The Reluctant Lark by Iris Johansen Read Free Book Online Page B

hitting her tear-streaked face. In that moment she was almost totally mindless, her only motivation that of an animal in pain looking for a dark place to hide. She was scarcely aware of the sobs that were shaking her. She flew down the hill past the landing strip into the forest beyond.
    She could hear Challon’s voice roaring her name as he crashed through the bushes behind her, but she continued streaking through the forest like a frightened gazelle pursued by a lion.
    Suddenly she stepped off the edge of the world and was falling into space! Then she was enveloped in waterso cold that it robbed her of all body heat and precious breath. Her velvet cloak was immediately drenched, and the weight pulled her helplessly beneath the deadly surface.
    She struggled desperately to fight her way back to the surface, but her sodden clothing was like a rock holding her down. She knew an instant of blinding panic as she realized incredulously that she was drowning. She was going to die. Perhaps she was already dying, for suddenly there was nothing but the icy darkness.
    If the darkness had remained, it would have been bearable, but there were suddenly brilliant colors that shifted like a kaleidoscope, the hues melting and running into each other until they finally turned into that stark, sterile white that she recognized with a chilling horror. Hospital white.
    “No, please!” she moaned, knowing what was to follow. For all the nightmares started like that. Then it was not a dream at all but reality once again.
    It had been raining that day five years ago, that light misting Irish rain that her uncle always referred to as angels’ tears. She’d been seventeen then and still at Saint Mary’s Convent outside Ballycraigh. It was a very good school and the nuns exceptionally protective of their charges. Perhaps if they’d been less zealous in that respect, everything would have been different, she had thought later.
    As it was, she’d heard nothing until her uncle had appeared at the mother superior’s office to take her to the hospital in Ballycraigh. She’d been dazed and disbelieving as she’d stared blindly out the car window at the spring rain that was bringing vibrant new life to the green, rolling fields they were passing. Life. But it was not life she was going to, but death. Rory was dying in that white, sterile bed in Ballycraigh Hospital.
    The tears were running down her face in a steadystream now. “Why, Uncle Donal?” she asked bitterly. “Why would he do it? Why would they let him do it? He’s only eighteen and has everything to live for.”
    Her uncle’s hand reached over to enfold her own in a warm, comforting clasp. “I don’t know, lass,” he said huskily, his own gray eyes suspiciously bright. “I didn’t even know he’d gotten politically involved at the university until I heard that they’d barricaded themselves in a classroom and were on a hunger strike. It was all so foolish,” he continued brokenly. “Only the very young would think that in forty-five days they could change conditions that have existed for eight hundred years.”
    “But you said that the rest of the students gave up after only three weeks,” Sheena said desperately. “Why didn’t Rory?”
    O’Shea shrugged helplessly. “You know how stubborn the lad can be when he sets his mind to something. He wouldn’t give up. And by the time they broke in, it was too late. He’d developed pneumonia and was burning up with fever.”
    “But he can’t be dying,” she said sobbing. “Not Rory.” Rory was the most joyously alive person she’d ever known. There was scarcely a moment when his dark eyes were not dancing with mischievous laughter or his lips curving in a smile from the sheer joy of living. “Why didn’t someone tell me?”
    Uncle Donal’s voice was grave. “I tried to keep you out of it, lass. The reporters are making a circus of the whole tragic mess. Believe me, if Rory had a chance, I’d never have brought you