The Last Will of Moira Leahy (3 page)

Moira opened her eyes. “Okay, I’ll practice.”

“You can do it. I know you can.” She paused. “Want to go build a ship out of that big box in the basement?”

“No, you go ahead.”

Moira stayed at the keyboard for hours, her right hand splayed over the keys, her left clasped to the wooden seat. She tried to open herself to notes in the air but heard only the Bronya’s noisy truck, their dog barking, and a motorboat. And she couldn’t help but think about Grandma’s roses. Maybe Moira would snip some, the way Grandma sometimes had when she’d seen pretty flowers in the neighborhood.

A little love is all you need
, she’d said,
to make the flowers your own
.

Maybe it’d be that way with music, too. Moira just had to love it more, want it more. The notes were there, waiting for her, if only she tried hard enough to reach them.

CHAPTER TWO

UNDERSENSE

I
missed my alarm the next morning, tired from battling back Liszt all night, and had to scramble or risk major lateness: shower, shove wet hair behind ears, forget the makeup, throw on something clean, stuff all papers into battered briefcase for later speed grading, tear in two the business card of one Dr. Stephen Flett, neurologist, that Kit had left on the kitchen counter at some point in the wee hours, feed Sam, and drive without coffee—which was never a good idea, but you did what you had to do to make it to Spanish Dialects on time.

I got my first real break just before noon and headed to my office, weighing the likelihood of being able to sleep there and the reaction my coworkers and students might have if they caught me. It’d make the
Campus Times
for sure.
Dr. Leahy was discovered last week, snoring and drooling over a stack of ungraded essays. Clearly, she needs naptime built into her day, as might be expected for someone her age
. No, I’d never live it down. Unless I locked my door …

On said door, though, an interoffice envelope hung from a nail like a dictum. Papers and a half-eaten granola bar spilled from my briefcase when I dropped it to wiggle free the nail, open the envelope. Huh. A pocket-sized book on weaponry lay in my hand. I turned to a page bookmarked with a red scrap of silk, scanned, and found something interesting.

The
keris
is another Javanese weapon made only after a great deal of preparation. First, the
empu
decides what he will craft. A
keris
may be made to protect against evil, preserve dignity or secure wealth, for example. The
empu
fasts, prays and makes ceremonial offerings sometimes days before crafting begins. Iron, nickel, steel and meteoric metals are heated. The
empu
layers and forges them together to form the
pamor
(design) of the
keris
.
He then smiths the
dapur
(shape) by straightening the
keris
or creating an odd number of
luks
(curves) as desired. Finally, he chisels the base to form its many intricate details. A completed
keris
is filled with purpose. Some believe that humans easily succumb to its suggestive powers as inhibitions are stripped away
.

A
keris
. That’s what Lansing had called my new purchase, wasn’t it? As a child, I’d never known the name of the wavy blade I loved. I flipped through the rest of the book but saw no other passages related to the
keris
.

I called Heather in the library to inquire about the book, but she said no such title existed within the university system. I checked the inner pages for stamp marks, any evidence that the volume had belonged to another institution or a particular individual. Nothing. The new interoffice envelope, barely creased and with nary a pen mark, was also devoid of clues.

I reached for the phone again, let my fingers dance over memorized digits.

“Time After Time. How may I help you?”

I smiled into the receiver. “I wondered if you have any of that amazing hot chocolate in your kitchen cupboard. You know, the stuff from Venezuela.”

“My dear girl!” sang the lilting voice of Garrick Wareham, the owner of the antiques shop Time After Time—not to mention Noel’s grandfather and my favorite Brit. “I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you, too,” I said, then added just as honestly, “And Noel. I’ve even been scoping Lansing’s Block without him. How’s that for crazy?”

Garrick laughed. “Have you made any buys he’d approve?”

“Good question,” I said. Noel, whose business was finding valuable antiques in auction houses and estate sales throughout the country for Time After Time, would’ve taken the trouble to inspect the
keris
before leaping into a bidding war over it. Truth was, with Lansing’s weak provenance for the blade and a hole going straight through the metal, Noel might not have approved of my purchase at all. “I bought something, but it was mostly for sentimental reasons,” I said.

