The Bone Keeper

by Luca Veste

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘We got him.’

  She could hear the barely constrained excitement in his voice. She couldn’t help but smile, as it filled the car around her, enveloping her in a warm embrace. ‘Are they okay?’

  ‘The mum has been stabbed a few times, on her way to hospital now. Lost a lot of blood, but she’s alive for now. Caroline will need a few more days’ recovery.’

  ‘Good news for now then.’

  ‘It was Rhys Durham,’ Shipley continued, as if he hadn’t heard her talk. ‘We were right all along. Thing is, there’s been a couple of other incidents this evening as well. Kids in the woods, that sort of thing. We think there’s a couple of copycats out there. Taking the opportunity. The whole force is up the wall with everything going on. Hopefully it’ll get under some control soon.’

  Louise listened, thought about the copycat narrative and then rejected it. Now, she felt she understood what was going on. What had happened. What had been happening. Pieces of the story began to slot together, her past and present finally coalescing, so she could comprehend it all. He wasn’t the only one. The man she had known wasn’t the only one. He had been the first. That was all. He was the one who had started the entire story. Taken an apocryphal tale and made it real. Whether by design or accidentally she wasn’t sure, but that’s how it had ended. When he had walked into those woods all those years before, maybe he hadn’t expected to take on the persona of the Bone Keeper, but that was what had eventually happened.

  He wasn’t just a killer. He wasn’t just evil.

  He was more than that.

  He made people in his image.

  ‘Make sure they find every single last one of those people in the woods,’ Louise said, as she approached the motorway that would take her the rest of the way. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘Are you on your way still?’

  Louise hesitated, wondering how to answer the question. ‘Listen, I . . .’

  ‘I’ve got to go, Louise, but give me a shout when you arrive. It’s because of you that we caught him. We’ve got some celebrating to do. Together.’

  She tried to reply, but the phone had already gone dead.

  The thought of what she had left behind in the woods came to her. That man. What he had become.

  He wouldn’t stop now.

  It would begin again. A new story. A new legend.

  More death.

  It was clear to her now. She had a choice. She could continue driving north, to the Lakes or further. Resign from the police and start a new, even more hidden life.

  Or, she could turn the car around and go back into those woods and stop another story beginning.

  She could end it.

  Keep going. We’re free. No one knows. You can keep driving and never have to face him again.

  ‘Shut up . . .’

  You can’t win. No one can. What are you going to do, kill him?

  Louise shook her head, her hands shaking even more now.

  That would make you exactly like him. That’s what he wants. They’ll still know. You’re a killer. Just like your dad. Just like your father always was. Keep driving.

  ‘No.’

  Louise pulled the car over into a lay-by at the side of the road and watched her hands judder on the steering wheel. Felt the familiar constriction in her chest and knew what her future would hold if she continued running away.

  ‘No more hiding,’ she whispered to herself.

  This is how it ends.

  She thought of the man in the woods. Her father. The man who had carried her on his shoulders as a child. Had read her bedtime stories. Who had been perfect.

  For a while.

  Then, the man he had become. Withdrawn and distant. Angrier, quick to shout, completely unlike he had been before.

  She thought she knew the reason. He had tried to be normal. To have a family, to be just like everyone else. It hadn’t worked though. He was always something else. Something he eventually couldn’t keep inside anymore.

  Memories were flooding back now, as she continued to drive into the darkness. Flashes, here and there. As if her mind had produced a flick-book of everything she had repressed for all this time and was now trying to show it to her all at once.

  Louise didn’t know what had happened over the years. How many of the people they had found buried had been his work and how many Rhys Durham’s. It didn’t matter. It was all the same. They were one person.

  They were both the Bone Keeper.

  That’s who her father had been. Who he was.

  This wasn’t for anyone else to know. It would only make things worse than they already were. If there was any future for her, any light to be found, he was the only one left to silence.

  You’re just like him.

  She retraced her journey, as the time slipped away from her. Evening had become night, total darkness only lit by the headlights of her car.

  Back to the same woodland she had only hours earlier escaped from.

  In a way, she had always known it would end there. When she had been left alone, thirteen years old and afraid, her grandparents had taken her in. She had never met any of her father’s family – she wasn’t sure they even existed. She had become an adult, knowing only that her family was gone. Now, she could see how they had protected her from the truth. Encouraged her to forget what had come before, so all she was left with was flashes of someone else’s life.

  Back into the woods he loved so much.

  He wanted to make her like him. That was the answer. More memories started to push to the surface. She tried to resist. Failed to.

  They had walked into those woods often in the year before she was left alone. Just the two of them.

  He had seen something in her.

  She knew the truth.

  She was supposed to be like them. Like Rhys Durham and Steven Harris. Probably more, she guessed. Disciples, followers. She was never going to be like those people.

  You’re already like them. That’s why you have to run. He’ll win in the end.

  The journey passed in a blur, buildings thinning out as she reached the north of the city. She wondered if they would be able to deal with the aftermath. If Shipley would be more involved now, considering he had been the one to stop Rhys Durham.

