The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [680]
Jemmy watched this with great interest, his misadventure apparently forgotten.
“D’ye like these, a ghille ruaidh?” Jamie asked him, and he nodded eagerly, leaning out of his mother’s lap, reaching toward the stones.
“Hot,” he said, then, remembering, shrank back a little, a look of doubt crossing his small, blunt features. “Hot?”
“Well, I do hope not,” his grandfather said. He took a deep breath and picked up the emerald, a crudely faceted stone the size of his thumbnail. “Put out your hand, a bhalaich.”
Brianna looked as though she wanted to protest, but bit her lower lip, and encouraged Jemmy to do as his grandfather asked. He took the stone, still looking suspicious, but then the look of wariness faded into a smile as he looked down at the stone.
“Pretty rock!”
“Is it hot?” Brianna asked, poised to snatch it out of his hand.
“Yes, hot,” he said, with satisfaction, holding it against his stomach.
“Let Mama see.” With a little difficulty, Brianna succeeded in getting her fingers onto the rock, though Jemmy wouldn’t surrender it. “It’s warm,” she said, looking up. “Like the piece of opal—but not way hot. If it gets way hot, you drop it fast, OK?” she said to Jemmy.
Roger had been watching this with fascination.
“He’s got it, hasn’t he?” he said softly. “Fifty/fifty, you said, or three chances in four, depending—but he’s got it, doesn’t he?”
“What?” Jamie glanced at Roger, then me, one red brow raised in question.
“I think he can . . . travel,” I said, feeling a tightening of my chest at the thought. “You know what Otter-Tooth said—” I nodded at the journal, which lay discarded on the desk. “He said they had to take a test—to see if they could hear ‘the voice of time.’ We know that not everyone can . . . do this.” I felt unaccountably shy, talking of it before Ian. “But some can. From what Otter-Tooth said, there was a way of finding out who could and couldn’t, ahead of time, without having actually to try.”
Jemmy was paying no attention to the grown-up conversation, instead rocking back and forth, humming to the stone clutched in his pudgy hand.
“Do you suppose the ‘voice of time’ is—Jem, can you hear the rock?” Roger leaned forward, taking hold of Jemmy’s arm to compel his attention away from the emerald. “Jem, is the rock singing to you?”
Jemmy looked up, surprised.
“No,” he said uncertainly. Then, “Yes.” He held the rock up to his ear, frowning, then thrust it at Roger. “You sing, Daddy!”
Roger accepted the emerald gingerly, smiling at Jemmy.
“I don’t know any rock songs,” he said, in his husky rasp of a voice. “Unless ye count the Beatles.” He lifted the rock to his own ear, looking self-conscious. He listened intently, frowning, then lowered his hand, shaking his head.
“It’s not—I can’t—I couldna really say I hear anything. And yet—here, you try.” He passed the stone to Brianna, and she in turn to me. Neither of us heard anything in particular, and yet I thought I could perceive something, if I listened very hard. Not exactly a sound, more a sense of very, very faint vibration.
“What is it?” Ian asked. He had been following the proceedings with rapt interest. “Ye’re no sìdheanach, the three of ye—but why is it you can do . . . what ye do, and Uncle Jamie and I canna? Ye can’t, can ye, Uncle Jamie?” he asked dubiously.
“No, thank God,” his uncle replied.
“It’s genetic, isn’t it?” Brianna asked, looking up. “It has to be.”
Jamie and Ian looked wary at the unfamiliar term.
“Genetic?” Ian asked. His feathery brows drew together in puzzlement.
“Why shouldn’t it be?” I said. “Everything else is—blood type, eye color.”
“But everyone has eyes and blood, Sassenach,” Jamie objected. “Whatever color his eyes may be, everyone can see. This—” He waved at the small collection of stones.
I sighed with impatience.
“Yes, but there are other things that are genetic—everything, if you come right down to it! Look—” I turned to him and stuck out my tongue. Jamie blinked, and Brianna giggled at his expression.
Disregarding this, I pulled in my tongue