Elliott’s holidays passed in relative peace in the snowy Connecticut suburbs. Her small family celebrated a quiet Christmas, and she found a few excuses to visit friends for weekends in Hartford. Her parents were themselves academics and were politely interested in her progress in Sweden, but asked her nothing more personal than if she’d had a roommate. Elliott didn’t mind this.
She’d known for a long time that children had never been part of her parents’ career plans and that they had been vaguely bewildered by her for all of her childhood and adolescence. Now that she was an adult, they treated her as warmly as they would any old colleague. More often than not, she found herself telling her parents more about Nik than about herself.
She found herself falling into old habits quickly and easily at her spacious New England family home. Every morning she made a French press of coffee and brought it into her private study, where she answered emails or worked on snippets of writing until breakfast, then went for a short walk. Her parents had similar habits, and their home had the general feeling of an Oxford college; private apartments connected by a dining area; private lives connected by shared DNA.
On this particular morning, she’d agreed to have brunch with her friend Lola who still lived in Storrs, and she was regretting it.
“That’s so exciting Elle! Do you think it’ll be on TV?” asked Lola. They had known each other since middle school and Elliott kept up their relationship largely out of a sense of obligation. Storrs could be a very small town; everyone knew she was home for the holidays, so these kinds of visits were a social requirement. Lola had brought along her most recent baby, who was concentrating hard on crinkling sugar packets in his chubby fingers and soaked to the belly button with drool.
“On TV?” she repeated, genuinely confused.
“Yeah!” Lola had lipstick on her teeth and Elliott was having a hard time not staring at it. “Michael and I have been watching History Hunters on the Spirit channel. They’ve been finding all kinds of evidence and artifacts,” she put special emphasis on the word, “stuff that proves that we humans may not be all that we think we are!”
Despite herself, Elliott was intrigued.
“What do you mean?” she encouraged.
“Well,” Lola began, matter-of-factly, “There’s cities buried in Turkey that are older than all humanity, so who built them exactly?”
Elliott groaned and immediately tried to change the subject.
“How interesting! I know an archaeologist who works in Turkey. I’m going to see him in a couple of weeks and I’ll ask! But no, I don’t think anything I do is exciting enough to be on History Hunters, although my boss would be perfect for that kind of thing,” she finished with a sad shake of her head.
“Are any of them single?” Lola asked. Mission accomplished.
“Yes, I believe they both are,” Elliott winked.
“Good! You need start thinking about that kind of thing. It’s about time you settled down and came home. I know you must be getting paid a sickening salary to be flying all over the world at the drop of a hat, but it’s just money. You’d be better off working back here at UConn, near family. Get married, have a couple of babies, then do all this career-girl stuff. You won’t regret it, I promise.” Lola looked at her with such sincerity and pity that Elliott felt physically withered, but was determined to show no signs of it.
“Thanks. I think I’ve got some good candidates,” she lied conspiratorially. Lola seemed satisfied enough and allowed Elliott to recount some of the more outrageous stories she’d heard about Nik. She left their brunch feeling exhausted, and making a mental note to Skype with her best friend as soon as possible.
The truth is that she’d had a hundred versions of these conversations before; conspiracy theories, the tragedy of her lonely, childless life, the fabulous amounts of money she must be making, the idea that she could just choose a university to work for now that she had a PhD. Her ability to navigate them with relative ease was what made her a rarity in many ways. Most other academics she knew couldn’t stand the constant misunderstandings about their lives and preferred to tighten their social circles to the point that they stopped being able to interact with huge swathes of the population. She expected that she might end up that way someday too, but for now she just had too much empathy, she supposed.
She sat down in her study to compose an email to her best friend and found herself hesitating. She’d been avoiding having too much contact since she became involved in the hiring process at the field school to prevent biasing the outcomes, but at the moment she just really needed her friend. She hastily shot off a quick note describing her morning, and had her friend’s scowling face on her monitor only a couple of hours later.
To the rest of the world, she was Dr. Priscilla Harrison: experimental archaeometallurgist and Oxford Fellow. To Elliott, she was just Pike: confidant, mentor, peer, and fierce cheerleader.
