Free Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time by Judith Schara

Wiccans; they’re the modern witches—very big on the power of magic. And there are lots of Druids here. A lot more. When English Heritage shut down Stonehenge in 1998, they counted fifteen different Druid groups protesting. There are easily twice as many here now. Look over there. I would guess those women in long dresses and cloaks are worshipers of some goddess. You see, everyone thinks they have some right to the past.”
    The crowd was loud, calling out to anyone who went by. Just behind the police line, a tall woman in a black hooded-cape held up a sign that said, “My Ancestors Belong in the Earth, Not in a Box.” Next to her, another sign proclaimed “Once is enough, Keep me buried.” When a red-haired boy shoved a sign at Germaine that read, “Don’t Steal My Ancestor’s Bones,” then rattled a bunch of small bones in her face, she drew back quickly.
    “Oh no! They’ve heard,” Aubrey said in a low voice as he shepherded her through the crowd.
    “Heard what?” Germaine gave the restless crowd an anxious eye.
    “There’s a burial up there. I saw a bone yesterday. It might be a skeleton, or at least a part of one. The shovel bums noticed it when they put a cover over the site. Conan telephoned this morning and told me.”
    Conan Ryan. Bright blue eyes and gilt-colored hair flashed before her eyes. She felt her face flush at the thought of working so closely with him. Just seeing him in the car park yesterday, she had felt the strong attraction again. Working with him every day would be exciting, but could present problems.
    “So how do these people know about it?”
    “I don’t know. One of the shovel bums must have talked. That’s all we need to complicate this mess. Now we’ll have HAD and all the other ‘sacred site’ people camping out here and demanding to be heard.”
    “What is HAD?” she asked, in a distracted way, still thinking of bright blue eyes.
    “It means Honoring the Ancient Dead. They’re well organized and want respect for ancient human remains, and any artifacts we find in a burial site. Their position is the bodies were buried in a particular landscape for reasons we can’t ever understand, and we should leave those places alone. Sometimes, if you do move them, the public gets very angry. Ignore them at your peril, Germaine. A lot of people are not at all sure anyone’s burial place should be disturbed, even if they were pagans.”
    If we leave burial sites alone, there won’t be much left for archaeologists to work with, she noted. Germaine decided not to bring up that troubling thought. The problem was now. With this site.
    “That’s a lot like the Native Americans in the United States,” she said. “Some are fighting for the right to rebury their ancestors. Get the bones out of museums and back into the soil. At least some Native Americans have a tribal memory of the rituals their people used to complete the reburial ceremony. Perhaps it could work here?”
    “It wouldn’t do, my dear. Think about it—this hillfort is over 6,000 years old. Maiden Castle is so ancient there is no living memory of how people used to bury the dead. You know that from your own work. But I’m sure the Druids would make up something.”
    And how would I do a reburial here, she wondered. With a great feast? That was the Celtic way. Drink, eat, and send food for the deceased’s journey into the Otherworld. For the Otherworld was their ultimate destination, that is, until they were reborn again in a different body.
    What was it Julius Caesar said about the Druids and dying? “... and their souls do not die, but after death pass from one to another.” He was talking about reincarnation, a concept many believed today. For better or worse, most of what passed as knowledge of the Druids came from Caesar, their conqueror. Germaine took it all with the proverbial pinch of salt.
    There was no ritual ceremony she knew of, and she looked at burials all the time, trying to deduce some