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They were dark brown, some of them were broken into fragments. Even to me, it was obvious they must have been there for a very long time.
    “John Fordyce called the place The Longman’s Grave, said it was where a great Danish warrior was buried. The Longman had sworn to protect his men, and the legend was that he did so even after they were dead, to stop them roaming the earth as ghosts. Johnclaimed the Longman still took – what was it he called them now –
the unquiet dead
, that was it – down to the underworld occasionally, to keep our world safe from them.
    “I asked my parents about the grave as soon as I went home. They’d come across the name, of course – you can find that on maps – but they’d never heard of there actually being a grave there.”
    “Can we go and have a look now?” asked Josh eagerly.
    “No,” said George. “That’s the strange thing. I was never able to find the grave again. Not a sign. I’ve looked for it on and off for years. There are references to Longman’s Grave in a few books, but nothing about a slab or a skeleton. I know what I saw, but I stopped talking about it to other people after a while, because I could see they didn’t believe me. They thought I was just making it up.”
    “Why didn’t you ask John Fordyce?”
    “It was a few weeks before I got the chance to look for the grave again, and he’d died in the meantime.”
    “But I thought you said bones had been found in the dyke a few years ago?” Josh said, confused.
    “Yes, but that was at the other end,” Callie replied.
    The bank had been getting lower as they walked and now it petered out, merging into the landscape.
    “I’ve looked too,” said Callie.
    “I used to wish I’d never told you the story, you pestered me about it that much when you were small,” said George ruefully. “Anyway, Josh, if you’re thinking of going digging for it yourself, it’ll have to be another day – I’ll need to be getting back now.”

    ***
    “Anybody home?” Callie yelled as she went into her own house.
    “Just me,” replied her father, David, his voice coming from the back garden.
    She found him sitting in the sun with the newspaper, a cup of coffee and a packet of biscuits.
    “Had a nice day?” he asked.
    “Yeah. Just mucking about with Josh.” She shoved a biscuit into her mouth. “We’re going body boarding tomorrow, but I don’t think he’s realised how cold it’ll be. Can I lend him your wetsuit?”
    “Will it fit?”
    “It’ll be better than no wetsuit at all. And he’s only a few centimetres shorter than you.”
    “No problem.”
    “Where’s Mum?”
    “Gone to see your grandmother.” He looked at her questioningly. “Is there something going on with them? It seems a bit… tense… these days.”
    Callie knew that her father was a clever man, but he could be
very
slow to notice things going on in front of his nose sometimes.
    She shrugged. “Dunno,” she said evasively. “When’s tea? I’m going for a shower.”
    “In about an hour. I’m on barbecue duty.”
    “Cool. Will there be prawns?”
    “Of course.”
    “Yum.”
    Callie was glad to get into the shower. She still feltgrubby and gritty from this morning’s episode at the castle. It was strange just how spooked she’d been when the lights went out, imagining all that stuff. It seemed ridiculous now; Josh must have thought she was crazy. She pushed away the memory of the voice at Fife Ness.
    The black mark on her left wrist wouldn’t come off, no matter how hard she rubbed. Odd. It wasn’t a graze, and it was the wrong colour for a bruise. It looked almost as if some soot had got under her skin. It was an unwelcome reminder of what had happened earlier in the day, and when she got dressed again she pulled her sleeve down to cover it so that her parents wouldn’t notice and ask about it.
    ***
    There were prawns, and tuna and sausages too. And corn on the cob. And bananas with chocolate in them. They always made