Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 55 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts with Brianna drawing Jocasta. When she’s left alone, Young Ian comes up. Bree wants to draw him, but Ian shares the supersitions of the people he was with. The Mohawk believe that being drawn gives the artist power over the subject.
The two don’t really get to talk too much about it. Donner turns up whistling “Yellow Submarine.” Bree recognizes it, and it’s just what Donner needed. He introduces himself to Bree and Young Ian.
Bree knows who he is, and she makes it clear that he needs a gem to help steer. Brianna also asks for some information about how Donner ended up in the past and where he was. It turns out that one of the men he traveled with died on the journey through and suffered some burn marks. However, it’s not until Claire turns up that he goes through all the details.
He and the four other men who traveled with him weren’t alone. There were a good 200 to 300 people in their larger group, and Raymond said that people could only travel in groups of five. Claire wants to know what Raymond looked like. Could it be the same Master Raymond? It’s possible but it was so long ago that Donner doesn’t remember.
He shares that everyone actually wanted to arrive in the 1760s. The aim was to get the tribes to fight with the British instead of the Patriots. He thought that would help to prevent the negative impact on the tribes. However, Springer wanted to go further back in time. Everyone else knew that there was too much ground to cover back then and too much work to do.
Raymond gave a few rules. They would need to go one at a time in groups of five and no more, and they could only travel by 200 years or so. They had to chant something that Donner couldn’t remember or understand, and walk around the stone circle in a certain way. Donner’s group went through the stones at Ocracoke, and one of them had an African symbol on it. They traveled around late fall, and Bree notes that it was probably around Samhain.
Donner traveled with a pouch. He doesn’t remember what happened to the pouch, but he didn’t have it on him when he got through.
Claire suggests that Otter Tooth wanting to go further had led to a problem. Donner considers it, but right now, all he wants to do is get back home.
Their conversation is cut off by Ulysses. There’s another man with Ulysses and it turns out Donner stole that man’s purse. Donner is taken away by authorities and will probably hang for theft since there was £10 in the post.