Valley of Old Bones

VALLEY OF OLD BONES

1.

‘There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Or giant bats or tarantulas or really huge venom-spitting frogs but in any case if the worst thing in the world happens and you meet one of them or even all of them at the same time or even something we didn’t even know existed then you needn’t worry ‘cos all you have to do is spin round three times and say a magic word or three magic words in a row but one should work if you cross your fingers then if you do that then every evil thing in the world will just shrivel up and die and in any case if you’ve got a spirit guide with you then it’s fine anyway because…’

‘I’m so sorry.’ Robbie’s mother plucked at the sleeve of her cardigan as she interrupted the torrent of words spilling from the lips of her mousey-haired seven-year-old. He, for his sins, was perched, wide-eyed and legs dangling, on the edge of a monstrous, black leather treatment table that dominated the squeakily clean room. ‘I'm afraid he talks absolute nonsense nineteen to the dozen when he’s nervous. Can’t get a word out of him most other times. Head always in a comic. Or disappearing for hours at a time, heaven knows where! And you shouldn’t have been anywhere near that Valley, Robbie Jenkins. How many times have I told you? You’re to stay away from the woods. And you can’t get to the Valley without going through the woods. Now look what's happened! You’ve caught something in there, that’s what’s happened. Caught something good and proper!’

'I didn't go there. Someone told me!'

‘Do injections make you nervous, Robbie?’

The doctor peered over his glasses at the boy, whose face was berry-red. A mixture of embarrassment, fear, and defiance.

‘No.’

‘Do you understand why I need to give you this injection?’

‘To stop me swelling up.’

‘I’ve explained it all to him, doctor. I’ve explained it to you, haven’t I, Robbie.’

His mother’s hands fluttered like moths looking for a safe place to land.

‘Right then, let’s roll up your shorts a little and it will be over in a second.’

Robbie closed his eyes, screwing them up as tightly as he could, but not quickly enough to avoid seeing the needle that was heading for his upper leg. The injection had to be given in a large muscle, Dr Harper had explained. Dr Harper was an expert in Robbie’s type of condition, but even he could not say with any honesty what had caused it. As Robbie tensed and turned his head up and away from the oncoming injection, the light from the bright ceiling lanterns burned through his eyelids, and he started to see bubbles of colour float past and burst.

‘Okay,’ said Dr Harper. ‘Just a small pinch.’

Robbie sucked in his breath and the air tasted weird, like the air in the place where his father had taken a work suit to be cleaned the day before he died. The air dried the inside of Robbie’s mouth and chilled the lining of his nose. It seemed to spread throughout his body making him shiver with cold. His chest tightened in protest and wouldn’t let him breathe out. He felt Dr Harper’s hand on his leg and braced himself for the pinch.

But it wasn’t a pinch.

As the pain lanced through his leg the frigid air in Robbie’s chest tried to force its escape in a cry. But his throat wouldn’t let it. Tears streamed through his clamped-shut eyelids and flooded down his cheeks. The needle felt as if it was driving its way through the skin and bone of his leg and out the other side. Robbie imagined himself pinned to the table by the needle, the same way his grandad pinned butterflies to a board which he framed and were hanging in the hallway of his tiny, granite terraced house.

‘Sit still, Robbie,’ he heard his mother say. ‘You’re making it difficult for the doctor.’

Robbie felt Dr Harper let go of his leg. He didn’t want to open his eyes. He felt sure there would be blood spurting from the wound, and he might faint, but when he did look, there was only the tiniest red dot in the middle of fading pink patches the size of the doctor’s fingers. Robbie felt a tinge of disappointment. Surely so much pain must leave a bigger mark. Maybe, he thought, everything inside his leg was torn to mush, and when he tried to get down from the treatment table, he would collapse in a heap on the surgery floor like his bones had turned to jelly. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood, feeling the same pains in his joints and now the new pain in his leg from the injection. Dr Harper gave an encouraging smile and patted Robbie on the shoulder.

‘Same time next week, then?’ Dr Harper said, as if Robbie had a choice in the matter. No one knew why the disease had started and no one knew when, or if, it would go away. What they did know was that Robbie would have to have an injection every week for the near future to stop his immune system breathing fire into every joint in his body.

In the car on the way home, Robbie decided he wouldn’t tell the Girl in the woods there had been no blood spurting out. She’d said she knew someone who could help him. Someone who lived on the other side of the Valley. Robbie thought if he told her there was no blood from the injection she might not think it was serious enough to get the healing person to help. Robbie just hoped the injection would make the swelling go down and take enough pain away for him to make the journey. Girl--she wouldn’t tell him her real name because, she said, it was like giving away a piece of herself to a complete stranger--had told him about the creatures that made the crossing impossible unless he had a guide. She knew the way because it was a secret passed down the generations in her family. Not all the people who lived in the woods knew the secret. Only those belonging to a special lineage, she’d said. Robbie hadn’t understood what she meant by lineage, so she’d explained that a family had to be able to trace its roots back to one of three Ancestors. Each Ancestor had a special Insight, inherited through families, always on the mother’s side. Then she had shown him her tattoo. He was shocked she had a tattoo as she didn’t seem to be many years older than him, and he couldn’t ever imagine his mother allowing him to have one. It wasn’t a rule yet, but Robbie knew if he mentioned tattoos, never having a tattoo would become one.

