Olmec Obituary

by L. J. M. Owen

  Elizabeth looked pleadingly around the room. Where was Judy? There! In the Meirionnydd Room again, with her back to Elizabeth, talking animatedly to a grey-haired gentleman in a tweed jacket and hat. No help there.

  Elizabeth tried her best to placate the angry teen, who insisted that there weren’t any other kinds of vampire novels than the one she had requested. Eventually, Elizabeth tired of the tantrum.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, stop making such a fuss! I’ll re-order the one you wanted, but in the meantime, why don’t you just try this one? You might actually like it. This one has real vampires: the kind that rip your throat out and drain you of blood and leave you for dead. Not the namby-pamby sort that want to marry you.’

  Oh gods, now she’d lost her temper at a customer. Used to Sam’s reactions, Elizabeth braced for the teenager’s tears.

  The girl’s mouth fell open. She stood still for a moment then, without uttering another word, scanned her borrowing card and the book and walked away. One down, several million to go, thought Elizabeth. She turned to serve the next person in line, a middle-aged lady who scowled at her.

  As she processed one query after another, Elizabeth kept an eye on Judy. She was still talking to the tweed-jacketed man. With his thick black-rimmed glasses and unusual tweed hat, he looked like a poster boy for 1950s British academics. Elizabeth knew he could see the growing queue and her desperate waves – why didn’t he tell Judy someone was signalling for her?

  Eventually, Judy turned around, caught the furious look on Elizabeth’s face, and hurried over.

  ‘Sorry. I lost track of time. It’s well past time for your break.’

  ‘What are you working on for that grey-haired man in the tweed jacket?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘You interviewed him for a long time.’

  Judy looked guilty. ‘Ahh, yes. A large piece of research’.

  Erk. The grey-haired man must be one of Judy’s ‘friends’. After she recovered from the loss of her husband, Judy had become quite active in the romance department, mostly with fellow bibliophiles.

  ‘So, fully adjusted to being a librarian now?’ Judy asked, changing the subject. ‘Happy to stay with us for a while?’

  ‘Of course. At least until Matty’s okay.’

  ‘You wouldn’t consider switching to librarianship perma­nently?’

  Be tactful, Elizabeth cautioned herself. ‘I can see the attraction in librarianship, of course, but I love archaeology more. I can’t see that changing.’

  ‘Oh.’ Judy looked disappointed. ‘Traipsing all over the world, flitting from one excavation to another, I suppose you won’t want children then?’

  ‘Er, I haven’t given it any real thought.’ Elizabeth searched her feelings. ‘I guess Luke and I will settle down eventually, have one or two.’

  Judy looked even more disappointed. How peculiar.

  ‘How about I take over and you have an hour’s break?’ Judy changed the subject again.

  Weird day, thought Elizabeth, as she headed to the Library’s terrace for a belated lunch.

  — —

  The following afternoon, Elizabeth met Nathan for coffee. Although she felt fine to handle work on her own now, he insisted they meet once a week so he could fulfil his duties as her buddy.

  ‘Have you been okay since Monday?’ he asked, running a finger around the rim of his cappuccino to capture the chocolate dust.

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure. Is something wrong?’

  How honest should she be?

  ‘Well, sort of. I lost my temper with a customer yesterday, which is bad. The stacks sent up the wrong book, which I can’t understand. Judy has been a bit unreliable. And, worst of all…’ She paused. Should she tell Nathan about tomorrow?

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Worst of all, there’s something on tomorrow that I’m dreading so much it’s making me feel ill.’

  ‘Soooo…not a great week, in fact,’ Nathan grinned at her sympathetically.

  ‘No.’ Elizabeth slumped in her seat.

  ‘Would you like to hear my take on things?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Firstly, you handled whatever that thing with Mai was brilliantly. Well done.’

  Elizabeth hadn’t been expecting that. How nice!

  ‘Secondly, I bet you lost your temper with the customer who had ordered the book that wasn’t delivered.’

  ‘Yes.’ Hmmm, Nathan was quite good at this deductive reasoning stuff.

