The Last Will of Moira Leahy: A Novel Read online

  "No, Daddy," she said. "I'm just sloppy today, and we didn't warm up." She squinted at the sky. "Or maybe we're too warmed up."

  "Ayuh, it's hot." A bead of sweat trailed down his cheek as he glanced at Moira. "How 'bout you, squirt?"

  "I'm good. There's lemonade in the fridge," she said. "I made it how you like with extra sugar. Don't tell Mom."

  "Good girl." He tousled her hair and went into the house.

  Maeve blew out a gusty sigh. "Pick it up from part two?"

  They were just about to start their fifth piece when Maeve abruptly dropped her sax and sprinted inside. The porch door slapped shut behind her.

  "What the heck's wrong with you?" Moira yelled, just before she heard another slam, a car door. Ian and his dad were back. She left her keyboard and followed her sister into the house.

  Maeve stood with her back against the kitchen wall, twisting a strand of hair. "Can you grab my saxophone for me?"

  "You're so weird about him that you can't get it yourself? Are you going to be like this all summer?" When Maeve gave her hair another twist, Moira locked her jaw and strode back into the sunshine. Her hand had just gripped the sax's hot brass when a voice behind her said, "You sounded good the other night."

  Ian sat in the grass with Gorp, their wandering mongrel. The dog writhed with pleasure as Ian scratched his stomach.

  Maybe it was because of her rare edgy mood that Moira didn't startle or even think it odd that he spoke to her civilly. "Thanks," she said. "I saw you there."

  He dipped his chin, and his blue eyes grabbed at her as he smiled slow and warm. She half-wondered if he'd open his mouth a little and wink, but those things never came. The effect was better his way. Maeve would've passed out. A nervous giggle caught in her throat.

  "You're good," he said. "Really talented."

  "Thanks." She almost uttered, So are you. That would've been embarrassing--though not insensible. He was talented at math and blood brothering and taunting them all, and at making Moira nervous and curious with his so-blue-stay-here eyes.

  "I almost forgot." Ian stood as Gorp whined for another scratch. He reached into his pocket, and a moment later revealed something small and white on his outstretched palm. "It's a rock I found inside a mussel shell that looks like ... you'll see."

  The tiny curved bit of stone was about the size of two pencil erasers but shaped like an irregular Z, fat on one end and tapered on the other. "What's it supposed to be?"

  "Forget it. It's stupid." He closed his palm and made to throw the stone, but Moira grabbed his arm before he could.

  "Show me again. I'll figure it out." She slid her fingers to his fist, worked it open, and removed the stone. She stared at it with as much imagination as she could muster. A snake, she thought, a second before he said--

  "It's a sax. See it?"

  "Oh--oh yeah! That's cool!"

  She was about to ask him if he'd seen a keyboard on the beach as well when he said, "It reminded me of you. Keep it."

  When it hit her, she felt number than a pounded thumb: I'm holding Maeve's sax. He thinks I'm Maeve.

  "Your dad could maybe put it on a chain or something for you, you know? There's already a little hole on one side."

  She looked away. She had to tell him--

  "Or just chuck it. I don't care," he added gruffly. The Ian she knew.

  "No, I wouldn't." He'd be mortified now if she revealed herself. It would be kinder not to. And what harm could it do to let him think she was Maeve for just a moment? Decided, Moira said what she would if the gift had been meant for her. "That was nice of you to think of me. I'll take it, if that's okay." She smiled as warm a smile as she had to give.

  "Sure," he said, though the word sounded as slow and muggy as the day. He bent to pat Gorp on the head one last time, then took a step toward his house. "Me and Michael are going to the island later if you want to come."

  "We're pretty much grounded. But thanks."

  He took another step. "Sure. Seeyaround."

  "Okay," Moira said. "See ya." She didn't laugh when he tripped on his own porch stair, and she turned quickly away when he looked back to see if she'd noticed.

