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Part Two
The Archaeologist
July 2011 - The Hay Moon
One
------------
The boy looks at the archaeologist.
    The archaeologist looks at the boy sometimes, too. But he has work to do, and limited money and limited time on the island.
    It is hard to get funding for this kind of dig, small and obscure, and the travel expenses alone have eaten a big chunk out of his budget. It has cost him a fortune to get his team up here, though he had to admit he is actually embarrassed by how little they're charging him at the Wardhouse - the island's only guest house.
    His team consists of three young graduates; again because they are cheap. Happily he can also say, hand on heart, that they are all three promising diggers. There's Lomadia, an American he's known since she was an undergraduate; Isabelle, a German girl, from Terrorvale, and finally there's Sjin, he's not from the island itself, but from the mainland, about a hundred miles south along the coast. In this remote part of the country, where distances are vast, that almost makes him a local.

------------But there's something about the boy that keeps taking Sips' attention away.
    Every day the boy comes to dig, and stands on a low bump, on one of the many in this corner of the meadow, to get a good view of their work. Every day, around noon, a woman's voice calls to him from behind a nearby garden hedge, and he disappears, presumably for lunch. Half an hour later he reappears, takes his spot on the mound, and spends the rest of the day watching.
    He must be about sixteen Sips supposes, but he's not the smallest of boys, quite strong, like a man twice that age. Sips suspects there is something wrong with him. He never speaks, though his lips are slightly parted most of the time, as if he is about to.
    In his hands, like a small child, he is always, always, holding a soft toy. It is a red fox. He holds it by its long tail, so it hangs from his big palm, dangling as if crucified.

Two
-------------It's nearly lunchtime, and though they have been here a week, it's not going well. Again, because of the money, Sips has not been able to bring all the equipment he would have liked.
    On the first morning, Sjin made a geographical study of the meadow, but the machine is lightweight, and gives rather weak signals. While Sjin walked up and down, through the hay, sticking the sensors of the magnetometer in at regular intervals, Sips, Lomadia and Isabelle crowded round the laptop, trying to shield the screen from the sun's glare, watching the scan of the field slowly emerge.
    There wasn't much to go on, in truth, but Sips decided to put two trenches in, a few metres apart, cutting across some of the features produced by Sjin's survey.
    Sips watched them now, Lomadia and Isabelle, working side by side in trench one. Lomadia is small but thin, and kind of laid back. It's not that he thinks she is lazy, she works as hard as the other two, it's just that everything she does is done smoothly, easily. She is languid.
    Isabelle is a Goth. She has a pierced nose, and pink hair, and always dressed in black. Odd earrings and strange haircuts are not unusual among his profession, he knows, but something about the way she has even managed to develop a Goth field dress sense amuses him. But she's a good worker, always smiling. He once asked her if she wasn't too happy to be a Goth, really, and Isabelle's excellent English let her down for once.
    "Excuse me, please?" she'd said.
    "Ignore me," Sips had replied.
    Sjin, Sips has decided, is great. He is exactly what he seems to be. A quite tall, handsome, smiley boy from the countryside. One who's bright enough to have gone to the big city to get himself educated, but still come away without losing the trusting generosity of his people.
    He talks carefully, as if considering everything, and is currently sporting a chestnut brown coloured, quite long beard and moustache and long hair, as if he's escaped from a seventies commune, though fortunately, one where they don't believe soap is the capitalists tool of oppression.
    Sips looks wistfully at Sjin, and while the girls are pretty, Lomadia in particular, it is Sjin who he thinks about the most, because he wishes he'd been more like Sjin when he was young.
    If he'd been more like Sjin, more confident, maybe he wouldn't have missed his chances in life, chances that sometimes only come along once. Sometimes they are single moments, he thinks, where your path divides, your life can go one way, so very different from another. Work out well, rather than be a failure. And if you miss those chances, he thinks, well, is that it?

------------His daydreams are disturbed by the women's voice, calling from behind the hedge. He's never seen her; her garden backs onto the meadow, and he guesses the roof they can see beyond belongs to the boy's house.
    She calls again.
    "Xephos!"
    The boy leaves his mound, and goes in for lunch.
    "Xephos!"

Three
------------
That evening, the four archaeologists sit round the communal supper table at the Wardhouse.
    Their landlord is a kindly old man, his wife is the cook; every evening they prepare and serve something simple, but delicious, all form the island, an island which seems to have everything its small population needs; sheep and goats for meat and milk, plenty of fish in the sea, lobsters, and even oyster. The fields are full of wheat, gently ripening, and there are orchards of fruit and fields of vegetables.
    When Sips tried to offer a little more for their food and lodging the landlord would hear nothing of it.
    "We do things differently here," he'd said. "What need have I for money? We have enough to cover out costs, and you are welcome visitors to our island. That is enough for us. We are always glad of visitors. Our little population has been dropping, you see. We used to be so many more, but not many babies are born on Blessed now"
    He'd smiled.
------------    It's an extraordinary place, Sips has decided, and he wonders if it's the sort of place he'd like to retire to one day. Maybe not. It might be a bit too simple, too quiet, even for his taste.
    There's always something a little odd about remote places, he think. That sense that things happen differently. That's all it is, though earlier that day, a man began to cut the hay in the meadow, not with a tractor and swather, but with a scythe, as if this were 1911, not 2011.
    And then there's the sun being up when it should be in bed. That would really mess with his sleep, and presumably it means in the winter it's perpetually dark, in return. That, he knows, he would not like.
    They've been given permission to dig in the far end of the meadow , but only for two weeks; they have used half their time.
    "Council of war," Sips says, as they push away their plates. "We need to find something, and quickly, or this dig will be written off and me with it."
    He smiles grimly.
    "So, what do we do?"
    Sips sighs. He's getting too old for long days in trenches with nothing to show for it. Once, he would have been excited anyway, just to have a trowel in his hands and the dirt under his fingernails. He looks at his three young keen accomplices.
    "What do you think? Lomadia, Isabelle, how's life in trench one? Anything giving you cause for hope?"
    Lomadia shakes her head. Languidly.
    "Nope. I know we found some resistance when Sjin did the geophysics, but I'm dubious. No offence, Sjin."
    Sjin raises a hand.
    "None taken. The equipment is . . ."
    He stops, realising it's an implied criticism of Sips.
    ". . . is rubbish," Sips finishes. "Don't worry, I apologise. It's all we could afford to transport."
    "I know this is not how you're supposed to do it," Isabelle says, "but I'd love to have a go at some of the mounds round the edge of the field."
    Sips smiles inwardly at her excellent English idiom. Have a go.
    "No, Isabelle, that is not how we're supposed to do it. Proper archaeologists do not just have a go . . ."
    Sips takes another drink of beer.
    "Listen, I'm the boss. I'll have to think overnight and decide on a new plan for tomorrow, okay. At least we've had great weather. We can all go home with no artefacts, but lovely suntan. Even you, Isabelle."
    They laugh.
    Isabelle pretends to glare at Sips, then smiles too.
    "Yes, but you know, even if it was raining, I would like to bet that boy would be standing there, watching us."
    They all agree.
    I think he's a bit creepy," Lomadia says.
    "No. Don't be mean," Sjin says. "He's okay. He's just interested."
    "But that toy. He must be fifteen, sixteen? That's a bit weird, isn't it?"
    Sips nods but says nothing.
    "Yes," says Isabelle, "but there is something about him. His eyes."
    "His eyes?" asks Lomadia.
    "Yes, his eyes," Isabelle says. "His eyes . . . it seems like he knows something, but is saying nothing."
    It is a remark that Sips finds disconcerting, because he had been about to say that very same thing.

