"That's unfair," I said, hardly believing I would stand up for Ermanno but bothered just the same. "Just because he wasn't pure Javanese shouldn't mean he couldn't become an empu."
"The problem was not the blood. Ermanno would not listen to learn. He was hasty. He could not look outside of himself. My father despised his selfishness, so he would not teach him what Ermanno and his mother called our work: magia."
Magic.
"When my father died, Ermanno's mother brought him here to Rome, and I stayed behind, a grown man. I learned later that he was not accepted by his friends because of his differences, or because he tried black magic." The empu bowed his head as if shamed. "To capture magic is what he wants most. He does not understand the true nature of our work or that some things cannot be bound."
"I still don't understand why he didn't take the keris from you when he could have--before the auction."
"It was after the keris proved itself by finding you that he fully realized its power," Sri Putra said. "Ermanno has hundreds of kerises of his own but their subtlety is lost to him. The will of your keris is too strong for even a closed mind to miss."
I lifted my mug to take a sip and noticed something floating in my drink. A feather. I slid the bit of plumage up the side of the mug with my finger, then lifted it out and set it on my knee. I caught Putra smiling at me. "How many luks does my keris have?"
"Twelve," he said.
"But it's supposed to be odd--always odd."
"Who says always odd?"
"The book you gave me, first of all, the Internet, and friends of mine--people who work at the antiques shop you visited. They know a lot about old weapons and myths."
Sri Putra gestured to the keris that lay between us on the floor--could he touch it? Yes, I nodded. He unsheathed it, then turned the blade over and fingered the stain. But before I could tell him about that, he said, "It is rare to have twelve luks, but it happens. The number twelve is a sign of unity, of harmony despite difference."
"Are you sure it isn't just a flaw?"
"There is no flaw," he said. "No bit of pandan leaf will hang from the end of this keris. It was made well, and it was made to protect."
I wouldn't even ask what pandan leaf was. I felt confused enough. "I thought it was made for unity."
"It was made for unity and to protect and more." He stroked the uppermost crosspiece of the sheath. "This wrangka is shaped like a boat, for freedom. This is a very strong keris. It is no surprise that it grew restless."
"Unity, protection, freedom, and restlessness. Okay." I remembered my promise to hold his point of view, though speaking as if the keris had a will of its own still stretched my limits.
"There is no blood or heart in this keris, but power moves through it. You have felt it, I am sure." He set the blade back on the floor, pushed it toward me. "Find your proof."
"But--"
"I sense you still doubt." Creases formed dark lines at the bridge of his nose. "Come."
I settled my fingertips on the metal. The sensation of energy, of heat, radiated through my digits, up into my arms. "It's very warm," I admitted. Possibly warmer than ever before.
"What else have you felt? What has the keris done?"
There was no point withholding information, aside from not wanting to sound like a crazy person--a concern that seemed almost farcical now, all things considered. I took a deep breath and let loose. "I found it in a closed case under my bed back home even though I'd left it on a table, and just a few days ago it landed under my pillow when I'd had it in a safe. A friend of mine thinks I have PTSD, though, so maybe I--"
He raised his hand and I stopped jabbering. "The keris can move. That can happen," he said. "It wants to be close to you."
A broken sound came from me, not quite a laugh. "And I had something like a hallucination while holding it the other day. I saw a white light. Does that happen, too?"
"Yes, yes, the waking vision. Good."
"That's good? It made me remember something, it re-created a moment when I'd cut my finger. I felt it all over again, like I was there--really there."
Even if I die, I'll be with you for always.
"Ah." He touched the blade with all of his fingers. "There is more here than metal, and that is why."
"What are you talking about?"
"Do you seek truth?"
"What do you mean? What truth?"
He pinned me with his gaze. "This metal is not warm."
"It is," I said, ready to square off over it. "This metal is. It is right now. You must feel it."
"It speaks only to you this way. It is warm only to you."
