Chapter Text
1995
My twin brother and I were always deemed exceptional in our mother’s eyes, though she would never tell us what led to that exception. Yes, we knew where babies came from, but the notion that our mother never discussed our father was a troubling thing. We attended mass on Sundays and now lived in what Mama said was our ancestral family home, along with her twin sister, Bree, our uncle, Roger, and our cousins, Jem, Mandy, and David. The estate, if one could call it that at the beginning, was called Lallybroch, and all the old paintings on the walls bore the name Fraser at the bottom; I knew that Fraser was the surname of Mama and Auntie Bree, and that they were quite proud of their Scottish heritage.
We uprooted from Boston, where Mama had given birth to us, when my brother and I were five, just before we were due to begin kindergarten, and moved to Scotland with our aunt, uncle, and our two cousins; David would be born later. When we had reached our third year of schooling, our professors seemed quite impressed with us, and so they moved us ahead one year, thus putting our forthcoming graduation at the age of sixteen as opposed to the more traditional seventeen or eighteen in most schooling systems. Like my mother, we spoke many languages, all of which she insisted that we learn—Gaelic, which became our second language; Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Irish, and Welsh.
She even encouraged us to attend college courses, via the new-age invention of the internet, which Uncle Roger and Auntie Bree had put into the old estate home. It was almost an order that we take United States History in our spare time, which, understandably, the Inverness Royal Academy did not teach us. I buckled down and did my work, wanting more than anything to make my mother proud of me. She had taught some history courses over the years, and had even written some newspaper articles on the subject, making her a small celebrity in our little community in Inverness.
“Claire!”
I turned around then, fixing my twin brother with an annoyed expression. “You know entirely well that my name is Clairy-Beth, James,” I said, getting to my feet, my raven hair swishing out determinedly behind me, as I poked him square in the ribs.
He tossed back his head and laughed. “I’m Jim now, Clairy-Beth,” he said patiently, his red locks bouncing with each movement of his head. “Now, come on. The special is going to start soon and who knows when it’ll be on again?”
“All right, all right,” I said impatiently, wondering who invented twin brothers anyhow, making a grab for my notebook and black erasable pen before leaving my bedroom, and following Jim down the flight of stairs and into the parlor, flopping down on the ancient couch while Jim fiddled with the television, and our cousin, Mandy, rolled her eyes next to me.
“No phone call from Jem again, of course,” she said, clearly annoyed.
“Cambridge is a big deal,” Jim said, from his position behind the television.
Mandy was clearly fighting the urge to kick him. “But it’s summer,” she said, trying and failing not to whine, while twisting her dark brown hair around her tapered finger. “Us three have all just graduated, and he’s insisted on taking up that position at the pub for the entirety of it all...”
“Least David’s out of our hair,” I said, gently knocking my shoulder into her arm, and Mandy smiled ruefully at that.
“Yeah, Uncle Roger’s foresight to bring him up to London for the long weekend was a stroke of genius,” Jim put in, finally getting the clarity of the television to cooperate, and made a grab for the remote to find the right channel. “David will learn a thing or two...”
“And, hopefully, he will not make a fool of himself by asking about alternatives to nappies in Uncle Roger’s selected time period,” I continued, and Mandy burst out laughing.
“Yes,” she mused, leaning back against the couch as Jim moved to sit on her other side. “I just hope that Mama and Auntie Tris aren’t gone for long...”
I made a face and shook my head. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m glad to be well-shot of them, even if it is just for the night...”
Jim blinked, looking around Mandy, who was also looking at me, and muted the television as the final commercials began before the special. “Why’s that, Clairy-Beth?” he asked, looking utterly confused at my words.
Mandy rolled her eyes again. “You’re not still angry at her, are you?”
I scoffed. “No, of course not,” I replied sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t still be angry?”
Jim pressed his lips together. “Clairy-Beth...”
“No, really,” I continued, getting to my feet and strutting about the room, hands on my hips; I had always been on the taller side, all of us were, and were all close to six feet, which was a bit intimidating for our fellow students, and much to my chagrin. “She asked me what I wanted as a graduation present—and said it could be anything, anything!” I cried out, throwing my hands up into the air. “All I wanted—all I wanted—was to know about MacQuarrie! Just a handful of things about my father, but what did she do?”
