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

by Cindy Brandner

  The previous night’s eerie atmosphere had banished with the light. Pamela maneuvered herself out from amidst the balls of sleeping fur, receiving little more than a slitted golden eye for her pains. The woolen nightgown was wound tightly around her waist, exposing her legs to the chill morning air. One thigh sported a blaze of whisker burn, the sight of it igniting her memory along with a deep flush.

  Casey flicked her a glance from his position by the fire and grinned.

  “Did we...um...?” She left the words hanging in the air, uncertain now what had been dream and what reality. For the cottage seemed to hang suspended between two entirely different worlds.

  “Aye,” Casey said, the grin broader now, “we did. Unmannerly, I suppose, in a stranger’s home, but after five months of deprivation I’m none so concerned about my manners as I might otherwise be. Ye were fairly insistent yerself. Do ye not remember? I didn’t think the poteen had gone to yer head quite so bad as all that.”

  Pamela wrestled the nightie into a semblance of propriety, cheeks burning as she remembered a little more clearly the events of several hours ago. Casey cocked a dark brow at her.

  “She did say as there was a great deal of heat between the two of us. I’m sure she’d not mind.” He winked, sparking another recollection of the previous night and what she had thought a dream of a merman with healthy appetites. “Will ye be hungry, or shall we wait to eat?”

  “Let’s go home,” she said, suddenly wanting nothing more than to be alone with him, to watch him breathe, to hear the thud of his heart beneath her ear, and the leap of his pulse to her fingers. And then a fig for the rain and wind. Casey seemed to sense her mood, for his gaze held hers a moment and when he spoke his voice was hoarse.

  “Aye, we’ll go home then.”

  She dressed quickly, clothing stiff and earthy with the smell of smoke and rain. Casey waited outside for her, facing toward the sea. She joined him after tidying up the sheets and blankets and checking to be certain Nuala was well. The woman still slept as though half-dead, face sunk in its mask of age. She touched the blaze of silver hair lightly, then stood and left the old woman to her dreams of men and boats that would never again crest the horizon.

  “Ready?” she asked a moment later, touching a hand to Casey’s arm. He turned and smiled, dark eyes abstracted.

  “Oh, aye,” he took her hand and they skirted the cottage together, each quiet in their thoughts.

  They walked back along the landward side, where the shifting sand dunes lay in drifts of dull bronze in the morning air. Here the land gently sloped into Galway Bay, and the seabed shelved itself gradually toward the Connemara mainland.

  “It’s a new world,” Casey said quietly, slowing as they neared the tiny, sand-clogged outlines of a church. She understood his meaning at once, despite the ancient ruins that lay so near. This morning bore no resemblance to the dark, storm-racked landscape of the previous night.

  The sky was low, lit softly pink like the underbelly of a pearl. A great stillness gripped the world, as if the entire planet was exhausted from the previous night’s dramatics. Even the gulls, fine white arches over the landless deeps, wheeled in silence. Casey stopped and drew her to him, slipping his arms around her waist.

  “On a fine day, when the weather is calm, they say ye can see Tir na nOg, just there,” he nodded towards the northwest, “along the horizon.”

  “On a clear day you can see forever,” she said softly.

  “Aye, just so, Jewel.”

  “Do you believe in that—in worlds we can’t see?”

  Casey shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s what ye can see, an’ then there’s what ye can sense but would feel daft to try an’ explain.”

  “Like Nuala believing her husband waits beneath the waves for her.”

  “Aye well, I suppose in a sense he does.”

  She shivered and he held her tighter.

  “If you’d been taken in such a way, I’d do the same,” she said.

  It was Casey’s turn to shiver. “For God’s sake, Jewel, don’t be after lookin’ in the waves, that’s not where I’d wait for ye, ye can be damn certain of that.”

  “Where would you wait then?” Even as she asked the question, she curled her fingers tighter into the knit of his sweater. The thought of losing him again, even for a moment, was more than she could bear.

