Pushing open the door at last she climbed out stiffly. ‘Steph? Are you around?’
There was no reply. She went over to the door and peered inside. There were the remains of a meal on the table which had been set for two. She stood looking down at the half-eaten salad, the crumbled bread rolls, the half-drunk glasses of wine and frowned. It looked as though Steph and whoever she was with had got up suddenly in the middle of eating and abandoned the meal. ‘Steph? Where are you?’
She wandered through to the dining room. The French doors were open, the pane of glass mended, she noted. She stepped out onto the lawn. The grass was far too long, the garden unkempt. There was still no sign of anyone. ‘Steph?’ Suddenly she was feeling nervous. She walked back inside and through to the kitchen, staring round. She felt the kettle. Cold. Turning she went back into the hall and ran upstairs two at a time. Steph’s room was a mess, but her usual mess and the bed was made, more or less. She looked into the room that had been her own. It was as she had left it and her own case had been put there just inside the door. The third bedroom was now occupied. She recognised the clothes, the cases, the tote bag. Her mother was here. She went over to the dressing table and looked at the array of combs and brushes, the aromatherapy oils, the organic face cream and she smiled. If Aurelia was here everything was going to be all right.
Running downstairs again she went out to her car and began to unload her stuff, carting it all back to her former bedroom. When she had finished she glanced at her watch. They had been out for a long time and it still seemed strange that they had left the house in the middle of a meal. Refusing to allow herself to think about Dan she walked over to the phone and dialled Cwm-nant. Megan answered.
‘Hi Megan, are Steph and my mother there, by any chance?’ She turned to look out of the window as she spoke.
‘Jess? Is that you?’ Megan sounded delighted to hear her voice. ‘No. They’re not here. Is Aurelia staying? That’s great. I do enjoy it when she comes. But no, I haven’t heard from them since Steph and Rhodri got back. Hold on, dear, Rhodri just came in.’ Jess heard a muttered exchange of conversation then Rhodri came on the line. ‘Jess? How are you? When did you get back?’ His voice was full of warmth. ‘Is everything OK? Is Will with you?’
‘Hi, Rhodri. No, he stayed in London!’ She found she was smiling as she explained the reason for her call. It was so good to hear his voice again.
‘No sign of them here, Jess. There hasn’t been a word from Steph since we got back.’ He chuckled. ‘Not best mates, Steph and me.’
Jess bit back a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh Rhodri, I’m so sorry. Was she a pain?’
‘She was.’ He didn’t sound too worried about it. ‘Our leisurely drift through rural France turned into a breakneck race for the coast before I was minded to strangle her.’
‘Oh dear.’ She grimaced. ‘Look, Rhodri, I’m a bit worried. They seem to have got up and gone out in the middle of lunch leaving everything open. Wine half drunk, that sort of thing. It’s like the Marie Celeste.’
He refrained from making a remark about Steph’s wine-drinking habits. ‘You don’t think Dan has turned up?’ His voice had sharpened suddenly.
Her heart sank. ‘Oh God, Rhodri, I hope not.’ She turned to stare out of the window. ‘There’s no other car here. I was so sure he would still be in Italy. Wishful thinking, I suppose.’
‘Could he have hidden it up the track?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I’d better go and look.’
‘No. Jess, don’t go up there on your own. Look, hang on. I’ll come straight over.’
He didn’t give her a chance to reply. The phone was hung up.
Opening the door into the studio she stood looking round. It was neat and tidy; it didn’t look as though Steph had done any work since she had come home. The kiln was cold. A butterfly was fluttering against the window near her work bench. Jess walked in and pulled the window open. Gently she shepherded the butterfly out and stood watching it soar up towards the sun.
Are we still playing the game?
A child’s voice sounded close to her in the room. Her blood froze. She turned round slowly. ‘Eigon? Glads?’
I don’t want to play any more. I’m cold.
The voice was tetchy. She could hear the fear behind the indignation.
‘Where are you, sweetheart?’ she called after a moment.
Eigon’s gone. I can’t find her! Suddenly there were tears in the child’s voice.
Jess caught her breath. ‘Glads? Is that you?’
I don’t want to play any more! I don’t like this game!
