Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (72 page)

And the feel of water, its chill so prescient that it was like needles pouring through and around his skin. He realized suddenly that the feeling was not memory, but that he stood, knee-deep in cold, rippling silver. He gasped, unable to remember the last time he’d felt something—any element, so deeply, so clearly. He opened his eyes, looked down, looked deep and saw something glimmer there, sparkling like a delicate trill of laughter. Instinctively he reached for it but it shattered and scattered in a thousand different directions beneath and between his fingers.

‘Never could keep ye clean or dry for long, boy,” said a voice that was part of his very cells.

‘Da,’ he tried to say, tongue dry as sand and working against a throat swollen with fear.

“Walk with me, boy. The night is fine for it.”

“I can’t, I’m hurt,” he said.

“The rules don’t apply here son, just put one foot in front of the other, ye’ll do fine.”

And suddenly he was walking, a high road thick with the scent of late summer clover and a moist salt wind. It seemed to him as though they walked forever and the road did not end, and yet it also seemed only seconds before his father stopped.

They stood upon the crest of a hill, the road running off into the horizon, through mountain and stream, across field and wood.

“Do ye remember I once told ye that the sky above yer head an’ the earth below yer feet were sometimes all ye would have, an’ that it would have to be enough?”

“Aye, I remember all ye ever told me Da’.”

“I was wrong to say that. The truth is, all ye’ll ever need is in yer hands.”

Casey looked down in startlement realizing that some small weight was indeed cradled in his hands. A tiny seed, blue green in color, nestled there.

“As small as a seed, as large as the universe—call it love, call it spirit. None can take it from ye, an’ ye don’t allow it. An’ that, boy, is sometimes all ye’ll have, but it will always be enough.”

Casey peered up through the darkness of the night, seeking his father’s face, but a thick mist shrouded it and he could not see Brian well at all.

“I miss ye Da’,” he said, sensing his presence even if he could not see him.

“And I you, Patrick as well,” his father said simply. “Ye’ll have been angry when I died. I left ye with a big burden to carry. It wasn’t how I’d have chosen to have ye find yer manhood.”

“Aye,” Casey admitted, “I was angry for a long time, I didn’t understand. I felt ye’d been careless.”

Brian brushed a gentle thumb along his cheekbone. “I don’t expect ye to understand, don’t myself at times, but I think it’s a bit like Van Gogh said.”

“What do ye mean?”

“He wrote a letter to his brother Theo an’ said that he thought disease was like a ticket on a train to the stars, to die of old age meant ye’d walked there on foot. Same destination, different speeds. I suppose what I’m sayin’ is we’re all meant to get there in our own time. My ticket came up long before I expected is all.” His father’s voice was beginning to drift apart like the smoke from a dying fire.

“Da’ I can’t hear ye well.” Casey felt panic building in his chest, he didn’t know the way back without his father’s hand to guide him.

“Don’t take yer life for granted, that’s all.”

“I don’t Da.”

“Look down son, look at yer hands.”

He looked down into his palms and saw light, innumerable and uncountable, light clear and swift, breathtaking in its purity.

“Yer holdin’ stardust laddie, be careful not to spill it,” Brian said, words no more than a whisper, a sound of the sea in the great distance or the wind through the leaves on a summer night.

The light began to rise into the air, starring the night that surrounded them with a million fireflies...

“Daddy,” he whispered, throat paining with all the words he couldn’t seem to say. He took Brian’s hand, wanting to feel safe, to know once again the broad strength and reassurance of it around his own. But it didn’t feel right, the bones were too fine and short, not like his da’s. He looked up quickly, panic already thick and clotting in his veins to find that he could no longer see Brian’s face. “Daddy, don’t go!” he screamed, but knew that there was no sound, only the clamoring inside his skull.

“It’s alright man, it’s alright, yer just havin’ a bad dream—where’s the damn cloth gone to?”

