“Claire,” he said softly. “I must say something.”
I knew already, and groped for his mouth to stop him, but my hand brushed by his face in the dark. He gripped my wrist, and held tight.
“If it will be a choice between her and one of us—then it must be me. Ye know that, aye?”
I knew that. If Geilie should be there, still, and one of us might be killed in stopping her, it must be Jamie to take the risk. For with Jamie dead, I would be left—and I could follow her through the stone, which he could not.
“I know,” I whispered at last. I knew also what he did not say, and what he knew as well; that should Geilie have gone through already, then I must go as well.
“Then kiss me, Claire,” he whispered. “And know that you are more to me than life, and I have no regret.”
I couldn’t answer, but kissed him, first his hand, its crooked fingers warm and firm, and the brawny wrist of a sword-wielder, and then his mouth, haven and promise and anguish all mingled, and the salt of tears in the taste of him.
Then I let go, and turned toward the left-hand tunnel.
“This way,” I said. Within ten paces, I saw the light.
It was no more than a faint glow on the rocks of the passage, but it was enough to restore the gift of sight. Suddenly, I could see my hands and feet, though dimly. My breath came out in something like a sob, of relief and fear. I felt like a ghost taking shape as I walked toward the light and the soft bell-hum before me.
The light was stronger, now, then dimmed again as Jamie slid in front of me, and his back blocked my view. Then he bent and stepped through a low archway. I followed, and stood up in light.
It was a good-sized chamber, the walls farthest from the torch still cold and black with the slumber of the cave. The wall before us had wakened, though. It flickered and gleamed, particles of embedded mineral reflecting the flames of a pine torch, fixed in a crevice.
“So ye came, did you?” Geillis was on her knees, eyes fixed on a glittering stream of white powder that fell from her folded fist, drawing a line on the dark floor.
I heard a small sound from Jamie, half relief, half horror, as he saw Ian. The boy lay in the middle of the pentacle on his side, hands bound behind him, gagged with a strip of white cloth. Next to him lay an ax. It was made of a shiny dark stone, like obsidian, with a sharp, chipped edge. The handle was covered with gaudy beadwork, in an African pattern of stripes and zigzags.
“Don’t come any closer, fox.” Geilie sat back on her heels, showing her teeth to Jamie in an expression that was not a smile. She held a pistol in one hand; its fellow, charged and cocked, was thrust through the leather belt she wore about her waist.
Eyes fixed on Jamie, she reached into the pouch suspended from the belt and withdrew another handful of diamond dust. I could see beads of sweat standing on her broad white brow; the bell-hum from the time-passage must be reaching her as it reached me. I felt sick, and the sweat ran down my body in trickles under my clothes.
The pattern was almost finished. With the pistol carefully trained, she dribbled out the thin, shining stream until she had completed the pentagram. The stones were already laid inside it—they glinted from the floor in sparks of color, connected by a gleaming line of poured quicksilver.
“There, then.” She sat back on her heels with a sigh of relief, and wiped the thick, creamy hair back with one hand. “Safe. The diamond dust keeps out the noise,” she explained to me. “Nasty, isn’t it?”
She patted Ian, who lay bound and gagged on the ground in front of her, his eyes wide with fear above the white cloth of the gag. “There, there, mo chridhe. Dinna fret, it will be soon over.”
“Take your hand off him, ye wicked bitch!” Jamie took an impulsive step forward, hand on his dirk, then stopped, as she lifted the barrel of the pistol an inch.
“Ye mind me o’ your uncle Dougal, a sionnach,” she said, tilting her head to one side coquettishly. “He was older when I met him than you are now, but you’ve the look of him about ye, aye? Like ye’d take what ye pleased and damn anyone who stands in your way.”
Jamie looked at Ian, curled on the floor, then up at Geilie.
“I’ll take what’s mine,” he said softly.
