Chapter Text
October 1977
George Orwell once said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
I was nearly twenty-seven-years-old when my twin sister, brother-in-law, and nephew traveled through the stones for the second time. Of course, neither of us knew about the other’s existence the first time we made the journey. The reasons for this were because I was given up for adoption at birth, and Roger certainly didn’t know me at birth. Bree, my twin sister, did, however, and it would be a long two decades before we met one another.
Our own mother possessed the gift of traveling through the stones, and she was twenty-seven the first time she did so. There, two hundred years in the past, she would meet a young and headstrong Scottish highlander, James Fraser, and the pair would fall deeply, and irrevocably, in love. Although she fell pregnant with myself and Bree within their short time together, she had been forced by him to return through the stones, and back to her first husband, a historian named Frank Randall, who disposed of me at birth, and raised Bree with my mother, never telling our mother, or Bree, of my existence.
Arriving in the late-1970s was not too much of a culture shock, given that we had lived in the beginning of the decade. Of course, there was the notion that we had all been missing for a considerable amount of time, so who was to know what would happen upon our return? I remember waking up in the stone circle, and took careful note that, other than the sun being in a higher position in the sky, nothing else looked different.
My nephew, Jemmy, joyously proclaimed that he was all right, and was awake, and Bree, Roger, and I didn’t know what to think. As we got our bearings, and made sure all of our belongings were with us, Bree gathered Jemmy to her and looked around. Since neither of them had gone through these stones the first time around, I managed to remember the pathway out of the woods, and hoped beyond hope that we wouldn’t run into the farm owned by Brodie and his family, for it would simply be too easy to turn tail and run back to my beloved husband.
However, once the trees cleared, I saw that it was the main road of the area, with bus stops on each side of it. Nodding my head and indicating which one we should take, I dug the correct change from my bag, and handed over the fares for Roger and Bree. We waited in the overcast weather, unknowing what we would do if we didn’t have enough money, or if a bus never came to collect us. All went well, however, and we were subsequently picked up and dropped off at the ferry dock, ultimately climbing aboard.
Jemmy was very excited throughout all of this, as well he should have been—he had certainly never seen or been on a bus or a ferry before. The other side of the land bloomed in various colors, mostly orange, red, and gold, and my nephew seemed quite happy to see it. Once off the ferry, we found the parking lot, and I stopped short at the sight of my car.
“Are you all right?” Bree asked me.
I shook my head, taking my time to find my words. “That’s my car,” I said, and pointed to the red Pontiac LeMans GTO—I would never forget my sixteenth birthday present. I fumbled in my bag for my set of keys and clutched onto them, the Casper the friendly ghost keychain now a bit more faded. Stepping forward, I tested the lock, and found that my set of keys still worked. “I don’t know why it’s still here...”
“Maybe your folks thought you’d be back one day,” Roger reasoned.
I nodded my head at him. “Yeah... Maybe.”
Bree got into the back seat with Jemmy, while Roger took our belongings and loaded them up in the trunk of my car. I sat in the driver’s seat while Roger got shotgun, and slowly put the car into drive from park. Biting my lip, I navigated my way carefully out of the parking lot, and made my way out onto the highway.
“We’ll have to stop for gas in a few miles,” I said quietly.
Bree nodded her head. “All right.”
“I have a few dollars in my bag,” I told her. “Shouldn’t be so bad.”
I stopped at the first gas station I saw, and Roger volunteered the pump it for me, so I fished out my wallet and hand over the cash—a ten dollar bill—and he got to work. I fumbled in my glove compartment and found a road map, left there from my drive to see Joe Abernathy—and found the route we were currently on. Nodding to myself, I found the most efficient way to get to John and Cate’s house, and smiled to myself.
“What are you thinking?” Bree asked me from the backseat.
I turned and looked over at my twin. “Figuring out the best way to get to the house,” I told her, and Bree nodded. “John and Cate’s house...”
“You called them ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’, didn’t you?” she asked, not accusatory—they were, after all, the only parents I’d known for many, many years.
I nodded. “I did, yeah. I don’t know. Feels weird now.”
“Do you know what you’re going to say to them yet?” Bree wanted to know.
I shook my head. “No idea,” I told her, watching as Roger continued to pump the gas. “I guess ask if we can rest there for a while... My clothes will probably fit you, too, and there’s plenty of room for all of us.”
