Je Suis Prest || Outlander

Chapter 1

Balriggan, 1764

I never knew peace in the Highlands. Buried under the glens and munros lies a shallow grave. It was dug by Jacobite hands and blessed by wisps of smoke emitted by British muskets that remain scattered on the wind. Sometimes you can still smell it in the air, a heavy, acrid stench. The fields of garish purple heather that grow over our scarred lands do not hide the atrocities inflicted on the Highlands, but rather served as a constant reminder that it was us women who were left behind. When our men were killed and captured in the years following the '45, it was us women who were left to pick up the pieces of our broken Highlands. Our inheritance, our dowry, our dower.

I walked the fields around my home of Balriggan every day, pushing my feet to carry me a little further out each time. I thought if I could walk just one more hill, I would find what I was looking for. But what I was looking for was long gone. There was nothing on the horizon except the never ending expanse of damp grey-ness of dreich Scottish weather. The clouds hung so low over the glens I felt I had to duck for fear I would get lost in their mist. They seldom lifted long enough for me to envision what might be waiting on the horizon.

It was a rare moment when my mother shared her memories of growing up on the lands around Castle Leoch. She described the familial bonds of the clan that thrived under the steady leadership of Colum, the peace that existed under the dirk of Dougal Mackenzie. The kilted men were warriors that protected their homes from the threat of sassenach' efforts to encroach on our ways of life. I have never known such a man. When my mother talked of the days of old, she has a dreamy look in her eyes. Now looking at what remains, she looks as if she wants to spit out something sour.

I do not remember my father much, but rather the heavy weight of his presence and the effect it had on my mother. The days were tense as my mother awaited his return from wherever he had been licking his wounds. "If only... if only..." the men would say when they had a moment free from the watchful eyes of the British, and they could express their longing for a different ending for the '45. If only the Bonnie Prince could have led them to victory, if only they had more men for the cause.

Nights were loud. I would hide in the upstairs room Joan and I shared and listen to the sounds coming from downstairs. Whenever I imagine what Culloden must have been like, I hear the echoes of their nighttime battles. I don't recall ever hearing his voice during these bouts. Our mother would yell, something would crash to the floor, and at the end she would tuck us into bed as if nothing had happened. The next day I would watch her do the washing while I picked weeds out of the vegetable garden. Her hands worked furiously to hide the blood stains from Joan, strapped to her back, as she scrubbed them away, and I always noticed her gaze locked onto the horizon towards Castle Leoch. "If only... if only".

When Simon MacKimmie, wanted Jacobite traitor, was finally taken by the Redcoats that had become a regular sight in our countryside, I did not cry. I did not cling to his legs and beg him to stay. I stood behind my mother, who watched the scene unfold silently with her hands on her hips. When the soldiers finally disappeared over the crest of the hill, she clapped her hands as if she had just finished a chore and said, "Och, I left the parritch on" as if burning our breakfast would be the worst start to our day. Losing a husband and father was a mere trifle.

When it was just us three, there was some semblance of peace. The rhythm of our daily life steadied. My mother seemed happier, but the hardness never left her face. She was always watching the hills as if the wind would carry Simon back to our doorstep. Joan and I became both daughters and partners. We tended the garden and did the cooking together. Whenever we needed to make a trip into Cranesmuir it was always the three of us together, arms interlocked. Outside of the safe confines of Balriggan, we hardly interacted with anyone. Our mother had no friends or family that she paid visits to. She would make polite conversation with what we had assumed were strangers, but there are no strangers in the Highlands. Our seclusion was a choice. Balriggan was not a safe haven Mother had built, but a prison of her own design.

As Joan and I grew, our mother made an effort to integrate us into the community for the obvious reasons of marriage to a good Scottish lad. She wouldn't be having any English bairns under her roof. We attended feasts and dinners at various estates. She would push Joan and I from her hip to join groups of girls our age. We could associate with other girls well enough, but I always felt that it would never be a permanent connection. At the end of the night our mother would whisk us back to Balriggan and by the time we emerged again for the next year's Hogmanay feast, those girls had forgotten us and formed deeper bonds with each other, leaving Joan and I always on the outside looking in.

The few boys that I entertained the idea of speaking to at my mother's insistence were just that, boys. The fatherless young lads of our village knew nothing of how to be a man because like me, they had missed out on having a father. My mother was my only notion of what a man should be. She was mother and father both. I would sneak about with these boys while the adults were distracted by festivities, but not for the normal reasons of whispering sweet nothings to each other and stealing moonlit kisses. We hunted for frogs and antagonized the livestock. I did not enjoy it, but it was everything to be a part of something. And getting a rise out of my mother when I came in for dinner with muddy skirts and scraped hands was just as sweet a reward. It proved she was still amongst the living even when she carried herself about like a glaistig.

Marriage was not something I rebelled against, but I had no notion of what a marriage ought to be. I needed the security that I had never had and the love my mother never received from Simon. I saw something that might have been love occasionally in the eyes of older girls that lit up when they saw their man, like stars on a clear night. I had never seen my mother's eyes like that. I was not sure it was in her nature. That is, until she saw Jamie Fraser.

~This is my first story, any and all constructive feedback is much appreciated :)