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

by Cindy Brandner

  He had dressed as well as he could for the elements, though in truth he knew anything short of a fur coat and mukluks wasn’t going to be adequate. He was taking the small measures he could to assure that he would find his way back to the house as well. Though small, he thought looking at the ball of twine in his hand, didn’t quite cover the inadequacy of those measures.

  He had taken the ball of twine and secured one end to a post that was outside the back door of the kitchen. The other end he would tie as far along the paddock rail as he could manage, so there was at least that much of a trail to guide himself home by. It would require finding the paddock, granted, but it was a small comfort to know there was something there.

  When he relayed his plan to Vanya and Maggie, Vanya had expressed the notion that it was possible the Irish were as crazy as they were reputed to be. Maggie, being Maggie, had nodded grimly, given him a hug and promised there would be hot food and drink when he returned.

  The snow was ridiculously high, and he hoped to heaven he would actually make it to the cottage without getting hopelessly lost and dying from exposure. He had survived worse, mind you; a night in a deep Russian forest hunted by a madman came to mind. Pamela had somehow reached across time and space to save him that time, and he would do no less for her. He would, as much as it made him uneasy, employ the same help she had in that endeavor.

  It was going to be a struggle just to find the cottage much less not end up a frozen lump lost somewhere between here and there. He thought grimly of those peat cutters found buried in snow with turf frozen to their backs. A man could be lost and not found for several weeks in severe weather like this. The thaw, when it came, would have its work cut out for it. If he got lost, it would be a long time—too long—before he was found.

  At the back of the house, beyond the paddock and stables, there were riding trails. There was one in particular a small ways into the wood which would take him right alongside his grandmother’s cottage. Of course every trail was going to be long buried in snow. It would be slightly less deep in the trees and he thought once he was in the wood he would be better able to find his way. There was a danger in the woods as well for if he struck out in the wrong direction he could well end up in the ravine that skirted one edge of it. It would likely be invisible in the snow and he would break his legs or maybe his back and then slowly freeze to death.

  Many years ago an Athabascan friend had gifted him two pairs of snowshoes made by one of the elders in his tribe. He had used them a handful of times over the years, and had only remembered them when it occurred to him he might well drown in the drifts if he couldn’t find a way to get and stay on top of them. There were spots where he knew the snow was going to be above his head. Between the cold and the wind a hard crust had formed on top of the snow. With the base of the snowshoes he was able to navigate across the crust and not sink down into the lethal drifts. He started out gingerly, testing the snow with each step and getting the rhythm of the shoes. Made from ash wood and elk hide they were built for long hikes in open fields and thick forest. Which was exactly what he needed tonight. The second pair he had strapped to his back for Finola would need them to make the trip back with him.

  He noted the man-made landmarks, orienting himself by the stables and other outbuildings which were still, thankfully, visible. He tied the twine at the far end of the paddock, where it butted up against a tack shed. He looked back at that point to find that the big house was already invisible. He hadn’t expected he would be able to see it for long but it still gave him a slightly hollow feeling to lose it as a guidepost so early into his journey.

  Within minutes he was almost blind from the wind whipping a stinging mix of snow and ice into his face, his eyebrows and lashes crusted with snow and a rime of ice forming already on the edge of his scarf. From here on he was dependent on familiar shapes in the landscape. He went as briskly as he dared, hoping to stay warm enough to ward off frostbite.

  It was a slog to get to the woods, but even in such nasty conditions it loomed up before him, though he wasn’t sure if he saw it or merely felt the presence of the trees. He stumbled near the edge of it, sliding down into the trees and landing with a knock against a slim birch. He righted himself and was relieved to see that the canopy sifted some of the intensity from the falling snow. In ordinary circumstances he might be able to guide himself by the characteristics of certain trees which he had used as way-markers since childhood: the hazel that leaned to the right and always had since the big windstorm they’d had one autumn when it was still a sapling; the oak with the huge knot on its trunk that looked like an old man with a toothache; the cluster of ash trees which had always reminded him of a group of gossiping old women, turning their backs on the trail and clustering their heads together. Then there was the enormous yew that was near to the cottage. It was so big and so old that someone, long ago, had put a door in the base of it which when opened led to a small hollow in the tree’s trunk. It had been just the right size for a small boy to hole up in with a clutch of apples and some books and a torch.

  He had been taught navigation on both land and sea by the various teachers in his life—his grandfather, his father and the Jesuit brothers who’d had the molding of both his mind and spirit in their hands. Yet it would be easy to get lost because there was nothing to be seen. The only landmark he might be able to count on was a large standing stone along the way which ought to be visible even in this amount of snow.

  Father Lawrence had the teaching of him, too, and his was a truly Celtic soul and so Jamie had been well-steeped in Celtic myth and legend, and the ways of the world before. This landscape was as familiar as the back of his hand and he could navigate it if he depended on a sense other than sight. He closed his eyes against the strain of the snow and dark, and felt the land with his inner eye. He oriented himself to the night and its challenges, and thought perhaps he did know where he was—roughly on the right path and heading in the right direction; he thought he needed to bear west just a little. The stones and trees and earth were all where they should be, still fixed like stars to guide a man through a wilderness of snow and wind.

