3. The Bone Register

Elara did not sleep. The Bone Register lay open on the rough-hewn table, its pages exhaling a scent of damp wool and something sweeter, more medicinal—the ghost of an operating theatre trapped in cellulose. She had read all forty-eight entries twice, and each time the same words rose like a refrain: *hypoxia, cardiac arrest, anaesthetic error, log falsified*. The children had been rendered into a litany of clinical failure, their short lives compressed into a single line of ink.

But it was the final line—*Or else*—that held her attention. The handwriting did not match the meticulous script of the preceding entries. It was looser, angrier, the pen pressed so hard that it had scored the paper. Someone had added it after the official record. Someone who wanted the threat to be the last thing any reader saw.

She closed the Register as the first grey light seeped through the window. The mist had lifted in the night, revealing a sky the colour of old pewter. From the cottage door, she could see the standing stones on the hill above the village, their silhouettes sharp against the dawn. Tonight, at moonrise, she would stand among them and testify. But before that, she needed to understand what she was testifying about—and what Fergus McTavish was not telling her.

She pulled on her boots and stepped outside. The village was stirring. Smoke rose from chimneys, and somewhere a door banged open and shut. A woman in a woollen shawl crossed the street ahead of her, carrying a pail of milk, and when she saw Elara she froze for a moment, then hurried on without speaking. The silence was not hostile, exactly; it was watchful, as though the entire village had been instructed not to interfere but could not help observing.

Elara walked toward the chapel. She needed to speak to Lassiter again. He was the only person in Glendornoch who had offered her anything resembling the truth, however partial, and she had questions that the Bone Register could not answer.

The chapel door was ajar. Inside, the candles had burned down to stubs, and the air was cold and still. Lassiter was not there. But someone else was—a figure kneeling in the front pew, her head bowed. It was the woman who had brought her to the Elder’s Hall the previous evening. Morag.

She looked up as Elara entered. Her eyes were dry, but her face carried the weight of a grief that had long since passed beyond tears. “I thought you might come here,” she said. “Dr. Lassiter told me you would.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone to the stone circle. He goes there every morning to pray for the children whose names are in the Register.” Morag rose, her staff clicking against the stone floor. “He has not forgiven himself, you know. He never will. But his guilt is not the whole story.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that. But no one tells me what the whole story is.”

Morag studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded, as though reaching a decision. “Walk with me. There is something you should see.”

They left the chapel and took a path that led away from the village, climbing through a stand of birch trees toward the lower slopes of the glen. The ground was soft underfoot, moss and fallen leaves giving way to patches of exposed rock. Morag walked with the easy rhythm of someone who had trodden this path a thousand times, her staff leaving small, round holes in the earth.

“You asked the Brehon last night what his sin was,” Morag said. “He gave you an answer. But he did not give you the whole answer. Fergus McTavish is not merely trying to end the arrangement with St. Cillian’s. He is trying to end the Court of Bane itself.”

“Lassiter said he wanted to destroy the old guard and install himself as ruler.”

“Lassiter is a broken man. He sees conspiracies everywhere.” Morag paused, turning to face Elara. “The truth is simpler and sadder. Fergus’s daughter was one of the children who died at St. Cillian’s.”

Elara stopped walking. “His daughter?”

“Ailis. She was six years old. She was born with a cleft palate, a small thing, easily corrected. Fergus and his wife took her to St. Cillian’s in 2012, long after the arrangement with the village had supposedly ended. They trusted the hospital. They trusted the doctors.” Morag’s voice tightened. “Ailis died on the operating table. The cause of death was recorded as an allergic reaction to the anaesthetic. But Fergus never believed it. He investigated, quietly, the way you investigated your sister’s death. And what he found led him here, to Glendornoch, to his own family’s complicity.”

“Ewan McTavish knew about his own granddaughter’s death?”

“Ewan McTavish *arranged* it.” Morag’s eyes, pale green and unblinking, held Elara’s. “He had retired from active involvement in the scheme by then. But when Ailis died, the hospital contacted him. They were afraid of a lawsuit, an inquiry, the kind of scrutiny that would have exposed everything. Ewan used the old mechanisms to suppress the truth. He told Fergus that Ailis’s death was an accident and that pursuing it would destroy the village. When Fergus refused to let it go, Ewan threatened him with the Court of Bane.”

