Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (89 page)

Above was a glassy sky, and below, the ocean—snorting white sea horses galloping into shore from America, tossing their tangled red-brown manes of seaweed, slick and oily and deep as a man was high. On the sand, oystercatchers danced in awkward hops with the delicate-legged sandpipers. It was evening and the light was fading from the land, shadow filling up the hollows and dips, clustering near the foot of rock walls and gathering softly against the base of the monuments to drowned fishermen that dotted the island.

“It’s going to storm,” Pamela said, stooping to fish a length of shipboard out of the grasping seaweed. They had spent much of the day in a narrow cove that protected them from the worst of the wind, even if it had been a precipitous climb to reach the small haven of sand and rock.

“How can ye tell?” Casey asked, giving the rolling breakers a suspicious look, as though he suspected the waves of harboring a force ten gale.

“I always get a metallic taste in my mouth when it’s going to storm. Right now my tongue tastes like iron.”

An uneasy
mmphmm
was Casey’s only reply. He was sitting on a large rock, intent on keeping his feet dry, casting mumbled aspersions at the water occasionally, and sketching the small shorebirds as they sorted amongst the grains of sand for avian treasure.

It was a rare day of fine weather and they were happy to leave the cottage, where the weather had confined them for the last four days. Casey had brought along paper and a pencil to make sketches of birds, from which he’d carve small figures so like that they would seem to be caught in the moment before flight, or in the cautious watchfulness they displayed around humans.

Pamela had occupied herself with the small wonders an ebb tide always left behind; the small, scuttling things, the diaphanous jellied creatures, the strange flotsam that was as foreign as vegetation from a distant planet. Now, tired but happy, lungs filled with briny air, lips tasting of salt, she watched Casey as he drew a solitary plover.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to your back?” she asked softly, resting her chin on his shoulder, fascinated as always by how he could render the essence of any bird in a few bold lines.

“Ye know what happened,” he said, squinting at the black-bellied bird that regarded him with its soft, large eyes, uttering a inquisitive
pee-a-wee
every few seconds.

“I know what,” she said, “but I don’t know why.”

“His name was Shane,” he began.

“Ah,” she said, beginning to see the
why
very clearly.

He paused to blow some warm air onto his fingers. “He was young an’ stupid. Lord above knows I’ve been in that state myself, an’ more than the once. I thought if I could spare him an experience of that sort it’d be no bad thing.”

“It was an incredibly foolish and brave thing to do.”

He shook his head, resuming the fine pencil strokes that conveyed the ephemeral quality of the bird in the half-light. “There’s some that could take it an’ be stronger for it an’ then there’s others it would break permanently. I knew the lad was of the latter school an’ I’d not rest easy with myself if I let it happen.”

“And you of the former school,” she said, watching another timber make its way toward the foaming shore.

He gave an eloquent shrug. “A man is made how he is, an’ there’s only so much he can do about it.”

“Don’t you ever feel fear?”

“Aye, plenty, but ye can use it to yer advantage most times. It’s when ye let it go to yer head that yer in trouble. But I know the taste of it, to be certain,” he said grimly.

“What does it taste like?”

“Tastes a wee bit like blood, actually,” he said, rolling up his paper and tucking it along with the pencil inside of his coat. “Salty an’ coppery. Bit like yer storm tongue. Speakin’ of which we’d best head back, I don’t like the look of those clouds.” He nodded toward the western sky, which had gone from a soft, goosedown gray to an ominous ochre black. He jumped down from his perch. “Come on with ye woman, let’s collect yer bits of wood an’ go.”

She’d left the planking neatly piled at one end of the small cove, knowing it would do nicely to keep the cottage warm, should the coal run out before the next boat was due in to the island.

“I can’t help but think that our gain is someone’s loss,” she said, hefting three of the broken spars into Casey’s outstretched arms.

“Sometimes I think that’s the way of all life, Jewel,” he replied seriously, “that a gain for one man is always a loss for another.”

She looked down at the timber, flecks of green paint still visible in the grain. “Do you think they drowned or were rescued?”

Casey didn’t answer, for just then the metallic taste on his wife’s tongue bore itself out and a swathe of rain-filled wind smacked into them.

