Free Bone Jack by Sara Crowe

edge.
    Ash stood rooted to the spot, watching, his heart racing.
    But Dad didn’t jump. He pulled something out of his pocket, held it out over the drop, let go of it. A little dart of shadow spiralling down.
    The black feather.
    It had to be.
    Then Dad turned, came back down the slope to the path. Ash waited, then followed again, along a narrow track that hugged the shoulder of the mountain.
    Ahead lay the Cullen farm, dark and silent. Dad stopped at the gate, stood there for a while. Then he turned, looked straight towards Ash. Must have known he was there all along. Ash walked along the track towards him.
    ‘Home now then, lad?’ said Dad. Soft-voiced, gentle.
    ‘Yeah.’
    They walked on for a while.
    ‘You dropped something over the edge,’ said Ash. ‘I saw you, up on the Leap. What was it?’
    Dad didn’t answer.
    ‘Why did you come out here, Dad?’
    Dad drew a long breath, let it out slowly. ‘Tom Cullen,’ he said. ‘He was my best mate when we were boys. Like you and Mark we were. We used to go off hunting, fishing, climbing. Not so much later on though. Him with the farm, me with the army. Marriage, kids, all that. Time passes. And now he’s dead.’
    ‘It’s not your fault.’
    ‘Isn’t it? I could have been a better friend to him. I could have kept in touch, spent time with him when I was home on leave. I meant to. I just never got round to it and now it’s too late.’
    ‘You weren’t to know.’
    ‘That’s the thing though. I should have known. Him out there on his own after Ella died, two kids to raise and a farm to run. Then there was the foot-and-mouth outbreak, his stock slaughtered. I suppose he’d just used up all his strength by then. No reserves left. I should have been here. I should have done something.’
    ‘You were overseas,’ said Ash. ‘You were fighting a war.’
    ‘People keep dying around me,’ said Dad. ‘And I keep surviving.’
    ‘Is that what happened in the war?’
    ‘It’s what war is. People killing each other. People dying. You try not to be one of them. If you’re lucky, you get to come home in one piece.’
    ‘It was really bad, wasn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah, it was really bad.’
    They walked on in silence for a while.
    ‘That thing you dropped from the Leap,’ said Ash. ‘I know what it was.’
    ‘You do?’
    ‘Yeah, I do. It was the black feather that was on the floor in the living room.’
    ‘Yeah.’ Sharp and hard. ‘How did you know?’
    Ash shrugged. ‘Just a guess. You were staring at it, then it disappeared with you when you left the room. Where did it come from?’
    ‘A bird, I suppose.’
    ‘Ha-ha. At least you’re still making rubbish jokes anyway.’
    ‘All I’m good for these days.’
    ‘That feather though,’ said Ash. ‘Tell me about that.’
    ‘It reminded me of something from a long time ago. Stupid, really.’
    ‘Tell me, Dad.’
    Dad shrugged, sighed, shut down.
    ‘How did it get in the house?’ said Ash. Pushing, not letting Dad retreat into another of his silences. ‘Who brought it in?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Dad. ‘There was someone else there. I saw him but I don’t know who he was. A face like a skull at the window. Hands dripping with blood.’ He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I thought it was … someone or something that came back with me from the desert, something vengeful. Haunting me. I see them sometimes, in my dreams. The dead. Then there was that feather and … maybe I’m just …’
    Breaking up, falling apart again.
    ‘Just what?’
    ‘I don’t know. Hallucinating or something.’
    ‘You’re not,’ said Ash. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with the war. It’s something else, something to do with the Stag Chase.’
    ‘I saw a feather like that once before,’ said Dad. ‘Years ago, long before you were born, I trained for the Stag Chase out here. And one day a bird flew into me, a crow or a rook or something. I don’t know why but it freaked me out. Then the next