The Bone Houses

by Emily Lloyd-Jones

  Something cold grasped her arm and hauled her over. She went with a cry, kicking out even as the bone house pinned her to the ground.

  It was a miner; it wore rough-spun clothing and most of its teeth were missing. Ryn could not tell if it had been a man or a woman. Its flesh had long since rotted away, leaving only bone and cracked sinew. Like the water, it was stained by copper. Red flecked its skull, and its empty eye sockets were focused wholly on Ryn. She felt its hands on her, and she struck out with her fists. Her axe was strapped to her back, pinned beneath her, and she could not reach it. Pain flared in her arm as it was twisted and pressed to cold stone.

  Ellis shouted something, his voice echoing off the cavern walls. The words blurred in her ears, and she did not care. Her attention was on the bone house—its weight and smell, its closeness and threat. She did not know if the bone house meant to hurt her, or if it wanted to speak with her, or even if it felt like a dance—it didn’t matter. Not when she could fall to her death so easily.

  “Sorry about this,” she panted, before she bucked like a startled horse. Her legs wrapped around the bone house’s waist, and she rolled hard. With all her strength, she flung the creature off her and over the ledge.

  There was a startled cry, and then the sound of a shattering impact. Ryn rose to her hands and knees and scurried to the edge. “You all right?”

  “Missed us by a hairsbreadth, but you missed us,” called Ellis. He heaved himself up and onto the ledge, and a moment later, the goat clambered after.

  “I see why this place was never reopened,” said Ellis. His voice was even more hoarse than usual.

  Ryn willed her hand to be steady as she picked up the lantern. “Why do some of them attack us?” she said, still breathing hard. “Those soldiers—that man. But others… don’t.” Her gaze flicked to the bone goat, who was scratching her rump with one horn.

  “I don’t know.” Ellis leaned against the wall. “Do you think… death has a way of changing people?”

  In the daylight, she could push away most memories or drown them out with work. But night was when remembrances returned, like chickens to roost, and she could not be rid of them. She glimpsed the bone goat trotting closer, and for the first time, she was not glad for her presence. She’d always felt as if she had death nipping at her family, taking them one by one—she didn’t want to see her sister’s pet goat slowly rot away.

  Her foot slipped on a rock. She fell, knee hitting hard, and a grunt of pain escaped her. She knelt there for a moment, until she felt Ellis’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes,” she said. The lie came to her lips of its own accord. But it rang false, even to her own ears.

  She set the lantern down on the rocks. The flame guttered but did not go out.

  Revulsion churned within her, and she wasn’t sure what made her say it. Perhaps because the truth had been burning a hole in her gut for months now, and someone needed to know.

  “I knew,” she said.

  “What?” He sat beside her, but she kept her gaze averted.

  “I knew about Uncle.” Her fingers tangled together, and she held on tight.

  There was a moment of quiet, broken only by Ellis’s sharp intake of breath. It echoed off the cavern walls.

  “I knew he was dead,” she said.

  His voice was soft now, and it made her want to turn away. She did not deserve his gentleness, not for this. “You knew already?”

  She wasn’t sure what made her say it—perhaps it was the night pressing down on her, the intimate closeness of the dark, or the memory of the dead at the encampment. They all had their dead—she just had more than most.

  “I buried him,” she said hollowly.

  His hand touched hers. “Tell me?” he asked.

  She didn’t want to—the words threatened to unravel her. But perhaps to speak them would be to release the heavy burden.

  “We were happy,” she said, because wasn’t that how every story began? “My family—my father, my mother, my brother, and my sister. We had a good life, for a while. Our uncle moved in with us after Da vanished into the mine—and he helped Mam around the house.

  “We weren’t overly fond of him,” she continued. “I mean, he was our mother’s brother and she loved him. But then she fell ill. It was the lung rot—it got into her chest and never left. When she died, we were given into the care of our uncle.