Jess swallowed her fear. These were young children. Abandoned. Alone. There was nothing to fear from them. She was astonished at the wave of maternal love that swept over her. ‘Listen, little ones. Eigon has gone away. But she’s coming back.’
That was a stupid thing to say. She didn’t know that. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t even know what millennium she was in. With a groan she headed out of the door. ‘Steph? Mummy?’ Suddenly she was calling too, overwhelmed with loneliness and fear.
Rhodri arrived some half an hour later, pulling up in a flurry of dust. ‘Any sign of them?’
She was sitting on the wall, waiting for him in the sunshine. She shook her head. ‘I didn’t go up the track to the wood. I thought I’d wait for you.’ She was very conscious of the relief and happiness that flooded through her as she saw him. His solid frame, dressed in an old check shirt and distinctly moth-eaten cords was immensely reassuring as was his smile as he looked down at her. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Glad you made it back safely.’
‘Me too.’ She moved away from the wall. ‘You don’t really think Dan turned up here do you?’
He shook his head. ‘Steph would have shrivelled him with a glance. And your mum is a formidable woman. If she can quell a tribe of nomads in Uzbekistan with a toss of the head she is not going to be scared of our Mr Nasty.’
Jess smiled. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘So am I, girl.’ He looked down at her for just a second longer than necessary and she felt a quick throb of excitement deep in the pit of her stomach.
The moment was gone in a flash. ‘Come on.’ He was heading for the gate. ‘Let’s go and have a quick look up in the wood before we do anything else.’
There were no signs of fresh car tracks leading up the lane. They reached the gate into the wood, puffing slightly after the climb and walked in under the trees. It was very still in the shade. The birds were silent and there wasn’t a breath of wind. The only sound was the humming of a bee in a clump of honeysuckle near the holly brake.
Rhodri bent, examining the path. ‘Can you see any footprints?’
Jess smiled. ‘Were you a boy scout when you were young?’
He shook his head. ‘But I was always on the side of the Indians in cowboy and Indian films on the telly. I loved the way they could track anyone anywhere. Look.’ He was pointing at a mark in the soft earth at the side of the path. ‘Someone has been here recently. Someone with quite small feet, not wearing proper boots.’
Jess laughed out loud. ‘That could be my mum. Which way was she going?’
‘Up the track, I think. Come on.’ He walked ahead of her and stopped again a few paces on. ‘Yes, look. Two different sets of prints walking side by side and here –’ he paused, frowning. ‘Suddenly they are deeper, less well defined. They are running together side by side. Here, where it is still muddy, someone slipped.’
Jess followed him, her mouth dry. ‘Why are they running?’
‘Well, they are not being followed by anyone. Otherwise there would be prints on top of theirs, wouldn’t there.’ He stopped, looking round, his hand raised for silence, listening intently. ‘I should have brought the dogs. Shall we risk shouting?’
Biting her lip, she nodded and jumped, her hands over her ears, as he let fly. The voice of a top notch Welsh baritone is designed to carry. The echoes rang for s
everal seconds. All around birds flew up squawking with fright. Pheasants from the undergrowth, pigeons from the treetops, a lone raven croaking its dismay as it launched itself from an oak tree deep in the centre of the wood. Two jays crashed screaming out of the old mother ash which overhung the stream far below. As the noise of the birds died away they listened again, turning round slowly.
‘Nothing?’ Jess shrugged.
Rhodri shook his head. He looked down at the path again. ‘There is still the odd footprint. We’ll see where it leads.’ He set off ahead of her uphill now, steeply climbing towards the summit where someone a hundred years or so ago had planted a clump of redwoods. They were clustered round an ancient earthwork, standing up above the surrounding wild woodland like a group of sentinels.
Rhodri slowed down as they approached. ‘There is someone there, look.’
Jess stared through the undergrowth. He was right. A figure was standing up there in the distance with its back to them peering down at the foot of the old stones which crowned the hill. ‘It’s my mother!’ Jess said suddenly.
‘Thank God!’ Rhodri raised a thumb. ‘Come on, girl. What are you waiting for?’ They set off up the last bit of track, and as they approached he shouted again.
