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The arrival of the first frost meant the coming of shorter days. Twilight lingered longer now, deep blues and purples casting their shadowed glow upon the Ridge. Demons laid to rest walked more freely when the sun bowed to the moon, sinking to its knees and rising only when the crows called it forth. The world spoke in whispers, too, drawing in on itself and shrinking. The little homestead on Frasers Ridge grew slow and sleepy, caught in the wintry purgatory between light and dark, life and death. Its usual hubbub of activity became that of tip-toed steps, hushed lovemaking, quiet prayers before bed…
Brianna sat in the one-room cabin, notes and books sprawled across the desk. She burned bright against the room’s waning light, painted as she was in the colors of autumn: crimson hair, pinked cheeks, a dress of deep copper. Observing her from the doorway, Jamie thought many a wanderer could find his way if she were to merely stand ahead, a fiery beacon in the night.
His daughter’s eyes were strained in the growing darkness, seeking words scribbled in Jamie’s clumsy penmanship. He felt suddenly ashamed of its lack of uniformity, the ink spots left behind from the stiffening of his finger joints. Writing Brianna’s weekly vocabulary lists was more difficult than he cared to admit, but each one was worth the price of a cramped and aching hand…
For it was during these evenings spent studying the Gaidhlig that Jamie Fraser had come to know his daughter. And while they shared the events of their days with the fervor of natural storytellers, Jamie found he knew her best in moments of companionable silence. He liked watching her unawares, seeing, from a slight distance, the barely-perceptible ways in which she mirrored himself or her mother. They might be strangers to one another, but even their mutual self-consciousness could not hide the similarities between them.
Jamie had kept a steady catalog of her tics during their nightly lessons. She bounced her right knee in frustration. She hummed when she was avoiding something, cried when she was angry. These were the things that Jamie Fraser committed to memory while his daughter, in turn, memorized the Gaelic he assigned her.
“Mo chridhe,” he said, stepping towards her. “Surely you canna see in this light?”
Brianna twisted around, startled. Mind befuddled by a rush of English and Gaelic, she managed only a stereotypical Scottish grunt. “Ach”, she said, an echo of her father. He laughed. “I was preparing for our lesson. Seems I lost track of time,” she explained sheepishly. “I’ll have to look in the pantry for some candles. We’ve used all the ones in your desk.”
Jamie smiled, remembering pools of molten beeswax, remnants of lessons that had lasted long into the night.
“Ach,” Jamie repeated, clearly teasing her. “Dinna fash yourself. You willna need the light tonight. I’ve something else in mind.”
Brianna leaned forward, always ready for a challenge. “What, then?”
“Come, lass,” he beckoned, “I want to show ye something.” He made for the door, knowing she would be fast on his heels with a mind full of questions. Even pregnancy could not keep Brianna off her feet.
She followed, interest piqued, as Jamie led her outside.
They walked single-file into the shadowy wood, following trails visible only to Jamie's eyes. His hair – so much like her own– shone briefly in the moonlight, a flame passing through the blackness and rousing the slumbering beasts around them. He led the way, full of purpose, though their destination remained as elusive as ever.
They finally stopped beneath a towering oak, folding their long limbs to sit and lean against its trunk. Jamie titled his face upwards, suddenly reverent. This was the place then. In this light, Brianna thought, her father could be a Viking vigilante - all angles and sharp lines, the Fraser nose thrown into stark contrast by the branches’ mangled shadows. He was beautiful in the way only a man could be.
“Listen closely, a nighean.” he said. “What do you hear?”
Brianna tuned an ear to the stirring around her: the rustle of leaves, the howling wind, the pitter-patter of scurrying animals. Each sang their song into the wintry darkness, creating a symphony of both forlorn longing and abounding joy.
She felt a creeping sense of fear wash over her, as though their humanness were an unwelcome intrusion. Icy fingers drew patterns up and down her flesh, arm hairs reaching out for half-forgotten memories. Remember, the wind seemed to shriek, stealing the breath from her lungs.
“What do you hear?” Jamie asked again, prodding gently. “In the Gaidhlig, a leannan.”
“**Tannasgan,” she replied. Ghosts. Though she had never placed much stock in the comings and goings of the supernatural, she felt certain of an otherworldly presence breathing down her neck. The child in her womb begin to stir, an apex of warmth in the cold. Did it sense something too?
Jamie said nothing but only nodded, pointing to the canopy above.
“I once prayed under a tree much like this one,” her father began. “And looked up at this same sky.”
The sky in question glowed an eerie grey, neither black nor white.
“Did you hear them then as well?” Brianna asked, suddenly sounding like a little girl.