  “He looked at us as if we were a burden. We all tried not to be.” Ryn had done so by leaving the house often: She tarried in the forest, picking berries and acorns, and digging graves when the need arose. Gareth had put away his childish notions of play and took up his mother’s accounts ledger. He ran the business of burying the dead and learned how to speak so that adults would treat him accordingly. As for Ceri, she learned how to put food on the table. Even as a young child, she crafted meals from the smallest scraps, churned goats’ milk into butter and cheese, and baked lovely sweets that could be sold on market day.

  Ryn said, “We managed as best we could. But… a few months ago, Uncle came home from one of his nights at the Red Mare. He was soused, angry that he’d lost yet another game of cards. He’d been borrowing coin from Eynon, which we only discovered afterward. He blamed us for his debts, saying that if he hadn’t been forced to live in Colbren, he would have gone on to do better things. He was drunk and angry—and he slipped on the stairs.” Ryn could still hear the crack of skull against wood. “His head hit the door frame, and he tumbled into the yard. We all stood there for a few moments, waiting for him to rise and continue yelling at us—but he didn’t.”

  She looked at Ellis’s face for the first time since she’d begun the story. His expression was steady and he gave a small nod, as if encouraging her to go on.

  “Gareth wanted to tell someone,” said Ryn. “But if we’d told… I’d have been sent to a workhouse—and perhaps Gareth with me. We didn’t know what would happen to Ceri. And when faced with that… I knew what I was supposed to do with the body, but I didn’t care.”

  Respect due to the dead was one of the many things her father had impressed upon her. That was why he took such care of the graveyard, why the little rituals were always observed, and why he entrusted the care of it to his eldest. Because he knew she would understand.

  Until it became inconvenient.

  “We buried him in the woods,” said Ryn. “An unmarked grave in the forest, because I wouldn’t risk my family. And I knew—I knew that he could become a bone house. But even if he did, I thought he couldn’t leave the forest.”

  And while she had never liked her uncle, Ryn felt the shame of the deed. It was the most monstrous thing she had ever done, but she had done it. For her family, and for herself.

  Once the hole had been filled in, she and Gareth had returned home. They washed the dirt from beneath their nails, covered the blood in the yard with hay, and told the villagers their uncle had gone to the city on business.

  They did not speak again of what transpired that night.

  “For a while, we didn’t have to think about it,” said Ryn. “We just went on, pretending Uncle was away. But two weeks ago, a bone house appeared outside the forest. It stumbled into Hywel’s farm and we destroyed it. I helped him carry the pieces to the forge.”

  Fear had taken hold of her—after all, if one bone house could leave the forest… what would stop another? What if the magic found her uncle and forced him to rise? What if he returned, only to be recognized? Everyone would know that he’d died, only to be buried unmarked in a forest grave. That was when Ryn took her axe and began spending nights in the graveyard.

  Waiting for a monster to appear.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE LANTERN FLICKERED. She barely seemed to notice. Her gaze was faraway, her voice deceptively even. Ellis listened as the confession spilled forth.

  When she finished speaking, her gaze remained on the damp stone. “I’m not going to apologize for what I
did,” she said. “It was terrible, and I know it makes me a terrible person, but I won’t be sorry for it.”

  Perhaps he should have been disgusted. Or horrified. But rather, Ellis wanted to find a way into that story—to step between the uncle and those children. He had never known an adult who had berated him—not like that. He knew what it was to be ignored or treated like a burden, but not what it was to be hated by family. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  A bitter half smile tugged at her mouth. “Oh. So I should blame my uncle, then?”

  Ellis said, “His death was an accident. Terrible things happen. Your parents—I’m sorry for your loss. As for your uncle, he sounds like—”

  “Not quite a loss?”

  “I was going to say, ‘an ass,’” Ellis replied. A startled little laugh burst free of Aderyn. “You did the best you could. And if I were in your place, I might have done the same.”

  “You would have told the truth.” Ellis opened his mouth to protest, but she continued. “You’re a good person. But I’ve never pretended to be.” She bowed her head, and a strand of hair fell before her eyes. “I buried the last of my family in a forest, in an unmarked grave. To be forgotten and unmourned.”