“Ok first of all,” growled Pike through the screen, “Your fucking body is your own fucking business and no one else’s. Second, you don’t owe anyone even an instant of your time explaining your ‘sickening salary’. Third, if she’s too stupid to know how hilariously underfunded archaeology is then she’s also too stupid to know anything at all about Gobekli Tepe, FUCK,” she finished with a fiery curse.
“Happy New Year to you too,” Elliott laughed. She hadn’t even gotten to say hello before Pike launched into her tirade. Pike’s sour face immediately relaxed and brightened into a wry smile.
“Yes, Happy New Year indeed, you sneaky, cheeky peach,” she said, “I know why you haven’t called, don’t worry. And I’m going to say yes, I just wanted to negotiate a few specifics. I’ve heard a few things about this Nik and I want everything in writing.”
Elliott’s mood was already lifted, but this news had her positively elated.
“Oh Pike, thank God. I can’t tell you how awful it’s been just on my own there. Sweden is beautiful and there’s so much work to do, my God you’re going to love it, but I am desperate for some friends and colleagues. I mean, I’ve met a few people,” she was babbling but she didn’t care, “I honestly can’t wait to introduce you to some of the locals. It’s such a weird place, it’s exactly what you’d expect of an off-season tourist island, it’s like Martha’s Vineyard but just the fishermen year round, you’re going to love it.” She stopped talking and erupted in a joyful laugh, unable to contain her relief and excitement.
Pike was laughing too.
“The truth is I’m a little sick of Wales and I’ve been having family drama lately that I wouldn’t mind a break from. Honestly, this couldn’t have come at a better time- how did he know I’d even be interested? Or available?” Pike asked, referring to Nik.
“Who knows, I’m just so damn glad you’re going to say yes,” Elliott said, “He’s like that though. On the surface you’d think he was a total scatterbrain, but he’s really remarkably intuitive and uncommonly brilliant, so maybe he heard something? The scatterbrained thing is because he’s always taking on too many projects at once. Wait until you meet his compliance liaison, oh my God you’re going to die. This is too much. I can’t believe you’re coming. I honestly just cannot believe this is happening.”
The two friends chatted and laughed and gossiped like this for the next hour or so, Pike promising she would arrive in Sweden as soon as she humanly could, and Elliott promising to secure the best remaining cottage for her to move into.
The conversation eventually turned toward their memories of their own field school experiences and they hopes for the students they would teach. Neither of them had had an especially smooth time, and a little empathy and more professorial oversight would have gone a long way to alleviate some of the problems they’d both faced.
When Elliott had left for her first field school, she’d still been smarting from a series of embarrassing breakups. She was attractive in the way that all slightly athletic 19-year-olds with good skin, pretty eyes and healthy hair are attractive. It was her quiet confidence, surprising brilliance, and easy sociability that made her an object of desire amongst her peers during her first year of undergrad. But when Heath had left indefinitely for Costa Rica after only two months of what had looked like serious dating, the whispers of admiration were replaced with rumors of some serious defect on her part.
The worst of these rumormongers was Constance, a girl who lived in the same hall as Elliott. Conventionally attractive, wealthy, fashionable, and manipulative, what Constance lacked in empathy she made up for with carefully crafted social grace. She was the center of attention everywhere she went, had a competitive attitude toward romantic relationships, and, worst of all, took all the same classes as Elliott. Constance had taken an alarming delight in the details of Elliott’s breakup and could frequently be found in the common rooms loudly musing on all the reasons Heath had fled from Elliott.
Elliott had been content to just ignore her, especially when she began seeing a much older film student. However, just two weeks into that fling, he too had unceremoniously dumped her and moved to France.
“It’s Cannes, Elle,” he had said. “You’re great and this has been a lot of fun but it’s Cannes. I can’t say no to an opportunity like this. Cannes is where people like me get their start.” And then he’d gone.
Years later, Elliott had found out that this ‘opportunity’ had involved standing around in sweltering tents for a month, serving canapés to the rich and famous as a member of the catering staff. He hadn’t been able to afford to finish his degree and had moved back in with his parents after France, eventually succumbing to employment in his father’s cement business.
That had all been a hilarious revelation, but at the time Elliott had been genuinely dismayed and even more embarrassed by his abrupt departure. And when Constance had found out about it, Elliott thought she might actually die of embarrassment.