Mandy blinked. “She left the room...”
“She was crying, too,” Jim added.
I scoffed, ignoring the tears in my eyes. “Before that... She slapped me,” I said, biting down hard on my lower lip. “She fucking slapped me...” I wrapped my arms around myself, with one of my hands escaping to cover my face. “She’s never hit me before...”
Jim placed his arms around me shortly thereafter, and eased me back onto the couch as patiently as he could manage. “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s just watch the special, okay? We want to see this war in action, don’t we? I mean, after all, we’ve all studied it enough, haven’t we?”
I rolled my shoulders, a clear cue for Jim to let me go, and he did so, without protest. I dried my eyes and stared at the screen, watching as George Washington dominated it, and did my best to pay attention to it. Throughout the special, nothing could be heard save for the dialogue on the screen, the music, and the occasional scratching of our pens as we took notes. We still had one essay due at the end of our course, and then we were well and truly done.
In the autumn, I would be moving to Oxford to attend the university; Mandy was going back to Boston to attend Harvard; and Jim would be moving to Los Angeles to attend Pepperdine University. We wouldn’t be seeing the family again until the following Christmas for the holiday season, if we could somehow work out our schedules and get away, but I knew our parental figures were hoping we could.
Once the special was over, I put my notes aside, as well as the already-completed outline for my essay, and got to my feet. We all three of us startled when the front door came crashing open, and Jem stood on the threshold, suitcase in one hand. We all four of us looked at each other, and Jem looked especially displeased.
“Pub job fell through,” he said by means of explanation, and kicked the door shut behind him, his dark blond hair pulled into a ponytail. “Anyone else around?”
“Sorry we’re not enough for you,” Mandy said crossly, crossing her arms.
Jem gave her a dirty look, before turning to Jim. “Jim, you can be reasonable. Where’s everyone, then? It’s much too quiet for David to be around...”
Jim sighed, but straightened his shoulders. “Uncle Roger’s in London for the weekend, giving lectures. He took David with him.”
“Rookie mistake,” Jem said, clicking his tongue, before he turned his eyes to me. “And what about our mothers?”
“Out, as always,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
“What’s got you in a sour mood?” Jem wanted to know.
“She’s been agitated all week,” Jim replied for me. “I mean, I guess we all have, really. None of us really know what’s going on...”
“Yeah, I feel it, too,” Jem replied, nodding his head. “Guess it’s all those weird nightmares I’ve been having, about the stones...”
“Stones?” Mandy asked quizzically.
Jem smiled. “You probably don’t remember, being a baby and all,” he said quietly.
“What are you two talking about?” I asked. “If anyone’s having weird dreams, it’s me. Every night, it’s just a bunch of...”
“Buzzing,” I, Jim, Mandy, and Jem all said at once.
I stared at my twin, plus my cousins, open-mouthed, doing my best impression of an angler. “I can’t believe all of you are dreaming about this,” I whispered, positively trembling.
“I heard it outside once I crossed the border, on my drive back,” Jem reported, crossing his arms and leaning up against the wall. “I remember hearing it once, when Uncle Ian gave me a stone with an opal in it, when I was a wee lad, but it all seems so long ago now...”
“Who’s Uncle Ian?” Mandy, Jim, and I ask together.
“Mama and Auntie Tris’s cousin; we called him ‘uncle’ to simplify things,” Jem replied; it was the most he had spoken to us in years, due to the fact that he believed himself somewhat superior to us, given the age difference. “We also had a granda and grandmother, too—they’re our mother’s parents,” he went on to explain.
“But why haven’t we met them?” Mandy asked, clearly perturbed. “I mean, Da’s parents died when he was a little boy, but then his uncle adopted him, and he passed away just before Da met Mama for the first time...”
“Mama won’t even talk about the past,” Jim put in, shaking his head. “Clairy-Beth’s just told us that Mama hit her when she asked her to tell her about our father.”
