Read Online The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) by Frank P. Ryan - Free Book Online Page A

trinity. Its grip long vanquished, yet such is its hold on the very landscape, it has endured.”
    Alan looked at his grandfather in bewilderment. “Is this guy insane, or what?”
    Padraig’s brow was deeply furrowed. “I’m not so sure. . . .”
    Kate cut in, “So how do we find out more about this . . . this power?”
    “I think you won’t have to look very far before the power finds you!”
    She sighed. “What on earth does that mean?”
    His face reddening with embarrassment, Alan said, “Grandad sees fate in everything that’s happening.”
    “Maybe he’s right, Alan.”
    Alan snorted. “We’re just like the butterflies and birds, following our instincts! That’s what you think. Isn’t it, Grandad?”
    “Four orphans! And you kid yourself it’s merely happenstance?”
    Kate countered, “Two orphans—and two adoptees!”
    Padraig stared at her, then glanced with a gentle sympathy at Mark and Mo. “Kate, both you and Alan assume that your parents were the victims of accidents, or deliberate killings by wicked people. But what if it was you yourselves who were the targets?”
    “But that . . . oh, for goodness’ sake—it’s ridiculous!”
    “Kate, were you not with your parents when they died? And Alan too! Weren’t you meant to be in the helicopter when it crashed?”
    Alan couldn’t help raising his voice in protest. “So how come we’re still here, then, Grandad?”
    “Maybe there were other forces protecting you?”
    “Aw, c’mon!”
    Mark shook his head. “I don’t know anything about what Mr. O’Brien is saying. But I can tell you that when Grimstone talks about our biological parents, he uses the past tense.”
    “You mean he knows they’re dead?”
    Mo was shaking her head violently.
    “I’m sorry, Mo, but he doesn’t say that your mother
is
a whore. He says she
was
a whore. Always the past tense.”
    Alan shook his head. “How—I mean, what . . . Aw, heck. I don’t rightly know what to think any more.”
    Mark shrugged. He looked at Padraig. “This force, I think you’re suggesting it’s got something to do with us? If so, can you tell us what we ought to do?”
    “Maybe it’s fitting to caution you that you’re standing in a wood where you can’t see the wood for the trees. If I were to advise you, and I’m not sure I even want to advise you, I would suggest you get above it.”
    Kate blurted, “Above what?”
    “Above what’s too close to your noses, young Kate!”
    “Above the world?”
    All four friends stared at Padraig as he shook his head at their lack of comprehension. He spun around a quarter circle and he lifted his face to the mountains that rose to the south of where they were gathered, their lower slopes cloaked in his own woods.
    Kate said, “You mean, above the Comeraghs?”
    “Not just these foothills. The proper mountains that lie behind them.”
    Kate stared up at the foothills, which seemed quite mountainous in themselves. She had lived in the shadow of the Comeraghs all her life but she had never attempted to climb them, not the real mountains.

On the Roof of the World
    Setting out before eight, they cycled the five or six miles to Ballymacarbry. They had planned it all the day before, with the best route highlighted on the Ordnance Survey map which traveled with them in Alan’s backpack. They took the turn for the Nire Valley. Then, in single file, with map-reader Alan leading, they cycled another three or so miles through the cool morning sunshine until they came to the bridge. After another twenty minutes of twisting and turning, they found their way to the parking lot at the base of the mountains, where they padlocked the bikes and started out on foot. Here, in the long shadows of morning, they sipped piping hot coffee from Kate’s mammoth thermos, high-fived with nervous laughs, and then set to climbing straight away.
    Of course not a single one of them really knew what they were doing here. On the compass, which was