Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

Content Warning: The source material discusses sexual assault and violence against women, and it contains historically inaccurate depictions of Indigenous Americans.

“‘Have you ever seen blue light?’ he asked. ‘When you touch somebody in a medical way, I mean? To heal them.’”

Roger asks this question of Claire shortly after returning to the past from his adventures in a previous novel. The question resurrects a moment for Claire when she herself was healed after the premature stillbirth of her first child, Faith. This question begins foreshadowing that will be interlaced throughout the plot until the Battle of Kings Mountain, when Claire puts her own life at risk to save Jamie.

“‘We have to be careful,’ Bree said, with a half smile at me. ‘We’d just as soon not have Mandy singing “Twist and Shout” in church.’”

Brianna comments on the possibility of her small children stating things about the future now that they have returned to the past. This is a moment of foreshadowing as Mandy does exactly this thing when she comments that she has flushed Elspeth Cunningham down the toilet. However, Elspeth doesn’t understand Mandy’s comment and puts it down to the undisciplined behavior of a spoiled child.

“William had just thrust little Frances into Fraser’s arms and walked off. And now, for the first time, wondered why he’d done that. Lord John had been there, too, attending at the sad, tiny funeral. His own father—he could certainly have given Fanny safely into Lord John’s keeping. But he hadn’t. Hadn’t even thought of about it.”

William’s thoughts on his own actions on the day of Jane’s funeral show some of the confusion that has come to his emotional reaction to learning Jamie Fraser is his biological father. Initially, William was angry, but now it seems he has entered into a more analytical view of the situation, struggling to understand his own feelings toward the situation.