Whistle on the wynd part 1

Josh rubbed his three day stubble and  turned towards Lyn, who wore her mask well.
The kids were being noisy and the traffic was heavy. A combination that Josh knew,always made her nervous. leading to that tell he knew so well. A slight shake  of her tousled  blonde hair and that fake smile, that hid  her boiling rage. On days like this he wish he could drive. But years of epileptic seizures had closed a door to that.  In the back seat of their marine  Seat Ibiza,  Eleanor 10, Jessica 8 and A.J  6 were bored and painfully showing it to thier frustrated audience.
‘Are we there yet’ called Eleanor
‘-No not yet.’ Josh  replied.
‘-Ouch!’ blurted out Jess
‘-Eleanor leave your sister alone!’ Came Lyn’s retort.
-'DAAAD! She’s pinching me.  AJ protested
‘Eleanor!’
‘Kids keep the noise down.’
Giggles laughter, screams.
‘Come on now girls, mummy is trying to drive.’ Josh sighed.
They stopped the car at the old priory. It was a pre-arranged  decision  to  stop here  for a picnic,  before  returning  back  home to  Exeter,  after  the weekend at  his once  best man, Steve and  his wife Pauline’s rambling home  in Plymouth.   Mainly as it was a handy place to let the kids remove some of their energy, in what had been already been an arduous  journey and a terrible weekend.
Josh  desperately  wanted to forget the  weekend and  especially  those  silent messages  which passed  between  Lyn and  Steve,  that became  painfully obvious  and personally embarrassing after they consumed  two  bottles of wine.
 It was a sultry early afternoon.  The sky had thick rolling, dark clumpy cloud that threatened  rain.  The overgrown grass  blew wildly  about   the wooden fences  and the foreground  of the  abbey; whose   dark corners ,  broken arches and tumbledown buildings  made of ancient grey stone  mixed with the  rich red  rock of Devon.  Stood out against the sky. As he  walked about  taking the scene in with his  Canon  Dsi, clicking here,  pausing to  set a frame there;  Josh felt  a nausea  grow.  He felt it as strange  stabbing  in the back of his  neck,  as if  unseen eyes,   bloated with a  loathing  of  living things,  gazed  with cold indifference  from the very rock itself.
The nausea increased.  Signs of a seizure. He mediated the feelings of anxiety down.  This is a ruin.  There is nothing out of the ordinary. Its energy is in the stone and the stone is old. The dizziness peaked and then ebbed , a dark tide slid back.
‘Look Dad’
It was A.J, her green eyes shone with the delight of pushing boundaries, as she scaled the wall. She had her mother’s beauty and his love of excitement.  Still…
‘AJ get down!’
Giggle. ‘come  and get me
‘Come on girls, its food time.’ called Lyn.
Two  girls  came  scrambling  out  of the  skeleton shadows of the  abbey,as the  one  in front of him  clambered down the rough grey-stone  wall.
Eleanor came over to the blanket
'Look what I’ve found.’
Two tiny hands covered with slimy mud, red clay and sand  were open,  palms up to  reveal in the clinging clay  a long narrow  tube. The  trinity as he sometimes called them,  instantly began bickering.
‘What’s that?’
‘Dunno.’
'Give it to me!’
‘No! its mine!’
‘It’s not fair!’
‘Girls please!’
Lyn rummaged in her handbag for the wet wipes.  Always there for  the emergencies.
‘You can’t eat with hands like that...'   hher terse voice rose.
The muddy tube being all things dirty to Lyn, was thrown in  the long  grass by the fence.  Josh put down the camera on corner of the blanket and then walked towards where the muddy tube had been discarded.  He picked it up and as he did, his curiosity slowly  grew .
The encrusted tube was about five inches long. It glinted with an azure stain in the rich near burgundy slimy red clay. Josh  casually  walked back to the blanket  and  picked up the  plastic packet  of wet  wipes already almost empty,  due to three mucky little girls and their  ferocious appetite  for adventure.  Carefully  he began  to remove  the  clay.