I shook my head, but I knew it was true. No one else seemed to feel the curious heat. "Why?"
"That is not the keris," he said. "It is the hantu."
The foreign word churned through me, as I broke it down: Hantu. Haunting. "Ghosts?"
"You do not believe?"
Believe, believe.
Like Giovanni and Sister Lynn, their urgings to believe, just believe, in acknowledging old bones, in purgatory and a silvery afterlife.
"No." I rubbed at my breastbone, the sudden ache there. "I don't believe in ghosts."
"To believe is your choice," he said. "They are still there. One is here." He tapped the blade. "It is the hantu that wanted you. It is the hantu that woke this keris. It is the hantu that gives this blade such power and increases its will. It is the hantu that made it all happen."
My laugh sounded maniacal even to me. Because this was impossible. There was no room left in me for whatever story he wanted to tell. I brushed the feather off my leg, onto the floor, and then I stood. Wanted out. Out of that room, that building, out of the idea he was trying to back me into.
I left the keris where it was and stepped away. "Thank you and good-bye," I said.
Putra's gaze lingered on the space I'd already vacated. I waited, unsettled by his silence. Finally, I turned and walked from the room, to the door. I'd just turned the handle when he spoke.
"You can accept it or not. Though I must tell you that it is better for her if you do."
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
UNBOUNDED
"Ker?" My hand dropped from the door handle. I turned to face Putra, who'd followed me into the room. "Who is 'her'?"
Bloo. Sister. Bloo. Bloo.
"No. No."
Maeve, believe.
"No. She's not dead!"
Rextin. Believe.
"Stop it! I don't believe in this, I'll never accept it, I don't!" Music swelled in my head--a crescendo of raw emotion beyond labels of dread and shock. I put my hands over my ears. "Who's the hantu?" I shouted. "Who?"
"I cannot know." I thought he, too, shouted, though I couldn't be sure when my head contained a monsoon. "Open without struggle and your mind will quiet."
I rebelled against the idea utterly, and applied all of my will to silence the music and a voice I'd never thought could be anyone's but mine. Sweat gathered on my face, beneath my lip, as I pushed and pushed.
And then ... quiet.
I collapsed to the floor, curled against the door, wept.
"You will have no peace with that heaviness inside."
"Why did--Why did you--do this?" I said between sobs. "Why would anyone want--anyone else--to be--haunted?"
"It is not as you say."
There was no denying it--the presence in my skull. Why hadn't I realized before? I grasped at my hair, my scalp. "Get out!" I yelled at whatever lurked inside of me. "Leave me alone!" If a priest had been in the room, I would've given him leave to exorcize it. But there was no priest, only Sri Putra. He sat beside me.
"I believe the hantu is of good spirit," he said.
I shook my head violently. Don't tell me. Don't tell me anymore.
"The hantu is a woman. Most hantu are women. I can never know who it is, but I sense she knows you and is new to her metal home," he said. "I know you do not want to believe, but I wish you to listen. Listen and hear this truth."
My teeth rattled as I rocked my body like a cradle.
"The hantu needs the keris to remove inhibitions. They bond for greater power," he said. "The keris was once revered by men and kings. It was so honored because it could fly to protect its owner, fly even into the hands of gods. Pretend you are such a willful keris today, when no one believes you are more than a pretty knife. Then someone who believes, who needs you, calls for you. Will you go?"
"But I--"
"Will you help?"
Another sob wracked my throat. "Yes!"
His eyes brightened even as mine continued to fill. "Because just as the hantu wants to affect the world again, so does the keris itself. Just as the hantu wants to touch the past, so does the keris itself. They need each other to be heard." He leaned closer. "You tell me now. Who is the hantu?"
"No, I can't--I don't know."
"A friend who has died? A loved one?"
"She's not dead!"
"Who is not dead that you speak of?"
"My sister!"
