The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [31]
He pushed past Brianna, focused only on the tall, slim girl before him, and the image of a face that mirrored his own. She saw him coming, turned and ran like the wind for the cleft stone at the end of the circle. She had a knapsack of rough canvas, slung over one shoulder; he heard her grunt as it swung heavily and struck her in the side.
She paused for an instant, hand outstretched to the rock, and looked back. He could have sworn that her eyes rested on him, met his own and held them, beyond the barrier of the fire’s blaze. He opened his mouth in a wordless shout. She whirled then, light as a dancing spark, and vanished in the cleft of the rock.
At once, Roger is struck by a wave of noise and chaos like nothing he has ever experienced. Dazed, blinded, deafened, he is crawling toward the cleft himself when Brianna succeeds in rousing him. Deeply shaken by the experience, he is unhurt. But where is Claire?
Knocked unconscious by the shock wave of Gillian Edgars’s passage through the stones, Claire lies in the grass of Craigh na Dun. Roger and Brianna get her back to the manse, where she slowly regains consciousness, to meet her daughter’s questions.
“It was true, then?” Brianna asked hesitantly. “Everything was true?”
Roger felt the small shudder that ran through the girl’s body, and without thinking about it, reached up to take her hand. He winced involuntarily as she squeezed it, and suddenly in memory heard one of the Reverend’s texts: “Blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” And those who must see, in order to believe? The effects of belief wrought by seeing trembled fearful at his side, terrified at what else must now be believed.
Even as the girl tightened, bracing herself to meet a truth she had already seen, the lines of Claire’s tensed body on the sofa relaxed. The pale lips curved in the shadow of a smile, and a look of profound peace smoothed the strained white face, and settled glowing in the golden eyes.
“It’s true,” she said. A tinge of color came back into the pallid cheeks. “Would your mother lie to you?” And she closed her eyes once more.
Himself shaken by the events of the night, Roger leaves mother and daughter to recover quietly together. It is only the next day, when the police have come, made their futile enquiries, and left, that Roger faces his final decision.
It had taken some time, but he had found it—the short passage he remembered from his earlier search on Claire Randall’s behalf. Those results had brought her comfort and peace; this wouldn’t—if he told her. And if he were right? But he must be; it accounted for that misplaced grave, so far from Culloden …
“Claire?” His voice felt scratchy from disuse, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Claire? I … have something to tell you.”
She turned and looked up at him, no more than the faintest curiosity visible on her features. She wore a look of calm, the look of one who has borne terror, despair, and mourning, and the desperate burden of survival—and has endured. Looking at her, he felt suddenly that he couldn’t do it.
But she had told the truth; he must do likewise.
“I found something. ”He raised the book in a brief, futile gesture. “About … Jamie.”
Speaking that name aloud seemed to brace him, as though the big Scot himself had been conjured by his calling to stand solid and unmoving in the hallway, between his wife and Roger. Roger took a deep breath in preparation.
“What is it?”
“The last thing he meant to do. I think … I think he failed.”
Her face paled suddenly, and she glanced wide-eyed at the book.
“His men? But I thought you found—”
“I did,” Roger interrupted. “No, I’m fairly sure he succeeded in that. He got the men of Lallybroch out; he saved them from Culloden, and set them on the road home.”
“But then …”
“He meant to turn back—back to the battle—and I think he did that, too.” He was increasingly reluctant, but it had to be said. Finding no words of his own, he flipped the book open, and read aloud:
“After the final battle at Culloden,