A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [392]
The words flowed past me in a whispering stream, cool on my skin. There was a man before me, dark head bent over a book. The light in the room embraced him and he seemed part of it.
“Stretch forth Thy hand,” he whispered to the pages, in a voice that cracked and broke, “and according to Thy will, restore her to health and strength, that she may live to praise Thee for Thy goodness and Thy grace; to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen.”
“Roger?” I said, groping for his name. My own voice was hoarse from disuse; speaking was an intolerable effort.
His eyes were closed in prayer; they sprang open, unbelieving, and I thought how vivid they were, the green of wet serpentine and summer leaves.
“Claire?” His voice cracked like a teenaged boy’s, and he dropped the book.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the dreamlike sense of submergence threatening to engulf me again. “Am I?”
I COULD LIFT A HAND for a moment or two, but was too weak even to lift my head, let alone sit up. Roger helpfully dragged me semi-upright against piled pillows, and put his hand at the back of my head to prevent wobbling, holding a cup of water to my dry lips. It was the odd feel of his hand on the bare skin of my neck that began a dim process of realization. Then I felt the warmth of his hand, vivid and immediate, at the back of my head, and jerked like a gaffed salmon, sending the cup flying.
“What? What?” I spluttered, clutching my head, too shocked to formulate a complete sentence, and oblivious to the cold water soaking through the sheets. “WHAT?!”
Roger looked nearly as shocked as I felt. He swallowed, searching for words. “I . . . I . . . I thought you knew,” he stammered, voice breaking. “Didn’t you . . . ? I mean . . . I thought . . . look, it’ll grow!”
I could feel my mouth working, vainly trying different shapes that might approximate words, but there was no connection between tongue and brain—there was room for nothing but the realization that the accustomed soft, heavy weight of my hair was gone, replaced by a fuzz of bristles.
“Malva and Mrs. Bug cut it off, day before yesterday,” Roger said, all in a rush. “They—we weren’t here, Bree nor I, we wouldn’t have let them, of course we wouldn’t—but they thought it’s what you do for someone with a terrible fever, it is what people do now. Bree was furious with them, but they thought—they truly thought they were helping save your life—oh, God, Claire, don’t look like that, please!”
His face had disappeared in a starburst of light, a curtain of shimmering water suddenly coming down to protect me from the gaze of the world.
I wasn’t conscious of crying, at all. Grief simply burst from me, like wine spraying from a wineskin stabbed with a knife. Purple-red as bone marrow, splattering and dripping everywhere.
“I’ll fetch Jamie!” he croaked.
“NO!” I seized him by the sleeve, with more strength than I would have imagined I possessed. “God, no! I don’t want him to see me like this!”
His momentary silence told me, but I kept stubborn hold of his sleeve, unable to think how else to prevent the unthinkable. I blinked, water sliding over my face like a stream over rock, and Roger wavered once more into visibility, blurred around the edges.
“He’s . . . er . . . he’s seen you,” Roger said gruffly. He looked down, not wanting to meet my eyes. “It. Already. I mean—” He waved a hand vaguely in the vicinity of his own black locks. “He saw it.”
“He did?” This was nearly as much a shock as the initial discovery. “What—what did he say?”
He took a deep breath and looked back up, like someone fearing to see a Gorgon. Or the anti-Gorgon, I thought bitterly.
“He didn’t say anything,” Roger said quite gently, and put a hand on my arm. “He—he just cried.”
I was still crying, too, but in a more orthodox fashion now. Less of the gasping note. The sense of bone-deep cold had passed, and my limbs felt warm now, though I still felt a disconcertingly chilly breeze on my scalp. My heart was slowing