They appeared no different to any other section of the curraghs. The most obvious difference was there was no path of any sort leading into the wetlands. There was also a ditch separating the road from the trees.
‘So, how’re we finding our way, exactly?’ Dallin asked.
‘We’re trailblazing.’ Cora half-smiled at him. ‘Shall I lead the way, or do you want to?’
Dallin muttered something under his breath. There were shadows under his eyes, like maybe he’d been drinking the night before. Not that I blamed him. In a way I was almost jealous. It’d been a long time since I’d last had alcohol.
How sad do you have be, to be jealous of someone with a hangover? This thought, at last, did bring a smile to my face.
Cora jumped over the ditch and pushed aside a couple of branches. The twisted, shallow-rooted trees that grew in the curraghs were springy and resistant, and didn’t much like being shoved out of the way. Cora stepped through them with difficulty.
I looked at Dallin, but he seemed happy to bring up the rear.
I took a short run-up and leapt across the ditch, but lost my balance on the other bank. I would’ve fallen backwards into the brackish water if Cora hadn’t shot out a hand to grab me.
‘Thanks,’ I said, a little breathless, as I regained my footing. ‘It’s been a while since I did anything strenuous.’
In fact, just that small bit of exercise made me realise how out of shape I’d become. I knew I’d put on weight over the eighteen months, due in part to my medication, but it hadn’t really affected me. Staying indoors so much, I wasn’t bothered when my lightweight summer clothes no longer fit. Loose fitting T-shirts and jogging pants had always been my preferred outfits anyway. Without Beth to encourage me to cook meals from scratch, I’d fallen into the bad habit of easily prepared processed food and ready meals; without Beth to drag me out for long walks in the countryside, I’d lost the inclination to go outside.
Now, all of a sudden, I felt self-conscious as I followed Cora through the half-gap in the trees.
There was no path, not even an ill-defined trail left by animals. We were immediately stepping over mud pockets and sunken tree roots. At least the trees were less tightly clumped together here. Weak morning sunlight slanted in through the thin leaves. A few metres to our right, a barbed wire fence marked the edge of someone’s field. Beyond it, tall grass swayed in the soft breeze.
‘We’re too near the edge of the curraghs,’ Dallin said. He’d hopped over the ditch without any issues. ‘We need to search further into the middle.’
‘We need to search all of it,’ Cora said. ‘If we start in the middle we might miss out whole sections by accident.’ She kept one eye on her GPS as she walked. In her other hand she also carried her compass. ‘Has this area changed much in fifteen years?’ she asked me. ‘I mean in terms of size. Has it spread out, or have people built in on the edges, anything like that?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘The only building that might’ve expanded into it would be the Wildlife Park.’ I pointed south, in the vague direction of the park. ‘But I’m not sure if anyone would be allowed to expand outwards into the curraghs. This is all protected land.’
‘Protected by who?’ Cora asked. ‘We’re not going to get arrested for going off-piste like this, are we?’
Dallin laughed. ‘National Heritage have got better things to do than prosecute ramblers. If anyone complains, we’ll say we got lost. Happens all the time, apparently.’
Cora set the pace, moving steadily between the trees, keeping to the scant dry patches of land, but never letting herself get drawn off the arrow-straight path she’d mapped. We followed her. I fell into a rhythm, glad we weren’t walking too fast. I worried now about exhausting myself before the day was half done. How had I not noticed my stamina was so low?
But, even with my internal concerns, it felt good to be out of the house. The curraghs were peaceful that morning. The early birds had flitted off to find breakfast, and the only noise came from the trees quietly whispering as they brushed together.
It was so peaceful in fact that I completely forgot I was supposed to be checking the ground for signs of the missing skeleton. It was Cora who reminded me. She cast her gaze back and forth with each step, searching the mud on either side, delaying each step forward until she was totally sure there was nothing there to find. I felt a pang of guilt. Neither me nor Dallin were paying as much attention as her. Perhaps subconsciously I agreed with Dallin – we were too close to the edge of the curraghs, and therefore there was no real point in looking out for anything.
After fifteen or twenty minutes, the trees thinned out further and the ground became a lot boggier. I spotted where a drainage ditch at the side of the field had burst into the curraghs. The water had an oily, polluted sheen to it.
‘I knew things were going too smoothly,’ Cora said. She stepped gingerly onto a tussock of grass, testing to make sure it wouldn’t spill her into the bog. ‘I think we can get across like this.’
‘I thought you’d figured it all out from your maps,’ Dallin said. ‘How come a patch of bog can sneak up on you?’
‘Maps and photos are all well and good,’ Cora said, ‘but no plan survives boots on the ground.’ She hopped to the next tussock. The movement sent ripples through the muddy water. ‘There’ll always be surprises. Not that I’m happy about it, of course. I don’t like guesswork. Don’t like not being sure. In an ideal world, a superior plan will always beat any surprise the world might throw at you. But, what can you do? I don’t—’
The next clump of grass was too small to bear her weight, and tipped her off balance. Cora made an ungainly leap for the safety of solid ground. She fell only a little short. One foot went down into the mud, almost to the top of her welly, but she was able to grab a branch and haul herself free. Her booted foot plopped free with a sucking noise and a belch of bad air. Still hanging onto the tree, Cora kicked some of the mud off her boots, flapping her free hand in a vain attempt to disperse the silage smell. She glanced at her GPS.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘We’re still on track.’
‘Balls to this,’ Dallin said. ‘I’m going around.’
‘Quitter.’ Cora grinned.
It took me considerably longer to get across, but with Cora calling encouragement, I made it, via a more circuitous route. I got a high-five and a smile from Cora, which made the whole endeavour worthwhile.
‘Great. We’re still on course,’ Cora said. ‘Well, two thirds of us are, anyway.’ She tilted her head. Some distance away, Dallin was trying with little success to find a dry path. It was possible to track his progress by the steady stream of swearing coming from amongst the trees.
‘I’m glad we’re not relying on him for directions,’ Cora said. ‘He’s more … out of his element than I expected.’
‘It’s a long time since he’s been home,’ I said, then corrected myself. ‘Since he’s been here. And, I know he lived with all this on his doorstep, but he never … he never felt comfortable out here, in the curraghs. He stuck to the main paths. Never went off exploring like this.’
‘He’s missing out.’ Cora consulted her GPS, and pulled her hat down more securely over her ears. ‘This place is something else. What about you?’
‘Oh. I lived with our dad. When our parents split up.’ I shrugged. ‘Well, you know what it’s like, when things go bad between people. Me and Dallin were caught in the middle. He ended up living with Mum; I lived with Dad.’
‘That must’ve been difficult.’
‘You get used to things.’ It hadn’t seemed too strange at the time. Lots of kids at school had unconventional home-lives. ‘But it meant me and Dallin were never really close. We went to different schools, had different friends, only