A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Outlander 6 by Diana Gabaldon

Author:Diana Gabaldon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Orth Carolina - History - Colonial Period, Historical Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, 1775-1783, North Carolina - History - Revolution, North Carolina, Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, Ca. 1600-1775, Historical, General, Time Travel
ISBN: 9780440225805
Publisher: Dell
Published: 2005-09-26T05:00:00+00:00

were still trying to rid themselves of whatever troubled them. Bloody flux.

Lizzie was praying.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee . . .”

Brianna was murmuring something under her breath, urgent sounds of maternal encouragement.

“Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . .”

My thumb was on the pulse of the carotid artery. I felt it bump, skip, and go on, jerking along like a cart with a missing wheel. Her heart was beginning to fail, arrhythmic.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .”

I slammed my fist down on the center of her chest, and then again, and again, hard enough that the bed and the pale splayed body quivered under the blows. Flies rose in alarm from the soaked straw, buzzing.

“Oh, no,” said Marsali softly behind me. “Oh, no, no, please.” I had heard that tone of disbelief before, of protest and appeal denied—and knew what had happened.

“Pray for us sinners . . .”

As though she, too, had heard, Hortense’s head rolled suddenly to one side, and her eyes sprang open, staring toward the place where Marsali sat, though I thought she saw nothing. Then the eyes closed and she doubled suddenly, onto one side, legs drawn up nearly to her chin. Her head wrenched back, body tight in spasm, and then she suddenly relaxed. She would not let her child go alone. Bloody flux.

‘Now and at the hour of our death, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace . . .” Lizzie’s soft voice went on mechanically, repeating her words of prayer as mindlessly as I had said mine earlier. I held Hortense’s wrist, checking for the pulse, but it was mere formality. Marsali curled over the tiny body in grief, rocking it against her breast. Milk dripped from the swollen nipple, coming slowly, then faster, falling like white rain on the small still face, futilely eager to nourish and sustain.

The air was still stifling, still thick with odor and flies and the sound of Lizzie’s prayers—but the cabin seemed empty, and curiously silent.

There was a shuffling noise outside; the sound of something being dragged, a grunt of pain and dreadful exertion. Then the soft sound of falling, a gasp of breath. Padraic had made it back to his own doorstep.

Brianna looked to the door, but she still held the older girl in her arms, still alive.

I set down the limp hand that I held, carefully, and went to help.

61

A NOISOME PESTILENCE

THE DAYS WERE GROWING SHORTER, but light still came early. The windows at the front of the house faced east, and the rising sun glowed on the scrubbed white oak of my surgery floor. I could see the brilliant bar of light advancing across the hand-hewn boards; had I had an actual timepiece, I could have calibrated the floor like a sundial, marking the seams between the boards in minutes.

As it was, I marked them in heartbeats, waiting through the moments until the sun should have reached the counter where my microscope stood ready, slides and beaker beside it.

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