To Rise Again by Stewart Bint

Author:Stewart Bint [Bint, Stewart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Next Chapter
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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For a second, Louise forgot where she was. The first thought flashing into her mind was that it was much lighter than when she'd last had her eyes open. But this didn't look like her familiar bedroom. Light poured in through the vast expanse of glass stretching away to her left. A noise of some sort had snapped her awake. Perhaps it was her Mother coming to tell her it was time to get up. That was how she started most days.

Her legs felt strange. Almost numb. In fact, quite numb. The more she thought about her legs the nearer she came to screaming with pain. A red hot fire seared through them. Louise was on the verge of crying out when realisation washed over her. She sat cross-legged on the floor in Rose Gideon-Giles's laboratory. Her scream lay still-born on her lips as she listened silently for whatever had awoken her. Footsteps moved across the room. Footsteps which didn't have to keep quiet. Footsteps which belonged there.

Hardly daring to breathe, she inched her nose out beyond the confines of the cabinet. An electric light from a fitting in the ceiling aided the dawn sun.

Louise stiffened as the two sources of light combined to shine brilliantly on the back of the man who now stood at the cupboard on the opposite wall. He began to turn to face the room, and Louise shrank back into the obscurity of her shadowy corner. But it was long enough for her to recognise the bottle-green and black boots of the uniform he wore. She remembered clearly how many times her Father had told her to keep well away from men wearing such clothes if she came across them in the streets.

The jars and glass bottles and beakers rattled and clattered as he transferred them from the cupboard to the nearest bench. He put them down before turning back to the cupboard for more. Mechanically the process was repeated until the bench was full, and he then turned his attention to another cupboard containing bottles of liquid. Louise pressed up as far as she could into the wall, staring straight ahead at the equipment which had already been on the bench nearest to her when she had entered the laboratory.

She breathed a thankful sigh of relief that the German did not have to replenish the stocks on that bench, or she would be discovered, for sure. It seemed to Louise that her heart was pounding so loudly he must hear it, and the more she held her breath to quieten it, the louder and more furiously it seemed to beat.

Her Father's wrist-watch crept beyond ten minutes before the German left the laboratory. Now that her muscles were suddenly relaxed, Louise's breath came in stark, panting gasps, and she heaved the air in and out of her parched lungs with the greedy longing of a hungry wolf.

Sliding the sides of her shoes across the floor she slowly and painfully uncrossed her legs. They felt as if they belonged to someone else.

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