The Bone Yard and Other Stories

by John Moralee

  Growing exhausted, too tired to feel angry, too tired to feel anything, I waded out of the kitchen, carrying the length of pipe. I dumped it on the gravel path. Then I went around the farmhouse and pulled the rest of the pipe free from the stone wall.

  I should have felt some satisfaction, but I did not.

  I trudged across the muddy field, until the farmhouse was out of sight. I tossed my keys in the mud and stamped on them, burying them. I could feel tears building up, thinking about Billy in his red wellingtons, splashing in the mud, squealing with delight.

  “Look at me, Daddy! Look at me!”

  I could almost hear him.

  I thought that if I turned round I would see him.

  But he was not there.

  I returned to our Land Rover and drove down into the valley, hoping never to see the farmhouse again.

  *

  But it was a buyer’s market. And nobody was buying a farmhouse ten miles from anywhere. Abby and I could either live in the farmhouse or leave it empty, though we could not afford another home. Returning was inevitable. It was like coming back to the scene of a crime. The lead pipes may have been replaced with plastic, but the memories were fresh. Abby was still wearing the sunglasses she’d worn at the funeral.

  “Come on,” I said, “it won’t be that bad.”

  “Right,” she answered, dully. She had been taking Valium, again. I went round and opened the passenger door. Abby held the Valium bottle tightly, as if it warded off evil spirits. I helped her out of the car, though it was hard to get hold of her because she was so limp and resistant. While prising the bottle from her hand, I gently closed the door behind me. I guided Abby into the farmhouse and struggled up the stairs to the master bedroom. As I tucked her in bed, she instantly fell asleep, then I carefully removed her sunglasses and set them on the dresser.

  “I love you,” I whispered, leaving her to rest.

  The door to Billy’s room was partially open, as it had been left. A Pokemon poster drooped from the wood, its upper tacks unstuck. I fastened the poster in place and entered the room. It smelt of crayons and plasticine. On the floor, Billy’s Lego dinosaur models lived in a prehistoric landscape. His bed was unmade. I looked at the bloodstained pillows.

  And I could hear Billy retching, retching in the night.

  I took the pillows downstairs and hurled them in a bin bag. To take my mind off things, I did some cleaning up. Afterwards, I retrieved our laptop PC from the car. I had to get back into a working mode - to do something than think about Billy - so I put the computer on the kitchen table. Abby’s uncompleted thesis was the first document I saw listed on the directory. I felt my chest throb, wondering if she would ever be able to write another word, if she would ever be the same woman I’d married. I moved the trackball down to Microsoft Access. I was an accountant for a number of small firms. It was the core of our finances while Abby worked on her doctorate. Unless I put some work in to update the data, I’d lose my clients, lose the house and lose my wife to Valium. Despite the sounds of water grumbling in the new plastic pipes and the freezing cold air seeping through the stone walls, I managed to get some work done.

  *

  A nightmare woke me at the table, where I’d fallen asleep with my face buried in my arms. The laptop’s screen was blank. With anger, I realised I’d left it on all night and the batteries were dead. Looking at my watch, I saw it was 5.30 am. I’d slept through till dawn. I couldn’t sleep any longer without getting a headache later, so I went outside and stretched my muscles in the frigid air, taking deep gulps. I walked to clear my head. I headed towards the northern hills. It was a stiff climb but I didn’t feel it in my legs. In fact, I was a mile from the farmhouse before I was out of breath. Down in the northern valley the mist drifted lazily. Through gaps in the mist, I could see sheep clustered in one of Angus Seamore’s fields. Billy had liked to count them, even identifying them individually. I walked along the high ground, going nowhere particular, just walking through the brutally beautiful landscape.

  Suddenly a wind howled around me, billowing my shirt and trousers. I felt it pull at my right sleeve, like a small child tugging for attention.

  (Like a small child?)

  There are moments when you know something is going to happen that will change your life. I had that feeling as I looked down at my sleeve.

  And saw Billy. Alive.

  I couldn’t believe it. It had to be some other boy, not our Billy. Our Billy was dead. Yet the small boy clasping his blue mitten into my hand and tugging urgently was Billy. It was impossible. But it was real. It was Billy. I didn’t feel as if I was dreaming, surely I would know that.

  “What? How? Billy?”

  Billy was staring up at me with his pale green eyes. He looked confused and scared.

  “Dad, I want to go hooooome. Now.”

  I had no answer. It was Billy. There were no mistakes. I recognised my own son – this was not my imagination. Before I could ask questions, Billy set off towards home.

  With tears in my eyes, I chased him, afraid that if I didn’t keep my eyes on him he would disappear like the morning mist.

  *

  “Abby, wake up.” She moaned and pulled the duvet over her head. I pulled it back, shaking her. “You’ve got to wake up, Billy’s alive.”

  She opened her eyes then and sat up. “Don’t joke. Please.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “Billy, can you come in.”

  Billy stood at the door, obviously bewildered. “But I want to play, Dad.”