Since his father died, Robbie’s mother had invented a new rule on what seemed like every other day:

Don’t walk on the cracks in the pavement.

If you see a hearse, hold your collar until you see an ambulance.

Never wear odd socks.

Never whistle on a Wednesday.

Always leave something on the plate.

Never get out of the wrong side of bed.

And …

Never, ever, ever go into the woods.

Belladown Wood had seven entrances or at least it used to have in the past. Most now were barely narrow squeeze gaps that had been allowed to grow over as much, it was rumoured, to keep things in as to keep things out. But every season, Robbie’s grandfather cleared an entrance so he could get in there and collect mushrooms at what he always said was the perfect time of year. He would cook all sorts of meals with the mushrooms and never once got ill. In fact, the mushrooms were the only thing that seemed to make his grandad happy. But Robbie’s mother didn’t trust them because she said they could give people very strange ideas, and in any case she had never liked the woods and forbade Robbie to ever go there. Which was the best way for sure to guarantee a child’s curiosity. And Robbie’s curiosity had indeed grown and grown until the day he spotted his grandad tottering his way off toward Belladown with a rucksack slung over his stooped shoulders. Robbie had followed, keeping as big a distance as he could manage so as not to be spotted by his grandad, who always boasted he could show Bear Grylls a trick or two when it came to tracking skills.

Despite his mega-boasts, his grandad did not hear the crack of a large dry branch as it snapped under Robbie’s foot or turn to see what had startled a clamour of rooks behind him. It was also lucky for Robbie that his grandad was slow of foot, allowing him to keep a comfortable pace. Only when his grandad reached a small clearing, and turned to swing his rucksack from his shoulders, did Robbie have to duck down and hold his breath. It seemed to him the clearing would make an excellent site for a den. And if not that one, which was ringed with fungus of every colour, shape, and size, then it was only a matter of time before Robbie visited the woods again and found the perfect spot for his new den.

The first time he visited completely alone, he’d stayed at the edge, trying as hard as he could to see beyond the perimeter trees. He didn't know what he was expecting to see, but he hesitated nonetheless. On his own, he heard strange sounds and sensed movements that he hadn't noticed when he followed his grandad. Also, the woods smelt different. Not just damp and earthy, but strange and sweet, a bit like the smell that came from their next-door neighbour's house and got him arrested by the police. And when Robbie tried to put even one foot forward into the entrance his grandad used, he would feel a tingle in his stomach and his feet would start to itch and twitch, though Robbie was never sure if they twitched because they wanted to go in or to run away. Then, after the third time Robbie went alone, the itchy, twitchy feeling spread to his left knee, which started to hurt. And then began to swell.

At first the swelling was explained away as a twist or a knock he’d taken while playing outside. But the swelling didn’t go down. Then his other knee swelled up. Robbie’s mother took him to his local doctor who said to use a cold compress. But that hadn’t worked, and the swellings just got larger. Soon his left knee was the size of a cricket ball, and when his toes swelled up as well and the pain made him want to cry, his mum and grandad took him to the Accident and Emergency department at the local hospital. The attending doctor there had given him the strongest anti-inflammatory painkillers suitable for a seven-year-old and told his mother he should rest for a few days and the swelling would go down. He’d spent a few days at home, but Robbie found it almost impossible to be restful. He loved climbing trees, riding his bike, and catching minnows in the local stream. But more than anything he liked building dens, where he could sit and read his comics. Where no one could find him. And now he'd discovered that his favourite place to build dens was Belladown Woods.

Belladown was an ancient wood. Robbie had once heard his father say the wood was over four hundred years old and protected by law. His father had showed him photographs of the woods on a website. The trees were all bent and gnarled and reminded Robbie of his grandad, who walked with his upper body so low to the ground it seemed he was permanently looking for something he had dropped. His aged hands were like bony landscapes, laced with blue-streamed veins and earthy age spots. Robbie had seen photographs of his grandad as a young man in the army and wished he’d known him then, before the things that happened to him in the war turned him strange.

At first Robbie had only built a small hideaway just inside the edge of the wood, where a broken branch had fallen in a storm and formed an archway. It was easy for Robbie to find sticks to turn the arch into a den, then thread the sticks through with twigs and leaves for camouflage. The first den lasted over a week, until heavy rain brought it down. Robbie then decided to go a little deeper in, where the woods were cooler, the tree cover denser, and his dens would last longer. Playing in the dens were the best way for Robbie to forget the pain in his knees and toes which was becoming more and more difficult to ignore. When he started to develop a distinct hobble, it was a keen-eyed school nurse who took charge when Robbie collapsed during a sports day: a day that changed his world.

