A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [644]
The tension in her body eased a little at his touch. “I’d try,” she said, and attempted a smile.
Jamie cleared his throat.
“Is wee Jem about?”
Of course he was; he never went far from home or Brianna these days, seeming to sense that something was wrong. He was retrieved from Jamie’s study, where he had been spelling out words in—
“Jesus Christ on a piece of toast!” his grandmother blurted, snatching the book from him. “Jamie! How could you?”
Jamie felt a deep blush rise over him. How could he, indeed? He’d taken the battered copy of Fanny Hill in trade, part of a parcel of used books bought from a tinker. He hadn’t looked at the books before buying them, and when he did come to look them over . . . Well, it was quite against his instincts to throw away a book—any book.
“What’s P-H-A-L-L-U-S?” Jemmy was asking his father.
“Another word for prick,” Roger said briefly. “Don’t bloody use it. Listen—can ye hear anything, when ye listen to that stone?” He indicated Jamie’s ring lying on the table. Jem’s face lighted at sight of it.
“Sure,” he said.
“What, from there?” Brianna said, incredulous. Jem looked around the circle of parents and grandparents, surprised at their interest. “Sure,” he repeated. “It sings.”
“Do ye think wee Mandy can hear it sing, too?” Jamie asked carefully. His heart was beating heavily, afraid to know, either way.
Jemmy picked up the ring and leaned over Mandy’s basket, holding it directly over her face. She kicked energetically and made noises—but whether because of the ring, or merely at the sight of her brother . . .
“She can hear it,” Jem said, smiling into his sister’s face.
“How do you know?” Claire asked, curious. Jem looked up at her, surprised.
“She says so.”
NOTHING WAS SETTLED. At the same time, everything was settled. I was in no doubt as to what my ears and my fingers told me—Amanda’s condition was slowly worsening. Very slowly—it might take a year, two years, before serious damage began to show—but it was coming.
Jem might be right; he might not be. But we had to proceed on the assumption that he was.
There were arguments, discussions—tears. Not yet any decision as to who should attempt the journey through the stones. Brianna and Amanda must go; that was certain. But ought Roger to go with them? Or Jemmy?
“I will not let you go without me,” Roger said through his teeth.
“I don’t want to go without you!” Bree cried, looking exasperated. “But how can we leave Jemmy here, without us? And how can we make him go? A baby—we think that can work, because of the legends, but Jem—how will he make it? We can’t let him risk being killed!”
I looked at the stones on the table—Jamie’s ring, my pouch with the sapphire.
“I think,” I said carefully, “that we need to find two more stones. Just in case.”
And so, in late June, we came down from the mountain, into turmoil.
PART TWELVE
Time Will Not Be
Ours Forever
115
NOSEPICKER
July 4, 1776
IT WAS CLOSE AND HOT IN THE INN ROOM, but I couldn’t go out; little Amanda had finally fussed herself to sleep—she had a rash on her bottom, poor thing—and was curled in her basket, tiny thumb in her mouth and a frown on her face.
I unfolded the gauze mosquito netting and draped it carefully over the basket, then opened the window. The air outside was hot, too, but fresh, and moving. I pulled off my cap—without it, Mandy was fond of clutching my hair in both her hands and yanking; she had an amazing amount of strength, for a child with a heart defect. For the millionth time, I wondered whether I could have been wrong.
But I wasn’t. She was asleep now, with the delicate rose bloom of a healthy baby on her cheeks; awake and kicking, that soft flush faded, and an equally beautiful but unearthly blue tinge showed now and then in her lips, in the beds of her tiny nails. She was still lively—but tiny. Bree and Roger were both large people; Jemmy had put on weight like a small hippopotamus through his first several years of life. Mandy weighed