Jem looked shocked at the declaration, while Mandy, despite being aware of the information for another fifteen minutes, shot me a sympathetic look. “Auntie Tris hit you?”
“She slapped me,” I responded, angling my head towards Jem, so that the light caught the scar upon my cheek, where the black pearl of her wedding ring had sliced me.
“I remember his name,” Jem said softly, his brow puckering, almost as if the memory had been buried in the recess’ of his mind.
“What was his name?” Jim demanded then, stepping closer, and it was then that I realized that my twin must’ve been wanting to know our father as much as I did. “Why didn’t you tell us that you knew before, Jem?”
Jem sighed, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably. “When I was younger, I used to talk about it all the time, about our lives before we lived in Boston,” he said softly. “I remember we lived in North Carolina, and that’s where you were born, Mandy,” he continued, and Mandy sat up straighter at that, for we three had all been told we’d been born in Boston, just like our Auntie Bree and our own mother.
“I was born in Boston...” Mandy said quietly.
“No, Mama told me to tell you that since the beginning,” Jem said, whispering, despite the fact that no one else was in the house to hear us talking. “I was there when you were born, everyone was—Granda and Uncle Ian... They had to keep me occupied while Mama was giving birth,” he went on to explain, and Jim tapped his foot impatiently. “Grandma was helping Mama... She was a surgeon, Grandma was, but everyone called her a healer...”
“A healer?” I asked, wrinkling my nose as I shook my head at him. “That term is archaic, even for us, and look at this house we live in!” I cried out, gesturing around us. “Why on earth would they call her a healer?” came my demand, and I was practically spitting wildfire.
“Everything was so old-fashioned, that, for a long time, I thought they could’ve been Amish or something,” Jem said, looking a bit uncomfortable at the interrogation. “But then I heard Da, Mama, and Auntie Tris talking about stones, and about how it was better for Mandy’s heart that we lived in the future anyway...”
“The future?” I sputtered.
“It’s my fault?” Mandy whispered, clutching at her chest; we’d all been told the story about her heart operation, and how she was just fine now, but it had been touch and go when she had been a baby, and then Mama had figured out she was expecting me and Jim...
“So, aside from the fact that our family is full of liars,” Jim said testily, “would you care to tell us what our father’s name is?”
“Gordon,” Jem said at last, and Jim and I quickly looked at one another. “His name was Gordon MacQuarrie, and they were very much in love. I remember when Auntie Tris got pregnant that first time, and no one talked about the funeral afterwards...”
“Funeral?” Jim and I demanded together.
Jem made a face and shut his eyes. “Shit,” he said softly, dragging a hand down his face. “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have...”
Jim stomped over to Jem and pinned him up against the wall effortlessly, glaring at him, while Mandy shot to her feet and held me back, just in case I broke rank and wanted to join in the fray. “Do you mean to tell me, cousin, that Clairy-Beth and I have another sibling?” he spat.
“That Mama didn’t bother to tell us about either?” I cried out, struggling from within Mandy’s grasp, and turned to look over at her, glaring. “Let go of me!” I hissed at her.
“Not going to happen,” Mandy shot back.
“A sister,” Jem said, looking as if he wanted to shove Jim off him.
“What was her name?” Jim asked, his voice deathly quiet.
“I...”
“Her name,” I yelled, finally overpowering Mandy and shoving her off me, before I advanced upon Jem myself, and fixing him with a glare. “What did Mama name her?”
“Henrietta!” Jem cried out, finally shoving Jim off. “Christ, you never seemed to give a shit about any of this before. Why can’t you leave well enough alone?”
“Fuck you!” I shouted, glaring at Jem, my hands balling into fists. “You’ve no right to tell us what we gave a shit about or not!”
Jem’s eyes filled with anger then as he shoved me backwards. “Out of my face!”
“Don’t touch her!” Jim yelled back, and tackled Jem.
Jem flailed a bit, inadvertently knocking me backwards, and I went flying, crashing into Mandy just behind me, as Jem and Jim continued fighting one another.
“What in God’s name are you doing?!” came a shout.
“What did you do?!” came a second.
