Jamie was smiling but still puzzled. I held it out to him, then clutched it to my bosom before he could take it. “Oh!” I said again. “Bree, thank you! This is wonderful!”

She was pink with pleasure, her eyes shiny in response to my excitement. “I thought you’d like it.”

“Oh …!”

“Let me see it, mo nighean donn,” Jamie said, reaching gently for the book. I could hardly bear to let go of it, but relinquished it.

“Merck Manual, Thirteenth Edition,” he read from the cover, and looked up, brows raised. “Merck seems a popular writer—that, or he makes the devil of a lot of mistakes.”

“It’s a—a—medical book,” I explained, beginning to get hold of myself, though little thrills of elation were still washing through me. “The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. It’s a sort of compendium of—of the state of general medical knowledge.”

“Oh.” He looked at the book with interest, and opened it, though I could see he didn’t yet grasp its full importance. “Controlling the spread of E. histolytica requires preventing access of human feces to the mouth,” he read, and looked up. “Oh,” he said softly, seeing the look on my face, and smiled. “It’s what folk will have found out—then. Things about healing that ye dinna ken yet, yourself. Though I’m guessing ye do ken not to eat shite?”

I nodded, and he closed the book gently and handed it back. I clasped it to my bosom, overwhelmed with anticipation. Thirteenth edition—from 1977!

Roger coughed, and when Brianna looked at him, he tilted his head toward the bag.

“And …” she said, smiling at Jamie. “For you, Da.” She pulled out a small, thick paperback and handed it to him. “And for you …” A second book followed the first. “And this one’s for you, too.” The third.

“They all go together,” Roger said gruffly. “It’s all one story, I mean, but printed in three volumes.”

“Oh, aye?” Jamie turned over one of the books gingerly, as though afraid it might disintegrate in his hands.

“It’s glued, is it? The binding?”

“Aye,” Roger said, smiling. “It’s called a paperback, that sort of wee book. They’re cheap and light.”

Jamie weighed the book on his hand and nodded, but he was already reading the back cover.

“Frodo Baggins,” he read aloud, and looked up, baffled. “A Welshman?”

“Not exactly. Brianna thought the tale might speak to ye,” Roger said, his smile deepening as he looked at her. “I think she’s right.”

“Mmphm.” Jamie gathered the trio of books together and—with a thoughtful look at the sticky fingerprints Mandy had left on her cup—put them on the top of my simples closet. He kissed Bree and nodded toward her bag.

“Thank ye kindly—I ken they’ll be braw. What did ye bring for yourself, lass?”