FLOTSAM

It was March, and Seren was beachcombing. She leant into the wind, half blinded by her black, blowing hair. Wreckage lay everywhere. Last night had been the fiercest storm of the year and the highest tide. She hugged her coat around her, eyes to the ground, searching. Searching for anything that would take her mind off the dark cloud that was hanging over her parents’ cliff-top farm. The cloud was called ‘foot and mouth disease’ and Seren knew that, if it was confirmed, it would ruin them all – wipe out fifteen years’ work, her dad has said, three more years than her whole life. An inspector was coming that afternoon. Until then, Seren was keeping out of the way.

She stopped. Something lay at her feet. A gull’s egg? She picked it up and turned it over in her hand – then clapped her other hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming. Lying in the palm of her hand was a tiny, perfectly formed human skull. Every part was intact – the pearly teeth, even the little zigzag join across the cranium. It was a fully grown adult – but an adult what? No human being could be that small. There must be an explanation! Someone must know – but who? Seren thought hard. Of course! Megan! Turning, she ran through the marram grass to the cliff path, slipping on the soft sand. Megan – Mad Megan some called her – lived rough on Cefn Bryn for much of the year, picking up farm work or tramping the lanes with her pipe and man’s hat, a sack across her shoulders. No-one knew more about the wild life of Gower, its customs and its ancient secrets. Some said she was a gypsy, others a witch, but to Seren she was simply a friend. She’d find her on a neighbouring farm where lambing had already begun. She curled her fingers gently around her fragile find and struggled up the steep path.

The force of the wind as she gained the cliff-top nearly blew her over and she made for the shelter of a lime kiln.

‘Seren!’

A raucous voice stopped her in her tracks. She peered into the darkness of the kiln. A black lump lay on the floor, an old grey lurcher guarding it.

‘Meg! Are you all right? I was going to look for you. Are you hurt?’

‘Twisted my blessed knee!’ Meg struggled to sit up. ‘I been ’ere all night – it was the storm!’

‘What d’you mean it was the storm? Did you slip?’

‘No – no! That storm was bad!’ – Megan thrashed her arms about – ‘Bringing trouble – trouble everywhere – and it’s still blowing!’

‘D’you know about our trouble – about the foot and mouth?’

‘Is that why you was looking for me?’

‘No. Something else. Something I found on the beach. Meg, it scares me!’ Seren sat down and opened her hand. Megan became suddenly still, her

brown face calm as she took the skull into her hand. She was breathing deeply. Bran whined softly.

‘This is the cause of it all,’ she said, turning her face sharply to Seren.

‘The inspector – ’as ’e been?’

‘No – this afternoon.’

Meg struggled to her knees. ‘Seren, go quick – quick as you can – bury him! Back with his body! Nothing will come right till then, and I can’t move with this leg!’

‘But where, Meg?’

‘Oxwich Point – out beyond the churchyard. Bran knows – he’ll show you.’

‘But . . .’

Megan flapped her bony arms. ‘Go! Once the inspector’s come it’ll be too late!’

She pressed the skull into Seren’s hand. Bran’s pale eyes were fixed on it and he sprang to his feet.

Seren sped down the cliff path, the lurcher beside her. A dark mass of trees on the headland surrounded Oxwich Church. She jogged gently. Why did Meg call the skull ‘he’? And how could such a tiny thing cause the foot and mouth and Meg’s accident? Was she really mad, like people said?

It seemed an age before they gained the path up to the churchyard, Seren’s lungs bursting, her legs like lead. Now Bran took the lead, trotting confidently past the church. He loped over the stone wall and through the bracken stubble of the headland, making for the cliff edge. Here he stopped, disconcerted, and Seren saw why. The high tide had undermined a huge section of soil and turf. Roots and grasses floated in the swell below. Bran stepped down onto the rocks. Suddenly his tail wagged furiously and he nosed into the soft earth before him. Then he stepped back and uttered a single bark. Seren slid down beside him.

Something resembling a pencil case was protruding from the wall of earth and she realised with a shock that it was a very small coffin. She pulled gently and the box emerged in a shower of soil. The lid had been smashed and she picked out the pieces of splinter, her hands shaking with haste. There, at last, was the little skeleton body, white as ivory and – incredibly – undamaged. It looked so perfect with its fragile rib cage and minute fingers that Seren almost cried. Carefully she fitted the skull onto the neck bone and replaced the shattered lid. Then she pulled off her scarf and tied it around the coffin, pushing it back into the earth as far as it would go and wedging a piece of rock across the hole.

The wind had dropped abruptly and the sea was unusually calm. Seren felt exhausted. By the time she and Bran rounded the corner of the old church, she almost collided with the vicar as he emerged from the north door.

‘My goodness!’ he exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that Megan’s dog? I thought for a moment that you must be Megan on one of her regular visits to “tend the graves of the tylwyth teg” – or so she fondly imagines, poor lady! It’s Seren, isn’t it? Can I give you a lift? I’m going towards Swansea.’

‘Yes please!’ Seren said gratefully. ‘Could you drop me by Bryn Farm?’

Suddenly Bran gave a bound and streaked out of the gate and along the beach. Seren saw a tattered figure in the distance, striding along the sands towards him – no trace of a limp.

She sank into the leather seat of the old Morris.

‘The tylwyth teg?’ she queried. ‘Do you mean the little people – the fairy folk?’

‘Extraordinary, isn’t it,’ the vicar replied as they drove along the main road, ‘to think that there are still people who believe in them in this day and age?’

Seren remained silent. A lump in her jeans pocket reminded her of her mobile phone.

‘Seren!’ Her dad’s response to her call sounded relieved. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Beachcombing. What’s happened? Has the inspector been?’

‘Been and gone. It was a false alarm! I don’t understand it – I could’ve sworn . . .’

The vicar was pulling up at the top of the farm lane. ‘I suppose,’ he remarked, as Seren climbed out, ‘that it takes all sorts to make a world!’

Seren smiled. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

It was almost dusk as she approached the house. Through the lighted kitchen window she could see her mother at the sink filling the kettle. Just as if nothing had happened.