Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
18th Jan 2013 from Twitlonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #Outin2013 #meanwhilebackatLallybroch
Pressing her back against the stones, she sidled around the broch, pausing near the door, and reached out a hand, groping for the latch. Something cold and solid—the padlock—and she felt carefully over hasp and shackle and body. It was intact, and locked. Letting out her breath, she fumbled the bunch of keys out of her pocket and found the right one by touch.
The sleeping doves erupted in a mad flutter when the wind from the open door whooshed up to the rafters of the broch where they roosted, and she stepped hastily back against the wall, out of the way of a pattering rain of panicked incontinence. The doves calmed in a moment, though, and settled down again in a murmurous rustle of indignation at the disturbance.
The upper floors had long since fallen in and the timbers been cleared away; the broch was a shell, but a sturdy shell, its outer stones repaired over the years. The stair was built into the wall itself, the stone steps leading up between the inner and outer walls, and she went up on hands and knees, the shotgun slung over her back, to avoid stumbling and bashing either the gun or her head against the wall; she couldn’t risk using her torch and letting the flash of light be seen from the house.