Mock Turtle Soup

Returning to Leoch doesn't feel nearly as strange as I feared it might. There is a swoop in my stomach at the first distant glimpse of the house, and a mild sense of déjà vu as we pull in to the courtyard. A few small snags of feelings, and a slight sense of unreality that lingers behind my mind, but that is all. There are no lightening bolts, no grand realizations, no imperious nods from Fate, no Earth-shattering gestures.

Well. If you don't count the ones from Fergus, anyway. . .

"Maman! Papa!"

He is the only one to come out of the house in greeting, and he throws himself across the yard at us, landing solidly in my arms.

I cuddle him to me, unable to speak, my throat heavier and eyes damper than I was expecting.

It's never occurred to me until now, to be jealous of who a child chooses to greet first. Certainly if he had chosen Jamie first I would not have been at all upset. He could even have run to Murtagh, and I don't think I'd have thought twice about it. So why am I so close to crying now?

Will you ever stop asking questions you don't want the answers to, Beauchamp?

I cough a little, then lean forward to kiss his hair. "There you are, my little love. I've missed you, darling!"

He freezes in my arms, then pushes a little away, looking up at me with wild astonishment in his dear brown eyes, "You love me, maman?"

This time my throat nearly closes entirely.

"Oh! I haven't. . . yes, Fergus, mon fils, of course, sweetheart. . ." I touch his cheek, then clutch him close to my heart again, "I'm so sorry I haven't said it before now, love! Can you forgive me? All my I love you's were locked up in a drawer I couldn't open." I kiss his hair again and again, "Not until I married your papa Jamie. Can you ever understand, my dear?"

Fergus looks up at me, and considers, for one long, interminable moment. "Oui. I love you's are not as easy to replace as chocolate bars. Je t'aime maman."

He pecks me feather lightly on the cheek, and then, boylike, the subject is finished, and he is all smiles, and no sentiment at all. He greets Jamie with a hug and a lively mock joust, and then drags Murtagh indoors by the hand, "You must see the fort we built yesterday, in history class! I was a Knight with three men under my command, and we had to. . ." his happy recount of the battle, sprinkled liberally with rapid, excited French, retreats slowly into the house, leaving Jamie and me alone in the courtyard, staring after them, our hearts incredibly full.

He pulls me into a hug, and we just hold each other, not speaking for a minute.

"Well, it wasn't the welcome party I was expecting, but I have no complaints at all. . ." I kiss his chin, then turn to the boot of our car.

Jamie chuckles a little, and helps me lift out some of our luggage, "Aye."

I look around at the empty courtyard, "You did tell Mrs. Fitz we'd be home today?"

"Oh aye."

"So where is everyone?"

He shrugs, and leads me into the house, "Probably out workin', or in the kitchens or back rooms. It is the middle of the day, Sassenach. An' lambin' season too."

"Yes, but Leoch is never this empty, even in the middle of the busiest days."

We've met nearly no one, all the way from the front door, to his rooms at the far end of the family wing.

"Dinnae ken, Sorcha."

We both drop our luggage just inside the door of his rooms, and take a long, impressed look around.

"Did Mrs. Fitz say she was doing this?"

"No. She most certainly did no'."

Jamie's rooms are thoroughly, abundantly, lavishly bedecked with flowers. Some of them I recognize as ones grown in the greenhouse, some are clearly from the gardens, and some just as clearly have been gathered wild. Ivy and peonies nearly cover the entire headboard of the bed, and roses, and daisies, and orchids, and dozens more things I am too overwhelmed to name fill every table, wreathe ever shelf, and laden the air with the headiest, most intoxicating of odours.

I laugh delightedly, and throw myself across the bed, landing on a generous sprinkling of sprigs of rosemary, lemon balm and meadowsweet, "Well, someone is excited we got married, that's for sure!"

"Oh aye. She was over the moon when I told her."

"Did she say at all what she was planning?"

"No' much. Only that she would. . ." he opens his wardrobe, and looks through it a minute, "Aye, she did. Your things are all in here now, Sassenach." He pulls out the soft red dress I wore to Gwyllyn's concert and hands it to me, "We might as weel dress up for lunch, nae mattar what's in the wind oor no'."

I shrug, and go to wash up while he sorts out his kilt.

We meet up with Murtagh and Fergus outside the dining room, and all go in together.

"Hip-hip-hurrah!" a great cheer comes up and surrounds us as we walk through the big double doors. Mrs. Fitz is leading the cheer, but she is enthusiastically supported by dozens of our friends. It goes on and on, for several minutes, until I am quite lost among the hugs and congratulations and well wishes.

At last, I find myself over by the positively groaning sideboard. Mrs. Fitz has entirely outdone herself, bringing forth a huge succession of dishes I have never seen before, here or anywhere. . . The entire length of the board is stuffed with platters of meat, and cauldrons of soup, and piles upon piles of sides and pastries and sweets.