  “Somewhere that was special to the two of us. The rock where we first made love, mayhap. I’d want to be certain that ye’d know where to come to me.”

  “And what if there is no after, no Tir na nOg, no Avalon in the mists? Would you still wait?”

  He turned her face up towards his own. “After Parkhurst I didn’t believe in much of anything except myself and what I could manage in this world. But then I met you an’ it seemed that if someone as fine as you could love me, there must be a God. Darlin’,” he lowered his head and kissed her forehead gently, “you are my hope of heaven.”

  She closed her eyes against the tears that seemed to hover so near these last days. “Bloody man.”

  She remembered the story her father had long ago told her about the land of Tir na nOg, and how Oisin, the leader of the warrior Fiannas, had followed the golden-haired Niave there to the land where time did not exist. The ground around her exuded that sense of timelessness, as if they might emerge on the mainland in another week only to find they were a thousand years behind the rest of the world.

  “Maybe the Arans were the land under the sea where Oisin went.”

  “Maybe, most legends have their feet in the truth somewhere along the way. Did ye know these islands once belonged to yer people?”

  “My people,” she said, with an amused look, “the only people I have are yourself, Lawrence, Pat and Sylvie.”

  He gave her the look he always did when he felt she was being unnecessarily obtuse. “The O’Flahertys, I mean. They once held these islands along with the O’Briens. The clan split over whether or not they’d accept the English king as their overlord, an’ the losin’ half fled here.”

  She snorted. “The winning half only supported the king in an effort to grab land with his blessing.”

  “Ah, so ye do know yer history then.”

  “I know a bit about the people I’m descended from, and none of it flatters my blood.”

  “No, well there’s times I see their ruthlessness in yer face.” He ducked the hand aimed at his ear. “They weren’t the first to claim these islands, though no one knows who the first people here were. I liked the story my da’ told us though.”

  “And what was that?”

  “’Tis island folklore really. When the Firbolg were defeated on the mainland, legend has it they came here.” He nodded toward the northwest shoulder of the island. “The big fort up there is called Dun Aengus after the prince of the Fir Bolgs. ‘Tis said that he stood ‘til the last with the blood of his people coloring the rocks around him, an’ when there were none left to stand with him, he let the wind take him off the cliffs an’ into the sea. These islands were their final chance for refuge, or maybe just their last stand against the coming of a world they couldn’t understand. On winter nights they say ye can still hear Aengus’ last battle cries among the rocks an’ the cliffs on the western shores. Can ye imagine it? ‘Twould have been like standin’ on the very edge of the world and knowin’ there was no escape.”

  In her mind’s eye she could see the valiant warrior, sword in hand, defeated and yet still defiant enough to allow the wind and water to take him, rather than bow to the enemy’s hand. Flesh and coursing blood one moment and then gone, a mere whisper on history’s long roll call of saints and martyrs.

  “All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth.” Casey said, echoing her thoughts, the look of dark abstraction on his face once again.

  “And thus passes away the glory of the world,” she replied. “You know your bible verses well.”

  “Aye,” C
asey smiled ruefully, “don’t be too impressed, Jewel, my Da’ made me memorize ten verses every time I swore. I’ve a score of them I can quote on demand. Which gives ye an idea of what my mouth was like.”

  “I like your mouth just fine,” she said, drawing his head down for a long kiss that demonstrated her appreciation rather well.

  “Do ye then?” he asked, minutes later, slightly breathless.

  “I do,” she said, and heard in the tone of her simple declaration something which signified much more than the words spoken. She held him tightly, her head to his chest, feeling the strength in the arms that wrapped around her and kept the world at bay.

  The sun slid over the horizon, a watery sliver that sent narrow tongues of pale gold to taste the edge of things.

  “And if there is no after?” he asked, so softly she thought she might well have imagined the words.

  The sun now streamed across the sea, turning it to a great blaze of moving diamonds. She looked away from it to the tiny church where sand poured, gold-throated, through the hourglass of the ancient stones.

