"Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (McGarry Terry)

"But they're afraid of you!" Bridget burst out, and at last Mr.
Fitzhugh turned to her.
"Let's hear from wee Bridget before we go off half-cocked," he said,
and looked down at her.
"This is Shay," she explained quickly, desperately. "He's my friend, I
met him on ascension day, he wouldn't hurt anyone. The clann took me away
because they were afraid you would try to take the land away again like in the
old times. But they're good people and they were nice to me. I can speak to
them--Mam, they speak Irish!--and the priest-king told me to bring you a peace
message, but--"
"Catholics." Mr. Hanlon spat the word into the turf. "I'd figured as
much. Macdonald, let's go--"
"You will not." Bridget's mother stood up slowly, and something in her
face made the others fall silent. "David Macdonald, the concern I've seen in you
for our daughter has made me wonder if we've quarreled for nothing all these
years. But you will not start this hell on earth all over again. Did we spend
five generations in a hole in the ground for nothing? During the Troubles they
used little bombs; have we not seen what the big ones do that we must start it
all again?"
"No one's talking about bombs, Mary," said Father uncomfortably, but
more gently than Bridget had ever heard him speak to her.
"Mrs. Macdonald has a point," said Mr. Fitzhugh. "I say we go to them,
respond to their peace offer, maybe even learn--"
Mr. Hanlon swore. "Walk right into their trap."
"It's been many years since we had soldiers, Jamie. It suits us badly
now. We're the foreigners up here." Mr. Fitzhugh scratched his beard and turned
to the crowd that had gathered. "Everyone here should get back to work. I'll
leave in an hour to take Bridget to Shay's people, try to make some sort of
agreement."
The crowd erupted into loud debate, but Bridget wasn't listening. She
helped Shay out of the metal cuffs and to his feet, then told him in Irish that
he had a home with her if his people wouldn't take him back. He nodded and
grinned his awful grin, and they turned together to Mr. Fitzhugh.
For that day, at least, there was no fighting, and Bridget refused to
be afraid even when her mother warned her not to hope too hard, that people were
difficult and sometimes did not keep their promises. That night in her own cot,
after hours of more talking than she had done in a lifetime, Bridget listened to
the patter of real rain on the shelter roof. "You believed in legends, and you
became one yourself, my wee changeling," her mother said as she fixed the
blankets around her. "I lost a human baby and had a fairy girl returned to me."
Through the window, Bridget watched the streaks of rain weave into gleaming
pools on the ground and hoped there would be a rainbow in the morning. In her
mind she traced a droplet's path back up into the sky, above which even her
imagination could not go.

Copyright й 1991 Terry McGarry