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

by Cindy Brandner

  They had reached the edge of a small pond which was beautifully mossy about its edges with several nooks and crannies and wonders to explore. Isabelle squealed with delight and pulled her hand from her mother’s and headed like a small tumbling drunk straight for the water’s edge. Pamela grabbed her by the back of her sweater, causing Isabelle to shriek in protest.

  Pat laughed, lowering Conor down so that he could explore. “That one has her daddy’s temper.”

  “Doesn’t she just,” Pamela said, bending down to kiss her daughter’s furious head of hair and letting her go, but keeping a wary eye on her at the same time. At twenty-two months of age, Isabelle was already a force with which to reckon.

  “Da’ always said Casey was goin’ to be responsible for every grey hair on his head.”

  “Deirdre says the same. She says Isabelle reminds her of Casey in temperament, too.”

  “She’s become a good grandmother, no?” Pat asked. Pat had made his peace with Deirdre in a way Casey had not been able to.

  “She has. It’s been nice for me, having her around from time to time. I never knew my own mother. I think, in some ways, she’s trying to make amends for leaving you and Casey by loving Conor and Isabelle extra hard.”

  “Aye, I think so, too, though ye’d not get the woman to admit it in a month of Sundays.”

  Pat went off then at Conor’s exclamation that he had found a beauty of a frog and Uncle Pat must come and see it. Pat was more appreciative of sticky amphibians than she was, so Pamela happily let him go.

  Tomas came and stood beside her. “She’s a wee beauty, that one,” he said, watching Isabelle as she crooned softly to the frog which was now in her uncle’s hands. It was true, even at her tender age, Isabelle was already showing signs that one day she would be in possession of a fierce beauty that was undoubtedly going to cause Pamela no little grief.

  “When is James back?” Tomas asked, his tone so deliberately casual that Pamela rolled her eyes at him. He merely gave her one of his rather frightening grins and she sighed. She knew Tomas’ thoughts about her and Jamie.

  “Not for a few days yet, he’s run into some snags with his business in Hong Kong.” It was far more complicated than that and she had experienced no little worry over what she knew he faced in order to keep the business running smoothly. He had to barter with the triads every few years, and she knew he had not been relishing what lay ahead of him when he left. The world always felt slightly askew when Jamie was absent.

  The five of them left Tomas’ house in the late afternoon, sated by the warmth of the sun which had held all day. Isabelle promptly fell asleep in the car while Conor, sitting beside her, happily sorted through his treasures, of which there were many. His small pockets were stuffed to the brim with shells and bits of plant and what Pamela feared was a rather large snail.

  It was easier coming home with other people. Pat’s presence always took the edge off the hollow that existed in the heart of her house. She insisted Pat and Kate stay to an early supper and they agreed after one of those split seconds which passed between couples where volumes were communicated without a word spoken. It was one of the million things she missed about life with Casey. With his usual quiet intuitiveness, she thought Pat knew that she sometimes panicked at the thought of being alone. With Kate’s help she made soup and sandwiches while Pat took Conor out to feed Paudeen, and Isabelle continued her nap on the sofa.

  Supper was eaten in short order and there was talk and laughter around the table and a sense of ordinariness which felt a bit like grace, for the ordinary was rare in this country and Pamela had long ago learned to treasure it as it passed. Casey’s chair still sat empty, for she couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else sitting in it, other than perhaps Patrick. But Pat avoided the chair too, though she saw him looking at it now and again, dark eyes strained.

  After supper, amidst the bustle of clearing the table and starting the evening routine with the children, she paused to call her neighbor, Lewis. He had not been well of late, and she checked in daily, especially just now as Owen and Gert were away. The telephone rang tinnily, with the strange crackle along the line that always made her wonder if her phone was tapped. She let it ring several times, as Lewis was stubborn about answering it for the most part. He would pick up normally though, for he knew she would show up on his doorstep if he didn’t. It rang eight times before she hung up. She turned from the phone, feeling a pluck of worry along her spine.

  “Would you mind if I ran over to check on Lewis? I want to take him some soup. He’s been feeling poorly lately and he doesn’t eat well at the best of times. With Gert and Owen away, there’s no one to check on him but me.”

  “Aye, go,” Kate said, “we’ve nowhere we need to be an’ we love to spend any time we can with the wee ones.”

  Pamela packed up soup and bread for Lewis, as well as a few oranges because she knew he loved them but rarely bought them for himself. She put on her sweater and boots, for the ground was soft from several days of rain, and then set off through the quiet of the wood and field that separated their two homes.

  She came out on the edge of the field, climbing over the lowest part of the stone wall which marked the property boundary, her boots sinking in the mud a little. She turned toward Lewis’ house just as a dark cloud slid over the face of the sun, making it appear as though a spectral shadow flitted across the worn farmhouse. She walked forward hesitantly, the hair prickling at the base of her neck. Something felt off, but she knew her paranoia had become fine-tuned from living this long in Northern Ireland.