I yanked Mandy upwards, my head smarting from hitting Mandy, while Mandy sported a bruised cheek. Looking towards the entryway, I spotted Mama and Auntie Bree, looking shocked at the display that Jem and Jim were currently putting on. Glaring, I waited for my mother to look at me. “You really want an answer?” I asked her.
Mama crossed her arms. “You’d better believe I do, lassie. What happened?”
I crossed my arms right back at her; despite the laugh lines around her eyes, and the frown lines beside her lips, Mama looked identical to me, although her hair was always put up in a severe-looking bun. “Jem saw fit to tell us about Gordon, as well as Henrietta,” I snapped.
Mama’s breath caught in her throat, and Auntie Bree immediately reached out towards her; she always anticipated if something was wrong with her, and Mama was the same way. “Oh, Good Lord... So, you know, then?”
I did my best to keep my temper, although I was failing miserably. “I know that Jim and I saw that name more than once in the lists of survivors for all the major battles of the Revolutionary War,” I quipped.
Auntie Bree turned then, regarding my mother. “Tris, they did it. He did it.”
Mama shook her head. “What...?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Auntie Bree asked, easing my mother down onto the couch, before crossing over to Jem and Jim, and separating them, pushing them into separate armchairs, and glaring at them both, before returning to Mama’s side. “He’s alive.”
~*~
Mama knocked on my bedroom door several hours later; I had charged out of the room, refusing to listen to either Mama or Auntie Bree, and had just retreated to my bedroom. There were over a dozen bedrooms in this old estate the Fraser family had called a house, and so all of us had had our own bedrooms when it was deemed appropriate. My bedroom faced the rose gardens, while Jim’s faced the forest, Jem’s the fields, and Mandy the orchard. Uncle Roger and Auntie Bree took what only could be the master suite, as the only married couple in residence, while Mama occupied the tower room.
I knew it was Mama, due to me recognizing her footfalls on the staircase and the hallway outside my bedroom. I was perched upon my four-poster bed, knees tucked underneath my chin, and staring at one of the many history books Mama had bought for me. Shutting my eyes, I couldn’t help but remember how Mama and I had seemed to drift away from one another, and Jim, too, whenever we seemed to do something great. She would get this faraway look in her eyes and not comment on it, before deliberately, and obviously, changing the subject, and so we never got any information that was deemed ‘important’ by any means.
“Darling?” came Mama’s voice from outside my door. “Clairy-Beth, please. Can I just come in and talk to you?”
Sighing, I pushed the book away before wrapping my arms around my legs. “Come on in, Mama,” I finally managed to get out, looking up at the door as it opened.
Mama shut the door behind her before crossing the room towards me; despite being in her late-forties, she was in excellent shape for her age, and could easily pass for fifteen years younger, which gave me hope for me when it came to aging. She gripped onto her long skirt before shifting slightly to the side to sit down upon the foot of my bed, and gazed at me, a small smile coming onto her lips. “I didn’t want to tell you before, darling, because I didn’t think you would initially believe me.”
I scoffed. “Well, given that you finally decided to start the conversation with ‘he’s alive’, and the ‘he’ in question survived the Revolutionary War, believe you me when I say that I have a hard time believing anything from you at this point.”
Mama leaned back slightly then, so as she was supported by one of the four posters of my bed. “I suppose I deserve that,” she remarked softly. “I haven’t been the best mother, I know that. I just couldn’t fathom that something your father and I so desperately wanted was going to take place without him.”
I pursed my lips. “So, you’re saying that Jim and I were unplanned?”
“Unexpected is the more correct term, I think,” Mama replied. “We had tried for so long that I had given up hope. Your Auntie Bree conceived so quickly and easily. It took me a bit longer to do so, I’m afraid.”
“Jem told us...about Henrietta,” I said softy. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Mama gave me a small, sad smile. “Yes, it nearly broke your father and I apart,” she told me, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I was in a fire, and I nearly died myself, due to the smoke inhalation. If your grandfather hadn’t come and found me, who knows what would have ended up happening.”
“So, you’re saying he just left?” I burst out. “Over what?”
