‘Perhaps this wasn’t the right place to dig, after all.’
Jules shot her a withering look.
‘Now you say that!’
Above them the willow branches began to swish backwards and forwards, the whole trunk of the tree seeming to be straining against the wind.
‘Let’s go back inside,’ Jules said, ‘and leave this until the morning.’
‘I can’t leave it until then,’ Beulah protested. ‘Goodness knows how much more bad luck that will attract.’
‘It’ll be pretty bad luck if a tree falls on us,’ Jules snapped.
Seething with irritation, she dropped to her knees and reached down into the hole. The ground was soft and crumbly beneath her hands, as if someone at some time had dug here before. She used her fingertips to brush the soil away from something solid. As she worked her way around the edge of the hole, she almost felt as if there was someone else there, too, someone who was looking down into that space alongside her. Jules knelt back on her heels.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ Beulah gasped, as the beam of light from her phone fell upon something curved.
‘Yes, Mum. It’s a skull.’
‘It’s not a cat or a dog, is it?’
‘No.’
‘It’s very small.’
Jules looked up at her in shock.
‘That’s because it belongs to a baby.’
TIES
Eliza had been pacing up and down the lawn fretting about Isaac when she’d spotted Jules and Beulah walking towards the willow tree. The older woman carried a rake in one hand and a spade in the other whilst Jules held some form of paper parcel with outstretched arms as if whatever it contained might bite. Immediately Eliza felt a sense of alarm as if something terrible was about to happen. Where was Isaac? Why had he not returned from his walk? He knew how she hated storms. She watched as Jules let go of the parcel with one hand and tugged at Beulah’s sleeve, causing her to pause.
‘I’m not sure we should be doing this,’ Jules said.
Then don’t, Eliza willed. If only she could say it out loud. Maybe she could whisper it in Beulah’s ear.
She was meant to be attuned to matters beyond the normal limited view of existence. But no, Eliza could see that it would be futile. Beulah was far too wrapped up in concern for her daughter and any intuition would have left her; stress, worry, trying too hard to please, robbed you of the gift of sensing so much more. The woman who Isaac had rightly warned her about took a step forward and parted the fronds, invading their sacred place. Eliza ran across the upper lawn, down the steps, skirtedthe magnolia and slipped inside the canopy of the willow at the back. Beulah was standing in the centre of the space looking around while Jules hovered at the edge, unwilling to take part in this strange human ritual. And for a moment Eliza had hope that everything would be all right. Whatever was about to take place would be abandoned. The women would return to the cottage and all would be well. Except it wasn’t. Eliza watched in horror as Beulah began to rake away layers of fallen leaves before reaching soft loam. Then she picked up the spade, pushed it into the earth and began to dig.
Eliza needed Isaac here, by her side. He would know what to do. Men always went missing just when you needed them most. Could he not sense that she was distressed? That the remains of their beloved dogs, which they had so carefully laid to rest beneath this tree, were about to be revealed. Those dogs had been more than companions, they had filled a void, had seemed to sense her every mood and always offered comfort. She would not have them disturbed. These women were desecrating her space, Isaac’s space. She could not allow it. She wafted her arms around, she rustled the weeping branches of the willow, she even brushed her hand against Jules’ face. She didn’t want to alarm her but what else could she do? Maybe the Beulah woman wouldn’t dig too deeply. Maybe they would place whatever it was in a shallow hole and then Jules’s mother could go and leave them in peace once more. But as she watched, as she moved closer to the darkness of the hole, something shifted in her memory and began to reveal itself and she knew that she would never feel peace in this place again.
Eliza had never run so fast. Her feet barely touched the ground. It almost felt as if she were flying. If she hadn’t been so distraught it would have been a wonderful sensation. As a girl,much to her mother’s dismay, she had lain on the grass in the orchard and watched the birds high in the sky, wishing she could join them.
‘I despair, Eliza,’ her mother used to say, ‘your frock will be ruined. I have a daughter who likes nothing better than to climb trees, roll around on the grass in an unseemly fashion with her hair completely awry and a son who spends all his time inside drawing and reading poetry. I really don’t know where I went wrong. I’ll have to go and lie down.’
Her mother had spent a lot of time lying down, Eliza thought. What a waste when you could be running, jumping, skipping and feeling the wind and rain and sun on your face. Sometimes she had escaped the confines of their walled garden and run down through the village of her youth, not with a view to counting her steps like Carrie – whosoever had heard of such a thing – or trying to become fitter or relieving stress, but for the pure joy of it and the heady sense of freedom it gave her. She would laugh and wave to people as she passed by. Now there was no freedom, there would be no more waving, no laughter, just grief.
‘Eliza!’
Isaac was striding across the field towards her, but she was determined not to stop. She would just keep running as if he didn’t exist.
‘Wait,’ he called as she raced past.
He put out a hand and grabbed at her arm, but couldn’t hold her properly. She felt an improper sense of triumph that she had eluded him. She had always been the faster runner. He would not be able to catch her now except she had been thrown off balance. She stumbled and he caught up, grabbed hold of her.
‘Eliza, what is it? Where are you going?’
She tried to fight him, to wrench herself from his grasp, which became stronger the more she resisted.