  The yard around the small farmhouse was the same as it always was, littered with the things that Lewis was forever finding and fixing up: an old butter churn; a wringer washer; a Belfast sink with one corner chipped away and an Indian Racer, which when running blew out great clouds of blue smoke and made a noise like that of twenty chainsaws running all together. This last item was Lewis’ pride and joy, and something he tinkered with almost every day.

  The house was eerily quiet and most ominously the front door was ever-so-slightly ajar. She froze in place, breath caught hard in her lungs, everything around her sharpened so that the trees that lined the drive suddenly seemed like looming giants, the small crooked doorstep a crumbling ruin. She stepped up and over the doorsill, trying to stay as silent as the proverbial mouse. Her heart was pounding so madly in her chest that she thought she might pass out. She stepped into the narrow hall which led to the kitchen. The house was an old one and dark inside, mostly because Lewis kept the curtains drawn a good part of the time.

  She saw movement in the corner and jumped, her hand flying up to her pounding heart. It was only Lewis’ old collie though, tottering toward her on arthritic legs.

  “Where’s your master, Sotnos?” she asked. The old dog wagged his tail and whimpered. She rubbed his head in reassurance and he leaned into her legs. It was odd for him to be in the house this time of day, though it was possible the daily rounds of the small farm were getting to be too much for the old dog. He stayed at her heels as she looked around the rest of the house, his nails clicking loudly against the flagstones in the eerie quiet. She checked the bedroom. The bed was neatly made, Lewis’ battered hat absent from the chair beside the bed where she knew he deposited it at night. So he had gone out this morning. She would have to check the outbuildings. Returning to the kitchen, she spied his rifle in the corner behind the door, where he always kept it. She put the food on the table and then picked up the rifle, checking to see if there was a cartridge in it. There was, so she snapped the barrel back into place and walked out the door, Sotnos still at her heels.

  The breeze had picked up while she was in the house and the sun was now hiding behind the clouds making the landscape look dark and foreboding. The timothy heads in the field were bowing down before the wind, releasing their honey scent onto the air, but she thought she smelled something else below the sweet scent, something cold and coppery. She could feel her body draw up, her cen
ter of gravity high inside her, her muscles tightening in response to the possibility that she might need to flee in the next few moments.

  She walked forward slowly, scanning the horizon around her for any movement, Sotnos glued to her leg. The byre lay in shadow and the cows were making noises of discontent. They ought to be out in the pasture grazing at this time of day.

  She found him on the floor in front of one of the stalls. They must have come upon him when he was doing the morning milking. His hearing had faded in the last year, or they would never have been able to get the drop on him. He had, after all, once been a highly-trained killer. He was lying with the milking bucket overturned beside him. She took a breath and walked to where he lay, rifle still held to her side. The blood had congealed after it mixed with the cream and the byre floor looked like a gruesome painting by a drunken Surrealist.

  Pamela propped the rifle up against the stall gate and knelt down by the old man, putting one hand to his arm. He was cold to the touch but she felt for a pulse anyway, hoping against hope. She couldn’t find one and his flesh felt inert, as if he had breathed out his soul hours ago. Her heart sank and she wrapped an arm around Sotnos. The old dog was whimpering, his tail held tight between his legs.

  She got to her feet, slowly, feeling achy all through her body. Achy and so very tired. She needed to think, to get help. Lewis had no one else, no family, no friends other than herself, Gert and Owen. This would break Casey’s heart, he had been very fond of the gruff old man. Of course, Casey would never know and for that very small mercy she was grateful.

  There were things she must do—return to the house, call someone, begin all the small acts which attended death. She stood just for a moment, though, for she needed to get her bearings. The echo of a gunshot seemed to hang upon the air, the fateful noise that was the border between pulse and breath and life and the dark gateway to silence and death. Had he been afraid she wondered? She thought not, he was a tough old bastard and he would have expected that death might come in this fashion—quick and bloody. He might even have wanted it so.

  Pamela leaned her face into the stall gate, pressing her forehead into the slivered wood and seeking some semblance of stability from it. Just below her breastbone was a flood-tide of grief for the old man who lay dead at her feet, and for everyone else that had been lost along the way in this brutal country. It was her own roll call of the dead, a tattered sheet of paper she kept furled in her heart with the names written in the color of blood—Lawrence, Sylvie, Robin, David, the two babies she and Casey had lost. She had never added her husband’s name to this list, for if ever she came to a place where she was certain he wasn’t coming home, she knew that engraving in her heart would be something entirely different, both in depth and the color of its words.

  She walked from the byre and did not look back, for whatever Lewis had been to her—friend, neighbor, protector—that was now gone and only the shell remained, only that and the sound of the wind grieving through the slats of the byre.

  The police would have to come and so she did not want to involve Pat in this, being that he was not on their good side just now. She called Noah, even though she knew it wasn’t likely he’d be in the house this time of day, for he would have a wealth of evening chores to attend to. To her surprise he picked up on the second ring.

  She told him, quickly and without detail but he understood why she was using shorthand and merely said, “On my way.”

  She was standing by the byre door when he arrived, Sotnos still firmly attached to her leg, no longer whimpering, but still trembling.

  He parked his truck and came to where she stood, concern written over his fine features. “Are ye all right?”

