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

by Cindy Brandner

  “Three days I waited, three days,” Robin’s voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. “I even slept on the goddamn dock, thinkin’ if I just gave ye another hour ye’d show up.”

  “Neither of us was thinkin’ clearly, ye knew I’d a powerful fear of the sea, an’ when it came down to it I couldn’t leave my da’ an’ brother.” He sighed, feeling the stab of his lungs against the cracked ribs.

  Robin nodded, all the wariness gone from him. Casey dragged over a spool that had once held cable, wincing at the pain the movement caused, until he was only a few feet from where Robin stood slumped against the wall of sacking, the nets under him thick with the smell of diesel and fish guts.

  “Ye don’t need to waste energy disarmin’ me man, I’ve no fight left in me. Besides, I brought the gun for you.”

  “What—what do ye mean?” Casey asked, afraid he was finally understanding just where Robin had been leading him tonight.

  “How long have we known one another man? Near to twenty years now, an’ ye know my secrets. Ye’ll know I once had something worth carin’ about, even if it’s long gone now. I’d rather it was by yer hand, than that of a stranger.”

  “Jaysus man, how can ye ask me such a thing?”

  “That’s what ye came here to do, so finish it. Besides I’m already a dead man, Casey,” Robin said, face entirely sober now. “Ye know it as well as I do. It’s only a matter of a day or two.”

  “You could run, man,” Casey said desperately, “go back to the States.”

  “I’m too tired to run anymore, I’ve been running all my life.” He shook his head, the dim light picking out the red in his hair. “D’ye remember what it was we used to say to one another before goin’ onto the pitch?”

  Casey sucked in a sharp breath. “Aye. Today is a beautiful day to die.”

  Robin nodded, a strange luminescence in his eyes, the blue of drowned stars. Then he bent down, the pistol still unwavering, and lit the tinder ends of the sacking. The small flames flickered, uncertainly, then realizing the arid landscape they’d lit upon, caught with a fierce will.

  “I’ve thought those words many a time over the years, but I believe,” Robin squared his shoulders with conviction and put the gun to his head, “if ye won’t do it for me then I must do it for myself. And I believe after all that today is a beautiful day to die.” He tilted his head toward the fire that was merrily crackling now, feeding itself in ever larger bites, “ye’ll have to go man, or it’ll soon be too late.”

  “Bobbie, those words were never meant, it was said in fun, come on man, give over the gun,” Casey edged his way carefully along the crates, heart threatening to come out of his chest, hands out in supplication. But Robin was no longer listening.

  He looked up, eyes now aglow like the heart of a candle flame and smiled, the blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth. “You have always been,” he said softly, “the brother of my heart. Beyond Jo ye were the only family I ever knew.” The breath was stopped in Casey’s throat, the blue of Robin’s eyes expanding to fill all his senses. “I love ye man, but we will neither of us be free, until I am dead,” Robin finished in a whisper.

  Time stopped and froze as Robin squeezed the trigger, Casey lunged, legs like lead, pain slicing across his ribcage, the smell of cordite like brimstone on the air. He never knew if he’d screamed ‘no’ aloud or if it was only the pounding reverberation in his skull. It was a kill-shot though, Robin was well trained in such things. He stopped short of the man that had been his best friend, knowing the boy he’d loved had been dead for a very long time. For Lawrence’s sake, he would not touch him, he would not search for a pulse, he would not ask questions that needed no answer, he would let it end here and now.

  The fire, rapidly advancing, licked now at the nape of Robin’s neck, grasping finally at the ends of his hair. It caught with a lung-collapsing whoosh, and Casey, paralyzed to the spot, understood the smell that had lingered like a ghost since he’d opened the doors. Paint spirits.

  And so—this now—was how the world ended. But not for him, not tonight. He was still quicker than the fire, though rogue sparks smoldered in his hair and spent themselves on his clothing, his skin taut with the enticement of heat. His body, apart from a mind that was lost in the ash of revelation, moved, turned, lifted limb, sought the sanctuary of the night beyond these walls.

