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

by Cindy Brandner

Pamela turned and looked at Kate. There was a sudden and peculiar tension in the woman, even if her expression was easy enough. She had the sense Kate had only been waiting to bring Noah into their chat in order to begin the conversation she really wanted to have.

  “I suppose I have,” she said, though she wondered how Kate was privy to that knowledge. She didn’t think Noah was likely to be discussing their visits and the nature of them even with his sister, regardless of how much he trusted her.

  “He’s not had an easy time of it, my brother,” Kate said quietly.

  “No?” Pamela said, folding the last of Isabelle’s fresh diapers and adding them to the pile in the laundry basket. This wasn’t really news to her; one didn’t have to listen terribly hard to hear the rumors that were rife in the countryside about Noah and the things that had gone on at the farm when he was a boy.

  Kate hesitated for a moment, smoothing one fine-skinned hand down Isabelle’s back.

  “Ye know we lost our parents when we were still young?”

  “Yes.”

  “We were close with our mam, but not so much our da. He was a hard man. We had an older brother who was shot by the police when he was just fifteen. They said it was an accident, mistaken identity an’ John bein’ where he oughtn’t to be late at night. We knew better, for it wasn’t the first such incident of that sort—well, ye know how ‘tis here well enough, Pamela.”

  Yes, she knew well enough all right. Just the week before a couple and their three sons had been shot in cold blood in their home as they had gathered around for an evening game of cards. Their particular sin, as near as anyone could figure, was that the father was running for the local council and was Catholic.

  “Our father never forgave Noah for the fact ’twasn’t him who was killed that day. John was his favorite an’ his death turned him bitter. We all missed him, but da’ an’ he had been close. I was close with Noah though, not John. John had a wee bit of a mean streak in him, he was like our da’ that way.”

  She took a breath, the blue eyes turned down to some invisible point of memory.

  “Noah wasn’t hard an’ mean like them. It’s true, raise yer eyebrow at me as ye like, he was very different when he was young, our Noah.”

  Pamela laughed and the sound startled Isabelle so that she lifted her curly head from Kate’s shoulder, eyes half open. Both women held their breath, Kate patting the baby’s back until she settled again, with a soft sigh.

  “Now, how did you know I had a raised eyebrow?”

  “Because I know ye well enough now, an’ I know what ye’re likely to think of my brother an’ no fault to ye for it. Ye wouldn’t know it now, but he was a sweet boy. He liked to read an’ help mam in the gardens, he liked music an’ poetry, he liked beautiful things an’ said so. Da’ called him a nancy-boy an’ John would bait him an’ do nasty things to him, an’ da’ would laugh. Noah never said anything, just lived inside himself an’ did his talkin’ with me an’ mam when the other men of the house weren’t there to hear. My mam said Noah was like a star left in a basket of rocks, an’ John would always be jealous of him for that, an’ da’ would hate him for it.”

  “What about you, Kate? Where did you figure in that constellation?”

  “Well, I was blind an’ a girl, not of much use, an’ not likely to do great harm either.”

  There was a world of explanation in that one small sentence, but Pamela knew it was not what Kate wished to speak of, so she held her silence and let her continue.

  “My mam was diagnosed with the cancer the year after John was shot. They gave her two months to live, an’ she managed only a week more than that. My da’ finished drinkin’ his liver to death six months later. Noah became my father an’ mother an’ big brother all in one go. The farm was mortgaged to the hilt, an’ my father had let it run down after John died. Noah was sixteen years old, an’ had to build it back up. He worked two jobs outside the farm and somehow managed to make certain I was still bein’ schooled an’ fed an’ properly cared for. I think there were times he didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours a night, an’ I worried for him that he would break his health, tryin’ to keep us together. He never complained, just said ‘We’re all right then, Kate, aren’t we?’ It broke my heart sometimes to hear the exhaustion in him, though he tried hard not to let me know. He was right smart, too, but he never got the chance to finish his schoolin’. I think if he has one regret that might be it.”