Four
------------Next morning, Sips rises early, and helps himself to breakfast. He leaves a note for the others to join him at the site, and makes his way from the Wardhouse along the lane that runs beside the meadow, to the far end, where they have been digging.
    He wants to stand at the site.
    He as spent all night half-awake, wrestling with what decision to make. To abandon their two trenches, and to start new ones, or to persevere. It's a hard call, because there's no reason to take one over the other.
    And he has come early to the site, without the others, because he is too ashamed to confess that all he wants to do is stand there, and prey to the gods of Archaeology for a sign of what to do.
    It's a slightly damp morning, but the sun is already up, of course, and the dew is starting to steam off the meadow. It will be another hot day.
    Sips surveys the dig, and the meadow in general. He marvels at it, because if he had been God (though he's very glad he's not) and he were designing an island, Blessed is just what he would have drawn. It has two large natural harbours, one at each end of the island, and many other smaller ones round its shoreline. It has a high ridge of hills to the west, a lower one to the east, between them is a valley, which flattens out into the meadow where they are digging; a natural safe haven, and one that the Vikings used in the wintertime. A dig in 1902 found evidence what is written in the old sagas, that after a long season of raiding in the south and west, they would hurry back to the island, and draw their longboats up onto the meadow, to overwinter in safety. He pictures the scene, imagines the man and women and the horses straining to drag the proud ships out of the water and into the meadow. Knarrs were big boats, but light enough to be carried short distances if need be. Nonetheless, it must have been quite a sight.
    His attention snaps back tot he present, and he thinks how far the world had come in a thousand years, how the island had changed in that time. And what will it be like in another thousand years? People, most people, always assume that civilisations steadily increase, that the world improves, becomes more peaceful, and it very often does. But if there's one thing he's learned in his days as an archaeologist, it's that this is not always the case. Sometimes, when civilisation falters, sometimes, things become more primitive again. More primitive, and more violent.
    He stands with his hands on his hips, looking around at what they have done so far, and shakes his head.
    "You should dig here," says a voice behind him.
    He turns to see the boy, Xephos, in his usual spot. Sips suddenly wonders if he's been there all along, watching. He's so preoccupied that it's possible. He imagines the boy standing out all night, on the mound, bathing in silver moonlight.
    Xephos' pointing at his feet, his fox in his hand, as always.
    "Sorry. Sorry, what did you say?"
    But Xephos does not answer, and though Sips tries gently to coax more out of him, he won't be drawn.
    "Here?" says Sips, quietly. "Here?"
    He hears the others approaching, come out early to find him, and he backs away from Xephos, as if he's feeling guilty about talking to him.
    As the others arrive, he notices Xephos move from the mound he always stands on, to another nearby.
    "Well, boss?" says Lomadia.
    Sips pauses, wonders if he's about to say what he thinks he's about to say.
    "Well. This is the decision. Sjin and I are going to continue in trench two. But I would like, in fact, I would love, for you and Isabelle to have a go at that mound. That one. Right there."
    There is a moment's silence in which no one says anything.
    "There is good methodology for this?" Isabelle asks. There's a twinkle in her eye.
    Sjin and Lomadia both look at the grass.
    Sips hesitates again, then smiles quickly.
    "Absolutely! But we don't have time to discuss it. So let's dig people, yes? Dig!"

Five
------------There are moments in everyone's life, Sips thinks, when you just have to go with gut instinct. Especially at those times when you are faced with a fifty-fifty call, if there's even the slightest feeling tugging you one way, you'd better do what that feeling tells you.
    That's what Sips convinces himself, and keeps repeating.
    Time and again, Sjin has to draw his attention back to the pit they're in, because Sips keeps stopping and looking across to where the girls are working, desperate to see something come up in the mound. Anything.
    The morning wears on.
    The mood worsens.
    The only word they hear is spoken by the voice behind the hedge.
    "Xephos!"
    Sips sighs.
    "Let's take lunch too. We had an earlier start than normal."
    No on speaks.

------------Xephos is back on his new mound sooner after lunch today. They're still chewing sandwiches and munching crisps when he reappears. It doesn't seem to bother him that they're not working, he stands watching, as interested as ever.
    Finally Sips can take it no longer.
    "Come on," he says. "Let's give the boy something to be proud of."
    Lomadia winks at Isabelle and taps the side of her head, twice. Languidly.

------------In half an hour, Isabelle shrieks.
    She actually shrieks.
    "Oh God! I think I found something."
    She has.

------------The afternoon goes by quickly, as the two girls begin to uncover their remarkable find. Sips and Sjin cannot fit in the trench to help too, but they have abandoned their own dig; it is too exciting not to watch.
    They have found a pile of stones, the sort of thing that does not seem very exciting to anyone but an archaeology.
    A pile of stones, but a particular sort of pile, a cairn, and Sips knows that it is very likely that there is a find underneath the cairn.
    He has seen one before, and is impatient. But these things have to be done properly. First the last of the soil must be removed from around the stones, and then the stones must be photographed, and drawn on the grid paper, and only then will they be able to lift them, and find out for sure if what they have found is what Sips thinks it is; a Viking burial.
    He has a doubt. He has a doubt because the cairn is small, much smaller than the burial sites he has seen before. He worked on one once that was vast. Beneath the stones lay the remains of a Viking longboat, most of the wood long rotten away, but obvious to the expert eye, nevertheless.
    This one is small, and will barely have room for a single body, but something convinces Sips that he is right.
    He paces up and down behind the girls, trying to stop himself from telling them what to do every five minutes. They know what to do, because he taught them himself. Sjin is being more sensible, sitting on the grass by the girls' trench, helping them when he can, and sifting through the spoil when he can't.
    Xephos watches, wordlessly, though sometimes he lifts the fox to his lips.
    Finally, they begin to raise the stones.
    Sips holds his breath, and as they lever away enough of the stones, he turns and actually punches the air, silently.
    "Yes," he mutters under his breathe.
    Under the cairn is a cist; exactly what he had been hoping for, a box in the ground, with slabs of stone for walls. Essentially a primitive coffin.
    A stone box, with a stone lid.
    Sips steps into the trench.
    "Okay now, people, this is going to take all of us."
    They cramp into the trench, at each side of the lid.
    Their fingers curl under what lips of the lid they can feel. Their flesh touches stone that has not seen light for eleven centuries.
    They are silent, but they catch each other's eyes, and see the suppressed excitement in each other.
    Sips is wrong however, even with all four of them, they cannot lift the lid.
    Sips straightens his back, curses.
    Then a shadow is cast over the trench, and he looks up to see Xephos.
    Sips considers the situation. He looks at the boy, young, but strong looking.
    "Do you want to help us, Xephos?" He says.
    Xephos doesn't say anything, but he places his fox gently on the grass, and climbs down into the trenches with the others.
    Now it's even more of a squeeze, but they just manage to find a place to stand.
    "On three," says Sips, "One . . ."
But Xephos is already lifting.
    My God, thinks Sips, but the boy is strong. He can feel Xephos doing most of the lifting, and they follow his lead, as they shift the stone up and then to one side, and slide it onto the grass.
    They look.
    "Oh my . . ." says Isabelle.
    ". . .God," says Lomadia.
    There are bones in the cist. They are long human bones.
    They are somewhat jumbled however, and it takes each of them a moment to realise there is more than one set of bones in the coffin, but it is true, for there below them in the stone box are two skulls.
    They start to decode what they are seeing.
    There is a larger skull, and larger skeleton, and a smaller.
    "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lomadia asks.
    Sips says nothing.
    "Yes," says Sjin, simply. "The larger one is holding the smaller one. That is how it seems to me."

------------Xephos steps back, picks up his fox, and goes to stand on his new mound again.
    He shakes his head, gently.
    "Well, so it is," he says, though no one hears him.

