Outlander Novella [01] The Space Between (15 page)

Shock, anger, and sheer confusion robbed Rakoczy of speech for a moment. What was the infernal creature
doing
here? Wait—the girl! The lost daughter he’d mentioned: the nun was the daughter! He’d discovered her whereabouts and somehow followed them to this place. Rakoczy took hold of the girl’s arm again, firmly.

“She is a Scotch,” he said. “And, as you see, a nun. No concern of yours.”

The frog looked amused, cool and unruffled. Rakoczy was sweating, the noise beating against his skin in waves. He could feel the little bag of stones in his pocket, a hard lump against his heart. They seemed to be warm, warmer even than his skin.

“I doubt that she is, really,” said Raymond. “Why is she a concern of yours, though?”

“That’s also none of your business.” He was trying to think. He couldn’t lay out the stones, not with the damned frog standing there. Could he just leave with the girl? But if the frog meant him harm … and if the girl truly wasn’t …

Raymond ignored the incivility and bowed again to the girl.

“I am Master Raymond, my dear,” he said. “And you?”

“Joan Mac—” she said. “Er … Sister Gregory, I mean.” She tried to pull away from Rakoczy’s grip. “Um. If I’m not the concern of either of you gentlemen—”

“She’s my concern, gentlemen.” The voice was high with nerves, but firm. Rakoczy looked round, shocked to see the young wine merchant walk into the chamber, disheveled and dirty but eyes fixed on the girl. At Rakoczy’s side, the nun gasped.

“Sister.” The merchant bowed. He was white-faced but not sweating. He looked as though the chill of the cavern had seeped into his bones, but he put out a hand, from which the beads of a wooden rosary swung. “You dropped your rosary.”

* * *

Joan thought she might faint from sheer relief. Her knees wobbled from terror and exhaustion, but she summoned enough strength to wrench free of the comte and run, stumbling, into Michael’s arms. He grabbed her and hauled her away from the comte, half-dragging her.

The comte made an angry sound and took a step in Joan’s direction, but Michael said, “Stop right there, ye wicked bugger!” just as the little froggy-faced man said sharply, “Stop!”

The comte swung toward first one and then the other. He looked … crazed. Joan swallowed and nudged Michael, urging him toward the chamber’s door, only then noticing the penknife in his hand.

“What were ye going to do wi’
that
?” she whispered. “Shave him?”

“Let the air out of him,” Michael muttered. He lowered his hand but didn’t put the knife away and kept his eyes on the two men.

“Your daughter,” the comte said hoarsely to the man who called himself Master Raymond. “You were looking for a lost daughter. I’ve found her for you.”

Raymond’s brows shot up, and he glanced at Joan.

“Mine?” he said, astonished. “She isn’t one of mine. Can’t you tell?”

The comte drew a breath so deep it cracked in his throat.

“Tell? But—”

The frog looked impatient.

“Can you not see auras? The electrical fluid that surrounds people,” he elucidated, waving a hand around his own head.

The comte rubbed a hand hard over his face. “I can’t—”

“For goodness sake, come in here!” Raymond stepped to the edge of the star, reached across, and seized the comte’s hand.

* * *

Rakoczy stiffened at the touch. Blue light exploded from their linked hands, and he gasped, feeling a surge of energy such as he had never before experienced. Raymond pulled hard, and Rakoczy stepped across the line into the pentagram.

Silence. The buzzing had stopped. He nearly wept with the relief of it.

“I—you—” he stammered, looking at the linked hands.

“You didn’t know?” Raymond looked surprised.

“That you were a—” He waved at the pentagram. “I thought you might be.”

“Not that,” Raymond said, almost gently. “That you were one of mine.”

“Yours?” Rakoczy looked down again; the blue light was pulsing gently now, surrounding their fingers.

“Everyone has an aura of some kind,” Raymond said. “But only my … people … have
this
.”

In the blessed silence, it was possible to think again. And the first thing that came to mind was the Star Chamber, the king looking on as they had faced each other over a poisoned cup. And now he knew why the frog hadn’t killed him.

* * *

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.”

DIANA GABALDON is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the wildly popular Outlander novels,
Outlander
,
Dragonfly in Amber
,
Voyager
,
Drums of Autumn
,
The Fiery Cross
,
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
(for which she won a Quill Award and the Corine International Book Prize),
An Echo in the Bone
, and the forthcoming
Written in My Own Heart’s Blood
, and one work of nonfiction,
The Outlandish Companion
, as well as the bestselling series featuring Lord John Grey, a character she introduced in
Dragonfly in Amber
. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

No. 17 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia The residence of Lord and Lady John Grey

William had left the house like a thunderclap, and the place looked as though it had been struck by lightning. I certainly felt like the survivor of a massive electrical storm, hairs and nerve endings all standing up straight on end, waving in agitation.

Jenny Murray had entered the house on the heels of William’s departure, and while the sight of her was a lesser shock than any of the others so far, it still left me speechless. I goggled at my erstwhile sister-in-law—though, come to think, she still
was
my sister-in-law … because Jamie was alive.
Alive
.

He’d been in my arms not ten minutes before, and the memory of his touch flickered through me like lightning in a bottle. I was dimly aware that I was smiling like a loon, despite massive destruction, horrific scenes, William’s distress—if you could call an explosion like that “distress”—Jamie’s danger, and a faint wonder as to what either Jenny or Mrs. Figg, Lord John’s cook and housekeeper, might be about to say.

Mrs. Figg was smoothly spherical, gleamingly black, and inclined to glide silently up behind one like a menacing ball bearing.

“What’s
this
?” she barked, manifesting herself suddenly behind Jenny.

“Holy Mother of God!” Jenny whirled, eyes round and hand pressed to her chest. “Who in God’s name are you?”

“This is Mrs. Figg,” I said, feeling a surreal urge to laugh, despite—or maybe because of—recent
events. “Lord John Grey’s cook. And Mrs. Figg, this is Mrs. Murray. My, um … my …”

“Your good-sister,” Jenny said firmly. She raised one black eyebrow. “If ye’ll have me still?” Her look was straight and open, and the urge to laugh changed abruptly into an equally strong urge to burst into tears. Of all the unlikely sources of succor I could have imagined … I took a deep breath and put out my hand.

“I’ll have you.” We hadn’t parted on good terms in Scotland, but I had loved her very much, once, and wasn’t about to pass up any opportunity to mend things.

Her small firm fingers wove through mine, squeezed hard, and, as simply as that, it was done. No need for apologies or spoken forgiveness. She’d never had to wear the mask that Jamie did. What she thought and felt was there in her eyes, those slanted blue cat-eyes she shared with her brother. She knew the truth now of what I was, and she knew I loved and always had loved her brother with all my heart and soul—despite the minor complications of my being presently married to someone else.

She heaved a sigh, eyes closing for an instant, then opened them and smiled at me, mouth trembling only a little.

“Well, fine and dandy,” said Mrs. Figg shortly. She narrowed her eyes and rotated smoothly on her axis, taking in the panorama of destruction. The railing at the top of the stair had been ripped off, and cracked banisters, dented walls, and bloody smudges marked the path of William’s descent. Shattered crystals from the chandelier littered the floor, glinting festively in the light from the open front door, the door itself cracked through and hanging drunkenly from one hinge.

“
Merde
on toast,” Mrs. Figg murmured. She turned abruptly to me, her small black-currant eyes still narrowed. “Where’s his lordship?”

“Ah,” I said. This was going to be rather sticky, I saw. While deeply disapproving of most
people, Mrs. Figg was devoted to John. She wasn’t going to be at all pleased to hear that he’d been abducted by—