The Geometry of Sisters Read online

  Lucy says that Einstein had it almost right with E = mc2. Except it's not matter, it's love. Lucy says, “Love is neither created nor destroyed.” And she hears Mary's ghost, and I've heard it too, so that must mean something. To us it means we have to find a way to break through to our dads.

  We need their help.

  The game had nearly killed Carrie.

  She had never felt anything like it, not even on the lake with her father. Being so close to the people she loved, watching them from a distance. No one knew her, so she could hide, and there was so much excitement and activity, she just stayed on the edges, keeping her family in sight.

  Watching Travis play made her feel thrilled, so happy, to see what a great player he had become. She knew how good that must make him feel; football had always been her brother's passion. And seeing Beck in the stands with prissy Ally—it made her laugh. She wished she could have heard what Beck had to say about that. She had to fight the impulse to make her way under the bleachers, grab her sister's ankle, get her to meet her down below.

  But the hardest part was seeing her mother. Standing behind the parking lot, hiding in a grove of pine trees, Carrie had thought she was invisible. Her stomach growled from the smell of food grilling, cider mulling. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and the bus ride had been longer than she'd expected. Every penny counted, so she couldn't even buy popcorn or a hot dog.

  She saw a group with a big box overflowing with sandwiches. They ate and drank, and when they were done, they just left the box in the parking lot and made their way back toward the field. Carrie was so hungry. She was starving for her family. She'd fed Gracie her bottle, feeling almost weak in the knees. Spotting those sandwiches, she knew if she ate one she'd feel better; it would make the longing for her family seem more bearable. So she inched out of the pine trees, just in time to see her mother.

  She was talking to a man across the parking lot, staring straight at her. Carrie's eyes locked with hers. She nearly yelled “Mom!” She was sure her mother had recognized her. But the sun was behind her; it must have been in her mother's eyes, the way she put her hand up to her forehead, seeming to squint into the bright light. Carrie ducked back into the shadows and took the moment to zoom her camera, snap a picture. That's when Gracie must have dropped her pacifier; but at least Carrie had a photo.

  She stared at it now, on the screen of her digital camera: a close-up of her mother's face. Her hazel eyes, so full of stress and worried exhaustion, fine lines in her skin, but still that pretty, warm, loving face Carrie knew so well. Carrie traced the picture with her finger, the way she used to touch her mother's cheeks when she was little. Had Carrie put those lines on her mother's face? Had she caused the stress?

  She knew she had. Being so close but so far away was like purgatory. Why couldn't she have taken a few steps into the light instead of shrinking back into the shade, walked toward her mother, placed Gracie right into her arms? The possibility had been right there. Carrie closed her eyes and could almost feel her mother hugging her now.

  It seemed like a strange miracle, that they would all end up in Rhode Island. Carrie had come to help J.D. She'd thought that if she could keep him from dying, she might be able to forgive what she'd let happen at the lake. She'd never heard of J. D. Blackstone until the day the man she'd always thought of as her father died.

  It felt crazy, but she knew it was an act of love—standing by a stranger's bed, watching over the nurses, and doctors, and people coming and going. She had no practical help to offer, just a need to be there, to lend strength with her presence. He was asleep, didn't even know she was there. Except that one time, when she stood in the shadows, and she saw him open his eyes and stare at her. Was he really awake? He didn't speak, and neither did she.

  One day a nurse noticed her and asked why she was there. She wished she could take back that answer. Another time a different nurse noticed her, asked her when she was due, whether she was having a boy or a girl, if it was her first. They talked about babies for a while; that actually comforted Carrie. It was how she'd have liked to talk to her mother and Beck.

  At the same time, she couldn't imagine that. It was as if she was living a second life—her first life had been as a daughter and sister. Her family had been Andy and Maura, Travis and Beck Shaw. She'd been an honors student. She'd never imagined breaking any serious rules, hurting anyone she loved.

