The Sullivan Sisters

by Kathryn Ormsbee

Fear didn’t work on Eileen. Not anymore.

  Once she was out of Claire’s sight and Murphy was in the foyer, poking around, Eileen seized the moment—the one she’d been waiting for. She pulled from her flask, welcoming the electrifying sting. The promise of good things to come: no fear, just resolve.

  Over the past two years Eileen had become an expert in measuring, gauging, knowing her limit—the line between buzzed and drunk. It was a fine art, drinking, though it hadn’t started out that way. It had begun with Asher from Safeway offering her a beer after their shift and Eileen drinking it down, thinking it tasted like liquid Wonder Bread mixed with piss. Then, when the bad taste was over, she’d felt a bubbliness on the surface of her mind, a lightweight feeling, not of her body, but of her brain. And she’d liked that, because since she’d found the letters a month earlier, her brain had been heavy as lead.

  She’d lightened her mind, and she’d kept on doing so, day by day, testing her limits, making a survey of what her over-twenty-one coworkers were willing to offer, from wine to beer to vodka to gin to—her favorite poison—Jack Daniel’s. She’d vomited, she’d rambled incoherently, she’d raced Asher around the parking lot in a shopping cart, once. She’d figured out what worked, and what accomplished the job of brain-lightening most efficiently.

  She’d stopped drinking with coworkers and started bringing the booze straight home. She’d figured out how much to swig before driving, and how much before bed. Some nights, like the night she’d opened Mr. Knutsen’s letter, she overdid it. For fun. She only lived once.

  But somehow along the way, despite Eileen’s gained knowledge and expertise, the alcohol began to be less of something she measured out and more of something that measured her out.

  She’d considered the word. The one that began with an “a.”

  That wasn’t her, though. That wasn’t what this was.

  Eileen’s need to drink didn’t make her an alcoholic. Plenty of teens her age got shit-faced, and no one was dragging their asses to rehab. She was fine. And she could drink from this flask. Hell, she could drink it all down, if she wanted, in one go.

  Eileen headed for the parlor wall stacked with filing boxes. She took down the first of them, tugging off the lid and inspecting its contents. There were folders filled with papers and labeled with the words “Utilities,” “Bills,” and “Receipts.” Eileen didn’t trust labels, though. The prosaic had fooled her before.

  She opened the first of the folders, and as she did, a sound reached her ears. It was forceful and even and everywhere at once, pinging against the windows and juddering on the roof, two floors up.

  Rain. Not everyday Oregon drizzle; hard, driving rain.

  Funny, Eileen thought. She hadn’t been looking skyward earlier. Had a storm been building?

  She glanced from the box to the parlor’s threshold, where Murphy stood.

  “Whoa,” said Murphy.

  “Yeah,” Eileen replied.

  She listened longer, and as she did, she noted the jagged way the rain hit the house. She looked to the window and found the world outside was a mess of bouncing bits of white. Sleet.

  There was rain in Oregon—a usual occurrence, abundant as dirt. Then there were storms—occasional, warranting your best parka. And there was this—not a storm, but a storm. A coastal tempest, sent straight from hell.

  “Claire!” cried Murphy.

  Eileen turned, and there indeed was Claire, at the French doors, ghost-faced and shivering like a junkie.

  “Well, this is perfect,” Claire announced.

  Inside, Eileen thought, Sure, Claire. Sure.

  This time, though, she meant it. She agreed.

  The van had been one thing, but now there with this: a heavy-duty storm, sleet, forcing them inside. Allowing Eileen the time she needed to find her document. To discover the truth of her secret, once and for all.

  That was as perfect as perfect could be.

  SEVENTEEN Claire

  We’re leaving.”

  Claire spoke with authority. She had allowed Eileen and Murphy their fun. She’d told herself it was a fair compromise, since the Caravan was, technically, Eileen’s. She’d stood outside, tapping out of open apps to save her phone battery, which was at a threadbare 11 percent. She’d tried not to think of the gruesome things Cathy had told them at the diner. Before, walking the halls of this house had felt akin to discovering Atlantis. It had been her golden moment. Now, Claire felt she’d been conned—though by who? Patrick Enright? William J. Knutsen, attorney-at-law? Harper Everly? The house itself?