So she’d quietly applied to a number of field schools, hoping that a summer away would quieten down the rumors that she was critically flawed in some way, and was excited to spend a summer with strangers who all loved archaeology. She’d been accepted to all of the programs but had decided on Wales, just because she’d always wanted to go there, and it seemed the most removed from her current life.
In the week before her departure, she’d laid awake for hours every night with her stomach in excited knots as she imagined the thrills of being a real archaeologist.
Many people would have been disappointed by the monotony, the dirt that clung to every part of them, the unbearable summer weather, and the never-ending drudgery of a real field site, but not Elliott. What she had been disappointed by was the unexpected presence of Constance, who had arrived before Elliott and somehow managed to form an almost cult-like social following. Within days, Elliott was again the target of causal cruelties and petty social slights. She managed to ignore it for the most part and focus on the course but the unfairness of it all began to eat away at her patience.
After a particularly difficult day, desperate for a shower, Elliott returned to her room above the local pub to find that all of her clothing had been stolen and she had nothing clean to change into after washing off the day’s soil. Shaking, heat rising up the back of her neck, she stalked back out into the late afternoon light and walked straight out of the village and toward the tallest hill she could see in the vicinity.
After a half hour or so, she came to an ancient wall separating a field from a tired old forest. Without thinking, she picked up a stone from the wall and launched as hard as she could against the nearest tree trunk. The crack of connection satisfied her fury somewhat, and she did it again several more times.
A rustle from behind startled her and she whirled around, another stone still in hand. A girl from the field school was standing there as though she’d followed Elliott. Elliott recognized her as one of the very few people who weren’t already under Constance’s influence. Leeessssbian, Constance had hissed, because of the girl's short hair, battered cargo shorts, and ancient Timberland boots.
“You know, that’s probably a 6th century wall you’re destroying,” said the strange girl.
“What?” snapped Elliott. This was not at all what she’d expected to hear.
“Yep, erected by Saint Padarn himself, the first bishop of Aberystwyth. It goes all the way around the monastery.”
Elliott did not respond. The stranger took this as encouragement and continued, “According to the legends, God would blind anyone who abused the monastery’s property… some of which you’re currently hurling into the woods. King Arthur once tried to steal Saint Padarn's tunic and the earth split open and swallowed him up to his chin until he apologized,” she paused, “just thought you’d want to know something about the wall you’re fucking up.”
Elliott had caught on to the girl’s American accent and her fury had returned in full as she barked, “And just how the fuck would you know any of that?”
The other girl laughed in surprise, a deep bellowing sound that calmed Elliott somewhat. “My mother’s family is from Aberystwyth,” she was still laughing, “and if you’d walked about ten more steps you’d be able to see the monastery.”
Still glowering, Elliott took ten more paces and then stopped, letting the rock fall from her hand. She blew out a long sigh and a small laugh escaped her lips with it. She turned to look at the girl, who was still following her, and was about to say something to her when her face took on a look of sudden terror.
“Are you… are you still there? I can’t… Oh my God, I can’t see anything! I’m blind!” Elliott said frantically, waving her arms in front of her and taking a few small steps.
“What? Oh shit, oh fuck, oh fuck me dead,” the girl started to immediately panic and curse, “Oh my god, oh my god, what the fuck,” she continued and started toward Elliott.
When she reached her, Elliott gripped the girl's arms hard and then stopped. Her body relaxed and she looked into the girl’s eyes with a face full of mischief and began to laugh.
The girl stopped sputtering and looked bewildered, then angry, but then she started to laugh too. They laughed together until they were both weak and teary, and then stood up and looked at each other for a long moment.
“I’m Pike and you’re Elliott and Constance is a cunt,” the girl said finally.
Elliott was no longer surprised at what the girl said, and nodded. “She really is a cunt,” she said, and they started back for the village together.
After they arrived back at the pub, Pike announced loudly to the publican and his wife that all of her friend Elliott’s clothing had gone missing, and wasn’t that just shocking, and wouldn’t it be an absolute horror if anything else were to disappear? The clever old man followed Pike’s gaze to the gleeful group of Elliott’s tormentors in the far corner and nodded to Pike. His wife’s eyes narrowed and she disappeared into a back room.
“What was that about?” Elliott whispered.
