In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4)

by Cindy Brandner

  “What you seek is seeking you,” he said.

  “What?” she asked, confused by the mysterious pronouncement.

  “I am reading the poems of Rumi,” he said, the ‘r’ rumbling like a thundercloud in his deep voice. “That line comes to me when I look at you. I am not knowing what it means completely. It is just in here.” He tapped one blunt finger to his broad forehead.

  She nodded, a swimming sensation in her limbs. The smallest thing, the simplest statement became a life preserver to cling to, to find hope within. She tried to take a breath and found she couldn’t. She needed to go sit down and gather herself together. The man would think she was crazy if he knew the torrent of hope, despair and anger that his simple words had set off inside her. He didn’t have a crystal ball, nor a psychic premonition. It did not mean that Casey was somewhere seeking her, as she sought him. She smiled at Shura, though she knew it was an extremely tremulous expression; then excused herself.

  She took the children to the library to wait for Jamie. She thought she might pick out a book to take home, even if she knew full well she would not be able to read more than a few lines. Books had long been her refuge and comfort when the world became too much, but since Casey had disappeared, she hadn’t been able to still her mind or body long enough to read. Still, she thought perhaps just the presence of the books might provide a calming influence.

  She put Isabelle’s basket on the floor. The baby was still sound asleep, her darkly lashed eyes shut tight and tiny mouth pursed. There was something so like Casey in her face that Pamela had to bite her tongue so she wouldn’t cry out. She got Conor settled with his toys, near enough to the fire so that he’d stay warm. There was a big green wingback chair that she often used when nursing her children since the library was always quiet, and none would disturb her here. She turned from the fire to find that wasn’t the case this afternoon.

  Curled up in one of the big squashy chairs that was turned toward the window, nose stuck into a worn copy of Bleak House, was the most exotic creature she had ever seen. He looked up at her and smiled. The smile was like that of a cat, slow and practiced, but no less genuine for that. He had eyes like amethysts seen through a skim of frost and deep red hair framing a face with the cheekbones of a faun. He rose from the chair with a boneless elegance that made her feel suddenly awkward. His skin was the color of snow—snow shaded and made enigmatic by the touch of twilight.

  “I am Vanya,” he said in a tone that sounded much like ‘I am the Emperor of Shangri-La and you are clearly a lesser being, but I will acknowledge you nevertheless.’

  “I’m Pamela,” she said, taking his extended hand and smelling a scent like spiced tea coming from his skin.

  He tilted his head, the beautiful eyes grazing like ice over glass along the sharp cheekbones. “Ah, of course you are.”

  His English was quite flawless. It was also thick and dark with the steppes and deep forests of his native land. He was dressed in loose jeans and a blue sweater against which the silky red hair flared like a flame.

  “Our Yasha has told us of you.”

  “Has he?” she asked, smiling, despite feeling thrown by this beautiful creature’s self-possession. The adrenaline from Shura’s simple words was still flooding through her in waves, making her dizzy.

  “Of course, you are family to him, I believe.”

  “As he is to me,” she said, realizing it was true. Jamie had long been her dearest friend and in the way that had little to do with blood and names, he was also family.

  “We will be friends, too,” he said, in a very certain manner. “This I know, Russians always recognize their friends at first sight. We will be very good friends, I am thinking.”

  She smiled. She felt drawn to him by his candor and certainty. “I think you’re right.”

  He bent over the basket where Isabelle slumbered on. He laughed as one tiny hand shot out in sleep, the fingers curling slowly under, like the rose-pink fronds of a sea anemone.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. Isabelle would not wake despite a stranger holding her. Like her brother before her, once she was asleep there was little that would wake her short of an explosion. He picked her up gently, tucking her into the curve of his elbow and smiling down at her recumbent form.

  “I love the babies,” he said. “They are not complicated, just love and eat and sleep. It is lovely and easy.”

