´óÏó´«Ã½

Starter paragraph by Natasha Cooper

She walked up from the station.ÌýThe village was barely recognisable.ÌýClutches of new buildings filled every spare space.Ìý

Old Miss Smith's shop, where they'd bought their sweets and kirbygrips, was now a deli.ÌýBut the developers had left the long grey stone wall that had snaked round her grandmother's garden, all the way from the main gate to the snicket.Ìý

Small cream-coloured houses squatted where the roses and pansies had once flowered.
At least the snicket was the same.ÌýSo was the secret way in, that narrow patch of infertile earth where the spiky bushes couldn't root.Ìý

Bending double, she pushed her way through and was amazed at how small the dank narrow passage seemed.Ìý But she recognised the smell from fifty years ago, a heady, acrid mixture of leafmould and animals.ÌýShe looked towards the corner where the toad had lived, half fascinating and half-repelling all the children.ÌýNothing moved. But something did catch her eye;Ìý something still, pale and hard.

It's only a bunch of dry sticks, she told herself to take away the shock.ÌýThen she counted them.ÌýThere were five and they stuck out of the ground like a fan.ÌýShe had to be sure, so she scraped away at the damp earth with a sharpened stone until the whole hand was revealed...

Chain 2: Jennifer Schofield

She lurched backwards away from the hand, unable to get her head round what she had just seen.Ìý There was a hand in her grandmother's garden; what did this mean?Ìý She went to the old shed, and even though it locked, the door hinges pulled away as they were so rusty.Ìý She reached inside, not caring about the dense layer of spider's web all around, and pulled out a small spade.Ìý

Maybe the hand had been there from the 15th Century, in that case she could just call up the local museum and have it properly displayed and maybe make a bit of money in the process.Ìý It couldn't have been recent, could it?Ìý She went back to the fragile hand, sticking out of the dry soil, and gradually pulled away the soil surrounding it with her spade.Ìý She didn't care if she was getting dirty, getting her new jeans covered in soil, she wanted to know what exactly was there...

Chain 3: Nick Fletcher

She could not believe her eyes.Ìý A place that once held such fond memories was turning into a nightmare.Ìý She turned and began to walk away but the hand had a magnetism of which she could not resist.Ìý She took a deep breath and knelt near the hand.Ìý She noticed a shiny object glistening near the stones.Ìý She lifted it out of the soil.Ìý A beautiful locket spun on a gold necklace.Ìý She stared at the hand as she prised open the locket…

Chain 4: Anne Micklethwaite

Her grandfather's face, complete with muttonchop whiskers, stared out of the small photograph inside. In the other half a small golden curl that had been cut from the baby who hadn't lived past her first year. Her name had been Esme, Julie remembered the name with great clarity. ThenÌý Julie shuddered, even though the day wasn't cold. If this was her grandmother's locket the skeletal hand must also be her grandmothers. Julie felt sick what was she going to do? Tell the police? Phone her Mum? She did both while sitting on the end of the wall still clutching the spade.

Chain 5: Emma Fortun

The police arrived and began busily screening off the area and preparing the body to be removed.Ìý Whilst she watched them distractedly, Julie thought back to the last time she had been here and had played innocently with friends from the area.Ìý That had been just before the argument which meant that she and her mother had not returned for several years - her mother had never spoken to her gran again, though Julie had kept in contact by phone.Ìý Julie was disturbed from her thoughts by her mother's arrival.Ìý She seemed nervous, though unsurprised, as if she had been expecting Julie's call.

Chain 6: Polly Harris

Suddenly half remembered adult, tension filled, conversations came swooping back into her memory.ÌýHer Grandad and Grandma, both angry, especially Grandma.ÌýGrandad telling her to "shut your eyes to it woman" and stomping out of the house.Ìý Grandma looking tearful, but banging the bread dough on the scrubbed kitchen table, and snapping at her for not wiping her feet on entering the house.ÌýMother all pale and anxious, smiling weakly and trying to reassure her that 'Grandad and Grandma are a little tired'Ìý A woman's name flashed into her mind 'Amy Lowescroft'ÌýA woman that Grandad visited to mend shelving, see to the little jobs around the house, that a woman with no husband found difficult.ÌýJulie gasped, Amy her grandfathers lover?

What happens next...