  Whoever was to blame, it wasn’t fair, falling in love with a home only to be told it was the setting for heinous crimes. The gables no longer looked elegant, but severe. The wraparound porch was hardly romantic. The turret, jutting proudly from the house, struck her as malevolent.

  It wasn’t as though Claire would ever live at 2270 Laramie. Doing that would require living in Oregon, and Claire still planned to get out of the purgatorial Pacific Northwest. She guessed what was bothering her, deep down, was that she’d wanted to believe her world was righting its wrongs. She’d thought, Okay, Claire, you’ve been summarily rejected by your dream college, but there must be good waiting for you in Rockport. She’d thought, mere hours ago, that she could sell this place for a profit in four years’ time. And maybe—a wild thought—that she’d learn about a father she’d barely known, which would, most likely, be good for her personal growth.

  She’d been attempting to think like an Exceller.

  But as the sleet had begun to rain down on her head, Claire realized she was only being delusional again.

  There was nothing for her, for any of them, here. And if the sleet was a portent of what was to come, Claire wanted to be nowhere near this place. Eileen could call her paranoid, and Murphy could call her mean. She was used to no respect at home; wasn’t that always a middle child’s plight? She was the Exceller of the family though, and, it seemed, the only sister with a plan. If that required her to give orders, so be it.

  “Did you hear me? We’re leaving, before it gets any worse.” Claire held up her phone, at 8 percent, close to death. “They’re calling for sleet and freezing rain. The roads are going to be brutal. We have to go.”

  “But Eileen said the car has to reeest.” Murphy whined.

  And she wondered why Claire treated her like a baby.

  Claire and Murphy had never been close. Three years was a weird age gap. It seemed whenever Claire was leaving a stage of life, Murphy was getting into it, and maybe that wasn’t Murphy’s fault, but she could be so annoying—a babbling toddler when Claire was a bookish seven-year-old; a gangly, too-loud middle schooler when Claire was starting high school; an awkward freshman when Claire was a seasoned senior. The timing was never right.

  When she’d been younger, Murphy had constantly asked if Claire would play with her, help her with homework, watch a magic trick. Claire had kept saying no, no, no. Murphy was always a little too little, and the magic obsession and silly jokes didn’t help. Eileen, weirdly enough, had been closer to Murphy. Years ago, on those nights when Eileen had babysat, she’d almost always taken Murphy’s side in a Claire versus Murphy fight. That had driven Claire crazy, back when she and Eileen had been close, and Claire had actually cared about Eileen’s opinion. Lately, though, neither of them had been spending time with Murphy, and Murphy had stopped asking the annoying questions.

  Claire had wondered if, maybe, over that time, Murphy had grown up.

  But no. Not a chance. Murphy had stowed away in the Caravan, clamored endlessly for cheese curds, run off despite Claire’s instructions, and broken into this house. And now she was sitting at the grand piano, plunking out a clumsy version of “Heart and Soul.”

  Claire watched, stomach turning. Murphy had heard Cathy’s story as clearly as Claire had. How could she possibly choose to sit there, knowing what she did? Claire thought of bloodstained keys, of a broken skull. She retched.

  “Whoa,” said Eile
en. “Take it easy.”

  Claire swallowed the nausea and said, “I’ll take it easy once we’re on the road.”

  “It’s bad out there?” Eileen squinted at the ceiling, as though that was a better indicator of the weather than an up-to-date app.

  “It’s bad,” Claire insisted, “and it’s only going to get worse.”

  “Then why would we go out in it?”

  Claire gaped. Eileen loved being a smart aleck, but this was not the time.

  “Seriously,” Eileen kept on, “you know what a piece of shit the Caravan is. Even if it starts up, there’s no way I’m going out in that. We could get stranded on the road.”

  “We’re already stranded here,” protested Claire.

  “Exactly,” said Eileen. “Here. In a home. With electricity and a roof over our heads. You want us to go on the road for hours, when we could skid off the highway? Or the Caravan could break down again and we freeze to death on I-5? I’m not risking that.”

