The Last Will of Moira Leahy: A Novel

by Therese Walsh

  I walked on until I found a public fountain and bench. I sat and pushed wet hair off my face, wiped my nose with the back of my hand. A woman with two children approached, but she took a look at me--and maybe the blade sticking out of my coat--and turned away to find another place to sit or drink. Smart woman, good mother.

  Eling.

  I remembered leaving Castine, the effort it took to pack my things, say good-bye to my father, my mother's straight back. To leave Moira. That had been the hardest thing I'd ever done. But this I knew: Sometimes you had to cut out a piece of your heart in order to save the greater part of yourself from annihilation.

  Some things were inhibited for a reason. Some things should remain buried. Whether the keris held power or it was all in my sick head didn't really matter; what mattered was that the blade had become interwoven with the bones of all my skeletons.

  And eling would kill me.

  I stood, resolved, and walked back to the pawnshop.

  Merchandise lined a long and narrow room, but I was blind to specifics. I had something to sell, I told the woman behind the counter. I showed her the keris. I knew the amount she offered was far below the blade's worth, but it didn't matter. She tucked a yellow euro in my hand and it was done.

  Back outside, I leaned against the brick and sucked cold air through my mouth. My head filled with noise, lost words--Vinah way pleshee myna--and dissonant notes that made me light-headed. I stumbled further from the shop. People stared.

  Abin fanto. Abin rextin.

  The voice grew dim as I wandered unknown streets, mapless and bereft. Minutes passed, hours.

  Abin fanto.

  I remembered arms around me. Moira's.

  Abin fanto.

  I realized with a jolt what the words meant.

  Abin fanto: Good-bye, love.

  Abin rextin. Rextin. This was my name. The name my sister called me. And she was Bloo.

  Abin, Rextin. Abin, Bloo.

  Good-bye, sister.

  I redirected myself, started back the way I'd come. How could I have sold the keris--something that reminded me of good times, of adventures with Moira when we'd been whole and happy? How could I think to give it up, to cave in to some ridiculous fear? How could I blame it for nightmares I'd had all along? I'd get it back. I would. But the mazelike streets I'd ensnarled myself on seemed to have other plans, and a thick fog descended on the city. Game over, nature seemed to say. All is lost.

  I wouldn't accept it.

  I demanded right-of-way as I ran through intersections and across roads. I felt myself soaked through, skin to bone, when the sky opened again. No cab stopped for me.

  In the end, my father's homing genes saved me. I returned to the pawnshop and told the woman I wanted my keris back. I thrust two yellow euros at her. She handed me the blade, then asked me to leave; I'd dripped all over her wood floor.

  I SAT FOR HOURS ON the polished granite-and-marble inside the famed Pantheon, while a freefall of rain stormed through the opening in the high dome. The great eye that was the oculus, its iris a mosaic, seemed to weep.

  "It's mind-boggling to think people stood here two thousand years ago and watched rainfall just like this."

  Noel, impossibly, stood behind me.

  "How did you find me?"

  "I have superhero powers. I thought we'd established that." He paused, studied me. "We talked about it this morning."

  "Oh. I forgot."

  He sat. Our knees touched. "You all right?"

  "This place was supposedly the temple for all the gods," I said. "The gods' messenger was the goddess of rainbows. Her name was Iris." I pointed to the oculus.

  "Interesting," he said. "But I asked about you."

  "The root of the word iris is Greek for rainbow. I wonder if they thought about that. I wonder if you can see a rainbow in here when the sun shines through a storm."

  "Maeve."

  "What?"

  "Let me in. Tell me."

  "There's nothing to tell."

  "You're here alone, crying on the floor. I think there's something to tell."

  Crying? I wiped at my face, at the sea salt on my cheek.

  "What happened?"

  The keris flared under my coat.

  Vinah way pleshee myna. Bloo.

  I couldn't shake the sense of her. Moira was everywhere: in the storm, in my head, my blood. "I had a sister, Noel."

  "Yes, I know. Moira."

  "We were twins."

  "Twins?"

  I nodded.

  "What happened to your twin?" He asked it quietly, like he might, with a quick inhalation, take the query back.

