Outlander Novella [01] The Space Between by Diana Gabaldon Page B

her.
    “What is the ultimate goal of an alchemist?” the frog said very seriously.
    “To transform matter,” Rakoczy replied automatically.
    The frog’s face split in a broad amphibian grin.
    “Exactly!” he said. And vanished.
    He
had
vanished. No puffs of smoke, no illusionist’s tricks, no smell of sulfur—the frog was simply gone. The square stretched empty under the starlit sky; the only thing that moved was a cat that darted mewing out of the shadows and brushed past Rakoczy’s leg.
    * * *
    Worn out with constant walking, Michael slept like the dead these days, without dreams or motion, and woke when the sun came up. His valet, Robert, heard him stir and came in at once, one of the
femmes de chambre
on his heels with a bowl of coffee and some pastry.
    He ate slowly, suffering himself to be brushed, shaved, and tenderly tidied into fresh linen. Robert kept up a soothing murmur of the sort of conversation that doesn’t require response and smiled encouragingly when presenting the mirror. Rather to Michael’s surprise, the image in the mirror looked quite normal. Hair neatly clubbed—he wore his own, without powder—suit modest in cut but of the highest quality. Robert hadn’t asked him what he required but had dressed him for an ordinary day of business. He supposed that was all right. What, after all, did clothes matter? It wasn’t as though there was a costume
de rigueur
for calling upon the sister of one’s deceased wife, who had come uninvited into one’s bed in the middle of the night.
    He had spent the last two days trying to think of some way never to see or speak to Léonie again, but, really, there was no help for it. He’d have to see her.
    But what was he to say to her, he wondered, as he made his way through the streets toward the house where Léonie lived with an aged aunt, Eugenie Galantine. He wished he couldtalk the situation over with Sister Joan, but that wouldn’t be appropriate, even were she available.
    He’d hoped that walking would give him time to come up at least with a
point d’appui
, if not an entire statement of principle, but instead he found himself obsessively counting the flagstones of the market as he crossed it, counting the bongs of the public horologe as it struck the hour of three, and—for lack of anything else—counting his own footsteps as he approached her door.
Six hundred and thirty-seven, six hundred and thirty-eight …
    As he turned into the street, though, he abruptly stopped counting. He stopped walking, too, for an instant—then began to run. Something was wrong at the house of Madame Galantine.
    He pushed his way through the crowd of neighbors and vendors clustered near the steps and seized the butler, whom he knew, by a sleeve.
    “What?” he barked. “What’s happened?” The butler, a tall, cadaverous man named Hubert, was plainly agitated but settled a bit on seeing Michael.
    “I don’t know, sir,” he said, though a sideways slide of his eyes made it clear that he did. “Mademoiselle Léonie … she’s ill. The doctor …”
    He could smell the blood. Not waiting for more, he pushed Hubert aside and sprinted up the stairs, calling for Madame Eugenie, Léonie’s aunt.
    Madame Eugenie popped out of a bedroom, her cap and wrapper neat in spite of the uproar.
    “Monsieur Michel!” she said, blocking him from entering the room. “It’s all right, but you must not go in.”
    “Yes, I must.” His heart was thundering in his ears, and his hands felt cold.
    “You may
not
,” she said firmly. “She’s ill. It isn’t proper.”
    “Proper? A young woman tries to make away with herself and you tell me it isn’t
proper
?”
    A maid appeared in the doorway, a basket piled with bloodstained linen in her arms, but the look of shock on Madame Eugenie’s broad face was more striking.
    “Make away with herself?” The old lady’s mouth hung open for a moment, then snapped shut like a turtle’s. “Why would you think such a thing?”