The Last Will of Moira Leahy: A Novel

by Therese Walsh

  The wind had picked up as they'd sailed farther into the heart of the bay and closer to the mouth of the open sea. Waves had grown larger and the fog thicker, like a blanket over the whole of the sky, a clot over the sun. Moira shivered. She could see no landmarks. Hear no other sailors.

  "Poppy, should we should go back? Maybe a storm's coming."

  Poppy didn't answer. His face looked funny, like it was coated in chalk. Moira watched, horrified, as he slumped against the side of the boat, then fell, headfirst, into the sea. The boat lurched on a splash.

  "Poppy!" she screamed, as his body bobbed to the surface, his face framed in the sun-faded life preserver she'd teased him into wearing. His eyes were closed. He didn't speak, didn't move except with the waves. Moira's mind felt suspended, too, as she drifted away from him.

  She had to turn, or Poppy would be lost to fog and sea.

  Her hands had just begun to follow her brain's orders when a strong gust hit. The boom moved, the boat leaned, her hair flew into her eyes. She grabbed the jib sheet, uncleated it. It luffed, blaring in the wind, but the boat stabilized.

  "Poppy! Wake up!" His shape grew smaller behind her as panic beat hard and painful in her chest.

  She lunged for the tiller. This had never been her job, but she'd seen it done, knew the steps: Haul in the jib, cleat it tight, push the tiller, haul in on the mainsheet. The boat began to turn and tip slightly. She muttered steps--"turn into the current, adjust the mainsheet"--and tried to keep her eyes on the wind vane and Poppy both.

  He lay far to the left of her. She couldn't get to him in a straight line; she'd pull closer in one direction and move farther away in another as minutes lapsed. She battled frustration as she worked. Imagine the line between you, pull as close as you can this way, uncleat the jib. It seemed to take forever, and when she thought she was close, she braced herself to come about. Push the tiller away--she ducked under the boom--trim the main sheet, move the jib, cleat it. The boat turned for the last time.

  Poppy floated in front of her now, and the boat moved forward, closer ... closer. A wave covered her gloved fingers as she leaned, reached beyond the boat--

  "Poppy!" She grabbed his life jacket, but it caught halfway down his arms, the straps unfastened. She made fists in his shirt and hair instead, and pulled his body against the boat. With a glance back at the wind vane, she maneuvered them enough to point the boat into the wind. The sails stalled. The jib flapped deafeningly as it lost air. The liberated lines jumped and pinged against the mast, and the boat stilled.

  Moira hugged Poppy's body and sobbed. His chest moved--he breathed--but his skin felt like ice and his lips were blue. She knew she had to get him out of the water, but his heavy body, covered in layers of soaked clothes, lifted only a little when she tucked her arms under his and pulled. The boat leaned when she tried again, straining as hard as she could, but he barely moved with her efforts. She stopped, panting, and the boat settled back into the sea.

  "Help! Can anyone hear me?" she shouted. "Is anyone there?" Only the wind shrieked in response, and the boat pitched dangerously with the hard gust. Moira reached a hand toward the sail but wasn't fast enough. The vessel tipped.

  Her lungs seemed to deflate as she hit the frigid water. She gasped in shallow breaths, coughed, kicked. Somehow her hands found what they needed: her grandfather, the boat. Her fingers slid on the slimy underside of the craft as she tried to right it. Failed. She grabbed some floating line, managed to wrap it around Poppy and her own wrist to make a clumsy knot.

  "Help! Please, someone, help us!" Her voice jangled like bones in their sockets as the sea slapped and sucked against the inside of the boat. She'd never felt more alone.

  Time slurred until she heard a noise that was not the sea. Help. She could not holler or even raise her arm to wave. She tried to pinpoint the source and couldn't. She no longer felt the cold; her body no longer shivered. She tried to open her eyes, but they felt heavy with the sting of salt as she drifted in the dark space behind her eyelids.

  SHE WOKE IN an unfamiliar bed, covered in blankets.

  "Can you hear me, sweetie?"

  Was that Mama? Moira fell back asleep.

  She woke briefly to the sound of her parents' voices: incapacitated, therapy, recovery. The words were indecipherable to her. Again, she slept.