Casey tried to keep hold of the dark, of the dream, but it slid through his grasp like stars at dawn, fleeting and seemingly unreal. It wasn’t his father’s voice in his ear, not his father’s hand stroking the hair back from his face.

He tried to sit up but the pain was immediate and nauseating, causing him to collapse at once.

“Just lay still, man,” the voice above him said, and he realized he’d been dreaming, his father gone like smoke against wind, as if he’d never existed. Something hot and scalding surged at the back of his throat.

“Christ get the pail, he’s goin’ to be sick,” said Matty’s voice—just Matty.

Matty was right, he was sick, though there was little in his stomach to get rid of. Every heave started a ripple effect of pain. His ribs felt like they were being scraped with shards of glass and his back felt like one big raw wound. The nausea finally ebbed, leaving him weak as a newborn kitten. Matty wiped his face gently with the wet cloth.

“Thank Christ, man, we were worried ye were never goin’ to wake.”

Casey opened one eye, the effort sapping what little strength he had left. The room spun like a top and he abruptly shut the eye again. His back stung like a thousand fires, and he could feel the tightness of freshly wealed scars. He wanted nothing more than to pass back into oblivion for the foreseeable future.

“Don’t move too much,” Matty said, patting the back of his head gently. “Declan checked ye over an’ two of yer ribs are broke. He strapped ‘em as best he could, but he had to be careful of the open cuts on yer back. They made a right mess of ye, boy, but Declan says ye’ll heal up nice an’ be right as rain in a few weeks. Mayhap there’ll be a few more scars but as yer not a lassie, we didn’t think it’d matter so much to ye.”

From the way Matty was babbling Casey knew he must be in even worse shape than he himself had suspected.

“Quit cluckin’ Matty, yer makin’ me dizzy. Be honest—how bad is it?”

“Pretty bad,” Matty admitted.

Casey cracked an eye again; the room was wobbly but not spinning. “Where are we?”

“Infirmary,” Matty said. “Declan an’ Roland packed ye here an’ Roland has slept across the door every night, refusin’ to let the bastards in, an’ Declan’s not had more than a wink or two.”

Declan hove into view. “Wasn’t goin’ to let the bastards touch ye if it could be helped. We demanded a doctor brought in from town.”

“That’s unprecedented,” Casey said. “How long have I been out?”

“Three days,” Declan answered, “we kept ye doped so ye’d not wake. Thought it best that way. Ye’ve a few stitches in yer back an’ the rest is only skinned over, so ye’ll have to stay still as best as ye can manage.”

Casey drifted out again, hearing snatches of an argument between Declan and Roland over whether lapsed Catholics—after a suitable stint in Purgatory—would be allowed into heaven. Matty was smoothing some kind of smelly ointment onto his back and the pain had settled to a low ebb. They must have given him something, he felt as though all his edges were blurred and even the long open channels in his back were undefined.

The next time he surfaced, he discovered the Sergeant had been ‘removed’ from the ship less than twenty-four hours after the flogging.

“Think the wee Scot had somethin’ to do with that, what happened didn’t seem to his taste,” Declan said. “Mind we’d not have allowed the bastard near to ye again. Told them we weren’t leavin’ ye in the infirmary alone, not after what they’d done to ye. Once we got in here, they locked it down an’ we’ve been here ever since. Could ye stand a cup of tea, laddie?”

Casey had managed a weak nod, though when the tea arrived he had to drink it through a straw that the men had pulled from the medical supply cupboard. Even at that he only managed four sips before passing out again.

When next he woke it was night and only Matty was awake. He could hear the buzz saw of Roland snoring, and heard Declan muttering in his sleep. The noises made him feel oddly safe. Matty was reading, a small light hovering over the book.

“Thank ye for lookin’ after me,” Casey said, throat raspy and dry from the drugs and the three-day slumber. “I appreciate it, my da’ always said ye were a kind man.”

“Did he then?” Matty said, sounding pleased. “Yer da’ was a kind man as well, always looked after anyone weaker than himself.”