‘Josh put it dow-‘ sigh
‘-but  it’s actually  quite’ –
‘-Daaaad, it’s probably  got dog poo on it-‘   Jess  blurted
‘-Errgehh!  Daddy picking up!’  AJ squealed
‘Eleanor  touched it ffirst !’
'Just leave me alone!’   Eleanor barked.
‘ELL EN OAR!’   Jess and AJ  howled at the top of their voices
Oh god kids!
It cleaned up well.  It was about five inches in diameter, made  of bronze, or brass,  he couldn’t tell, but then he wasn’t a metallurgist.  He was an unemployed father   of three, with a condition  that restricted his employment and a degree,  that, if he had the ambition, (which right now, he confessed to himself  he  had little  of.) he could turn  into something valuable.
‘The writing’s familiar-’
‘-Darling, just put it down.’ 
He noted that  Lyn had that awkward face he recognised. He glanced at her, smiled, slightly, and looked down again. Desperately trying  not to hear the tiredness in her voice.  Knowing and fearing the distance between them.
‘-It’s  has  some Anglo Saxon  runes  on it.’
The soft sweet smelling wipes finally removed the wet clay in a smear across the tube. Through the mud, tiny indentations could be seen. There were runes and they were  Anglo Saxon.  He was certain of it.  He recalled during the Dane law, that began around   638 CE, many practices were exchanged, the writing of runes was one of them.  The Anglo Saxon Runic alphabet, differed from the Viking in many respects. Some of this was due to accent an dialect differences between locations; making the runic system exchangeable to a point.
The letters stood out  C..al  e..n..de  h..ae w…ill c…y..me. …Cal ende hae will cyme…  call  and he  will come… Fascinating.
There were also three tiny holes near the bottom of the tube.Taking his pen knife from his pocket he began to slowly remove the wet soil from within the tube.Red muddy water suddenly  spilled out  onto  the blanket.
‘Josh! ’ That tired  sigh again.
With a little difficulty he removed the rest  of  mud clearing it completely.
‘Darling, please put that thing down. ‘ she  sounded as if she was talking  to a child. She always did.
‘-It’s a, a whistle I think.’
‘-Or some  old tat  some other tourist  dropped while climbing the walls. Darling, you dig something up, Eleanor copies you. ‘
‘-She  has a love  of historical  finds.’
Lyn gave her stare to Josh. The stare that Josh new  too well.  The stare that said  don’t  be an arse  and be realistic.
‘-Have  you seen any jobs lately?’
‘-Nothing.’
‘-You’re not looking  hard enough.  Seven years you have been working  towards that bloody degree. Now you have  it, start making some money.’
Josh looked down and away from the kids.  Lyn had said that in front of them deliberately.
 ‘-Why don’t   you look for  work.’
‘-We’ve been there  Josh. For  Christs  sake  don’t be an arse.’
‘What’s an arse Daddy?’ AJ looked up innocently.
Josh walked away. He found Eleanor at his side a moment later.
‘I love  you daddy.’
‘I love  you  too p-.’  He was going to say pumpkin, but changed his mind, as she was recently diagnosed  as having Asperger syndrome   Ergo she  would not understand a metaphor.  She never would.  A sad lump formed in his throat.  Then  he faked a  grin and looked at this their  eldest  daughter with love.
‘Tell me… where did  you  find it?’
 Eleanor smiled and led Josh to the western wall.
‘Just  down there Dad.’  She said quietly.
‘Dad, why is Mummy like that?’
Mummy is worried that there isn’t enough money to keep us in our home Mummy hates daddy  Mummy has met  Steve  and  thinks he’ s  better fuck It happens.Josh’s  eyes  became  strained.
‘It’s nothing to worry about  darling.’
The  words  sounded empty  in his voice,  Josh  knew  that Eleanor  was smart enough  to pick  up on it.
‘So where exactly did  you find it?’
She pointed down at the base of the wall.
Both of them looked at the hole recently uncovered by the weekend  rain.  Feeling a little nervous and not knowing why,  Josh  put his  hand into the earth and felt something hard and narrow. He pulled at it.  With a soft plop the earth released its secret. It was the topper most part of a human skeletal finger.