The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [264]
“Plenty of time. Are ye coming with me, then?” Roger grinned at Bree, seeing her cloak.
“Are you kidding? I haven’t been out after midnight in years.” She grinned back at him, swirling the cloak around her shoulders. “Got everything?”
“All but the salt.” Roger nodded toward a canvas bag on the counter. A firstfoot was to bring gifts to the house: an egg, a faggot of wood, a bit of salt—and a bit of whisky, thus insuring that the household would not lack for necessities during the coming year.
“Right. Where did I—oh, Christ!” Swinging open the cupboard door to search for the salt, I was confronted by a pair of glowing eyes, glaring out of the darkness at me.
“Good grief.” I put a hand over my chest, to keep my heart from leaping out, waving the other hand weakly at Roger, who had sprung up at my cry, ready to defend me. “Not to worry—it’s just the cat.”
Adso had taken refuge from the party, bringing along the remains of a freshly killed mouse for company. He growled at me, evidently thinking I meant to snatch this treat for myself, but I pushed him crossly aside, digging the small bag of ground salt out from behind his furry hindquarters.
I closed the cupboard door, leaving Adso to his feast, and handed Roger the salt. He took it, laying down the object he had had in his hand.
“Where did ye get that wee auld wifie?” he asked, nodding toward the object as he put the salt away in his bag. I glanced at the counter, and saw that he had been examining the little pink stone figure that Mrs. Bug had given me.
“Mrs. Bug,” I replied. “She says it’s a fertility charm—which is certainly what it looks like. It is very old, then?” I’d thought it must be, and seeing Roger’s interest confirmed the impression.
He nodded, still looking at the thing.
“Very old. The ones I’ve seen in museums are dated at thousands of years.” He traced the bulbous outlines of the stone with a reverent forefinger.
Brianna moved closer to see, and without thinking, I set a hand on her arm.
“What?” she said, turning her head to smile at me. “I shouldn’t touch it? Do they work that well?”
“No, of course not.”
I took my hand away, laughing, but feeling rather self-conscious. At the same time, I became aware that I would really rather she didn’t touch it, and was relieved when she merely bent down to examine it, leaving it on the counter. Roger was looking at it, too—or rather, he was looking at Brianna, his eyes fixed on the back of her head with an odd intensity. I could almost imagine that he was willing her to touch the thing, as strongly as I was willing her not to.
Beauchamp, I said silently to myself, you have had much too much to drink tonight. All the same, I reached out by impulse and scooped the figure up, dropping it into my pocket.
“Come on! We have to go!” The odd mood of the moment abruptly broken, Brianna straightened up and turned to Roger, urging him.
“Aye, right. Let’s go, then.” He slung the bag over his shoulder and smiled at me, then took her arm and they disappeared, letting the surgery door close behind them.
I put out the candle, ready to follow them, and then stopped, suddenly reluctant to go back at once to the chaos of the celebration.
I could feel the whole house in movement, throbbing around me, and light flowed under the door from the hall. Just here, though, it was quiet. In the silence, I felt the weight of the little idol in my pocket, and pressed it, hard and lumpy against my leg.
There is nothing special about January the first, save the meaning we give to it. The ancients celebrated a new year at Imbolc, at the beginning of February, when the winter slackens and the light begins to come back—or the date of the spring equinox, when the world lies in balance between the powers of dark and light. And yet I stood there in the dark, listening to the sound of the cat chewing and slobbering in the cupboard, and felt the power of the earth shift and stir beneath my feet as the year—or something—prepared to change. There