Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series Book 2)

by Cindy Brandner

  The hay smelled relatively fresh and was peppered through with timothy and clover stalks that lent a sweetish aroma to the dank atmosphere. The chill moonlight crept through an opening at the far back of the loft. Individual stalks of hay were delineated in silver, giving the impression that the two of them had landed in a frosty field. An impression that was helped along by the small puffing clouds each of them emitted every time they took a breath.

  Jamie settled in beside her, well back from the edge of the loft, but close enough that if they lay full length on their stomachs they’d have a good view of the barn below. He tucked his light into a pocket and removed a flask. He handed it to her and said, “For the cold—we may need it if we have to sit here any length of time.”

  They sat quietly, the small night sounds magnified in the hush. The bare branches of the lilac tree rubbed against the stones, creating an eerie moan that did nothing to calm Pamela’s nerves. The entire night had been created for spooks and chills, even down to the smell of dead vegetation and the lonely hooting of a barn owl somewhere in the valley below.

  Jamie rubbed his hands together and then blew on them. “We’ll play a game. That should help pass the time.”

  “Didn’t think to bring cards,” she said, somewhat snippily. Jamie’s coolness in the face of imminent danger had always been one of his less attractive qualities. Jamie wisely ignored her tone.

  “Just a word game. Here’s the rules—neither less nor more than four syllables per line, each verse with four lines and each word beginning with the same letter, though we’ll allow for is, and, A and I.”

  “Easier for some of us than others,” she grumbled, tugging her cap down farther over her ears.

  “It’ll take your mind off your cold toes,” Jamie said unsympathetically, “I’ll even let you pick the letter.”

  “Heavens,” she replied icily, “does your generosity know no bounds?”

  “Cranky, aren’t we?” he responded back sweetly. “Now are you going to pick the letter or shall I?”

  “I will, you’re likely to pick Z,” she said firmly, “just for sheer bloody-mindedness.”

  “Alright then, give us a letter and a theme,” he said, and she could see his grin even in the dim light.

  “ ‘S’ is my letter and our theme shall be—‘The Seduction of Sally Scrimshaw.’ Your turn first,” she said in a spirit of generosity.

  “Stop batting your lashes at me,” Jamie said dryly, “it’s more effective by firelight.” He gave it no more than a moment’s thought and then let fly in a flurry of playfully enunciated tones.

  ‘Sidney Shawshank

  Sorely sought sweet

  Sally Scrimshaw

  ‘Sweetling’ said Sid—,”

  Jamie broke off abruptly, “Over to you.”

  She shot him a look that could be described as less than gracious, cleared her throat, and picked up where he had left off.

  “Sagaciously speaking

  Savory Sal,

  Suitor-wise Sid

  A scorcher is.’

  “Too many syllables in the first line and I’ll have to take issue with suitor wise.” Jamie said with dubious scorn.

  “Hyphenated,” she said triumphantly.

  “What,” Jamie sighed, “would Dr. Johnson say?”

  “I don’t see why he should have all the fun, I like to contribute to the English language every now and again myself.”

  Jamie took a deep breath, flexed his fingers, and launched into the third verse.

  ‘Said superbly

  Sauced Sally

  ‘Sweet Sir Shawshank,

  Simply stated—’

  “Oh not fair, feeding me half a line,” Pamela said, tucking a stray curl up under the fisherman’s cap she wore.

  “Can’t take the heat darling, stay out of the kitchen,” Jamie replied blithely.

  She arched a sooty eyebrow and launched into the next verse of their composition.

  ‘Solicitous

  Syllables sir

  Stir some silly

  Sows to sighing,’

  “Your turn,” she said gleefully, passing the flask back to Jamie as a welcome warmth began to bubble through her veins.

  ‘Sober Sally

  Seeks solitaire

  Solemn scion

  Of solvency.”

  “Oh very good you rat, an alliterative want-ad,” Pamela said laughing, taking the flask from Jamie’s flourishing hand and helping herself to a small slug. She eyed the rafters owlishly, seeking inspiration.