“Just setting up a little payback,” Pike responded, and the two new friends drew up a few chairs and chatted the rest of the evening over cool ciders and a hearty meal.
Before they went up to bed, the publican’s usually sweet, reserved wife drew Elliott aside. “I rang around to a few friends. There’s lots of kids gone off to school around here and left behind some very nice things. I put a few changes of clothes and fresh towels on your bed. Don’t let those bitches get to you.” Elliott’s eyes grew wide at that but she thanked the fearsome Welsh woman and headed up the stairs. At the landing she turned to Pike and gave her a disbelieving stare. Pike just laughed again and waved goodnight.
A few days passed in relative peace. The team had uncovered a beautifully detailed late Roman-era bronze beaker at their Iron Age site, leading Elliott to speculate on how it had travelled so far into Wales. Everyone knew that the Romans had had expeditions into Wales, but they’d never really been interested in or had the resources to establish any permanent sites, and the Welsh themselves had been something of a problem.
So which proud Welshman had either stolen or traded to acquire it, and when, and where, and from who? The questions had happily occupied Elliott’s mind during the long days, and into the nights. She spent more time with Pike, their friendship easy and natural. Pike was constantly putting her foot in her mouth, but Elliott was learning that she was also an excellent listener.
One evening after Elliott had showered, she came down into the pub and immediately heard Pike making a fuss about something.
“I took it off to shower and when I came out it was just gone! Someone took it, I just know it,” she began to sniffle and tried unsuccessfully to hold back her desperate emotion.
“It was my mother’s. It’s all I have left of her. Please,” she begged the owner of the pub.
“Alright there, don’t cry,” he said gruffly, “We’ll find this ring of yours. Been too much thieving in my pub for my liking lately.” With that, he went behind the bar and snatched a large ring of keys from a hook.
“Bar’s closed for the time being," he announced. "Anyone with something to hide, better you just confess now.” The pub was totally silent as he waited. Constance’s face was glowing with malice, but her companions looked surprised and uneasy.
“Right then,” the publican marched up the stairs and began opening and closing the various doors.
Meanwhile, his wife rang their instructor, who was staying at a rented cottage near the village green. “I reckon you'd better get over here,” she said quickly, “Something’s not right with these kids tonight.”
The students sat silently in the pub as the doors upstairs continued banging and their belongings were searched. Their instructor arrived quickly, pausing for a moment to glower at them all in exasperation, and then quickly ascended the stairs. After an interminable wait, his voice rang out in alarm and anger. He shot back down the stairs and bellowed, “CONSTANCE COME HERE THIS INSTANT.” In one hand was a crumpled hand towel, in the other was the Roman beaker from the dig.
Constance’s face was a masterpiece of confusion, then understanding, defeat, and fury as she slowly rose and followed the instructor out of the pub.
When the door closed and the two had gone, the room erupted in conversation as expressions of shock, accusations, denials, questions, and speculations clamored around the tables.
Elliott turned to Pike and said, “There never was any ring, was there?"
Pike just barked a hearty guffaw and ordered a round of drinks for the whole field school. Constance did not return that night, and Elliott never crossed paths with her ever again.
After her Skype date with Pike, Elliott went to bed full of hope and with a head full of memories, all thoughts of the dreadful morning’s conversation erased. The impossible had happened; two young academics who happened to be best friends were going to be working together, and without an ounce of competition between them. Pike was one of the best people she’d ever known, even if she was complicated and abrasive, and age had only improved her best qualities.
As they’d chatted, Elliott and Pike both marveled again that they didn’t even apply for these jobs- they’d been hand-picked. Hell, Nik had basically given Pike an entire property to try out her ideas, build whatever she wanted and just play, as long as it was educational.
“Whatever you dig up, recreate it here, Pike,” Nik had said, “I want you to teach these kids everything. They need to learn what you already know so well; how to build, how to maintain, what to use for fuel, and tools, everything. You understand our ancestors down to the most mundane, everyday detail, and they need to understand them too.
Pike had never had someone give her this much free reign and was probably still crowing with excitement. For her part, Elliott couldn’t have been more thrilled by the simple job of just working with her best friend. By a lucky coincidence, field school had made them friends, and now Nik’s field school was bringing them back together again. Returning to Sweden in the new year was going to be easier than she’d thought.