  ‘Thirdly, I bet you next week’s coffees that your customer was a teenage girl, and the book she requested had something to do with vampires.’

  Okay, that was going too far.

  ‘You know! But how? Is this some sort of prank that gets pulled on new staff?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that. It’s just that similar things have happened to other staff on the front desk. I could make a solid guess as to who changed the book order.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Phantom of the Stacks.’

  ‘The what?’

  Nathan chuckled. ‘The Phantom of the Stacks. Or, at least, that’s what we call him or her. No-one knows who it is, but someone downstairs takes great literary offence to certain modern vampire novels.’ Nathan made air quotes around the word ‘vampire’.

  ‘When someone, usually a teenage girl, requests one of those novels, an older and arguably better-written one is mysteriously delivered from the stacks. Sometimes with a note on the importance of plot, characterisation, grammar or modern feminism.’ Nathan chuckled again.

  ‘So it wasn’t anything to do with me, then?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘It was, in fact, striking a blow against the deterioration of a great literary tradition, as my grandmother would say?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nathan said, still laughing.

  ‘Well, I suppose I can’t be too cranky about that. But, technically, it is the wrong thing to do. And it does make it difficult for those of us who have to deal with the customers, y’know.’

  ‘I do. As does the Phantom. You can expect a bunch of red roses or a box of chocolates as recompense every now and then.’

  ‘Oh! Well…’ Elizabeth’s sense of integrity vied with itself. On the one hand, it was wrong to deliberately deliver the wrong material to a customer. On the other, was it right to be complicit in people reading nonsense when better books were so readily available?

  ‘Next, Judy,’ Nathan continued. ‘I don’t know her well, but I do know she has a tendency to throw people in the deep end and wait for them to scream “Help!” ’

  ‘I know her from outside of work though, she’s a friend of my grandfather. I didn’t realise she’d do that to me.’

  ‘What, treat you like everyone else?’ Nathan’s tone was teasing, but he had a point. ‘Things can get super busy in the reading rooms at certain times of the year. I think she does it to make sure staff can handle the pressure. If you want her to help you more, you have to ask.’

  ‘Oh. Okay, I will.’

  ‘Now, the final thing. What’s happening tomorrow that has you so worried? Even mentioning it, I can see you tense up. Is it something personal, or can you tell me about it?’

  ‘It’s not very personal. Well it is. Ahh…’

  ‘Only tell me if you feel like it…but even if there’s nothing I can do, sometimes it helps just to say things aloud.’

  That was true. Thoth and Seshet might agree, too. They were owed some special cuddles to make up for her being so grumpy all week.

  ‘The long and the short of it is, I started a volunteer job last Saturday. I got into a disagreement with the boss on my first day. I have to see him again tomorrow, to find out if I can stay on the team. On the one hand, I really want to, because I love the work, but on the other hand, he might ask me to lie, which I won’t do. The suspense of not knowing what’s going to happen is getting to me.’

  ‘Wow. That sounds complicated,’ Nathan agreed. ‘You’re in that horrible place of waiting f
or what might be good news, or bad news, but regardless of how it turns out, the waiting is the worst part. What sort of work is it? Fostering animals, or looking after injured wildlife, maybe?’

  ‘No, although that’s something I used to do. I’ve been lucky enough to get a place on an archaeological team, working on skeletal remains from an Olmec site in Mexico.’ Elizabeth heard the excitement in her own voice. Gods she wanted to keep working on the people from Juluwik!

  ‘Wow, again!’ Nathan said. ‘Olmec…so that’s Meso­american, right? Like Mayan and Aztec?’

  ‘Yes! How did you know that?’ Elizabeth realised her question might sound condescending. ‘I mean, you’re not into archaeology, how do you know about the Olmecs?’

  ‘I talked to someone at a librarian conference last year in Hawaii who works in the New York Main Library. He specialises in Latin American collections, but is obsessed with Mesoamerica. He was telling me about the development of writing and libraries in early Mexican cultures, as well as the ritual bloodletting and sacrifices. Glad we don’t have those here!’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’

  Elizabeth laughed. ‘Anyway, if your friend is into writing, then he’s probably heard of this find. It supposedly has the earliest writing ever found in the Americas.’