  ‘Scornful Sally

  Succulent sylph

  Scathing statements

  Swell my sabre.’

  Jamie took back the flask and pointedly put the lid on. “From glib to gutter in one small swallow,” he said sternly, “no more for you.”

  ‘Sir Sidney’ said

  Spirited Sal,

  Saddled supine

  I shall not be.’

  “O-ho,” Pamela crowed, “you’ve broken your own rules, forfeit the game.”

  Jamie shook his head abruptly, index finger gone swiftly to his lips. Below there was movement. She couldn’t hear it herself but knew that Jamie, with his preternatural radar, did. Following his lead, she slid down into the hay until she was half on her side, as flat as could be managed with the hard mound of her belly in the way. She was careful not to disturb the straw, fearful that some vagrant wisp floating down would announce their presence.

  She heard voices, deep tones, two men it seemed, approaching from the rear of the byre. Her heart thumped hard against her ribs, the jollity and adventure of the last few hours suddenly lost in the prospect of serious danger.

  Jamie held up two fingers, eyes narrowed in question. She shook her head very slightly and held up one finger. She was only expecting one man. Two men meant trouble. She could hear them clearly now, approaching the door, opening it and then a muffled oath as one of them stumbled over the threshold.

  “Hssht,” the other hissed.

  Her heartbeat was threatening to come out her ears, and she’d a sick oily feeling in the pit of her stomach. Below, the men were checking the perimeter of the barn.

  The ground outside was too hard for them to have left a trace and yet she was quite certain the two men below hadn’t merely stumbled across this barn. She prayed they would stay below and wouldn’t feel the necessity to search the loft. The men had halted now, and seemed to be listening for something. She only hoped it wasn’t the sound of her pulse echoing off the stone walls.

  An uneasy stillness descended. Jamie’s hand found hers in the straw and he kept a steady pressure on it, the touch of his skin calming her despite the fraught circumstances they now found themselves in. Below, the men shuffled slightly, though neither made so much as a murmur.

  Then amongst all the held breath, she heard footsteps on the frosty ground outside. She closed her eyes, knowing there wasn’t a thing they could do to warn him. The leaves were hissing under his shoes, the thin coating of ice magnifying the noise of his footfall. A sense of heightened expectation drew the air tight around them, and she knew the men had heard the footsteps as well.

  The side door creaked open, and for a split second the universe held still, poised on the edge of chaos—then all hell broke loose. There was a great deal of muffled thumping, a clear and querulous—“What the fock?!”—as well as other more colorful curses, as the man fought blind at the unexpected attack. There was a sickening thunk that Pamela instinctively knew was the sound of a revolver being cuffed upside the man’s head.

  A curious thud sounded in front of her and she peered through the dark, then heard the scrape of rope across wood. The bottom dropped out of her stomach as the rope fed out over the beam. She bit down on the hand that Jamie wasn’t holding, stifling the exclamation that came with the realization of what the two men had come here to do. They were going to hang him. They weren’t here to question him, they were here to make certain he didn’t answer any questions ever again.

/>   Apparently they weren’t there to make conversation either, as only grunts and the occasional curse word were audible in the scuffle below.

  “Where’s the fockin’ ring?”

  Her ears ached in an effort to hear the muffled reply, which must have been in the negative because the man swore again and there was the dull thud of a fist impacting flesh.

  What kind of ring was so important that these thugs felt the need to strip the man of it before they killed him? It had to be the rings drawn on every note, the importance must lay in what they represented, not in their actual physical form.

  She turned her head to Jamie. In the moonlight she could see his face clearly, and he had the look of set determination that she knew too well. He was going to do something, and get them all killed in the process. From his pant leg he produced a knife, which winked silver at her before he stuck it between his teeth. She looked along the beam in horror, as the realization struck of just what he meant to do.