  I'd never told anyone, but now I found myself transported back and back. I was no longer in Rome; I was in Castine. It was not December; it was November, nine years past. And I was not After Maeve; I was Before Maeve.

  But not for long.

  I'D HAD A knack for foretelling disaster with the people I loved. I'd sense it creep along the back of my neck or trek through my marrow to kick at my ribs. I'd felt for a long while that something was wrong with my sister. Are you okay? I'd ask her, and she'd nod. Yes, Goose. I felt in her a kind of restlessness I could only identify with music, with wanting to play and not having enough time for it, yet I saw her at the piano less and less.

  When we turned sixteen, our sick poppy gave us passports, and my soul cheered, because our future--full of travel and music and each other--loomed so close. But Moira became a stranger to me, almost overnight. She'd leave the house and get defensive when I asked questions. She closed herself to me, though sometimes I felt a new happiness in her, along with a new grief.

  One night, Kit handed me an envelope from her brother. I evaded her questions pretty handily, acted like I didn't care about the letter. The truth was, I had a crush on Ian--everyone did--but I didn't want anyone to know about it, or the kiss he'd given me on my birthday. Especially Moira.

  I read the note.

  Maeve, meet me at the lighthouse this time.

  I read it again. this time.

  Out of Time

  Castine, Maine

  NOVEMBER 2000

  Moira and Maeve are sixteen

  "Girls? Someone, come here."

  Moira fumbled the knife again, then lay it down and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. "Be right there!"

  She'd been making dinner, a salad to go with the chicken-and-rice casserole already in the oven, but she'd had a hard time performing even simple tasks tonight. She knew what she had to do--face Ian and Maeve, tell the truth. If only she could do that without losing them both.

  Maeve was right--she was afraid of everything.

  She went upstairs. "Mom?"

  "In here." Her mother stood over Poppy in his room, her hands clasped over her mouth. "He won't answer again. He's barely moved all day. He won't eat. I wish your father was here, but he can't afford to turn away jobs right now, even if it means working up the coast on a weekend."

  Ben Hobson's boat. Moira had forgotten.

  She sat beside her grandfather and put her palm against his cool face. "You look tired, Pops. Did you sleep okay last night?" She searched for an answer from his mouth or in his eyes, but none came. "Should we call the doctor?"

  "It's Saturday. They'll just send us to the ER and we'll have another bill in the mail next week that we can't pay. No." Her mother gathered platefuls of untouched food, put them on a tray. "We can do what they do for him and better."

  Moira looked at Poppy again, his pale skin. "Can you call Ben Hobson and have him tell Daddy? Tell him to come home."

  "What's going on?"

  Maeve. Her presence in the doorway had an instantaneous affect on Moira's body, did something to her blood--turned it to ice water or curdled it in her veins, maybe. They hadn't spoken since their argument the previous day. Moira stole a glimpse of her twin and spied runaway hairs sticking out from the hood of her sweatshirt.

  "Where have you been?" their mother asked. "Poppy's bad again."

/>   "Sorry, I didn't know." Maeve sat on the bed opposite Moira and stroked their grandfather's cheek as Moira had done seconds before. "I'm sorry you're sick today, Pops." She waited a beat, lowered her voice. "Don't you wonder where I've been, Moira?"

  Moira hesitated, her anxiety quickening. "Yes."

  "I went walking," Maeve replied. "I have a lot to figure--"

  Their mother interrupted with a sharp question. "What in God's name is this?" She held a folded sheet of notebook paper.

  "That's mine." Maeve stood and opened her hand. "It must've fallen out of my pocket."

  "Your poppy's sick, and you plan secret meetings? Who's this note from?"

  Maeve said nothing.

  "Is this from a boy?"

  Waves of nausea rippled through Moira at Maeve's continued silence.

  "How dare you, Maeve Leahy! How dare you do this now? I don't have time for this! What've you done to encourage him?"

  "I haven't done anything." Maeve glanced at Moira.

  No. Oh, no, no, no! Ian had sent a note. Moira tried to read the words crumpled in her mother's hand, but it was impossible except for the word Maeve.

  "Who is he?"

  Please don't tell her.

  Maeve shook her head. "No one."

