Bone Jack by Sara Crowe Page A

Carn. It’s OK. Everything’s all right. The lake’s just there. We’ll go down and do some fishing like we planned. Dad! Please, Dad.’
    Dad’s voice came back to him, raw and desperate. ‘Leave me alone, Ash. Stop following me!’
    Ash stopped. He watched his dad go, running and stumbling back down to the lane and along it until he was lost to the distance.
    Ash crouched in a patch of shade thrown by a thorn tree. Head in his hands, blinking away tears. He felt sick inside. The last thing he wanted to do now was trail back along the path in Dad’s wake to the silent house, the closed doors, the tension that never seemed to go away.
    He stood up. There was still the whole day ahead of him. Briefly he thought about going to Mark’s camp, like Mark wanted him to. But he wasn’t in the mood for Mark’s craziness, not right now. To hell with him, and to hell with Dad.
    He walked back up to the summit and picked up the rucksack and fishing rods where Dad had dropped them.
    On the far shore of the lake, there were boys diving from the rocks. Their distant voices and laughter echoed across the water. Careless, carefree. Lads from school, most likely, but they were too far away for him to see their faces. A year ago, he and Mark might have been with them, diving down into the deep dark water until their lungs felt about to burst, then kicking upwards again towards the bright shimmer of sunlight on the surface.
    A sudden loneliness hollowed him. He didn’t make friends easily. He was too skinny and too intense, the sort of kid bullies gravitate to. Not a fighter like Dad. Or like Mark. But Mark had always been there, ever since Ash could remember, and no one messed with Mark so no one messed with Ash either. But now Mark was gone to the wild, and none of the other boys would hang out with Ash until after the Stag Chase. He was the stag boy and they were the hounds and that was just how things were now until after the race.
    He had no one. There was nothing to hold on to any more except the Stag Chase, and even that felt like it was slipping away from him, with its dark history unfolding and Mark telling him not to run.
    He slithered untidily down the steep slope. A mini landslide of loose stones bounced down ahead of him, but the diving boys were too far off to notice.
    On the narrow shingle beach that bracketed the lake, he set down the rucksack and stripped to his underpants. He waded, then swam out and floated on his back.
    Swallows skimmed the water for insects.
    Underneath him stretched the great depth of lake and mountain, the Earth turning under cloudless heights of sky.
    And he was a speck drifting, shoreless.

FIFTEEN
    He sat on a rock and let the sun dry his skin and hair. He watched the distant boys larking about at the water’s edge. He ate some of the sandwiches Dad had made, washed them down with bottled water. Then he pulled on his shorts, his walking boots and T-shirt, hooked the rucksack over his shoulders. He scrambled back up the slope to the top of Tolley Carn.
    Below him to the east lay Thornditch.
    To the south, Carrog Ridge and beyond that the lane that ran around to the Monks Bridge and then towards Mark’s camp.
    High on Carrog Ridge stood a solitary figure, motionless, silhouetted against the pale sky.
    The hairs on the back of Ash’s neck prickled. Then the figure lifted one arm, waved, gestured as if it wanted him to come across to it.
    Dad or Mark. But he knew it wasn’t Dad. Dad would be at home by now, shut in his dark room again. So it had to be Mark.
    Or I’ll find you , Mark had said in his note. And he had found him.
    For a moment, Ash hesitated. He could just walk away, keep his head down, focus on his running for the last few days before the Stag Chase.
    But he needed more answers, and Mark was the only one who could give them.
    He set off towards the ridge.
    The raven returned from the other side of the lake, a black rag flapping across a pale sky. Its soft honking call sounded