  ‘Seriously? He’d be so interested in that. He was a nice guy, too. Henry Evans was his name.’

  A Welsh surname, Elizabeth smiled to herself. Taid would approve.

  ‘How about I give you his email address, just in case you want to contact him?’

  Elizabeth couldn’t think of anything she’d want to ask of Mr Evans. She was about to decline Nathan’s offer, but prodded herself in the politeness bone. It couldn’t hurt to say yes.

  ‘Okay, thanks. Even if I get to stay on the team, I’m working on the skeletal remains though, not the writing, so it’s possible I won’t contact him.’

  ‘I’ll give it to you anyway.’

  ‘Sure.’ Elizabeth reminded herself to ask after Nathan’s paper on library security. ‘How’s your paper for the conference coming along?’

  Nathan’s face split into a wide grin. ‘I’ve finished a draft. Any chance you’d read it for me?’

  Surprisingly, the idea of helping Nathan publish something didn’t sting. ‘Of course.’

  As they left the cafe, Elizabeth’s trepidation over tomorrow’s meeting with Carl returned. She would stay calm, she reminded herself, no matter how he behaved.

  — —

  At half past eight the following morning, Elizabeth pulled into the university car park. She hadn’t slept, the knots in her stomach had fought each other for dominance all night long. Thankfully, Taid had remained silent on the journey to the university. He gestured toward the flasks Grandmère Maddie had packed for them as they waited. Elizabeth shook her head, worried that she might throw up even a sip of tea.

  The minutes dragged by as Elizabeth kept an eagle eye on the darkened lab windows. The only sound in the car was of Taid’s sipping. Elizabeth’s thoughts chased each other around in her head: I want this. I want to stay, but I won’t lie, I can’t. I have to stand my ground, no matter what he says, even if that means being fired.

  Finally, the lab lights flickered on, then steadied, illuminating Fred on his pole behind the blinds. Elizabeth turned her stiff body to smile at Taid, picked up her satchel, got out of the car and walked inside to the lab.

  She’d barely reached for the laboratory door handle before the door flew open. She snatched her hand back.

  ‘Elizabeth, hola!’

  Great. Juan. Exactly who she wanted to talk to right now.

  ‘How are you? It’s good to see you. I cannot stay to talk, I must go, I am driving to Sydney to catch a plane back to Mexico tonight.’ And with that, Juan half-walked, half-ran down the corridor.

  Elizabeth took a few moments to steady her breathing, then reached for the door handle again.

  Two people were waiting inside for her. Alice Smith, an archaeology graduate a few years behind Elizabeth, stood next to Carl. Alice had specialised in biological anthropology, too. She could replace Elizabeth on the Juluwik team.

  Carl was going to fire her after all.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Good morning, Elizabeth,’ Carl greeted her, his voice warm and welcoming. Where was the icy Carl from last week?

  ‘This is Alice, one of the graduate students here.’

  Elizabeth stared at her resentfully. She probably used those ridiculous big brown eyes to flirt her way into everything.

  ‘She’s looking for a topic for her master’s thesis. I thought she could work with us, take on some of the extra skeletal analysis work. Perhaps she can expand the information you’re collecting for the first paper on the site?’

  Elizabeth tripped over Carl’s change in attitude. Alice wasn’t replacing her? Elizabeth looked at the girl. She seemed nervous, and a touch eager, glancing at Elizabeth and then at the ground. Elizabeth wasn’t so sure she was a rival.

  ‘Uh, yeah, sure. Hi,’ Elizabeth said. Smooth, very smooth.

  ‘I had a good think after our conversation last week,’ Carl said, running his long fingers over his thick, glossy curls. Just how much product was in that hair?

  ‘If what we have here are four adult females, and not males, then maybe this is an even more exciting find than we first thought. Perhaps it’s a whole new area of Olmec culture that no-one has discovered before. Think of the papers we could publish then!’

  What happened to Carl’s insistence that Juan’s sexing of the skeletons was correct? What was he going to claim the skeletons represented now? Elizabeth braced herself for whatever would come next.

