A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [411]
“Our reserves are getting rather low,” I said, in uneasy jest. “Let’s hope there aren’t any more expensive emergencies.”
“I shallna touch the black diamond, regardless,” he said definitely, and blew out the wick. “That one is for you.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean by that?”
He shrugged a little, and reached to take the emerald in its handkerchief from me.
“If I should be killed,” he said very matter-of-factly. “Ye’ll take it and go. Back through the stones.”
“Oh? I don’t know that I would,” I said. I didn’t like talking about any contingency that involved Jamie’s death, but there was no point in ignoring the possibilities. Battle, disease, imprisonment, accident, assassination . . .
“You and Bree were going about forbidding me to die,” I said. “I’d do the same thing, if I had the faintest hope of your paying the least attention.”
He smiled at that.
“I always mind your words, Sassenach,” he assured me gravely. “But ye do tell me that man proposes and God disposes, and should He see fit to dispose of me—ye’ll go back.”
“Why would I?” I said, nettled—and unsettled. The memories of his sending me back through the stones on the eve of Culloden were not ones I ever wished to recall, and here he was, prying open the door to that tightly sealed chamber of my mind. “I’d stay with Bree and Roger, wouldn’t I? Jem, Marsali and Fergus, Germain and Henri-Christian and the girls—everyone’s here. What is there to go back to, after all?”
He took the stone from its cloth, turning it over between his fingers, and looked thoughtfully at me, as though making up his mind whether to tell me something. Small hairs began to prickle on the back of my neck.
“I dinna ken,” he said at last, shaking his head. “But I’ve seen ye there.”
The prickling ran straight down the back of my neck and down both arms.
“Seen me where?”
“There.” He waved a hand in a vague gesture. “I dreamt of ye there. I dinna ken where it was; I only know it was there—in your proper time.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded, my flesh creeping briskly. “What was I doing?”
His brow furrowed in the effort of recollection.
“I dinna recall, exactly,” he said slowly. “But I knew it was then, by the light.” His brow cleared suddenly. “That’s it. Ye were sitting at a desk, with something in your hand, maybe writing. And there was light all round ye, shining on your face, on your hair. But it wasna candlelight, nor yet firelight or sunlight. And I recall thinking to myself as I saw ye, Oh, so that’s what electric light is like.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed.
“How can you recognize something in a dream that you’ve never seen in real life?”
He seemed to find that funny.
“I dream of things I’ve not seen all the time, Sassenach—don’t you?”
“Well,” I said uncertainly. “Yes. Sometimes. Monsters, odd plants, I suppose. Peculiar landscapes. And certainly people that I don’t know. But surely that’s different? To see something you know about, but haven’t seen?”
“Well, what I saw may not be what electric light does look like,” he admitted, “but that’s what I said to myself when I saw it. And I was quite sure that ye were in your own time.
“And after all,” he added logically, “I dream of the past; why would I not dream of the future?”
There was no good answer to a thoroughly Celtic remark of that nature.
“Well, you would, I suppose,” I said. I rubbed dubiously at my lower lip. “How old was I, in this dream of yours?”
He looked surprised, then uncertain, and peered closely at my face, as though trying to compare it with some mental vision.
“Well . . . I dinna ken,” he said, sounding for the first time unsure. “I didna think anything about it—I didna notice that ye had white hair, or anything of the sort—it was just . . . you.” He shrugged, baffled, then looked down at the stone in my hand.
“Does it feel warm to your touch, Sassenach?” he asked curiously.
“Of course it does,” I said, rather crossly. “It’s just come out of hot wax, for heaven’s sake.” And yet