  Hand on the door, he turned. The flames had engulfed Robin, lighting the hellish interior of the plant like a throbbing jewel, making of his childhood friend a living, breathing coruscation of flame that spangled the night, as bright as the last explosion of a dying star.

  “Slan leat, mo dearthair,” he whispered, and walked out into the night.

  THE SUN WAS SETTING when Pamela arrived home. Though it was only late August she could both feel and see the days drawing down, the night creeping in earlier and earlier. She shivered; she’d been cold since the funeral and couldn’t imagine ever feeling warm again.

  The house was too quiet, Casey wasn’t home yet. She knew that he couldn’t bear to be here where there was such a black hole in the universe where Lawrence used to exist. She understood that he needed to be alone with his grief, but missed his physical presence like an ache that nothing would alleviate. It hurt her to think he couldn’t turn to her in his pain. Did the man not see that she had lost Lawrence too? That she too had failed to keep the boy safe, when it was as much her responsibility as his?

  She went to the kitchen, turning lights on along the way. She filled the kettle directly from the tap, thinking a hot cup of tea might alleviate some of the bone deep cold.

  She looked out the window into the yard below. It was full dusk, a light breeze turning leaves silver side up, an unmistakable sign that it would rain before the night was through. Shadows clustered thickly along the roots of trees, clinging to the framework of the half-built shed. The garden gate still hung in disrepair, in the same state as Casey had left it the night Lawrence died. It creaked back and forth in the wind, the sound as desolate as the silent house around her.

  She still couldn’t bear to walk past his empty room, she’d closed the door the night they found him and neither she nor Casey had opened it since.

  She froze suddenly, the fine hairs standing up on the back of her neck, realizing what had put her on edge. She turned slowly, seeing what her brain had registered as she’d walked through the hallway into the kitchen.

  The door to Lawrence’s bedroom stood open. The room beyond it lay in utter darkness.

  She stood as if paralyzed, a chill premonition swamping her.

  Finally she forced herself to move across the kitchen, loathe to leave its bright interior for what lay beyond that door. She hesitated on the threshold, uncertain if she had the strength to see Lawrence’s room. The untidy boy jumble of clothing and schoolbooks, his rugby uniform and record albums strewn across the carpet just as they’d been the day he’d left them. The smell of grass and jam and dirt and sweetness that he’d exuded even when grimy from an afternoon on the field with the lads.

  She turned on the desk lamp, fingers stiff with dread. Light pooled over the room, collecting in the coils of dirty socks, catching upon the rim of a half-empty glass of milk. The milk had soured, mingling its sickly smell with the other scents in the room. But under it, under the stale smell of a room closed off from human energy, from movement and light, she could still smell him. The boy she’d grown to love, every smart-mouthed gangly inch of him. She clasped a hand to her mouth, the grief rising in her gorge like a bitter tide, unstoppable and bent on destruction. The soft fog of disbelief she’d moved in these last two weeks was ripping away. She turned, fighting a wave of dizziness and grasped the headboard of the bed in an effort to steady herself.

  On the white pillowcase, a single strand of ginger-gold hair glimmered softly. The sight of it was a blow to the chest. She gasped, dropping to her knees beside the bed. Dry sobs racked her body, forcing her face to the rumpled sheets. The cotton was cold to her sk
in, the same horrible stillness laying over it as over all the things in this room.

  She could feel a terrible howl rising within her, the primeval howl of dreadful pain and anger. That the universe could be so evil as to allow a child’s life to be snuffed out in such a horrible way. The injustice of it was beyond comprehension and neither body nor mind could begin to understand how to survive it.

  As quickly as it had begun, the rage subsided. She felt an enormous lethargy swamping her every cell, hot tears drying tight and itchy on her face, salt stinging the fine skin across her cheekbones.

  She became aware of other sensations, the small heaviness low in her pelvis that she’d ignored with equal parts superstition and fear for the last two weeks, the dull metallic taste on her tongue that said a real storm was about to hit, and a sharp burn that cut across the skin on her right knee.

