The Lives She Left Behind by James Long

down
into the far distant depths where voices can no longer be heard. When the sky lightened again there was not a movement to be seen and there was nobody there to see it until a roe deer stepped
cautiously from the fringe of the wood to sniff at the tumbled earth. An entire night passed and in the morning, the searchers raised by the itinerant horse tamer came upon Jacob, white-faced and
white-haired, crawling, shaking, from a badger’s sett a full furlong from the mound. It is said to this day that if you find that same badger’s sett, you may discover a human bone or
two in the excavated earth around it – for that is all that was ever found of Jehosh, Joseph and the treasure of Montacute.’
    Jo trembled. It was thirty-six hours since her last tablet and she wondered if this was the first touch of adrenalin anxiety that often came as the effect wore off. The flames of the fire seemed
sharper and brighter. Conrad’s voice still hung in her ears and she saw in her mind’s eye a clear image of the hole and the treasure as if she had heard the story, or a story very like
it, some time before. It felt long ago.
    He stopped, bowed, and they all clapped. He held up a hand until they were silent again. ‘That’s the health and safety dealt with then,’ he said. ‘Shore up any trenches
deeper than four feet. Test the ground beneath you for security and remember what happens when you swear.’
    Rupert jumped to his feet and thanked him, then yawned. ‘I’m for bed. Early start to catch the weather. Breakfast seven thirty. Briefing at eight. Someone else’s turn to tell
the story tomorrow. Night, all.’
    Conrad came back to the log and Ali made space next to her. ‘That was really good,’ she said.
    He smiled back at her. ‘Thank you. Why don’t you do one tomorrow? You could do it together. It’s fun.’ And to their horror, Jo and Lucy heard Ali agree.
    Jonno joined them and the wine bottles went round, and at some point Lucy and Andy disappeared into the dark and it was much later into the night when Lucy slid back into the tent, trying not to
wake her friends and failing in the attempt.
    They slept soundly on the hard earth, and when Jo woke in the morning from a dream she could not quite remember the tent seemed nearer to a home than anywhere else she had
been. Just one day of shared experience had turned the marquee into a place full of friendly faces and kind enquiries. Dozer winked and waved at them. Conrad brought Ali a mug of coffee and she
drank it as if it was what she had most wanted, though the other two knew she only ever drank tea. They stormed the slopes of the hill laughing and chattering in the middle of the group of students
and when they got up to the high terrace, Rupert separated them out and gave them their very own end of a trench to work in, tucked in under a small, overgrown cliff with the hill rising towards
its summit above them.
    ‘You came back so
late
,’ Jo said to Lucy. ‘Come on, what happened?’
    ‘This and that.’
    ‘You were giggling when you crawled into the tent. How much of this and what sort of that?’
    ‘That’s better,’ said Lucy. ‘The real Jo is coming back again.’
    ‘I don’t think we should be chatting,’ Ali said sternly. ‘We’re meant to be concentrating.’ She hoped the other diggers couldn’t hear them.
    ‘Oh really, Ali? Then you won’t want to hear what Conrad said about you.’
    ‘Conrad? About me? What did he say?’
    ‘I would tell you,’ said Lucy, ‘but I have to concentrate on this very, very dull bit of earth I’m kneeling on. It needs me to scrape at it very carefully in case I miss
something that could change our entire understanding of the world of the wotsits, William the thingy and all that.’
    ‘The Normans. Come on, what did Conrad say about me?’
    Lucy held up a piece of root at arm’s length and stared at it. ‘No, no. Don’t distract me. Look, this is obviously a Saxon’s leg bone and it shows