  “I would still wait,” she said softly, not wanting to shatter the great hush that enfolded them.

  “So would I.”

  Chapter Sixty

  All That You Can’t Leave Behind

  IN THE MORNING, THE UNNATURAL STILLNESS of the previous day held, though a heavy fog had moved in blanking out the coastline and the hunchback of Hag’s Head. The island felt like a ship adrift, as though given enough time and lead it would fetch up with a soft thud upon the shores of Newfoundland. It was time out of time, she knew, and as such could not last forever.

  It was oddly warm, as sometimes happened on the islands in the winter, the gray green furze of lichens and brown mosses thick with morning dew. The warmth had brought on a faint mist of struggling ferns and small primroses in the cracks between the great limestone slabs.

  She awakened alone, Casey having risen early to get down to the boats before they were entirely emptied of coal and oil and other provisions. After an abbreviated wash in the chill basin, she set out for the cliffs, a walk that Casey could not be prevailed upon to take. This morning, however, the solitary ramble brought her no comfort.

  She stood upon the island’s western shoulder where an enormous silence gripped the atmosphere, as if even the air were awaiting some event. Below, the sea gave off only the occasional murmur, and once she thought she heard the pale hiss of a gull gliding past through the fog. Other than that, the silence was complete and menacing.

  She turned, shivering, and walked swiftly down the rocky path, wanting the comfort of a fire, a cup of tea and her husband’s presence. She saw Casey as she rounded the small knob of a hill that brought her out just below the cottage’s battered red door and felt a cold fist grip her throat at the sight of him.

  He was on the rough bench that sat just left of the open door. He sat, elbows on knees, head bowed and in the language of cell and bone she understood at once that their time here was done.

  “What’s happened?” she asked, not wanting to utter the words and yet knowing they had to be spoken. Silence would no longer suspend reality.

  “The Army opened fire on the demonstrators in Derry,” he said, voice soft and weary. Anger had not laid its hand upon him yet, but it soon would.

  “How many—how—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know yet—more than one, less than a hundred. Ye know how these things go, Jewel, there’s no telling until some of the smoke has cleared.”

  “How did you hear?”

  “News came over with the boat. When the coal came in this mornin’ it was all the talk.”

  “We’re leaving then?” she said, voice stiff.

  He looked up. His face was drawn, mouth sharp cornered, stubble a deep violet against the white of his skin.

  “Pat was there, Pamela.”

  “You can’t be certain of that,” she said, knowing her voice didn’t quite carry the reassurance she sought to give him.

  “Ye know he would be. He can never stay clear of trouble for more than a day or two. He’d have been there.”

  “But you don’t...” the words died on her lips at the look in his eyes.

  “They didn’t know so much about what had happened, an’ the news was all confused like, but one thing everyone seemed certain on, an’ that was it was mostly young men that had died. Maybe a few older ones, but the rest between 17 an’ 27.”

  She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry of horror; he needed her to stay calm and clear headed right now.

  “There had to be hundreds of people there.”

  “I know, an’ it’s likely he’s fine, holed up somewhere plannin’ his latest insurrection, but until I see him with my own eyes, I’ll not be certain. I have to go home, Jewel.”

  “And what if you’re caught? If the army comes for you, what then?”

  He gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, darlin’, but I’ll have to risk it.”

  She nodded, mentally beginning the packing of their belongings, but found she was rooted to the spot, unable to move her feet, as if the conduit between thought and movement had temporarily suspended itself. They had to go back, that was clear. Casey would not rest until he was certain that Pat was whole and safe. Yet she dreaded it—the risk, the thought that soldiers could come and wrest her husband away from her yet again.

  “Jewel.”

  She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. Given the choice I’d have kept the two of us here for as long as possible.”

  “I know,” she said, but despite the firmness of her tone, could hear the doubt clearly expressed. She knelt down and took his hands in her own. “He will be fine, I know it.”