  He stepped forward and found himself face first in a blackthorn bush. This was both fortuitous and painful, and proved that his Celtic ancestors had a sense of humor, albeit a slightly sadistic one. Fortuitous because he knew exactly where he was now for the patch of blackthorn only grew in one place and that meant he was roughly a quarter of a mile away from Finola’s wee cottage. Painful because the thorns were a good three inches long. He would take it as a good omen, though, for blackthorn was considered to guard a man against harm.

  Time blurred after that as he put one foot in front of another and kept slogging through the snow, moving from tree to tree, and finding the tall stone where it sat humped in snow in the midst of a small glade. He was very close now and he thought he smelled smoke in the whirl of snow. It would be from Finola’s fire, as there was no other habitation or building down this way. He had long wondered what it was that caused her to live alone out here, isolated without a neighbor for miles. He had offered, once, to have her come live in the big house with him but she had said no, she was fine on her own out here amongst the trees, with the foxes and badgers for company.

  And then there it was, a humped shape in the night, but big enough to be unmistakable. He could have collapsed with the relief of finding it. He put his hand to the stone wall and then walked using it as a guide to the front door. The pathway was recently cleared for when he dropped down into it there were only a couple of inches that had gathered on the path to the door. There was light spilling out of the windows, the shutters thick with small mounds of snow. He took off the snowshoes with some difficulty, being that his fingers were so stiff with cold he couldn’t even feel them. He raised his hand to knock on the door just as it opened. His grandmother had a clutch of herbs in one hand, and a pair of boots on her feet.

  “What is it?” she asked, clearly aware that only an emergency wo
uld have driven him here in this weather.

  “Pamela,” he managed to gasp out. “She’s sick.”

  “Come in out of the snow,” she said briskly, “ye’re going to need a spell by the fire before we head up to the house. I’ll get some hot tea down ye as well.”

  “You’ll come then?”

  “Of course I will,” she said. “Now, shed yer coat an’ get the ice out of yer flesh. Nothin’ will be lost by waitin’ a few minutes. I’ll need to put a bag together. What is it that’s wrong with her?”

  “Shura thinks meningitis,” he said, dropping his frozen coat over the back of a chair and hunkering down by the fire. At first he couldn’t even feel the heat, and then suddenly it was painful as his hands and legs prickled back to life.

  Finola bustled about pulling down jars and tins, and putting them in a canvas bag. Then she bundled up in a wool coat and hat with a scarf wrapped around her face to protect it from the cold. Jamie’s own face was tingling as it slowly warmed. He wasn’t keenly anticipating the return to the snow and wind but at the same time, he was desperate to get back as soon as possible. Finola made him take a warm drink first, which he gulped, scorching his tongue. She raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say ‘I told ye so, laddie.’

  “Do you want the fire out?” he asked, wrapping his scarf around his neck and pulling his coat on. It felt heavy and chilled.

  “No, it will be fine, it’s smoored an’ will burn slow. Ye know I prefer to keep it lit this time of year.”

  She did, it was true. She never let the fire go out from Samhain to Beltane. It was one of her particular superstitions. When he had queried her about it many years ago, she had said it was to keep light in the dark half of the year.

  Later, he never could remember the return journey, only that his grandmother’s navigational skills seemed to be finely honed, for they were back at the big house within the hour.

  Upon arrival, she was her usual brisk self and shed her snowy garments in the boot room off the kitchen, hoisted her canvas bag and marched up the stairs to her patient. Jamie followed her up and watched as she took stock of the woman on the bed, who was still burning up, tossing and muttering in what was not sleep but something far less healing. Shura was by the bedside, attempting to put another cold cloth on her forehead.

  Finola addressed Shura, one herb doctor to another. “All right tell me everythin’ that’s happened since she got ill.”

  He only half heard Shura’s meticulous rundown of Pamela’s symptoms for he felt quite suddenly useless. He had brought help to Pamela and now there was nothing more he could do.

  He was tired and his senses were both heightened and dulled at the same time, he needed to sleep but didn’t see how he could manage it. He thought about the request Pamela had made of him earlier in the night when she had asked him to look after her children. He had said yes because he meant it, and he had not exaggerated when he said he loved them dearly. He realized that in these last months they had been functioning as a family, not the sort perhaps one would find on television but of a sort which allowed them to manage and to not feel so alone. He could not bear the thought that she might not be here to see her children grow; it was tragedy enough that they had lost their father, they must not lose their mother as well.

  Suddenly Finola was in front of him, speaking and he brought his focus to bear so that he could take in what she was saying.

  “I think yer friend is right about it bein’ meningitis. Of course it’s not possible to tell entirely without a spinal tap, but that’s my guess. It explains the fever an’ the pain an’ the hallucinating. Whether it’s viral or bacterial I don’t know. The viral kind simply requires rest an’ lots of liquids in order to mend.”

