Humpty's Bones (4 page)

6. Tuesday Morning: 6.08

How Eden did it she didn’t know. Immediately after the drama of the intruder attacking the back door she seemed so wide awake she’d never sleep. The last thing she remembered, however, was looking at the radio alarm clock beside her bed that told her the time neared one in the morning. It only seemed a moment later and she was opening her eyes to see that the clock read 6.08. A gleam of daylight edged the curtains. With the arrival of dawn the events of the previous night had the aura of nightmare, rather than reality. Once more she thought of the man who’d spoken to her on the train.
You should always respect omens... beware, beware, beware...
Even though she tried to not to dwell on what now seemed an ominous warning she knew it would be impossible to go back to sleep. What’s more, recollections of the figure prowling around the house returned with vivid images of the man-shaped shadow.
And just what was wrong with his head?

Eden went to the window to ease back the curtain. Admittedly, a little on the tentative side. What if the strange figure stood on the lawn staring up at her as she looked out?

There, in the grey light of morning, all that met her eyes was the immensity of the landscape. No strange intruder lurked on the lawn. Her eyes were drawn to where she had seen the figure. Nothing but sodden ground.

In this part of the world the flatness emphasised the hugeness of the sky. The fields were largely featureless. This blank land: it had the sullen expression of a thug, who stares at you with that same blank insolence as they stand in a bar, while you try and ease yourself by them. Yes, they share the same air of stupidity. It’s like this drab realm could utter the same threat as the street thug.
I don’t know you. You don’t interest me. I can hurt you if I want. If I can be bothered. I might. Just to break the boredom. So beware, beware, beware...

‘Talk about a lonely place,’ she murmured. ‘Why is it all so solitary looking? There’s nothing in groups.’ That misty greyness prompted her to mutter a litany. ‘I can see one house, one tree, one road, a solitary church, a single scarecrow. A lonely pony. A lonesome rabbit. An individual post box. There are no families of bushes. No happy bands of rodents. Everything, but everything, is reduced to a miserly quantity of one.’ Another fact occurred: ‘Why is everything so straight? The fields all have straight fences, the dykes are straight, the paths are straight, the hedges are straight. The only thing bent is that road.’
Her eyes followed that strange crook in the highway that meant it curled half way round the house almost like a python making a start on encircling its prey.

The
Via Britannicus
stretched way back into history, as much as it stretched its hard body out across a gloomy land of rectangular fields that were either brown with dirt or dull green with vegetation. This view secreted an air of foreboding. Here bloody battles had been fought for possession of this flat-as-a-table-top realm. It suggested that the human suffering it had witnessed down through the ages had left it hardened, emotionally dead, it had felt blood spilt into its ground so often that, if it could have talked, it would say with a heartless shrug. ‘Death again? So what?’ Eden remembered what grim secrets these acres of mud had occasionally yielded. An ancient pot had been found at the road’s edge that contained the cremated remnants of two people. Some bereaved Roman soldier had scratched on the pot in Latin,
‘Meam uxorem. Meum infantem. Mithras! Oro illos protegere.’
-
‘My wife; my young child. Mithras! I implore you to protect them.’
Captives were marched along the road in chains, bound either for slavery or crucifixion. Bandits hung from gibbets at crossroads as a warning to obey the law. Locals stole the bones of the hanged to magically blight the lives of rivals (at least, that was their intention). Far across austere fields, the ruins of the church became a little more distinct as the mist cleared. Savage winds that regularly tore across the plain from the cold North Sea had, years ago, robbed the building of its roof. No doubt local thieves had unburdened the House of God of its valuable lead flashing, too. A fierce infestation of ivy had defeated its walls. They had been reduced to half their original height as nature had sent vines between the carved blocks to push them apart. No families here. No friendly groupings. Not even of bricks. Mother Nature forced building blocks to become solitary stones. Another fifty years would see the earth suck what remained of the church into its uniformly moist, black dirt. Dog Lands conquered everything that came here.

As her eye followed the line of a path along a dyke she recalled her arrival yesterday. Seeing her aunt in the pit that resembled a grave. Eden fancied she could smell the soil again with its heavy odours of wet humus, peat, a lingering tang of burnt things. Strangely, it reminded her of a wine she’d once tasted that had been fermented in a stone vat in the basement of a Tuscan villa. The wine couldn’t be described as pleasant; she’d grimaced as she tasted it. So heavy, so unnaturally sweet and a powerful intoxicant. It had made her head feel unnaturally large. When she’d stumbled outside to lie down in the shade of an olive tree all the colours of the world shouted at her, bird song shrieked through her skull, her tongue writhed in her mouth as even the scent of a rose struck her nostrils with such force that it left her clutching her face. In fact, clutching hard enough to bruise her skin. Recalling the wine, which smelt so much like the soil in the pit where the bones had been found, elevated her senses again. The landscape throbbed with the most intense browns and greens... the dimensions of the scarecrow, the tree and the church ruin shifted. Time boundaries melted. For a moment she was ten years old again, stood by this very window, watching her mother running through the garden gate. Yes... her mother had been doing something... what was it now? Laughing? Screaming? Happy? Terrified? Eden could not remember or tell.

