I resented her for her serenity when my insides raged like a swirling ocean of fear, anger, and, yes, jealousy. A dark fragment of my soul, the part of me that wanted to strike out and hurt her as she had hurt me, took over. “Wren is back.”
Her eyes flashed open, and she looked up at me. I quivered when I saw the heat that burned in her lovely blue eyes. What was it I saw there? Shame? Grief? Anger? An odd blend of all three? I had achieved my goal of shaking her, and I hated myself for it.
“I know. He’s been calling out to me. Trying to get me to join him. Telling me to find a way to finish what I started.”
Abby gasped. “Sugar, you should have told me.”
Maisie’s eyes flicked to Abigail. “I’m telling you now. I’m telling you all, because I want you to know what you’re up against. You’ve been leading me to create these safe little worlds for myself, realities where I can work through my madness. But in the real world, none of us are safe,” she said, unfolding her lithe limbs without ever taking her eyes off me. She rocked up to her knees and stood. “And I am not crazy. I’m not.” She took a step toward me, almost as if she were challenging me to flee, as if she were testing me to see if I could move past my fear of her. I felt a bead of cold sweat break free and trace down my spine. I wanted to love her, but I wanted to run at the same time.
I held my ground, not so much from bravery, but as the intensity of her expression pinned me to the spot. “I know you aren’t crazy, but . . .”
“What then? Loony? Don’t try to lie to me.” She looked at me with one raised eyebrow. “You were a crap liar as a kid, and anchor or no, you still are.”
Iris moved past us and pretended to examine the books spread out on Maisie’s desk. I read the cautious look lurking in her eyes, and realized that she was putting herself into a better position to strike, should it be necessary to contain Maisie. Ellen, too, seemed to take note of Iris’s intention. She slid around behind me and mirrored her sister’s station on the opposite side of the room. She wasn’t capable of matching Iris’s nonchalance. She stood stock-still, small lines forming around her eyes, and she prepared herself to intervene at the first sign of trouble. Abby did not seem worried; she remained at my side, a calming force for all of us.
“No. I’m not lying to you. I don’t think you’re crazy. To me that word means a permanent state. I would say ‘unsettled’ rather than ‘crazy.’ Listen, I’m sorry. You may be ready for this, but I’m not. I thought I was, but . . .”
Maisie willed my eyes to meet hers, and a sly smile crossed her lips. “I tried to kill you, Mercy. If the shoe were on the other foot, I wouldn’t come near you again unless you were strapped tightly into a straightjacket and wearing one of those Hannibal faceplates. As a matter of fact, if one of us is crazy, it’s probably you.”
“I’m not crazy. Just hopeful.”
“Pretty much the same thing in this world,” Maisie said. “All the same, I need you to listen to me. I’ve been waiting for you to ask me how I could do what I did to you. Why I would even dream of letting a demon harm my little sister. You’re afraid to ask, but I need to tell you why, and you need to hear it.”
“I know why,” I said, the words coming out wrapped in razor-sharp barbs. My impulse to flee having been thwarted, the need to fight brought fire to my heart. “You wanted power, and you would do anything, anything to get it.” I heard the anger in my voice, and damn it, I wanted to make sure Maisie heard it too. “You wanted Peter.” I nearly spat my husband’s name at her. “And you weren’t going to let anyone stand in your way. Even me, your own sister.”
She went nearly limp, looking like a puppet on a slack string. She stepped back as tears fell from her eyes. “No. You’re wrong. At the time, I thought it was true, but I was split. There was the part of me that covered up Ginny’s murder. The part of me that plotted against you, but then there was another part. One that watched on in horror. That part did things to try to warn you. She . . . I tried to tell you in a thousand little ways. Tried to warn you not to trust me, but you never caught on.”
“Because I trusted you more than anyone else. You were my c
enter.” I couldn’t bear to look at her; I had to look away.
“And I betrayed you in the most heinous way.” She stepped forward again, but this time I knew it was not a challenge. It was a plea for forgiveness. She took my hand, causing me to focus again on her face. I felt Iris tense on the periphery.
I drew a deep breath. “At the end. When you tried to stop. Was it because you realized you couldn’t kill me, or because you learned I was carrying Peter’s child?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It wasn’t for either of those reasons, even though”—her words rushed ahead—“it was for both.” She released me and pressed both hands against her temples. She gritted her teeth and whined as if she were in pain. She stopped and took a few breaths, lowering her hands. “It gets so confusing.” She tilted her head, a crease forming between her brows. “Hear me, Mercy. I’m not trying to excuse myself. I am not trying to rationalize my actions. I know what I did was monstrous.” I watched her face wash over with horror, her eyes widening and her lips trembling. I knew she was reliving the event in her mind. “When they got to the point where the anchor energy was to settle on me, I heard a voice.” Her eyes focused back on mine. “I couldn’t say if it was a man’s or a woman’s.”
“What did it say?” I leaned in and clasped both her hands in mine.
“That I’d done enough. I’d done everything it needed me to do. Then I was gone.”
“You believe there was a force compelling you to act as you did?”
She pulled her hands back and crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself. “No. It wasn’t like with Uncle Oliver. I hadn’t been forced to behave as I did. I did everything, everything”—she emphasized the word—“willingly. Just not for the reasons everyone, including myself, thought I had. It was like I had been playing the role of the villain until that moment. Somehow doing wrong had been the right thing to do, like I was acting out a necessary part. When the line took me, it freed me. The real me was free.” Her eyes bored into me. “I can’t explain it, but I know.” Her hand balled into a fist and she pounded on her heart. “I know in here I never would have harmed you. I would never have gone all the way through with it. Never.”
Abby stepped between us and put her arms around Maisie. “I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“Yes,” Iris said. “I concur.” She took my arm and escorted me to the door. She began to speak, but then gave a curt nod toward Abby. Abby’s eyes closed, and she nodded in kind. I didn’t understand the silent conversation that had passed between them, but I struggled to stop Iris from dragging me through the door.
There had been forces working against my sister and me, trying to pull us apart even before we had been born. I freed myself from Iris’s grasp and rushed back to Maisie. I pulled her from Abby’s arms and into mine. She looked up at me in total surprise. “I believe you,” I said and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I don’t forgive you. Not really. Not yet. But I do believe you.” A sigh escaped her, and she leaned her head on my shoulder. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Find a way to work through it.”
She lifted her head and looked at me with the first smile I’d seen on her in forever. Perhaps the first genuine smile of her life. “Yes,” she said. “I do believe we will.”
FIVE
I startled awake. In my nightmare, Old Rex had come to life and was chasing a woman as if she were a gazelle in the African savannah. Then that woman was me. He wore me down, circled me until he was ready to pounce. Ready to rip me limb from limb. It was just a dream, and a silly one at that, but I would have liked to find my husband by my side when I awoke. No such luck.
Enough, I thought to myself. Enough of being a selfish little girl. Peter was up and out early for good reason. He had met a commercial real estate agent at the bar last night and had come home with a new scheme of opening up another Magh Meall over near the beach on Tybee. He and George, the agent, had an early appointment to scout out available properties. He hadn’t sprung his idea on his parents yet, but honestly, the way he explained it, it didn’t sound like the worst idea in the world. If he was willing to go into business with his parents, maybe he would extend the same courtesy to his wife and let me become an investor. Of course, Colin and Claire might have other ideas about it, but part of me really enjoyed the thought of Peter and me having a dream we could build together, just as his parents had.