Six
------------That evening, when they finish work, Sips sends the others back to the Wardhouse without him.
    There is something he wants to do.
    As they pack up, he notices Xephos has already gone, but he knows where he lives, and he takes the slightly different path out of the meadow, into the lane, and up the steps to Xephos' front door.
    He knocks and waits.
    It's quiet inside, and he wonders if he has made a mistake, but he hears soft footsteps and the door opens.
    A woman stands in front of him. She is about his own age, and has an open, kind face.
    "Well?" she says. Then, "Oh, I know who you are. You're the archaeologist aren't you? Speak of the devil! Xephos has been telling me about you. Won't you come in and have some tea?"
    Sips is a little thrown. He can't imagine Xephos saying much at all, for one thing.
    "I . . . that's very kind. I just wanted to come and thank Xephos for his help today. We couldn't have managed without him."
    The woman laughs.
    "Think nothing of it. It is I who should be thanking you. Please, come in and have some tea. We don't get so many visitors."
    Sips finds that surprising, because the woman lovely. Yes, she's middle aged, as he is, probably a bit younger, but the small lines around her eyes only seem to highlight their elegance and blueness. But maybe Sips keeps people away, maybe some people aren't comfortable with someone like . . .
    Someone like what?
    Sips tells himself off. He's just another human being, he's different, in his own way. Just like everyone. Though he's still surprised that Xephos' mother says he's been chatting away about the dig.
    "I'm Sips," he says, holding out his hand.
    She shakes it firmly.
    "I'm Xevphera," she says.

Seven
------------Xephos sits at the table through from the kitchen, playing with his fox. Close to, Sips sees that it is very old; the boy has probably had it since he was a baby. It is tattered and torn, and has obviously been repaired many, many times.
    Xephos hops the fox across the table one way, then back again, his lips moving wordlessly as if speaking magic to the toy.
    "Yay, I mean it," Xevphera says, as she makes tea. "I can't remember when he was so interested in something. When something made im so happy.
    Happy? thinks Sips.
    He doesn't seem particularly happy, but then, maybe he has his own way of showing it. Doesn't everyone?
    "He said he helped you lift a big stone . . .?"
    "He practically lifted it all by himself. But yes, that's right."
    "He's a strong boy, that's for sure," she says. "Well, Xephos and I accept your thanks, don't we Xephos?"
    She calls through to the dining room where Xephos sits.
    He looks up, briefly, and nods. Then he carries on playing with his fox.
   "But that's not really what I came to thank him for."
    "Oh?"
    Sips pauses. This is the tricky bit. Where he admits he threw away twenty-six years of professional training because an idiot told him where to dig.
    Idiot? He hates himself for even thinking that word. Castigates himself.
    He looks through at Xephos.
    Coughs.
    "The thing is . . . the thing is, Xevphera, that Xephos told us where to dig, and we found something amazing. We were having no joy, nothing. Finding nothing, and then Xephos told me where to dig this morning, and hey presto! We've hit this incredible find."
    Maybe Xevphera doesn't understand what he's saying, doesn't get how archaeology works, because she doesn't seem interested in Xephos' tip-off.
    "What did you find?"
    "Viking burial. Not uncommon itself, but this one is very unusual. I've never seen anything like it before. In fact, I might be going to make my career here. Finally. I don't think anyone's seen anything like it. Ever."
    "Well, then," says Xevphera. "You'll have to thank Xephos for that too. Xephos? Did you hear that? You've made this nice man famous! Isn't that good?"
    "Thanks, Xephos!" Sips calls, laughing, but Xephos frowns. He gets up from the table, and hurries upstairs.
    "Did I upset him?" Sips asks. "I'm sorry. I . . ."
    Xevphera shakes her head.
    "He's hard to understand. Don't worry, he's fine. He's like that sometimes. He's very shy, you see. Very shy."
    Sips wants to ask something, but doesn't know how to say it. But he is genuinely interested in the boy, he likes him, though he barely knows him.
    "What. . . I mean," he says, fumbling for the words, "Was he . . .?"
    "You mean why is he like this?" Xevphera says. She is not offended. "Don't worry. I'm actually glad that you asked straight out. Most people beat around the bush, or avoid us altogether."
    "Which is their loss," Sips says, aloud, before he knows what he's saying.
    Xevphera hesitates. A little light comes into her eyes.
    "You're right, Sips, it's their loss."
    She touches his forearm, very gently, very briefly.
    "He wasn't born like this. He was born what those other kind of people would call normal. It happened when he was two."
    She hesitates again for a moment, remembering.
    "It was this time of year. The hay moon. They had started to cut the hay in the meadow, and Xephos . . . Xephos . . . I couldn't find him. He was here one minute, and I was putting washing out in the garden, and then he was gone. I couldn't find him. I got really desperate, you know. As a parent there's . . . Well, anyway, the next thing was that I heard shouts from the meadow. I ran outside.
    "That was where Xephos had been. He'd crawled into the hay. It was long, and he must have been hidden. Someone hit him in the grass with a scythe. It didn't cut him, thank God, it his him on the back swing. It hit him in the head. He was unconscious, we thought he was not going to . . ."
    She pauses again.
    "I'm sorry," says Sips. "I shouldn't have asked."
    "No, it's okay. Really. I just haven't told this story in a while. No one is interested, you see."
    "I am," says Sips, quietly.
    Xevphera mouths the words 'thank you'.
    "When he woke up, we knew something was wrong immediately. He was still our little boy, but he had changed. As he grew up, it became more and more obvious."
    "What was he doing in the hay anyway?
    "Who knows? Who knows how a tiny child's mind works? But, well, I've always thought it was because of the fox's. Have you seen the fox's? On the island?"
    Sips shakes his head.
    "Well, keep watching, there are lots of them, and Xephos was fascinated by them, even when he was tiny. They often sit in the long grass of the meadow, before it's cut. When the scything starts, you can see them bolt for cover somewhere. I think Xephos wanted to be a fox, that's all."
    Suddenly Xevphera grasps Sips' hand earnestly.
    "I love him so much. I'd do anything for him, you know? Do you have children, Sips?"
    He shakes his head. Thinks about her hand on his.
    "I just can't reach him. Not how a mother should. He goes away from me, as if he's on a journey somewhere, somewhere I can't follow. Seeing things I can't see. I can't explain."
    She breaks off, then tries once more.
    "It's like loving someone from another world."
    There's a long pause, and then Sips knows there is something else he has to ask, something that has been unspoken but that has been implied in everything since the moment he crossed the threshold into this quiet house, of son, and mother.
    "Who did it?"
    Xevphera doesn't reply. She half turns, tilting her head. But Sips cannot let it go.
    "Who was it, who hit him with the scythe? I mean it was an accident, of course, but who did it?"
    again Xevphera pauses a long time before answering.
    "It was his father. My husband."
    "Where is he now?" Sips whispers, so quietly he can barely hear his own voice.
    Xevphera's eyes moisten.
    "He couldn't cope with what he'd done to our little boy. He's . . . gone."

Eight
------------
Over supper, the four discuss the find, what it means, how to proceed, but despite the excitement, Sips' mind is only half on the job. The other half of his thoughts are in a house by a meadow, the other half of his thoughts are in that hay meadow, fourteen years ago, as a small boy crawls through the long grass, and curls up to sleep, with his friends, the foxes.
    The others talk.
    "There's an adult and a child, that's clear," says Sjin.
    "No, it could be a small woman," says Isabelle. "And we don't know either sex as yet. Tomorrow, if we lift the skull we should be able to tell something from that."
    "Hip bones are useful too."
    "Sometimes."
    "Well, my guess," says Lomadia, "Is that it's a parent and child. They must have died at the same time, probably disease, and were buried together. The child in the arms of the mother. Or father."
    "That's so sad."
    "It's kind of nice, too, though," Lomadia says. "It's so protective. As id the parent is keeping their child safe. Even in death. Did you ever read about that Mesolithic burial with the skeleton of a child, lain on a swan's wing? I think that's beautiful too. Like the wing would fly it to heaven."
    Finally Sips snaps out of his trance.
    "Well, we know what we know and what we don't know we will learn. Tomorrow, Lomadia and Isabelle will go on with the bones. Sjin and I will continue trench two. There's no room for us in the cist, and we'll only get in your way."
    "Are you sure?" Lomadia says.
    "Absolutely. But we're going to do it all properly. Which means I have to phone the university in the morning, and that means that in three days, four at the most, many other hands will be here, crawling all over our find."
    The three are outraged.
    "Come on," Sips says, "You know how this works. You're going to have to get used to it. But look at it this way. For the next three days, possibly four, it's all ours, so let's do what we can in the meantime."
    He winks.