  “It is,” she agreed. She liked this exotic looking young man already. He was right; they were going to be friends.

  Jamie came in then, clad in dusty jeans and an old sweater, his son in his arms and the scent of the stables—fresh hay, horses, oats and well-oiled leather—coming in with him. She breathed it in, and felt the knot in her chest loosen the tiniest bit. Isabelle stirred in her wrappings as if she sensed his presence. Deirdre had told her Jamie had worked magic on Isabelle that first night when he had come to visit.

  His eyes swept over her and he smiled, one of his beautiful, heart-stopping smiles that always made her feel the world could be righted, as long as his hand was at the helm. She was terribly grateful that he was home. It might not make a difference to finding Casey, but it made her feel like the universe was slightly less out of kilter.

  He let Kolya down and the tiny boy promptly went over to Conor, determined to get near this human who was of a size more interesting than the adults. He plopped down beside Conor, and promptly grabbed one of his blocks and attempted to shove it in his mouth. Always unflappable, her son didn’t so much as give him the side-eye. Conor was a great deal like his Uncle Pat, and didn’t let much ruffle his feathers, which was no small miracle considering the present circumstances under which they found themselves. He hadn’t asked much about where his father was. His silence worried her, for he ought to be asking more, of that much she was certain.

  The next hour passed in chatter, and Pamela found herself relaxing a little. Jamie got the fire roaring in the hearth and the heat of it reached her where she sat. Shura had brought in a tray with tea on it and she noted that hers was in a separate pot. It tasted of catmint and something else that she couldn’t identify, the flavor was pleasant enough though. Isabelle stayed sleeping in Vanya’s arms, as he crooned to her in Russian. It sounded incredibly comforting, the warm rumble of it carrying notes of steaming samovars and ephemeral dachas in its threads. Between the sound of Vanya’s voice, the fire and the tea she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. She wondered why she could not sleep at home, yet could barely stay awake here.

  Jamie got down on the floor with Conor and Kolya to build a complicated tower out of blocks, and Pamela was happy to see that Conor was utterly engrossed in the construction. There was a sense of normalcy here in Jamie’s house that did not exist just now in their home. Isabelle woke just then, letting out a lusty cry that said her belly was well and truly empty. Pamela rose, still feeling half asleep and retrieved the baby from Vanya’s arms. She took one glance back at the children, but Conor was happily building, and Vanya had slid down to join the group on the carpet. She took Isabelle to the study to nurse.

  The fire had been lit in the study as well, and tongues of warmth reached out through the room. She changed Isabelle’s diaper swiftly, for the baby never liked air hitting her skin when she was hungry.

  Isabelle set to nursing with that slightly desperate air babies sometimes had when starting a feed. She drained one breast and then Pamela switched her over to the other. She looked around the study as the baby nursed, the stress in Isabelle’s tiny body easing perceptibly.

  This room was her favorite, and she had done most of her work here over the last few years, behind the big oak desk which graced the northern wall of the room. The room had changed a little already, as if it clearly recognized the presence of its true resident and had resumed its long ago air of security and privacy. There was a decidedly more masculine feel to the entire house already.

  Isabelle finished nursing and Pamela looked down a
t her daughter, to find dark eyes looking up at her with the lovely intensity baby gazes had. She felt a rush of love so profound that it made her tremble, coupled as it was with a terrible fear that this tiny girl would have to grow up without her daddy. Isabelle had been daddy’s girl from the first day of her existence. Casey had called her ‘the tiny tyrant’ and it had been utterly apt, as she had demanded his attention the minute he arrived home each night. If Casey didn’t come home—no, she rubbed her forehead hard, as if she could rub the thought out, and by so doing prevent it from ever becoming truth.

  She righted her clothing and stood, putting Isabelle to her shoulder and patting her back. Jamie walked in just then, Montmorency at his heels.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I wasn’t thinking, I needed a pen and I knew I had some in the desk.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jamie. It’s your house. I daresay it will take a little while, but eventually I will stop treating it as my own. We’ve gotten very comfortable here these last few years. Conor is used to being at the house every day, so you’re going to have to forgive our manners for a bit until we adjust.”