  She bent down, seeing the edge of a photo sticking out from under the bed, its glossy knife edge had sliced her knee, where a thin line of blood now gleamed. She blinked a few times in an effort to see the picture more clearly, finally grasping it and bringing it up where the light could reveal the dim figures in the picture.

  There were four men in the picture. The picture had been taken from above them, as though the photographer were suspended somehow. It was obvious the men in the picture had no notion they were under observation. Three stood poised around the fourth, who was kneeling, features obscured by the black cloth hood he wore. The three standing wore balaclavas so they too were unidentifiable. Except that there was something odd about the clothing on two of them. She tilted the picture toward the light. They were wearing uniforms—British Army uniforms. The shooter was in civvies, but the other two men, who must have stood and watched the execution, were unmistakably soldiers.

  And then she saw it on the gunman’s trigger finger. She backed away on hands and knees, fingertips pulsating where she’d touched the picture. Saw in her mind, hands stroking pink velvet over a delicate skull, hands wrapped around a brandy flask. And on the one hand, a ring. A childhood memento worn on the smallest finger, the only one it would fit. Her stomach was a hollow pit, her entire body weightless and tingling with shock.

  Lawrence must have taken the picture, must have followed Robin and somehow Robin had found out. But why on earth would he have been following Robin? She remembered suddenly a conversation she’d had with him some months ago, after Robin had come by the center to drop off some groceries for the terminally emptying pantry.

  “I don’t like him,” Lawrence said bluntly, a wary look pursing the skin around his mouth and nose.

  “You don’t know him,” Pamela said in exasperation.

  “Don’t need to to know there’s somethin’ off with him,” Lawrence cast a blue glare in Robin’s direction. “Man’s trouble, the bad kind.”

  She stumbled backwards, feet turning toward the stairs before she even consciously understood where they were headed. She felt very odd, as though her head were a balloon and her feet filled with lead. It must be shock, she thought muzzily, groping the wall for support on the way up the stairs.

  In their bedroom, she scrabbled for the box on top of the closet. But it was gone, the sweaters that had once covered it shoved to the side. She turned; the box lay open on their bed. He’d not bothered to hide what his intentions were.

  Her knees started to shake and she uttered a little cry as the world tilted on its axis, Casey’s words echoing in her head.

  ‘If ye stop me now I’ll only bide my time until yer back is turned an’ do it then.’

  Then had terrifyingly become now.

  She willed herself to think, to try and force some linear path through the jumble of terror and panic that was scattershot through her brain. The truth was she’d no idea where he’d gone, only what would be in his mind. She could see him clearly in her mind’s eye, bent on revenge, needing the taste of blood to purge himself of some of the pain of Lawrence’s death, and the racking guilt that he had not been able to prevent it. He had known violence all his life, had been both its victim and its executioner. Under normal circumstances, he didn’t condone it, and channelled his own with discipline and intelligence. But now stripped to his soul, it would be his natural wont. And he would not hesitate to act upon it.

  The small heaviness low in her belly, surged suddenly, the taste of hot copper flooding her mouth, forcing her to stagger to the bathroom, where she was violently ill. The nausea passed quickly, though it left her weak and shaky. If she’d needed proof of her suspicions, the sickness had confirmed it. What would have been an occasion for great joy only a few weeks before, now seemed a terrible joke, a wish granted far too late.

  She managed to get back to the bed, just as the storm broke with a huge cracking boom directly over the house. She huddled against the curving headboard, still dizzy, black spots dancing in front of her eyes. The saying about an Irishman never being drunk as long as he could find a blade of grass to hang onto skittered through her head. She clutched Casey’s pillow like it was the proverbial blade, burying her face in its feathery depths. It smelled comfortingly of him, wood shavings and male musk. Over the top of the pillow she spied a dark blot on the sheets. She reached out and clutched the tiny velvet pouch tight in her hand. His father’s rosary. The beads felt like small islands of assurance lodged in the lines of her heart and life.

