Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (17 page)

“What?” said Fanny incredulously, and moved to peer over Bree’s shoulder, closely accompanied by Germain.

“What
is
that?” Germain asked, fascinated.

“Sam-I-Am!” Mandy said crossly, and jabbed a finger at the page. “He gots a sign!”

“Ah,
oui.
And what’s the other thing, then? A Who-Are-You?”

That made Fanny, Jemmy,
and
Roger laugh, which turned Mandy incandescent with rage. She might not have the red hair, I thought, but she had the Fraser temper, in spades.

“Shut up, shut up, shut
up
!” she shrieked, and scrambling to her feet made for Germain with the obvious intent of disemboweling him with her bare hands.

“Whoa!” Roger snared her deftly and lifted her off her feet. “Calm down, sweetheart, he didn’t mean—”

I could have told him—but if he hadn’t learned it from sharing a household with assorted Frasers for years, it wouldn’t do any good to tell him now—that the very last thing you should say to one in full roar was “Calm down.” Like putting out an oil fire on your stove by throwing a glass of water on it.

“He did!” Mandy bellowed, struggling madly in her father’s grip. “I hate him, he wuined it, it’s all wuined! Leggo, I hate you, too!” She started kicking, dangerously in the vicinity of her father’s crotch, and he instinctively held her out, away from him.

Jamie reached out, wrapped an arm round her middle, gathered her in, and put a big hand on the nape of her neck.

“Hush,
a nighean,
” he said, and she did. She was panting like a little steam engine, red-faced and teary, but she stopped.

“We’ll step outside for a moment, shall we?” he said to her, and nodded to the rest of the assembled company. “No one’s to touch her book while we’re gone. D’ye hear?”

There was a faint murmur of assent, succeeded by total silence as Jamie and Mandy disappeared into the night.

“The cookies!” Smelling the strong scent of incipient scorching, I darted to the oven, snatched the girdle out, and hastily flipped the cookies off onto the Big Plate—the only pottery dish we owned at the moment, but capable of holding anything up to a small turkey.

“Are the cookies okay?” Jem, with a total disregard for his sister’s immediate prospects, hurried over to look.

“Yes,” I assured him. “A bit brown at the edges, but perfectly fine.”

Fanny had come, too, but was less intent on gluttony.

“Will Mr. Fraser whip her?” she whispered, looking anxious.

“No,” Germain assured her. “She’s too little.”

“Oh, no, she’s not,” Jemmy assured him, with a wary glance at his mother, whose face was distinctly flushed, if not quite as red as Mandy’s.

All the children had clustered round me, whether out of interest in cookies or from self-preservation. I lifted an eyebrow at Roger, who went and sat down beside Brianna. I turned my back, to allow a little marital privacy, and sent Fanny and Jem out to fetch the big pitcher of milk, presently hanging in the well—and I did hope none of the local frogs had decided to avail themselves, in defiance of the stone-weighted cloth I’d draped over the pitcher’s mouth.

“I’m sorry, Grannie.” Germain edged close to me, low-voiced. “I didna mean to cause a stramash, truly.”

“I know, sweetheart. Everybody knows, except Mandy. And Grandda will explain it to her.”

“Oh.” He relaxed at once, having total faith in his grandfather’s ability to charm anything from an unbroken horse to a rabid hedgehog.

“Go get the mugs,” I told him. “Everyone will be back soon.”

The tin mugs had been rinsed after dinner and left upside down to dry on the stoop; Germain hurried out, carefully not looking at Bree.

Germain thought she was angry with him, but it was apparent to me that she was upset, not angry. And no wonder, I thought sympathetically. She’d tried so hard, for so long, to keep Jem and Mandy safe—and happy. First, during Roger’s long and harrowing absence, and then the search to find him, the trip through the stones, and the long journey here. Little wonder that her nerves were still on edge. Luckily, Roger’s instincts as a husband were quite good; he had his arm round her and her head resting on his shoulder, and was murmuring things to her, too low for me to catch the words, but the tone of it was love and reassurance, and the lines of her face were smoothing out.

I heard soft voices in the other direction, too, through the open kitchen door—Jamie and Mandy, evidently pointing out stars they liked to each other. I smiled, arranging the cookies on the platter. He probably
could
charm a rabid hedgehog, I thought.

With his own good instincts, Jamie waited until the mob had reassembled and were eagerly sniffing the warm cookies. Then he carried Mandy back in and deposited her among the other children without comment.

“Thirty-four?” he said, assessing the array at a glance. “One for Oggy, aye?”

“Yes. How do you
do
that?”

“Och, it’s no difficult, Sassenach.” He leaned over the platter and closed his eyes, inhaling beatifically. “It’s easier than goats and sheep after all—cookies dinna have legs.”

“Legs?” said Fanny, puzzled.

“Oh, aye,” he said, opening his eyes and smiling at her. “To know the number o’ goats ye have, ye just count the legs and divide by four.”

The adult members of the audience groaned, and Germain and Jem, who had learnt division, giggled.

“That—” Fanny began, and then stopped, frowning.

“Sit,” I said briskly. “Jem, pour the milk, please. And how many cookies does each person get then, Mr. Know-it-all?”

“Three!” the boys chorused. A dissenting opinion from Mandy, who thought everyone should have five, was quelled without incident and the whole room relaxed into a quiet orgy of cold, creamy milk and sweet-scented crumbs.

“Now, then,” Jamie said, and paused, carefully brushing crumbs off his shirtfront into his palm and licking them off. “Now, then,” he repeated. “Amanda tells me she can read her book by herself. Will ye maybe read it to us,
a leannan
?”

“Yes!”