  Her second life was as a pregnant runaway. She had killed—not really, but for all practical purposes—the man she'd always thought was her father. They'd fought, and told each other the truth. The canoe had tipped in the storm, during their fight—and Carrie knew it had been her fault. She'd been so upset, she'd made it capsize.

  It hurt to remember. She had loved her father—Andy—so much. She could hardly stand life without him; what must it be like for her mother, Travis, and Beck? How could she have left her brother and sister without their father?

  He'd never watch Travis play football again. He'd never see Beck bring home A's on her math tests.

  Beck. Carrie had held her little sister's hand, walking to school. They'd stayed on the sidewalk for part of the walk, cut through backyards on another. Beck had talked the whole time, nonstop, just going on and on as the sisters clasped hands and walked along.

  The feeling of her sister's hand in hers filled her now, rocked her back and forth. Dell was coming to pick up Grace and take her to childcare. Carrie lifted her baby and kissed her tiny fingers. She whispered a story about Beck, her incredible aunt, and wondered if they would ever meet.

  She showed Gracie the picture of her mother. Gracie gurgled and laughed, and Carrie saw her mother in her daughter's face, but nothing of Andy Shaw. Carrie closed her eyes, thinking of how she'd let him slip beneath the surface of the lake, of how he'd loved her her whole life, and she'd just let him die.

  Her mother had gotten pregnant before she was married, pregnant with Carrie. Carrie had such love and compassion for her mother. But she had kept the secret all this time, Carrie's lifetime plus nine months. Like mother, like daughter, Andy Shaw had said, and it was true. Some things couldn't be fixed or even talked about, not even in a family where everyone used to love each other.

  The ability to sleep had left Maura. She rested her head on the pillow, and felt as if she'd been through a hurricane. Everything in her life was broken, pieces all around. But outside, the night was calm and still. She climbed out of bed, pulled on her jacket, walked outside.

  The sound of the waves began to soothe her. She walked the path, listening to their constant motion, rolling in from far out at sea. She reassured herself that Travis and Beck were safe in their beds, that they were going to be okay. They were together—they'd get through this. The air was cold; she jammed her hands into her jacket pocket, found the pacifier.

  It shocked her fingers, tactile memories of her first daughter's earliest days. She thought of that young mother and baby at the football field; she had been thinking of them as herself and Carrie eighteen years ago, but in that instant everything changed. She'd been wrong—the girl in the parking lot had been Carrie, holding her baby, the one Beck had been so sure about.

  “Carrie!” she said out loud.

  The white waning moon spread a thin net across the ocean. Salt spray misted her face. The sound of honking filled the air: a flock of geese flying south, right over her head, so close she could almost feel their wing beats.

  Turning to watch them pass, Maura looked at the mansion. There was that strange light again: the top floor glowed, a green, watery jewel. She saw a silhouette in the window: a person facing the sea, watching her. She shivered, took a step toward the house, and suddenly the lights went out.

  She ran toward the building. As a teacher, she had a passkey— heavy, ridged, magnetized metal, and she dug it out of her bag. She climbed the wide marble steps, whisked the passkey in the electronic lock, and let herself into the front door.

  Nightlights burned in bronze sconces all along the qu
iet hallways. She climbed flight after flight of graceful, curving limestone stairs. It was late, but she saw several students in the halls. They looked curious, obviously wondering why she was there. One nodded, and Maura waved as she tore up the steps.

  As she passed the third-floor landing and approached what should have been the fourth floor, she came to a brick wall. How bizarre, she thought. Compared with the rest of the mansion's gracious French architecture, this seemed clunky, hastily installed, not at all in keeping with James Desmond Blackstone's vision. The top floor was literally bricked off, but nothing could have kept her out.

  In the center of the wall was a wide door with a conventional lock. Maura rattled the knob, but it didn't budge. But somehow the latch hadn't caught; she pushed the door open easily. This walled-off part of the stairwell was pitch-dark and smelled musty, but beneath the dust and dampness was the unmistakable scent of chlorine. Winded from her climb and the triumph of getting through the steel door, she headed up the last few steps.