“I can’t wait to take a shower,” Bree said softly, and we shared a smile.
We stayed on the road until after dinner hour, and then we slowly passed through into the Raleigh city limits. I navigated my way easily down various side streets of the main populace of suburbia, and then we arrived at the street of my childhood home. Keeping my fingers crossed that John and Cate Raymond still lived there, I breathed an audible sigh of relief as we pulled into the driveway, and spotted John’s 1955 silver Chevy Bel Air, alongside Cate’s dark blue 1967 Shelby GT500.
I gripped tightly onto the steering wheel, and was only grounded when Roger tentatively touched my arm and Bree my shoulder.
“We’ve got you,” Bree whispered.
I nodded my head at them, looking up at the house. “Well, here we go,” I said, and got out of the car slowly, putting the seat up so that Bree and Jemmy could come out, and Roger could get our belongings from the backseat. I waited for them to be ready before I walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell, no longer comfortable to just let myself inside.
The footsteps inside the house caused me to tense up considerably, and when the door was thrown open, I came face to face with John, who only looked just a smidge older, due to thicker laugh lines around his eyes and a streak or two of silver in his hair. “Princess?” he whispered, looking me up and down.
“Hi... Hi, Dad,” I said quietly.
John just stared at me for several moments without speaking, before he turned and got a good look at Roger and Bree for the first time. “Hello,” he said at last, his voice unsure. “I’m Dr. John Raymond...”
“Nice to meet you,” Bree replied softly. “I’m Brianna Fraser Mackenzie, Tris’s sister,” she went on, always polite, and John’s eyes widened with recognition. “This is my husband, Roger, and our son, Jeremiah.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Roger put in.
John looked completely shellshocked, but nevertheless invited us inside the house, looking torn as he thought over what to say, shutting the door behind us. “We looked for you, of course,” he said quietly, hunching his shoulders as he showed us all into the living room. “Your mother... I know she would be glad that you came back.”
I blinked, looking around. “We saw her car on the way in,” I said softly, looking around the house, and noticed just how quiet it seemed to be. “Is she working late or something?” I asked, and remembered how John would sometimes bring her to and from work.
John sighed, running a hand through his hair as he indicated we should sit down, before he himself lowered down into his favorite armchair. “Your mother passed away about a year after you went missing,” he replied, and I could see the sadness in his eyes. “She had recently got her breast cancer diagnosis, and just couldn’t figure out how to tell you...”
I sighed, shoulders slumping at that, realizing now why she was truly angry that I was seeking out my biological family—she wasn’t afraid that I would replace her in my heart, she was merely afraid of losing me before she could tell me the truth, and that was exactly what had ended up happening in the long run. “Dad... I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
John nodded at that. “I know, Tris. And your mother knows, too...” He dragged a hand down his face for a moment before he sighed, finally regarding us all in turn. “I can see the resemblance between the two of you,” he said fondly, indicating me and Bree. “It’s just the hair and the eyes that are different... Other than that, mirror images.”
Bree smiled at him. “So we’ve been told,” she said quietly.
John gave her a small smile before he turned to look at me again. “I retired soon after your mother passed away,” he said softly.
“And when was that?” I wanted to know.
“Six months ago, next week,” John informed me. “I’ll show you her grave at some point, if you have an interest in seeing it.”
I nodded. “I would like that.”
“I know that she would have loved to have seen you and Brianna together,” John remarked fondly. “And Roger, and little Jeremiah as well. He is a beautiful boy,” my adopted father said quietly, his words directed at Roger.
“Thank you, sir,” Roger replied.
I fiddled slightly with my wedding ring from where I sat, on one side of Bree, upon the three-person couch across from John. “I know that you probably want to know where I’ve been all this time,” I began.
John looked uncomfortable. “Was it a cult?” he asked.
Bree gasped from beside me. “I can assure you, Dr. Raymond, none of us were or are involved a cult of any kind,” she said quickly, looking deeply disturbed.
“Call me ‘John’, Brianna, please,” John told her gently, obviously relieved at the information. “So, it wasn’t a cult. I suppose that this...fashion sense... Is it an Amish community, then?”