  At some point she became aware of a thin tube along her arm. Her eyelids felt like anchors as she pulled them partway up. Darkness filled the room.

  "Poppy?"

  The word came from her raw throat as a rasp. Glass pressed against her lips. She sipped water, then sunk back into the void, still feeling the greedy surge of the sea in every breath.

  Then it was day once more. Moira noticed white walls, a green curtain over a wide window, a machine with red lights. Maeve sat beside her, the pale skin beneath her eyes lined in shadow. Moira didn't need to ask the question.

  "I felt it somehow," Maeve said, "even with the block. It was terrible, cold, the worst feeling ever. Mama said it was the sickness, but I knew it wasn't, so I ran and found Daddy getting ready to leave, and he believed me and we found you."

  Moira learned more later--about Maeve pointing the way as unerringly as a wind vane through chowder-thick fog until they were found, floating in the sea like fishing buoys.

  "Poppy had a heart attack in his brain. He's going to live with us now," Maeve said. "I think this is what I felt last year about him. What if I'm right about the baby, too, and--"

  "Stop it!" Mama stood in the doorway, looking furious and wild, like a stranger. She rushed at Maeve and, for the first time, slapped her across the face. The sting of her assault spread through Moira's flesh as well.

  Daddy seemed to come from nowhere, and pressed his hand over Mama's mouth. He pulled her away, his lips pale and flat. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," he muttered, and Moira didn't know to whom he spoke, since he looked at all of them in turn.

  Mama never mentioned the incident after that. She all but lived at the hospital until Poppy's release three weeks later, then made a place for her father in their home and spent most of her time caring for his needs.

  "You saved my life," Moira said one night, lying beside her twin. She didn't mind about the droopy bed now.

  "No," Maeve insisted, "you saved your own. You're like a goose on the water."

  "Goose brain."

  "Goose butt."

  They slept together after that like goslings--huddled for warmth and hoping the foxes stayed away.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CRIMSON STAIN

  The day after Thanksgiving, I finally made my way to Betheny's biggest and best antiques shop, Time After Time. Like most retailers across the country, it would be a huge sale day for Garrick, so I arrived before the shop officially opened for business. Excitement hit as I pulled into the empty lot. I'd missed this sight. Three stories tall, perfectly white, with a peaked tower and twin chimneys, the old Victorian looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell Christmas village.

  I strode across the stone walk with the keris in hand, and was greeted with the rich scents of cinnamon and pine when I opened the heavy wooden door. As always, my eyes couldn't pick a focus in this place that seemed like Oz to me, like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Every nook and cranny beckoned with some new treasure--come, look, touch, buy. There were Japanese woodblock prints, stained-glass lamps, ornately carved pieces of furniture, African masks and Indian headdresses my poppy would've loved. A huge blue spruce stood in the center of the room, bedecked with multicolored glass ornaments, miniature lamps, real tin tinsel, and a crystal star.

  Scads of fascinating old books lay everywhere, including one I'd been tempted to buy after a particularly bad run of nightmares: Old Gypsy Madge's Fortune Teller and the Witches Key to Lucky Dreams. Inside were instructions for making talismans against love, enemies, war, and trouble in general. TO BE WORN AROUND THE NECK, it read. Turned out I wasn't that desperate.

  Artwork decorated every wall, including one area
near the front that was dedicated to Noel's paintings. His specialty: irony. True love between a fly and a cow's tail. A pregnant old man. A squirrel chasing a dog up a tree.

  Come on, Maeve, pose for me. Just once.

  Don't be stupid, I'm no model, are you blind?

  Who's being stupid? And who's looking at you? Let me.

  Sorry, too shy, I'd lied with a saucy grin. Truth was, I'd never be able to sit for that long with Noel staring at me, even if he did have a pencil or brush in his hand.

  A proper English accent sated my hungry ears--"My dear girl, it's wonderful to see you!"--and there before me stood Garrick Wareham, dressed for tea in a green shirt, striped wool vest, and gray trousers. He looked like a Hobbit: short in stature (we are actually the same height--5'3"), with a mop of curly white hair and a pair of blue eyes that sparked with intellect and steadfast good humor. A Hobbit, except for that snowy white mustache of his, tipped up at the ends.

