Chapter Twelve

 

Now

Canberra, Australia

On Monday morning Elizabeth dragged herself out onto the Library’s terrace for a break. Black trees lined the lake, their naked limbs reaching imploringly through the fog for the sun. She stared at the water, trying to remember what she did yesterday.

That’s right, she had plastered a smile on her face during breakfast, then excused herself from the Sunday matinee again. Sam’s diatribe on the evils of non-vegetarian shoes provided a useful distraction.

Elizabeth couldn’t tell her grandparents about what had happened with Carl at the lab – she couldn’t bear their sympathy or their well-meaning advice. So she retreated to her bedroom, emailed her data on the Olmec remains to Alice, then went to bed for the rest of the day.

Despite wearing four layers of clothing, Elizabeth shivered in the cold.

Somehow it became Tuesday.

Judy was talking to her.

‘Are you okay?’

What was Judy on about? She was working. Everything was fine. No-one knew what had happened on Saturday. ‘Hmmm?’

‘Elizabeth, are you okay? You seem… Is something wrong?’

‘What? No, nothing.’

‘Elizabeth. You’re bright red in the face. And you’re sweating, and breathing strangely. Are you sure you feel okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I don’t feel hot. I feel a bit cold, actually.’

Judy looked at her closely, pressed the back of her hand against Elizabeth’s forehead, then shook her head.

Ten minutes later Elizabeth sat in the passenger seat of her own car as Judy drove them out of the Library car park. She must have dozed, because all of a sudden they were outside her house. Judy careened into the gravel driveway, got out of the car quickly and helped Elizabeth from her seat. She knocked vigorously on the front door. Nainai Cho answered, then ushered them both inside.

They sat in the overly bright conservatory and Nainai peered closely at Elizabeth’s face.

‘Yīlìshābái, how do you feel?’

‘Fine. I’m fine.’ Honestly, what was all the fuss about?

‘No, you’re not fine. You have a temperature, your colour is not good and your breath smells strange. What did you have for breakfast?’

Why was Nainai asking her so many questions? ‘Some coffee.’

‘I see. And what did you have for dinner last night? You didn’t join us at the table.’

‘I ate something in my room.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Nainai looked severely at Elizabeth. Okay, yes, that was a stupid thing to say. The one thing she could not get away with was pleading a poor memory.

‘And I know you left the house without breakfast yesterday. In other words, you’ve eaten almost nothing since Sunday breakfast, and you ate little then. You are sick. Both Samantha and Rhys came down with a cold yesterday…I suspect you have the same thing.’ She turned to Judy. ‘Thank you for bringing her home. She can be stubborn about continuing to work even when she is unwell.’

‘That’s quite okay, Cho.’ Judy spoke gently for once. ‘Well, Elizabeth, it looks like you’ll be home for a few days. If you see a doctor, grab a medical certificate so you can use your sick days.’

Elizabeth nodded slightly, aware of her burning cheeks. The room was freezing cold. Why had her grandparents turned off the heating?

‘You are not to return to work until you are completely well,’ Judy instructed. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

Elizabeth nodded again.

‘There’s nothing worse than a sick colleague moping around the office, spreading germs. I’ll leave you in Cho’s capable hands and see you when you’re better.’ Judy turned back to Cho. ‘Is Madeleine at home? Perhaps she can give me a lift back to the Library.’

‘Certainly, she’s upstairs with Rhys. Come this way and we’ll let her know what’s going on. I’m sure she can drive you back to work.’

Elizabeth dozed in the warmth of the conservatory, feeling annoyed. Maybe she had a bit of a cold, but she was perfectly fine, if only Judy would let her get back to work.

Nainai woke her with a tray of Chinese heartache soup and insisted she sit up to eat it. It took Elizabeth more than half an hour to work her way through the bowl of prawn and pork dumplings with buckwheat noodles in rich chicken stock. Afterwards, Nainai had to help her up the stairs to her bedroom. Why did her legs hurt so much?

— —

Elizabeth awoke, her head pounding, pyjamas clinging to her skin.

Grandmère Maddie was knocking on her door. ‘Lizbet, I’m coming in.’ Elizabeth’s grandmother pulled down her blankets, clucked and shook her head.

‘Ma petite pauvre. You’re sweating so much you’ve soaked your pyjamas and the sheets. You must get up.’

Grandmère helped her take a bath, put on clean pyjamas and climb back into a freshly made bed. Her back hurt where it touched the sheets, and her shins ached simply from the weight of the blankets. Grandmère stuck a thermometer in her mouth, waited for the beep then tsked at the result.

‘Extremely high. I’ll return with a tisane. Sleep now.’

After that, Elizabeth lost track of the days. It seemed that Grandmère woke her every few minutes to turn her out of bed and insist she bathe and take her medicine. The cats took shifts to watch over her; at least two of them were in the room whenever she opened her eyes. First Thoth and Seshet, then Paris and Loki.