Aurelia swung round. Her hair had grown longer and if anything more wild than when Jess had last seen her; her skin more tanned. She was dressed in a gypsy skirt and a silver-blue shirt, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, the buttons at the neck unfastened to reveal a necklace of crystal and lapis beads. She raised her hand and waved. As they drew close her face broke into a smile. ‘Jess, darling! Rhodri! What on earth are you doing up here?’ She didn’t give them a chance to respond. She hugged Jess briefly then she grabbed her hand. ‘Look. In there. Steph has crawled inside. We could hear someone calling. We thought a child had got trapped in there.’
Rhodri and Jess exchanged glances. Rhodri squatted down. ‘Are you all right, Steph?’ he shouted. ‘Have you got a torch?’
There was a scrabbling sound and Steph’s face emerged from deep inside the stones. She crawled out, covered in mud and climbed to her feet. It was only then they realised that her face was white and she was shaking. She didn’t even acknowledge Jess’s arrival. ‘There’s a skeleton in there. A child.’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s curled up against the stones. It must have been buried and a fox or something has dug it up. The bones have been scattered.’ Her voice wavered. It was as though she hadn ‘t seen Rhodri or Jess. ‘Oh God, it’s awful. They are so small!’
‘Are you sure they’re human?’ Rhodri said gently.
‘Of course I’m sure!’ she flashed back at him. ‘What kind of stupid question is that. It’s a child!’ Tears had streaked the mud on her face.
‘How on earth did you find them?’ Jess asked at last. ‘What were you doing up here?’
Aurelia had stepped forward to wipe Steph’s face with the handkerchief she had dug out of her pocket. ‘We heard the child calling,’ she said. ‘On and on. It was heart-rending. It was obviously lost. Steph thought it was your ghost, but we couldn’t be sure. Of course we couldn’t be sure! We both heard it and …’ She paused, shaking her head. ‘We abandoned our lunch and came out to find her. We followed the sound up the track. We kept calling back, saying we were coming. Then up here at the top it stopped. Suddenly. Completely. Steph thought she was hiding in there.’ She pointed at the stones. ‘We kept saying we were here and that we would look after her. But she had stopped crying.’ For the first time her voice wavered. ‘There was this terrible silence.’
‘Did she ask if she could stop playing?’ Jess asked huskily after a moment.
Steph nodded. Aurelia looked from one of her daughters to the other. ‘Is this your ghost? Eigon?’
‘It’s not Eigon,’ Jess said. ‘I think it is her little sister – or her baby brother. They were lost when she was captured.’
‘Oh God!’ Aurelia looked distraught. She glanced back at the rocks. ‘You mean she – or he – crawled in there and died? Oh, that’s too awful to think about.’
‘They searched the hills for days but they never found them,’ Jess whispered. ‘In the end they gave up and they took Eigon and her mother away. Their mother and father died in Rome.’
‘And Eigon?’ Aurelia looked at her younger daughter. Both women were white-faced.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to Eigon in the end.’
‘What are we going to do about this?’ Rhodri asked after another silence. ‘We can’t leave the little one here.’
‘We can’t tell anyone either,’ Jess put in hastily. ‘You know what would happen. The police would come. They would want to make sure it wasn’t a modern child. They would take the bones away. The papers would get hold of the story. People would be everywhere in our woods. If the bones are ancient they would give them to a museum or something and they would stick them in a glass case and label them “Iron Age child” or “Romano-British child” and I will not allow that to happen!’ Her eyes were full of tears. ‘It would be a travesty! We can’t tell anyone. We have to let her rest in peace.’
‘But she’s not at peace, Jess,’ her mother put in gently.
‘No, but she knows we know where she is now.’ Jess dashed the tears out of her eyes. ‘I’m going in to see her.’
‘Are you sure?’ Steph shook her head. ‘It’s awful.’
‘I’m sure.’ Jess nodded. She walked away from the rocks for a moment and bent to pick some foxgloves that were growing in the dappled shade beneath one of the tall redwoods. Turning, she glanced at Rhodri. He nodded encouragingly and crouching down after a moment’s hesitation, she inched her way into the darkness.
‘Can she see in there?’ Rhodri asked quietly. ‘You haven’t got a torch.’