Several consultations followed with a variety of doctors all of whom had a range of expertise, but all of whom scratched their heads. And then, to everyone’s relief, they were referred to Dr Harper and the swelling in Robbie’s knees and toes was finally diagnosed. Dr Harper wrote it down in short form on a piece of paper for Robbie’s mum, as, he said, juvenile idiopathic arthritis was a bit of a mouthful.

JIA

The doctor’s writing was scrawled, and to Robbie it looked like JIM, so that’s what he called it: JIM. No one knew the cause of JIM, or how long it would last. Doctor Harper had explained it was Robbie’s immune system getting confused and attacking his joints. He would need to have an injection every week, quite possibly for many years, when hopefully one day his body would go back to normal. He would also need to see an eye doctor because the condition could affect his sight. Robbie had been living with JIM for three months when he met the Girl.

There had always been rumours about people living in the woods, but no one could agree who they were. Some of the villagers said they were travellers, nomads. Others said they were homeless veterans from the Range Wars, veterans who’d returned victorious, only to be left to survive by themselves within weeks of their return, the war being unpopular with the new Administration. The truth was no one could say for sure who they were and could only speculate, as they were so rarely seen. And no villager had ever had a conversation with a woods-dweller.

Except Robbie.

The meeting with the Girl had happened late afternoon on the same Saturday the May Queen was crowned. The market square had been lined both sides by villagers dressed in rustic costumes. Scarecrows, milkmaids, farm animals—the villagers loved to dress up to celebrate, to see the May Queen chased by the ‘Obby Horse, a tradition his mother described as ‘downright sinister in this modern day and age.’ But she went along to celebrate anyway which allowed Robbie to sneak off to build more of his new den--the most ambitious he’d ever attempted. He’d found a small clearing that looked as if it might have once been an encampment, as the ground was scorched in a circle and he’d found a couple of rusty tins beneath the litter of twigs and leaves, and Robbie had spent every hour he could sneak away without being caught clearing the ground ready to start building. And now he couldn’t wait to get back there.

On the way home from the hospital and his injection, Robbie sat in the back seat of his Grandad’s old Cadillac—a rust and powder-blue, beat-up ruin of a classic car he'd bought to do up when he was discharged from the army—and studied his troubled knees. He closed one eye and squinted. Then tried with the other eye. Had the swelling gone down? Cautiously he flexed his left leg. Then his right. He wiggled his toes inside the trainers his mum had bought from a thrift shop. He was about to wriggle down under the seatbelt so he could put his feet on the floor and test his joints when the Cadillac came to an abrupt halt. They were home.

His mum bundled the shopping out of the boot of the car while his grandad used his sleeve to wipe the steering wheel clean. The car was his pride and joy, and he didn't like smudges. While they were both distracted, Robbie slid out from under the seatbelt and climbed over the empty front seat to get out, the car only having two doors. The passenger side of the car was facing the woods, and Robbie thought he might, if he was very quiet, slip away unnoticed.

'Where do you think you're going?'

Sometimes Robbie thought his mum was not entirely human, and his dad had often said she had hearing like a bat and eyes in the back of her head.

‘Can I play out for a bit?’

‘No, you cannot. It’s well known a body needs to rest for at least 24 hours after an injection so the medicine can find its way around the body and not get stuck in one spot. Go and lie on your bed ‘til teatime.’

‘Can I lie in the garden then?’

She considered his request for a moment then nodded. As he walked off, he made an exaggerated show of limping and continued to do so through the whole length of the house, out of the back door and down to an old sun lounger at the bottom of the garden. The more disabled he looked, he reasoned, the less likely they were to think he might go off somewhere he shouldn't. Particularly somewhere forbidden. When he got to the sun lounger he sat down and stayed stock still, straining to hear the noises coming from the kitchen. He could hear a back and forth between his grandad and mother, which was interrupted when the kettle began whistling relentlessly. When the cups and saucers began clattering, Robbie knew it was safe to leave his perch and let himself out of the back gate. He guessed he would have less than an hour before his mother called him in for tea, and so he walked as quickly as his legs would let him, arms outstretched for balance, like a tightrope walker. It wasn’t so much that he felt unsteady, but he still wondered if the injection had turned his leg muscle to mush as it felt so sore.

When he reached the perimeter of Belladown Wood, despite the fact it was still a warm, sunny afternoon, he felt a sudden chill wrap itself around his shoulders. He turned to look back at the house, a niggle of doubt scratching at the back of his neck. Robbie suddenly wished his dad were still alive. Wished with all his heart that his dad was right there with him. His dad had been brave. So brave, they’d given him a posthumous medal for services above and beyond. Robbie didn’t know if he could ever be as brave as his dad, who’d given everything to try and save lives on the day he was killed. But the Girl had promised Robbie the Healer could help stop his body from attacking itself. She had said that the journey would be tough though with her as his guide they could take the low route through the Valley. But first he had to prove he could be trusted. Only then would she reveal her name, which he needed to know, as her name was the protective link to her Ancestor. And just one thing needed to happen before Robbie could prove he could be trusted.

He had to take the Test.