“But ye can’t, now, can ye?” she said, pleasantly. “One more step, and I kill ye dead. I spare ye now, only because Claire seems fond of ye.” Her eyes shifted to me, standing in the shadows behind Jamie. She nodded to me.
“A life for a life, sweet Claire. Ye tried to save me once, on Craigh na Dun; I saved you from the witch-trial at Cranesmuir. We’re quits now, aye?”
Geilie picked up a small bottle, uncorked it, and poured the contents carefully over Ian’s clothes. The smell of brandy rose up, strong and heady, and the torch flared brighter as the fumes of alcohol reached it. Ian bucked and kicked, making a strained noise of protest, and she kicked him sharply in the ribs.
“Be still!” she said.
“Don’t do it, Geilie,” I said, knowing that words would do no good.
“I have to,” she said calmly. “I’m meant to. I’m sorry I shall have to take the girl, but I’ll leave ye the man.”
“What girl?” Jamie’s fists were clenched tight at his side, knuckles white even in the dim torchlight.
“Brianna? That’s the name, isn’t it?” She shook back her heavy hair, smoothing it out of her face. “The last of Lovat’s line.” She smiled at me. “What luck ye should have come to see me, aye? I’d never ha’ kent it, otherwise. I thought they’d all died out before 1900.”
A thrill of horror shot through me. I could feel the same tremor run through Jamie as his muscles tightened.
It must have shown on his face. Geilie cried out sharply and leapt back. She fired as he lunged at her. His head snapped back, and his body twisted, hands still reaching for her throat. Then he fell, his body limp across the edge of the glittering pentagram. There was a strangled moan from Ian.
I felt rather than heard a sound rise in my throat. I didn’t know what I had said, but Geilie turned her face in my direction, startled.
When Brianna was two, a car had carelessly sideswiped mine, hitting the back door next to where she was sitting. I slowed to a stop, checked briefly to see that she was unhurt, and then bounded out, headed for the other car, which had pulled over a little way ahead.
The other driver was a man in his thirties, quite large, and probably entirely self-assured in his dealings with the world. He looked over his shoulder, saw me coming, and hastily rolled up his window, shrinking back in his seat.
I had no consciousness of rage or any other emotion; I simply knew, with no shadow of doubt, that I could—and would—shatter the window with my hand, and drag the man out through it. He knew it, too.
I thought no further than that, and didn’t have to; the arrival of a police car had recalled me to my normal state of mind, and then I started to shake. But the memory of the look on that man’s face stayed with me.
Fire is a poor illuminator, but it would have taken total darkness to conceal that look on Geilie’s face; the sudden realization of what was coming toward her.
She jerked the other pistol from her belt and swung it to bear on me; I saw the round hole of the muzzle clearly—and didn’t care. The roar of the discharge caromed through the cave, the echoes sending down showers of rocks and dirt, but by then I had seized the ax from the floor.
I noted quite clearly the leather binding, ornamented with a beaded pattern. It was red, with yellow zigzags and black dots. The dots echoed the shiny obsidian of the blade, and the red and yellow picked up the hues of the flaming torch behind her.
I heard a noise behind me, but didn’t turn. Reflections of the fire burned red in the pupils of her eyes. The red thing, Jamie had called it. I gave myself to it, he had said.
I didn’t need to give myself; it had taken me.
There was no fear, no rage, no doubt. Only the stroke of the swinging ax.
The shock of it echoed up my arm, and I let go, my fingers numbed. I stood quite still, not even moving when she staggered toward me.
Blood in firelight is black, not red.
She took one blind step forward and fell, all her muscles gone limp, making no attempt to save herself. The last I saw of her face was her eyes; set wide, beautiful as gemstones, a green water-clear and faceted with the knowledge of death.
Someone was speaking, but the words made no sense. The cleft in the rock buzzed loudly, filling my ears. The torch flickered, flaring sudden yellow in a draft; the beating of the dark angel’s wings, I thought.
The sound came again, behind me.
I turned and saw Jamie. He had risen to his knees, swaying. Blood was pouring from his scalp, dyeing one side of his face red-black. The other side was white as a harlequin’s mask.
