Lying relaxed beyond belief in her rowing boat in the dead centre of the lake, young Florence felt completely at rest. She had always lived in such a remote part of England that her house was the only one for miles around, and so she had never had many friends, instead making the most of her surroundings, which was, after all, quite a lot.

Dangling her fingers in the cooling water, she let out a sigh of contentment. Her mind was occupied with nothing at all, a stark difference from the crowded brain that she had to maintain at school, full to bursting with homework. Out on the lake though, she was safe. She was at peace.

Turning to look over the gunwale, her dirty blonde hair falling to the surface of the water below, she cast her eyes over the bottom of the lake. It was pierced by spears of bright light from the sun above her, but something was different – while in the other areas of the lake the bottom was mostly featureless, just rolling dunes, here there were mounds that covered the bottom, parts jutting out at odd angles and catching the light. They almost seemed to be planks of wood or wreckage, Florence thought, but they were the wrong colour. Leaning over the side a little more, Florence tried for a better look, intrigued. It had only been a few days ago that a storm had unsettled the lake, and she had not been out since. What had it exposed?

It was with a start that she realised what the mounds must be – she had never seen bones before, but the few times she had viewed them in books were enough to recognise them for what they were. Her relaxed mind was suddenly in shock – bones? Where did they come from? Leaning back into the boat she paused for a moment, thinking things over. Looking over her shoulder at her family’s white cottage, she picked up her oars and slowly started to paddle back. Bones? In her lake? Well, she decided, it was time to ask her parents some questions.

Docking her boat with the small jetty, she pulled the tarpaulin over it and headed up to the cottage. As far as she knew, her family had lived here for hundreds of years, and looking at the old building in front of her, she could believe it. Walls several feet thick, a thatched roof and a rough, white-washed exterior, her house looked every bit the homely cottage. Heading up through the small garden, she eased open the heavy back door and slipped inside. Passing through into the kitchen, she saw her mum cooking at the stove, stirring a saucepan of what looked to be soup while adding spice to another. The family had a gigantic kitchen despite the rest of the house being cramped and low-ceilinged. It was dominated by a large, archaic iron stove, covered in strange patterns and leering faces, that rose up into the ceiling. Knives and other, stranger utensils hung from underneath the cupboards next to it, along with butchers’ hooks, strigils and corkscrews, and it was here that her mother stood.

“Mum?” Florence asked, keen to find out about the bones. “Can I ask you something?”

“Florence,” her mother replied, turning from the stove, “I’m a bit busy at the moment, but over dinner,” she put the spice jar back in the cupboard, “of course you can. Okay?” Disappointed, Florence assured her that she would and headed upstairs. Florence’s bedroom was at an aside from the rest of the top floor, and was often her sanctuary against the rest of the world. Moving into her room and shutting the door behind her, she collapsed onto her bed, her mind full of questions.

It was a full two hours before the family sat down to dinner; Florence, her mother and her father. Florence’s dad was about the same age as her mum, but he never acted it. Florence did love her father, but sometimes wished that he could be anywhere but where she was. Then again, sometimes, when she felt utterly alone, she found herself wishing that she could be absolutely anywhere, as long as it was with him.

Florence feigned interest in their conversation for as long as she could, but it wasn’t long before she couldn’t take it anymore.

“Mum,” she piped up, “remember when I said if I could ask you a question earlier?”
 
“Of course.”

“What was that about then?” her dad asked, chewing a mouthful of food.

“Well,” Florence began, “it’s just that I was out on the lake and... and I thought I saw something. Something in the lake.”

Her parents stopped eating and glanced at each other briefly.

“What kind of thing was it?” Her mother asked, half-heartedly poking at something on her plate.

“I know it sounds stupid, but... well, this thing I saw, they – they were mounds. I know it sounds stupid, but they almost looked like skeletons.” She looked at her mother as if for confirmation, then turned to her dad, who was gazing down at his plate, his face sombre. Realising that she was looking at him, he looked up and smiled.

“That’s your overactive imagination for you – I think you’re spending too much time out there on your own.”

“I wouldn’t trouble yourself, dear,” Florence’s mother added, trying to smile warmly. She noticed that Florence hadn’t touched most of her food. “Not hungry?”

“No,” Florence replied, shrugging her shoulders, “not really.”

“Well, don’t you have some homework to do tonight?”

Florence nodded meekly.

“If you go off and do that, me and your father’ll do the washing up.” Excusing herself, Florence left the table and headed upstairs. She was only halfway up the stairs when she heard frantic hushed voices. Stopping and crouching down, she tried to pick out what they were saying.

