The Buried

Chapter 1

'Father Aled—' He swallowed, wiped a fringe of sweat from his paled brow. '—I've done something terrible.'

Father Aled was a young, fresh-faced man, with bright eyes and a choirboy's complexion. He had only been serving in the priesthood for three years, but Delwyn Morris' words didn't come as a shock to him; Clydwen was a quintessentially Catholic village. By this time he was used to gripping speckled hands, delivering final blessings, listening to the troubles of teenage girls and trying to tease a solution out of their tear-soaked complaints.

He had been aware of Delwyn's presence in the church for a few minutes before he had made the trembling journey to the confessional. He could only see parts of him through the oak slats: the damp khaki trousers, the crumpled t-shirt that looked as though it had been slept in, the shaking hand cradling a bloody wrist and the sodden boots which had dragged the smell of earth and rain into the old chalky building.

'Father?' he said, as though affirming that he was still there.

Aled nodded calmly. 'Yes. Go on.'

'What I say in here, it stays in here, right?'

Aled paused grudgingly. 'That's right.' Then he caught sight of something in Delwyn's grasp, something that was dripping wet. He was about to ask what it was, before realising that it was a child's shoe. A girl's.

One Week earlier

Delwyn Morris was, as so many people liked to tell him, one of the "lucky ones": with no cardboard sign detailing a sob story, no missing limbs and a family ready to welcome him home, he was doing alright. Mentally, his suffering seemed to start and end with a few night terrors. He was not one of the veterans who, say, unleashed a round of bullets on their families because their psyche was in shreds. "Well," he thought, presented suddenly with the image of his Mam dragging him to some local support group full of alcoholics and teens in crisis. "We'll see."

It had been two months since he'd lost his right eye. An IED had sent a six-inch nail careering through the lens of his goggle, taking his eyeball with it. Now when he looked in the mirror, he saw an artificial shine glinting from a bed of wrinkled scar tissue that belied his twenty-one years. If anyone outside his family asked he was going to say that it was an ocular tumour, though he was sure that the news of the nail bomb had already spread; nothing remained truly secret in Clydwen. Delwyn's return from Afghanistan was to be hotly discussed over cups of tea and bara brith. As he walked down the sloping country lane, the canvas tents and sterile wards that he had frequented for the past three years posed more appeal than Mydipws Cottage.

He wondered if Audrey had panic-read books on PTSD, telling herself to be "clear and positive" in order for her son to respond. He wondered if Rosie had been researching enucleation surgery to prepare herself for his appearance. Maybe Mam had planned a big fat family reunion? Steak on the grill, kids in the sun, distant relations drinking punch by a trestle table—he couldn't imagine anything worse. Then he cast a glance to the overcast sky; a BBQ was unlikely in December. But relatives could be packed into that small cottage like sardines.

He approached the front door, where the burnished crucifix still winked through the glass. Just as he was about to knock, the face of an unfamiliar child materialised in the bay window, half-shrouded by the curtain. They blinked at each other before she ducked out of sight. 'M-A-M!'

Delwyn retrieved his knuckles, knowing that a knock wasn't necessary. The voice called again, from some unknown region of the house: 'M-A-M, HE'S HERE!'