Outlander: Ghosts

By way of wrapping up my posts on Outlander, I want to step back into the early chapters of the book, before Claire is transported to the 18th Century.  There is a moment so haunting that it stays with me, and periodically, while reading the rest of the series, I wonder how it could happen, and if it will be explained.  Had Outlander been a stand-alone book, it would not need to be explained the same way, because, (paradoxically) with less detail provided, the mystery would not require explanation.  But as it is, I think back occasionally, and think, "But when--and why?"

It is not a moment that involves Claire, but her (first, 20th Century) husband Frank.  Returning to their lodgings on a blustery night, Frank recounts, in stages, what he has seen:

"Well, only a man, really," he began, measuring out a jigger for himself and two for me. "Standing down in the road outside."
...
"Yes, he was down at the edge of the garden on this side, standing by the fence.  I thought"--he hesitated, looking down into his glass--"I rather thought he was looking up at your window."
...
"[H]e seemed terribly unhappy about something.  Not that I could see his face well; just something about the wat he moved.  I came up behind him, and when he didn't move, I asked politely if I could help him with something. He acted at first as tough he didn't hear me, and I thought perhaps he didn't, over the noise of the wind, so I repeated myself, and I reached to tap his shoulder, to get his attention, you know. But before I could touch him, he whirled suddenly round and pushed past me and walked off down the road." (19-20)

Asked to describe the figure, whom Claire observes sounds "rude," but "not very ghostly," Frank reviews both his appearance and what was, in fact, ghostly:

"Big chap," said Frank, frowning in recollection.  "And a Scot, in complete Highland rig-out, complete to sporran and the most beautiful running-stag brooch on his plaid.  I wanted to ask where he'd got it from, but he was off before I could."
...
"[I]t wasn't his dress that was odd.  But when he pushed past me, I could swear he was close enough that I should have felt him brush my sleeve--but I didn't.  And I was intrigued enough to turn round and watch him as he walked away.  He walked down the Gereside Road, but when he'd almost reached the corner, he. . . disappeared."
...
"The wind was cutting up like billy-o, but his drapes--his kilts and his plaid, you know--they didn't move at all, except to the stir of his walking." (20)

The Outlander books are peopled with ghosts, and this is merely the first appearance.  But most often, they seem present to people who want or need them, and provide some kind of comfort. This early apparition, whom we will later recognize as Jamie, is mournful, and roaming.  And in particular--and most disturbingly--he seems to be separated from Claire.

I find it interesting that Jamie seeks Claire in a time when he has not entered into her life, but hundreds of years after he was part of his.  It speaks to the nature of the connection between them, but it suggests a parting--the kind of parting that their vows forbid:

Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone. 

I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.  

I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.  (267)

If their parting from life should be a parting in the afterlife as well, then that undermines the spiritual and physical unity built up in the novels.  But the afterlife is uncertain, and mysterious, and perhaps there is something in the novels' cosmology that would explain the apparent contradiction.  I hope not!  If having the mystery solved means having Jamie roaming after death, separated from Claire, I would prefer not to have the mystery solved.  After all, I'm Catholic.  I'm okay with m/Mystery!

Happy Christmas, friends!