And all she could do in the face of that truth was laugh.
EIGHTEEN Murphy
Do you hear that?” Murphy asked.
“What?” said Eileen.
“Someone’s laughing.”
“Not funny.”
Her sisters sure loved saying stuff like that: Not funny, it’s not a joke, stop being dramatic. Which was great for a performer’s morale.
This time, though, Murphy wasn’t trying to be funny.
“Leenie, I’m serious—”
“We’re not on Scooby-Doo, Murph. Shut up.”
Murphy liked Eileen better than Claire. She always had. That didn’t mean she actually liked Eileen, though. When she chose to, Eileen could be a stone-cold bitch, and she’d only gotten stonier over the years. Sometimes, Murphy wanted to jump to Eileen’s way-high eye level and shout—for Eileen to notice her, to be nicer, to give Murphy some good memories to hold on to.
That was the big goal, wasn’t it? Operation Memory Making. But how did you make memories with people who barely acknowledged your presence?
Murphy gave up talking about the laughter, only because it was possibly Claire’s. Murphy couldn’t be sure, because she hadn’t heard Claire laugh—really laugh—in years. Who the heck knew what Claire found funny. Probably old nineties shows about rich people, like Frasier.
Maybe she was watching Frasier on her phone.
Murphy settled on that explanation because she was creeped out already, and she didn’t need to add “mysterious ghost laughter” to her list of “Signs the House Is Haunted.”
Regardless of what Eileen said, this could be a funny story one day. How Murphy and her sisters got winter-squalled into an old house and were almost ax-murdered by their long-lost uncle.
Ha … ha?
No. Diner Cathy had to be wrong. Murphy bet that once Mark Enright had left town, he’d gone off to live in Argentina, or Switzerland, or wherever else morally dubious creeps went. No way he’d care about a house in Nowheresville, Oregon.
If he was around, though, they were armed. Eileen was brandishing a large kitchen knife she’d found downstairs. She’d given Murphy her open switchblade.
“Aren’t these illegal?” Murphy had asked.
“So are intruders,” Eileen had countered. “Anyway, blades are best. If someone tries to take your weapon, they’ll end up cutting themselves. Just keep a good grip.”
“And I’ll yell if I see something suspicious?”
“You won’t, Murph. No one’s here. We’re doing this to make Claire happy, because she’s a freaking princess, and I don’t want to deal with her bitching the rest of the night.”
Eileen had seemed confident, and that made Murphy feel better about their mission. For … a minute. Upstairs, though, things felt scarier.
Maybe there wasn’t an intruder. What about ghosts, though?
“Murph, stop breathing down my neck.”
Murphy shot back to reality, where she was kind of breathing on Eileen. She hadn’t realized how close beside her she’d been walking. It wasn’t because she was scared, though.
It wasn’t.
“Check that one,” Eileen ordered, swatting Murphy toward the bedroom across the hall.
Murphy was about to say, Why me? but stopped herself. She didn’t care if Eileen thought she was a whiner, but a coward? That was different. So Murphy shrugged like it was no big deal and went to the other room.
This place hadn’t been touched since the 1970s, at least. The wallpaper was striped mustard yellow and mud brown. Murphy squinted till the lines went runny, blending together in one putrid glob. She wondered, was this what it was like to be high on weed, or LSD? Is that why everything was barf-colored back then?
First, Murphy checked under the bed. She had to psych herself up, telling herself that no one had gotten their brains bashed in here, and there was definitely not a rotting corpse awaiting her on the other side of the bed skirt, à la “A Rose for Emily” (thanks, Ms. Hutchinson’s seventh-grade English class).
“You’re cool,” she told herself, gripping the switchblade. “You’re totally cool.”
She flung up the crocheted lace. There was nothing there. No storage boxes, not even dust. Was Uncle Patrick a neat freak till his dying day?
Murphy told herself to focus on the positive: no corpse. She felt a lot more confident when she got to her feet and checked the closet. No corpses there, either, or ax murderers. No dust bunnies, no anything.
