The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [458]
He frowned at her in what looked like puzzlement, then shook his head and lay back on the pillow, eyes closing. He lifted his hands and let them fall, as though this was simply too much to be asked to contemplate. Maybe it was.
She stood watching him in silence, but he didn’t open his eyes. There were deep creases where his brows drew together.
Moved by the need to touch him, to bridge the barrier of silence, she traced the shadow of the bruise that lay over his cheekbone, her fingers drifting, barely touching his skin.
She could see the oddly blurred edges of the bruise, could almost see the dark clotted blood beneath the skin, where the capillaries had ruptured. It was beginning to yellow; her mother had told her that the body’s leukocytes would come to the site of an injury, where they gradually broke down the injured cells, thriftily recycling the spilled blood; the changing colors were the result of this cellular housekeeping.
His eyes opened, fixed on her face, his own expression impassive. She knew she looked worried, and tried to smile.
“You don’t look dead,” she said. That broke the impassive facade; his eyebrows twitched upward, and a faint gleam of humor came into his eyes.
“Roger—” At a loss for words, she moved impulsively toward him. He stiffened slightly, hunching instinctively to protect the fragile tube in his throat, but she put her arms around his shoulders, careful, but needing desperately to feel the substance of his flesh.
“I love you,” she whispered, and her hand tightened on the muscle of his arm, urging him to believe it.
She kissed him. His lips were warm and dry, familiar—and yet a feeling of shock ran through her. No air moved against her cheek, no warm breath touched her from his nose or mouth. It was like kissing a mask. Air, damp from the secret depths of his lungs, hissed cool from the amber tube against her neck, like the exhalation from a cave. Gooseflesh ran down her arms and she stepped back, hoping that neither shock nor revulsion showed on her face.
His eyes were closed, squeezed tight shut. The muscle of his jaw bulged; she saw the shift of the shadow there.
“You . . . rest,” she managed, her voice shaky. “I’ll—I’ll see you in the morning.”
She made her way downstairs, barely noticing that the candlestick in the hall was lit now, or that the waiting slave slid silently from the shadows back into the room.
Her hunger had come back, but she didn’t go downstairs in search of food. She had to do something about the unused milk, first. She turned toward her parents’ room, feeling a faint draft move through the stifling shadows. In spite of the warm, muggy air, her fingers felt cold, as though turpentine was still evaporating from her skin.
Last night I dreamed about my friend Deborah. She used to make money doing Tarot readings in the Student Union; she’d always offer to do one for me, for free, but I wouldn’t let her.
Sister Marie Romaine told us in the fifth grade that Catholics aren’t allowed to do divination—we weren’t to touch Ouija boards or Tarot cards or crystal balls, because things like that are seductions of the D-E-V-I-L—she always spelled it out like that, she’d never say the word.
I’m not sure where the Devil came into it, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to let Deb do readings for me. She was, last night, though, in my dream.
I used to watch her do it for other people; the Tarot cards fascinated me—maybe just because they seemed forbidden. But the names were so cool—the Major Arcana, the Minor Arcana; Knight of Pentacles, Page of Cups, Queen of Wands, King of Swords. The Empress, the Magician. And the Hanged Man.
Well, what else would I dream about? I mean, this was not a subtle dream, no doubt about it. There it was, right in the middle of the spread of cards, and Deb was telling me about it.
“A man is suspended by one foot from a pole laid across two trees. His arms, folded behind his back, together with his head, form a triangle with the point downward; his legs form a cross. To an extent, the Hanged Man