Stop the bleeding, said some remnant of instinct in my brain, and I fumbled for a handkerchief. But by then he had crawled to where Ian lay, and was groping at the boy’s bonds, jerking loose the leather straps, drops of his blood pattering on the lad’s shirt. Ian squirmed to his feet, his face ghastly pale, and put out a hand to help his uncle.
Then Jamie’s hand was on my arm. I looked up, numbly offering the cloth. He took it and wiped it roughly over his face, then jerked at my arm, pulling me toward the tunnel mouth. I stumbled and nearly fell, caught myself, and came back to the present.
“Come!” he was saying. “Can ye not hear the wind? There is a storm coming, above.”
Wind? I thought. In a cave? But he was right; the draft had not been my imagination; the faint exhalation from the crack near the entrance had changed to a steady, whining wind, almost a keening that rang in the narrow passage.
I turned to look over my shoulder, but Jamie grasped my arm hard and pushed me forward. My last sight of the cave was a blurred impression of jet and rubies, with a still white shape in the middle of the floor. Then the draft came in with a roar, and the torch went out.
“Jesus!” It was Young Ian’s voice, filled with terror, somewhere close by. “Uncle Jamie!”
“Here.” Jamie’s voice came out of the darkness just in front of me, surprisingly calm, raised to be heard above the noise. “Here, lad. Come here to me, Ian. Dinna be afraid; it’s only the cave breathing.”
It was the wrong thing to say. When he said it, I could feel the cold breath of the rock touch my neck, and the hairs there rose up prickling. The image of the cave as a living thing, breathing all around us, blind and malevolent, struck me cold with horror.
Apparently the notion was as terrifying to Ian as it was to me, for I heard a faint gasp, and then his groping hand struck me and clung for dear life to my arm.
I clutched his hand with one of mine and probed the dark ahead with the other, finding Jamie’s reassuringly large shape almost at once.
“I’ve got Ian,” I said. “For God’s sake, let’s get out of here!”
He gripped my hand in answer, and linked together, we began to make our way back down the winding tunnel, stumbling through the pitch dark and stepping on each other’s heels. And all the time, that ghostly wind whined at our backs.
I could see nothing; no hint of Jamie’s shirt in front of my face, snowy white as I knew it to be, not even a flicker of the movement of my own light-colored skirts, though I heard them swish about my feet as I walked, the sound blending with that of the wind.
The thin rush of air rose and fell in pitch, whispering and wailing. I tried to force my mind away from the memory of what lay behind us, away from the morbid fancy that the wind held sighing voices, whispering secrets just past hearing.
“I can hear her,” Ian said suddenly behind me. His voice rose, cracking with panic. “I can hear her! God, oh God, she’s coming!”
I froze in my tracks, a scream wedged in my throat. The cool observer in my head knew quite well it was not so—only the wind and Ian’s fright—but that made no difference to the spurt of sheer terror that rose from the pit of my stomach and turned my bowels to water. I knew she was coming, too, and screamed out loud.
Then Jamie had me, and Ian too, gripped tight against him, one in each arm, our ears muffled against his chest. He smelled of pine smoke and sweat and brandy, and I nearly sobbed in relief at the closeness of him.
“Hush!” he said fiercely. “Hush, the both of ye! I willna let her touch ye. Never!” He pressed us to him, hard; I felt his heart beating fast beneath my cheek and Ian’s bony shoulder, squeezed against mine, and then the pressure relaxed.
“Come along now,” Jamie said, more quietly. “It’s but wind. Caves blow through their cracks when the weather changes aboveground. I’ve heard it before. There is a storm coming, outside. Come, now.”
* * *
The storm was a brief one. By the time we had stumbled to the surface, blinking against the shock of sunlight, the rain had passed, leaving the world reborn in its wake.
Lawrence was sheltering under a dripping palm near the cave’s entrance. When he saw us, he sprang to his feet, a look of relief relaxing the creases of his face.