“He said it was a man’s duty to look after those that couldn’t do for themselves. He never questioned it, nor blamed them for their weakness; he just did what he felt necessary.”

“Like his son that way, I’d say.”

“I don’t feel so strong right now,” Casey said quietly.

“No, I don’t imagine that ye do, lad, but yer made of a finer mettle than I’ve seen in many a year. Yer da’ would be proud.”

“No, he’d think me a pigheaded fool.”

“Aye well laddie, seems to me the two things are much the same at times.”

The pages of Matty’s book rustled as he leaned forward to hold a straw to Casey’s lips. The water was fine as champagne on his tongue, but he drank it too quickly and began to cough. The pain was instant and fiery.

“Not so quick lad,” Matty admonished. “Yer body can’t afford to cough just yet.”

The bout of coughing left him weak and dizzy. He closed his eyes and found himself fighting tears, broken down as he was physically he found his emotions equally fragile.

“Yer da’ once told me ye reminded him strong of his own da’, that he saw the same strengths in ye an’ the same capacity of spirit.”

“Did he?” Casey asked.

“He did.”

“I hope I can be half the man he was someday, I’d not like to think I’d let him down too badly.” Casey shivered, the skin of his back was so sensitive the slightest move in the air currents raised a sheathe of goosebumps on him.

“Are ye cold, lad?”

“Aye, a bit.”

Matty laid a sheet of gauze over his back then drew a blanket carefully over top of it. “I think I’ll take a wink or two lad, do ye mind if I turn the light out?”

“No, I don’t mind.” The dark settled over the room like the touch of a mother’s hand, soothing and peaceful.

Matty settled with a rustle into his own narrow cot and Casey could hear the quiet click of his rosary beads begin. The man always prayed before sleep. He began to pray himself, but kept losing the thread of what he wanted to say in the pull toward unconsciousness.

When Matty spoke, the words seemed to come from a great distance, though he could hear every one.

“Yer da’ was a rare man, an’ I’ll admit I was drawn to ye for the sake of his memory at first.” Matty was quiet for a long space, and Casey thought he’d fallen asleep until his voice, quiet and soft, came once again through the dark. “But I’ve stayed near for the sake of the man I found in his son.”

SHANE’S FACE WAS NOT MARKED, but the boy moved with a hesitant stiffness that told Casey he’d paid for the flogging in his own manner. Still, what had happened here with these men was less severe than what the boy would have suffered at the hands of the soldiers. Casey was glad to have spared him that. And now that he’d been taught his lesson in their own language, there was a chance they might forgive him.

On Casey’s first night back in the hold with the other men, he was hard put to find sleep. All the men had greeted him jovially, faces tight with smiles they did not feel. They were afraid now, each man realizing he could be culled from the relative security of the group and broken on the wheel of isolation. He was the embodiment of their worst fears. It was silent, the men pretending to sleep, the nightly sharing of stories and life experiences bypassed in their discomfort. Only the occasional hiccoughing snuffle broke the quiet, coming from the vicinity of young Shane’s bunk.

He could hear the men rustle in the dark, making unnecessary noise to cover the sound of the boy’s crying. They would both hate and pity him, and yet knew the tears were of little use, for there would always be more to cry. Most of the men here had been incarcerated before and, though not fond of the situation, were wearily resigned to it. No Irish Republican was a stranger to the interior of a prison cell. But Casey remembered what it had been like as a boy, the fear that took you hard in the knees and belly, turning your intestines to water. There had been no one to comfort him and he’d never been more alone in his life. He sighed and sat up, pulling the threadbare blanket tight around his shoulders, and leaned against the wall, knobs of riveted steel cold and hard against his spine. There’d be no rest for him until the boy found some peace, and perhaps a bit of hope to hang onto.

His voice slipped a bit on the first few words and then found itself and continued on, gaining in strength as the notes slid off his tongue.