The Tor - 4. Chapter 4

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Cloud cover still pressed low across the harbour when Christopher arrived with the Year Eleven history class just after midday. The storm had passed during the night, but the world it left behind looked waterlogged and raw. Wet stone reflected pale light beneath the quay railings while gulls circled overhead, shrieking into the wind.

Twenty-two students moved around him in damp coats and school uniforms, louder than the harbour itself.

“Stay behind the barriers unless someone from the excavation team tells you otherwise,” Christopher called, raising his voice over the sea wind. “And if anybody falls into a trench, I am absolutely not filling out that paperwork.”

A few students laughed.

Vale waited near the temporary fencing beside the lower harbour steps. Even bundled into a weatherproof coat with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm, he carried the same distracted intensity Christopher remembered from university conferences.

“Mr. Edwards,” Vale said, offering a hand. “And survivors of secondary education, apparently.”

“Barely,” Christopher replied.

The students began clustering immediately around the fencing, peering towards the shoreline excavation below.

From above, the site looked chaotic. Tarpaulins snapped in the wind beside stacked equipment crates. Archaeologists moved carefully between exposed sections of dark earth and stone while cameras flashed intermittently near the trench walls. Beyond it all, the sea rolled heavily against the harbour below the tor.

Vale gestured towards the access path. “Mind your footing on the way down. The rain loosened half the slope.”

The students followed him through the barriers in uneven pairs, voices echoing against wet stone as they descended towards the shoreline trench.

Christopher stepped below harbour level last.

The sensation hit immediately, subtle enough that he almost missed it.

The harbour sounds dulled strangely once the seawall rose above him. Wind still moved overhead, but down inside the excavation the air felt close and muted. Damp earth replaced the sharper smell of saltwater, and beneath it, a lingering smell of wet ash.

Christopher slowed instinctively. Not fear or even alarm, just a brief, disorienting certainty that he had crossed some invisible threshold without noticing.

“You all right, sir?” one of the students asked behind him.

Christopher blinked. “Fine. Watch the boards there. They’re slippery.”

The trench spread wider at the bottom than it had appeared from above. Sections of exposed stone emerged from the mud in uneven lines, some marked with bright survey tags, others partially covered against the weather. Archaeologists crouched beside tables cataloguing fragments into numbered trays while cameras clicked nearby, the ordinary work of brushes scraping soil, quiet academic arguments, and someone swearing softly over damaged equipment.

And yet Christopher could not shake the faint wrongness pressing beneath his ribs.

Then he saw Marco.

He stood beside one of the cataloguing tables with dark gloves pushed halfway off his hands, sorting fragments of inscribed slate beneath a portable work lamp. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms despite the cold. Mud streaked one side of his jacket.

Marco looked up before anyone called Christopher's name. Recognition flickered across his face before settling into something quieter.

"Christopher."

The familiar warmth in Marco's voice unsettled him.

“Marco,” Christopher replied.

Several students immediately noticed him.

“Sir,” Ella Morgan whispered beside Christopher, “your archaeologist’s well fit.”

Christopher closed his eyes briefly. “Please never say that sentence again.”

She grinned.

Marco’s attention lingered on Christopher a moment longer before shifting towards the students moving through the trench behind him. Christopher noticed the subtle change instantly.

Alert now, and watchful, not towards the class, but towards Christopher himself.

It irritated him more than it should have.

Vale clapped his hands once to gather the students closer around the nearest excavation table. “Right then. Since your teacher has inflicted you upon us, we may as well attempt education.”

The group shuffled forward eagerly.

Christopher followed more slowly, aware all at once of the exposed stones beneath his feet, the smell of damp ash in the soil, and Marco somewhere nearby tracking his movements with quiet, unsettling attention.

Vale led the students towards a row of folding tables set beneath a temporary canopy near the centre of the trench. Plastic containers filled with tagged fragments covered most of the surface space. Damp earth clung to brushes and gloves abandoned beside notebooks swollen from the weather.

“Careful around the trays,” Vale said as the students crowded closer. “Some of these pieces survived nearly two millennia before being handed to teenagers.”

“That feels targeted,” Daniel muttered.

“It is targeted.”

A few students laughed.

Vale picked up a small sealed evidence bag and held it towards the group. Inside rested several blackened fragments no larger than fingertips.

“Charred animal bone,” he said. “Possibly ritual deposition, though we are still waiting on confirmation.”

“Human?” somebody asked immediately.

“Not unless Roman Britain became dramatically more exciting overnight.”

Disappointed groans followed.

Christopher smiled faintly despite himself.

Vale moved methodically through the tables while the students scribbled notes and asked questions in overlapping bursts. Small bronze objects lay arranged in foam-lined trays beside fragments of worked stone and corroded pins greened with age.