“He found my copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Mama said, quick to defend the man she was so set against discussing for years, and I raised my eyebrows—Mama had honestly brought her favorite book to the past?
“What? He didn’t like it, and threw a hissy fit?” I asked, remembering when I myself had been ordered by Mama, alongside Jim, to read it the summer we were fourteen. I hadn’t liked it, but Jim had, and he and Mama grew closer over it. By contrast, my favorite book was the debut novel of British author Philippa Gregory, called Wideacre.
Mama’s eyes grew thoughtful then as she slowly shook her head. “No, it wasn’t that he didn’t like it, love,” she said quietly. “It was because he took note of the publication date. He accused me, through veiled comments, of being a witch.”
I pulled my stockinged knees towards my chest; I knew enough about American history from my mother, as well as in the literature given to me, and such books I sought out, that being accused of witchcraft wasn’t something many individuals typically came back from. “I’m sorry,” I said at last, and found that I couldn’t bare to look up at her. “That must’ve been really difficult for you to deal with.”
“It was, but I got through it,” Mama told me quietly. She hesitated for a moment before she spoke again. “Your father loved you very much.”
I pursed my lips. “How is that possible?”
Mama sighed, thinking it over. “Well, he loved the idea of you, I suppose would be the correct way of putting it,” she said. “He wanted a baby so much, and so did I, but I was under the impression that we wouldn’t be able to have children, due to something that happened in my past, which, I believed, rendered me infertile.”
I slowly turned and looked up at her. “Then, how come you got pregnant with Henrietta, and then later with me and Jim?”
“Well, it would be best to start at the beginning,” my mother informed me. “You see, I went to college in Georgia, remember, in the late-1960s and the early-1970s. The world was a very different place then, versus now.”
I nodded. “I remember. Grandpa John kept your degree framed for you, and now you have it here,” I replied; Grandpa John was the only relative I remembered, and he had died just a few months after Jim and I turned fourteen from a heart attack.
“That’s right,” Mama replied, nodding. “Well, it was my first time being away from Grandpa John and Grandma Cate’s house, and so it was quite a lot to take in. I had my own little house near campus, and even had Garnet, too. Remember Garnet?”
I finally gave my mom a smile. “Your first car? Of course,” I told her, remembering when she had sold it before our move to Scotland; now, she had a 1984 silver Vauxhall Cavalier. She had yet to replace it, and I had aptly called it Silverado as a child, leading the name to stick.
“I had a night class one semester; I took it because all the day ones were full, and I really didn’t want to wait until the next semester if I didn’t have to,” Mama carried on. “So, I came back to my little house that night, and I was jumped on my way in.”
Immediately, I sat up straight, shocked at this revelation. “Whoa, wait. You mean someone came up behind you and just shoved you inside?”
Mama nodded. “Yes,” she responded. “I didn’t know what else to do, so I tried reasoning with him, telling him he could have my money, my jewelry, whatever he wanted. He didn’t listen, and he raped me.”
I felt myself getting sick. “Were you... Um... Had you ever...?”
“No,” Mama responded, understanding what I was getting at. “When I later met your father, I ended up telling him about it, given that I felt that he wouldn’t want to marry me.”
“Why not?” I asked her, confused. “Sure, you weren’t...that...anymore, but it’s not like it was by choice! You didn’t want it, clearly...”
Mama sighed, and I knew she was about to get something difficult off her chest. “The man who raped me...well, he got me pregnant, too.”
I felt disgust rolling through me. “Oh, my God, Mama!”
Mama sighed. “Yes. I found a number somewhere, and managed to track down a man who performed an abortion for me,” she said quietly. “The risks were, of course, infertility, because it wasn’t done by an expert in a sterile environment. I later found out that he damaged one of my ovaries so much that he took it out of me. I hemorrhaged for days, and didn’t think I would survive, but I went to a hospital anonymously and lied that I’d had a miscarriage. Looking back, they likely didn’t believe me, but they helped me anyhow, and because I gave a false name, they weren’t able to track me down again.”
I blinked, utterly shocked. “Did Grandpa John ever find out?”