She let herself wonder, what if this had been her dad’s room? It was a weird thought, and the weirder thing was, these rooms were old, but none of them contained a ton of old stuff. Murphy hadn’t found clothes in the dressers, papers in the desks, or picture frames on the walls. The only photo she’d seen had been the one Eileen had found. As for personal stuff, maybe Uncle Patrick had gotten rid of it. Or maybe it was stored away in those boxes downstairs.
“Clear!” Murphy yelled, but when she turned for the door, her eyes locked with another pair. Blue. Unblinking. Dead.
“HOLY—” Murphy started and didn’t finish.
It was a doll. The creepiest, ugliest porcelain doll she’d ever seen. Its hair was a mountain of ratty blond curls, and its lips were painted blood-red, slightly parted to reveal rabbitlike teeth. It was wearing a pink dress and pinafore, and Murphy wasn’t sure which was more disturbing: that the doll’s nails were painted, or that Murphy knew what the word “pinafore” meant.
Her heart revved to three hundred beats per minute. She clutched at it like an old woman and tried to breathe.
Everything was fine. It was only a doll.
She glared at the offending hunk of porcelain.
“Not cool, Winifred,” she said.
Because the doll was Victorian, and that seemed a safe bet, as far as names went.
Winifred stared back at her with those utterly dead eyes, and Murphy’s heart slammed the accelerator again. She booked it out to the hallway and slammed the door shut. Eileen was standing a few feet away, a single brow raised.
“There was … a doll,” Murphy tried to explain, which made her sound like the greatest coward who ever lived.
Eileen shrugged and said, “Yeah, dolls suck.”
She could be a stone-cold bitch, but she could also be decent.
Murphy smiled a little. “You think so too?”
“Sure. I had this Raggedy Ann once named Deidre. Creeped me the hell out.”
“What’d you do with her?”
“Gave her to Claire.”
Murphy giggled, and Eileen actually smiled. Then she pointed to the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. “Turret’s the only place left, huh?”
Murphy was glad to be almost through with their reconnaissance mission. Eileen was right: Claire was paranoid. There was no one in this house aside from them. No hoboes, no ghosts, and no Mark Enright.
Murphy’s heart had turned law-abiding motorist once more as she and Eileen headed up the stairs. Midway up the spirals, there was an arched window. Rain slammed against the glass, torrential. Beyond, hard wind was on the Pacific, whipping out angry waves. They’d been right to stay. If they’d gone out in this weather, they wouldn’t have made it home. They’d have been swept away in a flash flood, or smashed by a fallen tree. Dead.
Dead as Siegfried.
Murphy winced. She’d gone a few minutes without feeling totally guilty about that. At least she was treating Siegfried properly in death. His Tupperware coffin was safely deposited in the grand piano downstairs, resting inside its frame on the bottommost strings. That had seemed the classiest alternative to a turtle funeral home. Murphy had noted a slight odor emitting from the coffin, like trash gone bad. Nothing noticeable outside the piano, though. She’d find Siegfried a proper burial site before the stench got worse.
“Murph. Move.”
Eileen jabbed Murphy’s shoulder, and the sisters headed up the remaining stairs. When they reached the top, Eileen flipped on the light, revealing the round room
with its hundreds of books. Murphy’s imagination ran wild. What had gone on in this place? Tea parties? Secret meetings? Torrid love affairs?
Or maybe this was where Mark Enright had first fought with his father. Maybe he’d whacked him over the head in this very spot. Maybe they’d painted over the bloodstains. Maybe—
“AAAAAH!” Murphy shrieked.
Something was headed straight for her face—small, black, and fast. Panicked, she threw out her hands. Then she got really scared because Eileen was screaming.
It was pandemonium. Murphy waved her arms, tripping backward, falling, butt slamming onto the floor. The switchblade flew from her hand, skidding across the room. Eileen, too, had dropped her knife, and her screams transformed into words: “FUCK” and “VAT,” and then Murphy realized she wasn’t saying “VAT” but “BAT.”
When Murphy was brave enough to open her eyes, she saw the truth for herself: the mystery object that had come for her face was indeed a bat, flapping haphazardly around the room.