I told Garrick about the
keris
, and answered his questions about why I’d purchase such a thing—even if it embarrassed me to admit aloud that I’d once wanted to be a pirate queen. He took everything in stride and suggested I bring the blade by the shop for an appraisal. I thought about my packed schedule, my commitments with the university. No trip to Time After Time was ever brief.

“How ’bout I visit over Thanksgiving break?” I asked.

“Splendid! When does that begin?”

“Two days and four-and-a-half hours. Not that I’m counting.” The break was a glorified long weekend, but it would be enough. I checked the clock, knew I’d be late for my intermediate Italian class, but had to ask, “Will Noel be home?”

“I’m afraid not,” Garrick said just as the sound of the shop’s entry bells drifted over the line. “Good God, my grandson must’ve shipped over half of Europe this week! I’ll have to sign for all of this, my dear, but you’re welcome to come by whenever you’d like. I have some Chuao cocoa on hand.”

A NIGGLING SENSE
of disquiet stalked me that night, as I drafted two tests, graded papers, then worked up a plan for helping a student on the edge of pass-fail.
Marilyn
, I wrote at the top of a note. Sighed, crumpled it up, tried again.
Marion
.

Kit might chide me about needing an MRI, but having a book anonymously nailed to your office door had a way of messing with your concentration. I couldn’t deny wanting to learn more about the
keris
, and I knew Garrick would gladly pull up a chair with me tonight if I appeared at his door. Thanksgiving break was just two days out, though, and if I didn’t focus, I’d never jump through all the university hoops. I could wait to learn about the blade—and my displaced friend.

Noel, my companion and ally since I’d arrived in Betheny eight years ago, had been in Europe for months, not just searching for antiques but for his only living parent: his mother. He hadn’t seen her since she’d crushed his little-boy heart by leaving him with her father, Garrick, and disappearing from their lives. The only time he’d really talked about her, he’d said they thought she lived in Europe now and good riddance. But a few months ago, on a sweltering August day, he’d changed his mind, said he had to search.

How will you do it? You don’t even know where to look
.

I have some ideas
, he’d said, evasive.

I didn’t understand his sudden need, but I respected it, envied it even. At least some who were lost could be found.

It always made my day to receive one of his postcards, picturing cobbled streets, majestic castles, white-capped mountains, or balconies of cut stone. I imagined the rest—the people and language, even the music. Nearly a month had passed since I’d heard from him, and the silence was wearing on me. I had no way of contacting him at all; Noel didn’t have a cell phone or an e-mail account, hated computers. In fact, he didn’t like anything that verified he lived in the twenty-first century.

Is it me, Maeve? Or is it … just?

Just. Just
.

Tension sprouted between us before he’d left. I’d pretended not to understand its root and then made a concerted effort not to think of it at all. I needed to do that again. Not think. Not miss him. Just wait. The Fifth Chinese Brother could hold his breath eternally, after all—though I wondered if his ribs ever cracked, if he ever longed to steal just a little air.

I pulled the book from my briefcase and touched the red silk marker, lifted it and breathed a spicy, exotic fragrance, the scent of a foreign land. It lingered with me for days.

I STOOD IN
a park filled with decaying greenery. A hundred cranes flew overhead, but still I stared at the stone monument of a woman. Something seemed wrong with her, but I couldn’t say what. Then she turned her head to stare at me, water trickling and words rumbling from her ancient mouth.

Nascer, nascer!
she said. Rise. Get up.

I startled awake and rose, stumbled to my cell. The dream-world message continued to punch at me as I made the call.

Nascer, nascer, nascer!

Six rings, seven. I looked at the clock; God, only 5:10.

“’Lo?” my father said in his sleep-scarred voice.

“Dad, sorry it’s so early.” I didn’t sound much better than he did. I cleared my throat.

“Maeve? You okay?”

“I just wondered … Is everything all right?”

