Outlander Book Club: An Echo in the Bone Chapter 21 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts with Roger being away. The noises in the house go silent, and Bree starts to wonder what this means. What have the children gotten up to? All parents will understand what it’s like for sounds to go suddenly silent.
The last time this happened, Bree’s alarm clock was disassembled at the bottom of the bathtub. Neither Jem nor Mandy admit to doing it. It was the “piskies.”
This is where we learn that Jem and Mandy may have some sort of ability. Jem is certain that Jamie is buried somewhere at Lallybroch, and he talks about Claire in the present tense. Is he somehow connected to the people of the past? Are there ghosts in Lallybroch? I do love this connection to various abilities. They’re not all just time-travelers.
When Roger returns, he shares that the date of the obituary has returned. This brings up a lot of questions. Did Brianna and Roger going back actually change things? Roger isn’t sure how that was possible. Surely a fixed event can’t be changed. He starts to question whether God offers people the chance of salvation, but they need to be willing to listen.
Roger also thinks about one night that Claire was collecting plants. She had to do it at a particular time, and Roger realizes that it wasn’t because she was superstitious. She just knew when plants released certain medicinal properties and wanted to get them at the right time.
This was when Roger learned what had possibly happened to his father. She shared that Jerry’s plane was in Northumbria when it crahsed, and there are plenty of standing stones are there. One of Frank’s letters had that information, and she believes that Jerry had managed to survive the crash. The plane hadn’t burned, but the pilot what nowhere to be seen. Is it possible that Jerry went through some stones?
This is certainly a big question about destiny and time. Roger has found a job as an assistant choirmaster, but does it mean anything at this point? Does time mean anything?