------------
They are pleased with their find, but they are unaware that next day they will find something just as remarkable, though it will not be eleven centuries old.
    It will be a mere sixty years old, and it is lethal.

Nine
------------They spend the following day working carefully at the dig, and while Lomadia and Isabelle begin to lift the bones, Sjin and Sips start to make some progress with their trench.
    Once more, Xephos watches from the mound, clutching his fox tightly.
    They've gone really deep now, and have found something that looks like cut wood, not as exciting as the other trench, but possible evidence of settlement, and if the full picture of the cist is to be made clear, they need to build up an impression of the surrounding environment too.
    "Should we prop?" Sjin asks Sips, mid-morning.
    Sips looks at the trench.
    "Not yet. No. If we were deeper, or the substrata less coherent, I would say yes."
    Sjin doesn't look convinced.
    "Are you sure? We've gone much deeper, even this morning."
    Sips knows the boy is right, really; the pit is deep. But they don't have time to go buy wood on the mainland and make the props and fit them, when all he really wants to do is see what the bones are showing.
    "We're okay. We'll press on."
    Sjin takes one last look at the ground level, now some way above his head, and back at the ladder which they use to climb into the trench, and then he bends to his work again.

------------Xephos stands sentinel, watching Lomadia and Isabelle. He has come a little closer today, and holds the fox tightly to his chest, stroking its back from time to time.
    The girls lift each bone very, very carefully, as if they are dangerous, because they are so fragile they could shatter at any moment.
    As far as they can see, there are no remains of clothing, but there might be microscopic fragments that can be identified in the lab, later.
    Then Lomadia sees something.
    "Hello," she says. "What are you?"
    Apart from bones, the grave has seemed bare, but now they have untwined the arms of the man from the arms of the child (as she likes the think of them), and lifted the child's skull and ribs, she has a better view of the adult.
    "Something's here!" she calls.
    Sips doesn't hear, but Sjin does.
    "They've found something. Shall we go and look?"
    "No . . ." says Sips. Then, "Yes, dammit. Come on."
    "I'll be right there," Sjin says. "Just finished this."
    Sips climbs out first, up the ladder, and over to the cist. Sjin turns to follow, and is half way up the ladder, when something catches his eye.
    In the end wall of the trench, behind the ladder, just below the surface something is poking out of the soil.
    He pulls his trowel from his back pocket, and takes a little scrape.
    What he sees intrigues him so much, he makes another little scrape. And then a bigger now. He sees metal, and now he carefully digs a whole chunk of soil from the side of the metal.
    He realises what he is looking at, and jumps in fright. His feet lip on the damp rungs of the ladder, and he flails at the earth as he falls, dislodging a vast section of the wall, which falls away freakishly.
    He shouts, but he's already lying on the bottom of the trench, covered up to his chest in the fall.
    Now, almost half exposed, the back end of a bomb hangs above his head.

Ten
------------At that moment, Lomadia had been about to show Sips what she'd just found in the grave. The spongy, fragile remains of wood among the bones of the adult skeleton.
    One part at the chest, the other between the jaws.

------------They hear Sjin's cry, and the tumble of the earth, and from that moment on, everything is blurry.

------------In a moment, they are at the pit.
    At first, they are simply relieved to see that Sjin is not fully covered, as they take in the mess of mud, Sjin and the ladder. Then they see the horror on his face, as he points wordlessly to the shell, now hanging out of the collapsed wall, right above his head.
    "Oh God," says Sips, in a very small voice.
    Then he shouts.
    "Go! To Xephos' house. His mother can call emergency. Go!"
    The girls run, and Xephos edges round to the slightly safer end of the trench.
    "Sjin. It's going to be okay. They've gone for help. They'll get some help."
    Sjin is scared. In shock form the fall, maybe a bone broken too.
    "Sips," he says. "Sips, Sips . . ."
    "Help will come soon," Sips says, but then he thinks that's probably not true. There's not even a police station on the island, which means sending a boat from the mainland, from Voltia, which will take at least half an hour.
    At that thought, Sips looks up to the far end of the trench, at the bomb, and at the same moment he hears a scream.
    The scream is Xevphera, running across the field.
    She's screaming because Xephos is kneeling at the trench, by the bomb.
    Lomadia and Isabelle catch up with Xevphera, and grab her wrists, dragging her backwards, trying to stop her from reaching Xephos.
    "No! Xephos, no!" she wails.
    Lomadia pulls her back, hard, no longer languid.
    Xephos looks across the pit at Sips.
There's no way he can rush him, get round to him in time. He thinks quickly, speaks calmly but firmly.
    "No, Xephos. It's dangerous. Go to your mother, now, Xephos. It's dangerous here."
    Sjin is lying at the bottom of the hole, fully comprehending the situation.
    "Sips, Sips, Sips," he whimpers, repeatedly.
    "Xephos. No!"
    Xephos takes no notice of Sips.
    He leans over, and closes his fingers around the tail fin of the rusty shell, dropped by a dive-bomber in the closing stages of the war.
    Now, no one dares breathe, even Xevphera has gone quiet, though she struggles to break free.
    At the trench, Xephos stands.
    The bomb is in his hands.
    Sips stands too, his legs turning to water.
    Xephos looks up at him.
    "Xephos. It's dangerous."
    By way of reply, Xephos stuffs his fox into his jacket pocket, then takes hold of the shell again with both hands.
    In the pit, Sjin is moaning.
    Above it, Sips, Xevphera, Lomadia and Isabelle watch as Xephos walks across the meadow with the unexploded bomb, heading for the quayside.
    In slow motion, they see him climb the steps to the quay, walk slowly along the stone pier, past all the fishing boats, and stand, a lone figure isolated against the seascape beyond.
    He drops the shell into the water, where it slips immediately and quickly out of sight with barely a splash, and calmly Xephos turns back to the meadow.
    As they run to meet him, and throw their arms around him, he is chewing the ear of his fox.
    "It's dangerous, mummy," he says.
    Xevphera cries, and cries, and Sips cries too, then pulls himself together. He is responsible here.
    "Xephos, you are so strong. We need to get Sjin out of the hole. Can you do that? Can you help us?"
    Xephos nods.

------------Later that day, when everyone has calmed down, they sit around the table in Xevphera's house.
    Sjin is fine, just a sprained knee to show for his near premature burial. Everyone is drinking tea, which Xevphera assures them is the best thing for their nerves.
    "It'll help you sleep tonight," she says. "You too, Xephos. Drink up."
    She comes and stands behind her son, and puts her hands on his shoulders.
    "You silly boy," she says, trying to sound bright. "You could have been hurt. You could have been killed."
    Xephos turns and looks up at his mother.
    "No. I couldn't die. I'm not quite the last."
    Lomadia and Isabelle look at Sips for some explanation. He shakes his head.
    "Don't worry about Xephos," Xevphera explains. "He sometimes says things that don't really make sense to me."
    "I wouldn't have him any other way," Sips says, putting his arm around Xevphera, because it just feels right to.
    He's never had children of his own. He thought that time was past, but who knows, he thinks maybe it's not too late yet.
    He knows he'd be proud to call Xephos his son, even is he does say strange things, sometimes.
    Xephos smiles.
    "I'm not quite the last," he says again.