  “Pamela, this has been your home since that first night you arrived, dancing your way into our lives. That will never change and it goes without saying that extends to your children as well.”

  Isabelle reached her arms out to Jamie as if she recognized him, and Jamie took her as though it was entirely natural to do so.

  “Stay for dinner,” he said, patting Isabelle’s back, “and don’t bother lining up all the reasons you shouldn’t,” he added, as she began to protest, “just stay and break bread with us. There are too many men in this house; we could use a feminine influence for a few hours.”

  “I can’t—,” she began and then halted feeling like someone had hit her, the rush of anxiety back full force. She had almost said that she needed to go and start supper before Casey arrived home.

  Jamie took in the expression on her face and said, softly, “Just stay.”

  “All right,” she said, relieved that she could put off facing her empty house for a few more hours.

  They joined the others then, making their way to the kitchen. Conor was holding Kolya’s hand, the two of them fast friends already. Shura tucked a little bottle into her hand as she sat and then took his seat to the left of her.

  To her surprise she found she was a bit hungry as they sat down to dinner. Maggie had made a roast with all the trimmings, and there were biscuits as well, something she normally loved. After about five bites, she felt as though the food, as lovely as it tasted, had congealed into a lump that sat heavily in her stomach.

  She put her fork down and watched and listened, and was happy to see that Jamie had not been alone in Russia. He had formed a family of sorts with these two men—the exotic faun and the apothecary dwarf. That they cared for Jamie was clear, and she could imagine how such an experience—their time in the gulag—could have bound them, forging a family from disparate and foreign pieces.

  After dinner, they stacked plates and silver ware, washed glasses and cups amidst a hum of noise. The boys were playing with Conor’s beloved wooden cars, Isabelle cooed and babbled in her basket and Shura sang in a deep and rumbling voice that sounded like the warm and dark winds that blew across his ancestral home, deep in the Caucasus Mountains.

  When the kitchen was clean, even to Maggie’s strict standards, Jamie turned to her and said, “Come to the study with me for a few minutes.”

  She looked around. Shura was showing Conor a very complicated cat’s cradle, Kolya had fallen asleep curled around one of Conor’s cars and Isabelle had drifted off to sleep as well. Vanya kneeled on the floor watching Shura, and, even here in the bright light of the kitchen, he looked like something from a Russian fairy tale. “Go, I watch the babies,” he said.

  She followed Jamie to the study with nervous trepidation. If he wanted the privacy of that particular room, it was because he had something important he wanted to say to her.

  Someone had lit the lamps and the study glowed in the low light, burnished and comfortable as a favorite blanket. She sat down on the sofa, knowing Jamie preferred the squashy old wingback chair, covered in a rather lurid green velvet, that had once belonged to his grandfather.

  “Would you like a drink?” he asked. “I’m going to drive you and the children home, so you can have one if you’d like.”

  “You don’t need to drive me home,” she protested.

  “I’m going to whether you feel it’s necessary or not, you look all done in, Pamela. So you can either stay here in your old room with the children, or I can drive you home. Those are your two options.”

  “I see Russia did little to temper your high-handed ways,” she said, feeling slightly testy.

  “Do you want a drink or not?” he asked and she gave in, knowing that when Jamie laid down an ultimatum he became an immovable force that one resisted at one’s own risk. She was tired, and the thought of someone else driving them home did appeal. She did too much thinking in the car.

  “Yes, maybe just a little of that vodka you gave me the other night.”

  He poured her a rather generous amount and then poured himself somewhat less.

  Jamie handed her the glass, the vodka a rich and shimmering amber inside. He looked more rested and at ease than he had even a week ago. He sat down on the couch beside her and his scent reached her, lime and sandalwood and comfort, interspersed with the cloves and birch fire of the vodka.

