileen got the idea.

  Yes, she knew her Caravan would run. Claire didn’t know that, though. Claire, who seemed obnoxiously determined to get them back to Emmet today, before Eileen had the chance to do what she’d come here to do. Claire didn’t know the trick of turning the key in the ignition just so.

  In an instant, Eileen made her decision.

  Turning to Claire, she said, “Of course it’ll work. Come on, get inside.”

  They piled into the van, Eileen in the driver’s seat, Claire on the passenger side, and Murphy in the back.

  Eileen slid the key in the ignition.

  She turned it. Not the right way.

  The engine sputtered, then died.

  Eileen turned the key again.

  The engine whirred. Then silence.

  “What’s wrong?” demanded Claire.

  “Hang on,” Eileen said. “This happens sometimes.”

  She removed the key, making a big show of inspecting it. Then she jammed it in again and turned.

  A guttural groan. No success.

  “Fuck,” Eileen said, convincingly.

  “W-w-wait,” said Claire. “What? All it did was roll down a hill. Why would that kill the battery? How could it be dead?”

  “It’s a thirty-year-old dinosaur.” Eileen shrugged. “That’s how. Maybe the engine dropped out on the way down.”

  “Don’t joke.”

  “I’m not. That’s Murphy’s job.”

  From the back seat, Murphy said, “Good one, Leenie.”

  “Well, what are we supposed to do?”

  Eileen detected a new surge of panic in Claire’s question. It almost made her feel guilty.

  Almost.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “The battery’s not dead. This just happens sometimes.”

  “It just happens?”

  “Yeah, Claire. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not a Tesla.”

  “But … how do you get it to not happen?”

  “The engine has to rest,” Eileen lied, with maximum smoothness. “That’s what the guys at the shop told me: You gotta let it rest for a while, after it’s been running for long periods of time.”

  “For how long?”

  Eileen squinted. “A few hours.”

  “What?”

  “Maybe longer.”

  Maybe, her mind added smugly, until I get what I want from this house.

  Claire was openmouthed. “How do you even know that’s the issue? How do you know it’s not the battery, or the … the … you know, the thing that starts the engine? Or the engine? How do you know we don’t need a mechanic?”

  “Because I know my van.”

  “What does that even mean? It’s not a person, it’s a machine. Are we supposed to wait until—”

  “WOULD YOU TWO SHUT UP?”

  Eileen started.

  Fights with Claire were predictable. They had been for two years, ever since their shared bedroom had begun to feel too tight, and Eileen had moved into the garage, and Claire had begun watching YouTube religiously and “curating” an Instagram account. The fights began with a tiny conflict—the white specks on the bathroom mirror, or how Eileen never cleaned the microwave—and they finished with Claire sniveling and Eileen winning the day with cold logic. That’s precisely how Eileen had expected this fight to go. What she hadn’t expected was Murphy screaming at them from the back seat. In fact, she’d temporarily forgotten Murphy was there.

  Now, though, Murphy was undeniable. She’d jutted her head between driver and passenger seat, red in the face, eyes wild.

  “You two are the worst,” Murphy proclaimed. “The apocalypse could be happening, and you would care more about your fight. It gets old. Fast.”

  Eileen stared at Murphy, wondering whether she should be offended or impressed. Since when had Murphy been this opinionated? Not that Eileen would ever admit as much aloud, but she had never figured out her littlest sister. She was too young, and it took too much effort, and in the end, Murphy had felt more like a house pet than a sister.

  Which was a horrible thing to think, Eileen knew. Still, it was the truth.

  The truth made her want a drink.

  She eyed the glove compartment lustfully.

  “Look,” said Murphy, waving her hand in front of Claire’s face. “It doesn’t matter what’s wrong with the van. What matters is it doesn’t work. So we go into town for our food, because that’s what’s important. Capisce?”

  Claire wrinkled her nose. “Don’t say ‘capisce.’ ”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s annoying, and you’re Irish, not Italian.”