“The spirits? Aye. Always. They cried of loneliness then, too. I prayed with them, for them. That we might all find peace.”
Brianna closed her eyes, willing the voice of Frank Randall to echo in the rush of the forest. Had he found peace in death? Found relief from the shadow cast by the man beside her?
“I am no’ a holy man,” her father continued, a small tremor of laughter in his voice. “But there are times when ye’ve nothing for company except the words in yer mouth, the ghosts around ye, and the God above.”
Brianna knew he was speaking of his time at Lallybroch, of the seven years spent an exile in his own lands. She nodded, understanding, too, the pull of one’s faith during times of hopelessness. In the midst of tragedy, she had witnessed even the most pragmatic men and women seek refuge in the pages of Scripture. In a world so ravaged by change and turmoil, a comforting sense of permanence could be found in the preservation of ancient beliefs. They have persevered and so, too, shall I.
“I prayed to keep the loneliness at bay. Prayers my Mam taught me, ones I’d heard from priests, or read in books. But the tannasgan’s prayers were always louder than my own. I could hear them even when I was half-asleep, starved wi’ hunger.”
“And you weren’t afraid?”
“At first, maybe,” he admitted. “They spoke in a foreign tongue that sent the fear of God straight through me. But I came to understand them in time, and I was none so afraid of them then. They werena there to harm but only to remember what was lost.”
Brianna imagined her father as he would have been, his usual imposing physique reduced to the skin and bone of a cave-dweller. Alone and surrounded by ghosts – the men of Ardsmuir, his family, Jonathan Randall. Her mother.
The thought unnerved her, and she shivered. Mistaking this as a sign of chill, Jamie wrapped his arm around her, offering warmth.
“I should like to teach ye a blessing, a nighean. One which a tannasg said o’er me as I laid in darkness. Would ye mind it much?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not.”
A moment of silence. He looked to the ground, voice grown quiet.
“I dinna ken if you’ve plans to stay here wi’ us in this…time. But I ken well that life, here or there, isna always easy.”
When Jamie turned his gaze on her, she was startled by the pain she saw there.
“A heart can break in a million ways, a leannan.” At this, he looked to his palm, smiling at the scar just at the base of his thumb. “And it can heal, too – in just as many. But the road is sometimes long and lonely. It knocks ye flat on yer arse more often than not.”
He elbowed her playfully in the side, though his tone was serious.
“And so I want to give you this, Brianna. You and the bairn.” Jamie placed a tentative hand on the swell of her belly, suddenly thoughtful. She recognized the fear in his movements – fear for her and for the child, for another left to live with the ghost of rape.
“This blessing is something to keep with ye always. To whisper to yourself or the bairn when life grows too heavy and home seems a distant place. It may not be much…But Brianna, I do hope it will carry you just as it once carried me.”
Brianna nodded, surprised at the tears stinging her eyes.
“You’ll recognize some of the words, but listen first, a nighean. Then we’ll repeat it together, aye?”
O, chì, chì tu na mòrbheanna,
O, chì, chì tu na còrr-bheanna,
O, chì, chì tu na coireachan,
Chì tu na sgòran fo cheò.
Chì tu gun dàil an t-àite 's an d'rugadh tu,
Cuirear orm fàilte 's a' chànain a thuigeas tu,
Gheibh tu ann aoigh agus gràdh 'nuair a ruigeam,
Nach reicinn air tunnachan òir.
Chì tu na coilltean, chì tu na doireachan,
Chì tu na maghan bàna, as toraiche,
Chì tu na féidh air làr nan coireachan
Falaicht' ann an trusgan de cheò.
“Da,” Brianna asked sometime afterwards. “Why that blessing? Out of all others?”
In truth, there seemed nothing particularly special about it, save only that its rhythm allowed for easy recollection. She saw herself as a little girl, lulled to sleep beneath woolen blankets and the sound of her father’s Gaidhlig. Another life, perhaps.
“I dinna ken,” he said softly. “There are some things that canna be explained…”
But he cleared his throat, making to try.
“It was one night…when I lived in the cave. I was up to my ears in snow, half frozen wi’ the cold. I’d fallen asleep against the tree, ye see.
He shook his head, mouth quirked up at the corners.
“No verra sensible, aye? Praying about in the winter wi’ barely enough skin to cover my bones. But even so, I ken well enough that I was good as dead if someone didna find me by morning. Though I didna care overmuch either way, mind.”
“It was easier to sleep. Much easier than staying awake, feelin’ as though I might shatter wi’ the wind. And so I closed my eyes, thinking death couldna be so bad so long as the cold and loneliness didna follow me there.”
His voice changed, at once pained and infinitely tender.
