Excerpt from An Echo in the Bone

He never found the horse. Either the catamount had killed it, somewhere out of sight, or it had escaped to wander alone through the swamp. He did find two items shed from its saddle: a small waxed packet containing tobacco, and a frying pan. Neither of these seemed immediately useful, but he was loath to part with any remnant of civilization.

Soaked to the skin and shivering under the scanty shelter of his canvas, William crouched among the roots of a sweet gum tree, watching lightning split the night sky. Each blue-white flash was blinding, even through closed eyelids, each jolt of thunder shaking air gone sharp as a knife with the acrid smell of lightning and burnt things.

He had grown almost accustomed to the cannonade, when a tremendous blast knocked him flat, and swept him skidding sideways through mud and rotted leaves. Choking and gasping, he sat up, swiping mud off his face, and looked wildly round. What the devil had happened? A sharp pain in his arm penetrated his confusion, and looking down, he saw by the light of the lightning's flash that a splinter of wood, perhaps six inches long, was embedded in the flesh of his right forearm.

Glaring wildly round, he saw that the swamp near him was suddenly studded with splinters and chunks of fresh wood, and the smell of sap and heartwood rose, piercing amid the hot, dancing scent of electricity.

There. Another flash, and he saw it. A hundred feet away, he had noted a huge bald cypress, thinking to use it as a landmark come dawn; it was by far the tallest tree within sight. No longer; the lightning showed him empty air where the towering trunk had been, another flash, the ragged spike of what was left.

Quivering and half-deafened by the thunder, he pulled the splinter out of his arm, and pressed the fabric of his shirt to the wound to stop it bleeding. It wasn't deep, but the shock of the explosion made his hand shake. He pulled his canvas tight round his shoulders against the driving rain, and curled up again among the sweet gum's roots.

Sometime in the night, the storm moved off, and with the cessation of the noise, he lapsed into an uneasy doze, from which he woke to find himself staring into the white nothingness of fog.

A coldness beyond the bone-chill of dawn went through him. His childhood had been spent in the Lake District of England, and he'd known from his earliest memories that the coming of fog on the fells was a danger. Sheep were often lost in the fog, falling to their deaths, parted from the flock and killed by dogs or foxes, freezing, or simply disappearing. Men were sometimes lost in the fog, as well.

The dead came down with the fog, Nanny Elspeth said. He could see her, a spare old woman, straight-backed and fearless, standing at the nursery window, looking out at the drifting white. She'd said it quietly, as though to herself; he didn't think she'd realized he was there. When she did, she drew the curtain with a brisk snap and came to make his tea, saying nothing more.

He could do with a cup of hot tea, he thought, preferably with a great deal of whisky in it. Hot tea, hot buttered toast, jam sandwiches and cake...

The thought of nursery teas recalled his wodge of soggy bread and cheese, and he drew this carefully out of his pocket, immeasurably heartened by its presence. He ate it slowly, savoring the tasteless mass as though it was a brandied peach, and felt very much better, despite the clammy touch of the fog on his face, the dripping of water from the ends of his hair, and the fact that he was still wet to the skin; his muscles ached from shivering all night.

He had had the presence of mind to set the frying pan out in the rain the night before, and thus had fresh water to drink, tasting deliciously of bacon fat.

"Not so bad," he said aloud, wiping his mouth. "Yet."

His voice sounded strange. Voices always did, in a fog.

He'd been lost in fog before. Once, and he had no desire to repeat that experience--though repeat it he did, now and then, in nightmares. Stumbling blind through a white so thick he couldn't see his own feet, hearing the voices of the dead.

He closed his eyes, preferring momentary darkness to the swirl of white, but could still feel its fingers, cold on his face.

He'd heard the voices, then. He tried not to listen, now.

He got to his feet, determined. He had to move. At the same time, to go wandering blind through bogs and clinging growth would be madness.

He tied the frying pan to his belt, and slinging the wet canvas over his shoulder, put out a hand and began to grope. Juniper wouldn't do; the wood shredded under a knife, and the trees grew in such fashion that no branch ran straight for more than a few inches. Sweet gum or tupelo was better, but an alder would be best.

