One Thousand Years to Forever Read Free Page A

her so she would be with him some day and possibly change
her. That way he wouldn’t have to go through eternity without his
mate any more.
    She looked up into his face and so
softly said, “Why?” Great sobs raking through her body.
“Why?”
    Katherine let her fist beat on the
chest of the man who had saved her. Then she let her head fall and
rest on his chest as she whispered “Why?”
     
    * * * * * * *
     
    Colum stood off in the distance
from the group of mourners as they lay John MacNamara to rest. It
was raining that morning but as they clustered around the grave
site, the sun came out and a rainbow seemed to be resting right on
the group of mourners. Colum watched as Katherine looked over at
him. Travis stood behind him. “She is still the same, Sir, still so
beautiful.”
    “ Yes, Travis, still beautiful. A
bruised rose but still beautiful.”
    Katherine spoke to her brother and
pointed to the man standing off to the side. “He’s the one who
carried me out of the building.”
    “ I want to go thank him and ask
him to come to our home.”
    Katherine looked over at the man,
she had never found out his name. She told her brother that that
would be fine. But when they looked again they were
gone.
    William O’Brien looked at his
sister and then at where the men had been standing. “They were
there weren’t they?”
    Katherine looked around. “Yes...
”
    As the service finished, the priest
walked up to her, saying a few quiet words. Katherine tried to
comprehend that it was truly over. When they left, her husband’s
coffin would be lowered down in the ground. But for the moment it
was still there. As the bagpipes started their mournful cry, their
sound reaching her ears and going up to the heavens as if to take
her husband’s soul away from her, Katherine shrugged off her
brother and father’s hands, and fell over the coffin crying. The
tears came hard. They tore from her as she cried and then screamed.
Then she beat on the coffin. She felt hands pulling at her. She
didn’t care. She would mourn as she wished. It was almost as if the
Priest understood because she heard him speak, ever so softly to
the men of her family, and they stopped bothering her.
    William O’Brien, one arm in a sling
and a cast on his leg, stood back from his sister like the Priest
had told him to do. He looked around to see if he would see that
giant again. Nothing. It was like that man and the one next to him
had disappeared into thin air.
    A scream rent the air. He was
jolted back to the present. His sister continued to beat the coffin
and scream.
    “ This can’t be happening to me...
you... us... come back to me, John! Come back!” She cried till she
thought she would just float away on the tears. Maybe that would
happen and she could go to be with him. She knew she wasn’t
thinking clearly but she didn’t care any longer. She just wanted
John. She didn’t try to hide how she felt as the bagpipes kept
playing.
    She lay there on the coffin and
then she felt another emotion. It wasn’t just sadness it was fury.
She wanted to find who was responsible, those who had killed her
husband and all the others... thousands. So many others were
mourning their loved ones. Not just her. She looked up and saw a
cameraman standing discreetly in the distance. She got up and
started to walk.
    William, their Dad, and Katherine’s
father-in-law all saw Katherine and saw the look in her eyes and
they knew someone was going to suffer if they didn’t
intercede.
    “ No, Kat... wait,” they said in
unison as they started to run after her.
    Katherine walked with a purpose
towards the small group of news people who now had a shocked look
on their faces wondering what was going to happen. An angry woman
was barreling towards them, with a group of men running after her,
calling her name.
    Katherine saw the man with the
camera back up as she approached at a fast clip.
    “ I want to make a statement,” she
said, while her family members stood