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Back The Nest Save as PDF
Chapters (82)
  1. Cover
  2. Copyright page
  3. Introduction by Will Errickson
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. TREMORS
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. SUSPICIONS
  13. 1
  14. 2
  15. 3
  16. 4
  17. 5
  18. DREAD
  19. 1
  20. 2
  21. 3
  22. 4
  23. 5
  24. 6
  25. WITNESS
  26. 1
  27. 2
  28. 3
  29. ALERT
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. ENCOUNTER
  36. 1
  37. 2
  38. 3
  39. 4
  40. 5
  41. 6
  42. HAVOC
  43. 1
  44. 2
  45. 3
  46. 4
  47. 5
  48. 6
  49. SEARCH
  50. 1
  51. 2
  52. 3
  53. 4
  54. 5
  55. CLASH
  56. 1
  57. 2
  58. 3
  59. 4
  60. 5
  61. 6
  62. 7
  63. COUNTERATTACK
  64. 1
  65. 2
  66. 3
  67. 4
  68. 5
  69. 6
  70. 7
  71. VICTORY
  72. 1
  73. 2
  74. 3
  75. 4
  76. 5
  77. 6
  78. 7
  79. 8
  80. 9
  81. EPILOGUE
  82. About the Author

“No,” Hubbard stated again. “We fired the nest.” He added sadly, “We had to burn the Cannon house, too, I’m afraid, but we had no choice.”

Elizabeth took it unhappily. She recognized the necessity, knew it bitterly, but the house had meant so much to her as a child. To all of Yarkie it was a symbol of the wealth and security of the island.

Security? Not in the universe of Nature’s whims, Elizabeth considered astringently. The reality of life was not lovely houses on High Ridge but earthquakes, tidal waves, cyclones, volcanoes, meteors, epidemics, massacres—mutated insects!

Elizabeth Carr groaned inwardly with her own confrontation of Nature’s indifference to the individual. Now the Cannon house was gone, as Hildie and the girls were gone. Sic transit gloria, and all vanity. How grievously true we find those old clichés to be, the woman contemplated unhappily.

But she should be thankful that she herself was safe, after giving herself up for lost. Peter Hubbard was her renewal in so many ways. It seemed she was to be granted the years she had thought were eternally gone. She, prayerfully, would never forget how closely death had come to ending it all. She would praise God—even while asking endlessly in the recesses of her soul how and why He came to create such evil. Job’s never-­answered question, she remembered as her tired eyes closed in welcome sleep again.

EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE

On the Jessica sailing spankingly to Chatham a week later, Bonnie Taylor was at the wheel under Captain Johnson’s fond supervision. The woman’s eyes were bright with the pleasure of handling the boat, but her mind would never be free of the remembrance of human vulnerability, and her heart never free of the soul-­reaching smile of Craig Soaras.

Elizabeth Carr and Dr. Peter Hubbard stood aft watching the bowler-­hat outline of Yarkie Island recede into the haze of the horizon. The sailing was pleasant, the ocean was as easy this day as it had been murderous during the northeaster. The open blue above seemed a lighter color than usual, as if the sky itself were drifting higher, upward into outer space.

Gazing back at Yarkie, the woman felt as if she were leaving another planet, returning to earth. It was a fearsome paradox that the island she had loved so deeply should now forever be an alien place.