All the while, Elizabeth dreamed: she was trapped beneath the earth in a pitch-black cave… Seth, the Egyptian god of chaos, buried her beneath a pile of raw, stinking furs…Her nose filled with the stink of putrefying flesh…Gagging, she begged Luke to save her, but Luke wouldn’t, and her heart broke… Sam and Mai looked on, laughing… A lion entered the cave and gnawed at her leg, ripping the flesh from her bones…She tried to scream but no sound would come out.

Elizabeth surfaced from the nightmare, gasping for air. She realised she was in her own bed, confined by a pile of faux fur rugs and a cat. Thoth’s paw lay protectively across her leg, claws resting on Elizabeth’s skin through her pyjamas.

She tried to swallow. It didn’t hurt too much. Sitting up gingerly, arms shaking with the effort, she took inventory.

Head pounding? No, just a light ache.

Mouth dry? Like the Sahara, but that could be remedied.

Too hot or too cold? She was too warm, but that was probably just the pile of blankets.

Elizabeth reached out one wobbly hand for the lozenges on the nightstand. There was a message there from Grandmère, saying to text when she woke, otherwise Grandmère would check on her at ten o’clock. What day was it?

Elizabeth did a double-take when she saw the date on her mobile phone. Monday! She had lost six days. She had missed her Skype session with Luke, meaning they hadn’t spoken now for a month. He must be so worried. She never missed his calls.

Very, very slowly, Elizabeth got out of bed and willed her unsteady legs to go to her desk and open her laptop. She saw a notification for a missed Skype call from Luke. She opened her email inbox, expecting multiple emails from him asking if she was okay. Nothing!

The bedroom door opened and Grandmère swooped in, arms wide open. She gathered Elizabeth to her and began scolding her immediately.

‘Off the computer and back into bed immediately, ma chérie.’

She helped Elizabeth back under the covers and picked up a thermometer.

‘Your temperature is normal. This is a good sign, but you must rest properly. You’ve been very ill. You didn’t even wake when the doctor came to see you.’

‘Doctor Lewis was here?’

‘Yes. You were so sick she thought we would have to call the ambulance. It’s fortunate we could keep you at home. Samantha and Rhys were out of bed three days ago, but you have been the most sick.’ Relief that Taid was recovering broke through Elizabeth’s distress over Luke. Taid was well into his seventies, so Elizabeth became anxious whenever he was ill.

‘Grandmère, I missed a Skype call with Luke yesterday. He didn’t email me to find out why. Something’s wrong.’ Elizabeth started coughing, her whole body wracked with the effort.

‘Breathe, chérie. You must stay warm and still. I’m sure Luke is fine. This happened before, oui?’ Grandmère reminded her. ‘I remember, a storm broke the electricity to his internet cafe. If anything happened I’m sure his family will call us.’

That was little comfort.

‘If you like, I will call his mother?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘If you promise to stay in bed. And no playing on the computer.’

Elizabeth sank back into the wall of pillows stacked behind her.

Grandmère returned an hour later, tray in hand and a smile on her face.

‘I talked to Luke’s mother. She spoke to him yesterday and he is fine. I wouldn’t worry, chérie, he must have run out of time to email you and assumed that you are fine.’

What? Here she was, worried that she’d missed his call, and he wasn’t the least bit concerned?

Elizabeth turned her attention to the contents of the tray. While deeply fevered she had only been able to sip thin stocks and consommés; now she felt able to tackle a richer soup. Steam rose from the bowl and, though she coughed with every bite, she felt stronger as the heavenly liquid of cawl mamgu slid down her throat. Morsels of soft bread and salted butter helped, too.

Drifting off to sleep, Elizabeth started dreaming of being fired by Carl two Saturdays ago. Her heart pounded in her ears and her breathing became rough again. She went over every word of the conversation. How dare he? She was taking their work at Juluwik seriously, while he, while he…arrgh! How would she uncover the full story behind the ballplayer now?

The rest of the week passed fitfully. Elizabeth tried watching DVDs of her favourite TV shows, but was too distracted to enjoy them. She picked at a get-well-soon basket of fruit from Lynton and Nathan. She drank one soup after another. Mostly she slept, waking each time from unsettling dreams.

There were still no emails from Luke, but then he was out in the field. There was an email from Alice, though, sent a week after Elizabeth became ill:

Hi Elizabeth

Thank you for sending through your data. Carl said you were too busy to keep working on the Olmec remains, which is a shame, because I really wanted to work on them with you.

I should have the results of the first tests soon, which I’d like to go over with you if you have any time? Maybe in two weeks?