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Part Two
The Archaeologist
July 2011 - The Hay Moon
One
------------
The boy looks at the archaeologist.
    The archaeologist looks at the boy sometimes, too. But he has work to do, and limited money and limited time on the island.
    It is hard to get funding for this kind of dig, small and obscure, and the travel expenses alone have eaten a big chunk out of his budget. It has cost him a fortune to get his team up here, though he had to admit he is actually embarrassed by how little they're charging him at the Wardhouse - the island's only guest house.
    His team consists of three young graduates; again because they are cheap. Happily he can also say, hand on heart, that they are all three promising diggers. There's Lomadia, an American he's known since she was an undergraduate; Isabelle, a German girl, from Terrorvale, and finally there's Sjin, he's not from the island itself, but from the mainland, about a hundred miles south along the coast. In this remote part of the country, where distances are vast, that almost makes him a local.

------------But there's something about the boy that keeps taking Sips' attention away.
    Every day the boy comes to dig, and stands on a low bump, on one of the many in this corner of the meadow, to get a good view of their work. Every day, around noon, a woman's voice calls to him from behind a nearby garden hedge, and he disappears, presumably for lunch. Half an hour later he reappears, takes his spot on the mound, and spends the rest of the day watching.
    He must be about sixteen Sips supposes, but he's not the smallest of boys, quite strong, like a man twice that age. Sips suspects there is something wrong with him. He never speaks, though his lips are slightly parted most of the time, as if he is about to.
    In his hands, like a small child, he is always, always, holding a soft toy. It is a red fox. He holds it by its long tail, so it hangs from his big palm, dangling as if crucified.

Two
-------------It's nearly lunchtime, and though they have been here a week, it's not going well. Again, because of the money, Sips has not been able to bring all the equipment he would have liked.
    On the first morning, Sjin made a geographical study of the meadow, but the machine is lightweight, and gives rather weak signals. While Sjin walked up and down, through the hay, sticking the sensors of the magnetometer in at regular intervals, Sips, Lomadia and Isabelle crowded round the laptop, trying to shield the screen from the sun's glare, watching the scan of the field slowly emerge.
    There wasn't much to go on, in truth, but Sips decided to put two trenches in, a few metres apart, cutting across some of the features produced by Sjin's survey.
    Sips watched them now, Lomadia and Isabelle, working side by side in trench one. Lomadia is small but thin, and kind of laid back. It's not that he thinks she is lazy, she works as hard as the other two, it's just that everything she does is done smoothly, easily. She is languid.
    Isabelle is a Goth. She has a pierced nose, and pink hair, and always dressed in black. Odd earrings and strange haircuts are not unusual among his profession, he knows, but something about the way she has even managed to develop a Goth field dress sense amuses him. But she's a good worker, always smiling. He once asked her if she wasn't too happy to be a Goth, really, and Isabelle's excellent English let her down for once.
    "Excuse me, please?" she'd said.
    "Ignore me," Sips had replied.
    Sjin, Sips has decided, is great. He is exactly what he seems to be. A quite tall, handsome, smiley boy from the countryside. One who's bright enough to have gone to the big city to get himself educated, but still come away without losing the trusting generosity of his people.
    He talks carefully, as if considering everything, and is currently sporting a chestnut brown coloured, quite long beard and moustache and long hair, as if he's escaped from a seventies commune, though fortunately, one where they don't believe soap is the capitalists tool of oppression.
    Sips looks wistfully at Sjin, and while the girls are pretty, Lomadia in particular, it is Sjin who he thinks about the most, because he wishes he'd been more like Sjin when he was young.
    If he'd been more like Sjin, more confident, maybe he wouldn't have missed his chances in life, chances that sometimes only come along once. Sometimes they are single moments, he thinks, where your path divides, your life can go one way, so very different from another. Work out well, rather than be a failure. And if you miss those chances, he thinks, well, is that it?

------------His daydreams are disturbed by the women's voice, calling from behind the hedge. He's never seen her; her garden backs onto the meadow, and he guesses the roof they can see beyond belongs to the boy's house.
    She calls again.
    "Xephos!"
    The boy leaves his mound, and goes in for lunch.
    "Xephos!"

Three
------------
That evening, the four archaeologists sit round the communal supper table at the Wardhouse.
    Their landlord is a kindly old man, his wife is the cook; every evening they prepare and serve something simple, but delicious, all form the island, an island which seems to have everything its small population needs; sheep and goats for meat and milk, plenty of fish in the sea, lobsters, and even oyster. The fields are full of wheat, gently ripening, and there are orchards of fruit and fields of vegetables.
    When Sips tried to offer a little more for their food and lodging the landlord would hear nothing of it.
    "We do things differently here," he'd said. "What need have I for money? We have enough to cover out costs, and you are welcome visitors to our island. That is enough for us. We are always glad of visitors. Our little population has been dropping, you see. We used to be so many more, but not many babies are born on Blessed now"
    He'd smiled.
------------    It's an extraordinary place, Sips has decided, and he wonders if it's the sort of place he'd like to retire to one day. Maybe not. It might be a bit too simple, too quiet, even for his taste.
    There's always something a little odd about remote places, he think. That sense that things happen differently. That's all it is, though earlier that day, a man began to cut the hay in the meadow, not with a tractor and swather, but with a scythe, as if this were 1911, not 2011.
    And then there's the sun being up when it should be in bed. That would really mess with his sleep, and presumably it means in the winter it's perpetually dark, in return. That, he knows, he would not like.
    They've been given permission to dig in the far end of the meadow , but only for two weeks; they have used half their time.
    "Council of war," Sips says, as they push away their plates. "We need to find something, and quickly, or this dig will be written off and me with it."
    He smiles grimly.
    "So, what do we do?"
    Sips sighs. He's getting too old for long days in trenches with nothing to show for it. Once, he would have been excited anyway, just to have a trowel in his hands and the dirt under his fingernails. He looks at his three young keen accomplices.
    "What do you think? Lomadia, Isabelle, how's life in trench one? Anything giving you cause for hope?"
    Lomadia shakes her head. Languidly.
    "Nope. I know we found some resistance when Sjin did the geophysics, but I'm dubious. No offence, Sjin."
    Sjin raises a hand.
    "None taken. The equipment is . . ."
    He stops, realising it's an implied criticism of Sips.
    ". . . is rubbish," Sips finishes. "Don't worry, I apologise. It's all we could afford to transport."
    "I know this is not how you're supposed to do it," Isabelle says, "but I'd love to have a go at some of the mounds round the edge of the field."
    Sips smiles inwardly at her excellent English idiom. Have a go.
    "No, Isabelle, that is not how we're supposed to do it. Proper archaeologists do not just have a go . . ."
    Sips takes another drink of beer.
    "Listen, I'm the boss. I'll have to think overnight and decide on a new plan for tomorrow, okay. At least we've had great weather. We can all go home with no artefacts, but lovely suntan. Even you, Isabelle."
    They laugh.
    Isabelle pretends to glare at Sips, then smiles too.
    "Yes, but you know, even if it was raining, I would like to bet that boy would be standing there, watching us."
    They all agree.
    I think he's a bit creepy," Lomadia says.
    "No. Don't be mean," Sjin says. "He's okay. He's just interested."
    "But that toy. He must be fifteen, sixteen? That's a bit weird, isn't it?"
    Sips nods but says nothing.
    "Yes," says Isabelle, "but there is something about him. His eyes."
    "His eyes?" asks Lomadia.
    "Yes, his eyes," Isabelle says. "His eyes . . . it seems like he knows something, but is saying nothing."
    It is a remark that Sips finds disconcerting, because he had been about to say that very same thing.