  “You didn’t eat much,” he said, quietly, looking down into his tumbler. She noted he wasn’t drinking it, and had merely poured it out of courtesy to her so she would have the illusion of not drinking alone.

  “I haven’t had much appetite of late,” she said, “it’s certainly no fault of Maggie’s cooking. What I did eat was delicious.”

  He looked up then and met her eyes, his own candid and she knew what he was going to say. She took a sip of the spicy vodka, hiding her face in the thick crystal for a moment. And then, because he was Jamie, he just said it.

  “I’m worried about you, Pamela.”

  She nodded. “I know. I’m coping. I have to for the sake of my children. Turnabout is fair play. After all, I’ve spent the last three years worried about you.”

  It was a weak joke, but he smiled and the tension in the room went down a notch.

  “Jamie,” she began and then stopped. Sometimes she didn’t want to put words to the questions that slammed around inside her head constantly. He anticipated what she had been about to ask, and saved her the effort.

  “Do you want to know? There isn’t much to tell, Pamela. If there was news you know I would have told you the minute I saw you.”

  “Would you, if the news was bad?”

  “Yes, even if the news was bad. You have more right to know it than anyone.”

  “I think I want something concrete, something real, an answer to anything. Then I think if I get it, and it’s not what I want, and I do know how likely that is, then that will be worse. I feel like a bat that has touched an electrical wire—I’m flying in all directions and my radar is completely messed up.”

  He reached over and touched her forearm and she took a breath, his touch was light and reassuring. It eased something in her the tiniest bit, so that the horrible buzzing in her skin began to fade.

  “Pat said you’d had a bad experience at the police station.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but that’s not terribly uncommon here, is it?”

  “He also said you’d asked for a meeting with Noah Murray.”

  “Perhaps,” she said coolly, “it would be easier if you told me what Pat didn’t tell you.” There was an edge of defiance in her voice, because she knew she wasn’t imagining the disapproval in Jamie’s tone.

  “Pamela, you know what he is, you’re playing with fire.”

  “I know, that’s exactly why I approached him,” she said. “Nothing happens in that corner of the countryside that he doesn’t know about, o
r can’t get information on somehow.”

  “Because people are afraid of him, and for good reason. I’m wondering why you aren’t?”

  She shrugged. “I am a little. It doesn’t matter though, as long as he can help me find out where Casey is.”

  “I would ask you to stay away from him, but I know you’re as likely to listen to me as you are to the wind.”

  “Jamie, I would walk through the gates of hell and make a deal with the devil if it meant someone could tell me what has happened to Casey.”

  “I know you would; that’s what worries me.”

  She took another drink of the vodka, and felt the warmth of it as it went to her belly, the taste of fennel and horse radish lingering hot on her tongue.

  “How are the children?” he asked, holding her gaze.

  “Isabelle is too small to understand, of course, though she fusses during the night, which is when Casey would spend time walking her up and down the hall, or just comforting her so I could sleep a bit. Conor isn’t asking many questions and I don’t know how to answer even the few he has asked. He’s so little, I don’t know how much is right to tell him. The fact is I don’t know anything. I don’t know the truth, so how can I possibly give it to him?”

  “Just answer his questions as they come, anything more will confuse him. It will be some time, Pamela, before he asks the really tough questions for which there are no real answers. With luck, that day may not come.”

  It was a relief to talk to him, and to admit how frightened she was. It was just a relief to have him home. She had not been joking when she’d spoken of her worry for him these last few years. She had never dreamed that when he finally returned, she would have lost her husband.

  “You know what is ridiculous—I can’t cry. I feel like it would be such a relief if I could and yet I can’t. I feel everything else—loss, anger, terror—but I can’t seem to shed a tear.”

  “There are some things, to paraphrase Wordsworth, that run too deep for tears. We both know that all too well.”