Book: The drums of autumn. Book 2. Mysteries of the past

Maybe this is the secret of blood - how random gestures, facial expressions or elusive intonations are transmitted from generation to generation? Jamie saw this in his nephews; with age, not only parents, but also more distant ancestors were increasingly visible in their faces.

- The spirits that live there ... they are very, very old, they have known people for thousands of years. They don't care about us. And those who live here ... ”He patted the trunk of a tree that was a hundred feet tall. - They have not seen people like us before

- Interestingly, and whose fault is it? - She straightened up to her full height, straightened her shoulders.

Roger ran his hand over his face, unable to find words. If he had been asked an hour before, he would have strongly spoken out in favor of gender equality. Now, as the son of a Presbyterian priest, it seemed to him that a decent young woman should really be an ignoramus on their wedding night.

... He was well aware of cases when families reached such a degree of despair that they chose separation and slavery in exchange for a chance to survive. he knew all about the sale of allotments, when poor tenants were forced to leave the land that had belonged to their ancestors for several hundred years, about the dire poverty and hunger that reigned in the cities, about the unbearable life that ordinary Scots dragged out in those years. However, reading in books and seeing with your own eyes are completely different things.

No, they did not submit. Even after a thousand years of struggle and betrayal, even now. Defeated, scattered around the world, but still alive. Like Ian, crippled, but living with his head held high. Like her father, expelled from the country, but at heart remains a mountaineer.

A sacrifice is needed.

I choose the body, not the soul. Denying the soul, I choose my own power, not entrusting myself to the patronage of some unknown forces. I do not appeal to the help of the devil, or to the help of God - I do not believe in them. Neither God nor the devil has power over you; it doesn't matter for the one who chose to live in the flesh, which of them will eventually prevail.

My child, you have the Holy seduced - and I'm not a Saint!