  “Aye,” he said quietly. “I know it one minute an’ then I don’t the next. What if—”

  “No,” she put her fingers to his lips, “we’re not going to ask that question.”

  He nodded, but the traces of fear and doubt still lingered in his eyes.

  Inside she packed their few belongings, while outside Casey battened down the windows and put the sacks of coal under shelter to be used by the next occupant of this small safe house. She uttered up prayers as she moved about tidying—that Pat hadn’t been in Derry, that if he had he was unharmed, while all the time a serpent of fear writhed in her belly.

  The day slipped slowly away to the sea, strange minutes of silence and lukewarm mugs of tea. Neither of them could summon an appetite and Casey alternated between staring intently into the blue eye of the fire, and pacing relentlessly round the outside of the small cottage. By mid-afternoon the wind picked up, shredding the fog into spectral fingers and Casey’s head turned toward the sea with tense expectation. It was then she heard the distant chug of a boat engine.

  Before night fell, they were on their way back to the mainland.

  Part Six

  History’s Prisoners

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Butcher’s Dozen

  THE WIND COMING OFF THE RIVER FOYLE that day was particularly cold. Pat, standing to the side of a rambunctious group of boys, dug his hands into the pockets of his coat and shivered. Despite the chill of the air there was a current that warmed the crowd, the sense of being in attendance at a moment in history that rests upon a pivotal fork in the road. Trouble was expected; after the events at Magilligan last week, it wasn’t likely that the Army would let another ‘illegal’ demonstration slide past.

  Some three hundred soldiers had broken up the small anti-internment protest near the Magilligan camp the week earlier. Thus, today Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had put special emphasis on the need for a peaceful demonstration. Ivan Cooper, one of the local MPs, had stated that the IRA in Derry had agreed to withdraw from the area prior to today’s demonstration, in the hopes that there would be no reason for any altercation with the Army. Still, there was the frisson of edgy anticipation that had accompanied every public gathering in Irela
nd since the People’s Democracy March in the fall of 1968. Pat still bore the scars of that march, compliments of several police batons to his head when he’d stuck an Irish flag in the Derry wall. However, he’d also met Sylvie as a direct result of that march, so felt the scars were a small price to have paid.

  The previous evening he’d gone for a drink with a couple of friends to the Rocking Chair Bar, which was notorious as the place to pick up current information on both Army and IRA activity. British intelligence being what it was, he’d left with many assurances that today was to be a peaceful day of it. Still he’d awakened that morning with a vaguely uneasy feeling, due in part, he knew, to the fact that the paratroopers were coming to Derry for the day.

  The Paras were the elite corps of the British Army, hand-picked, trained to total discipline, with an infamous reputation for their combat ability. It didn’t make sense to send such a crack bunch to a little demonstration in Derry. It was this that was at the root of his restless worry. In his experience, the Brits rarely did anything without some larger plan in mind. He just couldn’t quite get a grasp on what piece of the puzzle the Paras were meant to fit.

  On the other hand, he knew what to expect from the march itself. The stewards, like impatient shepherds, would harry everyone into shape, then all would march toward confrontation where there was likely to be some form of violence—CS gas, cracked skulls, rubber bullets, outrage at the expected and more grievances to nurse. Then the paper cup of lukewarm tea and the trudge home in the gloaming to live over the events of the day, and see if you and your mates had made the evening news. Part of him was repelled by it and part of him knew it was necessary. Yet another part, which had grown considerably during his time in Long Kesh, wondered if it made a damn blind bit of difference.

  For a country that had been at war for eight hundred odd years there was little evidence to be found of a war zone, and yet, he supposed, if there was a flashpoint in the cradle of Ulster, wee Derry was it. Divided Derry had been the nexus for conflict since William of Orange’s victory over the papist James II in 1690. Derry, which, despite a population comprised largely of working class Catholics, hadn’t seen a Nationalist mayor in fifty years. Where blood had run in the streets over election results, and people had died for exercising their democratic rights.