Sara Mitchell - Legacy of Secrets

Abby glanced ruefully down. Her own cloak covered all but the tips of her boots. “The pastor’s wife gave this one to me several years ago, before I came here. She was taller than I am, but I was grateful to have a cloak at all.”

“Hmm. I have an idea,” Neala announced, fingers flying as she dumped shoulder satchel and canteen, then proceeded to unbutton her cloak. “We’ll switch. I’m taller than you are, so my cloak will fit you better. Yours won’t hang down to the ground, so neither one of us will have to worry about tripping.”

“Neala, I didn’t mean…”

“I know. But I do. So hurry up. We have to be back by three, remember.”

Forty minutes later they paused for breath, giggling at each other because a strong wind had forced them to pull the cloaks’ hoods over their heads and Neala announced they looked like a pair of phantoms floating down the cliff.

“Does add a bit of drama to our outing, doesn’t it?” Abby said, giving a little shiver. “The wind creates all these rustling sounds, but we can’t see anything much to the side, or behind us. There might be a bear about to pounce, or a wolf who mistakes one of us for Red Riding Hood.”

“We’ll wallop ’em with our walking sticks—oh, fiddle-faddle. My shoelace caught on these briars. Here—I’ll sit on this rock and untangle it.”

“Be careful. Those thorns are vicious. Want me to help?”

“I’ve got it. Why don’t you go on ahead? This is the section where we have to go single file anyway. I’ll be along in two shakes of a flea’s whisker.”

Abby nodded agreeably, and a moment later disappeared around a jutting boulder the size of a house. Neala only faintly heard the sound of her boots scraping over the stones. She hurriedly yanked at the laces, jerked when a thorn stabbed through her glove. Then her fumbling efforts caused the laces to knot. Several moments had evaporated by the time she retied her boots and set off after Abby. Impatient with the delay, Neala had to resist the urge to leap down the cliff like a mountain goat instead of exhibiting the common sense Miss Isabella prized so highly.

“Abby? Here I come!” she called, just as a gust of wind buffeted her back and shoulders. From somewhere above she heard a crunching, grating sound, like stone grinding against stone. Neala tossed her head in a vain effort to clear wisps of hair out of her eyes, at the same time fumbling for one of the handholds Liam had carved. Drat this wind, but it was difficult to see, between her wretched hair and the hood. “This wind is dread—”

An explosion of sound, as if a giant had just wrested one of the cliff boulders loose and hurled it over the side of the mountain, kicked the word back down her throat.

The path! Abby! Neala’s heart lurched, pounded in sickening hard beats as she scrambled, slipping and reckless, down the trail, ripping her glove, tearing fingernails as she desperately fought to keep her balance on the steep, rock-infested path.

“Abby! Answer me! Abby! Did you see—” Gasping, she skidded to a trembling halt. “Father in heaven…Jesus, blessed Lord, help me.” The agonized prayer died as Neala froze, not wanting to believe.

Abby lay sprawled in an unmoving heap on the only level part of the trail, her body completely covered by the rippling folds of Neala’s cloak. All around her lay chunks of shattered stone. As though from a great distance Neala heard a faint splash—the remains of the falling boulder hurling itself into the river.

She didn’t remember rushing to Abigail’s side, didn’t remember much of anything but the sound of roaring in her ears as she knelt beside her friend and with shaking hands pulled the cloak away from Abby’s head. When Abby stirred, then moaned, breath and sound and color spewed through Neala in a flood tide. She gasped Abby’s name, tears leaking from her eyes as she gently, carefully turned her over and stuffed Abby’s cloak beneath her head. Sluggish blood oozed from a gash just above the other woman’s eyebrow, but after a frantic search Neala found no other signs of blood, no other evidence of injury or a broken bone. Praise be to heaven above, but apparently she’d only suffered a glancing blow.

Abby’s hand jerked, and her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times, then winced. “N-Neala? Did…I…What happened?”

“Shh…You’ll be all right. You’re alive…Thank You, Lord! Oh, Abby…you’re alive.” One hiccupping sob escaped before Neala managed to throttle the wild emotion clamoring inside. Tenderly she laid her hand against her friend’s chalk-white cheek. “The Lord worked overtime today, dearest. Somewhere above us, a boulder dislodged and fell. Probably loosened from all the rain we’ve been having.” She struggled to catch a breath. “You s-seem to have been in its way. But you’re alive. I don’t know what I would have done…I couldn’t have borne it, Abby…If you’d waited with me instead of going ahead…”

Abby’s cold hand crept across to brush Neala’s. “Do…hush,” she whispered, her voice clear but weak. “I’m just glad it didn’t…squash me like a bug.” A faint smile barely lifted the corners of her mouth. “But I think—I think you better…blow the whistle?”

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