He found a small stand of alder saplings after an age of sidling cautiously through the mist, planting one foot at a time and waiting to see the effect, pausing whenever he hit a tree, to press its leaves to his mouth and nose by way of identification.

Feeling about among the slender trunks, he picked one an inch or so in diameter, and planting his feet solidly, grasped the sapling with both hands and wrenched it up. It came, with a groan of yielding earth and a shower of leaves--and a heavy body slithered suddenly across his boot. He let out a cry and smashed the root-end of his sapling down, but the snake had long since fled.

Sweating despite the chill, he undid the frying pan, and used it to prod gingerly at the unseen ground. Eliciting no movement, and finding the surface relatively firm, he turned the pan over and sat upon it.

By bringing the wood close to his face, he could make out the movements of his hands sufficiently as to avoid cutting himself, and with a good deal of labor, managed to strip the sapling and trim it to a handy six-foot length. He then set about whittling the end to a sharpened point.

The Great Dismal was dangerous, but it teemed with game. That was the lure that drew hunters into its mysterious depths. William wasn't about to try to kill a bear, or even a deer, with a home-made spear. He was, however, reasonably adept at gigging frogs, or had been. A groom on his grandfather's estate had taught him long ago, he'd done it often with his father in Virginia, and while it wasn't a skill he'd found occasion to practice in the last few years in London, he felt sure that he hadn't forgotten.

He could hear the frogs all round him, cheerfully unimpressed by the fog.

"Brek-ek-ek-ex, co-ax, co-ax," he murmured. "Brek-ek-ek-ex co-ax!" The frogs seemed likewise unimpressed with quotations from Aristophanes.

"Right, you. Just wait," he said to them, testing his point with a thumb. Adequate. A gigging spear ideally would be trident-shaped...well, why not? He had time.

Biting his tongue with concentration, he set about to carve two additional sharpened twigs, and notch them to join the main spear. He briefly considered twisting bits of juniper bark to make a binding, but rejected that notion in favor of unraveling a length of thread from the fringe of his shirt.

The swamp was sodden in the wake of the storm. He'd lost his tinderbox, but he doubted that even one of Jehovah's thunderbolts, such as he'd witnessed the night before, would ignite a fire here. On the other hand, by the time the sun came out and he eventually succeeded in catching a frog, he'd probably be desperate enough to eat it raw.

He paradoxically found this thought comforting. He wasn't going to starve, then, nor would he die of thirst--being in this swamp was like living in a sponge.

He had nothing so definite as a plan. Only the knowledge that the swamp was large, but finite. That being so, once he had the sun to guide him, and could be assured of not wandering in circles, he proposed to make his way in a straight line until he reached solid ground or the lake. If he found the lake...well, Dismal Town was built on its edge. He had only to walk round the circumference, and eventually he would find it.

So, provided that he took care with the quaking bogs, didn't fall prey to some large animal, wasn't bitten by a venomous snake, and didn't take a fever from putrid water or the swamp's miasma, everything would be all right.

He tested the binding, jabbing the spear gently into the mud, and found it secure. Nothing to do but wait, then, for the fog to lift.

The fog showed no disposition to lift. If anything, it was thicker; he could barely make out his fingers, held a few inches from his eyes. Sighing, he gathered his damp coat round him, settled the gig by his side, and wriggled his spine into a precarious rest against the remaining alders. He put his arms round his knees to hoard what little heat his body still held, and closed his eyes to block the whiteness.

The frogs were still at it. Now without distraction, though, he began to hear the other noises of the swamp. Most of the birds were silent, waiting out the fog as he was, but now and then the deep, startling boom of a bittern echoed through the fog. There were scurrying noises, and splashings now and then--muskrat? he wondered.

A loud plunk! betokened a turtle dropping off a log into water. He preferred those sounds, because he knew what they were. More unnerving were the faint rustlings, which might be the rubbing of branches--though the air was too still, surely, for wind?--or the movement of something hunting. The shrill cry of something small, cut off abruptly. And the creakings and groanings of the swamp itself.