Steph nodded. ‘It’s hard, but the sunlight seeps through between the stones.’ She sniffed, rubbing her face with her hands. ‘The bones have been disturbed. They’ve been scattered around. Something’s dug them up.’ Her voice broke into a sob.
Aurelia put her arm round Steph’s shoulders. ‘I hope to God this is an archaeological find,’ she said dryly. ‘If it is a modern burial then we are in trouble.’
‘We have to be sure before we make any decisions about what to do,’ Rhodri said after another long pause. They were all watching the darkness of the crack between the stones where Jess had disappeared. ‘I wonder if Jim Macrae would be up for confirming if they are old or not.’
‘Dr Macrae?’ Steph looked at him in horror. ‘You can’t tell him. He would have to tell the police. I am sure he has to report dead people, however old they are. I seem to remember someone telling me you have to get a doctor to certify that someone is dead even if they are a skeleton! Then don’t you have to get a coroner involved and everything? Jess would skitz! No.’ She shook her head. ‘Let’s think about this very carefully. We were led here. That child called us.’
Rhodri had wandered over to the rocks. He crouched down and peered in. ‘Are you all right?’ he called softly.
Inside, Jess was sitting on the ground beside the pathetic little heap of bones. She had laid the flowers next to them and put her hand for a moment gently over the scattered joints of the tiny fingers. ‘I am so sorry no one came,’ she whispered. ‘Eigon tried. She tried so hard to find you. They all did. Did you crawl in here to keep safe? Oh my darling, I am so sorry.’ Tears were running down her face. ‘Your mother never recovered from losing you. She missed you so much. Did she find you in Tir n’an Og? That’s what she wanted.’ She closed her eyes. ‘However faraway she was, she never stopped loving you.’
Which child was it? She wished she knew. The bones were so small. Gently she picked one up. It was light as a feather, brittle as a twig. She put it back reverently. She kissed her finger and laid it for a second on the forehead of the small skull then she turned and crawled out into the sunshine.
The others looked at her in silence and for a moment no one moved, then Rhodri stepped forward and put hi
s arms round her. ‘Are you OK?’
Burying her face in his chest she nodded. For a moment she clung to him, aware of his strength and the nice male smell of his shirt. She realised with a small jolt of surprise that she wanted to stay like that, savouring the feel of him, the safety of his arms, but she forced herself to move away with an apologetic grin.
‘Sorry. Don’t know what came over me.’ She took a deep breath, trying to steady her voice. ‘I don’t think there is any doubt but that they are old bones. They are so light and friable. They are certainly not modern.’
‘What do you think we should do?’ Steph asked shakily.
Jess stood for a moment in silence. She was a picture of dejection, her arms hanging helplessly at her sides, her face miserable and exhausted. ‘Can we leave her there for now?’ she said at last. ‘If we tell someone they will move her.’
‘That’s what we thought.’ Rhodri glanced at Steph. ‘You are right. She shouldn’t be in a museum. I think that would be so wrong.’
‘Maybe you could ask your friend, Eigon?’ Steph added quietly. ‘Does she talk to you like that? Will she know what’s happened?’
Jess shrugged. ‘I can try.’
‘Let’s go back to the house,’ Aurelia said at last. ‘This little one has lain here so long another night is not going to make a difference. If her soul is wandering the woods here she knows now that we have found her and that you took her in some flowers, Jess. Tomorrow we will decide what to do.’
Jess woke suddenly from a strange dream. She stared round the room in the dark. The four of them had spent the rest of the day together; they had had supper in the kitchen and then at nearly midnight Rhodri had at last driven back to Cwm-nant. The only thing they agreed about was that the bones should not languish in a museum. When Jess went to bed she had lain still, talking gently to Eigon in the darkness. There was no reply.
When at last she slept she dreamed about Will. He was calling her again and again, standing behind the door of his house. ‘Jess, the traffic warden’s gone. You can come in now.’ When she woke it was to a feeling of utter panic. Creeping downstairs so as not to wake the others she went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. Standing at the window she stared out into the moonlit garden. A wind had arisen and the branches of the trees were dancing, casting moonshadows across the courtyard and up the walls of the studio. ‘Togo? Glads?’ she whispered. ‘Are you there?’