Bone Lines Read online

  About the Author

  Born in Hong Kong to expats from Liverpool (and something of a nomad ever since), Stephanie is based in London but manages her sanity by escaping to any kind of coast. Before returning to her first love of writing fiction, Stephanie spent many years pursuing alternative forms of storytelling, from stage to screen and media to marketing. Meanwhile, an enduring love affair with words has led her down many a wormhole on the written page.

  Drawn to what connects rather than separates, Stephanie is fascinated by the spaces between absolutes and opposites, between science and spirituality, nature and culture. This lifelong curiosity – and occasional conflict – has been channelled into her debut novel, Bone Lines, and into short stories, poems and various works in progress. This includes ideas for the continuation of the Children of Sarah series, of which Bone Lines is the first story.

  Bone Lines

  Stephanie Bretherton

  This edition first published in 2018

  Unbound

  6th Floor Mutual House, 70 Conduit Street, London W1S 2GF

  www.unbound.com

  All rights reserved

  © Stephanie Bretherton, 2018

  The right of Stephanie Bretherton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-912618-49-1

  ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-912618-48-4

  Cover design by Mecob

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

  For Holly, James, William and Juliette

  Contents

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Dear Reader Letter

  Super Patrons

  Now and Then

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  Later

  Acknowledgements

  Patrons

  Book 2 in The Children of Sarah series

  Dear Reader,

  The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.

  Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers’ edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

  This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). We’re just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, you’ll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

  Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too – half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

  If you’re not yet a subscriber, we hope that you’ll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a £5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type SARAH18 in the promo code box when you check out.

  Thank you for your support,

  Dan, Justin and John

  Founders, Unbound

  Super Patrons

  Hilary Alcock

  Lucy Allen

  Kim Baiden

  John Ball

  Anton Betaudier

  Antonia Blackmore

  Gabrielle Bretherton

  Linda Bretherton

  Wilbert Broeksmit

  Alan Brooke

  Matthew Byam Shaw

  Colin Caffell

  Louise Carroll

  Melinda Chandler

  Sian Coakley

  Robert Cox

  Tim Crouch

  Lucina Cunjamalay

  Katherine Dixon

  John Dominic

  Francesco Dori

  Kate Drewitt

  James Dryden

  Rebecca Evelyn Barnes

  Linda Flower

  Mercedes Freedman

  Kate Gemmell

  Andrew Gemmell

  Giles Goddard

  Eamonn Griffin

  Rufus Helm

  Gabor Hevesi

  Gábor Hevesi

  Mimi Hwang

  Dominique Jackson

  Mike James

  Elena Kaufman

  Stephen Kinsella

  Helene Kreysa

  Allison & Sean Krivatch

  Damon L. Wakes

  Kevin Lane

  Ann Karina Lassen

  Karin Lilleberg

  Jane Lomax

  Adrienne Lyster

  Mandy Marshall

  Anthony McAulay

  Juliet McDonald

  Craig Melvin

  John Mitchinson

  Mary Monro

  Naomi Moore

  Lauren Mulville

  David Nicholls

  Kwaku Osei-Afrifa

  Jan Page

  Nasrin Parvaz

  Sally Peterson

  Juliet Pospielovsky

  James Atkinson & Rebecca Pretty

  James Raiher

  Philip Reeve

  Stephanie Ressort

  Leslie Rice

  Rachel Ritchie

  Deborah Roberts

  Helen Robertson

  Janet Rutter

  Dee Schouten

  Keri Selig

  Lucienne Smith

  Simon Stanley

  Jane Stewart

  John Talbot

  Brad Temple

  Jay Watson

  David Westhead

  Julie Wills

  Paul Woodgate

  Moira Wooley

  Timothy Wright

  Now and Then

  She has grown accustomed to the cold. The first astonishing snows fell on the forest canopy in her sixteenth summer, a few months after the sun had darkened and the dawn had drowned in dust. No one had seen such things. Now, as days and distance she cannot count have passed, the infant moves heavy in her belly and the snow is thick and set. It is days since she has eaten. The penetrating chill she has learned to bear, but the hunger never ceases to hurt.

  This ghosted woodland has outlived all use. She must soon attempt the open wastes beyond its borders, but not empty-handed. She moves downwind to the last of her traps, whispering a worthless prayer to the Spirits that have abandoned her. Nothing.

