Outlander Book Club: Drums of Autumn Chapter 23 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire sharing how Fraser’s Ridge has grown. Duncan found people from Ardsmuir, and others have joined since then. Claire has become the doctor on the Ridge, and a lot of that has meant delivering babies. While she wasn’t an OB-GYN in Boston, she doesn’t mind bringing life into the world.

That brings us to where she needs to travel to. A German family called the Muellers need her help to deliver a baby. It’s a few days ride out, and she goes alone.

On the way back, there’s a lightning storm and the creek is flooded. Claire is thrown from her horse and the horse runs off, leaving her alone in the woods. She knows that nobody will come for her, so she needs to just survive until the morning. However, she’s not as alone as she thinks.

When she finds shelter, she also finds a skull. There are only a skull and an opal, and Claire spends time thinking about how this skull could have got there. However, she’s distracted by a person who turns up in the woods, but this person doesn’t respond when she calls. Instead, she hears a voice saying it’s enough and then walks away.

The next morning, Claire can’t find her shoes. However, Jamie and Young Ian have found her. It turns out her shoes were outside the front door, placed there in the middle of the night. Rollo went crazy and that’s when the two found the shoes and wondered what had happened to Claire.

When they all get back to the house, they see that Claire’s horse is there tied up and there’s another horse. There’s also smoke, but Jamie and Young Ian put the fires out. Someone is there.

That someone is Duncan, who found Claire’s horse (who Claire now calls Judas) in the woods and brought him home.

Claire has a chance to recover, while also showing Jamie and Ian the opal. What could the events mean? That’s something to ponder for some time.