“It is all right?” he said, looking from me to a blood-stained Jamie.
Jamie gave him half a smile, nodding.
“It is all right,” he said. He turned and motioned to Ian. “May I present my nephew, Ian Murray? Ian, this is Dr. Stern, who’s been of great assistance to us in looking for ye.”
“I’m much obliged to ye, Doctor,” Ian said, with a bob of his head. He wiped a sleeve across his streaked face, and glanced at Jamie.
“I knew ye’d come, Uncle Jamie,” he said, with a tremulous smile, “but ye left it a bit late, aye?” The smile widened, then broke, and he began to tremble. He blinked hard, fighting back tears.
“I did then, and I’m sorry, Ian. Come here, a bhalaich.” Jamie reached out and took him in a close embrace, patting his back and murmuring to him in Gaelic.
I watched for a moment, before I realized that Lawrence was speaking to me.
“Are you quite well, Mrs. Fraser?” he was asking. Without waiting for an answer, he took my arm.
“I don’t quite know.” I felt completely empty. Exhausted as though by childbirth, but without the exultation of spirit. Nothing seemed quite real; Jamie, Ian, Lawrence, all seemed like toy figures that moved and talked at a distance, making noises that I had to strain to understand.
“I think perhaps we should leave this place,” Lawrence said, with a glance at the cave mouth from which we had just emerged. He looked slightly uneasy. He didn’t ask about Mrs. Abernathy.
“I think you are right.” The picture of the cave we had left was vivid in my mind—but just as unreal as the vivid green jungle and gray stones around us. Not waiting for the men to follow, I turned and walked away.
The feeling of remoteness increased as we walked. I felt like an automaton, built around an iron core, walking by clockwork. I followed Jamie’s broad back through branches and clearings, shadow and sun, not noticing where we were going. Sweat ran down my sides and into my eyes, but I barely stirred to wipe it away. At length, toward sunset, we stopped in a small clearing near a stream, and made our primitive camp.
I had already discovered that Lawrence was a most useful person to have along on a camping trip. He was not only as good at finding or building shelter as was Jamie, but was sufficiently familiar with the flora and fauna of the area to be able to plunge into the jungle and return within half an hour bearing handfuls of edible roots, fungi, and fruit with which to augment the Spartan rations in our packs.
Ian was set to gather firewood while Lawrence foraged, and I sat Jamie down with a pan of water, to tend the damage to his head. I washed away the blood from face and hair, to find to my surprise that the ball had in fact not plowed a furrow through his scalp as I had thought. Instead, it had pierced the skin just above his hairline and—evidently—vanished into his head. There was no sign of an exit wound. Unnerved by this, I prodded his scalp with increasing agitation, until a sudden cry from the patient announced that I had discovered the bullet.
There was a large, tender lump on the back of his head. The pistol ball had traveled under the skin, skimming the curve of his skull, and come to rest just over his occiput.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I exclaimed. I felt it again, unbelieving, but there it was. “You always said your head was solid bone, and I’ll be damned if you weren’t right. She shot you point-blank, and the bloody ball bounced off your skull!”
Jamie, supporting his head in his hands as I examined him, made a sound somewhere between a snort and a groan.
“Aye, well,” he said, his voice somewhat muffled in his hands, “I’ll no say I’m not thick-heided, but if Mistress Abernathy had used a full charge of powder, it wouldna have been nearly thick enough.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Not the wound, no, though it’s sore. I’ve a terrible headache, though.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Hold on a bit; I’m going to take the ball out.”
Not knowing in what condition we might find Ian, I had brought the smallest of my medical boxes, which fortunately contained a bottle of alcohol and a small scalpel. I shaved away a little of Jamie’s abundant mane, just below the swelling, and soused the area with alcohol for disinfection. My fingers were chilled from the alcohol, but his head was warm and comfortingly live to the touch.