“Most of what we’re finding dates to late Romano-British occupation,” Vale explained. “But the interesting part is the overlap.”

He gestured towards another tray where several thin pieces of dark slate rested beneath protective plastic.

“Hybrid inscriptions,” he said. “Latin structure mixed with older local symbology.”

Christopher stepped closer automatically.

One of the slate fragments had been partially cleaned, exposing narrow scratched lettering across the dark surface, rougher, older than Roman carving.

Vale handed him a transcription sheet. “Thoughts?”

Christopher scanned the copied lines.

“Fragmentary,” he murmured. “Possibly dedicatory.” He crouched slightly beside the table, studying the marks more carefully. “This section here could reference tides or crossings.”

“Tides?” one of the students repeated.

“Coastal rites often folded local geography into ritual language,” Christopher said absently. “Especially in communities balancing Roman occupation with older religious structures. You see a lot of syncretism in frontier regions.”

The explanation settled into place naturally.

Teacher mode settling naturally into place.

Several students leaned closer while Christopher pointed towards one repeated symbol etched beside the Latin text.

“This appears pre-Roman,” he continued. “Or at least adapted from an older culture. Ritual markers maybe. Territorial. Protective.”

Vale nodded approvingly. “Exactly our suspicion.”

Marco observed, "Most people would have missed that."

Christopher shrugged. "History teachers don't."

He reached for another slate fragment.

The moment his fingers hovered above it, he felt a sharp tightening beneath his ribs, more elemental than pain.

His hand stopped.

The symbol carved into the stone was simple enough. Three curved lines intersecting around a central notch. Weathered nearly smooth with time.

Christopher stared at it too long.

A strange pressure gathered behind his eyes.

He knew this marking.

Not from research or study.

Knew it the way someone knows the shape of their own handwriting.

The certainty arrived before thought could catch up to it.

For one disorienting second the trench around him seemed to narrow. The sound of student voices blurred into something softer and rhythmic at the edges of hearing.

Cadence rather than words.

Christopher blinked hard. The sensation loosened immediately.

“You all right, sir?” Ella asked.

Christopher straightened too quickly. “Fine.”

His voice sounded thinner than intended.

Vale was still discussing ceremonial fire pits somewhere to his left, but Christopher barely heard him. His attention remained fixed on the symbol beneath the plastic covering.

Half remembered.

Like a word balanced just beyond recall.

Across the table, Marco had gone completely still.

When Christopher looked up, Marco was watching him, one hand resting against the edge of the cataloguing table, as though he had expected this.

The students drifted towards an assistant demonstrating pottery cataloguing while Christopher lingered among the exposed foundations. Roman masonry lay over older construction, uneven layers suggesting the site had been rebuilt across centuries.

“You should avoid that side,” Marco said quietly.

He nodded towards a darker stretch of ground near the seawall.

“The footing is unstable after the storm.”

Christopher glanced down. The mud did look softer.

“Right.”

He altered course without another thought.

A few minutes later he crouched beside a ring of fire-cracked stones.

Before he could step closer, Marco crossed in front of him carrying recording boards.

“One of your students asked about votive offerings,” he said. “You mentioned river deposits earlier.”

Christopher noted the abrupt change but answered anyway.

“Common in frontier settlements. Especially along coastal routes.”

Marco continued the conversation while remaining neatly between Christopher and the exposed stones.

Odd.

Christopher let it pass.

Later, while Vale discussed newly recovered slate fragments, Christopher turned towards another section of the trench.

“Vale wanted your thoughts on the tidal references,” Marco called.

Vale looked briefly puzzled before recovering. “Ah. Yes.”

Christopher looked between them.

The pattern resolved itself.

Marco was quietly steering him away from certain parts of the trench.

Christopher tested the theory.

Without warning he headed towards the farthest exposed stones beside the seawall.

Marco reacted immediately, reaching the area first and crouching beside a survey marker.

“Sorry. This area is restricted.”

“Restricted? Since when?"

“Potential collapse risk.”

The ground looked no worse than anywhere else. Beyond Marco's shoulder, a rough semicircle of blackened stones protruded from the earth, drawing Christopher's attention for reasons he could not explain.

Marco straightened.

“You should stay on the marked paths.”

Christopher stared at him.

The excavation carried on around them, students talking, equipment shifting, wind moving above the seawall. Yet Vale was watching from farther up the trench without intervening.

“The burials are farther down,” Vale announced.

The students followed him to the lowest section of the excavation.

Several tarpaulins had been pulled back, revealing dark rectangular cuts in the earth.

“Oh my God,” somebody whispered. “Those are graves.”

“Technically,” Vale replied, “they are burial sites. Graves imply certainty.”

“That is absolutely the same thing.”

“Archaeology survives entirely on pretending it is not.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the group.