  Ellis shook his head. “Not the last of your family,” he said. “You still have your brother and your sister.”

  At that, she smiled—but only with her mouth. She patted his arm. “Thanks.”

  Something inside him lurched. It felt like the times he slipped on a patch of ice or a slick rock—weightlessness in his belly and anticipation of the fall.

  Her hand withdrew, and he felt the loss of it keenly.

  “Thank you for listening,” she said. “For… understanding.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  His shoulder ached fiercely. When Aderyn had her back turned, he dug into his pack for fresh willow bark. His supply was dwindling, and his stomach sank when he saw how little was left. He’d have to be more careful—but after. For now, he needed it. The familiar bitterness coated his tongue and he swallowed hard.

  As they walked, the mine suddenly swelled open. They’d come into a cavern. Aderyn made a soft sound, and a moment after, Ellis realized why. Water sloshed across his boots. The cavern was a natural one; its walls were bulging and misshapen, and there was none of the careful smoothness that accompanied the places were human hands had dug out tunnels. This cavern had been carved by time and water.

  He held his compass in one hand. And with the other, he reached for Aderyn. His fingers found hers, and he gave a squeeze. He expected her to pull away, to feel her cold hand slip from his. To be pierced with one of her looks.

  Rather, she held on. She squeezed back, as if she, too, needed something to grasp. Something alive. The bone goat moved with the placid ease of an animal who didn’t mind its surroundings, only stopping occasionally to sniff at an interesting rock.

  Ellis wasn’t sure how deep the water was; he hoped it would remain shallow. Even so, they kept to the edges of the cavern, tripping over stalagmites and holding on to each other for balance. The light bobbed as Ellis tripped, nearly dragging Aderyn down, and he barely caught himself on a rock. The chill numbed Ellis’s feet, the pain of it creeping up his knees and into his thighs. The water was utterly opaque, and he found himself looking at it again and again to reassure himself that nothing was there.

  That was how he saw the ripples.

  A glimmer of movement caught his eye—as if someone had skipped a rock.

  Ellis’s whole body drew tight. “There’s something—”

  He never finished the sentence.

  A hand emerged from the water. It was slick; the smell that wafted up was sour, and it made bile climb Ellis’s throat. The hand had only four fingers, one of the bones cracked through at the knuckle. Light glinted off its finger bones.

  There was no time to scream. One second, Ellis was upright. And the next, he fell.

  He plunged into darkness and icy water.

  It was blackness of a sort he had never known. In the city, there wasn’t true darkness. There were candles, fires, and oil lanterns. In the country, there were torches and moonlight and even the gleaming of stars.

  Deep beneath the mountain, there was nothing.

  Utterly empty, cold nothing.

  Terror tightened around his throat like a noose.

  Something gripped his ankle, and he kicked out. His head broke the surface and sound returned to him.

  There was shouting, and it was far worse than the silence.

  Aderyn’s voice was the first sound he heard. He croaked out her name, reaching about the air, trying to find something—anything.

  He hit something but it slipped away before he could grasp it. There was splashing and he stumbled, a knee slamming into a rock. Ellis found himself on his knees in the water, his fingers combing through the muck. He found his pack and dragged it onto his shoulder.

  Something knocked into him. Suns burst behind his eyes as his shoulder slammed into the ground and he choked out a cry, and then water closed over his nose.

  It wasn’t deep. But water did not have to be deep for a person to drown in it.

  He tried to push himself upright, but something hung on to him tightly. He struck out at the thing, bubbles emerging from his lips. He blinked and the water stung his eyes, but there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. His elbow connected with something hard and he felt it give, snapping beneath the blow.

  He surged above the water, dragging air into his lungs. It hurt, his chest burning, and someone was yelling his name.

  He fumbled, and his fingers found soft fur, skimming up until he realized he was touching the bone goat’s horn. His fingers tightened, and he found himself being dragged away, as if the goat were determined to keep him moving.

