Chapter Text
It's 1779. William Ransom was 21, Jamie 58, his wife Claire, 63. Their daughter Brianna was 32 years old. Brianna's husband, Roger Mackenzie - yes, it's the former tiny adopted son of the Reverend Mr. Wakefield. He was already forty years old.
Two years before Claire's return into the 18th century, Jenny has tried to make his brother marry. She has found nothing better as to choose for this purpose Laoghere, a widow with two children. Marsali was Laoghere's daughter and Jamie's stepdaughter and at the same time, his daughter-in-law because of she was marrit Fergus, Jamie's adopted son.
Ian, Jr., married Rachel Hunter, sister of Denzel Hunter, and his wife was a cousin of William Ransom, Dottie (daughter of the brother of Lord John Grey).
* * *
Frasers' family was growing. Jamie and Claire have got a new foster daughter, Fanny, the youngest sister of the William's beloved Jane, the whore. Also Fergus and Marsali left their eldest son, a brisk Germain, to Grandmere and Grandda. At the family of Ian Jr., his mother Jenny lived by now.
There are new huts around Fraser's Ridge. Jamie has united his men. He is always responsible for them.
The settlement is protected from the back by almost vertical rocky cliff, towering over the mad confusion of the dark branches of the pine trees. On the opposite slope of the mountain, a huge plot is completely overgrown with Heather. At the distance It looks just bright spot among the dark needles of pine trees and American trees — hemlocks. Prickly branches of tall bushes intertwined and messed up so thick that it was impossible to wade through them. From the top of the ridge you could see the top of the next crest of the mountains, followed by another.
It seems there is no place to arrange housing, but Jamie's countrymen, the Scots are the Highlanders, they are adapted to living on scraps of fertile land, lost among the rocks.
The air in the Ridge is cool, unlike the stuffy cities in the valley, and slightly wet, but you could breathe easy. Landscapes are pleasing for eye.
Old fragrant spruces framed the cutting on the one hand, and the other accumulated the soft shade of oaks and hazel Hickory. Yellow and white heads of wild flowers shining in the sun among the emerald grass of Alpine meadows.
Buildings have transformed the meadow that was covered with wild flowering herbs. At the place of burnt Big House, black bald spots sticked, and it wouldn't heal for a long time.
On the new meadow, Roger and his father-in-law Jamie built a new home. This was not yet a spacious cabine built of rough walls, with a pent roof and a dirt floor. Because of the summer time and hot weather, men were not in a hurry with windows, doors and chimneys.
Carved green leaves of strawberries shaped like little heraldic shields and curved stems as if dusted with tiny, sour-sweet hearts berries. The embodied Fraser's—from the French word 'fraise', strawberry—emblem.
On the slope to the saddle, the view which will be opened from the windows of a new home, there was the most berries. Brianna and Roger's kids— nine- years-old Jem and three-years-old Mandy-covered in red berry juice climbed the slope. Fanny who was twelve harvested berries with them.
Brianna frowned was drawing the engineering communications.
"I want to have hot-water heating, hot water, ice cellar!" she said.
This tall woman with the fiery hair wouldn't dream. She carried out her plans. Brianna has already started this work around the old Big House, but it was interrupted by the dramatic events on the Ridge.
Jamie approached to his daughter who was bent over sheets of cardboard-Fergus brought it to her from Wilmington."What is it, а leannan?" injuried he.
Brianna was confused... "Da, I consider if we could have electricity, in new home-
"El—lec-tree-city?" Jamie did not understand the unfamiliar word.
Brianna seemed even more confused. "Why... er... This is an invention of my own time. It's light without candles or oil, it's mechanisms producing the hard work instead of human or horse..."
Jamie's eyes lit up with interest. Brianna exciting began to explain that energy could be obtained by converting the force of the falling water into electric one. "We also have a creek with a large difference in levels!" Jamie listened in fascination, sometimes asking questions and believing everything that comes out of this extraordinary woman—his daughter. Another of the two magical women he knew.
In pendant to Jamie's thoughts? the the sonorous voice of Mandy came from the clearing. "Wemmie, Wemmie! Now it will they who must hide and we'll seek!
"Who knows, maybe three... Mandy, too, can travel through the stones! Who will she grow to?"
"In our time... In the 20th century", Brianna corrected herself, remembering that "her time"was at the moment. "In the 20th century I was taught about it, I studied in the graduate school of engineering, Da!"
"Poor lassie... You too, you miss "hot baths" The smile curved the lips of her father.
It was the turn of his daughter to not understand the joke.
"Why do you tell about hot baths?"
"Your mother told me that the hot bath almost had won her willing to rest in the past with me, as I had escorted her to the Craig-na-Dun."
The young woman raised her eyes to him. "Any hot baths are not worth her love for you, Da!" He turned his head, still smiling at her face."But as It's possible to arrange that both you and hot tubs were in her hand, why I will not do it?@ she said enthusiastically. "With electricity you could grind grain, lift weights, move the goods and many other things! Not everything is to be done by human muscles!
At the same time, both father and daughter made the Scottish guttural sound of satisfaction.
"Mummy! Mummy!" suddenly Mandy's screaming was heard from the clearing. "They leave me, they come out without me! AAAAA! Wemmie!"
"Mam! She's too little!" Jemmie tried to sound solide. "Fanny and Germaine invite me towards the creek
The kids were already running towards his grandfather and mother. Red like his grandfather, the head of Jemmie and dark curls, like Claire's, tiny head of Mandy flashed on the background of green grass.