The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [600]
Brianna had freshly smoored the fire; it burned with a low, even heat and the sweet scent of hickory, making small occasional pops as the buried flame reached a pocket of resin or a spot of damp. Warmth crept over him, and sleep tiptoed in its wake, drawing a blanket of drowsiness up round his ears, unlocking the tidy cupboards of his mind, and letting all the thoughts and impressions of the day spill out in brightly colored heaps.
Resisting unconsciousness for a last few moments, he poked desultorily among the scattered riches thus revealed, in the faint hope of finding a corner of the Telfer song poking out; some scrap of word or music that would allow him to seize the vanished verses and drag them back into the light of consciousness. It wasn’t the story of the ill-fated Willie that emerged from the rubble, though, but rather a voice. Not his own, and not that of old Kimmie Clellan, either.
Clever lad! it said, in a clear warm contralto, tinged with laughter. Roger jerked.
“Whaju say?” Brianna mumbled, disturbed by the movement.
“Go on—be clever,” he said slowly, echoing the words as they formed in his memory. “That’s what she said.”
“Who?” Brianna turned her head, with a rustle of hair on the pillow.
“My mother.” He put his free hand round her waist, resettling them both. “You asked what they said in Scotland. I’d forgotten, but that’s what she used to say to me. ‘Go on—be clever!’ or ‘Do ye need to be clever?’ ”
Bree gave a small grunt of sleepy amusement.
“Well, it’s better than poo,” she said.
They lay quiet for a bit. Then she said, still speaking softly, but with all traces of sleep gone from her voice, “You talk about your dad now and then—but I’ve never heard you mention your mother before.”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug, bringing his knees up against the yielding backs of her thighs.
“I don’t remember a lot about her.”
“How old were you when she died?” Brianna’s hand floated up to rest over his.
“Oh, four, I think, nearly five.”
“Mmm.” She made a small sound of sympathy, and squeezed his hand. She was quiet for a moment, alone in private thought, but he heard her swallow audibly, and felt the slight tension in her shoulders.
“What?”
“Oh . . . nothing.”
“Aye?” He disengaged his hand, used it to lift the heavy plait aside, and gently massaged the nape of her neck. She turned her head away to make it easier, burying her face in the pillow.
“Just—I was just thinking—if I died now, Jemmy’s so young—he wouldn’t remember me at all,” she whispered, words half-muffled.
“Yes, he would.” He spoke in automatic contradiction, wanting to give her reassurance, even knowing that she was likely right.
“You don’t remember, and you were lots older when you lost your mother.”
“Oh . . . I do remember her,” he said slowly, digging the ball of his thumb into the place where her neck joined her shoulder. “Only, it’s just in bits and pieces. Sometimes, when I’m dreaming, or thinking of something else, I get a quick glimpse of her, or some echo of her voice. A few things I recall clearly—like the locket she used to wear round her neck, with her initials on it in wee red stones. Garnets, they were.”
That locket had perhaps saved his life, during his first ill-fated attempt to pass through the stones. He felt the loss of it now and then, like a small thorn buried beneath the surface of the skin, but pushed the feeling aside, telling himself that after all, it was nothing more than a bit of metal.
At the same time, he missed it.
“That’s a thing, Roger.” Her voice held a hint of sharpness. “Do you remember her? I mean—what would Jemmy know about me—about you, for that