  She wondered if she would be around to see how it all panned out for him. Whether there could have ever been a future for them.

  There was part of her that hoped she wouldn’t be around to find out. To feel that disappointment which seemed inevitable.

  That this was the end of her story as well.

  It was almost 1 a.m. by the time she pulled up on the same street as earlier in the evening. She didn’t hesitate, getting out of the car as soon as she’d removed her car keys, almost being blown back by the force of the wind. There, on the coast, it was harsh and unforgiving. Inside the woods would be different, she thought. She pulled her jacket around her and began to walk.

  The path led her into the woods, but then she was on her own. She walked with purpose, the clouds parting and allowing the moonlight to shine above her, illuminating the way enough for her to see. Soon enough, she didn’t need it anyway– she could see and smell the light to follow.

  Burning, being carried on the breeze towards her. The wind wasn’t as heavy, now she was surrounded by the trees and brush. It had become colder, her jacket not thick enough to prevent the cold tearing through, making her shiver as she walked into the middle of the woodland. It was only on the periphery of her mind, though – she was single-minded now.

  She had to reach the middle.

  She had to reach him.

  And then what? What are you going to do?

  There was a crackling sound now, smoke drifting towards her, reaching out and passing through her body. Like fingers, tendrils which wanted to touch her. Cover her and smother her. Consume everything in its path.

  She was close now.

  On the ground, branches of a past long forgotten
littered the way. Trees which had fallen where they’d stood, left to wither away and die. Time had stripped them bare, leaving only memories of what they had once been. She imagined sepia tones of light, cascading from them and glowing. The beauty found in nature. Above her, the trees that had survived the years were dormant. What would be stunning in sunlight was now charcoal black, looming over her as if they were ready to swallow her. They had lost their vibrancy, their life, becoming simply lifeless sticks of nothingness.

  She could hear the fire crackling and spitting. The glow ahead had grown, orange and red in the distance. She wanted to jog, to run, but her ankle still protested underneath her, a reminder of what had happened only a few hours before.

  Flashes of red in her vision. Darkness clouding her eyes.

  Louise kept moving, snapping branches underneath her feet as she walked. They danced on the ground, lifting up as she passed them, their sounds becoming tuneless, as she broke through the treeline and into the clearing.

  She stopped at the edge, her jaw pulsing, mouth closed. She didn’t want to breathe in, scared it would be the last normal breath she took before the sight of the fire brought on another attack.

  She knew it wouldn’t, somehow. As if that part of her life was now beginning to dissipate, as the memories of her past returned.

  He was sitting near the fire, his head down on his chest. She could see his hands, clasped as if in prayer. She could see how he might be thought of as non-human. The way he blended into his surroundings, becoming a part of the darkness. She walked closer, careful with her step as she made her way down the small ridge, almost slipping on the damp earth. She came to a stop opposite him, the fire between them. It was larger than she’d anticipated as she’d made her way to him. Bits of driftwood piled in the middle, other things underneath. The wind picked up, the flames flickering and then calming. Something came dislodged from underneath, coming to a rest a few feet away from her. A photograph, almost completely destroyed.

  ‘You came back,’ he said, that voice, so changed by the years. ‘I knew you would.’

  He was burning it all, she thought. Her past. His past. What had survived and had been taken into the woods by him all those years before. It was all in the fire.

  He was destroying everything about him that was a link to his past. He was watching the last remnants of humanity turning to ash.

  ‘Why?’

  He looked up at her now, his eyes black in the light from the fire. ‘I was . . . I wasn’t ready.’

  ‘I never thought you’d hurt me. I’m yours. I have your blood inside me.’

  He chuckled softly, as if she had told him an old joke. ‘You do. That’s not enough.’

  ‘It should be.’

  ‘I need to tell you a story, Louise.’

  Louise waited for him to speak, a calmness rushing over her as she stood near the fire. The warmth from it soothed her, filling her body with peace. It was almost silent now, her mind quietening, ready to discover the truth. Of him. Of her. Of their past.

  That’s why she was there.

  She needed to know.

  ‘I failed you,’ he said, his voice changing to a more familiar tone now. Not quite the one she remembered from being a small child, when he read to her at bedtime. It was softer than before though. More human. ‘When you were younger, you didn’t understand what was inside you. What I had passed down to my daughter. The anger, the resentment, I should have recognised it. I did . . . eventually. I just didn’t want to accept it. I had worked for so long not to be that person any longer. Seeing it in you, it made me realise I could never escape the need.’

  ‘I’m not like you.’

  ‘You know where the story of the Bone Keeper began, Louise?’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Right here. In these woods. This is where I was born. Not literally, of course, but my story began here, when I was young. The other kids, they didn’t understand what I was, why I did the things I did. They left me alone, to find my own way. I did.’

  ‘Do you have a point?’ Louise said, resisting the urge to sit down and allow his words to ease her mind. ‘None of this explains anything that’s happened.’