  The flow of Kate’s story was interrupted by Conor bursting into the house, looking for a snack for himself and Finbar. Conor, in the way of small boys, needed feeding on a regular schedule. She gave him two cookies and an apple, only to look out the window a moment later to see Finbar happily polishing off the last of the cookie Conor had clearly given him.

  “He’s such a good laddie, isn’t he?” Kate said. Isabelle was awake now and squawking for her mother. Pamela took her, changed her diaper and warmed some mashed peas for her.

  “He is. I’m lucky he’s so easy. Deirdre says he’s not quite as daredevil as Casey was at the same age. She said Casey was forever getting into scrapes and getting stuck in out of the way places, like the neighbor’s chimney and his grandmother’s china cabinet.

  “He’d a restless streak in him even as a grown man, no?”

  “Yes, he did,” she said and felt the pain of the past tense even as it slipped from her tongue. She wanted to correct the word, turn it to the present, but didn’t because people, even Kate, were starting to look at her with pity in their faces when she spoke of her husband as if he were still here on the same earth as her. Sometimes she felt a fool for believing that one day he would walk back through that door, put his arms around all of them, and the world would be right again.

  “You were saying about your brother?” she asked, wanting Kate to start talking again, so that she didn’t have to think about Casey and didn’t have to think about speaking in the past tense for the rest of her life. She spooned peas into Isabelle, only to have her purse her wee mouth and spray the spoonful back out in disgust. Isabelle was very clear on her likes and dislikes, and peas it appeared, could be added to the dislike list.

  Kate resumed her tale as Pamela wiped the peas from Isabelle’s face and went to fix something the baby would deem more palatable.

  “Noah’d learned the hard way not to say his truths. As he got older he became more withdrawn, even a wee bit cold sometimes. After we lost our entire family he changed, he became someone who I didn’t always recognize, someone who frightened me, though I’ve never let on as such to him. People forget sometimes that I’m only blind, not deaf too, an’ they say things in front of me they wouldn’t were I sighted. I know that he’s done some terrible things, things I can’t reconcile with the boy he once was, an’ the man who is still good to me an’ has protected me my whole life.”

  “I know he’s good to you, Kate. Perhaps that’s all that matters.”

  Kate shook her head. “Pamela, ye know that’s not true. It can’t be all that matters, I can’t pretend he’s still that boy I knew growin’ up. I can’t look away, pardonin’ the pun, from all he’s done an’ been.”

  Pamela could feel tension creeping up her spine as Kate continued talking.

  “Kate, why are you telling me this?”

  “Only this, that boy he used to be, that sensitive boy born to the wrong father—I think Noah set out to kill that boy. I think he did, an’ he has paid a terrible price for it.”

  “Why do you think I need to know that?” she asked, a strange premonition shivering through her, even as she asked the question.

  Kate looked up, her eyes resting on Pamela’s face. “I don’t know, only that I have this feeling it’s goin’ to be necessary for you to remember it one day soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Hope is the Thing With Feathers

  THE PUB WAS CROWDED, the stink of wet wool and mucky boots heavy on the air. Pamela got her shandy, for Manny, the owner, had seen her come in an
d poured it right away. He nodded and winked as she took it, and she smiled gratefully. Men nodded in her direction, some smiling and adding a word or two, asking how the babbies were and would she need hay for the summer? Casey’s disappearance had broken the last reserve the community had with her. They had gathered round, showing her their sympathy in various ways—a loaf of bread left on the porch, wood culled and cut for the stove, a load of hay that had mysteriously appeared in her byre. Like good fairies, they came and went, leaving whatever they thought might be needed in their wake. Many of them had lost more than one loved person to the Troubles; some had lost children, grandchildren, wives, husbands and lovers.

