The library hummed like libraries do. The sharp edges of non-library sounds were dulled against the crouching bulks of creaking shelves, feathery pages, soft bindings. The lights hung low from the ceiling and did not seem to reach all the way to the ground. A modern jungle, claustrophobic, dark, unknowable.
And a predator, stalking carefully between the stacks.
He was watching his prey through shelves of books as he paced back and forth to get a different view. His steps were deliberate and measured, drawing no attention to his movements.
Not that she would have noticed, or even heard. The young woman was standing alone in a presentation room, giving a talk to an audience of ghosts. Straight-backed and serious, she was practicing for her PhD defense. He had been watching her every day for some time, and so the predator knew that her defense would not take place for another week.
He had to secure her before then. He had to sample the taste of her, to determine her suitability to his particular needs. He had to begin the grooming before she understood her own value. Would she serve him? Would she gather others to him? Could she be both a fountain and a well?
The predator closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to suck a wisp of her from the air. Nothing. The door to her room was closed and the glass was too thick.
And so he crept slowly back and forth and watched as she concluded her talk, shuffled her papers, and then began to field imaginary questions. She believed so wholly in the academic process that she even raised her arm to call on empty chairs. He was impressed at her thoroughness, but felt a small pity at her naivety.
He had little room for pity, and it quickly ran its course. He watched.
At the top of the hour, he knew, she would finish with a tight sigh, scribble more notes, and leave exactly on time.
And he would follow.
Weeks later, gravel crunched under rugged tires as the same woman, now a doctor of philosophy in archaeology, swung triumphantly out of her Land Cruiser. Her sensible hiking boots punched straight through a patch of dirty early-autumn ice in the parking lot and flooded her feet with frigid water. She chuckled.
It was not her first time in Sweden, but it was her first time outside of the major cities and she had already learned a valuable lesson. Nothing could dampen her spirits though, and she ducked into the cafe of the Ölands Turistbyrå, the Öland Tourist Centre, to get her bearings.
Öland is a large island off the coast of the Swedish mainland, mostly known for being the location of the Swedish royal family’s summer palace. Not as famous or as large as Gotland, Öland is nevertheless home to a number of idyllic locations and modest attractions. Families visit every year for the camping, hiking, sea-bathing, and quiet relaxation. On most of the island, the landscape is a patchwork of dark forests and cleared land housing small cottages, only accessible by narrow roads hemmed in by thick cathedrals of trees.
The southern part of the island, however, is an agoraphobic expanse of exposed limestone, called an alvar, where nothing but the most tenacious shrubs and brambles can grow. Every direction looks the same, despite being surrounded by the sea on all sides, and it is easy to become disoriented. Tourists have been known to wander in complete circles for days before the search and rescue dogs can finally sniff them out.
For Dr. Elliott Morgan-West, all these natural attractions paled in comparison to her purpose on the island. She had a job! And a home! She still couldn’t believe her luck. She’d barely stopped moving in the last month, and now that she had actually set foot on Öland, she felt the weight of the last few years of her life in a new light. Diving into an assortment of picturesque Swedish pastries and a large latte, she took a moment to reflect.
Ellie had been one of the few in her department at Leiden who had really enjoyed her PhD and emerged from the whole experience relatively unscathed. However, it hadn’t made her immune to the exhaustion and panic of having no job prospects when she finished. Conventional wisdom had it that doctoral students were supposed to begin the job search process in their final year of their PhD program. This inconveniently coincided with the time in which they were also supposed to produce a document of academic excellence anywhere from 100 to 1000 pages; a document meant to showcase their scholastic qualities to the world and prove that they had learned from and contributed to their discipline during their time as a student; a document that could determine whether or not they had future in their field in the first place.
And, of course, the academic job process was not as simple as filling in a few forms and pressing ‘submit’ or dropping an envelope in a mailbox. A single application could take as much as a week of solid work to prepare, and students were expected to apply for dozens of jobs while also attempting to write their dissertation. Not surprisingly, many students, including Ellie, were simply too overwhelmed by the more pressing concerns of completing their PhDs to dive headlong into the job market. Everyone told themselves that they’d get serious about the job market after they submitted, but before they had to defend their dissertation or submit the follow-up revisions. Of course, no one ever really did.
So, when Elliott had been approached by Nik Trevalo himself just days after her initial thesis submission, she thought she might be dreaming. “I have a proposition for you that is going to sound a little crazy,” he’d said in an email. “Could we schedule a phone call ASAP?”
She’d called him and listened as he explained that he had a post-doctoral position available for someone with her background. He’d read her thesis— Already? She’d wondered. How on earth?— and reviewed her CV and he believed she was an excellent fit for a joint commercial-academic venture he was starting. He believed in her, he’d said, and he just needed Elliott to believe in him.
Elliott had agreed immediately. She hadn’t met Nik personally but he was one of the most famous archaeologists that no one had ever heard of. No one outside of academia seemed to know who he was, but everyone in the sciences and humanities knew his name and at least a few rumors about him. He’d supervised digs on every continent and in most of the world’s oceans and seas. He held affiliate and honorary status at more universities that Elliott thought it was even possible for a single person to visit in a lifetime. How could she say no to someone with that kind of pedigree? Not to mention that he’d been so charming and warm on their phone call. She hung up feeling as though she’d known him her whole life, and trusted him completely.
By the time her thesis defense came around, her unemployment panic had been smoothed over by calm self-assurance. She hadn’t been able to share many of the details of her forthcoming post-doc when she was asked at her post-defense cocktail celebration, but when she mentioned who she would be working for, the room erupted into a frenzy of disbelief and envy. She’d spent the next few weeks undergoing a trial of paperwork; revisions, thesis submission documents, graduation requirements, visa applications, tax documents, retirement plans, health coverage, all of it had to be squared away before she could make the trek to Öland.
She’d driven straight from Leiden to Copenhagen, where she’d stopped overnight to visit a friend, and then on to Sweden the next morning. She spent the morning in Stockholm shopping and filling out paperwork, and by the afternoon she had arrived on the island she would call home for the next six years. A small shudder of emotion came over her at that thought and she wondered at it.
“Penny for your thoughts?” an American accent cut through her reverie.
“Sorry?” she said.
A weathered old man had come into the cafe without her noticing and was busying himself re-stocking brochures around the tourist center and in the seating area. He smiled warmly at her.
“I saw your plates- just wondering what brought a lone tourist so far out here during the off-season. We get the odd widow and heartbroken soul-searcher now and then, but that doesn’t seem like you,” he explained. He was really friendly, and Elliott warmed to him immediately.
“Oh!” she said, “No, I’m moving here for work.”
“Really? Now that is unusual! And another American, even more strange,” he winked at her, “Are you sure you’re not pulling an old man’s leg?”
She couldn’t help but laugh as she asked him to sit down and join her. He introduced himself as Tom and explained that he and his wife Inga ran a bed and breakfast in a small village called Skarpa Alby, which just happened to be a half hour’s walk from the compound in Lenstad where Elliott was moving.
“Compound?” Tom asked, the beginnings of concern already written on his face.
She laughed and explained the nature of the job, as far as she knew, and that the team had bought and renovated some sort of old industrial facility to suit their needs. By the end of their chat, Tom had invited her to join his local dive club, taught her a few valuable Swedish survival tips (be on time, don’t make small talk, fika every day, learn more Swedish), and insisted that Elliott come to Skarpa Alby that very night to meet Inga and have a home-cooked meal.
As they parted ways, Elliott again couldn’t believe her luck. She’d uprooted her life to move away from anything and anyone she’d ever known, but she’d made a friend in the first half hour. Everything was perfect.