“Fuck!” Eileen shrieked again, grabbing Murphy by the shoulders and trying to haul her to her feet. Murphy had only stood partway up before they were tumbling down the stairs. She hit her shin against the railing. Pain meant nothing, though; Murphy was focused on her hair. What if the bat got in her hair? She stumbled to her feet, and then she and Eileen were neck and neck, racing down the hallway and the next flight of stairs. She didn’t know where the bat was anymore. She could only hope she was getting farther away from its claws and beady eyes and fangs.
There was only the grand staircase left. Murphy took the steps three at a time, advancing like a track star, flinging herself over invisible hurdles. She collapsed on the parlor floor, gasping for breath. Digging her fingers into her curls, feeling all over, she shouted, “It’s gone, right? Where is it? Is it gone?”
When she looked up for an answer, she found Claire standing over her, big-eyed, brandishing a soup pot above her head.
“What?” Claire looked wildly between Murphy and Eileen. “What’s going on?”
Eileen was puffing as loudly as Murphy, hands on her knees. Neither of them could speak.
Claire shook the pot, menacing. “What’s going on? Is someone here?” Then she called out, “We’re armed down here, you hear that? WE ARE ARMED.”
“Fuck,” said Eileen, but there was no longer urgency in the word. She shook her head at Claire, breath regained. “Hey, it’s fine. It’s fine. There was … a bat.”
Claire was staring blankly at Eileen, like she’d spoken in Russian.
“A bat?” she repeated.
Murphy sat up and cleared her throat, ready to give the performance this moment deserved: “It was a big bat. In the turret. It was attacking us!”
Claire looked at Murphy. Murphy looked at Eileen.
“Good to know we’re armed, though.” Eileen pointed at the pot. “If that was Mark Enright, you could have souped him to death.”
Claire looked at Eileen. Looked at Murphy. She dropped the pot to the ground. It rolled across the floor, hit the wall, and clattered to a stop.
Claire was going to yell, telling them how impossible they were. She was going to say they should’ve listened to her and left this place when they’d had a chance. Murphy was ready for that.
Only, Claire didn’t yell.
She laughed.
And when she did, Murphy knew for sure that the ghost laughter from before had been hers.
Claire’s giggles were shallow. She was pressing a hand to her forehead, and tears leaked from her eyes. She laughed and laughed, and Murphy was starting to freak out about it, but then something weirder happened: Eileen began laughing too. She stayed stooped, hands on her knees, producing a big, brassy howl.
Murphy stared at them like they’d both gone mad. Then she noticed her heart, back at Indy 500 speed. There was energy building inside her—so much it could snap her bones, or bust through her arteries. Then it was rushing out her mouth, and she was laughing. It happened involuntarily, like a sneeze.
The three of them laughed, and then Murphy was laughing because they were laughing, and she thought they might keep going for hours, maybe until the end of the world. It was happening, just as Murphy had hoped it would: They were making a memory.
That’s when the lights went out.
TWO YEARS BEFORE
CAYENNE CASTLE
In its fifth year the castle had neither towers nor parapets. In fact, it had lost most of its walls.
“You aren’t putting your backs into it,” Murphy complained. She was struggling to hoist a bedsheet above her head and secure one of its ends on a floor lamp. This would’ve been easier if someone tall was helping. Like Eileen.
But Murphy’s oldest sister sat in the corner of the room, crossarmed, in the La-Z-Boy.
“It’s good enough, Murph,” she muttered. “Leave it alone.”
Eileen had been doing a lot of muttering lately, as well as sullen staring. Murphy thought the new bedroom was to blame. Why had Eileen needed to clear out the garage? She and Claire had always lived together happily. Murphy knew the story of how, when Murphy was born, Eileen had begged Mom to let her and Claire keep sharing their room, rather than moving Murphy in with Claire.
“I don’t want oldest kid privileges!” she’d shouted when Mom had tried to change her mind.
Murphy had thought the story was cute, and she’d definitely liked the result: a room to herself. But she’d seen why sharing worked for Eileen and Claire. They were basically best friends.
