Erin Hart - Haunted Ground

“Cormac, it’s good to see you,” she said, reaching out to take his hand. “I’m realizing I must have driven the whole way like an absolute maniac, and I’m sorry to say I’ve been pestering these poor people with questions.”

“I apologize for keeping you waiting,” Cormac said. “Good to see you as well.” He turned to Devaney. “The man who found the body—is he here?”

“Brendan McGann,” Devaney said, indicating the stocky man of about thirty who stood a few feet from him, leaning on the handle of a two-grain fork. The shaggy curls that framed McGann’s face cast it into shadow. Apart from the reticent farmer, the mood of the group was expectant as Devaney introduced them. Declan Mullins, the young Garda officer, obviously fresh out of the academy at Templemore, had a slender neck and prominent ears, which lent him the air of an overgrown altar boy. The fair-haired woman in the denim jacket and Indian skirt, whom he guessed to be in her mid-twenties, was McGann’s sister, Una. Cormac was struck by her large dark eyes, and the way her broad mouth turned up slightly at the corners. But most unusual were her hands and fingernails, which were stained as though they’d been steeped in blackberry juice.

“All right if I have a look?” Cormac asked Brendan McGann, who said nothing, but put his lips together and tipped his head to signal assent. Cormac climbed carefully into the hole with his site bag, feeling the soggy turf spring like rubber under his weight. The cutaway was a space seven or eight feet in length, but narrower than a man’s arm span—large enough for one person to work comfortably enough, but extremely close quarters for two. One wall rose higher than the other, and its surface, which graduated from sepia to coal-black, bore the oblique impressions of a foot slean. The floor was uneven, and Cormac turned his attention to the area of loose peat where Brendan McGann had apparently been stopped in his work. He knelt and used his bare hands to scrape away the damp peat that had been replaced over the body. It was too risky to use a trowel in a bog excavation: a sharp metal edge could too easily damage waterlogged objects. His breath came faster as he caught the first glimpse of finely preserved hair and skin, but he was unprepared for the wave of pity that struck him at the sight of an ear, as small and fragile as that of a child. He looked up to see Nora Gavin crouched at the very edge of the cutaway, captivated by the grisly image that had just emerged from the peat.

“Are you ready?” Cormac asked. She nodded wordlessly, then climbed down into the cutaway beside him.

“First we have to determine the way the body is situated before we begin the complete excavation,” Cormac said. “The head appears to be turned at roughly a forty-five-degree angle to the cutaway floor here, which means the body could be articulated in any number of different ways.” He was aware that this was probably Nora’s first experience of a bog body in situ, so after carefully covering the head once more with wet peat, Cormac pulled paper and pencil from his bag and hastily drew a sketch to show her what they were about to do.

“So, here’s the head—right? The body could be fully extended or flexed, and it could also be angled downward, if it’s intact. We’ll mark out as much of a circle as we can, then dig small test pits, like this,” he said, making small circles on the diagram, “starting from the outside of the circle and moving inward. That way we can establish how large a block of peat will have to be removed. The pits should be about fifty centimeters apart, and twenty to thirty centimeters deep. We’ll have to dig with our bare hands; that way we can’t do any damage, and it’s important for sensing the texture of the surrounding material.” He unstrapped his wristwatch, glancing at it briefly before putting it into his pocket. “If only it weren’t so late in the day. We’ll have to work quickly.” He handed her his waterproof jacket. “You can kneel on this if you like. Any last thoughts before we get stuck in?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. Her eyes rested for an instant on his stubbly chin, and as she turned away, Cormac felt a faint flush of embarrassment; in the rush to get out here he hadn’t taken the time to shave. He lifted his sweater over his head and rolled up his sleeves. As he worked, plunging his bare arm into the dense, waterlogged peat, he considered that there was nothing in the world quite like the consistency of turf. If a bog wasn’t exactly liquid, it wasn’t quite solid either, but a curious mixture somewhere between the two. It was also extremely cold; with their sleeves and shirt fronts completely soaked through, both he and Nora had to stop every few minutes to warm their hands. After nearly twenty minutes thoroughly probing almost the entire arc of their circle, they had turned up nothing at all.

“Is it just me,” she asked, leaning back and rubbing off the tiny flecks of wet peat that stuck to her arms, “or is something missing here—like any sign of a body?”

“Let’s have another look at her,” Cormac said. With Nora watching over his shoulder, he removed a larger portion of the protective peat, to find the woman’s features obscured by her long red hair, which clung like seaweed on a victim of drowning. Bog tannins gave hair of every hue—even black hair—a reddish tinge, but it was still possible to tell the original color. Cormac carefully lifted the damp strands and laid them aside, then froze when he saw what lay beneath. The girl’s mouth was clamped tightly shut, her top teeth deeply embedded in the flesh of her lower lip. One eye stared wildly; the other was half closed. Her face seemed distorted with fear, a far cry from the images he’d seen of Iron Age bog men, whose unblemished bodies and tranquil expressions led to theories that they were either drugged, or willing victims of sacrifice. In its brief exposure to the air, the girl’s hair had already begun to dry, and a few strands began to play in the breeze that scooped down into the trench. Something about this tiny movement made it seem, for one surreal instant, that she was alive. Cormac felt Nora Gavin’s involuntary start beside him. “Shall I go on?” he asked. Nora’s head slowly turned until her eyes met his, and she nodded.

Cormac continued scraping away the soft black turf with his fingers, until what he had half suspected was confirmed. The girl’s neck ended abruptly, he estimated, between the third and fourth vertebrae. He sat back on his heels.

“My God,” Nora said. “She’s been decapitated.”

The girl was young, perhaps no more than twenty, and, if you removed the ghastly expression, had probably been quite beautiful, with a gracefully arched brow, high cheekbones, and a delicate chin. Beside his knee, Cormac could make out a ragged fringe of rough fabric, like torn burlap. Who was this girl, that she had come to such a harsh and desolate end? When he rose slowly to his feet again, he found the McGanns and the young policeman gazing at her solemnly, as he and Nora had, in silence.

The sound of voices came from the road. Detective Devaney was having words with a newcomer—a tall, fair-haired man dressed in jeans and heavy work boots. The man broke away from Devaney, and began to cross in long strides to the digging site. Devaney followed after, leaping sideways through the heather like a terrier. They could hear the policeman’s words: “…completely unrelated…Haven’t we promised to notify you if there’s any news at all?” The stranger ignored Devaney, and marched stone-faced through the scrub. When he reached the cutaway, the man was breathing heavily, though he still said nothing. His eyes met Cormac’s for an instant, but his gaze was distracted until it at last seized upon the terrible, upturned face of the red-haired girl. And at that moment, all purpose seemed to drain out of him. He fell to his knees and clapped a hand over his eyes, as if suddenly overcome by extreme exhaustion or relief. After a moment or two, Una McGann stepped to the stranger’s side and helped him to his feet.