“And then I saw her. Do mhàthair.” Your mother. “And you, a nighean.”
“Me?” Brianna asked, dumbfounded.
“Aye. I didna ken if I was awake or dreaming, but she was there, carrying ye inside her. I felt as though I knew ye already. As if I’d met ye once before.”
Jamie smiled, eyes far away.
“She was dressed in no’ but a wee shift, flickering like a faerie and saying words I couldna understand. But when she came to me, I recognized the Gaidhlig. ‘O, chì, chì tu na mòrbheanna…’” He snorted, “Then I knew that I was dreaming.”
Brianna giggled, recalling her mother’s stilted Gaelic.
“I hadna heard a tannasg speak in the Gaidhlig before, but she did. 'O, chì, chì tu na còrr-bheanna’…I thought my heart was going to burst.”
“The blessing,” Brianna breathed. “The tannasg was Mama, then?”
“Aye.”
“But – how?”
Jamie’s smile grew, reaching his eyes. As with his hair, they matched her own, and she wondered if she might one day be saved by the ghosts of her past. Roger, she thought. Where was he now?
“Ah. ‘There are some things that canna be explained.’” Brianna repeated.
“Do ye ken the blessing’s meaning, lass?” he asked, expectant.
She did, but only vaguely. She said as much.
“Aye, weel…It’s about home. For a place someone doesna think he’ll ever see again.” Jamie cleared his throat, translating Gaelic to English:
O you will see, see the great mountains,
O you will see, see the lofty mountains,
O you will see, see the corries,
You will see the peaks under mist.
You will see, without delay, the place where you were born,
A welcome will be put on you in the language you understand,
You will receive in it joy and love when you arrive,
That you would not sell for tons of gold.
You will see the woods, you will see the groves,
You will see the fair fields, more fertile,
You will see the deer at the foot of the corries
Enshrouded in a mantle of mist.
Brianna slowly repeated the words to herself but stopped abruptly, looking up.
“But what happened then? After Mama – the tannasg – said the blessing?”
The sharp planes of her father’s face seemed to soften. His shoulders eased, body and mind relaxing into the memory.
“She knelt beside me then and laid her hand upon my chest. Right – here.” He pointed to the spot just above his heart. "Her hands glowed a wee blue color when she touched me. “‘Mo ghaol ort’, she said.” My love is with you. “And then she held me there – like that – until I woke.”
“When I opened my eyes, I looked down the hillside. She was there - a doe and her fawn, both white as snow and surrounded by blue mist. They must’ve thought me no threat, for they heard me wake but didna run. Only watched me.”
“She disappeared after a time, taking the fawn and the mist wi’ her. It was only then that I noticed the snow was all but gone. And the sun – God! you should’ve seen the sun, mo maise. As bright as I’d ever seen it. Colors so vivid I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven. But no, I wasna dead and I wasna in Heaven either. My skin was on fire, and I burned like the Devil.”
“You had a fever?” Brianna asked, incredulous.
“Aye. Fergus found me by noon, slick with sweat as though it wasna the middle of winter. Jenny said it was a miracle. A fever in the snow? The first thaw and it only bein’ late February? I said I didna ken what it was, only that I needed a full cask of whisky to thaw my bones.”
“And did you get it? The whisky, I mean.”
“Ach, of course. If there’s one thing you’ll learn, lass, it’s that a Fraser canna be denied his whisky.”
“No wonder Mama married you.”
“Aye, maybe. But I never told my sister about the tannasg’s blessing. Or the white deer. I wanted that to be mine and mine alone.”
Brianna looked down, cheeks flushed with gratitude.
“But you’ve given it to me now.”
“Aye, lass. It’s yours now, to do wi’ as ye wish. Hold it tight against ye when it grows dark, knowing that home is never far away.”
They both fell into silence then. Brianna rubbed absently at her stomach; Jamie worried at a loose thread along the hem of his shirt. He looped it around his finger once, then twice, before he pulled fast and tight. Brianna watched as his fingertip drained of blood and oxygen, turning blue. At last, he released the tie, letting the normal flow of life resume once more. He sighed, looking to the sky as if in prayer.
“Ah Dhia. Sometimes I think I have died a hundred deaths. And it was she who brought me back every time.” Jamie took Brianna’s hand within his own, and kissed her knuckles. “When I canna see ye safe, mo chridhe, have faith that the tannasgan will watch over you. They will lead ye to where you must go.”
Brianna rested her hand over her father’s chest, keeping it there as the forest began to stir with the dawn of a new day.
“Móran taing, m’athair.” Thank you, father.
"Daonnan, a nighean.” Always, daughter.
FIN.