I hurried to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of scissors, then went back to the porch and scored along the edges of the box. I tore and cut at some difficult tape before managing to open an end. Beneath wrappings of silver lay a beautiful wooden case. Waves of shock eroded something in me as I took it in, what it was, and what it meant. And then I flipped open the duet of latches and looked at the instrument that sat like a golden moon against a thick pile of midnight velvet.
Noel had sent me a saxophone.
I stroked the smooth mother-of-pearl keys with the tip of my finger and took in the engraved lettering of the brand-new Selmer. I opened the note.
Dear Maeve,
Call me selfish. I want to hear you play your instrument again sometime soon. Everyone needs their paper and paint—especially a red woman like you.
Yours, Noel
p.s. No throwing this in the ocean.
It was the closest he ever came to pressuring me back.
I HAD THE most fantastical dream that night. A man, very like Sri Putra in appearance, sat on a dirt floor near a great stone hearth and blazing fire. In his hand he held metal tongs and worked something—a blade, I realized—hot, alive, over the flame. His arms curled and wrists bent as he muttered words I could not understand.
This keris he then passed on, and so it went from man to man. Finally, a young Sri Putra gave this blade to a man with a straw hat and sunburned skin. The man was Poppy.
“Thank you for saving my wife,” Sri Putra said, and Poppy nodded before the scene changed again.
Moira and I played Alvilda, the keris in my hand and raised to the sky, just moments before being lost in the sea. I saw the blade covered in seaweed, caught in a lobster trap.
Time slurred. I saw an aperture form in the blade’s metal and knew, somehow, that the keris meant for this to happen. The Third Eye. The keris needed it to find its way back.
I saw the blade ascend through the water and lift into hands. Saw it pass from a man with a fishing cap to another in a great wool coat. It traveled in a boat and then an airplane. It lived awhile with a thin woman and a Pekingese.
Two times more it changed hands before finding Sri Putra in Rome. The empu held the keris and knew it for his kin’s own creation—the keris he’d given to my poppy for saving his wife after the explosion of a young volcano, long before the cancer had taken hold.
And then the uncanniest part: Sri Putra looked straight at me in my dream. “I am a professor now,” he said. “Found. We will see each other again. I have made a new sheath.”
I didn’t forget any part of this odd tale, and so the next day, as my mother worked soil in the garden, I told my father about the dream.
“Interesting,” he said as I set a plate of eggs before him.
I raised my brow in a way I believed would make Giovanni proud. “That’s it? Interesting? How about plausible?”
“It was a dream.” He shrugged and took a bite of egg.
Yes, it had been a dream. But I knew dreams. They held answers. Sometimes questions. Challenges. Puzzles.
“I’ll never forget that Alvilda business, though,” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
“Well, we were crazy then.” I handed him a napkin. He took it without looking remotely abashed.
“Queen Alvilda, piratess of the sea. Even she settled down for her king eventually.”
“Even she did, huh? Are you trying to say something, Dad?” I smiled. “Want to get rid of me?”
“Oh, no. No. Just saying that after all her war and craziness, even she found peace in the end. And she loved him, after all. That’s all I’m saying. Nothing but that.”
THE DAY CAME when my father proclaimed it safe to go out onto the Penobscot again, and so I trudged down to the dock where he’d uncovered our motorboat and set it in the water. I relieved it of its ropy confines and started the engine. Wind whipped my cheeks and ears, and made my hair come loose from its short ponytail. I steered out of the mouth of the bay, just a bit, then shut off the engine and sat. The air was cold still and the water choppy, but the sun shone.
Of course I missed my sister acutely in these moments—there was one now where there were once two—but I wasn’t alone in the boat. I opened the wooden box beside me and pulled out the new saxophone. I tucked a reed in my mouth, then fitted pieces of the instrument together. I attached the neck strap and looped it over my head, set the reed into place and secured the ligature. I put the sax’s neck on its body and tightened the screw, feeling tighter still in my chest.
Déjà vu. The last time I’d been here with a sax, I’d dropped it in the bay. So much had happened since then.
You have suffered, Sri Putra had said.
I knew this to be true.
I forgive you, Moira had said.
I felt the truth in that as well.
No throwing this in the ocean, Noel had said.
I didn’t want to.
I closed my eyes and lifted the mouthpiece, felt the cold press against my lips, took a breath, and played a long note, held it until my lungs ached. I opened myself—every part and bit—and out poured a song of anguish and love and acceptance and hope. I felt, quite strongly, that Moira came through in that song, that she’d handpicked every note herself; and when I finished, when I put the saxophone down on my lap and wept, I thought I heard her voice.
Don’t be afraid of death. It’s so much like birth.