  Her mother focused eyes on Maeve that would've made Moira recoil, but Maeve didn't flinch. "You're not to leave this house unless it's for school or lessons." She tossed the note on her tray. "Not even to walk around the yard."

  "That's not fair!"

  "Until you tell me the name of that boy, you're grounded. Stay with Poppy." She left the room with the tray. Dishes rattled as she walked down the stairs.

  Maeve turned to Moira. "Explain it," she said evenly.

  With great effort, Moira looked into Maeve's eyes--eyes swimming with questions and the slim hope that she hadn't been dealt a deep betrayal. She wished she had the note she'd written earlier, that she could hand it to Maeve and be done with it. She was grateful for her mother's shout--"Moira, this chicken is burning!"--and stood quickly.

  Maeve grabbed her arm. "What have you done?"

  "I can't talk about this now," Moira said. She'd give her the note. Tomorrow. Tonight, she had to find Ian. She walked away from her sister and down the stairs. And though she never once looked back, she felt Maeve's eyes on her the entire time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE DARKEST STORM

  I tried to call Ian to ask about the note, but our phone seemed dead. My mother had probably taken it off the hook. I skipped dinner. Instead, I waited at my window until dark.

  A light went on in Ian's bedroom. I watched his pacing shadow form until the room went black again. Gone. To meet me, or to meet her. I had to know. I waited until he stepped from the house, then I reached for my window. The wood stuck. I watched as he got into his car and started it. Mrs. Bronya yelled at him from the door. He drove away.

  I forced opened the window. The chill November air tasted like rain. Our coats were downstairs, but I found an old satin marching-band jacket in my closet. Not ideal, but I pulled it over my sweatshirt and moved back to the window to assess the tree.

  The big oak had arms I'd linked with many times before, but never from my bedroom window. My father had promised a lash to my backside if I ever tried. It was an easy reach to the closest limb. I threw myself onto it, come what may, and swayed there for a second like a monkey. Then I hoisted my legs onto the thickest part of the branch and shimmied down until I sat in the crook of the tree. The first drops of rain bled into the satin as my feet touched the ground.

  I ran past my home, and up the hill toward the lighthouse. The sky was exceptionally dark, apart from the occasional bolt of lightning, but I knew these roads. I ran past a few more houses and their dim-light offerings, ran until I met the woods. Branches snagged my hair as I followed a path.

  By the time I made out the black column that was the lighthouse, my wet coat felt like a straitjacket. I stopped, listened. Heard only the percussive sound of hard rain on dead leaves.

  It happened fast. I fell. Someone had grabbed me and pulled me down, pinned me against the ground. Ian. His lips covered mine, devoured. Rain beat around us as thunder detonated overhead. I should've stopped him. Maybe I could have, then. But I was young and I liked him, and this kiss was like no kiss I'd ever known. Every part of me rose up to meet him, and my hands tracked his body.

  He said something, the word car, but I shook my head as he put his mouth back on mine, found my tongue. When he pulled back, his words sputtered at me like the hard rain. "Ignoring ... Cold ... How would you like?... Answer?... Answer!"

  He shook my shoulders once, but I had no answer.

  He kissed me again, harder. I felt his hand beneath my shirt, but it wasn't until I felt wet leaves against my hips that I tore my mouth away.

  "Stop," I said, but I couldn't hear my voice over the surging staccato of the rain. I tried again--"Ian, stop, wait"--as thunder screamed again, too.

  He stopped. I thought he'd heard me. But then I felt the tug of my pants.

  I struggled to sit, yell. Struggled with my body, to pull up, move him off, get control. But everything was confused. He sunk me back into the ground, and then I couldn't even fight anymore, because I was drowning in an emotional seiche as the strongest sense of foreboding I'd ever felt rolled over me. I was lost in its wake. I dimly registered that the wind had changed, that the raindrops fell sideways.

  As Ian spread my legs, I opened my thoughts to my twin, let them pour out of me in a flood of disgust.

  You own this, Moira, I thought. Whatever comes of this is because of you. I hate you.

  I thought for a moment I felt my sister and her horror, but then all I could feel was my own.

  Please, no. Please. Don't.