  ‘I spoke to Juan,’ Carl said. ‘He said that skeletal analysis is not his forte, so you were probably correct. Then I thought, why don’t we get DNA confirmation of who these ladies were, and maybe do the same for the children?’ Carl’s face was alight with excitement. ‘Alice has some experience in genetic sequencing, and her research budget might stretch to cover a few other tests as well.’

  Carl was going to use Alice’s scholarship money to conduct his own tests? Well, that was normal, but somehow it didn’t feel right.

  ‘I thought the two of you could work out which tests to do between you. Elizabeth, you could do the tests that don’t require funding, and help Alice get the maximum number of tests done within her budget.’

  Elizabeth’s body tingled with relief as Carl spoke. He definitely wasn’t trying to replace her.

  ‘Perhaps the ladies are actually a whole female basketball team,’ Carl said. ‘The very earliest. What a find! The earliest writing in the Americas and the earliest team of sports players and they’re all girls. Imagine the publicity.’

  Elizabeth knew the women weren’t a team of basketball players. She was going to have to contradict him. ‘Uh, Carl, sorry, but I don’t think they could have been a ballplaying team. Only one of them shows injuries consistent with playing the ballgame, the female buried with the figurine.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry about,’ Carl replied. ‘Whatever you come up with I’m sure it will be worth a paper or two.’

  O…kay. Elizabeth blinked a few times, trying to process Carl’s new outlook.

  ‘Now, you two get to know each other, and work out how you’re going to split up the work. Email me later today and let me know. I’m off to Melbourne for an important dinner…I’m the guest speaker. I’ll hear from you both soon.’

  Elizabeth and Alice looked at each other as Carl sauntered out the door. Alice smiled shyly. Elizabeth regretted her initial derogatory thoughts about the girl.

  A car horn honked. Taid! Elizabeth needed to let him know what was going on.

  ‘Just give me a moment?’ she said to Alice. ‘I have to send a text.’

  ‘Sure, no worries.’

  Hi Taid. Everything fine. Go to the markets with Grandmère. I’ll be home later, tell you about it then. Thank you!

  ‘So, where
should we start?’ Elizabeth asked Alice, not sure herself.

  The sound of the TARDIS materialising signalled an incoming SMS.

  Da iawn, cariad. Very good.

  The first hurdle of the day was over. Now, what was she supposed to do with Alice? Find out what her motivation was for getting involved? Okay, deploy dealing-with-new-people protocol: step one, ask generic questions.

  ‘So, what was your honours thesis on?’ Elizabeth asked.

  Alice’s reply was longwinded and not particularly illumi­nating. After an undergraduate degree in archaeology and biological anthropology, she had prepared an honours thesis based on sequencing mitochondrial DNA.

  ‘That sounds quite similar to my own first two degrees,’ Elizabeth said. ‘But is your master’s a continuation of that field? Does working on this Olmec material really fit in, or will you have to change topics?’

  ‘It will fit in,’ Alice said.

  ‘Good. So what’s your topic?’

  ‘I’m most interested in the information you can get from doing different tests on the one set of data. No, that’s not it. Um, it’s like, if you do one set of genetic tests on one skeleton, but then do a different set of genetic tests on the same skeleton…I want to see if they line up. If they match.’

  Elizabeth’s confusion must have shown.

  ‘No, that’s still not it,’ Alice continued. ‘I’m sorry, I’m nervous. I can’t seem to explain myself properly.’

  ‘Why are you nervous? Carl’s gone now.’

  ‘No…Um,’ Alice’s shoes had apparently become quite interesting. ‘It’s you. I know how good you are, and the real reason I wanted to work on this project is because you are working on it and…and that’s it.’ She continued to stare at the floor.

  Elizabeth was baffled. ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘A few years ago I worked on something with Tanya Jones. She helped me with a paper. I couldn’t have done it without her. She kept saying she found it hard herself, and it would have been much easier if you were there to explain it. Tanya was so…so much better than me, and I figured that you must be really good and I could learn a lot from working with you and…’