That’s what she’d thought, anyway. Then, two months ago, out of the blue, Eileen had moved out.
Why the heck resort to a cold, drafty garage? The only explanation, Murphy decided, was that Claire had to be a really bad snorer. It made more sense than the idea that Eileen and Claire weren’t getting along. That was impossible.
But on this twenty-first of December, all Eileen and Claire had done was fight.
“If she wants to make the castle, or whatever, let her,” said Claire, who was stretched on the couch, eyes glued to her phone. Claire was always on her phone.
“What’s the point?” Eileen shot back. “She’s gonna break that lamp, and we’ll get the heat from Mom.”
Another something that had been happening lately: Murphy’s sisters talking about her like she wasn’t in the room. She this, and she that, and none of it nice stuff, either. About how Murphy was too young and naive, while they were older and infinitely wise. Like, what was the point of Murphy being around?
Well, she was going to impress them today. She’d been working on this act for weeks, with Cayenne Castle in mind.
Murphy had long known she was destined for the stage, but until recently she’d been half-hearted in her magical pursuit—trying to learn new tricks and abandoning them after a few days. Now, she’d become a scholar. She was getting good at the illusions in her library book entitled Stage Magic: A Beginner’s Guide. With committed practice, she was going to get better.
Maybe good enough to get Claire and Eileen and even Mom to stop with their busy lives long enough to pay attention.
That could happen.
With magic, anything was possible.
“Seriously?” Claire sniffed at Eileen. “Like Mom’s going to notice a lamp.”
Claire had a point: Mom didn’t notice dirty dishes in the sink, or the certificate Murphy had stuck to the fridge—an award for Best Solo Act in drama club’s Winter Holiday Revue. Why would Mom notice a broken lamp?
“Anyway,” Claire went on, “you’ve broken more stuff in this house than any of us.” She held up a hand, enumerating: “Mom’s ashtray, the bird soap dish, the outlet cover in my room—”
“Our room.”
“Uh, not yours anymore.”
“Whatever. And sorry, I didn’t realize you were keeping a freaking list of my mistakes.”
“I’m not, it’s just obvious who the real breaker is here.”
“Breaker? Wow. Nice vocab.”
“Better than yours, Ms. F-Bomb.”
“I haven’t—”
“GUYS.” Murphy threw down the sheet.
Begrudgingly, the sisters looked to her.
“No one’s helping,” Murphy said, hands on hips. “It’s like you guys don’t even want to do Cayenne Castle anymore.”
Eileen and Claire exchanged a look across the room.
Shrugging, Eileen said, “Sorry, Murph. We don’t.”
“We’re too old for it,” Claire added, gaze drifting to her phone. “We have been for a while.”
“It’s … blankets,” Murphy said, nonplussed. “Who gets too old for blankets?”
“You know what we mean,” said Claire. “The made-up names and tea parties. It’s kiddie stuff.”
Murphy pursed her lips. Her eyes were getting scratchy.
No. She wasn’t going to cry. Especially not when Claire was calling her “kiddie.” Like Claire and Eileen were way older. The two of them sure hadn’t acted too old for the castle last year.
Something had changed. It had been changing for months. Eileen and Claire had been closing their bedroom doors. They no longer whispered, sharing secrets; they shouted, trading insults. Like they’d forgotten how close they’d been before. Forgotten their royal titles of Princess Paprika and Sir Sage.
Then, a few weeks ago, Eileen had said, “Let’s not do the present thing, huh?”
Murphy had stared, uncomprehending. “But … that’s our tradition. We’ve been doing it for years.”
“Yeah, well, it’s old now.”
Claire had shrugged at Eileen’s pronouncement—the only thing she’d agreed with her about lately. And they’d left Murphy in the kitchen, staring at her lukewarm mac and cheese. She hadn’t told them she’d already bought their gifts: a black-handled, iridescent paintbrush for Eileen and a pink flower statement necklace for Claire.
She’d been scared since then, suspecting it: that Eileen and Claire were over the castle. Still, she’d kept her chin up. She’d prepared her show. She was determined to raise these walls and make them remember.
But now …
The Sullivan Sisters Page 13