“We’d best move quick,” he said, shouldering the timber and starting up the narrow ravine that led off the strand onto the stark headland above. She followed behind him, feet feeling for the worn grooves in the limestone, as the darkness had moved in with such startling suddenness that they couldn’t see more than a couple of feet in front of them.

By the time they reached the top of the cliff the storm had trebled in intensity, the wind a vicious scour that turned the rain into stinging stones, their clothes a soaked mass that dragged at their limbs.

“We’ll have to dump the wood,” Casey yelled, “an’ make a run for shelter.”

They soon lost all sense of direction as the wind lashed ever harder, throwing the rain in vicious horizontal streams, visibility down to a scant few inches and the possibility of finding their cottage in the uproar quickly taking on the appearance of insanity.

The wind had become a living thing, a screaming legion of witches abroad on the night, kicking up sand and dirt and swirling it in a mad dance that choked the very breath from their lungs. Disaster and confusion loomed on all sides, and Pamela knew they wouldn’t be the first to stumble off the cliffs to a sure death in such a storm. Panic clutched at her intestines, starting a shaking along her skin that she couldn’t control. She stopped suddenly, causing Casey to lurch, his coat still clutched tight in her grasp.

He put his mouth to her ear and yelled, the force of the wind such that it was only half-intelligible, “—is it? We can’t stop—or we—”

She shook her head mutely, terrified to move another step for fear they’d step out into nothing, blind and senseless. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, no doubt sensing her fear, giving her what small shelter his body could provide.

She saw them suddenly as if from above, two fragile creatures at the mercy of the elements, small and inconsequential within such an ancient landscape. And in the midst of all the darkness and fear, two words, “Trust me.” She swallowed over the taste of fear and nodded. Casey must have felt her movement, for he took her hand tightly in his own and pulled her along as they continued on their perilous journey.

It might have been a minute or an hour later, when he halted abruptly and yelled over the clamor, “There’s a light, at least I think it is—keeps blinkin’ in an’ out. We’ll head that way, best as I can manage. Don’t let go of my hand whatever ye do!”

Pamela held on for dear life, stumbling across the stone strewn field behind him, wind shoving at their backs like an angry beast that would not be satisfied until it had driven them completely from the land.

They almost missed the cottage, and if Casey hadn’t walked straight into the tiny outbuilding that lay behind it, they likely would have stumbled clear across to the eastern shore. They had to feel their way back to the main cottage. There were no windows in back and so no telltale light shone forth. There was merely an impression of something of substance and form looming in the dark ahead of them. They found the north wall and followed it around to the west face to be presented with a door.

“Thank Christ,” Casey said with great sincerity. He knocked hard against the door. It flew back suddenly, startling them both, though hardly more than the apparition that stood beneath the lintel. She was eye level with Casey, long bony feet bare, iron-streaked hair whipping about her face. Pamela recognized her from her own nightly walks. A ghostly figure that stood on the cliff tops looking out to sea each and every night. She had frightened Pamela half out of her wits the first time she saw her. Her voice however, acidic as over steeped tea, soon banished any notion of pale seaweedy wraiths.

“Will ye stand there all night, or do ye intend to come in?” she asked, as if it were a mild Sunday and they’d been expected for tea hours ago. Casey pulled Pamela by the hand in over the doorstep.

The interior of the cottage was small, but its warmth and light was welcome to their thoroughly chilled skins. The wind still shrieked like a mad thing against the doors and windows, but the thick walls paid little mind.

“Come, yez had best get yer wet things off an’ sit close in to the fire,” the woman said, placing two reed-backed chairs in front of the roaring hearth. “Here, give me yer sweaters, I’ll hang them to dry.”

They handed over their sopping sweaters gratefully and sat in the proffered chairs. The fire was built high and bellowed heat into the tiny room. Their clothes began to let off wisps of steam immediately. Pamela chanced a look around the tiny room, curiosity about the old woman who walked the cliffs at night taking the upper hand over the receding fear.

Softly furred shapes moved in the corners, stretched and retracted to their nests on cushions and bits of furniture. One cat, missing both an eye and an ear, sat, orange fur puffed out, on the top of an upturned barrel. He winked his one big golden eye at Pamela, looking for all the world like a battered pirate king. The firelight threw wavering, distorted shadows on the walls, making the atmosphere fitting to a woman the villagers called witch. A china cabinet stood against one wall, filled with broken crockery and what looked like a wide variety of bent and rusted fish hooks.

