Bone of My Bone

'She's facing due east,' I said, wiping my hands of the familiar dust as I stood up in the trench. Dee shrugged, still further down in the trench.

     'We know she was buried with things they valued. Or things they thought she should value.'

      'Are you thinking... late Iron Age?'

      'Maybe. Pass me the trowel.' We worked in the shadow of a neighbouring broch, a tall dark tower from the period just named. We had a grant from the Council to probe the mystery of these remains in the Orkney Islands for a short time, as always. We were on Shapinsay, near the shore. So many crumbling remains, washing away into the sea; limited time, money, expertise to examine them all. We liked to think we could provide the third part, anyway, if there was rarely enough of the first two.

***

'Neil! Neil!' I woke up from my tent, and wandered outside. I thought I heard a voice. There was nothing but the cold, exposed remains of the past; a banquet of bones, in the long barrow, the trench. The light rain washed at me as I shivered, still half asleep, and jammed my hands in my pockets. I remembered our last dig. I remembered it so well. I wished she were still with me, indeed, not buried four thousand miles away in her native land.

What was I doing here, excavating the past again?