Roger chuckled lightly at that, easily putting John more at ease. “No, John,” he told him, and John inclined his head, indicating that Roger could address him by his first name as well. “We none of us have ever seen one, to be honest with you.”
“You’re Scottish, then?” John asked.
Roger nodded. “Born and raised,” he confirmed.
John acknowledged that with a small nod, before obviously going over his thoughts. “So, if you’re not a part of a cult, or an Amish community, where have you been?”
I swallowed, turning to Bree and Roger, who raised their eyebrows, almost as if asking me if John could be trusted. My small nod confirmed it, and they nodded back, letting me know that they supported me in anything and everything. I turned back towards John and said softly, “Do you remember how we found out that Claire and Brianna were missing?” I asked.
John raised his eyebrows at the memory, but nodded. “Of course I do.”
“Well, I went to where they were, without paying to get to Scotland. I found another way to get to where they were,” I said softly.
“And where were they?” John asked.
I gripped my hands together. “Look, please understand that what I’m about to tell you will sound strange, to say the least. Can you promise me that you’ll try to keep an open mind?”
John nodded his head. “Of course, princess. What happened?”
“Well, our mother, Claire, plus Roger, Bree, Jemmy, and I... We can travel through time,” I said, and John looked flabbergasted at that. “I know, it sounds very odd, but hear me out. There are two stone circles that I know of—one here in North Carolina, and another in the Scottish highlands, near Inverness. Claire, Bree’s and my mother, went through the Scottish stones by mistake in the mid-1940s, after World War Two. She was on her honeymoon with Frank Randall, her first husband, when she made the leap, so to speak.”
John cleared his throat, attempting to keep an open mind. “Yes,” he said, and turned his wrist, letting me know that I could continue.
“Claire met James Fraser, a Scottish highlander, and the pair of them were married, two hundred years in the past, in the early-1740s, and fell in love. She gave birth prematurely to our older sister, Faith, and then, when the Battle of Culloden was on the rise, she was forced to go back through the stones by our father, so as to ensure that her second pregnancy went well. It was when we were born, however, that Claire was put to sleep during delivery, and Frank decided that he only wanted to raise one of the two children, due to the fact that they were both fathered by another man. In so doing, Bree and I were separated.”
John sighed. “As sorry as I am for it, Tris, I will never trade those years, filled with wonderful moments, your mother and I had in the wake of your adoption.”
I gave him a small smile. “Thank you,” I whispered, before I went on. “Bree and I lived our own lives, with our mother, who used to be a nurse, becoming a surgeon, with a degree from Harvard Medical School, as the only woman in her class. She and Frank were still married, but it was in name only, and they could see other people as long as they were discreet about it, due to their commitment to raise Bree together.”
John nodded.
“Frank, in the wake of Bree graduating from high school, decided to take a position at Oxford, and take Bree with him. He wanted to divorce our mother, remarry his mistress, and keep Bree away from her. Claire protested this, and threatened to reveal that Bree was not biologically his, but Frank wouldn’t listen. Bree didn’t agree, and Frank later was in a car accident, which killed him. Claire then journeyed to Scotland with Bree...”
“Which is where the two of them first met me,” Roger said, smiling. “When Claire and Frank were on their honeymoon, as both served in the war and couldn’t go on one beforehand, they stayed at my uncle’s, and later adopted father’s, grand house. My father and Frank were old friends and colleagues, you see, and he offered his home up to Frank for research, due to his having such a vast library as a reverend. My father had died from old age, and Claire heard about it when she and Bree were visiting relatives in England. They came down for the wake, and Claire reintroduced herself to me, but I initially couldn’t place her, and only remembered her first husband.”
“And that was when our mother then informed me about our biological father,” Bree said quietly. “About going through the stones, meeting and marrying him, and her decision to remain with him instead of returning to Frank, which resulted in Tris’s and my birth. I, of course, didn’t believe her, and was shocked that Frank was not my biological father. I didn’t want anything to do with him, but when we came upon the sight of the stones, and saw a woman my mother had met in the past, and I had encountered very briefly, travel through the stones, I believed her.” Bree took a breath, and I realized how difficult this all must’ve been for her. “Mama later said that, due to finding some information that our father was alive, that she had to go back to him, and I supported her. However, within a year, I found an old newspaper with their names in it, which stated that they would die in a fire. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So Bree went to Scotland and traveled through the stones to retrace their steps, as no one knew that there was another stone circle here, in North Carolina,” I went on. “That’s when you found out that Claire and Bree were missing. I was compelled to the circle in North Carolina myself, and traveled back there, wishing to uncover my family’s true identity. I found them, as well as Bree, Roger, and Jemmy, on their ten-thousand acres of Fraser’s Ridge, two hundred years ago, where I later met and married my own husband...”
