Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(56)

With great difficulty, he restrained himself while making the presentation of the chalice, and with great humility, he inquired whether he might ask the great favor of seeing Sister Gregory, that he might convey a message to her from her family in the Highlands. Sister Eustacia looked surprised and somewhat disapproving—postulants were not normally permitted visits—but after all…in view of Monsieur Murray’s and Monsieur Fraser’s great generosity to the convent…perhaps just a few moments, in the visitor’s parlor, and in the presence of Sister herself…



HE TURNED AND blinked once, his mouth opening a little. He looked shocked. Did she look so different in her robe and veil?

“It’s me,” Joan said, and tried to smile reassuringly. “I mean…still me.”

His eyes fixed on her face, and he let out a deep breath and smiled, as if she’d been lost and he’d found her again.

“Aye, so it is,” he said softly. “I was afraid it was Sister Gregory. I mean, the…er…” He made a sketchy, awkward gesture indicating her gray robes and white postulant’s veil.

“It’s only clothes,” she said, and put a hand to her chest, defensive.

“Well, no,” he said, looking her over carefully, “I dinna think it is, quite. It’s more like a soldier’s uniform, no? Ye’re doing your job when ye wear it, and everybody as sees it kens what ye are and knows what ye do.”

Kens what I am. I suppose I should be pleased it doesn’t show, she thought, a little wildly.

“Well…aye, I suppose.” She fingered the rosary at her belt. She coughed. “In a way, at least.”

Ye’ve got to tell him. It wasn’t one of the voices, just the voice of her own conscience, but that was demanding enough. She could feel her heart beating, so hard that she thought the bumping must show through the front of her habit.

He smiled encouragingly at her.

“Léonie told me ye wanted to see me.”

“Michael…can I tell ye something?” she blurted.

He seemed surprised. “Well, of course ye can,” he said. “Whyever not?”

“Whyever not,” she said, half under her breath. She glanced over his shoulder, but Sister Eustacia was on the far side of the room, talking to a very young, frightened-looking French girl and her parents.

“Well, it’s like this, see,” she said, in a determined voice. “I hear voices.”

She stole a look at him, but he didn’t appear shocked. Not yet.

“In my head, I mean.”

“Aye?” He sounded cautious. “Um…what do they say, then?”

She realized she was holding her breath, and let a little of it out.

“Ah…different things. But they now and then tell me something’s going to happen. More often, they tell me I should say thus-and-so to someone.”

“Thus-and-so,” he repeated attentively, watching her face. “What…sort of thus-and-so?”

“I wasna expecting the Spanish Inquisition,” she said, a little testily. “Does it matter?”

His mouth twitched.

“Well, I dinna ken, now, do I?” he pointed out. “It might give a clue as to who’s talkin’ to ye, might it not? Or do ye already know that?”

“No, I don’t,” she admitted, and felt a sudden lessening of tension. “I—I was worrit—a bit—that it might be demons. But it doesna really…well, they dinna tell me wicked sorts of things. Just…more like when something’s going to happen to a person. And sometimes it’s no a good thing—but sometimes it is. There was wee Annie MacLaren, her wi’ a big belly by the third month, and by six lookin’ as though she’d burst, and she was frightened she was goin’ to die come her time, like her ain mother did, wi’ a babe too big to be born—I mean, really frightened, not just like all women are. And I met her by St. Ninian’s Spring one day, and one of the voices said to me, ‘Tell her it will be as God wills and she will be delivered safely of a son.’?”

“And ye did tell her that?”

“Yes. I didna say how I knew, but I must have sounded like I did know, because her poor face got bright all of a sudden, and she grabbed on to my hands and said, ‘Oh! From your lips to God’s ear!’?”

“And was she safely delivered of a son?”

“Aye—and a daughter, too.” Joan smiled, remembering the glow on Annie’s face.

Michael glanced aside at Sister Eustacia, who was bidding farewell to the new postulant’s family. The girl was white-faced and tears ran down her cheeks, but she clung to Sister Eustacia’s sleeve as though it were a lifeline.

“I see,” he said slowly, and looked back at Joan. “Is that why—is it the voices told ye to be a nun, then?”

She blinked, surprised by his apparent acceptance of what she’d told him but more so by the question.

“Well…no. They never did. Ye’d think they would have, wouldn’t ye?”

He smiled a little.

“Maybe so.” He coughed, then looked up, a little shyly. “It’s no my business, but what did make ye want to be a nun?”

She hesitated, but why not? She’d already told him the hardest bit.