  “And the bacterial kind?” He didn’t know why he asked, he knew full well the problems that could cascade one over the next with bacterial meningitis until it culminated in death.

  “Prayers an’ penicillin,” she said grimly, “a lot more than we’ve got probably, but it’s better than nothin’. We have to find a way to get her to a hospital and the sooner the better. For now though, let’s do what we can.”

  “You have penicillin?” he said blankly.

  “Of course I do, herbs are wonderful when they work but sometimes modern medicine is the best choice. I’m not sayin’ it will do the job, mind ye, but it’s worth the try.”

  She moved back across the room, and soon there was a bitter smell wafting from the small mortar she had taken out of her bag and the sound of the pestle grinding mixed with the snap of the fire. There was the plink of liquid and he knew she was dissolving the tablets in distilled water.

  She held the needle up to the light, and snapped her fingers efficiently against the glass barrel until she was satisfied that there were no air bubbles left. “Jamie,” she said, “come hold her still so I don’t hurt her with the needle.”

  Jamie put one hand on Pamela’s shoulder and the other on her thigh, and then looked away as Finola pushed the robe up to her waist in order to give her the shot. He smelled the sharp sting of rubbing alcohol and then felt the small shudder that went through Pamela’s body at the prick of the needle.

  “How long until we know if it’s working?”

  “A couple of hours.” She bustled about putting things away, discarding the needle and replacing the water in the basin. He sat down on the bed, and watched Pamela, as if he expected some sort of miracle to occur from the simple relief of having someone else take charge. “It depends on a few things. Her body is mournin’ its other half; it may depend on whether she has the will to pull it back from despair.”

  “By other half you mean Casey, I presume.”

  “Aye, I do. The two of them were bound by many threads, but physical love was one of the strongest. His hold on her body, even now, is very strong. You have a hold on her too; it is just made of different threads. Don’t let her slip away from ye.”

  “I’m not sure there’s room for me in this equation.”

  She frowned at him, her green eyes sharp. “When did ye ever think there were only two people in your relationship with her? There has always been the three of ye. ‘Tis just how it is. He knew it, an’ had learned to live with it, enough that he came to be her anchor the night she came to ye in Russia. He was strong enough to allow ye to be part of his relationship with her, you can do the same.”

  “Oh, I have,” he said, “for a very long time now.”

  “Have ye?” she said, sounding rather dubious.

  She touched his shoulder, and when she spoke again her voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “Stay with her.”

  He looked up to find her face filled with sympathy.

  “Because if this doesn’t work, James, she should not be alone.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Recovery

  THE PENICILLIN SAVED Pamela’s life. It was another three days before the roads were cleared well enough that Jamie could get her to a hospital but by then the fever had broken and she was out of danger. When she returned from the hospital, Jamie installed her in her old room, where the fire was built high early each evening and he had added small things from her home, so that she might feel more comfortable. Her knitting bag, with a half-knit sweater still neatly rolled around the needles, a few of her books, and her winter clothes. Jamie told her that Gert had helped him pack the things, and reassured her that all was well at her little homestead. Phouka had taken up residence in the stables again, much to the annoyance of Naseem, who wasn’t keen on sharing space with some uppity stallion with peasant roots. Paudeen was sharing space with the estate’s lone cow, Finbar had settled in with Montmorency, and Rusty was having a love affair with one of the barn cats.

  She had awakened in the hospital with little memory of the days that had preceded her stay there. Suffice it to say, the doctor had told her she was very lucky to be alive and without having incurred any sort of permanent damage. He also said it was clear that she was in possession of very resourceful friend
s. Jamie said little when she asked what had happened, but the lines around his mouth and the dark circles under his eyes told her it had been a very bad time for all concerned. She gathered that she owed her life to Finola having a rather large stash of penicillin.

  Her convalescence lasted much longer than she had hoped. The meningitis had left her weak and feeling as wasted as a consumptive character in a Victorian novel. There was no leaving Jamie’s stewardship until she was fully recovered either, that had been made clear in no uncertain terms. It was nice though, she had to admit, to have someone else care for her, to help her put the children to bed at night, to talk with over meals. Dinner was a raucous affair some nights, what with Shura’s liberal quoting of Sufi mystic poets, Vanya’s descriptions of his day (often interspersed with, but not separated from, episodes of whichever novel he was currently consuming), the children’s general buoyancy and Jamie’s version of small talk which was never small, but rather took in the scope of the universe, from the smallest seed pod to far-flung galaxies. He had brought the children inside his gilded circle, that place of warmth and light which only he possessed in such measure, to make others feel as if they carried the glow into the world after time spent with him. She still stood on the edges of it, both warm and chilled in equal measure, because she could not quite leave her other self, her other life behind.

  She had announced her intention of moving her household back to her wee farmhouse in early February. Jamie had merely looked at her and made no comment.

  “Jamie.”

  “Yes?”

  “Just say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I can tell when you have something to say and aren’t sure how it’s going to be received,” she said drily, and took a sip of the rosehip tea Shura had insisted she drink each day since her illness.