The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [215]
“If anything should come amiss, pull it loose at once,” he told Mrs. Beardsley, showing her the half-bow loop tied to the saddle near her hand. “If the horse should run away wi’ ye all, your wee fellow there will be hangit.”
She nodded, a hunched mound atop the horse, then lifted her head and looked toward the house.
“We should go before moonrithe,” she said softly. “She cometh out then.”
An icy ripple ran straight up my spine, and Jamie jerked, head snapping round to look at the darkened house. The fire had gone out, and no one had thought to close the open door; it gaped like an empty eye socket.
“She who?” Jamie asked, a noticeable edge in his voice.
“Mary Ann,” Mrs. Beardsley answered. “She was the latht one.” There was no emphasis whatever in her voice; she sounded like a sleepwalker.
“The last what?” I asked.
The latht wife,” she replied, and picked up her reins. “She thtands under the rowan tree at moonrithe.”
Jamie’s head turned toward me. It was too dark to see his expression, but I didn’t need to. I cleared my throat.
“Ought we . . . to close the door?” I suggested. Mr. Beardsley’s spirit had presumably got the idea by now, and whether or not Mrs. Beardsley had any interest in the house and its contents, it didn’t seem right to leave it at the mercy of marauding raccoons and squirrels, to say nothing of anything larger that might be attracted by the scent of Mr. Beardsley’s final exit. On the other hand, I really had no desire at all to approach the empty house.
“Get on the horse, Sassenach.”
Jamie strode across the yard, slammed the door somewhat harder than necessary, then came back—walking briskly—and swung into the saddle behind me.
“Hup!” he said sharply, and we were off, the glow of a rising half-moon just visible above the trees.
It was perhaps a quarter mile to the head of the trail, the ground rising from the hollow in which the Beardsleys’ farmhouse stood. We were moving slowly, because of the goats, and I watched the grass and shrubs as we brushed through them, wondering whether they seemed more visible only because my eyes were adapting to the dark—or because the moon had risen.
I felt quite safe, with the powerful bulk of the horse under me, the sociable natter of the goats around us, and Jamie’s equally reassuring presence behind me, one arm clasped about my waist. I wasn’t sure that I felt quite safe enough to turn and look back again, though. At the same time, the urge to look was so compelling as almost to counter the sense of dread I felt about the place. Almost.
“It’s no really a rowan tree, is it?” Jamie’s voice came softly from behind me.
“No,” I said, taking heart from the solid arm around me. “It’s a mountain ash. Very like, though.” I’d seen mountain ash many times before; the Highlanders often planted them near cabins or houses because the clusters of deep orange berries and the pinnate leaves did indeed look like the rowan tree of Scotland—a close botanical relative. I gathered that Jamie’s comment stemmed not from taxonomic hairsplitting, though, but rather from doubt as to whether the ash possessed the same repellent qualities, in terms of protection from evil and enchantment. He hadn’t chosen to bury Beardsley under that tree from a sense either of aesthetics or convenience.
I squeezed his blistered hand, and he kissed me gently on top of the head.
At the head of the trail, I did glance back, but I could see nothing but a faint gleam from the weathered shingles of the farmhouse. The mountain ash and whatever might—or might not—be under it were hidden in darkness.
Gideon was unusually well-behaved, having made no more than a token protest at being double-mounted. I rather thought he was happy to leave the farm behind, too. I said as much, but Jamie sneezed and expressed the opinion that the wicked sod was merely biding his time while