how it’s not the Ivy League.”
Claire laughed a little—at the Ivy League, at herself. “I’m not obsessed anymore, believe it or not.”
Eileen looked doubtful.
“I mean it. I know it sounds cheesy, but … I’ve been thinking maybe you can find happiness anywhere. Doesn’t have to be Yale.”
Kerry and Bonnie were on her mind, though she didn’t say that aloud. She felt, instinctively, that Eileen knew.
“You’re right,” said Eileen. “Sounds cheesy as hell.”
There was Eileen’s smirk again, and the sight of it filled Claire with warmth. She could go to Eugene. She could start a new life. She could even, maybe, find an Ainsley St. John who wasn’t an Internet pipe dream.
Claire could do that in the future.
It wasn’t excelling by Harper Everly standards, but it might be perfection, all the same.
THIRTY-SIX Murphy
At the same time Claire was texting Ainsley, Murphy was preparing the trick.
Eileen and Claire didn’t know about it … yet. That would defeat the purpose of a surprise magic show.
Murphy had special-ordered this trick and, after almost twenty practices, she had decided she was ready for a debut.
She looked out the window, noting Claire and Eileen on the porch. They were talking, but seemed chill enough. Neither of them was shut in their bedroom, so they couldn’t accuse her of bothering them. In fact, they hadn’t done that since their return from Rockport.
Murphy set the plastic tumblers in a straight line on the coffee table.
She breathed in deep, pep-talking herself as she went into the kitchen. There, she prepared the show’s refreshments: three coffee mugs of ginger ale, for old time’s sake. These would be the celebratory drinks once the trick was through.
As she poured the last of the fizzing sodas, her eyes strayed to the kitchen’s back door and the emptied, cleaned-out tank resting there. Siegfried’s tank. His final home, but not his final resting place.
Since her seaside farewell, Murphy had looked up the way tides worked. She was pretty positive that Siegfried had washed up on the shore of Rockport and maybe even scarred some poor runner out for a morning jog. She felt bad about that, but she no longer felt guilty.
Murphy took the drinks into the den, where she stopped and stared at a new picture over the mantle: three kid brothers, arms slung over shoulders. Eileen had stolen this one item—just one—from the house on Laramie. A final crime.
Looking at it, Murphy considered that maybe there was an Enright curse, like Mom had said. If there was, Murphy liked to hope she and her sisters were in the business of curse breaking.
Even weeks after she’d said them, Eileen’s words echoed in Murphy’s heart: You’re the engine.
She was starting to believe it.
Drinks prepared, show at the ready, Murphy went out to the porch.
“You two busy?”
Her sisters looked at her. There was light in Eileen’s eyes. There was no phone in Claire’s hands.
Eileen said, “What you got cooking?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Claire raised a brow. “Surprise, huh? Then I guess we’d better go see.”
They followed her into the den, to the site of Cayenne Castles past. There were no parapets raised, no blanket walls or pillow thrones. The memories were there, though—the words the Sullivan sisters had spoken, and the promises they’d made, drenched deep in carpet fibers and painted into the walls. Murphy could sense the past Sir Sages, Princess Paprikas, and Prince Peppers watching them, an invisible audience.
The pressure was on.
“Okay,” said Murphy, as Eileen and Claire took their seats on the couch. “Behold, before you, three cups.”
Eileen said, “Beheld.”
“Pick them up, check them out. Make sure there’s nothing weird about them.”
“Weird, how?” asked Claire.
“You know, false bottoms, et cetera.”
Eileen rapped one cup with her knuckles. Claire turned over another, running her thumb along its seam. When the inspection was complete, they set the cups on the table and Murphy sorted them back in their straight line.
“Now!” she said, with practiced dramatic flourish. “Look at this ring.”
From her flannel shirt pocket, Murphy produced a smooth metal ring, small enough to fit any of their fingers.
Claire took it first, looked it over, and handed it to Eileen, who, after further examination, poked out her tongue and licked it.
“Leenie,” Claire said, aghast.
“I’m being thorough,” Eileen replied. “You want thoroughness, right, Murph?”
Murphy nodded earnestly. “As thorough as you want.”
Thoroughness through, the ring was returned to Murphy’s keeping.
“Now comes the moment of truth,” she announced.
Kneeling before the coffee table, Murphy dragged out the centermost cup and placed the ring beneath it. Then the magic began. Murphy moved the cups.