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But there were proood Then she could coer

She shifted her ar his thin silver band warm on her wrist under the shawl, the metal heated by her own flesh Un peu…beaucoup…Her other hand gripped the cloth together, exposed to the wind and daht not have noticed the sudden warmth of the drop that fell on the back of her hand

Lizzie stood stiff as a stick, her are and transparent, her hair fine and thin, sleek to her skull Her ears poked out like a ht of the low night sun

Brianna reached up and wiped away the tears by touch Her own eyes were dry, and her mouth set firm as she looked out at the land over Lizzie’s head, but the cold face and quivering lips against her hand ht as well have been her own

They stood for soone

36

YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN

Inverness, July 1769

Roger walked slowly through the town, looking around hiht Inverness had changed a bit in two hundred-odd years, no doubt of it, and yet it was recognizably the saood deal smaller, to be sure, with half its muddy streets unpaved, and yet he knew this street he alking down, had walked down it a hundred times before

It was Huntly Street, and while s were unfah Church--not so Old, now--its stubby steeple blunt as ever Surely if he went inside, Mrs Dunvegan, theout flowers in the chancel, ready for the Sunday service But she wouldn’t--Mrs Dunvegan hadn’t happened yet, with her thick wool sweaters and the terrible pot pies hich she tormented the sick of her husband’s parish Yet the se of a stranger

His father’s own church wasn’t here; it had been--would be?--built in 1837 Likewise the manse, which had always seemed so elderly and decrepit, had not been built until the early 1900s He had passed the site on his way; there was nothing there now save a tangle of cinquefoil and sweet broo that sprouted froht wind

There was the sa with freshness--but the overlying stink of e Theabsence was the churches; where both banks of the river would one day sport a noble profusion of steeples and spires, now there was nothing save a scatter of se, but the River Ness itself was naturally ulls sat in the riffles, squawking companionably to one another as they picked s the stones just under the water’s surface

"Luck to you, e, and crossed the river into the town

Here and there, a gracious residence sat corand lady spreading her skirts, ignoring the presence of the hoi polloi nearby There was Mountgerald in the distance, the big house looking precisely as he had always known it, save that the great copper beeches that would in future surround the house had not yet been planted; instead, a row of spindly Italian cypresses leaned dis hoance, Mountgerald was reputed to have been built in the oldest of the old ways--with the foundation laid over the body of a human sacrifice By report, a workreat stone dropped onto hi him to death He had--so local history said--been buried there in the cellar, his blood a propitiation to the hungry spirits of the earth, who thus satisfied, had allowed the edifice to stand prosperous and untroubled through the years

The house could be no ht There ht easily be people in the toho had worked on its building; who knew exactly what had happened in that cellar, to whoerald and its ghost would have to keep their secrets With ahouse behind, and turned his scholar’s nose into the road that led to the docks downriver

With a feeling of what could only be called déjà vu, he pushed open the door of a pub The half-tis, was as he had seen it a week before--and two hundred years hence--and the familiar smell of hops and yeast in the air was a coed, but not the sulp froht, man?" The barer