  ‘You always were eager to rush. I saw that in you at a very early age. You were constantly wanting to be ahead of what other kids were doing. You wanted to climb higher, run faster. Your brother was four years older than you and still struggled to keep up sometimes.’

  ‘And they’re dead. Because of you.’

  He turned his head slightly, listening to the silence, it seemed. He looked at her, a ghost of a smile appearing across his face. ‘I always wondered if you’d remember. Whether you carried the guilt. I knew afterwards that you were gone. That you were broken. I hoped you would be able to use what you did that night. That in the end, we would sit near a fire and find common ground. Instead, you seem to have forgotten it completely. Maybe that’s for the best.’

  Louise could see the fire now, the beauty of it, the control you could have over something so devastating. A spark of memory, of a match striking alight in darkness, her eyes gleaming in its heat.

  ‘Do you think about them? Do you feel anything for them?’

  Louise didn’t answer him, lost in the fire now. A dream returning to her. A recurrent one, she hadn’t experienced for a long time. Then, her grandmother coming into her bedroom, late at night. Holding her tightly, as she wailed and cried.

  She thought about fire.

  As she did so often.

  She had blocked all of this. Thrown herself into her career. Made that her life. Didn’t think of what she had gone through.

  What she had done.

  ‘You never had any feelings for them. You lack that same thing I do. Empathy. Compassion.’

  Louise scratched at her thigh. The scar there that refused to fade. A reminder. Only she didn’t want to remember any of it.

  ‘It was an accident . . .’ she said, her voice a whisper, almost lost in the flames.

  ‘You lit that fire, Louise. You killed them both.’

  Fifty

  ‘No.’

  A single word. It was all she had. It wasn’t enough.

  It was the only word she could get out. Her mind was running at speed, thoughts and memories fighting for her attention.

  ‘No,’ she repeated, hoping it could be enough.

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ he said, the smile now gone, replaced by a blank expression. She couldn’t read him at all. Never had been able to. ‘I thought there would be more of a reaction.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘You know it’s true, Louise.’

  ‘Stop saying my name.’

  ‘They died in their beds, never knowing it was you who did it. You watched it happen. You stood and marvelled at it, knowing what was going on inside the house. Do you remember that?’

  ‘Yes . . . but it wasn’t me who did it. It was an accident.’

  ‘No. You know the truth, don’t you? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? The truth? I wouldn’t lie to you about this. I couldn’t. If I wanted them dead – and believe me, there were more than a few times I considered it – I would have done it a lot cleaner than you did. There wouldn’t have been a trace of them left. No one would have ever known what happened to them. I have been very careful over the years.’

  ‘I couldn’t do that,’ Louise said, her mind betraying her and feeding what she thought was a lie. Had to be. Yet, there were images, sounds, she couldn’t process properly. ‘I’m not like you.’

  ‘You keep saying that, but it’s not true. You’re just the same as me. What did you think, that you could join the police and become the good guy? That you could turn your back on your true self and never think about it? That’s not how real life works.’

  ‘I’d remember it,’ Louise whispered, but even then she could sense he was right. That she had blocked out parts of her life for years. A way of dealing with what she had done, what she was. That little voice which spoke to her �
�� now silent – had been attempting to make her see, but she had ignored it. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘You wanted to hurt people, things, animals,’ he replied, as if it were the most normal thing anyone could ever want. He repulsed her, but she was now ensnared by him. Trapped in his words.

  ‘I caught you once,’ he continued, reaching out and poking the fire with a long stick. ‘You had your hands around the throat of some young girl who lived in the street. I had to use all my strength to get you off her. Poor kid was so shaken up. Took every skill we had to get her parents to agree not to phone the police for that one.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Louise said, but she could see the girl’s eyes now, the fear in them, the way her neck had felt beneath her own small hands. The power she could feel from what she was doing. It flooded back to her now, a perfect scene in her mind.

  ‘You remember it all. That’s good. Think about it. You’ll never be the same again.’

  ‘I’m not evil,’ Louise said, her voice now a croak, hitching and scratching at her throat. She shook her head. ‘No. No. I’m not like you. I’m not.’

  ‘I never wanted this life for you, Louise,’ he said, standing up finally and walking towards her. She took a step back, as he continued to come towards her. ‘I didn’t want that life anymore. I wanted to be normal. That’s why I married your mother. Had two children. Still, the urge, the need was there. Inside me. I killed someone a year before Mum and Martin died. Some homeless guy nobody would miss. It felt so good, to allow myself to be that man again. It was as if I had been missing an arm before that day, then suddenly it had been reattached. I was whole again. I knew it wouldn’t be long until I had to leave you all. Remember when we would walk through these woods? You knew why we were doing it, but I never needed to say a word. The marks – my marks – we made in the trees. We were preparing to come home. That night . . . that night changed everything. I thought you would finally accept what you had to become, but you couldn’t. Not then. I came back here, to these woods, and I hoped for some time you would finally accept that this was where you belonged. I became the Bone Keeper again.’