“His own son.”

“The village comes before family. That is the first law of the Brehon. The second law is that no outsider can know the truth. The third law is that anyone who breaks the first two laws must be silenced.” Morag resumed walking, and Elara followed. “Fergus spent years gathering evidence in secret. When Ewan died—of a stroke, the official record says—Fergus became Brehon. And he decided that the only way to honour his daughter’s memory was to burn the system that had killed her to the ground.”

They emerged from the trees onto a flat shelf of land overlooking the glen. Below them, the village lay like a diagram: the church, the Elder’s Hall, the ring of cottages, the dark thread of the stream. And above it, on the opposite ridge, the standing stones.

“Why are you telling me this?” Elara asked.

“Because Fergus will not tell you himself. He believes that the Brehon must appear impartial, above personal grievance. He wants you to testify because you are an outsider, and the village will listen to an outsider in a way it will never listen to him.” Morag turned to face her. “But I am not the Brehon. I am only the keeper of the stones, the one who prepares the circle for the Court. And I have watched this village consume its children for forty years. I want it to end, Miss Voss. I want you to help him end it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you will leave tonight, before moonrise, and no one will stop you. Fergus gave you his word that you would be free to go, and his word binds the village.” Morag hesitated. “But if you leave, the Register remains here. The evidence remains buried. And forty-eight children, including your sister and Fergus’s daughter, remain without justice.”

A curlew called somewhere on the moor, its cry long and sorrowful. Elara looked at the stones on the ridge, and she thought about the Polaroid that had arrived in her postbox, the letter signed by C, the long drive north into a landscape that had swallowed her phone signal and her certainties.

“Who sent me the Polaroid?” she asked. “Who wrote the letter?”

Morag was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I did.”

Elara stared at her. “You’re C?”

“Cait. My full name is Caitriona Morag McTavish. I am Fergus’s sister. Ewan was my father.” She looked away, toward the stones. “I was the porter at St. Cillian’s. I saw the children arrive, and I saw the coffins leave. I kept the records that my father ordered destroyed. When Fergus told me what he was planning, I knew we needed someone who could carry the story to the outside world. Someone with nothing left to lose.” She turned back to Elara. “You were the only investigator who had come close to the truth. The inquiry destroyed your career, but it also proved that you would not stop. I gambled that you would answer the letter. And I was right.”

“You’ve been watching me since the inquiry.”

“Since before. Since the night your sister died.” Morag’s voice was barely audible now. “I was in the corridor outside the operating theatre. I heard the alarms. I saw Lassiter run from the room. I saw my father arrive the next day with his sprig of hawthorn. And I said nothing, for eighteen years, because I was afraid.” She met Elara’s eyes. “I am not afraid any more.”

The wind picked up, rattling the birch leaves. Elara felt the weight of the Bone Register in her holdall, the digital recorder with Siobhan Keane’s testimony, the Polaroid that had started it all. She had come here expecting a conspiracy. She had not expected a family.

“What happens tonight?” she asked.

“The Court of Bane convenes at moonrise. The village elders will assemble in the stone circle. Fergus, as Brehon, will preside. He will present the Bone Register as evidence of the village’s crimes. And he will call you as the first witness.” Morag paused. “You will be asked to speak the truth. All of it. What you know about St. Cillian’s, about your investigation, about your sister. The elders will listen. And then they will vote.”

“Vote on what?”

“On whether to release the Register to the outside authorities. On whether to dissolve the Court of Bane. On whether to let the village face the consequences of its choices.” Morag’s jaw tightened. “The vote must be unanimous. If even one elder dissents, the old laws remain in force. And anyone who has spoken against the village becomes subject to those laws.”

“Including me.”

“Including all of us.”

They descended the hill in silence. Elara’s mind was racing. The pieces were falling into place, but the picture they formed was terrifying. Fergus was not trying to use her; he was trying to save himself, and his sister, and the memory of his daughter. But the mechanism he was using—the Court of Bane—was the same mechanism that had killed the investigator five years ago, the same mechanism that had silenced witnesses and falsified records and driven thorns into the temples of anyone who threatened the village’s secrets.