  I closed my eyes and went away in my mind, up through the swell of a November storm, the explosion of expanding air, light and loud, and past the clouds, in search of the sun. But it, too, seemed lost.

  "MY GOD, MAEVE. My God."

  I couldn't look at Noel. His raw voice said it all. But the story, for all its horror, wasn't nearly finished.

  "You don't have to--" he began, but I didn't stop. The dam in my mind cracked wider.

  I DON'T REMEMBER walking. I don't remember how I made it home wearing only the drenched satin jacket and my unbuttoned pants. I remember my mother, though, her ragged face as she opened the door. I remember the slap she delivered to my immobile cheek and mute mouth with her palm, and that she yanked at my pants to prove a man had been there, had left evidence of that mixed with my blood. I remember what she said--that I was a slut, that I'd desecrated our home with my filth.

  "Poppy died while you did this!" she screamed.

  I couldn't process that. I wanted to fall into the floor beside my pants, be absorbed by the walls, evaporate.

  "You've all left me, left me with--"

  She fell to her knees, her shoulders shaking, her hands over her face. I remember thinking the way the light fell on her made her look fractured, and that if I touched her she would break into tiny pieces.

  "Where is your sister?" She lifted her head to glare at me.

  Sister? I knew the word. Sister.

  "Moira's missing and I know you can find her, so find her! Poppy's dead, do you hear me?" She scrambled to her feet and shook me. "Find her! Find her!"

  She shook and shook, but I felt nothing but the crystal edges in my chest, a blanket of icy molecules. There was no trace of the soul thread that had always connected me to Moira, her to me. There was only the bob of my body as I floated in the abyss, clinging to the stump of an umbilical cord and hearing the final echoes of a clarion connection.

  Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed twelve.

  Out of Time

  Castine, Maine

  NOVEMBER 2000

  Moira and Maeve are sixteen

  Moira peered out the living room window at eleven o'clock, desperate for any sign of Ian. He'd probably wanted to me
et now, but where? She had checked every garbage can in the house and hadn't been able to find his note, and she couldn't face Maeve to ask about those lost details. Tomorrow she'd tell her the truth, and she'd tell Ian, too. For tonight, she needed to be with him and feel his skin beside hers one more time. She'd savor every second, in case he never kissed her again.

  "Moira?" Her mother approached, her eyes all but lost in the bags beneath. "I'm going to check on Poppy again, then go to bed. I put the chicken pan in the sink to soak. Can you clean it and lock up?"

  "Sure. How's Poppy? Does he seem comfortable at least?"

  "He's asleep, last I checked."

  "How about you, Mom? Can I get you anything?"

  She hugged Moira. "You're a good girl, Moira Leahy." Her voice sounded choked, but Moira couldn't tell if she cried, because her mother turned and went upstairs.

  A good girl? Could she ever believe that of herself again?

  She replaced the phone on its hook and, despite the hour, dialed the familiar number.

  "Hello," Kit said.

  Moira hung up. She rubbed her temples as rain beat against the eaves. At least they'd have a little shelter at the lighthouse. That's where he'd be, she knew it.

  She opened the hall closet and chose the purple jacket that had been a gift from her mother's cousin who was from away. Never use that in the boat, her father had said. You'd never be seen in the water with it. She pulled it on, though the sleeves didn't reach her wrists and the buttons wouldn't close over her chest.

  The wind surprised her with its strength when she went outside. She struggled to close the door quietly, then stepped around puddles collected on the walk to Ian's house. His car, she realized, wasn't in the drive. Had he managed to sneak past his parents and take it? Was he waiting for her on the road? That would be ... brilliant! They'd be dry, warm; they'd have a place to be together, and later to talk. She pulled her bike from the shed and made her way onto the road, anxious to find Ian as soon as possible.

  Lightning flashed as she pedaled uphill, struggling to see the road in the heavy downpour, despite her bike light. Finally, she reached the fork, and stopped. One path would take her to the lighthouse; its hill was a challenging ride even in good weather. The adjacent road was flatter but lead only to more homes. She hoped for headlights, any sign of Ian's car, but a dozen minutes passed, and still she stood at the crossroads as rain pooled in the front of her hood and streamed before her like a falls.