Four
------------Next morning, Sips rises early, and helps himself to breakfast. He leaves a note for the others to join him at the site, and makes his way from the Wardhouse along the lane that runs beside the meadow, to the far end, where they have been digging.
    He wants to stand at the site.
    He as spent all night half-awake, wrestling with what decision to make. To abandon their two trenches, and to start new ones, or to persevere. It's a hard call, because there's no reason to take one over the other.
    And he has come early to the site, without the others, because he is too ashamed to confess that all he wants to do is stand there, and prey to the gods of Archaeology for a sign of what to do.
    It's a slightly damp morning, but the sun is already up, of course, and the dew is starting to steam off the meadow. It will be another hot day.
    Sips surveys the dig, and the meadow in general. He marvels at it, because if he had been God (though he's very glad he's not) and he were designing an island, Blessed is just what he would have drawn. It has two large natural harbours, one at each end of the island, and many other smaller ones round its shoreline. It has a high ridge of hills to the west, a lower one to the east, between them is a valley, which flattens out into the meadow where they are digging; a natural safe haven, and one that the Vikings used in the wintertime. A dig in 1902 found evidence what is written in the old sagas, that after a long season of raiding in the south and west, they would hurry back to the island, and draw their longboats up onto the meadow, to overwinter in safety. He pictures the scene, imagines the man and women and the horses straining to drag the proud ships out of the water and into the meadow. Knarrs were big boats, but light enough to be carried short distances if need be. Nonetheless, it must have been quite a sight.
    His attention snaps back tot he present, and he thinks how far the world had come in a thousand years, how the island had changed in that time. And what will it be like in another thousand years? People, most people, always assume that civilisations steadily increase, that the world improves, becomes more peaceful, and it very often does. But if there's one thing he's learned in his days as an archaeologist, it's that this is not always the case. Sometimes, when civilisation falters, sometimes, things become more primitive again. More primitive, and more violent.
    He stands with his hands on his hips, looking around at what they have done so far, and shakes his head.
    "You should dig here," says a voice behind him.
    He turns to see the boy, Xephos, in his usual spot. Sips suddenly wonders if he's been there all along, watching. He's so preoccupied that it's possible. He imagines the boy standing out all night, on the mound, bathing in silver moonlight.
    Xephos' pointing at his feet, his fox in his hand, as always.
    "Sorry. Sorry, what did you say?"
    But Xephos does not answer, and though Sips tries gently to coax more out of him, he won't be drawn.
    "Here?" says Sips, quietly. "Here?"
    He hears the others approaching, come out early to find him, and he backs away from Xephos, as if he's feeling guilty about talking to him.
    As the others arrive, he notices Xephos move from the mound he always stands on, to another nearby.
    "Well, boss?" says Lomadia.
    Sips pauses, wonders if he's about to say what he thinks he's about to say.
    "Well. This is the decision. Sjin and I are going to continue in trench two. But I would like, in fact, I would love, for you and Isabelle to have a go at that mound. That one. Right there."
    There is a moment's silence in which no one says anything.
    "There is good methodology for this?" Isabelle asks. There's a twinkle in her eye.
    Sjin and Lomadia both look at the grass.
    Sips hesitates again, then smiles quickly.
    "Absolutely! But we don't have time to discuss it. So let's dig people, yes? Dig!"

Five
------------There are moments in everyone's life, Sips thinks, when you just have to go with gut instinct. Especially at those times when you are faced with a fifty-fifty call, if there's even the slightest feeling tugging you one way, you'd better do what that feeling tells you.
    That's what Sips convinces himself, and keeps repeating.
    Time and again, Sjin has to draw his attention back to the pit they're in, because Sips keeps stopping and looking across to where the girls are working, desperate to see something come up in the mound. Anything.
    The morning wears on.
    The mood worsens.
    The only word they hear is spoken by the voice behind the hedge.
    "Xephos!"
    Sips sighs.
    "Let's take lunch too. We had an earlier start than normal."
    No on speaks.

------------Xephos is back on his new mound sooner after lunch today. They're still chewing sandwiches and munching crisps when he reappears. It doesn't seem to bother him that they're not working, he stands watching, as interested as ever.
    Finally Sips can take it no longer.
    "Come on," he says. "Let's give the boy something to be proud of."
    Lomadia winks at Isabelle and taps the side of her head, twice. Languidly.

------------In half an hour, Isabelle shrieks.
    She actually shrieks.
    "Oh God! I think I found something."
    She has.

------------The afternoon goes by quickly, as the two girls begin to uncover their remarkable find. Sips and Sjin cannot fit in the trench to help too, but they have abandoned their own dig; it is too exciting not to watch.
    They have found a pile of stones, the sort of thing that does not seem very exciting to anyone but an archaeology.
    A pile of stones, but a particular sort of pile, a cairn, and Sips knows that it is very likely that there is a find underneath the cairn.
    He has seen one before, and is impatient. But these things have to be done properly. First the last of the soil must be removed from around the stones, and then the stones must be photographed, and drawn on the grid paper, and only then will they be able to lift them, and find out for sure if what they have found is what Sips thinks it is; a Viking burial.
    He has a doubt. He has a doubt because the cairn is small, much smaller than the burial sites he has seen before. He worked on one once that was vast. Beneath the stones lay the remains of a Viking longboat, most of the wood long rotten away, but obvious to the expert eye, nevertheless.
    This one is small, and will barely have room for a single body, but something convinces Sips that he is right.
    He paces up and down behind the girls, trying to stop himself from telling them what to do every five minutes. They know what to do, because he taught them himself. Sjin is being more sensible, sitting on the grass by the girls' trench, helping them when he can, and sifting through the spoil when he can't.
    Xephos watches, wordlessly, though sometimes he lifts the fox to his lips.
    Finally, they begin to raise the stones.
    Sips holds his breath, and as they lever away enough of the stones, he turns and actually punches the air, silently.
    "Yes," he mutters under his breathe.
    Under the cairn is a cist; exactly what he had been hoping for, a box in the ground, with slabs of stone for walls. Essentially a primitive coffin.
    A stone box, with a stone lid.
    Sips steps into the trench.
    "Okay now, people, this is going to take all of us."
    They cramp into the trench, at each side of the lid.
    Their fingers curl under what lips of the lid they can feel. Their flesh touches stone that has not seen light for eleven centuries.
    They are silent, but they catch each other's eyes, and see the suppressed excitement in each other.
    Sips is wrong however, even with all four of them, they cannot lift the lid.
    Sips straightens his back, curses.
    Then a shadow is cast over the trench, and he looks up to see Xephos.
    Sips considers the situation. He looks at the boy, young, but strong looking.
    "Do you want to help us, Xephos?" He says.
    Xephos doesn't say anything, but he places his fox gently on the grass, and climbs down into the trenches with the others.
    Now it's even more of a squeeze, but they just manage to find a place to stand.
    "On three," says Sips, "One . . ."
But Xephos is already lifting.
    My God, thinks Sips, but the boy is strong. He can feel Xephos doing most of the lifting, and they follow his lead, as they shift the stone up and then to one side, and slide it onto the grass.
    They look.
    "Oh my . . ." says Isabelle.
    ". . .God," says Lomadia.
    There are bones in the cist. They are long human bones.
    They are somewhat jumbled however, and it takes each of them a moment to realise there is more than one set of bones in the coffin, but it is true, for there below them in the stone box are two skulls.
    They start to decode what they are seeing.
    There is a larger skull, and larger skeleton, and a smaller.
    "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lomadia asks.
    Sips says nothing.
    "Yes," says Sjin, simply. "The larger one is holding the smaller one. That is how it seems to me."

------------Xephos steps back, picks up his fox, and goes to stand on his new mound again.
    He shakes his head, gently.
    "Well, so it is," he says, though no one hears him.