Mama shook her head at me. “No,” she replied, and she didn’t need to remind me that there was no way that Grandma Cate could have found out either, due to being dead far longer than John had been. “At least, if he ever did, he never said anything to me about it... At least I could explain away the bruises for a while, due to hiding them so well and so long that nobody ever saw them. I was never intimate with anyone other than your father, and that’s still the case, other than your aunt and I being kidnapped by the same man later on.”
My brows shot up at that. “Wait. Auntie Bree knew him?”
Mama sighed, biting down hard on her lower lip. “She did, yes. Your aunt was assaulted by the same man as well. I was assaulted by him twice, but she only was by him once.”
I struggled to comprehend all of this, given that I had never fully understood that my mother had once been young herself, and had likely had a whole plethora of various experiences. “Can you explain something to me?” I asked her softly.
She nodded at me. “Of course, darling. If I can attempt to do so, that is.”
I traced patters in my duvet, not wanting to shock her completely, but also wanting an answer to something that I deemed to be important. “Why have Jim, Jem, Mandy, and I been having these weird dreams?”
Mama tilted her head to one side. “What sort of weird dreams?”
“Well, we hear buzzing sounds, and it’s pretty loud,” I told her, and Mama’s eyes widened considerably then. “That... I mean, it’s not a bad thing, is it?”
Mama dragged a hand down her face then, tears filling her eyes. “No, my darling. It’s a good thing, a very good thing...” She hesitated for a moment. “You remember when I told you and Jim after Grandpa John passed away that he wasn’t my biological father?”
I nodded. “Of course. I mean, unless you got all your looks from Grandma Cate, on the surface level, it was kind of obvious.”
Mama laughed aloud at that. “Yes, well... I found out when I was of a certain age that I was adopted, but Cate didn’t want me to find out where I came from.”
I raised my eyebrows. “But, you did find out...”
“That’s right, I did,” Mama confirmed. “Your Grandpa John helped me figure some things out, due to the connections he had. It was because of him that I got the official paperwork, which told me who my mother was, and that I had a twin sister.”
“Wait, so your biological mother kept Auntie Bree, but not you?” I demanded. “That’s really cold, Mama...”
“No, darling, it wasn’t like that,” Mama told me gently. “You see, in the 1940s, when women went to the hospital to give birth, the doctors believed they knew best, and they put your grandmother to sleep before she gave birth.”
I made a face at that. “So, no shot in the spine, then?”
Mama shook her head. “No, not like when I had you and Jim,” she told me. “So, they put your grandmother to sleep, and her husband was the first one to see me and Bree.”
I blinked, thinking over her words carefully. “Her husband? Wasn’t he your father?”
“No, he wasn’t. You see, your grandmother was married to a history professor, much like your uncle, Roger. His name was Frank Wolverton Randall, and he was doing research, which enabled him to consult with your great-uncle, Quentin Lambert Beauchamp. Uncle Lamb, as he was called, gained guardianship of your grandmother when her parents died. Frank and your grandmother, Claire, married in 1937.”
“Claire,” I whispered, feeling the name in my mouth. “That’s where my name is from, and where one of Mandy’s names comes from.”
Mama smiled slowly at that and nodded. “That’s true,” she replied, turning slightly as the door to my bedroom opened, and Jim, Jem, Mandy, and Auntie Bree all stepped inside; Jim positioned himself at my desk, Jem leaned up against my wardrobe, while Mandy came and crawled beside me on my bed, and Auntie Bree sat beside Mama. “I’ve just told her about Uncle Lamb, how Mama was raised by him, and then her marriage to Frank in 1937.”
Auntie Bree nodded before turning to face Jim, Jem, Mandy, and me. “This was in England, mind you, where your grandmother and Frank lived,” she went on, clasping Mama’s hand. “However, after their short honeymoon, they dedicated themselves to their work. Your grandmother, I’ll have you know, was a very talented nurse at the time.”
Mandy’s eyes glowed at that; she had shown an aptitude for the medical world, due to her scare with her heart at such a young age, and had devoured textbooks pertaining to heart surgeries since she was around twelve. “You said she served in the war...”