  Curious eyes followed Vanya, as the two of them made their way to a small table in the corner. Eyes followed Vanya everywhere she thought, for he was one of nature’s exotics and would always attract attention wherever he went. He had been as prescient as a seer when he had told her, upon their first meeting, that they would be friends. For they were, and she found a great deal of pleasure in his company. He had come along with her today to help with photographing a family reunion that had been held just outside Newry. They’d stopped on their way home to have a drink and something to eat here at the Emerald.

  She left Vanya with the drinks and went to the washroom. There was a tiny cracked mirror, green with age, above the sink. She tidied her hair, tying it back with a length of twine she had in her pocket. She sighed; she was so madly busy with the business, the house and the children that she never seemed to have time to pay attention to her appearance. She couldn’t remember the last time her hair had been cut or even had a decent brushing. Truth be told she didn’t give a damn how she looked without Casey to appreciate it.

  She left the small room, and made her way back down the narrow hall toward the pub. There was a man blocking her way at the end of the hall, standing still in the stygian gloom. His head was down, hands shoved deep in his pockets, like he was trying to hide his identity. She went to sidle past, he was making her nervous and she wanted back out into the bustle of the pub, where there were plenty of people around.

  “Missus,” he caught her by the sleeve, and she pulled back instinctively.

  “What do you want?” she asked, thinking he might just be drunk and snatching at any woman who had the misfortune to walk by.

  “Can I have a word?” He didn’t sound drunk, though most Irishmen could hold their liquor well enough that it wasn’t always obvious at first blush how much they might have imbibed.

  “Certainly,” she said, though she couldn’t quite imagine what he felt the need to discuss with her. She didn’t recognize him, the hallway was too dark to make out his features and the hat he wore covered the top half of his face.

  “Ye’d be Missus Riordan?”

  “Yes,” she said, and her heart began to thump in that horrible slow way it did when one both anticipated and dreaded the next words from a person’s mouth.

  “Someone would like to speak to ye about yer husband’s disappearance.”

  “Someone?” she asked. She felt a chill suddenly, as if the door had opened and a cold wind had blown through narrow hall.

  “Aye, an’ this someone would like to meet with ye.”

  “When?” she asked, throwing any caution she might have to the wind.

  “Soon. Ye can’t say anything to anyone, it has to remain with you alone.”

  She nodded, her heart pounding so hard she could feel the thumping in her temples. Her tongue was thick in her mouth, causing her to stutter.

  “P…please—do you know if he’s alive?” The man looked alarmed and she realized she was clutching his arm hard enough to bruise him. He glanced behind her suddenly, attention caught by someone further back along the narrow hallway.

  “I have to go, Missus. You just remember what I said—tell no one.” He patted her hand and then moved off down the hall, exiting out of the narrow back door.

  She leaned against the wall for a moment. What on earth had the man meant? Had he truly been speaking about Casey? Or did she only want that so badly to be true that she was willing to twist any set of words into the constructs of him being alive somewhere, somehow? And if he was alive, what would that mean? What would it take to keep him from her, from Conor and Isabelle? That was where her thoughts always stopped cold, because there were few things on this earth that would keep him from his family, and those things did not bear thinking about. She took a breath and righted herself, touching her cold hands to her cheeks, which contrarily flamed with heat. She saw an old man looking at her curiously, and forced herself to smile weakly and walk out into the teeming pub.

  “Pamela, what has happened?” Vanya asked her, amethyst eyes filled with concern as she sat down across from him. From the look on his face, her expression must be truly alarming.

  She shook her head. “Nothing, I’m fine really, just tired.” She tried to smile but her lips felt frozen. She could see he didn’t believe her, but she wasn’t about to tell him the man’s cryptic message, not here in a public house. She wanted to hug the information, veiled as it had been, to herself for a moment, rather than see the doubt in another’s face and have it chip away at this surge of possibility that washed through her. She couldn’t even run this information past Noah, the man had made that clear.

  Manny brought their sandwiches to the table, ham and melted cheese, and Vanya bit into his immediately. Manny’s sandwiches were delicious and a meal unto themselves.