“Ayuh,” he said, “same, you know.” I let loose my breath. “Got the first snow last night. Wind’s up. Your mother—she’s not here or I’d put her on. Left for the day, I think.”

Of course, at 5:10, she’d be off. Resentment pulsed in me, plain and ugly, though I wouldn’t let it leak into my voice. Then I realized. “Dad, it’s Thanksgiving.”

“So it is. Forgot, just about.” An uncomfortable moment passed. “Sorry we couldn’t make it there, Mayfly. Sorry about all of it.”

“I know. Me, too.” The act seemed simple enough—visit me, share the holiday. But nothing was simple with my mother.

“You know,” he said, “if you left now—”

“No, Dad.” I tried to look forward. “At least there’s Christmas, right? You’ll come then.”

Silence. My stomach sank.

“Your mother, she was going to call. She just doesn’t want to travel right now, and—”

“But it’s not right now! It’s a month from now!”

“We hoped you’d come here for Christmas this year. Come home. We’d love to see you.”

“Dad, you haven’t been here since graduation, and Mom’s never been to Betheny at all!” I’d never forget the look on President Stephenson’s face when he’d asked to meet my mother at graduation and I’d told him she couldn’t make it. His expression had transformed from respect into something I detested.
Her twenty-two-year-old daughter finishes a PhD program in record time, graduates with honors, is offered a position with the university, and she doesn’t show up?
He pitied me. And it made me work that much harder—even now, nearly three years later.

I knew it was no use arguing or even pleading with my father. She would never come to me.

“If you don’t want to drive, we can buy you a plane ticket,” he said. “It’ll cut your time in half.”

“It’s not that, Dad.”

“Then drive, daughter. Get in the car and be with us. If not today, then for Christmas. Come home.”

I shook my head, thinking of cranes and outstretched necks and chopped ones and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner all at once, my mind a cornucopia of disjointed imagery. “I can’t,” I said.

He seemed to be similarly incapable of carrying on. “Well. We’ll miss you, Mayfly. Good talking. I’ll tell your mother.”

I knew sleep wouldn’t come again, but I stayed beneath my blankets for an hour anyway. I studied my room: the folded clothes, books stacked on my dresser, organized alphabetically. Neglect showed only in the slender mirror on the back of the door, dust-coated where there weren’t course curricula taped to the glass. I rose and approached it as one might a sleeping giant, then lifted a single sheet and looked beneath. Wary eyes regarded me before I let the paper drop.

In the kitchen, I started coffee and pulled a carton of eggs from my refrigerator, along with some vegetables. I cross-sectioned a zucchini, then began slicing. Half-moon wedges puddled before me, as the noises started again.

“Leave me the hell alone,” I said to my own head. Like a crazy person after all.

I SPENT THE
day babying a small turkey and half a dozen side dishes. Finally, Kit called.

“It’s a rarity,” she said. “There’s a pregnant woman here with two uteruses. Surgery’s soon. I have to stay.”

“Are you kidding? Where will you eat? The cafeteria?”

“It’s not so bad, really. You could always …”

She let the thought trail off, as if realizing how dismal it was to eat Thanksgiving dinner—by choice—in a hospital.

“I’ll bring a plate for you,” I said.

“Aww, thanks. But I don’t know how long this will go, and—”

“They’re taking advantage of you. You work too hard.”

“Pot calling kettle! Come in, kettle!”

“Whatever. Eat when you get home, all right?”

I hung up and poured myself a full glass of wine, sat by Sam on the couch. “Just you and me, bud.” I took a gulp and stroked his fur. “Merry Thanksgiving.” He snored faintly. “Sure, but you’ll be wide awake when the turkey’s finished.”

I looked at the paperwork on my desk. I needed to plan the international outreach course I’d test online next summer. That’s what I should do. But my eyes turned back, snagged on the
keris
I’d left abandoned on the table. I could still conjure the scent from that red scrap of silk, even over that of a roasted holiday. I touched the sheath and felt a tickle of heat. Maybe it was warm because of the meteoric metals I’d read about. Was that plausible? There had to be more to the
keris
than what I’d learned in that book.