Vale pointed into the trench.

“What makes these unusual is their orientation. Most Romano-British burials in this region face another direction. These face directly towards the sea.”

Christopher looked down.

Dark outlines emerged slowly from the earth.

Fragments of bone.

The impression of bodies long vanished.

Then dizziness struck.

The world lurched sideways.

Christopher caught himself against a timber support.

Wind roared overhead.

Except it no longer sounded like wind.

Voices chanting, low, distant, impossibly familiar.

Torchlight flickered across the trench instead of grey daylight. Smoke curled upward into darkness.

Certainty crashed through him.

He knew this place.

The slope towards the sea.

The burn marks around the graves.

He had stood here before.

Many times.

“Sir?”

The voice came from very far away.

Christopher blinked.

Grey daylight returned.

His pulse hammered.

Marco was suddenly beside him, one hand gripping his forearm to steady him.

Christopher jerked away. “I’m fine.”

Too quickly.

Too sharply.

Marco released him at once.

“You all right, Mr. Edwards?” Vale asked.

Christopher forced himself to breathe.

“Just stood up too quickly.”

The chanting had vanished, but the certainty had not.

Standing beside the burial trench with damp earth clinging to his shoes, Christopher realised with growing dread that part of him had known this place long before arriving today.

Vale studied him.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes.”

“Migraines?”

“No.”

“History of vertigo?”

Christopher managed a weak laugh.

“You sound disappointingly excited by the possibility of a medical emergency.”

Vale's expression remained thoughtful before another archaeologist called him away.

“Try not to collapse while I'm gone.”

“I'll do my best.”

When Vale left, the ordinary sounds of the excavation returned, yet the space between Christopher and Marco felt strangely isolated.

Later Christopher crouched beside another cluster of carved stones.

Again Marco intercepted him.

“You know,” Christopher said lightly, “most people just say, ‘Don't go over there.’”

“I did not realise I was being obvious.”

“You are.”

Marco was silent.

“You keep steering me away from things.”

“The trench is unstable.”

“That excuse gets weaker every time you use it.”

A flicker of tension crossed Marco's face.

“What exactly are you worried will happen?”

Marco looked ready to answer.

Instead he said quietly, “I would prefer you not become injured.”

“I’m not one of your students. You don’t need to hover.”

Marco went very still.

Hurt more than angry.

Christopher regretted the words almost at once.

Marco lowered his eyes.

“Understood.”

He stepped back.

Oddly, the distance felt worse.

---

By the time Christopher climbed out of the trench, the tide was pushing back towards the seawall.

The harbour lay cold and silver beneath thickening clouds.

Students gathered around Vale while workers covered the excavation against the evening rain.

Christopher barely noticed.

His nerves still felt scraped raw.

Marco remained only a few paces behind him.

Christopher stopped so abruptly that Marco nearly walked into him.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I am walking.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Wind snapped between them.

“If this is about earlier,” Marco said, “you became dizzy. I was trying to help.”

“That’s the problem.”

Marco frowned.

“You keep hovering around me. Redirecting me every time I go near something.”

“That is not what I think.”

“Then what do you think?”

Marco hesitated.

Again.

“You act like you know things you refuse to explain.”

“There are simply parts of the site that concern me.”

“Why?”

“I cannot explain that easily.”

“Of course not.”

“Christopher.”

“No.”

Christopher folded his arms against the wind.

“You don't get to say my name like that and then pretend none of this is strange. You look at me as though we're in the middle of a conversation I haven't heard. Like you're waiting for me to remember something.”

Marco said nothing.

“You need to stop watching me like something already lost.”

Marco froze.

Pain crossed his face so openly that Christopher wished he could take the words back.

“I am sorry,” Marco said quietly. “I did not realise I was making you feel trapped.”

Christopher opened his mouth.

Nothing came.

Marco no longer looked enigmatic.

Only tired.

Only hurt.

Guilt hollowed out Christopher's anger.

Marco nodded once towards the harbour path.

“You should return to your students.”

Then he stepped aside to let Christopher pass.

No argument.

No defense.

Which somehow felt worse.

Christopher remained where he was for another second while cold wind battered the seawall around them.

He should say something.

Apologize perhaps.

Instead he heard himself ask quietly, “Why do you look at me like that?”

Marco’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.

Christopher thought he might finally answer honestly.

Instead Marco looked out towards the dark water beyond the harbour mouth.

“Because,” he said softly, “sometimes it is difficult to trust someone is truly here after believing otherwise for a very long time.”

Christopher’s chest tightened painfully.

Before he could respond, Marco turned and walked back towards the excavation site without another word.

Christopher watched him disappear into the gathering dusk with the unpleasant certainty that he had just wounded someone already carrying far more grief than he understood.