  At the top, she stood in total blackness. Her heart was pounding as she felt her way around. It seemed to be a landing just like those on the floors she'd passed, about forty feet square, with balustrades to prevent a fall to the landing below. Running her hands along the cool limestone walls, she felt what was unmistakably a thick wooden door.

  So this had been Mary Langley's room, she thought. She'd heard Beck and Lucy talking about the girl's ghost, about how she haunted Newport Academy. There were intimations of a family tragedy, of a lost sister…. Maura had heard some of it, but blocked it out. What significance did Mary have to her? Maura had her own lost girl. “Carrie,” she said. Placing her hands on the doorway, she rested her ear against the carved wood, trying to hear inside.

  Yes, that was the sound of water. Gentle movement, as if someone was swimming. Maura's spine tingled in spite of herself.

  She reached for her passkey. Hands trembling, she felt to see if the door had an electronic lock like the one at the building's entrance. Amazingly, it did. Maura swiped her card, waiting for the click. But it didn't happen. Crouching down, she peered under the door.

  There it was, luminous, cool, and green: ghost light. She pressed her eye as close as she could to the space between the floor and the door, and tried to see. There were shadows.

  Movement: perhaps it was the flicker of water in the pool, or maybe it was Mary and her lost sister, wandering the top floor of their old school.

  Why did this make her feel so close to Carrie? She'd been thinking about her daughter so hard, it felt almost as if she'd conjured her. Stretched out on the floor, her cheek on the cold stone, Maura stared at the celadon spirit light and felt her eyes flood. She placed her hand against the door; it was warm to the touch. Heat from the pool, from steam…

  She felt as if Carrie was inside the room. Crazy, she knew. But even so, she lay on the hard floor by the narrow stripe of green light and let the feeling stay in her heart, a gentle glow that took her back to Columbus, to her home, to those beautiful times when nothing was perfect but everything was okay, those days over a year ago when her family was all together, before her husband died and her darling girl ran away.

  10THE NEXT DAY KIDS WERE TALKING ABOUT MRS. Shaw getting spooked by Mary Langley's ghost. One girl had spotted the teacher heading to the fourth floor at night, when she wasn't usually in the dorm. Someone else had seen her running—flying—back down. Rumors began, and spread fast: she'd climbed the stairs to contact the spirit world, she'd gone to battle dark forces, she'd attempted to investigate the story of Mary's death, she'd wanted to commune with Mary herself.

  The streak of brilliant October sunshine ended, and heavy fog rolled in. Gray and cold, it hovered over the coastline, darkened the day. The temperature staggered downward, and the boiler kicked on, making strange creaking noises in the old pipes. The upper-classmen called it “Mary weather.” Whenever Mary's ghost was disturbed, she summoned the fog from far out at sea.

  It was almost Halloween, and eerie tales of Newport Academy were too delicious not to spread throughout the school. The Pumpkin Carve and Blackstone Blaze were coming up fast—no one would know exactly when until the stack of firewood for the bonfire appeared by the football field.

  “Hello, Ghost Hunter,” Stephen Campbell said, stepping into Maura's classroom between periods.

  “I'm glad you think it's funny,” Maura said.

  “Seriously, you're the school's superhero,” he said. “My second-period geometry class was in awe of you. They practically had you in a sword battle with the Dark Lord on the fourth-floor landing.”

  “The Dark Lord?”

  “You haven't been here long enough,” Stephen said. “Cities have urban myths. Newport Academy has school myths, and that's one of the biggest ones.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Percival Vanderbilt. The White Knight's archenemy.”

  “And who is the White Knight?”

  “None other than James Desmond Blackstone himself. Vanderbilt tried to keep this school from being built—he saw Blackstone's fortunes rising, encroaching on his own. He said that Blackstone was shanty Irish, and as such didn't know a thing about education. He had a lot of influence here in Newport, but Blackstone was a fighter, and he wasn't going to give up. The kids like to say the battle rages on, the Dark Lord and the White Knight.”

  “What's James Desmond doing haunting his own school?”