  Alone in the kitchen, she set Maeve's saxophone on the table and looked again at the rock in her hand. A gift from Ian. Holy heck. Maeve wouldn't play anywhere but the basement again if she knew. So Moira wouldn't tell her; there was no need. But she couldn't throw the gift out, either. With a rush of guilt, she tucked the tiny charm into her pocket, where it burned for the rest of the day with all the weight of a stolen sun.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ALLUREMENT

  "So what do you do for fun around here?" My father leaned back in his chair and sipped coffee after our lunch of turkey on rye and chicken noodle soup from a can. Sparky sat on his lap. I still hadn't seen any part of Sam.

  "Oh, I have a lot of fun. I could show you the exciting cupboard that is my office." We exchanged smiles.

  "Do you see much of Kit?"

  "Not very, but she's become a good cell mate."

  "Cellmate?"

  "Cell-phone mate. She's very busy, Dad. I left her a message that you were here and invited her to dinner. Maybe we'll hear back, but probably not."

  He tapped his thumb against the rim of his mug. "How about other friends?"

  I thought of Noel, and of Garrick and the shop. I even thought of Peter Link, the colleague who'd asked me, straight-faced, if I was a lesbian. "I keep pretty busy, too."

  "Yes, I know," he said. "But what do you do when you're off the clock?"

  "Well ... there's Lansing's Block."

  He made a noise that meant Tell me more.

  "It's an auction house here, and--" The keris would be something my father would appreciate, maybe as much as I did. "Hold on," I said, brightening.

  I made a beeline for the coffee table, expecting to find the blade in its usual spot, but it wasn't there. Hmm. I must've moved it when my father came in last night. I spun on my heels. Not on my desk or the top of the entertainment center. In my bedroom, I scanned dressers, the chair and table in the corner. I returned to the kitchen and double-checked the countertops. I swore in several languages.

  "You all right?"

  My father followed me back into the living room as I felt under the desk and entertainment center, and between couch cushions I'd replaced an hour before. I was about to start searching stupid places--the inside of the stove, the cereal cabinet--when the music began. I stopped, disbelieving. For the first time in a nearly a decade, it wasn't piano. Saxophone tones raced through me like a chorus of trilling bees.

  Check. The place you store your memories.

  I tracked back to the bedroom. There wasn't a single reason to believe it, but I sat on the floor, pulled the sax case out from the shadowed space beneath my bed, opened the latches. There, half-buried beneath Noel's postcards, was the keris. The music ebbed, ritardando.

  I lay my throbbing head in my hands. Think. I'd had the case open, but I didn't put the keris inside, just the postcards.

  Cognitive impairment, Kit would say. Time to scan your brain.

  Well, right. Something was clearly wrong, wasn't it? Sheets of music scattered around me like dry pine as I jerked the keris from the case. I took a minute to compose myself, put on my game face.

  "You've had it all these years, then?" my father asked when I presented him with the blade.

  "No, I bought this keris at an auction last month." I sat beside him on the couch, my pulse still so loud in my ears that I wondered if he could hear it.

  "Looks just like the old one, except for this hole here." He touched the cavity in the metal.

  At least my memory hadn't turned completely unreliable. "Do you remember anything about the old keris?"

  "Well ..." He rubbed a scruffy cheek with his free hand. "Your poppy brought it back from one of his trips. I think he got it for rescuing someone."

  "He rescued someone?"

  "Or so he said! Your poppy had a story f
or everything, Maeve. This one had something to do with a volcano that erupted unexpectedly. The dagger was a gift of thanks."

  "Can you remember anything else?"

  "Not at the moment," he said. "Does it matter?"

  "Probably not, but ... Did it ever act funny?"

  "What do you mean?" One of his eyes half shut when I shrugged.

  "Did anything weird ever happen with it?"

  "My daughters took it and lost it in the bay." He chuckled and turned the blade over in his hand. "Well, this is a nice piece," he said. "A beautiful thing."

  "I thought you might like it. I have a book about the keris and other foreign weapons, if you'd like to see it."

  He stood a little straighter. "Ayuh, I would."

  "It's at my office."

  "Oh." Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was he reluctant to leave the blade, too?

  "We'll bring the keris," I said, to assuage us both. "You know I just want to show off the awards on my wall, right?" I delivered a faux-smug smile. "And prove to you that the administration has stuffed me inside a veritable suitcase?"