  Another stab of regret now for allowing the pregnant gazelle to skip her spear. She had lingered too long, feeling the life between them. T
hen, at her feet near the tangled trunk, scratch marks. She squats and digs, dragging splinters of stone and root under her cracked and bleeding nails, but it pays. The small creature that buried this hoard would suffer, if it had life enough to return here, but she would walk another day.

  *

  The odds were incalculable. How many different ways might the remains have been missed? Yet here they lie in a locked and chilled cabinet, waiting for their secrets to be revealed. As Eloise sets out to decode the genetic message they have left behind, she pictures the happy accident of their discovery. She imagines Max, the young Australian scientist climbing the ice cap on Mount Kenya, stopping to gulp the thin air before tumbling into a hidden crevasse.

  She feels him falling, senses the shudder at the end of the sturdy rope that saves him, the slow unwinding of its spin, the dizziness followed by the relief. She shares his dawning curiosity, the momentary disbelief, the rising excitement. For as Max kicks out in search of a foothold deep within the crevasse, a small section of the frozen wall crumbles away. What is exposed beneath is ancient and unyielding, but neither rock nor ice.

  She wonders, could he have suspected the true value of his find at the time, perhaps through some deep instinct sharpened by adrenalin? Certainly the clever fellow had prevented any further damage at the site and before his companions had hauled him out had marked the position of the skull with a climbing bolt, tied for good measure with his red bandana. But what if Max had not been leading the group that day, or they had taken a different route by only metres, or the glacier had not been weakened by unnatural warmth? What if, in desperation, he had clambered out before he could take a closer look? Serendipity, for Eloise, could be no better described than by the bequest of these bones.

  Regardless of the unique conditions that had unearthed them, here they are now at both the end and the beginning of their story and Eloise knows that she is privileged to be a part of it. It has been a struggle to get this far but finally, the elegance of a rare genetic alphabet is unravelling before her in bars and strips and gaps and repetitions. Together they compose the tale of a life, a single long-forgotten life, but it is more lovely to Eloise than Mozart. The breakthrough she has been anticipating for so long, a journey through the past delivering her so keenly into the present, and a gift she hopes will enrich understanding as much as it has her own life.

  *

  The agonies of labour have begun. She has carved a burrow in the dirt, lies on animal skins, breathes and squats and rolls and stifles her screams. She has seen what happens when the cries and scents of childbirth draw a predator. They are all so few now, hunter or hunted. The mating that created this crisis was tender but temporary and they had parted with little pain. To become attached was pointless – he was probably bone under snow by now. And yet, such a dangerous attachment is coming. She had felt this within weeks of failing to bleed. Whether the infant thrived within or withered, survived or succumbed, the bond has twisted tightly into her soul. She will live for it, die for it. Nothing will be the same.

  1

  Casting a casual glance in the mirror as she washed her hands and splashed some cool water on her face, Dr Eloise Kluft noticed the new strands of grey in her parting mingling with the blonde. Natural blonde. The Nordic blue eyes that had once, since emerging from childhood, seen pure love looking back into them, were now shot, tired and yellow. How time sneaks past us, she thought, how easily we become stuck in its footsteps, left behind in its rush to be somewhere else.

  It was true that the overhead strip lighting of the ladies’ room was far from kind. Nevertheless, she was drawn in by her own displeasure. Soon, this self-scrutiny inspired other questions. How did we concern ourselves with ageing, she wondered, or with our own physical identities, before we made mirrors? How did we measure or value such things?

  Eloise let the cool water run over the thin skin of her wrists as she maintained her examination of the stranger in reflection. The exercise was partly dispassionate observation, partly to punish herself for not keeping up with her life. There were more frown lines than crow’s feet, for sure, but what did that say? The little mole that her mother had loved to compare to an errant musical note was now subsiding into the fold between her nose and mouth. Once, she had been considered a beauty. Yes, she could allow herself that much without vanity. Maybe still, at forty-five, to those who could see beneath this prelude to decay. Ah, but what did any of that matter now?

  Eloise knew that the gold and the blue and the translucent skin were recessive phenotypes, and that her eye colour was a weak mutation that was unlikely to survive for many more generations. Much as the way this particular branch of her patriarchal name might go, not surviving beyond her own lifetime. How often had she been forced to explain how her crisp English accent came with this Scandinavian (‘No, no, not German’) surname? Or indeed, how often had she been required to sound out phonetically the syllables of her first name, ‘No, not Ail-oishe… no, not Ee-lice… no, no, don’t worry, but it’s Ell-o-eeze (please). Yes, yes, like the song.’ No wonder those closest to her had resorted to their own shortened variations. Elly, LoLo, Lou… she didn’t mind, but always appreciated it when anyone made the effort to get it right.

