Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)

HIS MIND BUBBLED with questions. La Dame Blanche, blue light, Mélisande, and Madeleine…Thought of Madeleine and what grew in her womb nearly stopped him, but the urge to find out, to know at last, was too strong.

“Can you—can we—go forward?”

Raymond hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. But it’s not safe. Not safe at all.”

“Will you show me?”

“I mean it.” The frog’s grip tightened on his. “It’s not a safe thing to know, let alone to do.”

Rakoczy laughed, feeling all at once exhilarated, full of joy. Why should he fear knowledge? Perhaps the passage would kill him—but he had a pocket full of gems, and, besides, what was the point of waiting to die slowly?

“Tell me!” he said, squeezing the other’s hand. “For the sake of our shared blood!”



JOAN STOOD STOCK-STILL, amazed. Michael’s arm was still around her, but she scarcely noticed.

“He is!” she whispered. “He truly is! They both are!”

“Are what?” Michael gaped at her.

“Auld Folk! Faeries!”

He looked wildly back at the scene before them. The two men stood face-to-face, hands locked together, their mouths moving in animated conversation—in total silence. It was like watching mimes but even less interesting.

“I dinna care what they are. Loons, criminals, demons, angels…Come on!” He dropped his arm and seized her hand, but she was planted solid as an oak sapling, her eyes growing wide and wider.

She gripped his hand hard enough to grind the bones and shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Don’t do it!!”

He whirled round just in time to see them vanish.



THEY STUMBLED TOGETHER down the long, pale passages, bathed in the flickering light of dying torches, red, yellow, blue, green, a ghastly purple that made Joan’s face look drowned.

“Des feux d’artifice,” Michael said. His voice sounded queer, echoing in the empty tunnels. “A conjurer’s trick.”

“What?” Joan looked drugged, her eyes black with shock.

“The fires. The…colors. Have ye never heard of fireworks?”

“No.”

“Oh.” It seemed too much a struggle to explain, and they went on in silence, hurrying as much as they could, to reach the shaft before the light died entirely.

At the bottom, he paused to let her go first, thinking too late that he should have gone first—she’d think he meant to look up her dress….He turned hastily away, face burning.

“D’ye think he was? That they were?” She was hanging on to the ladder, a few feet above him. Beyond her, he could see the stars, serene in a velvet sky.

“Were what?” He looked at her face, so as not to risk her modesty. She was looking better now but very serious.

“Were they Auld Folk? Faeries?”

“I suppose they must ha’ been.” His mind was moving very slowly; he didn’t want to have to try to think. He motioned to her to climb and followed her up, his eyes tightly shut. If they were Auld Ones, then likely so was Auntie Claire. He truly didn’t want to think about that.

He drew the fresh air gratefully into his lungs. The wind was toward the city now, coming off the fields, full of the resinous cool scent of pine trees and the breath of grass and cattle. He felt Joan breathe it in, sigh deeply, and then she turned to him, put her arms around him, and rested her forehead on his chest. He put his arms round her and they stood for some time, in peace.

Finally, she stirred and straightened up.

“Ye’d best take me back, then,” she said. “The sisters will be half out o’ their minds.”

He was conscious of a sharp sense of disappointment but turned obediently toward the coach, standing in the distance. Then he turned back.

“Ye’re sure?” he said. “Did your voices tell ye to go back?”

She made a sound that wasn’t quite a rueful laugh.

“I dinna need a voice to tell me that.” She brushed a hand through her hair, smoothing it off her face. “In the Highlands, if a man’s widowed, he takes another wife as soon as he can get one; he’s got to have someone to mend his shirt and rear his bairns. But Sister Philomène says it’s different in Paris; that a man might mourn for a year.”

“He might,” he said, after a short silence. Would a year be enough, he wondered, to heal the great hole where Lillie had been? He knew he would never forget—never stop looking for her—but he didn’t forget what Ian had told him, either.

“But after a time, ye find ye’re in a different place than ye were. A different person than ye were. And then ye look about and see what’s there with ye. Ye’ll maybe find a use for yourself.”

Joan’s face was pale and serious in the moonlight, her mouth gentle.

“It’s a year before a postulant makes up her mind. Whether to stay and become a novice—or…or leave. It takes time. To know.”

“Aye,” he said softly. “Aye, it does.”

He turned to go, but she stopped him, a hand on his arm.

“Michael,” she said. “Kiss me, aye? I think I should maybe know that, before I decide.”





A PLAGUE OF ZOMBIES





INTRODUCTION


THE THING ABOUT Lord John’s situation and career—unmarried, no fixed establishment, discreet political connections, fairly high-ranking officer—is that he can easily take part in far-flung adventures rather than being bound to a pedestrian daily life. To be honest, once I started doing “bulges” (that is, shorter pieces of fiction) involving him, I just looked at which year it was and then consulted one of my historical timeline references to see what kinds of interesting events happened in that year. That’s how he happened to find himself in Quebec for the battle there.

In terms of this story, though, the impetus came from two different sources, both “trails” leading back from the main book of the series—Voyager, in this case. To wit: I knew that Lord John was the governor of Jamaica in 1766, when Claire met him aboard the Porpoise; it wasn’t by any means impossible for a man with connections and no experience to be appointed to such a post—but it was more likely for a man who had had experience in the territory to which he was appointed. “Plague” is set in 1761, and is the story of how Lord John gained that experience. I knew also that Geillis Duncan wasn’t dead and where she was. And, after all, with a story set in Jamaica, how could I possibly resist zombies?





Spanish Town, Jamaica

June 1761

THERE WAS A SNAKE on the drawing-room table. A small snake, but still. Lord John Grey wondered whether to say anything about it.