  She nodded. “I know I have to call the police. I just wanted someone else with me when I did it.”

  “Aye, I think it’s best if ye’re not here alone when they arrive. I don’t trust the bastards at all.” And then, “Where?” he asked.

  “The byre,” she said, relieved that he did not expect her to go back in there. She wanted to banish what she had seen, and return to her last memory of Lewis alive, silent for the most part, gruff when he did speak, but he had looked after her and her family more than once. And he had been Casey’s friend and she would have treasured him for that fact alone.

  It was a relief to have Noah here, for his presence banished the echo of violence, though she was well aware of the irony of this feeling. He didn’t hesitate at all, just went into the byre, in his usual business-like fashion. She supposed he had seen much worse than an old man who looked like he was merely in a deep and peaceful sleep.

  It was only seconds later that he called her name. There was an urgency to the three syllables that made her step forward quickly. Noah was kneeling down by Lewis, Lewis’ head braced between his two hands.

  “Call for the ambulance,” he said, “he’s still alive.”

  “I can’t believe I missed his pulse,” Pamela said. “I might have killed him.”

  It was a few hours later and they had returned from the hospital to Lewis’ farm so that she could retrieve Sotnos and lock the place up properly. Noah made tea while she did this and they were sitting together now, at the worn kitchen table.

  “Strictly speakin’,” Noah said, “it would be the four bullets in him that killed him.”

  “You’re a bit of a literal bastard, aren’t you?”

  He laughed. “Aye, I am, but the fact of the matter is he’s goin’ to live an’ he wouldn’t have if ye hadn’t gone to check on him. Now drink yer tea, ye’re still shakin’.”

  She sniffed the mug in her hand, suspecting that he had slipped a little whiskey in to calm her nerves. She did indeed smell the hot peaty scent of whiskey but thought the man had a point. It would take the edge off her nerves.

  The last hours were blurring already. After she had run in the house to call for an ambulance, she went back to the byre to find Noah doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Lewis. If he made it through the surgery, the doctor had told her, he would most likely survive.

  “He’s a tough old goat,” Noah said. His shirt was bloody from working over Lewis, but other than that he appeared entirely unruffled by the evening’s events. Owen had been contacted in Kerry, and he and Gert were already on their way back. Noah had said he would arrange to have Lewis’ animals looked after in the meantime.

  “I probably took you away from your evening chores,” she said, feeling suddenly awkward. “I need to get home. It’s time to put the children to bed.”

  “I had one of my men finish up for me, I’ve naught pressing to do. I can drive ye home when ye’re ready. But first finish yer tea, ye’re white as a sheet an’ tremblin’ like a leaf in the wind. Drink up, ye’ll feel better just as soon as the shock passes.”

  She shook her head. There wasn’t a way to explain to Noah what she had felt there in that byre with the wind sighing through the walls. How to explain that roll call of the dead and what it meant to believe she was adding yet another name, what it meant to the girl she had once been but could no longer find within herself. Jamie would understand, because he had known that girl and he had changed along with her. He understood the missing parts as well as those that remained. She wanted to ask Noah what the cost was in the end, what it took from a human soul to live with such violence.

  “I know how it is, Pamela,” he said, as if he had heard her unspoken question. “Just when ye think this country can’t take one more thing from ye, it does. An’ I know there are times when ye wonder if ye’ll survive it. The hell of it is that ye do, even when it seems it would be better not to, ye do.”

  He drove her home after that and politely declined her offer to come in.

  “No thank ye, I’d best head back home an’ make certain all is shut up for the night. I’ll come by tomorrow if I may an’ check an’ see what the news is on Lewis.”

  She nodded. “I’ll see you then.”

  Inside the house there was warmth and noise, though only at
a low level for Isabelle was asleep on Kate’s shoulder and Conor was in his pajamas, insisting that his Uncle Pat stay to read him his bedtime story. The warmth and normality of the scene surrounded her and took some of the fear and tension of the last hours away. She took her first decent breath in hours.

  “How’s Lewis, then?” Pat asked, concern written over his face.

  She dropped her coat over the back of a kitchen chair and sat down. Conor jumped up into her lap and she gave him a hug, relishing the wiggling energy of him.

  “He was holding his own, last we heard. Apparently it is going to take more than four bullets to knock that stubborn old man down. The hospital promised they would call as soon as he’s out of surgery.”

  “Uncle Pat is going to stay an’ read to me. He promised,” Conor said, this last with an emphasis that sounded so entirely Riordan in nature that she had to stifle a laugh. Pat heard it, too, and smiled. Conor gave her a smacking kiss then jumped off her lap and went over to his uncle, who swung him up in his arms.

  “All right, boyo but I will not read more than four books to ye, that’s the limit.”

  She watched as Pat carried Conor up the stairs, the two of them talking nonsense the way they always did together. Kate was smiling, her face turned toward the staircase, as if she too could see the tall, dark man with the arms of the small boy wrapped around his neck.

  “Conor well knows that his uncle will fall asleep before he can get through one book, never mind four,” Kate said, with a laugh.

  “I’ll spell him off before he’s too tired to drive home. Thank you so much for looking after the children.”