Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
For my husband,
Doug Watkins—
In thanks for the Raw Material
“THE PAGES PRACTICALLY TURN THEMSELVES…Gabaldon is a born storyteller…She writes a prose that is brisk, lucid, good-humored and often felicitous. Gabaldon is obviously just over the threshold of a long and prolific career.”
—Arizona Republic
Praise for
DRAGONFLY IN AMBER
and Diana Gabaldon
“I LOVED EVERY PAGE…DIANA GABALDON WEAVES A POWERFUL TALE LAYERED IN HISTORY AND MYTH.”
—Nora Roberts
“MARVELOUS…IT IS A LARGE CANVAS THAT GABALDON PAINTS, FILLED WITH STRONG PASSIONS AND DERRING-DO.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“COMPULSIVELY READABLE…INTRIGUING…Gabaldon offers a fresh and offbeat historical view.”
—Publishers Weekly
“ENGAGING TIME TRAVEL…AN APPEALING MODERN HEROINE AND A MAGNETIC ROMANTIC HERO…a most entertaining mix of history and fantasy whose author, like its heroine, exhibits a winning combination of vivid imagination and good common sense.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“BRILLIANT, ASTONISHING…A RIVETING HISTORICAL NOVEL THAT RIVALS THE BEST.”
—Rave Reviews
Acknowledgments
The author’s thanks and best wishes to:
the three Jackies (Jackie Cantor, Jackie LeDonne, and my mother), guardian angels of my books; the four Johns (John Myers, John E. Simpson, Jr., John Woram, and John Stith) for Constant Readership, Scottish miscellanea, and general enthusiasm; Janet McConnaughey, Margaret J. Campbell, Todd Heimarck, Deb and Dennis Parisek, Holly Heinel, and all the other LitForumites who do not begin with the letter J—especially Robert Riffle, for plantago, French epithets, ebony keyboards, and his ever-discerning eye; Paul Solyn, for belated nasturtiums, waltzes, copperplate handwriting, and botanical advice; Margaret Ball, for references, useful suggestions, and great conversation; Fay Zachary, for lunch; Dr. Gary Hoff, for medical advice and consultation (he had nothing to do with the descriptions of how to disembowel someone); the poet Barry Fogden, for translations from the English; Labhriunn MacIan, for Gaelic imprecations and the generous use of his most poetic name; Kathy Allen-Webber, for general assistance with the French (if anything is still in the wrong tense, it’s my fault); Vonda N. McIntyre, for sharing tricks of the trade; Michael Lee West, for wonderful comments on the text, and the sort of phone conversations that make my family yell, “Get off the phone! We’re starving!”; Michael Lee’s mother, for reading the manuscript, looking up periodically to ask her critically acclaimed daughter, “Why don’t you write something like this?”; and Elizabeth Buchan, for queries, suggestions, and advice—the effort involved was nearly as enormous as the help provided.
PROLOGUE
I woke three times in the dark predawn. First in sorrow, then in joy, and at the last, in solitude. The tears of a bone-deep loss woke me slowly, bathing my face like the comforting touch of a damp cloth in soothing hands. I turned my face to the wet pillow and sailed a salty river into the caverns of grief remembered, into the subterranean depths of sleep.
I came awake then in fierce joy, body arched bowlike in the throes of physical joining, the touch of him fresh on my skin, dying along the paths of my nerves as the ripples of consummation spread from my center. I repelled consciousness, turning again, seeking the sharp, warm smell of a man’s satisfied desire, in the reassuring arms of my lover, sleep.
The third time I woke alone, beyond the touch of love or grief. The sight of the stones was fresh in my mind. A small circle, standing stones on the crest of a steep green hill. The name of the hill is Craigh na Dun; the fairies’ hill. Some say the hill is enchanted, others say it is cursed. Both are right. But no one knows the function or the purpose of the stones.
Except me.