Read Online Outlander Novella [01] The Space Between by Diana Gabaldon - Free Book Online

walled estate, showing them the big gardens where the convent grew medicinal herbs and fruit and vegetables for the table, the chapel where devotions were held six times a day, plus Mass in the mornings, the stables and kitchens, where they would take turns working—and the great Hôpital des Anges, the order’s main work. They had only seen the
hôpital
from the outside, though; they would see the inside tomorrow, when Sister Marie-Amadeus would explain their duties.
    It was strange, of course—she still understood only half what people said to her and was sure from the looks on their faces that they understood much less of what she tried to say to
them
—but wonderful. She loved the spiritual discipline, the hours of devotion, with the sense of peace and unity that came upon the sisters as they chanted and prayed together. Loved the simple beauty of the chapel, amazing in its clean elegance, the solid lines of granite and the grace of carved wood, a faint smell of incense in the air, like the breath of angels.
    The postulants prayed with the others but did not yet sing. They would be trained in music—such excitement! Mother Hildegarde had been a famous musician in her youth, it was rumored, and considered it one of the most important forms of devotion.
    The thought of the new things she’d seen, and the new things to come, distracted her mind—a little—from thoughts of her mother’s voice, the wind off the moors, the … She shoved these hastily away and reached for her new rosary, this a substantial thing with smooth wooden beads, lovely and comforting in the fingers.
    Above all, there was peace. She hadn’t heard a word from the voices, hadn’t seen anything peculiar or alarming. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d escaped her dangerous gift, but at least there might be help at hand if—when—it came back.
    And at least she already knew enough Latin to say her rosary properly; Da had taught her.
“Ave, Maria,”
she whispered,
“gratia plena, Dominus tecum,”
and closed her eyes, the sobs of the homesick fading in her ears as the beads moved slow and silent through her fingers.
    Next day
    Michael Murray stood in the aisle of the aging shed, feeling puny and unreal. He’d waked with a terrible headache, the result of having drunk a great deal of mixed spirits on an empty stomach, and while the headache had receded to a dull throb at the back of his skull, it had left him feeling trampled and left for dead. His cousin Jared, owner of Fraser
et Cie
, looked at him with the cold eye of long experience, shook his head and sighed deeply, but said nothing, merely taking the list from his nerveless fingers and beginning the count on his own.
    He wished Jared had rebuked him. Everyone still tiptoed round him, careful of him. And like a wet dressing on a wound, their care kept the wound of Lillie’s loss open and weeping. Thesight of Léonie didn’t help, either—so much like Lillie to look at, so different in character. She said they must help and comfort each other and, to that end, came to visit every other day, or so it seemed. He really wished she would … just go away, though the thought shamed him.
    “How’s the wee nun, then?” Jared’s voice, dry and matter-of-fact as always, drew him out of his bruised and soggy thoughts. “Give her a good send-off to the convent?”
    “Aye. Well—aye. More or less.” Michael mustered up a feeble smile. He didn’t really want to think about Sister Gregory this morning, either.
    “What did ye give her?” Jared handed the checklist to Humberto, the Italian shed-master, and looked Michael over appraisingly. “I hope it wasna the new Rioja that did that to ye.”
    “Ah … no.” Michael struggled to focus his attention. The heady atmosphere of the shed, thick with the fruity exhalations of the resting casks, was making him dizzy. “It was Moselle. Mostly. And a bit of rum punch.”
    “Oh, I see.” Jared’s ancient mouth quirked up on one