“Ye’ll take tea,” the woman said emphatically, startling Pamela. “Ye’ll need it to take the frost out yer bones. I’m Nuala,” she added, as a kitten leaped from atop a highboy onto her shoulder, its yellow eyes gleaming out from the shanks of her hair.

“Aye, we’ll take the tea an’ be grateful for it. I’m Casey an’ this is my wife Pamela. We’re much obliged to ye for lettin’ us in out of the storm.”

“And what do be the name of yer people?”

Casey had barely opened his mouth to reply when Nuala fixed them with a hard gimlet eye, as though she suspected them of having come to thieve and pillage.

“Yer not Bean people, are ye? I hold no truck with such folk.”

Nuala must belong to the O’Bradaigh side of the island war, Pamela thought. It dated back more than a hundred years to the wreck of a Spanish galleon, and just who had the rights to the spoils. The two families had been in a mostly silent but deadly serious war since then. Pamela, having been filled in vigorously by Mrs. Sparks, whose two stout legs held firmly to the Bean side of the Island’s divide, had told Casey the story in its entirety the night before. To which his reply had been, “Jaysus Murphy, an’ they call us Northmen crazy.” However, he chose to exercise more tact at present and replied in a tone that could leave no doubt upon the matter, “No, we are not.”

“Well that’s good then. I’d not let them as is drink from my cups, but as yer not ye’ll do.” She rattled the kettle vigorously, as if to say that had they the grievous misfortune to be Bean people, she’d have finished them off here and now, with a good wallop from the copper-bottomed pot.

“Michael,” she called out suddenly, “I’m puttin’ on the tea, for we’ve company, will ye be wantin’ a jot of something warmer in yer own, man?”

Pamela looked about bewildered, the cottage appeared empty but for the three of them. Casey bit his bottom lip and shook his head ever-so-slightly at her. This only served to mystify her further, but she held her tongue, not wanting to offend, nor ask questions that didn’t seem likely to have a simple answer.

From the rear, Nuala looked like an angular and exotic bird, all flapping multi-colored cloth and sharp bones. Above her head, the light and shadow mingled like goblins dancing round about a bonfire. Pamela was reminded sharply of the image she’d always held of Yeats’s Crazy Jane in her head.

The kettle was merrily upon the boil, but Nuala poured out a mugful of a suspiciously dark liquid from a pot occupying the other half of the stove. To this, she added the ingredients of two different bottles that lined the shelf above the ancient cooker.

“This one’s yers,” she said, presenting the brew to Pamela with an unyielding hand and firm look. Pamela gingerly took the mug and eyed it with deep misgiving; it looked like builder’s tea, left to stew itself black and scummy the whole day.

“I’ve put a pinch of pepper in yers as well as a drop of the ginger,” Nuala told Pamela, “ye look to takin’ cold.”

She drew forth a small bottle from her skirts, filled with a honey-bronze liquid. The green and gold label, with its band of Celtic knotwork, made it instantly recognizable as Connemara Mist. Casey looked like a man who’d just caught a glimpse of redemption.

“Michael is after wantin’ a wee nip of the bold stuff in his tea, are ye so inclined yerself?” she asked. Casey, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, held his cup forth. Pamela looked longingly at the whiskey bottle before taking a tentative sip out of her own mug. If possible, it actually tasted worse than it looked, and she bit down hard on the inside of her lip to stop herself from spitting it directly back out.

Nuala herself dispensed with tea entirely and filled her china cup with a good few ounces of the ‘bold stuff’. She then put it to her lips and swallowed the entirety of it without flinching. Casey looked suitably impressed. Pamela heroically took another swallow of her tea and shot Casey a filthy look, which he replied to by saluting her with his mug before downing its contents, Nuala-fashion, in two neat swallows.

Nuala faced the mantel now and seemed to be speaking directly to a pair of skulls in a low murmur which had the rhythm of a crooning lullaby. When she turned back toward Casey and Pamela she cradled a skull delicately in each hand, held out towards them like a queen presenting her court.