Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(159)

Then a hallway, then a door, and then…

A woman. Blue dress. Soft-brown hair looped up behind her ears. Eyes. Pale-green eyes. Not blue like her own.

Minnie stopped dead, not breathing. For the moment, she felt an odd disappointment; the woman looked nothing like the picture she had carried with her all her life. This one was tall and thin, almost lean, and while her face was arresting, it wasn’t the face Minnie saw in her mirror.

“Minerva?” the woman said, in a voice little more than a whisper. She coughed, cleared her throat explosively, and, coming toward Minnie, said much louder, “Minerva? Is it truly you?”

“Well, yes,” said Minnie, not sure quite what to do. She must be; she knows my real name. “That’s my name. And you are…Mrs….Simpson?” Her own voice broke quite absurdly, the final syllable uttered like the squeak of a bat.

“Yes.” The woman turned her head and gave the two who had brought her a brief nod. The boy vanished at once, but the older man touched the woman’s shoulder gently and gave Minnie a smile before following suit, leaving Minnie and Mrs. Simpson frankly staring at each other.

Mrs. Simpson was dressed well but quietly. She pursed her lips, looked sidelong at Minnie, as though estimating the possibility that she might be armed, then sighed, her square shoulders slumping.

“I’m not your mother, child,” she said quietly.

Quiet as they were, the words struck Minnie like fists, four solid blows in the pit of her stomach.

“Well, who the bloody hell are you?” she demanded, taking a step backward. Every cautionary word she’d ignored came flooding back in her father’s voice.

“…kidnapped…sold to a brothel…shipped off to the colonies…murdered for sixpence…”

“I’m your aunt, my dear,” Mrs. Simpson said. The nettle grasped, she had regained some of her starch. “Miriam Simpson. Your mother is my sister, Hélène.”

“Hélène,” Minnie repeated. The name struck a spark in her soul. She had that much, at least. Hélène. A Frenchwoman? She swallowed.

“Is she dead?” she asked, as steadily as she could. Mrs. Simpson pursed her lips again, unhappy, but shook her head.

“No,” she said, with obvious reluctance. “She lives. But…”

Minnie wished she’d brought a pocket pistol instead of a knife. If she had, she’d fire a shot into the ceiling right this minute. Instead, she took a step forward, so that her eyes were no more than inches from the green ones that didn’t look like hers.

“Take me to her. Right now,” she said. “You can tell me the story on the way.”





7





ANNUNCIATION


THE COACH CROSSED OVER the cobbles of a bridge with a great clattering of hooves and wheels. The racket was as nothing to the noise inside Minnie’s head.

“A nun,” Minnie said, as they passed onto a dirt road and the noise decreased. She sounded as blank as she felt. “My mother…was a nun?”

Mrs. Simpson—her aunt, Aunt Simpson, Aunt Miriam…she must get used to thinking of her that way—took a deep breath and nodded. With that bit of news out of the way, she had regained some of her composure.

“Yes. A sister of the Order of Divine Mercy, in Paris. You know of them?”

Minnie shook her head. She had thought she was prepared to hear anything, but she hadn’t been, by a long chalk.

“What—what do they look like?” It was the first thing to come into her head. “Black, gray, white…?”

Mrs. Simpson relaxed a little, bracing her back against the blue cushions to counter the jolting of the coach.

“Their habit is white, with a gray veil. They are a contemplative order but not cloistered.”

“What does that mean, contemplative?” Minnie burst out. “What are they contemplating? Not their vows of chastity, apparently.”

Her aunt looked startled, but her mouth twitched a little.

“Apparently not,” she said. “Their chief occupation is prayer. Contemplation of God’s mercy and His divine nature.”

The day was cool enough, but Minnie felt hot blood rise from her chest to her ears.

“I see. So she—my mother—had an encounter with the Holy Spirit during a particularly intense prayer, did she?” She’d meant it sarcastically, but perhaps…“Wait a moment. My father is my father, isn’t he?”

Her aunt overlooked the gibe.

“You are the daughter of Raphael Wattiswade, I assure you,” she said dryly, with a glance at Minnie’s face.

One of the small knots of doubt in Minnie’s chest loosened. The possibility of this all being a hoax—if nothing more sinister—receded. Very few people knew her father’s real name. If this woman did, then perhaps…

She sat back, crossed her arms, and fixed Mrs. Simpson with a hard look.

“So. What happened? And where are we going?” she added belatedly.

“To your mother,” her aunt said tersely. “As to what happened…it was a book.”

“Of course it was.” Minnie’s confidence in the woman’s story moved up another small notch. “What book?”

“A Book of Hours.” Mrs. Simpson waved away an inquisitive wasp that had flown in through the window. “I said that the order’s chief occupation is prayer. They have others. Some of the nuns are scribes; some are artists. Soeur Emmanuelle—that’s the name Hélène took when she entered the convent—was both,” she explained, seeing Minnie’s momentary confusion. “The order produces very beautiful books—things of a religious nature, of course, Bibles, devotionals—and sells them in order to support the community.”