  Claire was realizing something against her will. Eileen wasn’t just being stubborn; she was being the older sister—the way she had once upon a time. In those days Claire had come home from middle school crying and Eileen had poured her a soda and told her it’d be okay. Back then talking to Eileen had felt like consulting someone wise and fierce, who would back Claire up and fight her enemies, no matter what. Eileen had been the babysitter in charge, the one to come up with solutions if there was a leaking dishwasher while Mom was at work. She’d been the eldest.

  But she’d officially given up that title two years ago. She’d slunk into the garage and stopped caring about anyone else. And she didn’t get to reclaim a position she’d willingly relinquished. Not now.

  Still, Claire was beginning to see Eileen’s point: The Caravan wasn’t reliable, the weather was bad, the journey home was long. Going out could be dangerous, even deadly. What Claire wasn’t sure about was the conclusion Eileen had reached, that staying here was their best option. If they were at a Days Inn, Claire could understand. This wasn’t a motel, though. This was, essentially, a haunted house.

  “We could walk into town,” Claire offered. “Ask at the diner about lodging.”

  “I thought you wanted to keep a low profile,” Eileen challenged at the same time Murphy shouted, “I’m not going out in that!”

  Murphy pointed upward, toward the sound of thunk, thunk, thunks on the roof. Claire had been out in that sleet. She’d run while ice chunks the size of peas pelted her body. She didn’t want to walk through this weather any more than Murphy did. But she didn’t want to stay the night inside a murder house, either.

  Why had she come on this trip in the first place? Trusting impulse had utterly failed her, put her in the worst position. Where was her golden moment? Where?

  Exhaustion waxed so large inside Claire, she started to cry.

  No, not now, she scolded herself. Excellers don’t cry about things like this. They take action. She brushed her knuckles along her eyes, wiping up traces of weakness. She couldn’t fall apart.

  “Fine,” she said to Eileen. “It might not be safe out there, but it might not be safe in here, either. If we’re going to stay, we need to secure the house.”

  “Secure the house,” Murphy parroted. “Black-ops style, okay.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” Claire told her.

  “Everything’s a joke.” Murphy spoke slowly, like she was reminding Claire that two plus two equaled four.

  Claire focused on the sister who could at least see reason. “If we broke in here,” she told Eileen, “anyone could. I say we go over the house again, and this time we make sure to check every closet and crawl space. Every corner. One of us stays here and watches the entrance.” She motioned to the French doors. “Then, when we’re sure we’re alone, we barricade. We hang tight for however long it takes this storm to let up, and when it clears, we leave. Can we agree to that?”

  “I volunteer for patrol!” Murphy shouted.

  Eileen shrugged, because clearly it would kill her to acknowledge that Claire had good ideas. She said, “Fine, Murph and I will check the house.”

  “Thoroughly,” Claire emphasized.

  Claire was pretty positive Eileen said “bitch” under her breath. She rose up above it, focusing instead on finding a power outlet for her phone charger. By the time she had, the others were gone, up the stairs.

  It wasn’t that Claire was paranoid, as Eileen had accused. There wasn’t a huge part of her that thought Mark Enright could be in town. It was more that she needed a plan—even a plan of house inspection—to feel in control. If the house was secure, then she could be secure too.

  And yes, there was a small fear that Cathy’s horrible theory might be true.

  As Claire plugged her phone into the outlet by the sideboard, she noticed the copy of The Three Musketeers that Murphy had brought down from the library. Claire flipped open the cover, checking the print year: an 1894 edition. Claire was no expert, but she guessed 1894 could catch a good price on eBay—maybe a hundred dollars? And this was only one book of hundreds. Who knew how much that library was worth? With the proceeds, Claire could get out of Emmet for good. She could comfortably support a move to New England, pay for months of rent, buy furniture.…

  Stop it, Claire instructed herself. The book isn’t yours yet. You’re trespassing.

  She sat herself on the hardwood floor, cradling the phone in her lap, watching as the red battery icon inched from 8 to 9 percent. There was an itch in her fingers to open the Internet, log in to the Yale admissions portal, and verify for the fifty-first time that the news was not, in fact, a mistake.

