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Jonah chuckles.
“Actually—” I squint up at him. “What do you do for work, again?”
BJ’s jaw goes slack and I walk away.
We go to four or five other Neolithic sites and they’re all much of a muchness if I’m honest, but BJ’s fucking livid that I’m pretending to care about it, so you can imagine how I’ve become quite the standing stone enthusiast over the last four hours.
I research the ‘Bronze Age’ and ‘Neolithic’ so much as we drive between locations I feel a bit like I might throw up, but BJ’s getting angrier and angrier by the moment, so it spurs me.
“Now, Angus,” I say, practically speed-walking over to him once the cars stopped. “Tell me what’s next.”
BJ rolls his eyes.
Taura looks over at me, grinning excitedly. “These are the Llanfechel Triangle Standing Stones.”
“Oooh,” I coo. Sounds boring if I’m honest. A stone in a field? Snore. Anyway. “What’s so special about these stones?” I glance between them.
“Taura?” Angus gestures to her. “Any guesses?”
“Early Bronze?” She blinks.
“Very good.” He nods. “Early Bronze or late Neolithic is the general consensus.”
“What are these ones for?” I ask, looking up at them.
Quite big. Two meters?
“We don’t know exactly what these ones were used for, but we know stone settings like these ones were often ceremonial monuments.” He glances at the boys, who are both a bit glazed over, bless them. “They were used for prehistorical rituals.”
Jo perks up. “Like human sacrifice?”
“Ah.” Angus laughs a little. “The Celts did practice human sacrifice, yes. And,” he gives the boys a little excited look that Baxter James Ballentine does not return, “dark humic soil with charcoal residue has been found here. That could be related to an offering. We’ve found no human remains though.”
“So what did happen here?” BJ asks, arms folded across his chest.
“Well, isn’t that ever the question?” Angus asks brightly. I think he’d make a wonderful teacher. “The triangular alignment suggests to some it might have been an astronomical monument…”
He’s actually pretty cute. I like how he likes these rocks so much. It’s very pure. He goes away from us to lay his hands on them, greets them like old friends.
I glance over at BJ who’s watching me, brows low, gnawing down on his thumb.
I touch a stone and for the briefest of moments genuinely wonder whether I’ll fall through it like in Outlander. I don’t. I’m stuck on this side of time with too much love in my heart for the boy who won’t love me back.
There is something a bit darling about them though, all these old stones that have seen the world through so much. All the lives that were lived out around them, all the loves they’d have born witness to.
BJ and I have a tree that proves we loved each other once upon a time and a stone in front of it that I hope stays there forever, but willow trees don’t last. Only thirty years — that’s what it said when I Googled it.
It’s already nearly twenty years old.
The great monument to our love is a withering tree and a blank stone that means the world to me and maybe nothing to anyone else.
Angus gives us a brief introduction to the last site, but he heads off at Jonah’s instruction. We’ve gone about three hours longer than we were supposed to and he has an early lecture back in London tomorrow.
It’s a burial chamber called Barclodiad y Gawres, which was built somewhere between 3000-2500 BC.
We’re allowed inside even though the sun’s gone down, but that just means it’s pitch black and spooky as anything.
I don’t know whether it’s actually spooky or I just think it’s spooky because it’s a burial chamber and Angus said they found the remains of two cremated males in here, but either way it’s a little bit scary.