Six
------------That evening, when they finish work, Sips sends the others back to the Wardhouse without him.
    There is something he wants to do.
    As they pack up, he notices Xephos has already gone, but he knows where he lives, and he takes the slightly different path out of the meadow, into the lane, and up the steps to Xephos' front door.
    He knocks and waits.
    It's quiet inside, and he wonders if he has made a mistake, but he hears soft footsteps and the door opens.
    A woman stands in front of him. She is about his own age, and has an open, kind face.
    "Well?" she says. Then, "Oh, I know who you are. You're the archaeologist aren't you? Speak of the devil! Xephos has been telling me about you. Won't you come in and have some tea?"
    Sips is a little thrown. He can't imagine Xephos saying much at all, for one thing.
    "I . . . that's very kind. I just wanted to come and thank Xephos for his help today. We couldn't have managed without him."
    The woman laughs.
    "Think nothing of it. It is I who should be thanking you. Please, come in and have some tea. We don't get so many visitors."
    Sips finds that surprising, because the woman lovely. Yes, she's middle aged, as he is, probably a bit younger, but the small lines around her eyes only seem to highlight their elegance and blueness. But maybe Sips keeps people away, maybe some people aren't comfortable with someone like . . .
    Someone like what?
    Sips tells himself off. He's just another human being, he's different, in his own way. Just like everyone. Though he's still surprised that Xephos' mother says he's been chatting away about the dig.
    "I'm Sips," he says, holding out his hand.
    She shakes it firmly.
    "I'm Xevphera," she says.

Seven
------------Xephos sits at the table through from the kitchen, playing with his fox. Close to, Sips sees that it is very old; the boy has probably had it since he was a baby. It is tattered and torn, and has obviously been repaired many, many times.
    Xephos hops the fox across the table one way, then back again, his lips moving wordlessly as if speaking magic to the toy.
    "Yay, I mean it," Xevphera says, as she makes tea. "I can't remember when he was so interested in something. When something made im so happy.
    Happy? thinks Sips.
    He doesn't seem particularly happy, but then, maybe he has his own way of showing it. Doesn't everyone?
    "He said he helped you lift a big stone . . .?"
    "He practically lifted it all by himself. But yes, that's right."
    "He's a strong boy, that's for sure," she says. "Well, Xephos and I accept your thanks, don't we Xephos?"
    She calls through to the dining room where Xephos sits.
    He looks up, briefly, and nods. Then he carries on playing with his fox.
   "But that's not really what I came to thank him for."
    "Oh?"
    Sips pauses. This is the tricky bit. Where he admits he threw away twenty-six years of professional training because an idiot told him where to dig.
    Idiot? He hates himself for even thinking that word. Castigates himself.
    He looks through at Xephos.
    Coughs.
    "The thing is . . . the thing is, Xevphera, that Xephos told us where to dig, and we found something amazing. We were having no joy, nothing. Finding nothing, and then Xephos told me where to dig this morning, and hey presto! We've hit this incredible find."
    Maybe Xevphera doesn't understand what he's saying, doesn't get how archaeology works, because she doesn't seem interested in Xephos' tip-off.
    "What did you find?"
    "Viking burial. Not uncommon itself, but this one is very unusual. I've never seen anything like it before. In fact, I might be going to make my career here. Finally. I don't think anyone's seen anything like it. Ever."
    "Well, then," says Xevphera. "You'll have to thank Xephos for that too. Xephos? Did you hear that? You've made this nice man famous! Isn't that good?"
    "Thanks, Xephos!" Sips calls, laughing, but Xephos frowns. He gets up from the table, and hurries upstairs.
    "Did I upset him?" Sips asks. "I'm sorry. I . . ."
    Xevphera shakes her head.
    "He's hard to understand. Don't worry, he's fine. He's like that sometimes. He's very shy, you see. Very shy."
    Sips wants to ask something, but doesn't know how to say it. But he is genuinely interested in the boy, he likes him, though he barely knows him.
    "What. . . I mean," he says, fumbling for the words, "Was he . . .?"
    "You mean why is he like this?" Xevphera says. She is not offended. "Don't worry. I'm actually glad that you asked straight out. Most people beat around the bush, or avoid us altogether."
    "Which is their loss," Sips says, aloud, before he knows what he's saying.
    Xevphera hesitates. A little light comes into her eyes.
    "You're right, Sips, it's their loss."
    She touches his forearm, very gently, very briefly.
    "He wasn't born like this. He was born what those other kind of people would call normal. It happened when he was two."
    She hesitates again for a moment, remembering.
    "It was this time of year. The hay moon. They had started to cut the hay in the meadow, and Xephos . . . Xephos . . . I couldn't find him. He was here one minute, and I was putting washing out in the garden, and then he was gone. I couldn't find him. I got really desperate, you know. As a parent there's . . . Well, anyway, the next thing was that I heard shouts from the meadow. I ran outside.
    "That was where Xephos had been. He'd crawled into the hay. It was long, and he must have been hidden. Someone hit him in the grass with a scythe. It didn't cut him, thank God, it his him on the back swing. It hit him in the head. He was unconscious, we thought he was not going to . . ."
    She pauses again.
    "I'm sorry," says Sips. "I shouldn't have asked."
    "No, it's okay. Really. I just haven't told this story in a while. No one is interested, you see."
    "I am," says Sips, quietly.
    Xevphera mouths the words 'thank you'.
    "When he woke up, we knew something was wrong immediately. He was still our little boy, but he had changed. As he grew up, it became more and more obvious."
    "What was he doing in the hay anyway?
    "Who knows? Who knows how a tiny child's mind works? But, well, I've always thought it was because of the fox's. Have you seen the fox's? On the island?"
    Sips shakes his head.
    "Well, keep watching, there are lots of them, and Xephos was fascinated by them, even when he was tiny. They often sit in the long grass of the meadow, before it's cut. When the scything starts, you can see them bolt for cover somewhere. I think Xephos wanted to be a fox, that's all."
    Suddenly Xevphera grasps Sips' hand earnestly.
    "I love him so much. I'd do anything for him, you know? Do you have children, Sips?"
    He shakes his head. Thinks about her hand on his.
    "I just can't reach him. Not how a mother should. He goes away from me, as if he's on a journey somewhere, somewhere I can't follow. Seeing things I can't see. I can't explain."
    She breaks off, then tries once more.
    "It's like loving someone from another world."
    There's a long pause, and then Sips knows there is something else he has to ask, something that has been unspoken but that has been implied in everything since the moment he crossed the threshold into this quiet house, of son, and mother.
    "Who did it?"
    Xevphera doesn't reply. She half turns, tilting her head. But Sips cannot let it go.
    "Who was it, who hit him with the scythe? I mean it was an accident, of course, but who did it?"
    again Xevphera pauses a long time before answering.
    "It was his father. My husband."
    "Where is he now?" Sips whispers, so quietly he can barely hear his own voice.
    Xevphera's eyes moisten.
    "He couldn't cope with what he'd done to our little boy. He's . . . gone."

Eight
------------
Over supper, the four discuss the find, what it means, how to proceed, but despite the excitement, Sips' mind is only half on the job. The other half of his thoughts are in a house by a meadow, the other half of his thoughts are in that hay meadow, fourteen years ago, as a small boy crawls through the long grass, and curls up to sleep, with his friends, the foxes.
    The others talk.
    "There's an adult and a child, that's clear," says Sjin.
    "No, it could be a small woman," says Isabelle. "And we don't know either sex as yet. Tomorrow, if we lift the skull we should be able to tell something from that."
    "Hip bones are useful too."
    "Sometimes."
    "Well, my guess," says Lomadia, "Is that it's a parent and child. They must have died at the same time, probably disease, and were buried together. The child in the arms of the mother. Or father."
    "That's so sad."
    "It's kind of nice, too, though," Lomadia says. "It's so protective. As id the parent is keeping their child safe. Even in death. Did you ever read about that Mesolithic burial with the skeleton of a child, lain on a swan's wing? I think that's beautiful too. Like the wing would fly it to heaven."
    Finally Sips snaps out of his trance.
    "Well, we know what we know and what we don't know we will learn. Tomorrow, Lomadia and Isabelle will go on with the bones. Sjin and I will continue trench two. There's no room for us in the cist, and we'll only get in your way."
    "Are you sure?" Lomadia says.
    "Absolutely. But we're going to do it all properly. Which means I have to phone the university in the morning, and that means that in three days, four at the most, many other hands will be here, crawling all over our find."
    The three are outraged.
    "Come on," Sips says, "You know how this works. You're going to have to get used to it. But look at it this way. For the next three days, possibly four, it's all ours, so let's do what we can in the meantime."
    He winks.