He pressed his thick lips together. "Hantu Pusaka. A family spirit can use the keris to make contact. With defenses low, the spirit can touch the living--"
"She's not dead!" I screamed.
His long quiet look unraveled me again, and again I sobbed, my face pressed against the door. I would leave the keris and its hantu--some awful rogue spirit who posed as my sister, who meant to pry into my mind and drive me mad.
But how could it know our secret language?
How could it know our names for one another?
Doubt scored me. If I left the keris, if Moira's spirit truly lived in the blade, if it was meant for me because of her--
Not dead, not dead! Impossible!
What could she want from me? To haunt me eternally? To punish me for not hearing her that night, for what happened with Ian, for hating her then, for her coma? Her purgatory? But I couldn't leave her. Not again. Not when I knew--might know--I hit my forehead against the door. Not when I could touch her, not when I could hear. And the voice had been kind. If it was her, maybe--
I unfolded myself with careful movements, propped my back against the door. I faced Sri Putra. "I'm not afraid," I said, though of course I was. "Moira's my twin. She's in a coma. She's brain-dead."
"She is on machines?"
"She breathes without them." I thought of her in a hospital bed, my mother beside her, reading a book. I hadn't looked on Moira's face in years, her warped features, blue-pale skin, or thatch of dulled rag-doll hair. I hadn't even been there when the doctors unplugged her machines, because I couldn't bear to see her die, just as I couldn't bear to see her live.
"It would be a blessing for her to go," I said softly. "I wish she'd just drift off." Die. Just die.
Let me, came a returning whisper along with faint strains of music.
I pushed it all back again and held firm. Fatigue covered me like a thick blanket.
"This hurts you, this thing you do," the empu said. "It will continue to hurt you."
Fresh tears burned my eyes as I hugged myself, crossed arms over chest. "There's a force in me ..." How to explain? "There's so much inside. Music. A voice."
"Is the voice your sister's?"
"I don't know. Maybe. It's not tonal. It's just a voice within my head, like when you think through your own thoughts."
"Do you dream of her?"
"Sometimes I dream and know someone in the dream is meant to be her"--I thought of the child, the girl with the red hair--"but I never see my sister. I never see Moira as she was."
"Never?"
"Not since her accident. That was almost a decade ago."
His forehead bunched. "Do you have bad memories?"
"Things didn't end well between us." So many lies, such deception. Hateful words and blood and terror.
"She may seek healing."
Could it be that easy? "What can I do?"
"Invite her to your dreams. Hear what she will say."
I thought of the door, the water. I would drown.
"Come," he said. "I would like to show you something."
I rose slowly, feeling older, and followed him back to the pillows. He picked up the keris, then ran his finger down the dark stain.
"This mark," he said. "You see it?"
"It's blood. I cut myself and wasn't able to clean it off."
"That is the mark of the hantu saying she has found the one. I believe she will stay until you hear her. She may stay beyond that. But I must tell you that, despite her will, I sense her spirit has grown thin."
I took a shallow breath. "What do you mean?"
"She fights against the pull to leave this world. It is her choice how long to continue, but she may not move on until you hear her. Why not listen after all she has done to reach you?"
My fear doubled when I had a vision of my sister afloat in the Penobscot, lost and alone and calling to me, losing consciousness along with hope.
"Your sister's light will continue," Sri Putra said. "No light needs a body to move through space and time."
"I've dreamed of light," I told him, "and skulls. Everyone's skull shone with bright light, but mine was just a speck."
He nodded, quiet for a moment. "Perhaps that is why she stays."
WE SAT ON deflated purple pillows, and drank tea, and talked about dreams and death and light and life for hours. He told such stories; I hoped I would remember them all long enough to share with Garrick. He asked me to stay for dinner. We ate fried tofu and noodles with our fingers, and talked some more, until the candles burned down to stubs and midnight loomed. Time to go.
"You'll leave tomorrow?" I asked.