Back in the cottage, she sat on the bed and pulled out the digital recorder. She had not listened to the full recording in years. Now she forwarded to the end, to the part where Siobhan Keane’s voice dropped to a whisper.

*“There was a woman, too. A porter. She saw everything. She was the one who told me to write down what I remembered before they made me forget. She gave me a piece of paper with a name on it. Cait. She said, ‘If you ever need to tell the truth, find Cait.’”*

Elara pressed stop. So Siobhan Keane had known about Morag. The web stretched further than she had imagined. And yet there was something that still did not fit. Lassiter’s warning, delivered in the chapel the night before: *He will make you believe he is your ally. But his justice is a blade that cuts both ways.*

She needed to speak to Lassiter again. Before the Court convened. Before she committed herself to Fergus’s plan.

The sun had climbed higher now, burning off the last of the mist. She found Lassiter at the stone circle, just as Morag had said. He was kneeling in the centre, beside the flat altar stone, his head bowed. The monoliths rose around him like grey sentinels, their surfaces covered in lichen that had been growing for centuries. At his feet, laid in a careful line, were forty-seven small white pebbles—one for each child in the Register, except the last.

He looked up as she approached. His face was ravaged, the lines around his eyes deeper than they had been the night before. “Miss Voss. I was hoping you would come.”

“I’ve been speaking to Morag.”

“Ah.” He climbed to his feet, his joints audibly protesting. “Then you know about Ailis. About Fergus’s daughter.”

“I know what Morag told me. She said you see conspiracies everywhere. That you’re a broken man.”

“She is not wrong.” Lassiter brushed the dirt from his knees. “But she is also not entirely honest with you. Caitriona Morag McTavish has her own reasons for wanting the Court of Bane dissolved. She is the one who carried out the executions.”

The words hit Elara like a physical blow. “What?”

“The midwives prepare the body after death. They sew the wounds. But it is the keeper of the stones who prepares the accused. Who places the crown of thorns. Who drives the final thorn home.” Lassiter’s voice was flat, clinical. “Morag has killed seven people in her lifetime. The investigator five years ago was the last. She wept for three days afterward, I am told. But she did it, because the Brehon—her father, then—ordered it, and because she believed it was necessary to protect the village.”

“And now she wants to end it.”

“Now she wants to end it because she cannot bear the weight of another death. Fergus’s plan gives her a way out. If the Court is dissolved, she will never have to kill again. That is a powerful motivation, Miss Voss. Powerful enough to make her tell you only the parts of the truth that serve her purpose.”

Elara looked at the altar stone. She could see, now, the dark stains that had seeped into its surface over the years. Not blood—the thorns were too precise for that—but something else. Lichen, perhaps. Or the memory of lichen.

“What is her purpose?” she asked.

“To convince you to testify. To ensure that the vote is unanimous. To make you believe that you are acting of your own free will, when in fact you are being guided toward a very specific outcome.” Lassiter stepped closer, his pale eyes intent. “Fergus McTavish is not lying to you about his daughter. Everything Morag told you about Ailis is true. But Fergus’s goal is not justice. It is vengeance. He wants to see the elders humiliated before the Court. He wants to see his father’s legacy destroyed. He wants to see the hospital executives prosecuted. And he is willing to sacrifice anyone who stands in his way—including you.”

“You said last night that he would offer me justice. That he would use me.”

“And he will. He is using you now. But the Register is real. The evidence is real. You can use him as much as he is using you.” Lassiter’s voice softened. “The question is not whether Fergus is sincere. The question is whether you are willing to walk into the Court of Bane knowing that Morag, the woman who killed the last investigator, will be standing at your shoulder. Knowing that if the vote fails, she will be the one to place the crown on your head.”

Elara felt a coldness spreading through her chest. She thought about the Polaroid, the letter signed by C, the careful way Morag had guided her through the village, the story about Ailis that had been calculated to win her sympathy. It was all true—she believed that, somehow—but it was also a trap. Not a trap designed to harm her, necessarily. A trap designed to make her complicit.

