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

by Cindy Brandner

  “What are you looking for?” she asked, settling onto the worn wood.

  “Blankets. Father Lawrence generally leaves a couple out here. He knows my habits well. Besides, Jesuits aren’t big proponents of discomfort adding to one’s spirituality, at least not in theory.”

  “But they are in practice?”

  Jamie grimaced slightly. “What do you think?”

  “I think they’re probably the masters of it.”

  He came up with a heavy quilt that he spread across her lap, keeping half for himself as he sat down beside her.

  “Do you remember that summer I read Les Miserables to you?”

  She was startled by the question. Jamie rarely ever referred to their shared past.

  “Of course I do,” she responded, “as I was rather miserable myself that summer. I must have seemed a dreadful little ingrate, moody as I was, and you a complete stranger that had taken pity on me. I doubt it was too attractive for you, coming to see me everyday.”

  “Actually that summer saved me. You gave me something to focus on other than my own troubles. Colleen and I had just lost our first son and she’d withdrawn from me, gone to stay with friends in Spain. She was angry with me, and truth be told I was angry with her. It was hurt and confusion more than anything. I’d gone to the Vineyard to sort myself out, an old friend from Oxford had a place there. And then there you were, a little ragamuffin with too much hair, a rebellious streak and a broken ankle. I felt a little like Galahad, coming to your rescue.”

  “I remember the night we danced on the shore,” she said softly, “it was the first time I’d ever felt beautiful. I was so awkward and ungainly and yet somehow dancing there with you I felt as though I were someone else entirely.”

  “You were beautiful, anyone with half an eye could tell you’d be stunning in a few more years,” he grinned, “once you started combing your hair that is.”

  “I waited for you to come back every summer,” she said softly, remembering the terrible loneliness of those years, “but you never did.”

  He didn’t respond directly. “The more things change the more they stay the same. Here we are and I’m still telling you tales.”

  “And my hair is still uncombed,” she said, remembering the nimbus cloud that had floated around her white face in the water’s reflection.

  Jamie settled back against the rough planks with a sigh, and she knew that, for whatever reason, their trip down memory lane had made him uncomfortable. When he spoke again, his words curled upward from a slipstream of white breath, as though they were players preparing to take on the forms that existed within his tale.

  “I first heard this story when I was staying on Martha’s Vineyard. It was a night around the campfire on the beach, with a dark bluff overlooking the spot where we sat. An old Wampanoag told it, enacting it as he went. There was complete silence when he finished and everyone was looking over their shoulders at the trees. I can’t possibly tell it as he did, it really did seem—watching him—that he was remembering something rather than just a tale he had inherited.”

  She smiled to herself, for Jamie was a born storyteller and could captivate an entire roomful of people with the simplest anecdotes. Had he been born a thousand years earlier he’d have sat by the fire, surrounded by shaggy-haired listeners, passing down the legends of creation and flood and fire.

  “It’s said that when the first child was born in the settlement of Roanoke the Indians called her White Fawn, and it was told that when this child died, her spirit would take the form of a frosted fawn whose face would always be turned to the Eastern sea, because that was where her people had come from. The story went on to say that if ever a hunter should catch the fawn after she had grown to a doe, and shoot her with an arrow the head of which was tipped with silver, she would be restored to her mortal form.

  ‘Many years later an Indian hunter named Little Oak came upon the ruins of log houses in the sawgrass of the settlement of Roanoke. There were no pale people living there anymore; the brambles and rose hips had long grown up between the cracks of the logs. Slow autumn turtles lay amongst the abandoned hearths and the sea wind blew through the ashes that had been left behind many moons before. All the hunter could find was an old baby’s rattle, clutched fast in the thorns of a rose bush. Then he spied a beautiful white doe picking her way amongst the ruins of the house just beyond the one he stood in. By instinct he drew his bow, but he couldn’t find it within him to loose the arrow.

  ‘Time passed and the white doe became well known to the hunters of Roanoke Island. Often she was seen browsing amongst a herd of brown deer that lived there, but she always stood apart, turning her head to the east, sad-eyed and dreaming in the direction of the distant sea. Those who hunted her said that their arrows, though well-aimed, fell harmless at her hooves, whereupon she would leap with the west wind, swift as milkweed down, bounding along the sand hills, driving the quick curlews and iron-winged cranes up into the cold gray sky.

  Some feared the deer in her desolation, thinking she was a portent of death, others thought to catch a glimpse of her meant good fortune. Always in the legends, though, she remained apart, yearning for a land across the sea from whence her people had come.

  ‘Then one early autumn the people of the islands decided to invite all the best bow hunters for a hunt. The plan was to hunt the milk-white doe. If any runner or hunter could bring her down then all would know if she were flesh or spirit and thereafter, if she should prevail, none would ever hunt her again. And so the hunt was on. The hunters spread out swift as a peat fire across dry ground. The best bows were drawn and the straightest arrows notched. Amongst their number was a hunter who carried about him a silver tipped arrow that had come from the faraway isle called England. This arrow was reputed to have come from the icy queen that sat upon the throne in that land. Such a thing, it was said, could reach to the heart of even the most charmed lives.”