  Light flared.

  It was a mere handful of flame—Ryn had used her flint and firesteel to set her scarf alight. He pulled himself upright, the bone goat beside him, and he saw another bone house. Its flesh was gone, clothes hanging in ragged strips from its arms, and its jaw clicked and clicked as if it were trying to speak. It reached for him, its posture almost beseeching, but he kicked its hand away.

  One handed, Aderyn swung her axe at another bone house. The creature jerked and fell, slipping and vanishing into the churning water.

  The water was churning, he saw. Alive—no, not alive. Dead things were crawling free, some moving with one leg or none at all, pulling themselves along with their bony fingers. Others had no head, and some were broken in other terrible ways.

  All of them were coming closer. “Move!” Aderyn shouted, and Ellis did not have to be told twice. Water splashed before them as they tried to run—the ground was too slick for a true sprint. When another bone house drew near, the bone goat lowered its horned head and charged into the water. Ellis felt a pang of fear for the animal.

  “Keep moving,” Aderyn snarled. The firelight was flickering, the scarf dangling from her fingertips.

  If it went out, they’d be lost again.

  They rushed through the cavern, the sound of their footsteps bouncing off the walls, magnified with every echo. It sounded as if a hundred people were running for their lives. When Ellis glanced over his shoulder, he saw the forms of those following behind.

  The miners were ragged and decayed, having spent years in these waters. Their flesh must have long since floated to the surface, carried away on some tide or eaten by animals. And while they had none of the training or weapons of the knights of Castell Sidi, the creatures were still terrifying.

  Ellis and Aderyn broke free of the water, of the cavern, and suddenly they were slipping on stone, their steps stumbling as the ground rose to a sharp incline. The light guttered, and for a moment the world vanished around them. Then Ellis heard Aderyn blowing on the flames, and the light kindled again, weaker this time, sparks vanishing into the blackness. The cloth swung in her hand, making the cave seem oddly unreal—there one moment and gone the next. Every step was a guess
, a silent prayer, and Ellis could only hope that he would not fall again… or that nothing would grab him.

  Another look back. The fastest bone house was only a few paces away, unhindered by darkness.

  He didn’t know what had become of his crossbow. The weight of it was gone from his back. For a moment, he considered reaching down to scoop up rocks or something to throw at the bone house, but—

  Hooves clattered on the rock. He chanced another look back, and he saw the bone goat, horns lowered and back legs churning the water as it charged the dead. Perhaps it was trying to avenge its own death.

  Or perhaps it was trying to save its people.

  Sound clashed behind them. He could not tell if it was a bone house or the goat. Aderyn cupped the flame between her hands, heedless of how it was likely burning her.

  “Come on.” Ellis barely managed to say the words. He took the second tunnel, and sent up a quiet hope that this one would take them outside.

  The tunnel rose up at an impossible angle, and a half-rotted ladder glinted in the firelight. Most of the wood was gone, but the iron remained.

  Without a word, Ellis went first. He grasped the metal stakes where they had been pounded into rock, using them as handholds to drag himself upward. He grunted softly when his foot slipped, but he held on.

  Aderyn released the burning cloth. For a moment, the flame was visible, and then it hit the damp stone and everything went dark.

  His left shoulder burned as if it had been branded; heat rushed through him and for one dizzying moment, Ellis wondered if he would simply faint, if he’d fall and be left here. If his bones would join those in the water. He bit down on his lower lip, forcing his gaze to steady. He tried to take more weight on his right arm, to use that one to pull himself along. But his right arm began to tremble.

  Fallen kings. He couldn’t do this. He went still, unable to pull himself higher or to climb back down. His chest was ablaze with pain, and it felt as if his heart were trying to climb his rib cage and crawl out of his throat. “I—can’t,” he rasped. His body simply could bear no more of this—no matter how much he tried to force it to cooperate. His shoulder screamed at him and he wanted to scream in reply, but he caged every painful sound behind his teeth.