“If I refuse to testify,” she said, “what happens?”

“The Court convenes anyway. Fergus presents the Register without an outsider’s testimony. The elders, lacking an external witness, are less likely to vote unanimously. The old guard clings to power. The arrangement with St. Cillian’s remains secret. And you go home, alive, with nothing but a story you cannot prove.” Lassiter paused. “But if you testify, and the vote fails, you will not go home at all.”

“And if I testify, and the vote succeeds?”

“Then the Court is dissolved. The Register is released to the police. The village faces the consequences of its crimes. And you, Miss Voss, become the woman who brought down Glendornoch.” He smiled, a sad, bitter expression. “For what that is worth.”

The sun was sinking toward the western ridge. The shadows of the standing stones stretched across the grass like reaching fingers. Elara thought about her sister, about the last time she had seen her alive—a small figure in a hospital gown, waving from the door of the pre-op ward. She thought about the eighteen years that had passed since that moment, the inquiry, the suspension, the empty flat in Birmingham. She thought about the forty-seven white pebbles at Lassiter’s feet, and the forty-eighth that she carried in her pocket.

“I’ll testify,” she said. “Not for Fergus. Not for Morag. For L.S. And for the other forty-seven.”

Lassiter nodded slowly. “Then I will be there tonight. I will stand beside you, if you will allow it. I am the last person who should offer you comfort. But I am also the only person in this village who has no more lies to tell.”

He held out his hand. After a moment, Elara took it.

She spent the afternoon alone in the cottage, writing. She wrote down everything she knew, everything she suspected, everything Lassiter and Morag and Fergus had told her. She wrote a letter to her ex-husband, in case she did not return. She wrote a statement for the police, detailing the contents of the Bone Register and the history of the arrangement with St. Cillian’s. And she wrote a final entry in her notebook, addressed to no one.

*If I do not come back, the truth is in the Register. Forty-eight children. Forty-eight stolen futures. Let this be the end of the silence.*

She sealed the letters in an envelope and placed it inside her holdall, next to the digital recorder. Then she waited.

As dusk fell, the village came alive. Lights appeared in windows. Footsteps echoed on the cobbles. And a procession began to form, a line of dark figures winding up the path toward the standing stones. They walked in silence, carrying no torches, their faces shadowed by hoods. Elara watched from the cottage window, her heart beating hard against her ribs.

Morag arrived at the door as the first stars appeared. She wore a dark cloak now, and her staff was topped with fresh hawthorn. Her face was calm, but her eyes were bright with something that might have been fear or might have been hope.

“It is time,” she said.

Elara picked up her holdall and followed her into the night.

The stone circle was transformed. The monoliths loomed against the darkening sky, their surfaces glinting with moisture. In the centre, the altar stone had been draped with a white cloth, and around it, the elders had assembled—twelve figures in dark cloaks, their faces hidden. Fergus stood at the head of the circle, his silver-capped staff in his hand, his expression unreadable.

On the altar, held open by two smooth stones, lay the Bone Register.

Morag led Elara to a position just inside the circle. The elders turned to look at her, and in the darkness their eyes were like the eyes of animals caught in headlights—glittering, wary, full of ancient calculation.

Fergus raised his staff. The murmuring fell silent.

“The Court of Bane is convened,” he said, his voice carrying across the circle. “We are here to judge the living, as the living have judged the dead. The Bone Register is before us. The witness is before us. Let the truth be heard.”

He turned to Elara, and in the starlight his eyes were the colour of the loch in winter—grey-green and depthless.

“Miss Voss. Will you speak?”

Elara stepped forward. The white cloth on the altar rippled in the breeze. She opened her mouth to speak—and then, from somewhere in the darkness beyond the stones, came a sound that stopped the words in her throat.

A child’s voice. Clear and high and unmistakably real.

“Mummy?”

The elders froze. Fergus’s face went pale. Morag’s hand tightened on her staff. And Elara Voss, her heart slamming against her ribs, turned toward the darkness and the voice that had no place in this circle of the dead.

Because somewhere in Glendornoch, a child was calling for her mother. And in a village where the last child had died years ago, that should have been impossible.