Finding Fraser (14 page)

Susan clutched my arm. “Didja hear that,
Emma? Fella’s had his pocket picked. Is yours still safely stowed?”

I felt for my own wallet, but it was safe in
my pack, and then thought about Susan jamming my cash into the pocket of her
jeans.

“Have you got yours?“ I asked, as we walked
toward our bikes. She patted her pocket and took a quick look inside. “Yep,
it’s there. Guess we got off lucky.”

Through the front window of the visitors’
center we could see quite a commotion brewing, with several employees milling
around a group of clearly very disturbed patrons.

Susan swung her leg over her bicycle. “Ye’ll
have no trouble at all finding Clava,” she said. “I’ll see to the bikes and you
can tell me all about it tomorrow, yeah?”

I walked my bike up beside her, my knee
still stiff from the earlier ride. “Thanks for the tour today. I don’t think
I’ll ever forget that unmarked grave of the bugler named Sheridan.”

“Faith and Begorrah,” she said, her accent
deepening. “We need to keep the feckin’ spirit of the green alive, yeah?”

I nodded and she wheeled around and headed
down the road to Inverness. “See you tomorrow!” I called to her back, as she
raced away.

She raised a hand in return. I could have
sworn she flashed me the Celtic peace sign, which made me laugh out loud. I
leaned my bike back against the wall, and paused to make a couple of quick
notes before heading off myself.

3:00 pm, March 15

Culloden Battlefield, Scotland

Notes to self for later:

This place has everything I
dreamed of, and more. The fields are rough and filled with memorials to the
dead. My tour guide (Susan!) took me to a place where soldiers of my own family
ancestry made their sacrifice in the name of the Bonny Prince.

It is a day I will never forget.

And speaking of forgetting, a note
to HiHoKitty. (No, I’m not obsessing...)

HiHoKitty, to answer your
question, no, Hamish (the young man I met) was not wearing a kilt. He had on a
very nice cable-knit sweater, though, over his equally nice arms. I’ve thought
about him every day for the two-and-a-half long weeks since I lost him.

Maybe I shouldn’t include that
last line...too desperate-sounding.

I threw my notebook into my pack,
shouldered it and pedaled off in the direction Susan had pointed.

The circle.

It was after four by the time I pedaled up
to the sign Susan had told me to look for on the road. The sky was low and gray—not
quite rain, but a mist filled the air. I couldn’t tell if it came down from the
clouds or up from the ground itself, which as soon as I stepped off the road
was dense and damp underfoot.

There was one of those mini-tour buses
parked by the sign and I could see a small collection of people in heavy tweed
coats and rubber boots snaking their way down though a thin line of trees. I
leaned my bike against the sign and peered up at the sky. It didn’t look like
it was about to full-out rain, but the mist showed no sign of slowing, either.
As the bike guy had pointed out, there was a light on the handlebars of my
hired bicycle, but I didn’t relish the idea of a ride back to Inverness along
these bumpy roads alone in the darkness either. I was turning out to be a less
intrepid traveler than Susan gave me credit for.

Deciding to make it a short visit, I leaned
over the Historic Scotland sign to read the description of the site. Turned out
the place was old—much older than the fields of Culloden. And though
there were standing stones, something was not quite … right.

I leaned against a fence post and pulled out
my copy of OUTLANDER, flipping through the early chapters. Some of the pages
were beginning to feel loose. I was going to have to be careful not to lose any.

The last of the bus people—a pair of
middle-aged ladies—stumped past me, chatting animatedly. I was scanning
quickly through the middle of chapter three when I felt a tap on my sleeve.

“Best hurry along, dear. Angus gave us last
call at least ten minutes ago.”

Her companion giggled conspiratorially.
“Evelyn and I wanted to wait for the dusk, in case a group of local women
showed up with sheets under their arms. But I guess we’re going to be
disappointed
again
.”

I blinked at them. It seemed so odd to hear
American accents after nearly three weeks, that I had trouble taking in what
they were saying. “I—I’m not on the bus,” I said, sticking a finger
between the pages. “I rode my bike.”

The first lady—Evelyn—pointed to
the book. “You’re not on the OUTLANDER Tour?” she said. “But you have the book …”

A little clarity began to seep through. “The
OUTLANDER Tour,” I repeated slowly. “You’re here on a tour …?”

“… Based on the television program!”
finished Evelyn, triumphantly.

“And the book, of course,” chuckled her
companion.

“Ladies!” came a shout from below us on the
road.

“I—I even didn’t know there was such a
thing,” I stuttered, as the ladies each took one of my arms and marched me down
the path. “Really—I came here by bicycle.”

