Overcomer - The Battle - Judy Colella (best love novels of all time .TXT) 📗

about this? And why won’t you allow the doctor to be called?”

“I told you why, Joe.”

It was late Sunday afternoon; the night before, Croghan and Cian had come in at about ten thirty. Cian, while appearing quite tired, had nonetheless looked normal. But he hadn’t showed up for breakfast, and when one of the other boys had been sent to check on him, he’d come running back downstairs in a state of extreme agitation, shouting that he thought Cian was either terribly sick or terribly dead.

Mr. Geller had sprinted up to the boy’s room where he’d found Cian lying on his back in bed, unresponsive to being shaken, yelled at, pulled, his skin cold and ashen. Water was dripped on his face, but nothing – no reaction whatsoever. Geller was about to take out his cell and call 9-1-1, when another boy had come up to the room to tell him a Mr. Croghan was there to see him. He’d gone to the top of the stairs and called down into the foyer for his friend to join him.

To the social worker’s amazement, Gerald Croghan had only stared at the boy for a few minutes, frowning, put a hand on Cian’s forehead, and stood back, arms crossed. Then he’d told Geller to let him sleep, that he was experiencing a psychological episode – or something like that, which was incredibly vague, and which Joe hadn’t heard of before. But he’d never known his friend to be reckless, especially with someone else’s life, or wrong about anything. So he’d helped him get Cian under the covers (a sleeveless undershirt and boxers were hardly cozy winter sleepwear) and they’d let him be for the rest of the day. Now it was getting dark, and the boy hadn’t even changed his position. Croghan had made a few phone calls, but had stayed in the house, checking on Cian from time to time.

That was all the other man had done, and Joe was getting more than a little upset. “You did, but – ”

“Wait.” Croghan raised a hand for silence, and then, “Ah. There.”

Geller turned around again and stepped closer to the bed. Cian still hadn’t moved, but some color had begun to return to his face. A few minutes later, the boy took a deep breath and rolled onto his side, his back to them. Geller shook his head, astounded.

Croghan went around to the other side of the bed and sat down. He put a hand on the boy’s quilt-covered shoulder, and giving him a gentle shake said something in another language. A moment later, Cian murmured a few words back in the same tongue; Croghan nodded, satisfied, and got to his feet. “He’ll sleep normally now. Probably won’t wake up until the morning, but that’s good.”

“It is? Wh-well what happened to him? You promised earlier to elaborate on your theory, or whatever it is, and I’m still waiting.”

The Croghan looked away for a moment, jaw set, then replied, “When a person has experienced the kind of extreme cruelty that Cian has, every once in a while the mind... shuts down. Uh, a kind of living nightmare takes over and the person is completely unable to, er, come back, or fight past it – at least not for a long time. But eventually, the mind being the resilient thing it is, recognition of reality ‘powers up’ the paralyzed logic circuits, as it were, and the person slips back into REM sleep. And then he simply wakes up. In Cian’s case, the episode was so intense, it’s left him more tired than he was when it started, so now he has to sleep it off.”

“Wait – if he was having this really awful nightmare, wasn’t he already in a REM state?”

“No. This kind of dream goes much deeper into the psyche, which is why it’s so hard to escape.”

Joe nodded, almost understanding this somewhat bizarre explanation. “Okay. By the way, what language were you two speaking?”

“Gaelic.”

“He knows another language?” No one had told him the boy was bi-lingual.

“Actually, he knows six or seven, but he’s only really used English and Gaelic extensively throughout his life. Most of the others are ancient, so while he could probably still read them, I’m not sure he can converse in them anymore. Well!” Croghan ended brightly, “I have lots of things to do that I’m afraid I’ve had to neglect today, so I’ll be taking off.” He patted his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about Cian – he’ll be fine.” He turned to go, then turned back, “Oh, and don’t pester him about the language thing. It tends to bring back some rather sad memories.” He grinned and opened the door. “See you!”

And he went out, leaving Joe Geller gaping.

 

*******

 

Feeling like a store-window dummy, Katie Grandol stared at herself in the mirror. Dresses had never been her thing, even when she’d been small and her mother had put cute little lacy pink frocks on her when they were going out. For some reason, they bothered her. Babies have rarely been known to rebel against fashion, but Katie had. Within the first few minutes of being assaulted by a fluffy dress, the infant Katie had somehow managed to ruin it – by spitting up in amazing quantities, falling into the toilet, or dumping food on it – and had smiled happily as her poor mother, groaning with disappointment, had been forced to remove the offending garment.

Yet here she stood in Celeste Kelly’s bedroom, beholding herself in a delicate blue velvet dress with flowing green chiffon sleeves and a narrow, ice-green lace border around the neckline. At least it wasn’t pink.

“You look really, really beautiful!” Celeste exclaimed. “Your blonde hair is perfect with that shade of blue and the whole thing brings out your eyes – how could you not like it?”

Katie sighed, mildly disgusted, but not wanting to hurt her best friend’s feelings. “I don’t know; I guess I’m, like, so not used to seeing myself in a dress.”

