Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

the upturned legs of furniture poked through the gloom like the skeletons of small dinosaurs, protruding from their native rock formations.
    There was a sort of fissure in the junk; Roger edged into this and promptly disappeared into a tunnel bounded by dust and shadows, his progress marked by the pale spot of his torch as it shone intermittently on the ceiling. At last, with a cry of triumph, he seized the dangling tail of a string hanging from above, and the garage was suddenly illuminated in the glare of an oversized bulb.
    "This way," Roger said, reappearing abruptly and taking Brianna by the hand. "There's sort of a clear space in back."
    An ancient table stood against the back wall. Perhaps originally the centerpiece of the Reverend Wakefield's dining room, it had evidently gone through several successive incarnations as kitchen block, toolbench, sawhorse, and painting table, before coming to rest in this dusty sanctuary. A heavily cobwebbed window overlooked it, through which a dim light shone on the nicked, paint-splattered surface.
    "We can work here," Roger said, yanking a stool out of the mess and dusting it perfunctorily with a large handkerchief. "Have a seat, and I'll see if I can pry the window open; otherwise, we'll suffocate."
    Brianna nodded, but instead of sitting down, began to poke curiously through the nearer piles of junk, as Roger heaved at the warped window frame. He could hear her behind him, reading the labels on some of the boxes. "Here's 1930–33," she said, "And here's 1942–46. What are these?"
    "Journals," said Roger, grunting as he braced his elbows on the grimy sill. "My father—the Reverend, I mean—he always kept a journal. Wrote it up every night after supper."
    "Looks like he found plenty to write about." Brianna hoisted down several of the boxes, and stacked them to the side, in order to inspect the next layer. "Here's a bunch of boxes with names on them—‘Kerse,' ‘Livingston,' ‘Balnain.' Parishioners?"
    "No. Villages." Roger paused in his labors for a moment, panting. He wiped his brow, leaving a streak of dirt down the sleeve of his shirt. Luckily both of them were dressed in old clothes, suitable for rootling in filth. "Those will be notes on the history of various Highland villages. Some of those boxes ended up as books, in fact; you'll see them in some of the local tourist shops through the Highlands."
    He turned to a pegboard from which hung a selection of dilapidated tools, and selected a large screwdriver to aid his assault on the window.
    "Look for the ones that say ‘Parish Registers,' he advised. "Or for village names in the area of Broch Tuarach."
    "I don't know any of the villages in the area," Brianna pointed out.
    "Oh, aye, I was forgetting." Roger inserted the point of the screwdriver between the edges of the window frame, grimly chiseling through layers of ancient paint. "Look for the names Broch Mordha…um, Mariannan, and…oh, St. Kilda. There's others, but those are ones I know had fair-sized churches that have been closed or knocked down."
    "Okay." Pushing aside a hanging flap of tarpaulin, Brianna suddenly leaped backward with a sharp cry.
    "What? What is it?" Roger whirled from the window, screwdriver at the ready.
    "I don't know. Something skittered away when I touched that tarp." Brianna pointed, and Roger lowered his weapon, relieved.
    "Oh, that all? Mouse, most like. Maybe a rat."
    "A rat! You have rats in here?" Brianna's agitation was noticeable.
    "Well, I hope not, because if so, they'll have been chewing up the records we're looking for," Roger replied. He handed her the torch. "Here, shine this in any dark places; at least you won't be taken by surprise."
    "Thanks a lot." Brianna accepted the torch, but still eyed the stacks of cartons with some reluctance.
    "Well, go on then," Roger said. "Or did you want me to do you a rat satire on the spot?"
    Brianna's face split in a wide grin. "A rat satire? What's that?"
    Roger delayed his answer, long