  Don’t be obsessive, she ordered herself. Don’t dwell. It’s over. Focus forward.

  Focus forward—a Harper Everly original. It was such an iconic phrase of hers, she sold totes and jersey-knit tees featuring the advice. Claire didn’t own one of those, but she’d bought other merch, including a tumbler with NO EXCUSES scrawled in loopy, rose-colored script.

  Those phrases were painful to her now, each one a dart sticking her skin:

  LONG-TERM DREAMS > SHORT-TERM PROBLEMS

  ELECTRIC SUCCESS IS ONLY GENERATED BY POSITIVITY

  A BABY STEP IS BETTER THAN NO STEP AT ALL

  DREAMS DON’T WORK UNLESS YOU DO

  DON’T PLAN FOR FAILURE

  The itch in Claire’s fingers grew stronger. Maybe a lowly intern had made a data-entry mistake, and they’d only caught it a week later. Maybe it was worth checking the portal one. More. Time.

  Claire was too weak to resist temptation. Her fingers tapped the phone screen in what had become habit. Moments later she was on the webpage, staring down a fate that remained unchanged: not accepted. Rejected. Spat out.

  Early admission application hadn’t changed a thing. Neither had chairing five student council committees, nor working long hours at the Emmet soup kitchen, nor hounding three AP teachers to write additional letters of rec.

  Claire wanted to face a flesh-and-blood human at Yale, not a URL. She would be polite, and she’d only ask one question: “Where did I go wrong?”

  She needed to know. The lack of an answer was driving her mad.

  Claire opened her texts, tapping on the abandoned thread between her and Ainsley St. John.

  Ainsley’s last text glared at her, a blue-bubbled accusation:

  Hey, you alive?

  “Yeah,” Claire whispered, “but my dreams are dead, thanks.”

  She knew she was being melodramatic. Maybe that’s all it had ever been, this weird Harperette connection between her and Ainsley: melodrama. Claire had concocted such an elaborate story, for so long. She and Ainsley would both go to Yale, would be roommates there, and Ainsley would get Claire, and then she’d realize Claire was irresistible, and they would fall in love, and Claire would get her first kiss, and everything would be fine, would be right.

  Never mind the photos of Ainsley and her new girlfriend. Never mind that she and Claire lived thousands of miles apart.
Was Claire really that desperate? Just because no other girls were out at high school, and because Ainsley was the first person Claire had felt remotely connected to in a long time?

  Delusional.

  The word rang in Claire’s ears.

  She’d thought that she was excelling. She’d thought that if she reached for the moon, at least she’d fall among the stars. Yale wasn’t impossible to get into. And even if Ainsley had a girlfriend, she’d have to leave her behind for college. Everything was going to work itself out.

  That had been Exceller mindset.

  Or, it had been a pipe dream.

  As Claire stared at the phone, a notification banner slid into view. It was an e-mail informing her that Harper Everly had uploaded a new video. Claire tapped the banner, following the heading to the full e-mail. That’s where she saw the title of Harper’s newest vlog:

  STAYING POSITIVE THROUGH LIFE’S STORMS.

  “Wow,” said Claire.

  She couldn’t.

  She simply couldn’t.

  Claire wrenched the phone from its charging cord and hurled it across the room. It smashed against the opposite wall.

  Then Claire was on her feet, preparing herself for what she would find. She wanted to look away, pretending this temper tantrum had never happened.

  It had, though. And the screen was shattered, splintered into a dozen spider web strands.

  When Claire attempted to turn on the phone, nothing happened. No light flooded the screen. No life.

  She’d paid $800 for this phone.

  She’d saved for two years.

  The supply trips to Michaels, the hours spent forming delicate bracelets beneath her desk lamp, the hundreds of trips to the post office.

  In one second, she’d smashed—literally smashed—all that.

  The worst part was this: She was laughing.

  At plans.

  At golden moments.

  At Harper Everly.

  She laughed so hard that her arms began to shake.

  She tried turning on the phone again, and again. The screen remained dark.

  She thought to herself, I’m alone. I am cut off from the world.