Bone Conspiracy

By Elle Wood

PROLOGUE

Dorset, 1877

Like any secret that is truly monstrous, the truth is often hidden in plain sight; the end of Jane Bone begins here, on this beach in Charmouth. There is a stillness in the air – a taut, waiting feeling, though the storm has broken. The beach is littered with debris. Driftwood, green threads of mermaid hair, stones that wink like gems, and then something even more wondrous. The

curling shape of some lost, prehistoric creature. What her father calls “snakestones”. Jane bends down for a closer look at the chunk of yellowed rock that houses her treasure, though her father has told her a thousand times never to turn her back on the sea. Still in one piece, it will fetch a pretty price. Using a rock hammer to chisel around the outside of her treasure, Jane adds it to her basket. The surf sneaks up behind her. She feels the soft, insistent suck of water around her feet but pays it no mind. Jane imagines herself as Mary Anning, wearing a top hat and wielding a pickaxe. A Finder of Ichthyosaurs. But already it is too late for this future. As she straightens, she looks up to see the black door in the rock that the storm has opened. An invitation.

Inside the cavern, the wind whispers a warning as she tiptoes over the slick floor. In the dim light, there is a glint of something white and impossible that makes her turn her head. Jane's gaze follows up the ridged staircase of vertebrae toward the head. The thing is much larger than any ichthyosaur she has ever seen, and stranger – a single fang at the front the size of her entire body. Jane realizes that she is holding her breath and lets it out suddenly, a wave gathering speed.

An icy feeling spreads inside her, freezing Jane to the spot, gaping and miniscule. She feels as though she is made of stone – but something as tough as igneous, Jane’s mother would remind her, because the glossy surface belies great strength. She holds onto this thought as she summons her courage. The water is twining about her calves by the time she makes up her mind to touch the creature. At first, Jane does not hear her father’s panicked cries, but suddenly he is behind her, taking the Lord’s name in vain: a curse upon them all.

“Jane! Didn’t you hear me call—?” He falls silent as he catches sight of the thing. “Holy mother of….”

When she turns, Jane can already smell the familiar mackerel and pipe scent of his jumper. “Can I sell it to the British Museum?”

“No, child. You’re a girl. Even Miss Anning doesn’t have her name in the Museum.” “But.…”

“But I can.”

She blinks, but the apparition remains in the dull gloom, one hollow eye socket staring

back.

***

*POLICE ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY* LAW COURTS AND WEEKLY RECORDS

Friday April 1, 1877 Price One Penny

THE DORSET MURDERS

Neighbours made a gruesome discovery at Char Cottage outside Lyme Regis on Wednesday: the bodies of Thomas and Mary Bone. Lyme Regis police say they’d been stabbed multiple times. An eyewitness reports an unknown cart and horse tethered out front in the late afternoon. The Bone daughters, Jane (10) and Alice (5), have been reported missing.