  "This office gets smaller every time you talk about it."

  "It gets smaller every time I step into it."

  Sparky wasn't pleased about our leaving. She stood at the door and cried.

  "She'll be fine," my father said. "Just close the door."

  I did, feeling guilty, but putting my faith in her decided love of naps--and Sam's hiding place.

  "HEY, DOC LEAHY," someone called as my father and I neared the language department's main office, on the way to my shoe box.

  "Hello," I called back. Jordan Somers and--wouldn't you know--Ned Baker were examining a list of final grades. Jordan should be pleased with his standing, though Ned, the troublemaker, might not be. Still, he didn't look upset; he smiled at my dad and me.

  "Going away for break, Doc?" Ned asked, glancing with fleeting interest at the keris in my father's hand.

  "Not me. You?"

  "Going to Cancun." He howled the last like wolfsong, his cheeks flushed and hair a curtain over his eyes. Ian came strongly to mind.

  "And you, Jordan?" I said. "Big plans?"

  "Cancun, too. We're going to"--he paused, looked meaningfully at Ned--"practice our Spanish." They laughed, smacked hands, and headed down the hall. "See ya!"

  "Have fun," I said as we passed one another.

  "Seem like nice boys," my father said.

  "Do they? I think their practice starts and ends with Dos Equis, but maybe I'm wrong."

  "Hmm?"

  "It's a beer, Dad."

  "Right, right. I think I've heard of it," he said. Dad was a Moose-head man, through and through.

  I stalled to paw through my pockets and briefcase. I refused to believe I'd left my keys in the car, that I was that far gone.

  "Nice posters," he said. "Sure sets the atmosphere."

  I continued rummaging blindly as I looked up at the artwork and photos in the hall. A woman pinned clothes on a line from a high window; boys stood barelegged in a fountain; a mandolin player's likeness covered brick somewhere in Vieux Lille.

  Sometimes these scenes made me itch with longing for all my old dreams, but only one piece bothered me consistently: a sepia print of a woman cowering over a desk as owls and bats swooped low behind her. The desk bore the words El sueno de la razon produce monstrous (The sleep of reason brings forth monsters). I'd removed the picture once, but Will Holmes, the chair of my department and a closet philosopher, insisted it remain. I'd stood my ground. "The woman seems tortured."

  "It's a masterpiece," he'd said. "And that's not a woman." I stared at what looked to me like a skirt and bare woman's legs as he speculated over the work's meaning. "What if dreams and reason aren't so different and monsters ride the line between the worlds?"

  It might've made for fascinating debate, but I'd never be in the mood to discuss dream monsters or the line between the worlds. It still looked like a woman to me.

  "Aha!" I said, finding my keys as my father and I turned down the short hall that housed my office. There, on my door, was another note, impaled with another nail.

  "That's not good for the wood," he said.

  "I know. I'll probably be charged for it one day: one abused utilitarian door, $300." I ripped down the note.

  Visit with me in the New Year.

  There is much I wish to tell you.

  Via della Scala --, No. 47

  Trastevere

  "Ned! Ned Baker!" My shout echoed down the hall. No reply.

  "What's going on?" my father asked.

  "Someone's been leaving notes," I said as I unlocked the door. "This time it's an address." A single fluorescent light sparked to life when I hit the switch. I sat in my chair.

  "Those boys?"

  "I doubt it. It's not for Cancun. It's for Rome."

  Squares and churches with ancient architecture, statuesque fountains, medieval homes on tiny streets, women kneading bread, bistros filled with artists, the Tiber River sidling through it all--my mind buzzed with what I knew of Trastevere.

  "Maybe it's for work?"

  I laughed. "You think the department would send me to Rome?"

  "Why not? Bring back a picture for your hall."

  "Because Will Holmes doesn't send anyone anywhere, and he wouldn't drive a nail into one of his precious doors, even to an office the size of a wallet. I doubt he even owns a hammer," I muttered, as my father studied said office. I looked, too, at things I'd seen often but never through his eyes: a clear and dust-free desktop, shelves full of alphabetized books, three framed awards, my degrees, a calendar with days x-ed out in neat lines. Where was a toppled stack of papers or pile of crumbs when you needed one?