  I hugged him. He smelled of lemon drops.

  He led me down a familiar hall off the main room--the one that also led to Noel's studio. How's Noel? Where is he? When will he be back? Did he find his mother? Has he asked about me?

  These questions stalled on my tongue as we turned into the weapons room--a formidable place lined with locked glass cabinets full of machetes and bayonets and spearheads and other things I couldn't name but wouldn't want to meet up against in a dark alley. Various showcase pedestals dotted the floor, including one that displayed a pyramid of musket balls and another that featured the navy cap of a Civil War officer.

  "Now," Garrick said, stopping at a workstation, "let's have a look at that keris." I handed it over, and then he unsheathed it and whistled long and low. "Fly me over the moon. It's perfect."

  "Well, not quite. There's a hole."

  "That's not a flaw." He turned the keris, brought it close to his face. "You're supposed to be able to see the future through those. It's good luck."

  I wasn't surprised I hadn't read about good-luck holes during my Internet search; Garrick prided himself on obscure information. While he might call his knowledge factual, though, Noel probably would've said otherwise.

  "Let's see what we have after I give it a bath." He unlocked an opaque cabinet, and pulled down half a dozen bottles covered in warning labels. Toxic cleansers. "Make yourself at home, Maeve. There's cocoa in the kitchen if you'd like."

  "You're too good to me," I said, though my taste buds didn't jolt as they should have. I loitered. Strolled the room. Watched Garrick. Finally, I stepped before a pedestal displaying a Revolutionary War bugle, and my thoughts drifted to Castine's own legendary Revolutionary War musician.

  According to the story, Castine's drummer-boy ghost died during a skirmish in my hometown. He'd haunted the battlefield for a while, then moved into a tiny nearby dungeon. I'd always wondered why. Maybe he'd grown tired of the field. Or maybe he'd wanted to escape the memory of trumpet call. I could relate to that. Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 20 in D Minor had been with me since the previous night, as ceaseless as a haunted music box.

  "How's the music?"

  I nearly knocked the bugle over. "What?"

  "Is it too loud, not loud enough? I swear, my hearing ..."

  I became aware of Bing Crosby's crooning for a white Christmas coming in through the shop's speakers. "Oh, it's perfect." I needed to hold it together.

  "There's a resting snake in the last case on the left if you'd like to look," Garrick said, still scrubbing at the blade.

  "Snake?"

  "A straight keris is sometimes called a resting snake, and a wavy blade is active. It comes from naga, a mythical reptile. Do you know Sanskrit?"

  "No," I admitted, walking toward the back. "But I did find out that the word keris comes from the Javanese ngeris, which means 'to pierce.' I did a little research last night." Eating cold turkey with my fingers and fighting the effects of tryptophan for as long as I could.

  "Did you? And what did you learn?"

  "That I shouldn't believe half of what I read."

  He chuckled. "Well, what did you read?"

  "That some kerises bring good luck and some bad."

  "Yours will certainly bring good. What else?"

  "They come in different wave lengths and patterns. Let's see if I can remember the names--they were in the book, too." I stopped before the last case. "The number of waves are called the luks and the pattern is called the pamor."

  "Very good. Look at the pamor on that one," he said, and I swiveled around to face the glass. I recognized the keris right away by the unique cut of the metal near the handle--an area I now knew bore a long list of specific features, like ganja and tang. In fact, the keris had more labeled parts than most unassembled toys imported from China. Otherwise, there was little resemblance between this particular keris and mine.

  "It's very nice," I said, noting the scattering of bold ovals along its straight length. No need to tell Garrick that that blade wouldn't have caught my attention at Lansing's Block.

  "Kerises may well be manufactured by machine nowadays," Garrick said wistfully, "but it used to be that empus made them, layering metals to create perfect patterns by following something like a blueprint. Each design was supposed to bring the owner a specific gift--like wealth or inner strength.

  "But sometimes the empu would allow the blade to be made however it wanted to be made. When that happened, it was said the gods had a hand in crafting the keris because they had plans for it. Your keris," he said, "is fated."

  "Hmm." Another hole in my education.

  "The details in your blade's pamor have darkened over time, but I believe they're clearer than they were. Come and see."

