Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon Page A

the center of her "I am" might still be reachable.
    But my own core held no longer in the isolation of "I am," and I had no protection to shield me from the softness from within. I no longer knew what I was or what she would be; only what I must do.
    For I had come back, and I dreamed once more, in the cool air of the Highlands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath.
    "You are mine," it had said. "Mine! And I will not let you go."
     

5
Beloved Wife
     
    The kirkyard of St. Kilda lay quiet in the sun. Not entirely flat, it occupied a plateau carved from the side of the hill by some geological freak. The land sloped and curved, so that the gravestones lay hidden in small hollows or jutted suddenly from the crest of a rise. The shifting of the earth had moved many, tilting them drunkenly or toppling them altogether, to lie flattened and broken in the long grass.
    "It's a bit untidy," Roger said, apologetically. They paused in the kirkyard gate, looking over the small collection of ancient stones, overgrown and shadowed by the row of giant yews, planted long ago as a windbreak against the storms that rolled in from the northern sea. Clouds massed there now, far out over the distant firth, but the sun shone on the hilltop, and the air was still and warm.
    "My father used to get together a gang of men from the church once or twice a year, and bring them up to keep the place in order, but I'm afraid it's rather gone to seed lately." He swung the lych-gate experimentally, noting the cracked hinge and the latch-fitting, dangling by one nail.
    "It's a lovely, quiet place." Brianna edged carefully past the splintery gate. "Really old, isn't it?"
    "Aye, it is. dad thought the kirk itself was built on the site of an early church or an even older temple of some kind; that's why it's up here in such an inconvenient spot. One of his friends from Oxford was always threatening to come up and excavate the place to see what was under it, but of course he couldn't get clearance from the Church authorities, even though the place has been deconsecrated for years."
    "It's kind of a climb." The flush of exertion was beginning to fade from Brianna's face as she fanned her cheeks with a guidebook. "Beautiful, though." She eyed the facade of the kirk with appreciation. Built into a natural opening in the crag, the stones and timbers of the kirk had been fitted by hand, the chinks caulked with peat and mud, so that it seemed to have grown there, a natural part of the cliff face. Ancient carvings decorated door sill and window frame, some showing the symbols of Christianity, some obviously much older.
    "Is Jonathan Randall's stone over there?" She waved toward the kirkyard, visible beyond the gate. "Mother will be so surprised!"
    "Aye, I expect so. Haven't seen it myself." He hoped the surprise would be a pleasant one; when he had mentioned the stone cautiously to Brianna over the phone the night before, she had been enthusiastic.
    "I know about Jonathan Randall," she was telling Roger. "Daddy always admired him; said he was one of the few interesting people in the family tree. I guess he was a good soldier; Daddy had lots of commendations and things he'd gotten."
    "Really?" Roger looked back, in search of Claire. "Does your mother need help with that plant press?"
    Brianna shook her head. "Nah. She just found a plant by the path she couldn't resist. She'll be up in a minute."
    It was a silent place. Even the birds were quiet as midday approached, and the dark evergreens that edged the plateau were still, with no breeze to stir their branches. Without the raw scars of recent graves or the flags of plastic flowers as testimony to still-fresh grief, the kirkyard breathed only the peace of the long-dead. Removed from strife and trouble, only the fact of their life remained to give the comfort of a human presence on the lonely heights of an empty land.
    The progress of the three