Rain sweeps across the roof in gusts, banging and stuttering, then slowly stopping. Tonderai begins again, every word laced with dread.

“Girl remembers with a shiver, the deepest whisper, the whisper no-one dares to speak. She feels again her mother’s breath in her ear, the fear in her voice, when she told her that she must never speak of these things, for this place is a place where evil was done.

Girl trembles, for now she remembers too that beneath this secret there is another secret that is deeper still. A secret that is truly too terrible to say aloud. A secret that lies strangled in the throats of those who know it, tied so tight that few speak of it, even though they know it to be true. And what is this terrible secret?” Tonderai asks, his eyes going from face to face. “The secret is this. It is that Grandpa himself knows of these Bones. That Grandpa was there when these Bones came to be. That Grandpa holds their stories in his fists. That Grandpa will vanish any that speak of how these bones came to be broken in their own soil.”

Tonderai resumes his pacing, his head bowed, his mac gleaming grey in the torchlight. Rudd watches as he vanishes into the dark, swallowed by shadows, only his voice reaching back.

 “Girl’s legs shake for now she herself has seen the Bones. She knows that they are real. And to know this, is to know that now she too must strangle this secret in her own throat, for if she does not her plan will fail. Fright twists inside her. She lowers her eyes and backs slowly, slowly away – away from the sad eyes, away from the old people with their backs to the wall, clutching their children close. Heart straining, sweat pouring, she backs and backs away, one foot stumbling after the next, until the eyes are gone, and the bones no longer beneath her feet. Then she turns, and makes her way as fast as she can across the House, always careful not to run, not to make the People look.

At last she reaches Uncle, with Knowledge and Hope asleep at his feet. As she collapses down beside him, Uncle looks at her, but Girl does not look at him. She knows that he will know just from the sight of her.

‘You have seen,’ he says, his voice calm.

She nods her head, too afraid to speak.

‘Do you know what we must do now?’ he asks.

She shakes her head slowly and looks at him. His eyes are steady as he replies. ‘We must work harder and faster. We must do more, for those Bones will not stay silent for long.’

‘But Uncle, who else will speak, and who will listen? Those who know are so frightened. I myself have seen this.’

‘Yes,’ says Uncle. ‘I know for I too have seen, but this silence will not last. The bones will speak. So we must be brave. We must be clever. We must hurry with our plan. We must try to make a difference. Besides, if we do not try to start the change, then who will do this for us?’

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

Tonderai ignores the moaning wind and continues.

“At the Table, the chairs can no longer hold Grandpa’s Favourites for they have grown too fat. A few of them see that this is being noticed, and not in a good way, so they decide to vanish.

Girl watches their fat bottoms as they try to wriggle out of the windows, but not all of them make it. Some of them, the unlucky ones, now have pockets so heavy, so crammed with gold and diamonds, lithium and US dollars, that they cannot reach high enough, fast enough, and so they do not escape. Even worse for them, when Grandpa hears their squeals, he sends his soldiers to fetch them back. Then these unfortunate Favourites do vanish, but not in the ways they had hoped to.”

“So, this is how it goes until one morning there is a big shock for Girl.” Tonderai moves closer to the fire, his jaw clenching and unclenching, as he sizzles the story into the dark, each word sparking like a half-lit fuse.

“This shock, this sadness that happens to Girl is on the morning that she goes for a long walk, a new walk, to the other side of the House to think about the stories she must tell. Girl has never been to this place in the House before, so she is excited to see it now. She walks as she always does – sometimes skipping, sometimes stopping, always thinking, thinking of stories. But, on this day, just as she reaches the far corner, she trips on a pile of loose shapes.

‘Oooo …’ Sorry for that! She lifts one foot up, and hops on the other. She stops to look down.”

Tonderai, leans on the billiard table and lifts up the sole of one of his gumboots. He peers around as though to examine it, and then he lets it fall back with a splash.

“‘What are these things? Wood?’” he cries, his voice mimicking that of a young girl. “‘No, they are too white. And their shape is wrong.’ Girl bends down to look more closely, and then she cries out again, for she sees that these shapes are not wood. They are Bones. These are the Bones of skeletons. She spins around.

‘Whose are these bones? Who lives here?’

At first she cannot see anybody, and then she sees eyes gleaming, their backs to the wall. The eyes are big. They are sad and silent, and they stare at her from the half dark. The eyes belong to the old men and old women, who sit in a circle, holding their grandchildren close.”

Now Tonderai takes a few hobbling steps, then he stops. When he speaks again, his voice is so soft, that Rudd has to lean forward to hear him better.

“Girl limps across to speak to them, but the old people shrink back as she approaches. She stops. She tries to remember. And then it comes to her. ‘This must be it. This must be that place. These must be the Buried Lives.’ Suddenly Girl knows that these are the Bones that she heard the Elders whisper about long, long ago. These are the Bones of the Lost.”

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023

There is no story now, for the wind is back. Rudd looks up at the snap and heave of the roof. He thinks it will hold but he is not sure. Behind him the door bashes frantically against the stove, and in front of him Tonderai stands motionless by the fire, his head turned towards the flames. Rudd looks around the room at the others. Some are relaxed, some buzzing, some quiet – all are tissue-papered in smoke and dark.

He pulls himself a little straighter. His toes, in his soggy shoes, feel warmer now, but his palms still sting from the drag of the stove. He tucks each hand under its opposite elbow, and twists his neck from side to side, wondering how long the storm will keep up its assault.

In the end it is a stretched ten minutes before the wind and the rain shift away like a tide. As the quiet settles, Tonderai begins again.

“Slowly, slowly,” he says, “Girl and Uncle do their work, and slowly, slowly change begins to happen. But at first there is so little to see that nobody sees it. Nobody that is, except Girl.

Every morning, when Girl looks up, she sees there are more faces at the window. She sees that their eyes look past Grandpa and his shirts. Now they try to see beneath his Table, for they hear the cries from below, and even from a distance they can see that the People are tired. Those who look in grow worried. They want to help, to do something. So, on some days, these people, these Watchers, throw in parcels of food, and on other days they reach their hands down to help the People out. This last worries Girl, for every day she sees that more and more of the People try to leave. She knows that soon the only ones left will be those who are not strong enough to leave, and then who will look after those who stay?”

Tonderai starts to pace to and fro, hands clasped behind his back. At first his voice is clear and steady.

“Girl’s heart beats faster. There is no time to waste. They must topple Grandpa from his Table. Uncle must hurry to do his work, and she must keep Snake, and Wife of Snake, under the story spell. So Girl makes her stories grow longer and longer. She fills them with magic and adventures, with Ancestors, and with feasts so big that all may eat and eat … feasts so delicious that she too dreams of their dishes.”

Then Tonderai’s slows his voice, draping sadness over the dark. “Girl’s stories are indeed grand and wonderful, but now fewer come to listen, for many no longer have the strength to do so, and many of those that do have the strength still, are too busy trying to escape.”

Rudd sighs. Too right, he thinks, his mood made darker by the wind as it mourns in through the cracks, searching for what happens next.

 Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023