“I’m sure Angus will be delighted to add
another participant, don’t you think, Helen?” said Evelyn, as she hustled me
down the path. “You can take Gerald’s place—he’s disappeared somewhere.”

“
And
you have a copy of the book,” said Helen, who was her friend’s equal in energy
and speed. “That should be enough for Angus. He was just saying today that he’s
almost never sold out on this spring tour.”

“Plenty of seats, plenty of seats,” said
Evelyn. “Lots of space, even for the missing Gerald! Tonight we stay in
Inverness, and there’s a whisky tasting event. Tomorrow’s Stirling Castle!”

“And the brewery!” added Helen.

I was beginning to feel a bit breathless at
the pace the sturdy ladies were setting as they hauled me along. Since logic
hadn’t worked, I tried fruitlessly to extricate my arms as we speedily approached
the waiting bus. The impatient bus driver stood inside on the front steps with
one arm raised to his tardy passengers. Even at this distance I could see the
puzzled look on his face.

“Look who we’ve brought you, Angus,” called
Evelyn, in a voice that carried the distance with no difficulty. “We’ve found a
wee Claire!”

“She’s got a copy of the book,” cried Helen,
not to be outdone. “And just look at that hair! She looks just like the actress
who plays Claire!”

I put my hand up to find the ponytail I’d
jammed my hair into that morning was, in fact, long gone. I could feel my hair
cascading around my head in frizzy, damp ringlets.

“I sold my hair straightener,” I muttered.
But by that time we had lurched to a stop at the foot of the bus steps, where
the astonished face of the tour driver looked down at us.

“I’m not on the tour,” I said to him
apologetically. “These ladies were hoping to change my mind.”

The driver stepped down through the door.
“Now, Evelyn,” he said calmly. “You must stop capturing young ladies. This is
clearly not Claire. For goodness sake, she sounds as American as you are! You
must remember Claire was an Englishwoman.”

For the record, I have to say I look about
as different from Claire Beauchamp Fraser as is humanly possible. I’m taller,
for one—five foot seven when I remember to straighten my spine. And my
hair—on a summer day—could charitably be described as dishwater
blonde, but is more often mousey brown. My eyes are green, but the contacts
somehow make them come out a hazel color, too. I guess I share a certain
paleness to the skin in common with Claire, but apart from that and the
inclination of my hair to go curly in the damp—nothing.

Apparently this truth began to sink in with
Helen. I could feel her grip on my arm lessen. “Her hair
is
a bit too fair, if you look at it carefully,” she said, but I
could hear the disappointment in her voice. Evelyn, however, was not prepared
to give up yet.

“But she has the book—there it is in
her hand,” she said pleadingly to the driver.

“We all have the book, Evelyn. It’s why we
are here. But that doesn’t mean every young woman we meet has to be Claire.”

Helen gave it a last salvo. “Gerald’s been threatening
to leave all day,” she said. “This young lady could use his seat.”

“Gerald’s sorted, ladies. Truthfully. Dinnae
worry your heads about him. Now we must be movin’ along.”

Evelyn reluctantly let go of my arm and
stepped onto the bus. “But what about the ghost we saw, Angus? What about
that?”

The bus driver smiled at her and reached a
hand to help Helen up the stairs. “That
was
very exciting,” he said, and rolled his eyes at me. “Ye mus’ tell me all about
it again in th’ pub t’night, awright?”

I stepped back onto the path as he swung the
door closed. “
So sorry,
” he mouthed,
as the door hissed shut.

I just smiled and waved as the taillights
bumped up the road.

An OUTLANDER tour.

I felt strangely let down. It never occurred
to me that anyone else would go in search of Jamie and Claire. I’d never even
had the sense to look it up online before I’d come, but now that the evidence
was before my eyes, I couldn’t believe I’d not thought of it. The books are
best sellers, and the televised version had brought Jamie and Claire to further
millions — why wouldn’t people want to investigate the mysterious
Highlands for themselves? For all I knew, hundreds of fans flock to the sites
from the stories every year. Why not? After all, Harry Potter had theme parks
all over the world.

And yet … I couldn’t help feel that a
comparison between Helen and Evelyn and myself was—what? Not the same.
Just not the same. I’d never watched the show, for one thing. I wanted to keep
the pictures in my head of Jamie and Claire and the others intact. Helen and
Evelyn wanted to see the land of the stories, yes, but were they actually
looking for Jamie? Had they actually met him in the flesh—in the form of
a young man named Hamish—in Edinburgh?

Definitely not the same.

I hurried toward the cairns in the rapidly
gathering darkness.