  "Here, Dad," I said, and pulled the weaponry book from the shelf. I'd just handed it to him when Ned peered around my father in the doorway.

  "Did you holler, Doc? Jordan thought--"

  "Ned! Yes, come here." My father backed away as Ned stepped in. I held up the note. "Did you leave this on my door?"

  "No!" he said, so emphatically that I believed him. And then he surprised me. "Some guy did. A little weird."

  "Weird?" I stood. "Tell me what you saw. What did he look like?"

  "I dunno, he looked like a guy. Hey, will I get extra credit for this?" Ned's lips cocked into a half-smile as my father's muted chuckle trickled in from the hall. I just glared at my student until he flinched, a skill purloined from my mother's bag of tricks.

  Ned reached into his jacket pocket. "He gave me this."

  I recognized the antique book and its tea-colored cover right away: Old Gypsy Madge's Fortune Teller and the Witches Key to Lucky Dreams. Had my note-leaving visitor been watching me? Had he followed me to the shop? I couldn't deny a thread of apprehension.

  "The guy made it sound pretty lame but said I might dig the love spells. You want it, Doc?" Ned waved the book in my face, smirking like the scamp he was.

  "Keep it," I told him, locking my office door behind me. "Maybe it'll make Cancun more interesting."

  "Oh, and he had an accent, if that's--"

  "British?"

  "No, like--" He shrugged.

  "Like what, Ned? Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Scandinavian?" Still his face was blank. "Oh, forget it."

  I herded my father back down the hall. "I want to show you something else, Dad. A great shop. You'll love it, I swear you will."

  "Ayuh," he said, keeping pace with me, "if you promise we'll stay long enough to see it."

  Out of Time

  Castine, Maine

  JANUARY-JUNE 2000

  Moira and Maeve are fifteen

  It took Moira many months to admit she had a crush on the fearsome Ian Bronya. She watched him in odd moments, like when he shoveled the walk or petted Gorp in the yard. She looked for his long-legged gait at school, and noticed he always bought chocolate milk for lunch and ate two sandwiches instead of one.

  She didn't want Ian to mistake her for her siste
r again, but she wasn't sure how to be distinctive. For a few days, she wore skirts, but this wasn't very practical for life as a boat-maker's daughter. Though she could cut her hair, she loved it long and wavy. In the end, she opted to wear a headband at all times; it helped her to see the world with clear eyes, even if she often felt on the edge of a headache.

  When spring arrived, she took daily walks to The Breeze, a dock-side eatery, and to the lighthouse--Ian's favorite haunts. She'd wave and carry on as if they'd magically run into each other ... again.

  It wasn't until Ian turned seventeen in June that Moira took a bold step. Her mother had long since relinquished head chef duties to care for Poppy full-time, so when Moira threw herself into cooking one day it drew only grateful comments. A casserole, salad, even dessert were all ready for the evening meal. She waited until Maeve left for her lesson with Ben Freeman, then uncovered a second pan of brownies.

  Her legs were wobbly, but she walked past snapdragons and yellow roses, and knocked on the Bronyas' door anyway. Seconds passed as she stood there, mentally rehearsing her words, but no one answered. Only then did she realize that the Bronyas' car wasn't in the driveway.

  Disappointed but also relieved, she placed the brownies and card she'd made for Ian in front of the door, and had walked halfway home again when she heard a scrape of wood and--

  "Hey!"

  Moira spun back around. "Hi," she said in a squeaky voice.

  Ian stood in the doorway in jeans and bare feet, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a fit chest. He picked up the brownies--"What's this?"--then, to her mortification, read the card aloud. "Happy Birthday, Ian. Your friend, Moira." He looked at her, his eyes bright and lip quirked at a funny angle. "Moira."

  She'd die if he laughed.

  "Hey, whereja go?" Paula Dunlop, a girl from Ian's grade, stuck her face under the crook of his arm. She giggled when she saw Moira, then snaked her hand onto Ian's chest, and pulled him and the brownies inside. The door closed.

  I'm so stupid, Moira told herself as she trudged back home. He's cute and smart and older. Of course he has a girlfriend.