And with only a brief interruption for the wiping of sticky hands and face, she was ensconced once more in her mother’s arms—but this time, the vivid orange book was in her own lap. She opened the cover and glared at her audience.

“Everybody shut up,” she said firmly. “
I
read.”

THE SURGERY WAS
the only room with complete walls, so once the cookie crumbs were all devoured, and Mandy’s book read aloud several times, Ian and his family left for their own cabin and the children lugged their pallets down the rudimentary hallway, excited at the prospect of sleeping in their own house.

I went with them to make up a fire in the brazier, the second chimney not being yet complete, and hung tattered quilts over the open window and doorway to discourage bats, mosquitoes, foxes, and curious rodents.

“Now, if a raccoon or a possum should come in,” I said, “
don’t
try to make it leave. Just come out of the surgery and get your father or your grandsire. Or your mother,” I added. Bree could certainly deal with a rogue raccoon.

I threw a kiss to the room at large and went back to the kitchen.

The smell of molasses had faded, but the air was still sweet, now with the scent of whisky. Brianna, sitting on a wooden box of indigo, raised her tin cup to me.

“You’re just in time,” she said.

“For what?”

Jamie handed me a full cup and tapped the rim of his to mine.
“Slàinte,”
he said. “To the new hearth.”

“For presents,” Bree said, half apologetically. “I thought about it for a long time. I didn’t know if I’d ever find you—any of you—” she added, with a serious glance at Roger. “And I wanted to bring something that would last, even if it got destroyed or lost.”

Jamie and I exchanged a puzzled look, but she was already delving into her canvas bag. She came up with a chunky blue book and, eyes dancing, put it into my hands.

“What—” I began, but I knew instantly from the feel of it and let out a noise that could only be called a squeal. “Bree! Oh, oh…!”

Jamie was smiling but still puzzled. I held it out to him, then clutched it to my bosom before he could take it. “Oh!” I said again. “Bree, thank you! This is
wonderful
!”

She was pink with pleasure, her eyes shiny in response to my excitement. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Oh…!”

“Let me see it,
mo nighean donn,
” Jamie said, reaching gently for the book. I could hardly bear to let go of it, but relinquished it.

“Merck Manual, Thirteenth Edition,”
he read from the cover, and looked up, brows raised. “Merck seems a popular writer—that, or he makes the devil of a lot of mistakes.”

“It’s a—a—medical book,” I explained, beginning to get hold of myself, though little thrills of elation were still washing through me. “
The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy.
It’s a sort of compendium of—of the state of general medical knowledge.”

“Oh.” He looked at the book with interest, and opened it, though I could see he didn’t yet grasp its full importance.
“Controlling the spread of
E. histolytica
requires preventing access of human feces to the mouth,”
he read, and looked up. “Oh,” he said softly, seeing the look on my face, and smiled. “It’s what folk will have found out—then. Things about healing that ye dinna ken yet, yourself. Though I’m guessing ye do ken not to eat shite?”

I nodded, and he closed the book gently and handed it back. I clasped it to my bosom, overwhelmed with anticipation. Thirteenth edition—from 1977!

Roger coughed, and when Brianna looked at him, he tilted his head toward the bag.

“And…” she said, smiling at Jamie. “For you, Da.” She pulled out a small, thick paperback and handed it to him. “And for you…” A second book followed the first. “And this one’s for you, too.” The third.

“They all go together,” Roger said gruffly. “It’s all one story, I mean, but printed in three volumes.”

“Oh, aye?” Jamie turned over one of the books gingerly, as though afraid it might disintegrate in his hands.

“It’s glued, is it? The binding?”

“Aye,” Roger said, smiling. “It’s called a paperback, that sort of wee book. They’re cheap and light.”

Jamie weighed the book on his hand and nodded, but he was already reading the back cover.

“Frodo Baggins,” he read aloud, and looked up, baffled. “A Welshman?”

“Not exactly. Brianna thought the tale might speak to ye,” Roger said, his smile deepening as he looked at her. “I think she’s right.”

“Mmphm.” Jamie gathered the trio of books together and—with a thoughtful look at the sticky fingerprints Mandy had left on her cup—put them on the top of my simples closet. He kissed Bree and nodded toward her bag.

“Thank ye kindly—I ken they’ll be braw. What did ye bring for yourself, lass?”

“Well…mostly small tools,” she said. “Mostly things that exist now, but of a better quality, or that I couldn’t get here without a lot of trouble and expense.”

“What, nay books at all?” Jamie asked, smiling. “Ye’ll be the only illiterate of the family?”

Bree was already flushed with pleasure and excitement, but grew noticeably pinker at this question.

“Um. Well…just the one.” She glanced at me, cleared her throat, and reached into the almost-empty bag.

“Oh,” I said, and the tone of my voice made Jamie look at me, rather than at the hardbound book in its plastic-covered dust jacket.
The Soul of a Rebel,
it said.
The Scottish Roots of the American Revolution.
By Franklin W. Randall, PhD.

Bree was looking at Jamie, a small anxious frown between her brows, but at this, she turned to me.

“I haven’t read it yet,” she said. “But you—either of you,” she added, glancing between me and Jamie, “are welcome to read it anytime. If you want to.”

I met Jamie’s eyes. His brows lifted briefly and he looked away.

BRIANNA AND ROGER
took the sticky cups, mixing bowl, spoon, and milk pitcher outside to rinse, and I sat down beside Jamie on a large sack of dried beans to gloat over my
Merck Manual
for a few minutes. He was turning Frank’s book over in his hands with a ginger air indicating that he thought it might explode, but put it aside and smiled when he saw me fondling the blue pebbled cover of my new baby.