  “That isn’t my baby,” Abby said, quietly, curling herself into a ball. “This is a dream.”

  “No, it’s not.” I was so excited my voice sounded like a teenage girl’s at a rock concert. “He’s real! I found him over by Angus’s farm. He doesn’t remember how he got there, but it’s a miracle.”

  I beckoned Billy forward. He stood by the bed. Abby reached out her hand and touched his face.

  “He’s cold.”

  “Of course he’s cold. He’s been outside.”

  “But ... but ... Billy?”

  “Mum? What’s wrong?” He started to cry. I patted his head and told him there was nothing wrong, that he could go and play.

  Abby’s reaction wasn’t what I expected - I expected her to be happy, to accept Billy’s reappearance as a miracle. But she looked at me as if I had brought a rat into the house. “That thing is not my son.”

  “Talk to him. See for yourself.”

  “No. Billy’s dead. This is a cruel joke or something.”

  “But you saw him. It is Billy.”

  She got out of bed and peered down the landing at the boy playing Jurassic Park. “No, no, no. That thing is something else. A ghost. A demon. Something evil. I can feel it. Get it out of here.”

  I wanted to slap her for being so suspicious.

  I put my hands on her shoulders. I could feel her body shaking. I spoke softly. “I think that I somehow brought him back by thinking about him, wanting him back so much. Thought translated into matter. I don’t know, but the fact is he exists and he is our son.”

  “Roger, I’m telling you whatever it is it’s not Billy. I would know. A mother knows these things, feels it. You’ve invited a demon in our house!”

  Billy heard that and started to cry. “Mum, I am real I am I am I am!”

  “There, there,” I said. “Mummy didn’t mean it.” He fell into my arms and I hugged him, lifted him off the ground.

  Abby scowled at me with a sudden hate I’d never seen before.

  Abby didn’t come downstairs until noon. She was wearing the sunglasses. She sat drinking Nescafe, facing Billy and me, not saying a word. She stared at Billy. I opened my mouth to say something but nothing emerged. If Abby was going accept Billy was real, the next move was up to her. There was no explanation for such a miracle. Billy finished his Alphabetti Spaghetti with tomato stains on his chin. Abby got out a Wet-Wipe and rubbed it off. He put his small hand on hers, she didn’t move away this
time.

  “Mum? Don’t look so scared and sad.”

  “I’m not,” she lied. I could tell she had taken another Valium. Her pale fingers rubbed behind her sunglasses and came away wet. “I’m not.”

  “Billy,” I said, “there’s something you have to understand. Something happened - something bad - and we are both a little shocked. There are some things we don’t understand. What Mummy and Daddy need to know is what is the last thing you can remember before you were on the hill?”

  Billy’s face scrunched up, thinking. “You flewed the kite, Dad. You said it was my go ... and then ... the kite ... the string ... the string snapped. The kite flewed up. I wanted it to come back but it flewed higher and higher and there was nothing I could do. And you said you’d get me a new one but I don’t want a new one I want the old one ‘cause we painted it. Then you were sort of gone and then you sort of came back. Only you were wearing different clothes and looked sort of sad.”

  I looked at Abby. “I lost the kite three months before it happened.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Billy, are you sure that’s all you can remember?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “I was scared.”

  “Roger,” Abby said, “I’m going to take him to the doctor’s.” She paused and whispered so Billy couldn’t hear. “I want him checked out to see if he really is Billy.”

  It was a good idea - except I wasn’t going to let her drive, not in her condition.

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “We’ll do it,” she said, eyes flaring. She didn’t trust me any longer.

  *

  “Where’re we going, Daddy?” Billy tugged at the child seatbelt, squirming. “School?”

  “No, not school,” I said. I looked in the rear-view mirror at my family. Abby removed her sunglasses.

  “We’re going on a short trip,” she said.

  It sounded like a threat. It was then I realised she blamed me for the lead poisoning. As if I’d chosen the farmhouse deliberately. Now she blamed me for ... for what? Bringing him back? I didn’t know.

  I did a U-turn and steered the Land Rover along the dirt road towards the B road at the bottom of the valley.

  “My tummy hurts,” Billy mumbled.

  I looked at him and saw he had changed. His face was pale and he was clutching his stomach. Abby went to him, flashed a look at me. “He’s sick! It’s the lead poisoning again! God, drive the car to a hospital!”

  I did the fastest driving in history.

  “No! No!” Abby cried.

  Billy vomited blood in a terrible whoosh I thought would never stop, spattering the seats, spattering Abby. Her arms were slick with it. She screamed. I almost steered off the road and into a pine tree. I had to get Billy to a hospital. Maybe he could be saved. I had to try.

  “He won’t wake up,” she shouted. “Hurry, damn you! Hurry!”

  Dark twisting roads, endless and nameless. It was the same as last time, looking for the connection to the town as the night fell like a velvet curtain. Rain came from nowhere, turning the road to a slippery nightmare and making the windscreen blurred. The wipers fought back, losing. Abby couldn’t get Billy awake, and she was screaming at me to go faster, go faster, as if I wasn’t going as fast I could already, the speedometer waving at sixty as I took a corner, the mountains looming like clashing Titans.

