Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 10 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

Jamie thinks about how he struggles to talk to Roger about the future. When he talks to Claire, he learns more about his wife as well as some of the whimsical things she shares. When Brianna shares things about the future, it involves some of the machines and people walking on the moon.

Roger has a historian’s mind. His focus is on the big events to come; events that will change the world forever. While these moments are important, they’re not always moments that people want to focus on. Roger is clearly just trying to do his part and use his knowledge to everyone’s advantage, but it’s hard when he didn’t study the American Revolutionary War.

Jamie’s mind wanders to France when he was a student. He thinks about the fortune-teller who read his palm and said that he is like a cat. He’ll have nine lives before he dies for good. It’s hard now not to go through all the times that Jamie has died or that he’s become close to death.

The fortune-teller tells him that it doesn’t always hurt to die, but sometimes it does. Jamie hears Murtagh’s voice in his head telling him “it doesna hurt a bit, to die.”

This brings up some heavy thoughts and a racing heart. Jamie doesn’t say it, but we know now that the body holds trauma. This is the trauma coming up. His heart rate is because there’s the threat of memories coming back, and Jamie notes that he doesn’t remember everything from Culloden.

Some memories are coming back in his dreams. He hasn’t told Claire about them yet.

Now that he’s at the cabin and finds it empty, his mind is back on the task at hand. He needs to find Roger, and so he heads in the direction of an axe and male voices.