  “Protecting Mary Langley cracking the whip to make the kids study, reminding everyone of his power the way he did in life. Pick one….” He gave her a grin, and Maura smiled back in spite of herself.

  “Why would he have to protect Mary?”

  “She was Vanderbilt's niece,” Stephen said. “Her father didn't measure up in Vanderbilt's eyes, and he objected when Langley married his sister. Langley was a friend of Blackstone, and Vanderbilt took his sending Mary here as the worst kind of affront. But as time went on, he wanted to know his niece—his sister had died, and Mary connected him to her. The story goes that Percival picked Mary up at school on a foggy December night, the tail end of a big snowy nor'easter, and his carriage crashed right off the cliff, into the water. Langley never saw Mary again.”

  Maura couldn't speak: she could feel Langley missing his daughter. She touched her desk. There were paperclips in a tray. A blue notebook. She raised her gaze to the window, to the impenetrable fog, wondered where Carrie could be.

  “Have I upset you?” Stephen asked.

  “Did she drown?” Maura asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You said that the carriage went off the cliff. Did Mary drown?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said. “J.D. and Patricia grew up with the story. People ran to the edge, saw the carriage floating in the sea, just like a boat. Mary was inside, hands on the windows. They tried to get down to rescue her, but a big wave swamped the carriage, and it sank.”

  Maura stared at her blue notebook. She thought of Carrie in the water. She hadn't drowned, but the experience had taken her away.

  “Would you take a walk with me?” Stephen asked.

  She hesitated only for a minute, then nodded and stood. Her classes were finished for the day and Stephen's must be too. Grabbing her coat, she followed him down the corridor, and went outside to wait while he got his. The air was cold and damp, the mist so thick it blocked any view of the sea. She sat on a bench, and when she looked up, she saw Blackstone Hall disappearing in the fog.

  It looked so very like another Newport mansion she knew, that stood a mile south along the cliff. She remembered the day J.D. had shown it to her, the house he'd grown up in. It had been a foggy afternoon, just like this. He hadn't driven her through the front gates; he'd said his parents would insist they stay for dinner.

  “What would be so bad about that?” she'd asked. “Don't you like to eat with your parents?”

  “That's not it,” he said, shaking his head. He parked his motorcycle in the driveway to the service entrance.

&nb
sp; “Service entrance?” she'd asked.

  “For deliveries,” he'd said.

  “You make it sound like a hotel,” she'd said. “What kind of house needs ‘deliveries’?”

  He hadn't answered. Just led her down a path, through a cut in the hedge, onto the public Cliff Walk. They'd walked a hundred yards, waves crashing on the left. The tall hedge on their right prevented them from seeing into the property. Soon the gravel path slanted downhill slightly, and they walked into a stone tunnel under the lawn.

  They were quiet. She thought about Andy, his proposal by the covered bridge, knew that she was supposed to leave Newport at the end of the summer. She'd thought, “supposed to.” Because by then her feelings had her on such a roller coaster, she wasn't sure she could.

  It was dark in the tunnel, except for the opening at the other end, fifty yards away. Halfway there, they stopped. J.D. turned to his right, dug in his pocket for his keys. Maura heard the rasp of a lock. He gave her his hand, pulled her through an iron gate. Inside the gate, they found themselves on stone stairs that led upward, into the private property behind the hedge—J.D.'s yard.

  “I made that gate,” he said. “When I was seventeen.”

  She heard him, but was struck speechless by what she saw. There, a football field away, looming out of the thick fog, was the biggest house she'd ever seen. It looked like a French château, something she'd studied in eighteenth-century history. Two wings jutted out toward the sea on either side of a classical garden.

  They walked toward it, and as they got closer, she saw more details: columns and a portico, stone lions on the terrace, marble urns planted with cascading flowers. Windows faced the sea, and through them she saw tapestries and large paintings and carved marble fireplaces and a curved staircase.

  “Now I know why you need deliveries here,” she said. “It's like a museum. You live here?” she asked.

  “You know where I live,” he said.

  “The warehouse,” she said.

  He nodded.