Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [232]
“Of course I know what it is,” I said. “But you don’t believe that nonsense, do you?”
She shot me a sudden strange look, full of wary suspicion. Then the lines of her face relaxed into their normal expression of half-amused cynicism.
“No, I don’t,” she admitted. “But the folk here do.” She glanced nervously up the slope, but no further sound came from the rocky notch. “The family will be somewhere near about. Let’s go.”
Reluctantly, I allowed her to tow me away in the direction of the village.
“Why did they put it up there?” I asked, sitting on a rock to remove my stockings before wading across a small stream. “Do they hope the Wee Folk will come and cure it?” I was still bothered about the child; it seemed desperately ill. I didn’t know what was wrong with it, but perhaps I could help.
Maybe I could leave Geilie in the village, then come back for the child. It would have to be soon, though; I glanced up at the eastern sky, where soft grey rain clouds were swiftly darkening into purple dusk. A pink glow still showed to the west, but there could be no more than half an hour’s light left.
Geilie looped the twisted withy handle of her basket over her neck, picked up her skirt and stepped into the stream, shivering at the cold water.
“No,” she said. “Or rather, yes. That’s one of the fairies’ hills, and it’s dangerous to sleep there. If ye leave a changeling out overnight in such a place, the Folk will come and take it back, and leave the human child they’ve stolen in its place.”
“But they won’t, because it isn’t a changeling,” I said, sucking in my breath at the touch of the melted snow water. “It’s only a sick child. It might very well not survive a night in the open!”
“It won’t,” she said briefly. “It will be dead by morning. And I hope to God no one saw us near it.”
I stopped abruptly in the midst of putting on my shoes.
“Dead! Geilie, I’m going back for it. I can’t leave it there.” I turned and started back across the stream.
She caught me from behind and pushed me flat on my face into the shallow water. Floundering and gasping, I managed to rise to my knees, sloshing water in all directions. Geilie stood calf-deep in the stream, skirts soaked, glaring down at me.
“You bloody pig-headed English ass!” she shouted at me. “There’s nothing ye can do! Do ye hear me? Nothing! That child’s as good as dead! I’ll not stand here and let ye risk your own life and mine for some crack-brained notion of yours!” Snorting and grumbling under her breath, she reached down and got me under the arms with both hands, lugging me to my feet.
“Claire,” she said urgently, shaking me by the arms. “Listen to me. If ye go near that child and it dies—and it will, believe me, I’ve seen them like that—then the family will blame you for it. Do ye no see the danger of it? Don’t ye know what they say about you in the village?”
I stood shivering in the cold breeze of sunset, torn between her obvious panic for my safety, and the thought of a helpless child, slowly dying alone in the dark, with wildflowers at its feet.
“No,” I said, shaking the wet hair out of my face. “Geilie, no, I can’t. I’ll be careful, I promise, but I have to go.” I pulled myself out of her grasp and turned toward the far bank, stumbling and splashing in the uncertain shadows of the streambed.
There was a muffled cry of exasperation from behind me, then a frenzied sploshing in the opposite direction. Well, at least she wouldn’t hamper me further.
It was growing dark fast, and I pushed through the bushes and weeds as quickly as I could. I wasn’t sure that I could find the right hill if it grew dark before I reached it; there were several nearby, all about the same height. And fairies or not, the thought of wandering about alone out here in the dark was not one I cared for. The question of how I was going to make it back to the Castle with a sick baby was something I would deal with when the time came.
I found