  Ahead, caught it the yellow headlights, was a sign and a fork in the road. To the left: GLEN IVERSTON 6 MILES. There was a hospital at Glen Iverston. Looking in the mirror, I saw Abby clutching Billy in her arms, rocking him.

  “Don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die ...”

  DON’T DIE. I could hardly see for tears. I think the car was going eighty, my foot pressed to the floor, the wheels grinding the ground.

  Then the rain vanished and it was daylight and Billy was no longer in the back and Abby wasn’t covered in his blood and -

  “STOP!” she screamed.

  *

  Hell, my ribs hurt. The air-bag had saved me from worse than bruises, but Abby had a bruise on her head where she had struck the front seat. She wouldn’t let me examine it to see how bad it was. I’d come off the road, braking hard, narrowly avoiding the black HGV coming the other way. It had been taking up most of the left lane as well as its own. Now that we had stopped, I could see the HGV thumb-size in the distance, apparently unconcerned it was a danger to innocent drivers.

  Abby groaned and touched her reddened temple, wincing.

  “Billy ...”

  Unspent adrenaline sweated through my body as I tried to understand just what had happened before the near-accident. It seemed unreal, as if someone else had been driving. One second Billy had been dying in the back seat, the next he wasn’t there. In fact, there was no sign he had been in the car. No blood. Nothing. Of the inexplicable downpour, there was no evidence. The windscreen was completely dry.

  Abby sobbed, quiet, tiny gasps, looking at the empty seat, no doubt seeing what I saw. Nothing. “No! He ... was ... here. My poor baby. Roger, w-what’s going on?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  *

  The farmhouse was deathly silent except for the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the lounge. I handed Abby a mug of tea before switching on the television, just to break the tension. Neither of us felt like speaking, so we held hands. For a brief time we had believed in miracles, and the dispelling of our belief left us in an emotional vacuum. I’d gone around checking every room, hoping to find Billy hiding in some corner. I’d even opened the kitchen cupboards, as if he could have climbed up and crawled inside.

  “This is the six o’clock ...”

  Abby jumped up, pulling as her hair the way she did when exasperated. “Roger, am I losing my mind? Six hours can’t have passed.”

  She was right - we’d only just returned. (I knew after what we’d gone through we could make mistakes, but to lose six hours wasn’t possible.) I looked at my watch. It was quarter to two, fitting in with how long I felt we’d been on the road and back at the house since we decided to take Billy to the doctor. The grandfather clock showed the same time as the television. A four hour difference.

  “What time have you got on your watch?”

  “Ten to two,” she said. “It’s running slow. I don’t understand how -”

  “We’ve lost time. When we were on the road it was dry one second, raining the next, and a few minutes later it was dry again. Why? Something happened to time. It was as if we were repeating the night Billy died.”

  “So what happened to him? Why did he just disappear like that?”

  “Hold on,” I said. I went into the kitchen and plugged the laptop into the wall. Abby followed. “What are you doing?”

  “Bear with me,” I said, typing. “Look at the date.”

  “September the first ... the day Billy died.”

  “Unless someone reset the clock, this is no accident. I think we’re in some kind of time loop.”

  “That’s not possible,” she said.

  “Can you explain what just happened?”

  “No.” Abby was holding her ears and squeezing her eyes shut. “I don’t want to listen to this. It’s crazy. You’re crazy. I’m crazy. Everyone’s crazy.”

  “But it happened. You can’t deny it. There’s something strange about this area.” I moved towards her, setting our mugs on the coffee table before holding her in my arms. It felt good to hold her. “For a moment Billy was alive again. I promise if there is some way to bring Billy back, we’ll find it.”

  “Angus must know about this phenomenon,” she said. “He’s lived here all his life. He must be able to tell us about it.”

  “Let’s talk to him,” I said.

  *

  We drove over to his farm, but we did not find him there. In fact, all we found was a stone cottage in a terrible state. Nobody could live in it. It looked like no one had been there for fifty years. There wasn’t even a sign of the sheep I’d seen yesterday.


  “I don’t understand this,” I said. “Where the hell is he?”

  *

  Back at the farmhouse, we went through the local history books. Abby grabbed my hand as she found an old photograph of Angus Seamore.

  “It says here Angus Seamore died in 1949.”

  *

  That night the moon was full and the stars clear as diamonds in a display case. We watched them through the open curtains, dreaming of miracles. The moonlight gave the land a bluish hue, in which I could see the black silhouettes of the mountains. I wondered how old the mountains were, how many millions of years had it shadowed this tranquil Neverland. Everything I could see was so old, so ageless. Could it be possible there were places where time obeyed different rules?

  *

  The mist was heavy in the small hours. Together, we stood on the hill as the sun crept over the horizon. We were waiting. Our hot breaths formed vapour like a dragon’s smoke.

  Abby muttered: “Do you really believe Billy will reappear?”