“World War Two, that’s right,” Mama confirmed, nodding at Mandy. “Frank went to serve in the war effort as well, as an important member of MI6, while your grandmother became a combat nurse. After the war had ended, Claire and Frank decided to take another honeymoon to Scotland. It was a different experience, for they really hadn’t been together too long before getting married, and so now they had to get to know one another all over again.”
“While in Scotland,” Auntie Bree continued, “they stayed at a small inn in town, in Inverness, while becoming frequent guests of Reverend Wakefield, who was the uncle, and later adoptive father, of your father and your uncle. He was a dear friend of Frank’s, and he had a massive historical library which Frank devoured on the daily, while Claire visited historic sites with him, and made the acquaintance of his housekeeper, Mrs. Graham.”
“Mrs. Graham told Claire about the legend of Craigh na Dun, a stone circle where certain individuals were able to pass through them, and travel through time,” Mama went on. “Well, Claire didn’t believe it necessarily, but wished to visit the site. Later on, she went on her own to collect some of the local flora and fauna, to see if she could make some medicine with them. It was in that moment, however, that Claire heard something within the stones, and touched them, thus landing her two hundred years into the past.”
“It was a battle that she heard,” Auntie Bree said softly. “There, she met the ancestor of Frank, Black Jack Randall, who was firmly on the side of the English. However, there were also Highlanders about, and when it was learned that Claire was a nurse, she was taken to a small house not too far away. It was rainy and cold that night, and that was when she met Jamie Fraser for the first time. His shoulder had become dislocated, and some of his comrades were attempting to set it incorrectly. Of course, Claire knew the proper way to set it, and did so, thus ensuring minimal damage.”
Mama squeezed Auntie Bree’s hand. “Claire and Jamie later went on to one of Jamie’s uncle’s homes, where she was treated as the resident healer. As time went on, however, she was kept a virtual prisoner in the manor house, until she was deemed trustworthy, as well as fit to take on the road for travel. When it was revealed that she could potentially be captured by the English army, she married Jamie for her own protection, so as, in the eyes of the law, she would be considered a Scot. This plan worked, for a while, until Jamie was taken prisoner by Black Jack, and Claire, along with Jamie’s comrades, were there to narrowly save them.”
“They resided in France for a time, where Claire ended up pregnant with Faith, who would be our older sister,” Auntie Bree said softly, and I could see tears in both their eyes. “Faith passed away after being born too early, and the pair ultimately returned to Scotland so as Jamie could participate in the Battle of Culloden. It was there that Jamie was positive that Claire was pregnant a second time, and ordered her through the stones so as their child could be born alive and well.”
“So, Claire went back to Frank, then?” I asked, in the silence that followed. “After she went back through the stones, I mean.”
“Yes,” Mama said softly. “Frank was not too keen about raising a child that wasn’t his, but when he discovered that he couldn’t have children, he reconsidered. Although, when Claire gave birth and it was found to be twins, he signed away the rights to me. As he had acknowledged that he was the father, he was, as Claire’s husband, able to make the choice for her, without her knowledge or consent.”
“Wait,” Jim said, straightening up then. “So, Claire didn’t even know about you?”
“No, love, she didn’t,” Mama confirmed. “She didn’t know until I discovered who I was, and was lured to the stone circle in North Carolina, where I had been raised.”
“Where I was born,” Mandy put in.
“I told them,” Jem said softly, and Auntie Bree turned to face her son. “I told them about everyone running around, making sure you were comfortable before Mandy was born, and how Grandma Claire—”
Auntie Bree shook her head at her oldest son, smiling softly. “No, sweet. We told everyone that that was the reason why we came back so quickly, that Mandy’s heart needed modern medicine to fix it. In actuality, I went through the stones pregnant with Mandy, as Tris was pregnant with Clairy-Beth and Jim.”
“So, I was still born in North Carolina, though, right?” Mandy asked, looking confused.
Auntie Bree shook her head again. “No, baby. You were born in Boston, just like Clairy-Beth and Jim.”
Mandy slumped back into my side, and I automatically ran my hands through her long hair. “Oh,” she said quietly, remarkably disappointed.