I shivered long and violent, and felt a shift along all of my faults as the greater part of me gave way to that, believed it. I held a vivid image in my head of my old saxophone at the bottom of the sea, shifting as well, displacing sand and weed, then lifting, rising beyond the sea’s sky, and releasing a bubble of air and a single solemn note.
And it was like death.
And it was like birth.
EPILOGUE
Three days after playing my soulful tune, after not chucking my new sax into the sea, I picked up a box of Sunset Sky and dyed my hair as close to its natural color as I could make it. Then I packed up my few belongings, hugged my parents good-bye, and made my way back to Betheny.
I knew I should go to my apartment first, get a clean change of clothes, visit with my cat, see if Kit might be at home, and then call the university. Instead, I drove to Time After Time.
I pulled into the small lot and emerged from my car. The season had progressed here. The trees bloomed full, and the air smelled sweet. A bee flew by my face, lingered for a moment, then buzzed away.
Outside the shop door sat several large boxes and a six-foot tiki tower. How fierce the wooden man’s grimace, but I marched up to him nonetheless.
“Maeve? Is that you?”
I craned my head to see Noel peering from a second-story window. He wore a red bandanna for a cap and looked every bit a pirate with his long hair poking out from beneath it.
He grinned. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? The shop’s a bloody mess with inventory—so am I.”
“I’ve always loved a good mess.”
“Christ, you look fantastic! It’s really you?”
“Really who? I’m Alvilda the fearless, back from my adventures. Are you of royal blood, mate?”
My smile turned to a frown as I realized he’d ducked back from the window, but then I heard feet pounding on the stairs. I didn’t wait for him to do it for me. I opened the door myself, and stepped inside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mere words cannot express how grateful I am to the many people who’ve helped me—but I’ll give it a shot.
To my agent, Elisabeth Weed, whose unbounded passion for this novel excited the very best editors and delivered this writer’s dream to reality.
To everyone at Shaye Areheart, but especially my Maine-born editor, Sarah Knight, who understood all about ayuh and wicked and whales, not to mention how to slap a manuscript into prime shape, and who brain-stormed her heart out to find a new perfect title for this novel.
To my friends at Writer Unboxed—especi
ally Kathleen Bolton, for critique that always made me think; Barbara Samuel, for sharing wise and encouraging words; Allison Winn Scotch, for e-introducing me to my fabu agent; and Ray Rhamey, for passing along first-chapter wisdom. Also to Amy Atwell, Elena Greene, Aimee Heavey, Heather Heavey, Judy Heavey, Carol Henry, Jeanne Kisacky, Irene McGarrity, Thea McGinnis, and Kathy Walsh, for reading, advising, and reading again. And to my many cheerleaders at Dream Catchers and GIAM—you inspire me.
To my first reader and dear friend, Polly Gasstrom, for asking, “Is that keris thing going to be important to the rest of the novel?”
To Peter Cocozzella, for checking the accuracy of my Italian and for bettering it.
To Kenny Eaton of Eaton’s Boatyard in Castine, Maine, for introducing me to the Penobscot and its history. And to the people of Castine for answering my many questions … though I could’ve done without the parking ticket. Ahem.
To Robin Lanier, for sharing her sailing know-how.
To Adam Nixon at Romebuddy.com, for sharing helpful details about Rome in December—and explaining why I really shouldn’t visit until the spring.
To artist Noyes Capeheart, the Joglosemar Foundation, and the editors at Pawartos Jawi, for permission to quote their work.
To editors and agents not directly involved but who helped me just the same. To Jennifer Leight and Diane Umansky, two of the best nonfiction editors around, for sending me enough work that I was able to stay at home and work on fiction, too. And to agents Deidre Knight and Daniel Lazar, for providing invaluable advice as I trekked my winding road to publication.
Finally, to my friends and family, for unwavering belief and enthusiasm. Especially to my husband, Sean, for supporting my efforts in every conceivable way; and to my children, Liam and Riley, who honestly can’t recall a time I wasn’t writing this story. Persistence pays off, my dearlings. Remember that.
Grazie, grazie, grazie!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Dyce Head Lighthouse in Castine, Maine, probably wouldn’t have been an ideal spot for Moira and Ian to meet for all its surrounding buildings, though I’ve tried to take advantage of some historical facts. Though the lighthouse itself had been defunct for years, a keeper’s house abutting it had been occupied for all but a brief period during which time a fire destroyed some of the house and a reconstruction took place. This timeframe coincides with Moira and Ian’s trysts.
Dyce Head Lighthouse was relit in 2008 and is once again a functional lighthouse in Castine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THERESE WALSH has a master’s degree in psychology. She lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children. This is her first novel. Visit her at ThereseWalsh.com or WriterUnboxed.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Therese Walsh
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Shaye Areheart Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Shaye Areheart Books with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
eISBN: 978-0-307-46159-9
v3.0
The Last Will of Moira Leahy Page 29