‘Eden. You’re never ever going to leave this place alive.’

The bedroom door toppled inward like a gravestone unseated from its earth. A vast, dark, unknowable shape rushed into the room. Pounced on her. Its huge mouth folded over her face. The heat of its gums seared like hot metal. As much as its teeth sinking into her cheeks was its overwhelming power to suck the air from her lungs and suffocate her. Choke her. Starve her of air.

Eden woke. For a while she lay there, letting her heartbeat return to normal. She couldn’t tell where reality had ended and the nightmare began. The only fact she did know to be concrete was this:
I’ve passed the point of no return.

7. Tuesday Morning: 8.00

‘Can’t Humpty’s bones wait?’ Curtis grimaced. He needed coffee fast, but the mug he had was far too hot. Today he’d dressed in a severe black suit. His silver pony-tail dangled, incongruously bohemian against the I MEAN BUSINESS garb.

‘I need to find fragments of human skull. They simply aren’t here.’ Heather’s fingertips danced through muddy splinters of bone on the table.

‘I have to get into the studio early. I’m going to fire Wayne. He’s staggeringly incompetent.’

Eden stepped through the door into Heather’s lab.

‘Good morning,’ Curtis boomed. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Eventually.’ For a moment she was uncertain whether to broach the subject of the intruder, the broken door pane, the figure with a head that seemed strangely
wrong
.
Don’t tell me I dreamed it all.
Nevertheless, she found herself asking, ‘What did the police say?’

‘The police. Huh?’ Heather examined a fragment of thigh. ‘This belongs. It’s human.’

‘See, Eden? Humpty gets more attention than I do.’ Curtis swallowed coffee then swore under his breath. ‘Oh,
that...
After the idiot scampered last night I decided to call the police back and tell them not to bother coming out. There’s no real harm done.’

‘The door?’

‘It’s just one of those things. Some local kid got drunk, then got stupid. Happens. Glass is cheap enough. Remind me to call Bob. He can fix it today.’

Heather sighed with frustration. ‘Skull. Skull... Humpty, what on Earth did they do with your skull?’

Eden’s skin prickled. She couldn’t say how, or why, she knew but suddenly the truth glared at her with a power that sent shivers across her body. ‘You won’t find a human skull.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know. Ah, toe.’ She plucked out a bone fragment.

Curtis downed another gulp of coffee. ‘Didn’t the garden centre want their accounts back by today?’

‘All in hand, dear.’ Heather studied a thick jaw bone bristling with sharp teeth. ‘Canine. This goes back in the miscellaneous box.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Eden took the brown mandible from her aunt. She placed it on the table at the top of the skeleton. ‘It belongs there.’

‘That’s a dog’s jaw bone, Eden. There’s no doubt; it’s - ’

‘The skeleton you found is complete!’ The words rushed out of Eden with a quiet force that took Curtis and Heather by surprise. ‘The skull bones you found go here.’ She moved the shards that her aunt had dismissed as hound skull from the table’s corner to where the head would be on the skeleton. ‘Don’t you see? The ground here is special. The road doesn’t run straight through the plot where the house stands, because the Romans were obliged to go round something they venerated... or feared.’

Curtis laughed. ‘Heather. You’ve found another archaeologist in the making.’

‘But one that needs some training in anatomy. Heather, the jaw isn’t human.’

‘It still belongs to this skeleton.’ Her nerves tingled as she surged on. ‘You found all those coins. They were offerings - sacrifices! - to the boy in the grave.’

‘Deary me! The boy with the hound dog’s head.’ Curtis laughed louder.

Heather smiled, ‘Really, Eden - ’

‘No, I’m serious. The Roman engineers understood. They diverted the path of one of their main highways. They knew better than to destroy the grave. What’s more, they placed money into that pit above the grave. Later generations did the same. They made offerings of cash to the boy down through the centuries. What’s more, they made sure that this grave, which was so special to them, wasn’t disturbed.’

‘Eden - ’

‘You showed me coins from Roman times, the medieval, Victorian, right through to the present day.’

Curtis drained his coffee; the amused expression was clear enough though. ‘In effect, that old hole in our back garden was a slot for coins? So Humpty here could get rich in the afterlife?’

‘You inherited your mother’s imagination. I’ll give you that.’ Heather used her hand to carefully sweep the inhuman skull fragments to the side of the table. ‘But you’ll find there are no werewolves anywhere but in folklore and films.’

