Rainbow's End by Katie Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

happened, if she didn’t run outside?’
    ‘She went deeper,’ Fidelma said simply. ‘And she didn’t come back. We had no light, it was dark as pitch in there, so after a little time, Maura went to look for her. And when they hadn’t come back by first light, Roisin and I went down to the passage, callin’, weepin’, beggin’ them to answer us.’
    ‘How far down did you go?’ Grainne asked. ‘I nearly came down . . .’
    ‘T’ank the good Lord that you didn’t,’ Fidelma said piously. ‘For though we got t’rough the passage safe enough, it comes out near a great, rushin’ underground river, like Dadda always said it did. We felt around, Roisin an’ me, hopin’ to catch a holt of one of the others, but there was nothin’. It’s my belief that earlier, when they went down, the river was floodin’, an’ took them.’
    ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Grainne said. ‘For that river comes up to the surface and then goes underground again all across the Burren. I’ve heard Dadda say so many a time. Oh, Fid, thank God that you an’ Roisin didn’t venture too far!’
    ‘Then . . . then you t’ink poor Maura’s drowned as well?’ Fidelma said, her voice a whisper. ‘I hoped they’d be carried above ground an’ spat on to dry land . . . oh, if only I’d kept a holt of them, Grainne! If only I’d not let go, once we were in the cavern.’
    ‘You couldn’t know what would happen,’ Grainne said. ‘When Dadda’s stronger we’ll go out and search the place. The boys haven’t come back yet, I suppose?’
    ‘Not yet,’ Fidelma said. ‘You’ve brought food though, Grainne – shall we try to light a fire and make somet’ing hot for Dadda?’
    Before night fell, the boys came home, shamefaced, shivering. Sean had a bruise the size of a cooking apple on his brow and Kieran had a four-inch slash right across the crown of his head where a plank had fallen on him when the stable collapsed, but they were all right, they assured their sister. The two of them had been nearer the Caseys’ cabin when the hurricane started, so they had sought shelter there. It had been all right at first, they had clustered round the fire with the Casey family, telling stories and joking, but then the cabin had simply fallen about their ears, which was how they had come by their wounds.
    ‘We were a sight,’ Sean said. ‘Black as ink from the mud, Grainne, an’ wet as mermaids. Where’s Maura? She’s all right, isn’t she?’
    ‘She hasn’t come home,’ Grainne said slowly. ‘You didn’t see . . . anything . . . as you came along?’
    ‘Not a t’ing,’ Sean said, with Kieran echoing it. ‘Only dead sheep, dead rabbits, dead bords . . .’
    Fidelma, listening, put her hands over her face and turned away, and Grainne hastened to comfort her. ‘It’s all right, Maura’s a sensible girl,’ she said, hugging the younger girl. ‘We’ll find her, I know. You see if we don’t.’
    But they did not.
    It was spring in the Burren and the limestone crags were bright with spring flowers. The Feeney farmhouse, however, was still roofless. It looked untenanted and indeed it was about to become so, for the Feeneys, with their small possessions in a handcart which Paddy had knocked up with bits of plank from the stable, were leaving.
    They had spent the first few days after the hurricane searching the countryside for their possessions and had found some of the things which the wind had snatched so cruelly from them on that terrible night. Their haystack had gone, whirled away to land, no doubt, on someone else’s property, but they foraged further afield and found hay, gathering it up in their arms and carrying it home, to lay it in the bit of roofed shelter which they had made, for bedding, warmth . . . even to get a fire lit.
    They found some pans, dented and filthy, but not past repair. And rags of clothing, some torn blankets . . . not theirs, but ‘refugees’ from some other