  Under the spell of Jamie’s voice, Pamela shivered, seeing all too clearly the hunters swift along the ground, the scent of blood on the air, and the body’s primal response to it.

  ‘And so it happened that the doe was chased from the grasses of the land, through tangled wood and trail-less bog she flew swift and silver as the north wind, with the hiss of loosed arrows following in her wake. She plunged on through the billows of the sound, finally reaching the sand hills of Roanoke. Here she stopped and stood among the ruins of an old fort, winded and tired, breathing in the air of the Eastern sea.

  ‘In the grass the hunter with the silver-tipped arrow loosed the fated bowstring. The arrow seemed to hang in the salt air for an eternity, glimmering in the moonlight before plunging into the heart of the white doe. She sank to the ground and the hunter threw down his bow, ran to her side and lifted the snowy head to his lap. He looked into the creature’s dying eyes and saw the face of a pretty, young woman who, through dry-bled lips, whispered her name—Virginia Dare—and died.”

  With Jamie’s last words the white doe looked up, flicked her ears, and with one quick leap was gone into the dark of the night wood.

  Icy mice feet skittered up her spine. “Now that was a little spooky,” Pamela said quietly.

  “It’s mostly atmosphere,” Jamie said sensibly, “this place has a sense of being between realities. The first time I came here was practically the same time of year. About a week after I arrived it was All Soul’s Night. They lit the traditional bonfires to warm the souls of the departed, but they also had candlelit lanterns that they set into little boats and put out upon the water. It was beautiful and yet frightening, because this is one of those places where the veil between worlds seems a bit thinner than most places. You know?”

  She did know. There were gateways in this world, invisible to the naked eye and yet felt all the same. One sensed it when one strayed too close to them, for then the hair would go up along the skin and the primeval brain would feel eyes watching though none could be found. And there were times in the stillness, if on
e listened very closely, that the unlatching of those gates could be heard.

  She shuddered, instinctively moving closer to Jamie on the bench.

  “I thought the fire would draw them. Father Lawrence said that was the point, that the souls that were lost and forgotten could come to the fire and warm themselves, and know for that one night they might be lost but they weren’t forgotten.”

  “Sounds pretty pagan for a bunch of monks.”

  “Irish Catholicism has always been a mix of both the old ways and the new. The monks here were so isolated that they pretty much worshipped as they liked.”

  “How old were you that first time?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “Did Father Lawrence bring you here then?”

  “Yes, on an enforced retreat.”

  “Why?” she asked, noting the underlying bitterness in his voice.

  “Because Jesuits will do what they feel is best for you even if you don’t agree with them. They’re rather stubborn that way.” The long gold lashes veiled his eyes.

  “Must have seemed rather extreme to a boy of seventeen,” she said.

  “I wasn’t entirely lucid to my surroundings at the time.” The lashes flicked up and the green eyes were candid in a way they so rarely were these days. “It was my first plunge into the rabbit-hole of manic depression. Father Lawrence had found me passed out in a doorway in Rathcoole in Dublin. I’d gone on a tear for several days and finally crashed, and so he brought me here—unconscious, sick and mad—to see if he couldn’t straighten me out.”

  “And did he?”

  “Yes, it was exactly what I needed, though I didn’t feel the least bit grateful at the time.” He fell silent, profile still as finely carved marble, the touch of a master’s hand evident in every line.

  When Jamie resumed speaking his voice was very distant, ephemeral as the mist that was gathering upon the skin of the lake. The past seemed very close, as though all times might exist at once, and she felt instinctively that here Jamie was, in some part, still that anguished and confused seventeen-year-old boy.

  “There were many nights when I did not think I’d live through to the morning; in fact I rather hoped I wouldn’t. But he wouldn’t let me go, every time I cried out his hand would come out of the darkness and hold my own.”

  “I was terrified. I’d no idea what was happening to me, no memory of where I’d been or how I’d ended up in that doorway, filthy and bruised, reeking of stale alcohol. I thought I was going insane. In some strange way I had things so twisted in my head that I thought if I couldn’t remember anything of those days, I’d somehow ceased to exist. That I was forgotten and alone in the longest night I’d ever known. Father Lawrence kept me here until he convinced me that none of us are ever, even in the darkest hours of our lives, alone. That to believe we were alone was a transgression against God and against those who loved us.”

  “Do you still believe that?” she asked, the small ache low in her belly, suddenly bearable.

  He didn’t answer at once, but took her hand under the blanket and gently squeezed it.

  “Some nights I do.”

  The soft lament of Compline had begun. Tendrils of the night prayer reached across the open courtyard and wound their peaceful notes amongst the flickering flames and the bare-branched oaks.

  O God, come to my aid.

  O Lord, make haste to help me.

  Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,

  as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

  world without end.

  Amen. Alleluia.

  The final strains of the alleluia drifted out across the water and filled the night air with prayer. The notes drifted upward until it seemed they must touch the face of the stars.

  “When the dark night seems endless...” Jamie said softly, eyes fixed on some invisible horizon in his memory.

  She returned the warm pressure of his hand and finished the thought he’d begun.