Curtis chuckled. ‘I’d love to stay for the fun, but I’ve got some firing to do.’

‘Listen, I’m serious,’ Eden insisted. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? What you have out there in the garden is an ancient shrine to someone special. A wizard or a god. The locals sacrificed money to whatever is in the grave for a reason. Hear me out, Curtis, they weren’t frivolous or silly. They really believed that the person in the grave could give them something valuable in return for the money that they worked so hard for.’

‘Your mother is a dreamer, too.’ This time Heather’s voice turned cold. ‘It caused problems in the past. She could behave... stupidly. There’s no easier way to put it, unfortunately. Yes, stupidly.’

‘Boys don’t have dog’s heads.’ Curtis stopped smiling. ‘It just isn’t possible.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Eden continued, exasperated by the couple’s mocking responses. ‘It’s all makes sense. The whole area has dog-related names - this is Dog Star House in the village of Dog Lands. There’s a Dog Dyke, Hound Flats - ’

‘Eden. You’re getting carried away.’

‘No, listen. I’ve been working it out. As well as references to dogs, you have to explain why an ancient road kinks to avoid something you can’t even see on the surface. There are coins in the pit. These bones. Human, but instead of a human skull - ’

Curtis grunted. ‘Amusing as this is, I must go to the studio.’

‘And then there was last night.’ Eden’s hair felt as if it stood on end as she said the words that had been lying heavy on her mind. ‘Heather, you disturbed the grave. You brought the boy’s remains into the house.’

Heather snapped, ‘Eden, you’re still upset after last night.’

‘But what did happen last night?’ Eden asked as the pair glared at her across the table of burnt bones. ‘Last night an intruder tried to get into the house. There was something wrong with his head.’

Curtis slammed his cup down. ‘No, don’t you dare. Don’t you bloody dare!’

Eden protested, ‘It makes sense. Just look at how all the facts add up.’

Curtis stormed from the room.

Heather followed her husband, but not before snarling, ‘Thanks, Eden. Thanks a million. Now you’ve left me to pick up the pieces.’

8. Tuesday Morning: 10.00

Dog Star stood on its plot, at the bend of the
Via Britannicus
, beneath lumbering cloud. Heather worked on her dig. The awning that sheltered the tomb shifted in the breeze as if uneasy about being so close to the spot that yielded up those burnt bones. Eden watched her progress from the kitchen.

Eden hadn’t spoken to Heather since her aunt had uttered
‘Thanks, Eden. Thanks a million. Now you’ve left me to pick up the pieces’.
She watched her aunt haul a bucket of dirt from the pit. ‘I should have listened to the man on the train,’ Eden murmured to herself. She glanced at the door, its shattered safety glass held in place by the membrane of plastic. ‘He told me,
You should always respect omens... beware, beware, beware...
’

She telephoned the builder. Could he start work on her apartment earlier? It would mean so much to her if he could. She was desperate to move back in.

‘I’m sorry,’ said the voice in her ear. ‘I’ve still to finish this loft conversion job in Salford.’

‘But you do know I’m homeless?’

‘I can’t just walk off a job. It wouldn’t be fair.’

After the call she nearly talked herself into returning to the apartment anyway. Okay, the kitchen had been burnt. She could live off breakfast cereal, if need be. There was a café over the road. Only she recalled the smoke-blackened walls. And the stink. Even the thought of it made her throat feel as if had begun to swell in reaction to the stench of burnt plastic.
No. I can’t go back there. Not yet.
Instead of destroying yet more bridges, she should start repairing some. She made coffee, then went out through the damaged door to face her aunt.

‘For the last five years,’ Heather told Eden abruptly, ‘I have been struggling to persuade Curtis that this house should be our home. He wants to live in York. Last year a valuable sofa that he was storing for his father was ruined when the garage flooded. A week after that the airing cupboard door swung open at him. It left him with a gash in his head. He turns on me. He yells that the house is cursed. I’ve never seen him so furious. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to talk him out of leaving.’

Heather revealed this to Eden as they both stood beneath the gazebo. The pit yawned at their feet. Rain had left the soil darker than before. Oozing moisture, it smelt of burnt things.

Heather took a sip of the coffee that Eden had brought her. ‘Now, this morning you brightly tell Curtis that we’ve got a damn werewolf sniffing at our front door.’

‘I didn’t use the word ‘werewolf’. I just - ’

‘No, but you said this was the tomb of a boy with a dog’s head.’

‘Curtis won’t believe in werewolves.’

‘Maybe not, Eden, but that kind of speculation’s hardly likely to endear him to the house, is it?’

Eden shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you’d be interested in what I’d figured out.’

‘Are you sure you’ve not got all this planned? A nice little scheme?’

‘Scheme? What scheme?’