  She clutched his coat sleeve tightly, but he pulled it free and set out across the beam. She held her breath, ribs hurting with the pent up oxygen. It would be a miracle if the men didn’t see him, despite the dark clothing and face paint. Like a slender spider on a single strand of webbing, the slightest breath would send him tumbling to the ground. To reach the rope he would need to be out over the center of the byre, completely in view should either man look up. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t. It was like waiting for a train to crash right in front of you.

  Jamie had reached the rope, his body balanced precariously where the beams met. He sawed through the rope, halting each time the men paused in their questioning. Endless moments passed with him braced on that thin wedge of wood.

  She let a bit of her breath out when Jamie started to inch backward, barely visible in the shadows that clustered thickly around the beams. Though she couldn’t see, she had the sense that the man in the noose looked upward, that he knew she was here, and about to witness his death. She closed her eyes, an incoherent prayer for deliverance whirling through her head. She could feel Jamie settle himself back into the hay beside her and she opened her eyes.

  She’d never been consciously present at a killing and wondered if it was always this way; this unnatural awareness of one’s own fragile being. She could feel every bit of air that her lungs took in, the dust of timothy and clover sticking in her throat, the feeling that her blood was running very close to the surface of her skin, the heat of Jamie’s skin like an electric current along her hand. The extraordinary awareness elongated each sensation and gave it an odd and unfamiliar shape. Even sound seemed to slow to an odd arcing motion, as though she felt the support give way beneath the man’s feet rather than heard it.

  He dropped. And the rope held.

  Jamie’s hand came down hard on the back of her neck, forcing her to turn her face to the side so she wouldn’t see the man who swung below them now, but in her mind’s eye she could see his face turning from dusky to turgid.

  Jamie’s own face was only inches from hers, green eyes holding hers forcefully as he shook his head ever so slightly, hand tightening considerably on the back of her neck, warning her not to give in to the instinct to scream. Through the roaring in her head, she heard the barn door creak open, the low laugh of one of the men and the smell of cigarette smoke. She thought she might throw up.

  “Sit up slowly and take a deep breath,” Jamie said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. She did as he’d told her to, feeling the bile slowly retreat from her throat and the painful throb behind her eyes begin to fade. He rubbed her back, hand firm and unshaken. Christ, did nothing ruffle the man? They’d just witnessed a hanging, the beam still creaking from the weight of the dead man and Jamie’d not turned a hair.

  The nausea slowly receded, though the tingle of shock still resounded in her bones, leaving them the consistency of rubber. She took as deep a breath as she could manage, her other senses returning with the intake of oxygen.

  The barn was quiet, the only noise the rhythmic one of the rope creaking back and forth on the beam.

  “Do you think they’re really gone?” she asked in a whisper. Jamie opened his mouth to reply but a large whoosh from below answered her question.

  “Damn—they’ve set the barn afire! Either they know we’re up here or they want to destroy evidence of the murder.”

  “Either scenario isn’t comforting,” she said grimly, pushing herself up out of the hay. The barn below was no longer the depthless hollow it had been moments before. Now a dull glow licked at the walls, soft smoldering puff-heads of fire rising sleepily from the damp straw. As soon as the fire found some dry straw, the place was going to go up like an inferno. Jamie crawled across the loft and stuck his head over the opening into the barn below. When he turned back, his face was grim.

  “We can’t risk it, some of the straw is catching quite quickly. We could get stuck between the ladder and a wall of flame. We’ll have to go out that way.” He pointed to the square opening behind them. She shook her head, feeling suddenly the tugging sensation low in her pelvic region. She couldn’t risk the jump. Jamie didn’t heed her, though, and dragged her toward the opening. She peered over the edge, hearing the low chuckle of the fire as it got a good hold on the straw below. The ladder was no longer an option. Below her stretched a black abyss. She’d no idea how far the fall to the ground was. Any fall was likely to be too far, though.

  “There’s a pile of manure down there, it’ll break the worst of the drop. I’ll follow right behind you, so when you hit, roll away as fast as you can. Don’t think about it—just do it.”

  “I can’t,” she said through lips gone stiff with fear.