He'd heard the rocks talking to themselves on the fells. In the fog. He hadn't told anyone that.

He moved a little, and felt something just below his jaw. Clapping a hand to the spot, he discovered a leech that had dropped upon him and attached itself to his neck. Revolted, he ripped it loose and flung it as hard as he could into the fog. Patting himself all over with trembling hands, he settled back into his crouch, trying to repel the memories that came flooding in with the swirling mist.

He'd heard his mother--his real mother--whisper to him, too. That was why he'd gone into the fog. They'd been picnicking on the fells, his grandparents and Mama Isobel and some friends, with a few servants. When the fog came down, sudden as it sometimes did, there was a general scurry to pack up the luncheon things, and he had been left by himself, watching the inexorable white wall roll silently toward him.

And he'd swear he'd heard a woman's whisper, too low to make out words, but holding somehow a sense of longing, and had known she spoke to him.

And he'd walked into the fog. For a few moments, he was fascinated by the movement of the water vapor near the ground; the way it flickered and shimmered and seemed alive. But then the fog grew thicker, and in moments, he'd known he was lost.

He'd called out. First, to the woman he thought must be his mother. The dead come down in the fog. That was nearly all he knew about his mother--that she was dead. She'd been no older than he was now, when she died. He'd seen three paintings of her. They said he had her hair, and her hand with a horse.

She'd answered him, he'd swear she'd answered him--but in a voice with no words. He'd felt the caress of cool fingers on his face, and he'd wandered on, entranced.

Then he fell, badly, tumbling over rocks into a small hollow, bruising himself and knocking out all his wind. The fog had billowed over him as he lay stunned and breathless in the bottom of his small declivity, marching past, urgent in its hurry to engulf things. Then he began to hear the rocks murmur all around him, and he'd crawled, then run, as fast as he could, screaming. Fell again, got up and went on running.

Fell down, finally, unable to go further, and huddled terrified and blind on the rough grass, surrounded by vast emptiness. Then he heard them calling out for him, voices he knew, and tried to cry out in reply, but his throat was raw from screaming, and he made no more than desperate rasping noises, running toward where he thought the voices were. But sound moves in a fog, and nothing is as it seems; not sound, not time, nor place.

Again and again and again, he ran toward the voices, but fell over something, tripped and rolled down a slope, stumbled into rocky outcrops, found himself clinging to the edge of a scarp, the voices now behind him, fading into the fog, leaving him.

Mac had found him. A big hand had suddenly reached down and grabbed him, and the next minute he was lifted up, bruised and scraped and bleeding, but clutched tight against the Scottish groom's rough shirt, strong arms holding him as though they'd never let him go.

He swallowed. When he had the nightmare, sometimes he woke with Mac holding him. Sometimes he didn't, and woke in a cold sweat, unable to go back to sleep, for fear of the waiting fog, and the voices.

He froze, hearing footsteps. Breathed cautiously--and smelled the unmistakable ripe smell of pig-shit. He didn't move; wild pigs were dangerous if you startled them.

Snuffling noises, more footsteps, the rustle and shower of water-drops as heavy bodies brushed the leaves of holly and yaupon bushes. Several of them, moving slowly, but moving, nonetheless. He sat up sharp, turning his head to and fro, trying to locate the sound exactly. Nothing could move with purpose in this fog--unless they were following a path.

The swamp was criss-crossed with game-paths, made by the deer, and used by everything from possums to black bears. These paths wound aimlessly, only two things certain about them: one, that they did lead to drinkable water, and two, that they did not lead into a quaking bog. Which under the circumstances, was enough for William.

They'd said one other thing about his mother. "Reckless", his grandmother had said, sadly, shaking her head. "She was always so reckless, so impulsive." And her eyes had rested then on him, apprehensive. And you're just like her, said those anxious eyes. God help us all.

"Maybe I am," he said out loud, and gripping his frog-spear, stood up, defiant. "But I'm not dead. Not yet."

He knew that much. And that to stand still when lost was only a good idea if someone was looking for you.

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