  “You’re not eating, moy podrooga, something is wrong. You are as Yasha says, pale as the ghosts.”

  “I’m all right, just lightheaded.” She forced a smile to her lips and took a bite of the sandwich. She would have to eat a bit in order to assure him she was as she said, just fine.

  Burning a hole in her pocket was a tiny piece of paper that the man had palmed into her hand when he patted it. All she wanted in the world right now was to get out of here, and to read what the paper had to say.

  Vanya was staying the night, rather than making the trip all the way back to Jamie’s house. There was the bedtime routine to go through with the children and Isabelle had napped longer than usual so was up later, needing to be rocked to sleep. Pamela had tea with Vanya after. It was nice to have someone here to talk to as the dark of night settled in around the house.

  It was very late when she finally went outside to get a breath of air. She fished the piece of paper from the pocket of her jeans. She sat down on the small garden bench, which was near enough to the house that the light from the kitchen window allowed her to see the note clearly. She hesitated before unfolding it, afraid of what it did contain, and more afraid perhaps of what it did not.

  She sat there in the night, the air filled with the scents of thyme and lavender, their oils rising as the air cooled. A breeze rustled through the tops of the trees so that they whispered secrets to each other and the stars above. A world of possibility existed inside the folds of the paper she held in her hand—possibilities that included hope or overwhelming grief. Hope was often the most painful of emotions she had found. It was, indeed, that thing with feathers that Emily Dickinson had described. Only for her the bird was the one trapped inside her chest, the one that fluttered its wings in panic at the idea of what words might be upon this plain little square of paper. As long as the paper remained folded the possibility still existed, the hope, even if it squeezed her heart like a cold fist, could still live.

  Unlike Dickinson’s wee bird that asked her for not so much as a crumb, Pamela’s hope had cost her dearly and did every day, because it had in some ways crippled her, she knew. Perhaps this was how it always was for anyone who had lost a loved one in this way, where there was no end to the story, only the place where they had disappeared from your world, where their path had forked from your own and you turned to realize you had lost them at some indefinable point. And so you stood on that path, waiting and waiting and knowing that you might well stand there forever to no good end.

  She knotted her
courage together and unfolded the paper. It struck her as surreal that life should come down to this—a tenuous few words on a soiled piece of paper.

  It was a date and a location, merely that and nothing more. A wash of both disappointment and relief went through her. It wasn’t news of any sort, it wasn’t anything concrete, but, if nothing else, it allowed her to hope for a few more days.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Circumstances and Madmen

  THE MILL DATED BACK to the late 17th century, and had been in use until the previous decade. It had not taken long for it to become rather derelict in appearance and soundness. Casey had always told her buildings were only as good as the people who inhabited them. Once a building was deserted it always went downhill quickly.

  “It’s the people who live or work in a buildin’ that are its soul, Jewel.”

  This building looked as if its soul had turned to a ghost which waited for its people to return. But no one had ever come back and the mill had been left to the depredations of nature and time. She felt a strange kinship with it, for she too understood what it was to wait and wait and to feel resignation creeping in like cold, dirty water under a door sill. She went through the door at the back, a narrow opening supported by a rotting oak beam. It was chilly inside and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. She walked carefully, these old structures had been built solidly with the idea that they would last for centuries, but she knew that exposure to the elements could cause damp rot and soft spots in the floor and ceilings.

  She had left her car at home, the walk here had taken an hour but it allowed her a certain amount of caution and subterfuge that driving up and parking the car somewhere would not have.

  The mill was tall and narrow and built entirely of local stone. It was three flights of stairs to the top, to what had been the old loading area where the grain had been hauled up by pulley and dumped, and then fed down to the storage bins on the floor below. There was heavy dust coating the walls, and dancing in golden motes as the evening sun leveled through the narrow windows. She stifled a sneeze, not wanting to alert anyone to her presence. She’d found the plans for the mill in a book of local history, and had taken the time to study the layout.