“...going to do? She can’t...” That was her mother’s voice, but soon her father cut in. “...no ...too soon ...we can’t... too young...” The voices eventually stopped as her parents went to do the washing up, leaving Florence sat halfway up the stairs. Whatever it was at the bottom of the lake, it had spooked her parents more than anything she had ever seen before. They didn’t want her to know something, and that made Florence all the more determined to find out what it was.

It was half past eleven before Florence decided that it was safe to go out. She had prepared everything already – after she went to bed, she put together a bag. Waiting for a while after her parents had gone to bed, she pulled on some warm clothes and crept downstairs and out the door, being careful to leave it just ajar.

Slinking down the garden and onto the jetty, she readied her boat, climbed into it and pushed off, aiming straight for where she had been earlier.

The quiet sounds of the water lapping up the sides of the boat were deafening in the still, silent night; after a couple of minutes of silent paddling, she shipped in the oars and waited for the ripples to stop. Eventually they did, and she was left in the middle of the perfectly still lake, gazing up at the icy sky, saturated with thousands of glimmering stars. It was humbling, sitting in the middle of her small boat, in the huge lake under the vast, cold sky. She suddenly felt very small and very alone.

Opening her bag, she took out her torch and turned it on,  illuminating the boat as she checked that it was working. Dipping it into the clear water, as far down as she could, she turned it on. And gasped.

Below there were bones. Human bones. Hundreds and hundreds of them; grinning skulls arrayed in their dozens on the silt lakebed. The water gave them a greenish tinge, as if some sickening fungus was budding on the bottom of the lake, ancient and horrifying. The only light in the darkness was the beam of the moving torch. Florence, open-mouthed, saw that the skeletons were not just below her but went as far as she could see – hundreds, maybe thousands of bones immersed in the greenish water. Leaning over too far, her top half crashed into the water, the torch falling from her grasp. Suddenly she was intensely cold and fought to stay in the boat, her sodden hair falling across her face. She saw the torch falling; its beam of light descending to the lakebed. The light flickered for a moment then died, leaving Florence in complete darkness. Hauling herself back into the boat, she spat out a mouthful of water and started shivering. Taking a towel out of her bag with her shaking hand, she dried off her wet top half and lay back.

The sight had been burned into her mind – the sight of the hundreds of skulls, of thousands of bones – and it wasn’t going to go away. Even as she rowed back to the jetty, the image dominated her mind; she simply couldn’t think of anything else. Docking up, her hands were still shaking as she pulled the tarpaulin over the boat. Bag in hand, she walked up the garden path and to the door. The kitchen light was on.

“Okay,” her father began, “perhaps it’s time that we levelled with you.”

It was a few minutes later; the family were arrayed around the table once more.

“What you saw in the lake were indeed human skeletons. Dozens of them, I’d imagine. The reason that they were there was because they were put there... by our family.” Florence looked at him, wondering if this was a joke. Her father met her gaze, totally serious.

“You see,” her mum came in, “for several centuries, your father’s family had a cult tradition of...” she seemed to have difficulty saying it, “...human sacrifice.”

“Every third generation’s first-born would be sacrificially killed and their body placed in the lake,” her father continued in a deeper voice, as if he had repeated the words many times before, “on the child reaching adulthood. After they had been slain, their flesh would be stripped from them and consumed to remove, and learn from, the sin of the past three generations. Only then could another child be born and the family allowed to continue.”

Florence stared at him, not believing what she was hearing.

“You... you don’t do this do you?” she asked, shivering slightly. Her father smiled, teeth glinting, and stood up, walking over to the window next to the butchers’ hooks.

“That cult hasn’t been practised since your great-grandfather’s days, Florence. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Look,” her mother added, “I think this is probably enough for tonight. Why don’t you go off to bed, and we’ll talk about this in the morning. Okay?”

“All right,” Florence said, rubbing at an undeniably tired eye, “but... why didn’t you tell me this before? Why couldn’t I know about this?”

“In the morning!” her mother said, getting up and standing behind her chair. “You need some sleep.”

Florence eventually conceded defeat, bidding her parents goodnight and heading upstairs, her head trying to process all that her parents had just told her. She reassured herself that the horrible tradition hadn’t been carried out since her great-grandparents, all those generations ago...

Back in the kitchen, her parents continued talking; her father looking out over the lake once and then returning to the table. After several minutes, they came to an agreement and went upstairs.

The next morning the lake was still, a light mist playing over the surface of the water, the air scented with the tantalising smell of cooking. The small cottage at the lakeside was wreathed in the fine odour – Florence’s mother at the stove, keeping watch over the food. Florence’s door was open, her room empty.