  “Remember me.”

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Visiting Day

  THE SHIP LOOMED OVERHEAD like a great steel leviathan that had crawled up onto the shore, to rest there breathing heavily. Pamela shivered in its shadow. Casey had been incarcerated for four months now and this was only the third time she’d managed to get through all the requisite red tape in order to see him. Or rather, Jamie had finally twisted enough arms, and promised enough favors—a fact that bothered her a great deal—to get the permission she needed to spend an hour with her husband.

  Jamie had handed her the visitor’s pass the morning before at breakfast. “You can take the Bentley,” he said, “or Liam will drive you.”

  Holding the pass in her hand, she felt like Christmas had come early. Last night she had barely slept, excited at the thought of seeing Casey, yet knowing their meeting was likely to be fraught. Part of the reason Jamie had pushed so hard to get her the pass was that he thought it was past time to tell Casey about the loss of their child. She dreaded telling him, yet knew it had to be done.

  Now she was here and had been led to a grille which had facing it another grille. Between lay twelve feet of no man’s land. This was as close as they were going to allow her to her husband. Casey was brought in on the other side a few moments after the guard left her. His guard stepped back out of her line of vision, but she knew he would be well within hearing range.

  “Sorry about the atmosphere, if I’d known ye were comin’ I’d have tidied up a bit.” He gave her a weak smile, but the tone didn’t quite come off.

  Across the space that separated them, she took quiet stock. He looked exhausted, grim lines carved down either side of his mouth. He’d been thin when he was lifted, but now he was hewn down to his muscles. Against the grille her hands shook with the need to reach across that space, to touch him, to find a way to keep him whole.

  “How are you?” she asked, feeling absurdly awkward, uncertain of who might be listening, even more uncertain of what to say.

  “I’ll do,” he said flatly, then his expression softened slightly. “How are things at home?”

  “Fine,” she said, and then told him as much as she could about Lawrence and his schooling, how much Finbar and Paudeen had grown in his absence. There was much she left out. Her job with the RUC, the fact that all of them were living with Jamie now and the reason they’d wound up under his roof. None of this information seemed designed to bring the man comfort. “But we all miss you something terrible.”

  His eyes looked her over and despite the loose sweater she wore, she knew he was noting the absence of a belly. “The baby?” he asked, his words barely audible over the clanking.

  She shook her head mutely, hating that he’d asked, not wanting to take this from him right now. She couldn’t lie, though.

  “I’m sorry.” The lines around his mouth were like knife cuts now.

  “Me too,” she said, uncertain of whether he heard her.

  He rested his forehead against the bars and closed his eyes. He looked unutterably tired and grieved. “I don’t want ye to come back here,” he said, low enough so his words wouldn’t carry to the guards, but strong enough to tell her he meant it.

  “What?” the disbelief was evident and yet she wasn’t surprised, this had been the main theme of the last visit.

  “I said,” he repeated firmly, eyes open now and locked on her own, “I don’t want ye comin’ back here.”

  “I think you’d better tell me why.”

  “It’s too hard,” his voice barely carried over the muffled clanking above them, “havin’ ye see me like this. Please Jewel, don’t come back.”

  “The hell I won’t,” she said angrily, not caring now who overheard. “What sort of wife do you think I am?”

  He sighed deeply, as though wearied beyond reason. “The sort who might occasionally listen to reason.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “You can’t stop me from coming. It’s the only way I’ve got of being certain y
ou’re alright.”

  “Do ye think I don’t know what ye’ve been through to get here?” he asked, the wire grille casting criss-cross shadows on his face. “It’s a small ship as things go, Jewel. I know what they did to ye before ye got in. I can’t be in here, helpless, knowin’ that yer bein’ subjected to those sorts of humiliations an’ there’s not a thing I can do about it. All I can do is ask ye to stay away.”

  Part of her wanted to rage at him, tell him exactly what she had endured these few visits, how the guards had laughed as they fondled her in the name of searching her person for possible concealed weapons. But she couldn’t, the man was obviously coping with enough. She knew he couldn’t understand that she would endure much worse for a minute of time with him. Just to reassure herself for those few moments that he was whole and safe, for she could never really believe it until she saw him with her own eyes.

  His eyes flicked to the side, as though he were watching for someone.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked, uncertain whether she wanted to cry or yell at him. He gave her an odd look she couldn’t interpret and then he unbuttoned the shirt he wore and lowered it to his waist.

  “Casey, what on earth are you doing?”

  He didn’t answer, merely turned his back toward her.

  She stared in horror. His back was like one of Jackson Pollock’s darker works. Long weals stood out against the older silvered scars, the edges of the new ones still tinged black, the old ones limned in blue. There was barely an inch of undamaged skin left. The thought of the pain he must have endured made her sick to her stomach. The nausea was followed by a wave of rage so huge she’d the sense of being lifted off her feet.

  Injustice should not surprise her anymore. He’d been incarcerated now for four months without charges, without trial, without any form of due process. And yet that they could also do this to him...it left her speechless with fury and the need to take the person who’d done it apart with her own two hands.

  “Oh God,” she breathed, “why—who did this?”