  I stepped up. Though still near black with age, the keris now shimmered bronze and silver, like the skin of a serpent in intense sunlight. Thin veins ran from one end to the other, swirling harmonically in some places and eddying off in others. No intentional design. Fated--or fluked--into being.

  "It's beautiful," I said.

  "It's positively brilliant!" Garrick's mustache convulsed.

  I took the proffered blade and balanced it on my palms. A citrusy fragrance emanated from the warm metal.

  "Do you see the man in the blade?" he asked.

  "Man?" I felt a subtle pressure against my palms when he touched the keris.

  "There's the head," he said, indicating a dark metallic pond toward the handle, "and there's the chest, arms, and legs. It's a bloke, and it makes your blade more powerful. Magical. And, I suspect, worth quite a bit of money."

  I squinted, but these supposed body parts still looked like random blobs to me. "What about the waves, the luks? How many are there?"

  "Well, let's see." He traced the length. "Hmm." He started over, his brows bunched together. "Eleven."

  "What does that--"

  "Or thirteen." He nodded and scowled simultaneously.

  "It matters how many, to know what it was made for, right?" Not that I believed in that mumbo-jumbo-gobbledygook stew, but it was interesting. On a hypothetical level.

  "Yes, that's part of the equation. I'm sorry to say I can't be sure about it, though it must be an odd number of luks."

  "Why must it? What if it isn't?"

  "It always is, otherwise it would be unlucky."

  "Unlucky luks. That doesn't sound good." I smiled even as his frown deepened; Garrick took his lore seriously.

  "Some kerises are luckier than others," he said, "depending on the pamor and the shape. Even the blade's length is important. You know," he said in his big-eyed, silky-voiced way, "you can tell a blade's intention by putting it under your pillow. If you have a nightmare, the keris is bad."

  "I'll keep that in mind," I said, though I had no intention of snuggling up to objects that might lead to my accidental impalement or doing anything--regardless of my skepticism--to court more nightmares. "Let's consider a hypothetical. Say my keris had eleven luks. What would that mean?"

  "I'm afraid I don't know," he said, repl
acing caps on bottles. "There are about one hundred and fifty shapes and as many as two dozen patterns possible on a blade. Think of the combinations. It's a real science!"

  "So, if I wanted to know more about it ...?" I prompted.

  "Hmm." He stilled, thoughtful. "I suppose there are books dedicated to the keris. Or you might look for an empu--though I believe they are exceedingly rare nowadays."

  "Oh," I said, as if I'd cracked opened a fortune cookie and found it empty. What an unfulfilling avventura to be left with so many unanswered questions. Disappointment must've shown on my face.

  "Don't be disheartened, my dear. Every keris is imbued with magic. Did you know meteoric metals were used to create the pamor? Empus believed meteors were metal of the gods, coming straight from heaven." I opened my mouth to reply, but he went right on. "It doesn't matter where the magic comes from, I suppose--only that it exists. There are old stories of kerises flying from their sheaths to defend their owners, and there are still towns in Malaysia and Java that fear some notorious blades possessed by evil spirits. And there is some evidence ..."

  I could just imagine Noel standing beyond his grandfather, the roll of his eyes, the sardonic grin. Humor him, he'd mouth.

  "It's too bad Noel isn't here to look at your keris," Garrick said, like he'd read my thoughts. "He's quite a talent at estimating age and value. Ah, well. He'll return one day."

  My toes curled. "Soon, I'm sure, for Christmas."

  "I've been kindly asked not to count on it." He said it with a hint of melancholy, but then he looked straight at me and the ends of his mustache tipped toward his nose. "You know how he detests flying. He'll never need to ride another aeroplane again if he stays in Europe. He'll just use the rail!"

  I was too numb to smile back at him. Maybe that's why I asked the question so artlessly.

  "Did he find her?"

  "Who's that, dear?"

  "Um ..." Hadn't Noel told Garrick about the search for his mother, Garrick's daughter? Was it supposed to be some sort of surprise?

  Garrick seemed oblivious to my confusion, though. His mustache had drooped again. "Ah, well. I get the feeling he's preparing me for something. I fear he may never come home."