“Three deep breaths and hold on tight,” I murmured. “I’m going to cut you, but it will be fast.”
“All right.” The back of his neck looked a little pale, but the pulse was steady. He obligingly drew in his breath deeply, and exhaled, sighing. I held the area of scalp taut between the index and third fingers of my left hand. On the third breath, I said, “Right now,” and drew the blade hard and quick across the scalp. He grunted slightly, but didn’t cry out. I pressed gently with my right thumb against the swelling, slightly harder—and the ball popped out of the incision I had made, falling into my left hand like a grape.
“Got it,” I said, and only then realized that I had been holding my breath. I dropped the little pellet—somewhat flattened by its contact with his skull—into his hand, and smiled, a little shakily. “Souvenir,” I said. I pressed a pad of cloth against the small wound, wound a strip of cloth round his head to hold it, and then quite suddenly, with no warning whatever, began to cry.
I could feel the tears rolling down my face, and my shoulders shaking, but I felt still detached; somehow outside my body. I was conscious mostly of a mild amazement.
“Sassenach? Are ye all right?” Jamie was peering up at me, eyes worried under the rakish bandage.
“Yes,” I said, stuttering from the force of my crying. “I d-don’t k-know why I’m c-crying. I d-don’t know!”
“Come here.” He took my hand and drew me down onto his knee. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, resting his cheek on the top of my head.
“It will be all right,” he whispered. “It’s fine now, mo chridhe, it’s fine.” He rocked me gently, one hand stroking my hair and neck, and murmured small unimportant things in my ear. Just as suddenly as I had been detached, I was back inside my body, warm and shaking, feeling the iron core dissolve in my tears.
Gradually I stopped weeping, and lay still against his chest, hiccuping now and then, feeling nothing but peace and the comfort of his presence.
I was dimly aware that Lawrence and Ian had returned, but paid no attention to them. At one point, I heard Ian say, with more curiosity than alarm, “You’re bleeding all down the back of your neck, Uncle Jamie.”
“Perhaps you’ll fix me a new bandage, then, Ian,” Jamie said. His voice was soft and unconcerned. “I must just hold your auntie now.” And sometime later I went to sleep, still held tight in the circle of his arms.
* * *
I woke up later, curled on a blanket next to Jamie. He was leaning against a tree, one hand resting on my shoulder. He felt me wake, and squeezed gently. It was dark, and I could hear a rhythmic snoring somewhere close at hand. It must be Lawrence, I thought drowsily, for I could hear Young Ian’s voice, on the other side of Jamie.
“No,” he was saying slowly, “it wasna really so bad, on the ship. We were all kept together, so there was company from the other lads, and they fed us decently, and let us out two at a time to walk about the deck. Of course, we were all scairt, for we’d no notion why we’d been taken—and none of the sailors would tell us anything—but we were not mistreated.”
The Bruja had sailed up the Yallahs River, and delivered her human cargo directly to Rose Hall. Here the bewildered boys had been warmly welcomed by Mrs. Abernathy, and promptly popped into a new prison.
The basement beneath the sugar mill had been fitted up comfortably enough, with beds and chamber pots, and aside from the noise of the sugar-making above during the days, it was comfortable enough. Still, none of the boys could think why they were there, though any number of suggestions were made, each more improbable than the last.
“And every now and then, a great black fellow would come down into the place with Mrs. Abernathy. We always begged to know what it was we were there for, and would she not be letting us go, for mercy’s sake? but she only smiled and patted us and said we would see, in good time. Then she would choose a lad, and the black fellow would clamp onto the lad’s arm and take him awa’ wi’ them.” Ian’s voice sounded distressed, and little wonder.
“Did the lads come back again?” Jamie asked. His hand patted me softly, and I reached up and pressed it.
“No—or not usually. And that scairt us all something dreadful.”
Ian’s turn had come eight weeks after his arrival. Three lads had gone and not returned by then, and when Mistress Abernathy’s bright green eyes rested on him, he was not disposed to cooperate.