The Strength of a High and Noble Hill (An Outlander Story)

Chapter 10: The Truth

After finishing her story, Mama explains that Dad had asked her where she had been during her absence - that she had told him, and he refused to believe her, thinking she was mentally unstable. Freshly bereaved, Mama had tried to make Dad leave her, but he insisted on staying, asking only that Mama allow him to be Brian and Ellen's only father during his lifetime.

Ellen is infuriated by their mother's revelations and storms out in a rage. Brian instead sits there in silence, digesting his mother's revelations. He was in shock, hadn't expected that his true father is, or should he say was, a Scottish highlander from the 18th century and that he himself wasn't even born in this century but a couple of centuries ago.

He snaps out of it when someone sits next to him. He looks up to see it's Mama who's looking at him with a soft but sorrowful look. Brian looks around to see that Roger has also disappeared at some point as well leaving just him and Mama.

"It's like those stories you used to tell me." Brian says, he's not sure what to say and that's the only thing he can say. "The brave highlander laird. No wonder you didn't want me telling Dad."

"I'm sorry." Mama murmurs quietly. "I'm sorry I lied."

Brian shakes his head quickly, his urge to not have his mother feel guilty or sad still strong. "No, don't be. He asked you to and you kept it, for us."

"Still..."

"It explains things though, why I don't look like him, why we were so different from one another and how we never exactly had that father-son bond. To him I was another man's child." Brian remarks.

"He loved you, despite everything." Mama argues. "He was your father in every way that matters."

"Except one." Brian says.

Mama nods. "Yes, except one."

Brian frowns thinking, startling slightly when his mother places a hand on his cheek, stroking it softly with her thumb. "You're as thoughtful as your father." She speaks.

"Tell me about him," Brian replies. Maybe this will help make everything just make sense. It's already beginning to. Brian already knows that he hasn't quite felt like he fits in, that this isn't his life, which is already being explained by the fact that he isn't even from this century originally.

Mama looks at him with wide, happy eyes, she's almost shaking probably because after all this time she finally gets to tell him. "Uh, he was tall and had red hair just like yours and Ellen's, you both have his eye shape. His father's name was Brian, and that's where your name came from. He spoke French, and he loved to play chess. And also, he gave me this." Mama pauses, patting her pockets until she finds it. It's a ring, an old-fashioned one though it doesn't show the age of one. "This was your grandfather's. Jamie, your father, wanted me to give it to you."

Brian takes it from her, his hands shaking with the knowledge that this belongs to his real father. He frowns when he notices something odd about it. "The setting is hollow. I'd thought there'd be a stone or something."

"There was one," Mama says, her eyes tearing up. "It disappeared when I, we, travelled through."

"Why?"

"I don't know, but I think I have an idea."

——

"Roger. Tell her what you found." Ellen says to the man. They'd just witnessed Gillian Edgars, otherwise known as Geillis Duncan, step through the stones, wiping any doubt of the power of said stones. Roger had called in anonymously to the police due to Gillian's murdered husband lying burning next to the stones as they had hurried away from the stones.

Brian is still breathing heavily and shakily. Not only is he still recovering from the strange buzzing it seems he, his mother, sister and Roger had experienced once near the stones (a noise so loud it was overwhelming) but also the image of Greg Edgars' burning body seared into his mind. How could the woman be so callous?

"Some research tae Reverend did at tae request o' yer husband... yer husband Frank. I'm no' certain if he ever sent it on t' Boston." Roger explains.

"Well, what does it say?" Mama questions. Brian can see she's eager but also fearful to hear what he's got to say.

"After the battle at Culloden, a few Jacobite soldiers, all seriously wounded, took refuge in an old house... fer two days, then they were all taken out t' be shot, but one o' 'em, a Fraser o' the Master o' Lovat's regiment, escaped execution."

"There were a lot of Frasers on the field that day." Mama argues.

"But... only five Fraser officers, and four o' 'em hav' their names memorialised on a plaque in the church in Beauly, so... we kno' fer certain tha' they were killed." Roger counters.

"Who was the fifth?"

"James Fraser," Brian says, able to tear his eyes away from Craigh na Dun as it sits at the top of the hill with smoke spilling around it.

"Our father." Ellen adds.

"Jamie." Mama speaks, her voice breaking as she speaks his name. "He didn't die at Culloden?"

"Weel, he meant t' die, but... he dinna." Roger says.

"He survived. He survived, Mama." Brian says, reaching out to grip her hand. Mama strongly returns it as she stares up at Craigh na Dun.

Dawn is fast approaching. Mama staggers away from them for a moment. Brian, Ellen and Roger exchange a worried looks - will she collapse?

But Mama straightens up after a while. Stands up straight. Turns around and confronts them with the unwavering determination of Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser.

"If this is true, then..." Mama turns to face the standing stones. "I have to go back."

——

A/N: Please leave comments on how you're enjoying this story and what you think.