“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered, closing my eyes. “Don’t let it be bad.” But the sound of the murmur seemed to grow louder, drowning my prayers.

I opened my eyes to see Brianna, standing in the doorway.



“I KNEW THERE was something wrong,” she said steadily, wiping Mandy’s bottom with a damp rag before rediapering her. “She doesn’t nurse like Jemmy did. She acts hungry, but she’ll only nurse for a few minutes before she falls asleep. Then she wakes up and fusses again a few minutes later.”

She sat down and offered Mandy a breast, as though in illustration of the difficulty. Sure enough, the baby latched on with every evidence of starvation. As she nursed, I picked up one of the tiny fists, unfolding her fingers. The minute nails were faintly tinged with blue.

“So,” Brianna said calmly, “what happens now?”

“I don’t know.” This was the usual answer in most cases, truth be told—but it was always unsatisfactory, and clearly not less so now. “Sometimes there are no symptoms, or only very minor ones,” I said, trying for amendment. “If the opening is very large, and you have pulmonary symptoms—and we have—then … she might be all right, only not thriving—not growing properly, because of the feeding difficulties. Or”—I took a deep breath, steeling myself—“she could develop heart failure. Or pulmonary hypertension—that’s a very high blood pressure in the lungs—”

“I know what it is,” Bree said, her voice tight. “Or?”

“Or infective endocarditis. Or—not.”

“Will she die?” she asked bluntly, looking up at me. Her jaw was set, but I saw the way she held Amanda closer, waiting for an answer. I could give her nothing but the truth.

“Probably.” The word hung in the air between us, hideous.

“I can’t say for sure, but—”

“Probably,” Brianna echoed, and I nodded, turning away, unable to look at her face. Without such modern assistances as an echocardiogram, I of course couldn’t judge the extent of the problem. But I had not only the evidence of my eyes and ears, but what I had felt passing from her skin to mine—that sense of not-rightness, that eerie conviction that comes now and then.

“Can you fix it?” I heard the tremor in Brianna’s voice, and went at once to put my arms around her. Her head was bent over Amanda, and I saw the tears fall, one, then another, darkening the wispy curls on top of the baby’s head.

“No,” I whispered, holding them both. Despair washed over me, but I tightened my hold, as though I could keep time and blood both at bay. “No, I can’t.”



“WELL, THERE’S NO choice, is there?” Roger felt preternaturally calm, recognizing it as the artificial calm produced by shock but wishing to cling to it as long as possible. “You’ve got to go.”

Brianna leveled a look at him, but didn’t reply. Her hand roamed over the baby, sleeping in her lap, smoothing the woolly blanket over and over again.

Claire had explained it all to him, more than once, patiently, seeing that he could not take it in. He still did not believe it—but the sight of those tiny fingernails, turning blue as Amanda strove to suck, had sunk into him like an owl’s talons.

It was, she had said, a simple operation—in a modern operating room.

“You can’t … ?” he’d asked, with a vague motion toward her surgery. “With the ether?”

She’d closed her eyes and shaken her head, looking nearly as ill as he felt.

“No. I can do very simple things—hernias, appendixes, tonsils—and even those are a risk. But something so invasive, on such a tiny body … no,” she repeated, and he saw resignation in her face when she met his eyes. “No. If she’s to live—you have to take her back.”

And so they had begun to discuss the unthinkable. Because there were choices—and decisions to be made. But the unalterable basic fact was clear. Amanda must go through the stones—if she could.



JAMIE FRASER took his father’s ruby ring, and held it over the face of his granddaughter. Amanda’s eyes fixed on it at once, and she stuck out her tongue with interest. He smiled, despite the heaviness of his heart, and lowered the ring for her to grab at.

“She likes that well enough,” he said, skillfully removing it from her grip before she could get it into her mouth. “Let’s try the other.”

The other was Claire’s amulet—the tiny, battered leather pouch given to her by an Indian wisewoman years before. It contained assorted bits and bobs, herbs, he thought, and feathers, perhaps the tiny bones of a bat. But in among them was a lump of stone—nothing much to look at, but a true gemstone, a raw sapphire.

Amanda turned her head at once, more interested in the pouch than she had been in the shiny ring. She made cooing noises and batted wildly with both hands, trying to reach it.

Brianna took a deep, half-strangled breath.

“Maybe,” she said, in the voice of one who fears as much as hopes. “But we can’t tell for sure. What if I—take her, and I go through, but she can’t?”

They all looked at one another in silence, envisioning the possibility.

“You’d come back,” Roger said gruffly, and put a hand on Bree’s shoulder. “You’d come right back.”

The tension in her body eased a little at his touch. “I’d try,” she said, and attempted a smile.

Jamie cleared his throat.

“Is wee Jem about?”

Of course he was; he never went far from home or Brianna these days, seeming to sense that something was wrong. He was retrieved from Jamie’s study, where he had been spelling out words in—

“Jesus Christ on a piece of toast!” his grandmother blurted, snatching the book from him. “Jamie! How could you?”

Jamie felt a deep blush rise over him. How could he, indeed? He’d taken the battered copy of Fanny Hill in trade, part of a parcel of used books bought from a tinker. He hadn’t looked at the books before buying them, and when he did come to look them over … Well, it was quite against his instincts to throw away a book—any book.

“What’s P-H-A-L-L-U-S?” Jemmy was asking his father.

“Another word for prick,” Roger said briefly. “Don’t bloody use it. Listen—can ye hear anything, when ye listen to that stone?” He indicated Jamie’s ring lying on the table. Jem’s face lighted at sight of it.

“Sure,” he said.

“What, from there?” Brianna said, incredulous. Jem looked around the circle of parents and grandparents, surprised at their interest. “Sure,” he repeated. “It sings.”

“Do ye think wee Mandy can hear it sing, too?” Jamie asked carefully. His heart was beating heavily, afraid to know, either way.

Jemmy picked up the ring and leaned over Mandy’s basket, holding it directly over her face. She kicked energetically and made noises—but whether because of the ring, or merely at the sight of her brother …

“She can hear it,” Jem said, smiling into his sister’s face.

“How do you know?” Claire asked, curious. Jem looked up at her, surprised.

“She says so.”



NOTHING WAS SETTLED. At the same time, everything was settled. I was in no doubt as to what my ears and my fingers told me—Amanda’s condition was slowly worsening. Very slowly—it might take a year, two years, before serious damage began to show—but it was coming.

Jem might be right; he might not be. But we had to proceed on the assumption that he was.

There were arguments, discussions—tears. Not yet any decision as to who should attempt the journey through the stones. Brianna and Amanda must go; that was certain. But ought Roger to go with them? Or Jemmy?

“I will not let you go without me,” Roger said through his teeth.

“I don’t want to go without you!” Bree cried, looking exasperated. “But how can we leave Jemmy here, without us? And how can we make him go? A baby—we think that can work, because of the legends, but Jem—how will he make it? We can’t let him risk being killed!”

I looked at the stones on the table—Jamie’s ring, my pouch with the sapphire.