------------
They are pleased with their find, but they are unaware that next day they will find something just as remarkable, though it will not be eleven centuries old.
    It will be a mere sixty years old, and it is lethal.

Nine
------------They spend the following day working carefully at the dig, and while Lomadia and Isabelle begin to lift the bones, Sjin and Sips start to make some progress with their trench.
    Once more, Xephos watches from the mound, clutching his fox tightly.
    They've gone really deep now, and have found something that looks like cut wood, not as exciting as the other trench, but possible evidence of settlement, and if the full picture of the cist is to be made clear, they need to build up an impression of the surrounding environment too.
    "Should we prop?" Sjin asks Sips, mid-morning.
    Sips looks at the trench.
    "Not yet. No. If we were deeper, or the substrata less coherent, I would say yes."
    Sjin doesn't look convinced.
    "Are you sure? We've gone much deeper, even this morning."
    Sips knows the boy is right, really; the pit is deep. But they don't have time to go buy wood on the mainland and make the props and fit them, when all he really wants to do is see what the bones are showing.
    "We're okay. We'll press on."
    Sjin takes one last look at the ground level, now some way above his head, and back at the ladder which they use to climb into the trench, and then he bends to his work again.

------------Xephos stands sentinel, watching Lomadia and Isabelle. He has come a little closer today, and holds the fox tightly to his chest, stroking its back from time to time.
    The girls lift each bone very, very carefully, as if they are dangerous, because they are so fragile they could shatter at any moment.
    As far as they can see, there are no remains of clothing, but there might be microscopic fragments that can be identified in the lab, later.
    Then Lomadia sees something.
    "Hello," she says. "What are you?"
    Apart from bones, the grave has seemed bare, but now they have untwined the arms of the man from the arms of the child (as she likes the think of them), and lifted the child's skull and ribs, she has a better view of the adult.
    "Something's here!" she calls.
    Sips doesn't hear, but Sjin does.
    "They've found something. Shall we go and look?"
    "No . . ." says Sips. Then, "Yes, dammit. Come on."
    "I'll be right there," Sjin says. "Just finished this."
    Sips climbs out first, up the ladder, and over to the cist. Sjin turns to follow, and is half way up the ladder, when something catches his eye.
    In the end wall of the trench, behind the ladder, just below the surface something is poking out of the soil.
    He pulls his trowel from his back pocket, and takes a little scrape.
    What he sees intrigues him so much, he makes another little scrape. And then a bigger now. He sees metal, and now he carefully digs a whole chunk of soil from the side of the metal.
    He realises what he is looking at, and jumps in fright. His feet lip on the damp rungs of the ladder, and he flails at the earth as he falls, dislodging a vast section of the wall, which falls away freakishly.
    He shouts, but he's already lying on the bottom of the trench, covered up to his chest in the fall.
    Now, almost half exposed, the back end of a bomb hangs above his head.

Ten
------------At that moment, Lomadia had been about to show Sips what she'd just found in the grave. The spongy, fragile remains of wood among the bones of the adult skeleton.
    One part at the chest, the other between the jaws.

------------They hear Sjin's cry, and the tumble of the earth, and from that moment on, everything is blurry.

------------In a moment, they are at the pit.
    At first, they are simply relieved to see that Sjin is not fully covered, as they take in the mess of mud, Sjin and the ladder. Then they see the horror on his face, as he points wordlessly to the shell, now hanging out of the collapsed wall, right above his head.
    "Oh God," says Sips, in a very small voice.
    Then he shouts.
    "Go! To Xephos' house. His mother can call emergency. Go!"
    The girls run, and Xephos edges round to the slightly safer end of the trench.
    "Sjin. It's going to be okay. They've gone for help. They'll get some help."
    Sjin is scared. In shock form the fall, maybe a bone broken too.
    "Sips," he says. "Sips, Sips . . ."
    "Help will come soon," Sips says, but then he thinks that's probably not true. There's not even a police station on the island, which means sending a boat from the mainland, from Voltia, which will take at least half an hour.
    At that thought, Sips looks up to the far end of the trench, at the bomb, and at the same moment he hears a scream.
    The scream is Xevphera, running across the field.
    She's screaming because Xephos is kneeling at the trench, by the bomb.
    Lomadia and Isabelle catch up with Xevphera, and grab her wrists, dragging her backwards, trying to stop her from reaching Xephos.
    "No! Xephos, no!" she wails.
    Lomadia pulls her back, hard, no longer languid.
    Xephos looks across the pit at Sips.
There's no way he can rush him, get round to him in time. He thinks quickly, speaks calmly but firmly.
    "No, Xephos. It's dangerous. Go to your mother, now, Xephos. It's dangerous here."
    Sjin is lying at the bottom of the hole, fully comprehending the situation.
    "Sips, Sips, Sips," he whimpers, repeatedly.
    "Xephos. No!"
    Xephos takes no notice of Sips.
    He leans over, and closes his fingers around the tail fin of the rusty shell, dropped by a dive-bomber in the closing stages of the war.
    Now, no one dares breathe, even Xevphera has gone quiet, though she struggles to break free.
    At the trench, Xephos stands.
    The bomb is in his hands.
    Sips stands too, his legs turning to water.
    Xephos looks up at him.
    "Xephos. It's dangerous."
    By way of reply, Xephos stuffs his fox into his jacket pocket, then takes hold of the shell again with both hands.
    In the pit, Sjin is moaning.
    Above it, Sips, Xevphera, Lomadia and Isabelle watch as Xephos walks across the meadow with the unexploded bomb, heading for the quayside.
    In slow motion, they see him climb the steps to the quay, walk slowly along the stone pier, past all the fishing boats, and stand, a lone figure isolated against the seascape beyond.
    He drops the shell into the water, where it slips immediately and quickly out of sight with barely a splash, and calmly Xephos turns back to the meadow.
    As they run to meet him, and throw their arms around him, he is chewing the ear of his fox.
    "It's dangerous, mummy," he says.
    Xevphera cries, and cries, and Sips cries too, then pulls himself together. He is responsible here.
    "Xephos, you are so strong. We need to get Sjin out of the hole. Can you do that? Can you help us?"
    Xephos nods.

------------Later that day, when everyone has calmed down, they sit around the table in Xevphera's house.
    Sjin is fine, just a sprained knee to show for his near premature burial. Everyone is drinking tea, which Xevphera assures them is the best thing for their nerves.
    "It'll help you sleep tonight," she says. "You too, Xephos. Drink up."
    She comes and stands behind her son, and puts her hands on his shoulders.
    "You silly boy," she says, trying to sound bright. "You could have been hurt. You could have been killed."
    Xephos turns and looks up at his mother.
    "No. I couldn't die. I'm not quite the last."
    Lomadia and Isabelle look at Sips for some explanation. He shakes his head.
    "Don't worry about Xephos," Xevphera explains. "He sometimes says things that don't really make sense to me."
    "I wouldn't have him any other way," Sips says, putting his arm around Xevphera, because it just feels right to.
    He's never had children of his own. He thought that time was past, but who knows, he thinks maybe it's not too late yet.
    He knows he'd be proud to call Xephos his son, even is he does say strange things, sometimes.
    Xephos smiles.
    "I'm not quite the last," he says again.