"Sometime tomorrow, yes. Ermanno's mother is gone now and so is my reason for staying. Ermanno will inherit the building and does not want me here, as you can see." He gave a wry smile and glanced around us at the wreckage. "I have nothing much to pack."
"I'm shocked at this," I told him. "He's so destructive."
"It is sad, but Ermanno destroys nothing better than himself. I try to understand. If I were not able to touch the keris and feel its will, it would hurt me as well."
I hugged the keris to my chest. "Where will you go? You have no other family?"
"My wife died of cancer long ago," he said. "There were no children."
I remembered something. "Garrick said you're looking for work at a university. Will you teach?"
"Empus are not in demand so much anymore, but fate will decide." He held out a business card like the one he'd given Garrick. "I believe you did not receive my Javanese address when last I left it for you."
"No, I didn't." Of course Ermanno would've taken his brother's card, limiting my knowledge and leading me to only one place: directly to him in Trastevere.
"No matter where I go, this is always my home and I will always return. Will you write? I would like to know how things go. I would like to write a paper to say, 'Here is a keris full of will that you cannot doubt. See what it has done?'"
"A paper? You don't think the story's worthy of a book?"
He smiled back at me, and I took the card. We walked to the door.
"I believe love is the purpose of all knowledge. Sometimes knowledge comes to us through books, but also it comes through suffering," he said. "I can see you have suffered, Maeve Leahy. Now you may live a better life."
"Thank you, Empu Putra, for everything," I said, stepping into the hall.
"Open yourself to your loved ones and they will not have to resort to such measures to get your attention."
"I'll try."
He nodded and closed the door.
I WAS OVERWHELMED with information to contemplate and digest. But as I walked away from the meeting with Sri Putra, I realized that I did believe it: My sister's spirit resided in the keris in my hand. I didn't know what it would all mean, but as I traveled in the dark, I felt lighter of heart than I had in a long while. Moira was, after all, my dearest love, my twin, the other half of me for better and for worse and
for always.
I'd walked halfway across the bridge leading to my hotel when the keris gave a great flare of heat. Someone ran close. I stopped, turned as Ermanno charged out of the dark and rammed into me. I tried to catch my fall, and the keris clattered to the ground.
"That is what I should have done long ago."
I couldn't catch my breath to respond.
"Now that you know what my game is"--his smile burned white in the glow of the street lamps--"I will take what should be mine."
I scrambled to get there first, but he grabbed the keris ahead of me. My hands and knees trembled on the cold stone as I crouched before him. "Please, please give it back," I said. "The keris is precious to me, Ermanno."
"Now you beg?"
"I said 'please.'"
"You will beg more." He smiled with a slashed mouth.
"I won't."
"You will." He grazed the keris across my breast.
"No."
"You forget I saw you at Il Sotto Abbasso. Women like you don't say no. Very--what is the word?" He spat on me when I held out my hand. "Slutty. I did not know you were a puttana."
"No!" I shouted as he tossed the keris up into the air. I felt the ascent of it, the descent, in my organs. He caught it.
"You want it?" he said. "Then you will beg."
When I refused again, he tossed the blade higher. I screamed when he nearly missed catching it one-handed.
He held the keris in his fist. "Beg," he said, like a growl.
"Give it to her, Ermanno. It will never be anything to you." Sri Putra stood on the bridge.
Ermanno turned and scowled at the man who was his half brother and so wholly different from him. "I have heard enough on this, and I will not listen anymore. Go to Java! Leave!"
"Not yet," Sri Putra said, as I leaped to my feet and onto Er-manno's back.
"Let it go, Ermanno!"
He tried to buck me off, grabbed my arms, hollered, swore, called me crazy.
"I'm crazy? I don't frighten old ladies with spells and voodoo dolls!" I tightened the grip of my legs around his waist, my arms across his neck.
The Last Will of Moira Leahy: A Novel Page 25