I see dishes of fancily prepared eggs, and wonderfully savoury looking rice, and heaps of fabulously colourful vegetables, and what I think must be tofu, and elabourately sliced fish, and pork, and duck, and chicken, and-

"Mrs. Willoughby left most of her recipes for me tae care for, dearie, that she did." says Mrs. Fitz, coming up beside me and proudly gesturing at the sideboard, and at the large soup tureen in front of me in particular, "Her Drunken Turtle soup is famous in these parts. Bu' the ingredients are powerful hard tae come by most times, evar since the powars that be put embargoes on exotic meats. Fortunately we have calf's heads this time o' year, an' they c'n make for a fine substitute for turtle."

I smile, and serve myself up a bowl, "I can hardly wait. I was quite disappointed the caf in town wasn't serving Chinese food anymore."

"Och. Aye. We're all eagar for the Willoughby's tae get back home."

I put my soup aside for a minute, embrace her briefly, and peck her cheek, "Thank you for the most warming of welcomes, Mrs. Fitz."

She turns away, grinning but flustered, "Aye, tae be shure, dearie. . ."

Jamie comes up beside me then, and leads me to the High Table. But he doesn't let us sit, instead making us eat a few sparing bites while standing, so we might formally welcome everyone as they file past.

It is an echo to our wedding reception, and I comply without much protest.

I survey the room, comparing it in my head to the other times I've seen a festival day at Leoch. Of all times, it most resembles my very first night here, with a formal but lighthearted atmosphere, and a very distinctive cuisine on the menu. But there are many more children here this afternoon than there were then.

My eyes rest fondly on Fergus for quite some time, as he darts between tables, chaffing with some of the men, playing with Hamish and David and Eli, and then, not surprisingly perhaps, sitting down and talking wonderfully amiably with two little girls not much younger than himself.

They appear shy, but much less so with him, and also with Hamish, who soon joins them. I wonder who they are. Their faces are new, and quite different – their broader, softer cheekbones, and straight, jet black hair clipped neatly at their shoulders standing out as clearly as beacons among the solid British faces, and wavy, curly brown and blond heads that populate Leoch.

Which, I must admit, even if only to myself, is quite a relief to my Skycity-trained eyes, especially after months in the post-Clearings Scottish Highlands. After all of Scotland having been deprived of its immigrants, it isn't just Leoch's people that have taken on an almost stereotypical look. Everywhere I've been the past few months, people have looked nearly the same. And though they have covered a goodly range, of course, I was born and raised around a much more varied set of faces. I haven't realized just how much I've missed that variety until now. . .

The sight of the girls, and the evidence of the Willoughbys all around us, make me feel even more at home than Fergus's greeting did.

Our boy jumps up from his table, and runs over to us now, chattering loudly at Jamie, speaking some roundly lilting words with a happy, confident flourish.

Jamie grins at him, mildly astonished.

"Why, that's Korean, lad!"

"Yes." Fergus points over at the girls himself, "My new friends' papa is Korean, and he taught them a little. But he still lives in Nevada, they say." Fergus looks dubious, "I looked Nevada up in the atlas, and it is not near Korea. But Scotland is not near New Zealand either, and Eli lives here, so that is no way to tell, of course. . ."

Jamie allows himself only a very small smile, "Of course."

"But will you ask Mrs. Kim if they might stay down after supper? They say she says they must go to bed early tonight, but there is a treasure hunt in the school rooms after supper, and Hamish and Eli and I want them on our team, and oh! Here she comes now, papa!" Fergus, interrupts his stream of words to point eagerly across the room, "Will you ask her?"

Both Jamie and I look where Fergus indicates.

Mrs. Kim doesn't look anything like her girls. Instead, she embodies all the typical Scottish features they do not. If Fergus hadn't just pointed her out, I probably would not have noticed her particularly, except, perhaps, for her brownish-blond hair, which, unusually for Leoch, she wears straight down, unbraided, and much longer than is the current fashion in Scotland.

And yet, having now noticed her, the strange part is that even from across the room, I feel like this woman's hair has a more distinctive personality than she does. The expression on her face isn't exactly empty, but it is also in no way real. Whoever this woman is, she's clearly, disconcertingly, entirely artificial. Like she made some sort of cursed bargain, and became a kind of living doll. It's not a performance - she's not a model, or an actor, but more like a. . . clone. An animated copy. A pod person.

A mockery of a Human.

It is rare for me come across someone so utterly and obviously flat. She's all surface, every bit of her, with no depths at all. And worse, she's entirely proud of the fact. Complete arrogance is written all over her. It is weirdly shocking, and suddenly I am not at all eager to be introduced.

But it doesn't matter how taken aback I am, it is nothing next to the discomfort and surprise I see on Jamie's face she approaches. As soon as she gets close enough to hear him, he lowers his voice to a confused, and highly perturbed whisper. . .

"Laoghaire? What are ye doing here?"