“Well, I think you look incredible.” Celeste grinned and shouldered Katie out of the way so she could use the full-length mirror to finish putting up her hair. She had no problem with pink, but since everyone kept telling her it clashed with her reddish-gold hair, she’d resigned herself to wearing various shades of teal, pale greens, aqua, navy blue, black and grey, confining her pink-fix to night clothes and underwear only.

Eileen Kelly came to the open door, knocked once, and went in. “Are you girls ready yet?” she asked, taking in the unusual sight of Katie in a dress. “Wow, Katie! You really clean up nicely!”

“Uh-ha. . .uh-ha. You are so amusing, Mrs. K.”

Chuckling, the woman turned away, saying over her shoulder as she went out, “We’re leaving in five minutes – please be downstairs by then.”

Celeste put the last of the clips in her hair. “Okay, ready? Let’s go.”

When they were halfway down the stairs, Katie stopped. “Hold on. Do I have to wear a hat? I mean, are they, like, required in Church?”

“Not any more.”

“Good, ’cause hats – well, that would have been too much.”

Under normal circumstances, Katie spent her Sundays doing very little. Her family, unlike Celeste’s, had never been into the whole church thing except for a few years when she was younger. The Kellys, on the other hand, were devotedly Catholic, and wouldn’t dream of missing Mass – even after a Saturday like the one they’d had the day before.

Earlier in the week, Katie and Celeste had encountered the most amazing-looking young man they’d ever seen. The next day he’d showed up in class, introducing himself as Cian MacDara, and thus had begun the strangest sequence of events they’d ever experienced. It began in earnest with all the girls in school (including the female teachers of all ages) stumbling over themselves at the mere sight of this new boy. The next day, during a conversation with Cian after school, Celeste had suddenly found herself able to speak Gaelic without ever having understood a word of it before that moment. Perhaps strangest of all was that despite this boy’s looks, he turned out to be sweet, kind-hearted, soft-spoken…the opposite of what one might expect of someone that beautiful.

Meanwhile, Celeste’s father had purchased a harp, and during Celeste’s first lesson on Saturday, Cian had appeared at her door claiming to know the harp teacher. The rest of day had then been consumed by epic story-telling by both the harp teacher and Cian. This teacher, they learned, was a real bard who, like Cian, came not only from Ireland, but also from another century in the distant past.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, Celeste had begun to fall deeply in love with Cian, who had – at Katie’s prompting – realized his own feelings toward Celeste.

As a result of these unusual events, this Sunday was not normal. At the end of this bizarre day, Katie had been allowed to spend the night at Celeste’s, and was now going to church with the Kellys. Not a bad thing, really, since it had been decided that she, too, would be part of Celeste’s destiny with Cian and would probably be going to someplace called the Hub of Time. There she would meet an angel, and it had occurred to Katie that being able to say she’d been to church might be a good thing.

A normal Sunday for the Kellys included going to the stores after Mass, followed by a leisurely dinner out. But Mr. Croghan, the harp teacher, was supposed to come by at about two o’clock to take the girls to the Hub. So instead, they stopped after church for a quick lunch before heading home. Tara, Celeste’s little sister, had been sent to her friend Nadine’s house the day before. Her parents didn’t know where all this business with harpers and angels and Hubs was going, or if perhaps this man Gerald Croghan was some kind of lunatic. So as good parents, they’d kept Tara out of it and she had met them at church with Nadine’s family.

When they came in the door at one forty-five, the house phone was ringing; it was Mr. Croghan telling them he couldn’t make it at two, and wasn’t sure when he could.

“What’s wrong?” asked Eileen, who had gotten the phone.

“Cian isn’t, uh, he isn’t feeling well, so I wanted to be with him for a bit until he got better.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Kind of a long story, actually. I’ll try and get there at some point this evening if everything is all right, and I’ll explain it then.”

“That’s fine. Tell him we hope he feels better.”

“I – sure. I’ll tell him. Thanks for understanding, Mrs. Kelly.”

After hanging up, she stood still for a moment, tapping the floor with one foot, hands on her hips. That had been a very odd conversation, she thought.

“Mom?” It was Tara. “You look upset.”

“Hmm? Oh. No, honey, I was thinking about something.” Looking at her younger daughter, it occurred to her that maybe it was a good thing Mr. Croghan had cancelled. Considering how unbelievably unreal things had gotten the day before, she had to wonder what his presence in their house would bring this time.

“Is everything okay?” asked Celeste.

“Fine. Everything is fine. However, Mr. Croghan won’t be here this afternoon as planned. Seems Cian is ill, so I’m guessing he’s helping…whoever….take care of him? I really don’t know.” She sighed. “That man can be awfully cryptic.”

Katie and Celeste exchanged a glance, then pounded up the stairs to Celeste’s room. They secured the door from any incursions by Tara and – while Katie got out of the dress and into a pair of Celeste’s older jeans, a cable-knit white pullover and some warm shoes and socks – tried to figure out what could have happened to Cian. They concluded, and rightly so to a certain extent, that the retelling of his painful past had taken its toll on him.

Because it was Sunday, Katie had to