  “Jump,” Jamie said grimly, “or I’ll push you and then you’ll break something for certain.”

  She turned to face him. The approaching inferno lit him from below, making a golden chiascuro of his face and hair. She had always trusted him to keep her safe, this time would be no different.

  “Jamie, I’m pregnant,” she said. The fall would kill the baby, if indeed it didn’t kill all of them, and yet there was no way back through that wall of flame.

  “Oh, Christ,” he said softly, then wrapped his arms tightly about her and launched the two of them into the air. He twisted just before they hit the pile of manure, taking the brunt of their fall on his back with her still wrapped securely against his chest.

  She lay there for a second, dazed by the impact. Jamie’s arms fell away and she rolled off him, hands sinking in the muck.

  “Jamie,” she managed to croak out with the bit of breath still in her lungs.

  “Here,” he gasped, “I think I’ve cracked my collarbone. Are you alright?”

  She moved her legs experimentally. “Everything seems to be working, we’d better move,” she added, for above their heads an ominous glow lit the opening they’d been poised in only a minute before. Even now, small bright, burning bits of straw were starring the dark night.

  “Can you stand?”

  She pushed herself up onto her elbows, still winded, bones jarred and tongue bleeding where she’d bit it. She sat back on her knees and then stood.

  Jamie was sitting up, right arm held tightly to his chest.

  “How bad does it hurt?”

  “Enough, thanks. Help me up, we’ve got to get clear of here.”

  She helped him to his feet and they fled for the cover of darkness, beyond the long ribbons of light the fire was already throwing out. The brush was thick and dry with dead leaves, though the roar of the fire more than amply covered the sound of their stumbling into the wood.

  They halted to catch their breath, Jamie leaning his forehead against the bark of the nearest tree trunk and examining his collarbone with ginger fingers.

  “Is it broken?”

  “Not sure, it’s maybe just cracked.”

  Pamela, breathing into lungs that felt slightly scorched, looked back toward the barn and shuddered. Suddenly she clutched Jamie’s torn s
leeve.

  “What is it?”

  “I saw something move in the byre—look there it is again!”

  Jamie looked and cursed softly, for something was indeed moving just within the doorway.

  “Christ. He’s not dead, the rope must have finally broken.”

  “How could he have survived the hanging?”

  “If the rope stretched enough it’s possible,” he said grimly. He turned to her and grabbed her by the arms, fixing her with a very stern gaze.

  “Don’t move from this spot until I come back, no matter what happens—do you understand? If I don’t come back out within ten minutes then you need to go for help.”

  “Jamie—no you can’t—you’ll be killed in the fire and those men could still be around.” She looked about in panic, certain suddenly that they were lying in wait, gun sights beaded, just waiting for that fair head to come into view.

  Jamie, however, wasn’t heeding any warning. “There’s a monastery in the middle of the lake we passed coming in here—Pamela are you listening?”

  She nodded dumbly, thinking that if he didn’t come back out of that barn it wasn’t likely she’d have the strength to do anything other than crumple on the spot.

  “Listen to me. The monastery is only twenty minutes on foot from here. Stay near the road but don’t travel on it directly. You’ll come across a sign at the first crossroads that points the way to the abbey. The abbey itself is on the island in the lake, there’s a boat on shore that you can use to row across. When you get there ask for Father O’Donnell. He’ll help you if you tell him who you are. Understand?”

  She nodded again.

  “Alright, good girl. I’ll be back in a minute.” He leaned forward, kissing her hard on the forehead, and then was gone into the hellish flame and shadow that danced around the small clearing.

  In the dragging minutes that Jamie was gone, she took stock as well as her bruised psyche and body would allow. She let her mind go down the pathways of bone and blood and found there an assortment of cuts and bruises and a slight winded feel that remained from the impact of the fall. The mind stopped short, however, of the small weight in her womb. Fear gathered in her throat, tasting like hot copper. She swallowed it back and then forced instinct to go where her mind refused to. No pain, no tenderness, only a feeling in the pelvic bones of jarring and a slight stretching.