“Claire went back, to the past and to Jamie, after twenty years,” Mama said at last, and we all perked up considerably then as she continued speaking. “Bree here was in university, and was living in the house that we all lived in while we were in Boston. I still hadn’t found out about any of them, of course. When Claire went back to see Jamie, Bree found an old newspaper with Claire and Jamie’s names in it and was concerned.”
“The newspaper stated that they died in a fire,” Auntie Bree put in, and we all of us drew back in shock. “I knew I had to warn them before it was too late. Much to my annoyance, however, Roger decided to follow me, and I ended up pregnant with Jem almost immediately. Roger was then mistaken for the bad man who assaulted me, and Jamie beat him, before our cousin, Ian, sold him to the Mohawk Indians.”
Jem looked horrified at that. “Ian did what?” he demanded, obviously remembering the man who Auntie Bree mentioned.
“I’m afraid so,” Auntie Bree replied. “Ian later traded himself to the Mohawk so as Roger could return with us. He did, and we were all quite happy together. Jem, you were born at your great-great-aunt, Jocasta’s, home of River Run, which she left to you, my dear boy,” she continued, and Jem looked flabbergasted at that. “After Roger and I were married, Tris finally found her way through the stones and back to us all.”
“It was overwhelming, at first, because all I had was the official documentation from the hospital where Bree and I had been born,” Mama explained. “But, on my first day there, I met a man named Gordon MacQuarrie, who would become my husband and your father,” she went on, and gave Jim and me meaningful looks. “I loved him, more than you could ever imagine. It broke my heart to leave, but I knew that there was a war coming...”
“And you, what, just left?” Jim demanded.
“Hey, shut it!” I hissed at him.
“No, I didn’t just leave, as you put it,” Mama said, seemingly put out by Jim’s words. “I left, but it was forceful. Gordon, your father, made me leave with your aunt, uncle, and Jem.”
“So, you didn’t want to go?” I asked her.
Mama sighed. “At the time, I had no idea I was even expecting either of you, and I didn’t know I could even have children,” she whispered, and Auntie Bree wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she spoke. “But, your father knew best, in this instance, because he was determined that, not only did I have to go, but I was pregnant as well.”
Auntie Bree sighed, leaning into Mama. “As selfish as it sounds, I’m happy you’re here.”
“But, it doesn’t need to be this way,” Mama whispered, and Auntie Bree looked completely at her then. “Clairy-Beth was just telling me about a dream she had where she heard...”
“Buzzing,” I, Jim, Jem, and Mandy answered for her.
Auntie Bree’s eyes swiveled so as she was looking at all of us at nearly the same moment. “Are you saying that they all can travel?” she whispered.
Mama smiled slowly at her. “It seems like it,” she said softly.
Not even a moment later, the front door opened downstairs, before it locked, and two pairs of familiar footsteps came up the staircase—heavy footfalls, and light, scampering feet. My doorway soon filled with that of Uncle Roger and David, my youngest cousin, the latter of whom was bouncing on the balls of his feet, while Uncle Roger looked grave.
“Honey?” Auntie Bree asked, getting up and off my bed and crossing the room, taking a moment to run her hands though David’s dark brown hair before staring at her husband. “What’s the matter? You were supposed to be gone all weekend... Are you all right?”
Uncle Roger sighed; his hair was a bit more silver than brown now, and he looked a bit tired as he began to speak to Auntie Bree. “David had a rather shocking dream, so I thought it best to bring him right home to all of you...” He hesitated for a moment, before looking around Auntie Bree and at my mother, and nodded at her.
“Roger,” Auntie Bree gasped.
Mama got to her feet. “Are you sure?” she asked.
Jem turned and regarded David for a moment from his great height. “What’d you dream about, then, little brother?” he asked.
David grinned up at Jem then. “Buzzing!” he squealed.
Mama’s knees threatened to give way then, but Uncle Roger and Auntie Bree hastily made sure she was all right, with Jim getting up and off my desk chair to offer it to Mama, who took it, and thanked Jim softly. As the shaking in her muscles eased, she slowly looked around the room, and joy seemed to radiate from her very person. “I have to go back,” she whispered.