  Murphy shook her head at Claire. “And you are an expert at missing the point.”

  Eileen hadn’t missed it, though. Murphy was right, and she was kind of a badass. Eileen hadn’t known that this whole time Murphy could’ve done her dirty work by shooting zingers at Claire.

  “Right,” said Eileen. “Murph, you wearing good shoes?”

  Murphy looked down at her Ugg boots, hand-me-downs from Claire.

  “Define ‘good,’ ” she said.

  “They’ll do.” Then Eileen eyed Claire’s glitter Keds, which were less than ideal for walking a mile in the rain. That was Claire’s own damn fault, though, wasn’t it?

  Eileen got out of the van and Murphy followed suit, circling to join her on the edge of the road. There was no sidewalk here, but considering not a single car had passed them on this road, Eileen figured they could manage the walk without incident.

  “Claire, c’mon,” she said.

  Claire hadn’t moved from her seat. She was tapping at her phone.

  “I’m looking up repair shops,” she said. “It makes sense to hitch a ride with whoever tows us.”

  “I’m hungry now,” Murphy whined.

  Eileen gave her youngest sister a good looking over. How could she be badass one moment and a baby the next? Had Eileen been this obnoxious at fourteen?

  Claire kept tapping her phone, visibly growing frustrated. “None of
these open till six thirty or seven,” she said. “Wait. There’s one that’s open, but it’s the next town over, and … huh. The reviews aren’t great.”

  “Claire,” said Eileen, “I told you the van is fine. Even if you won’t believe me, we’ll ask at the diner about a mechanic. There’s no point in staying here in the cold.”

  “And starving,” Murphy added.

  Claire didn’t answer. She kept tapping.

  “Claire.”

  “Oh my God, I’m coming. I’m looking up the directions to the diner.”

  A moment later Claire was out of the van. “Okay. I think we walk that way.”

  She pointed down the road.

  Eileen gave her a look. “Nice deduction, Sherlock.”

  Claire looked around, clearly taking in for the first time that the road away from the bluff was the only road to take. She sniffed proudly and turned up the hood of her coat, walking ahead of the others without a word. Murphy ran to join her, excitedly saying something about cheese.

  This was the perfect opportunity.

  “You two keep going,” Eileen called. “I forgot something. I’ll catch up.”

  Claire and Murphy didn’t even look back. Good.

  Quickly, Eileen crossed to the passenger side of the van and, leaning in, opened the glove compartment and removed the flask. She unscrewed the cap and took a swig. The liquid stung down her throat, filling Eileen with sweet relief. She pocketed the flask in her jacket.

  It didn’t take long to catch up with the others. Murphy was doing a beatbox version of a Christmas song, and Claire was saying, “Please. You’re not Pentatonix.”

  Eileen glanced at Claire’s phone screen, which showed a blue dot moving along their path, down Shoreline Road. Their destination was farther east, on a perpendicular road called Honey Street.

  Honey Street. Seriously. The cuteness made Eileen queasy.

  “What’d you forget?” Claire asked Eileen.

  Eileen stared ahead at a pink-red dawn. “My wallet.”

  “The one with no money in it?”

  “Yeah. That one.”

  The queasy feeling was growing. It wasn’t that Eileen cared about lying to Claire. They weren’t close, not anymore, and Claire wasn’t exactly forthcoming about her own life. So, it wasn’t the lying that made Eileen feel bad. It was the lying about drinking. Eileen knew it was gross. Gross, like the times she’d called in favors at Safeway, asking Asher to grab a bottle from Liquor Mart. Gross, like how she’d begun to think whiskey made a great pairing with her morning Pop-Tart. Gross, like the times she’d passed out in her room on the floor, tears dried on her face and vomit crusting her lips. Gross, like drinking and driving with her sisters in the van. Gross, like the letters she’d found in the linen closet. The letters that had started it all.