John perked up visibly at that, and took careful note of my ring. “And where is he, this husband of yours? What is his name?”
“His name was Gordon MacQuarrie,” I said quietly.
“Ah, another Scot, then?” John asked, grinning.
I sighed. “Yes. He... He was not unwilling, just incapable of returning with us,” I said, and felt myself folding in on myself. “He couldn’t pass through the stones, and so he had to stay there, but he forced me to go back...”
John nodded. “I am sorry, Tris, for all you have lost.”
I nodded back at him. “And I am for you as well, Dad. But, in all of this, I must think of what I have found.”
~*~
February 1978
It was in the weeks after Bree had delivered Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie that I began being sick more than was usual for me. John was very understanding about everything we had told him and, although he was having trouble believing me, I knew he still wanted a relationship with all of us, easily welcoming Bree, Roger, and Jemmy into the fold. He came up to Boston for Christmas, as we had all settled into the old Randall house by then, and had brought gifts for everyone, even the unborn baby Bree was carrying. Life was pleasant, with Roger landing a history position at Boston College, and Bree continuing her degree at MIT, while I stayed home and took care of Jemmy and Mandy.
Even though it was a Tuesday, Bree insisted that she and Roger go out for Valentine’s Day, and I agreed. I had gone shopping earlier that day, and had decided to whip up something exciting for Jemmy’s and my dinner, while Mandy would have one of her daily bottles. On my way home with the baby, I stopped in at a drug store to get something to settle my stomach, when I stumbled down an aisle and saw something that looked new—a home pregnancy test. It was behind glass, so I had to call someone for it, and it appeared that my wedding ring helped, although the sight of Mandy in my arms also got me a look of disapproval from the employee.
Trying to put the entirety of the encounter out of my mind, I kept the test in my overcoat pocket as I drove home, snow flurries attempting to impede my progress, but pulled up on schedule. I effortlessly lifted Mandy, plus the bags of groceries, from the car, and headed inside. Jemmy was in daycare until Bree’s classes got out, and she would pick him up before heading home herself. Roger would be home at five, and would get ready himself before whisking Bree off to dinner.
After placing the groceries on the kitchen counter, I took Mandy upstairs for her mid-afternoon nap, and she was very well-behaved in my arms. She was two weeks old now, and always went down easily. I would have a bottle prepared for after she woke up, and, after placing her into the newly appointed nursery, I returned downstairs to settle the groceries. I had the baby monitor with me, placing it on the kitchen counter, humming to myself as I put away the groceries. It was after two-thirty now, and Bree wasn’t due back until four. Rummaging in my overcoat pocket and hanging up the article of clothing, I took my shoes off by the front door and brought the boxed test into the bathroom upstairs attached to my bedroom, keeping the baby monitor with me at all times. There was a bathroom downstairs, for general use, as well as three upstairs, one in the hallway and one each attached to the master and guest bedrooms.
I went into my own bedroom and shut the door, venturing in the bathroom with the pregnancy test and baby monitor clutched in my hand. Placing the monitor on the window sill, I perched on the bathtub and read the instructions. They were simple enough, I reasoned, and I wondered then what Mama would have thought about them. Shaking my head in a moment of fleeting amusement, I opened the box and took ahold of the stick in my hand. I unzipped my jeans and sat on the toilet opposite, gripping the test between my fingers before positioning it between my legs.
Setting the test onto the bathroom counter, I cleaned myself up and washed my hands, waiting for the verdict from the rather insignificant-looking piece of plastic. I paced the bathroom, the only sounds heard were the creaking of my feet on the floor, as well as Mandy’s breathing through the monitor. Finally, I turned and lowered my eyes to the stick, which had two lines upon its small screen, and I took a look at the box again.
I sighed, gripping the stick, and breathed a sigh of relief. “We did it, Gordon,” I whispered, and placed a trembling hand upon my stomach. “We did it.”