A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [236]
I took one of Bree’s matches from its box and lit it, thrilling to the tiny leap of instant flame, and bent to put it to the kindling. Snow was falling, and winter had come; the season of fire. Candles and hearth fire, that lovely, leaping paradox, that destruction contained but never tamed, held at a safe distance to warm and enchant, but always, still, with that small sense of danger.
The smell of roasting pumpkins was thick and sweet in the air. Having ruled the night with fire, the jack-o’-lanterns went now to a more peaceful fate as pies and compost, to join the gentle rest of the earth before renewal. I had turned the earth in my garden the day before, planting the winter seeds to sleep and swell, to dream their buried birth.
Now is the time when we reenter the womb of the world, dreaming the dreams of snow and silence. Waking to the shock of frozen lakes under waning moonlight and the cold sun burning low and blue in the branches of the ice-cased trees, returning from our brief and necessary labors to food and story, to the warmth of firelight in the dark.
Around a fire, in the dark, all truths can be told, and heard, in safety.
I pulled on my woolen stockings, thick petticoats, my warmest shawl, and went down to poke up the kitchen fire. I stood watching wisps of steam rise from the fragrant cauldron, and felt myself turn inward. The world could go away, and we would heal.
39
I AM THE RESURRECTION
November 1773
A HAMMERING ON THE DOOR roused Roger just before dawn. Next to him, Brianna made an inarticulate noise that experience interpreted as a statement that if he didn’t get up and answer the door, she would—but he’d regret it, and so would the unfortunate person on the other side.
Resigned, he flung back the quilt and ran a hand through his tangled hair. The air struck cold on his bare legs, and there was an icy breath of snow in the air.
“Next time I marry someone, I’ll pick a lass who wakes up cheerful in the morning,” he said to the hunched form beneath the bedclothes.
“You do that,” said a muffled voice from under the pillow—whose indistinct nature did nothing to disguise its hostile intonation.
The hammering was repeated, and Jemmy—who did wake up cheerful in the mornings—popped up in his trundle, looking like a redheaded dandelion gone to seed.
“Somebody’s knocking,” he informed Roger.
“Oh, are they? Mmphm.” Repressing an urge to groan, he rose and went to unbolt the door.
Hiram Crombie stood outside, looking more dour than usual in the milky half-light. Evidently not a happy riser, either, Roger reflected.
“My wife’s auld mither’s passed i’ the night,” he informed Roger without preamble.
“Passed what?” asked Jemmy with interest, poking his disheveled head out from behind Roger’s leg. He rubbed one eye with a fist, and yawned widely. “Mr. Stornaway passed a stone—he showed it to me and Germain.”
“Mr. Crombie’s mother-in-law has died,” Roger said, putting a quelling hand on Jem’s head, with an apologetic cough toward Crombie. “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Crombie.”
“Aye.” Mr. Crombie appeared indifferent to condolence. “Murdo Lindsay says as ye ken a bit of Scripture for the burying. The wife’s wonderin’ would ye maybe come and say a word at the grave?”
“Murdo said . . . oh!” The Dutch family, that was it. Jamie had forced him to speak at the graves. “Aye, of course.” He cleared his throat by reflex; his voice was desperately hoarse—as usual in the mornings, until he’d had a cup of something hot. No wonder Crombie was looking dubious.
“Of course,” he repeated more strongly. “Is there . . . er . . . anything we can do to help?”
Crombie made a small negative gesture.
“The women will have her laid out by now, I expect,” he said, with the briefest of glances at the mound Brianna made in the bed. “We’ll start the diggin’ after breakfast. With luck, we’ll have her under before snow falls.” He lifted a sharp chin toward an opaque sky the soft gray of Adso