‘Undoubtedly you know the terms of my mother’s will. It stipulates that even though she left the house to me I can’t sell it. Dog Star House stays within the family; it’s chained to us. Tied lock, stock and bloody barrel. Dog Star? The will doesn’t even allow us to change its stupid name.’ She looked shrewdly at Eden. ‘Tell me what happens to the house, then, if Curtis takes such a violent dislike to it that we have to leave?’

Eden shrugged.

‘Surely, your mother - my sister - showed you a copy of the will?’

‘I only heard that you’d inherited.’

‘So you didn’t know that I can’t sell it? No?’ Heather smiled, albeit coldly. ‘Or that I’m legally obliged by the will to offer it for rent at a nominal sum to a specific chain of family members starting with my son? Graham won’t take it because he’s at sea all the time. Besides, living here bored him. Next in line is your mother. But she’s such a free spirit she can’t stay in any one place for longer than a couple of months straight. When she goes they’ll have to concrete over her grave.’ A joke, only Heather didn’t smile. ‘So who will be next in line to live in this house? And who would only be required to pay a few miserable pounds a month?’

‘I’m not interested in the house, Heather.’

‘It’s a big property - five bedrooms; two bathrooms; new kitchen. If Curtis pushes me into leaving it’s a certainty you’d end up living here in luxury. No doubt free to offer a bed to every psychopathic fire-starter that comes along.’

‘Heather, that’s not fair.’

‘Okay. A deal. You stop telling Curtis that werewolves are laying siege to the house. I’ll lay off your rotten choice of one-night stands.’

Heather glared at Eden in such a way that suggested she’d dash the coffee in her face if she disagreed.
What choice do I have?
Eden asked herself.
If I don’t back off I’ll end up on the train before the day’s out. I’ve nowhere else to go.
Eden felt wronged by her Uncle and Aunt - the suggestion that she’d deliberately tried to scare Curtis into abandoning Dog Star House infuriated her - yet even after all this she knew she had no choice.

Eden took a deep breath. ‘I wasn’t trying to cause any trouble. Thanks again for asking me to stay here.’ Even so, she couldn’t back down completely: she couldn’t surrender control over her own life entirely. She added with a splash of defiance, ‘And I wasn’t trying to steal your home from you.’

‘Good. We have an understanding.’ Heather’s voice softened. ‘Thanks for the coffee, by the way.’ She nodded at the pit. ‘It’s like working in a fridge down there.’

Small talk. At least Heather was trying to mend bridges, too.

Eden leaned over the hole. The stench made her flinch. Wet earth. Decay. Burning. Something else that suggested a heavy sweetness. Talk about unwholesome. Even so, for some inexplicable reason the thick scent took her back to that Tuscan villa with its otherworldly atmosphere. ‘Making any progress?’

‘Just trying to get back to where I was when I finished work last night. See the far side? Yesterday’s rain caused part of it to collapse. I’ve got to lift out all the muck that’s fallen into the bottom before I can start excavating again. And just when I’d reached the floor of a building, too.’

‘Any more bones?’

‘No.’ Heather said the word a little too curtly, as if to dissuade Eden from reopening the dog-boy debate.

Oh, blood’s thicker than water,
Eden told herself.
Prove to Heather you’re useful.
‘If you want, I could scoop out the dirt for you.’

This offer surprised Heather. ‘Really?’

‘Of course.’

‘That would be a great help.’ She sounded genuinely grateful. ‘I’ve got to recheck the garden centre’s accounts.’

‘Just tell me what to do.’

‘You will get your hands dirty.’

‘No problem. I scrub up well.’

‘Use the little ladder to climb down into the excavation. The sides are so soft you’ll bring the lot down if you try to climb in or out any other way. There’s a plastic bowl to shift the goo. I’d have suggested a spade normally but it might damage any finds. If you gently - gently, mind - scoop the debris out onto that plastic sheet. I can throw it into the flower beds once I’ve sieved it for hidden goodies. Sound good to you?’

Eden set to work. When she was standing in the grave pit, which once housed Humpty’s bones, the ground was level with her shoulders. It took more effort than she’d appreciated to scoop wet mud into the bowl then stretch up and out of the hole to tip it onto the pile already started by Heather on the plastic sheet.

‘How will I know when to stop?’ Eden asked.

‘When you’re down to the hard surface. The floor of the building consists of stone slabs. I want you to go gently because they might have carvings, which could be fragile by now. Also, there’s a slim chance there will be more tiles, too; maybe if we’re really lucky a mosaic.’

After that, Heather returned to the house to her accountancy work. Eden worked hard to remove the invading mud. Yet her imagination still concocted fantasy portraits of dog-headed boys. She suspected they might once more creep into her dreams tonight. And, if they did, what marvellous secrets might they whisper into her ear as she slept?