  She prayed then, not the well learned prayers of childhood, nor the imprinted cadences of the Church, but a prayer of pure desperation. For her husband, for herself, for the small fragile life that was within her, barely begun. She prayed with eyes open to the night and the rain that flooded the windowpanes and fretted at the walls. Prayed until she drifted almost trancelike, barely aware of the room around her anymore. Seeing her husband in absolute darkness, feeling the fear and rage. Knowing who he had gone to kill, fearing that despite her prayers, there was no redemption for such an act.

  Time seemed fragmented, stretching out, then racing past. Oh God, why didn’t Casey come home? Was he hurt, lying somewhere mortally wounded, was this small quickening in her womb destined to grow up fatherless?

  Finally, her body did what her mind could not and dropped a soft blanket of unconsciousness over her. She sank into the depths gratefully.

  It was the sound of the door opening below that woke her. The storm had died back, though rain still drummed against the roof. She found she couldn’t move from where she’d huddled on the bed for the last three hours. Her legs were cramped, left ankle throbbing but it was fear more than anything that kept her there. Her heart fighting against her ribs like a bird caught in a tight fist. Her hearing was painfully acute. Every step was audible as he moved through the downstairs, tread heavy. Then he mounted the stairs, slowly, as though each step were an effort beyond measure.

  He stood in the doorway to their bedroom for what seemed a small eternity. His silence telling her all she needed to know about where he’d been.

  “Casey?” she said, voice barely audible.

  “Aye,” he said, voice insubstantial as smoke, “it’s me.”

  “Are you—” she swallowed, the fear tasting like blood in her mouth, “are you alright?”

  He didn’t answer, just moved into the room. “I’m goin’ to turn a light on,” he said quietly.

  She wanted to say no, to leave the light off, as though the dark would protect the both of them from the truth. That without light he would be able to turn back the sheets and rest in this bed of lies without discomfort or pain.

  She heard the click of the bedside lamp, its rosy glow stamping her eyelids like a brand. She opened her eyes slowly, unable to stifle a gasp at the sight of her husband. His face, in the patches free from drying blood, was black and swollen. One eye was almost closed, his hair matted to his head. He held his arm across his stomach, his hand trembling visibly.

  “Oh God, Casey—” she lurched across the bed awkwardly, reaching out for him.

  “Don’t,” he said harshly, “don’t touch me.”<
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  Her hand froze in mid-air at his words, he’d never spoken to her in such a tone, not even in his worst moments of despair or anger. The why she’d been about to utter stopped, flayed of its purpose, on her lips. She saw the stiff dark patches on his coat, some still wet, then the smell hit her and with it another wave of nausea. She fought it back, throat thick with the scent. She had known two things—either he would not come home ever again, or he would come home a man changed entirely. Before her stood her answer. A stranger occupied her husband’s face.

  “It’s blood, isn’t it?” she managed to whisper hoarsely, feeling as though her heart was going to push its way up into her throat and choke her to death.

  “Aye, it’s blood,” he said, voice still harsh as though its timbre was the only thing holding the fragile thread of its owner’s sanity.

  “Casey,” she bit her bottom lip against the tingling numbness that always preceded a horrible shock, “what have you done?”

  “I went to see Robin.”

  “Is he dead?” she asked, the words sounding like a far off echo to her ears.

  “Yes, ye don’t seem shocked. Did ye know he killed the lad?” His voice was flat and accusatory, his undamaged eye remote as the night sky.

  “I found the picture. How—did Robin—” she choked on the words, couldn’t bring herself to ask what the exact manner of Lawrence’s death had been. Couldn’t bear to know if he’d cried out, or begged for mercy.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “it’s done now, an’ nothin’ will bring him nor the laddie back.

  He—” he faltered for the first time since entering the room, “he told me of another matter that I—I wanted to think him a liar in but couldn’t. What he told me made sense of a good many things, an’ I think perhaps I knew it, only was too much a coward to look it full in the face.”

  She never knew if she actually uttered the word ‘what?’ or if he only sensed the inevitability of it, and the many mutations the word took on upon utterance.