  Her phone began to vibrate in the deep pocket of her lab coat. She didn’t bother to pull her wrists from the stream of cool water to check it. If the call was work-related then it would come to her extension from the switchboard. She had no qualms about taking personal calls at the Institute, especially during a coffee break, but these days the most likely greeting when answering her mobile was an automated sales pitch.

  A few years ago she might have rushed to scan the screen as a reflex, just in case. Looking for those three simple letters, for the identification of her pain, for the faintest possibility of her heart’s reprieve, but she tortured herself no more. The single syllable that now seemed to name her every regret had long since been redacted, from all digital memory at least.

  How many rings was that now? Someone was keen. She was about to dip a wet hand into her pocket (just in case) when her phone gave up any hope of an answer and yielded to voicemail. Wiser and more resolute than its owner, perhaps? Whatever this call was about, it could wait. Eloise dried her hands and gave one last glance to the mirror, if only to double-check that, yes, she really was starting to show her age. Oh well, never mind, she thought, merely another biological process to observe. Back to work. Back to the comfort and the promise of the petri dish, the pipettes and the centrifuge… and tomorrow (tomorrow!) the delivery of such an opportunity, the beginning of a project that she could hardly believe was coming her way.

  As soon as she’d heard the rumours of the discovery, Eloise had abandoned pride, let go her reserve and lobbied, cajoled, pitched and persuaded, determined that she must participate in this venture in some way, whatever the cost. Now both she, and the Institute whose reputation she was gambling with, would have to prove themselves. Could there be anything in this remarkable find that they would be able to read?

  Eloise took her time to walk back to her laboratory, fantasising about relocating the work to the kind of wondrous new interiors enjoyed by the geneticists at the Natural History Museum. Her equipment was as good as any, her team top-notch (and the new grant was nothing less than a miracle) but despite its tired grandeur, this beloved old building would need to be gutted and refitted in order to compete with the sleek, seamless, light-draped luxury of the museum’s facility, even if working there might make one as much of an exhibit as the curiosities next door.

  Sometimes Eloise felt that she had come so far in life only to be returned to the design standards of her university days, stuck in a crumbling cloister, its classic innards updated only as recently and appealingly as the 70s or, if lucky perhaps, the 90s. The acres of synthetic finishes, the chipped and peeling laminate, the tone-upon-tone of grey – bar the occasional chromatic relief in sickly shades of salmon-pink or bird-poo green. The single exception was the sparkling new gla
ss-boxed ‘clean room’ – a centrepiece addition to her laboratory for which Eloise offered daily gratitude to the Foundation – and without which they may have failed to meet the criteria for winning the new project.

  The lab was as warm and sticky as she had left it, the archaic air-conditioning struggling to cope with weather that London, as usual, was poorly prepared for. But then, she lamented, weren’t we always confounded by our capricious climate? Falling leaves, sudden snowstorms, swelling rivers, all bringing us to a standstill of impotent surprise.

  It was amusing to see the Institute’s staff in such an informal state of undress. Lab coats abandoned (though not by Eloise, who had standards to set), ties askew, sleeves rolled, sweaty necks mopped with rags of cloakroom towelling, file covers requisitioned as fans. One or two sensible souls had raided their holiday wardrobes and Rory, her young, long-haired lab assistant, was squeezed into a frayed pair of cut-down jeans, his aerated sandals frowned upon but ultimately forgiven by the hygiene (if not the fashion) police.

  As she gave her team permission to leave early (maintenance needed more time on the ventilation) Eloise was not relishing the Tube ride home, proximity to all that other perspiration was the last thing she needed. She decided to avoid the crush of a station change and to walk ahead to the nearest Northern Line stop for a more direct journey home. But then she kept on walking, hoping it would appease the hormonal switchblade that she could sense was straining to snap open.

  Simple pleasures, these were always the solution. A cool shower, a classical CD on her prehistoric stereo and an hour outside in the hammock.

  Once home and this plan of relaxation accomplished, she discovered that the long, light evening was doing little to lift the unusual heat, even under the refreshing shade of her favourite silver birch. Eloise had grown to love her garden but it was a joy that had come late to her in life. God and gardening. They say that’s all that’s left to women of a certain age. Eloise would be horrified if she ever found god – or, at least, the god of any blind, restrictive conformity. Surely that would be the first indication of dementia and she would know how to take care of that. Write herself a prescription, before she forgot how and when to administer it with final effect. Done and dusted.