Thank you again and regards,

Alice

Carl was such a liar! And if Elizabeth couldn’t work on the remains, no way was she helping anyone else do it. Except…the thought of those women and children being misrepresented in print forever was awful. What could she do? Think, think…

Of course: she could do exactly as Alice asked. By working with Alice, she could ensure the remains were analysed properly. There would be no recognition for her, though. After the initial paper that Carl had already submitted, Elizabeth’s name wouldn’t appear on any more publications about the Olmec population.

Elizabeth felt a little strange. Putting her family’s needs ahead of her own was one thing, but helping Alice do the work Elizabeth was banned from, simply because it was the right thing to do, was going a step further.

This was probably one of those ‘maturing’ moments that Taid went on about. Elizabeth sighed: she hated being so predictable.

— —

By Sunday, Elizabeth was deemed well enough to attend breakfast in the conservatory.

After the matinee movie, Elizabeth followed Taid to his library. It looked so lovely outside, bright and sunny. Elizabeth opened the French doors to the library’s courtyard. Cold air hit her lungs, causing her to double over, heaving. She closed the doors with regret.

‘So, it looks as though you’ve decided to make a recovery,’ Taid said, switching on the library’s gas fireplace. He poured two cups of sweet Earl Grey tea and settled next to her on the Chesterfield. ‘You had us worried for a while there.’

Elizabeth nodded. ‘So Grandmère said,’ she croaked.

‘It sounds as though your throat is still quite sore.’

Elizabeth shook her head.

‘Well, that’s good. Drink your tea while it’s hot, it’ll help. We haven’t talked properly for almost two weeks. How are you feeling, in general?’

‘All right, although I might be over soup soon.’

‘Ahh. It would be best if you can push through and keep eating it, actually.’

Elizabeth was puzzled. ‘For my throat?’

‘No, for Matty.’

Elizabeth frowned.

‘He’s been so very quiet and withdrawn,’ Taid explained. ‘The only thing he will do is cook with Madeleine, and he seems particularly dedicated to making soup for you.’

‘I’ll keep eating it, then, of course. Anything he makes for me.’

‘Good. I meant how are you feeling in your life outside the house, though. Before you became ill, how were things at work? With Luke? Volunteering at uni?’

Elizabeth steeled herself against the memory of her last interaction with Carl.

‘I called the uni when you were sick,’ Taid said, ‘to let Carl know you wouldn’t be in last Saturday. I wasn’t sure what the arrangement was between you.’

Elizabeth closed her eyes against Taid’s next words.

‘He seemed surprised that I called. Even though he said that was fine, I got the impression he wasn’t expecting to see you. Did something happen?’

Elizabeth’s face must have displayed her fury.

‘I thought as much,’ Taid said. ‘Well?’

Bitterness filled Elizabeth’s mouth. ‘He fired me.’

‘Cariad, are you sure? You thought he had last time, but he got over it.’

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth croaked, ‘I’m sure. He banned me from working on the remains, ordered me to give all my data to Alice, and took back my lab keys.’ She looked Taid in the eye. ‘He meant it this time.’

‘I’m sorry. I know how much it meant to you.’

‘Yes.’ What else could she say?

‘May I ask what happened?’

‘He made up stupid things to put in the first paper about the site. I wanted to wait for evidence. He got really angry. I tried to placate him, but it didn’t work, so I gave up.’ Elizabeth’s voice faded to a hoarse whisper. ‘I told him it was wrong, and he fired me. End of story.’

‘Ah, my poor little existential donkey,’ Taid said.

Elizabeth smiled wanly.

‘I suppose this means you’ll go back to reading about archaeology in your spare time? You’ll need to be up to date with the latest developments when you win one of those tutoring jobs.’

‘I doubt I’ll get a tutoring position now. Carl will stop it.’

‘I can’t see how. Is he a lecturer in the department?’

Elizabeth shook her head.

‘Then I can’t see why he would be part of the selection process,’ Taid reasoned. ‘You didn’t put him down as one of your referees?’

‘No. He’d already behaved unpredictably once by then, so I wasn’t sure what he’d say about me.’

‘Good. Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. So, until you win one of the tutoring positions…’

‘If I win one of the tutoring positions…’

‘All right, Miss Cautious. Regardless of whether you win one of the tutoring roles or not, I think you should keep working on archaeology on Saturdays. It made you so happy. The question is, what topic should you concentrate on?’

Elizabeth sighed. Losing her place on the Juluwik team and forgoing access to the Olmec remains might be the price she had to pay for defending good scientific practice, but it was steep.

‘I’m not sure. All I want is to keep working on the Olmec remains, and get to the point of publishing my own analysis as primary author, but I can’t. I can help one of the grad students with her work, though.’

‘Is there any reason you can’t finish the analyses you started, as well as helping the grad? Did you collect all the data you need?’

‘I have everything I need for at least one analysis. Only Carl told me he’d sue if I did anything with it.’

‘Well then, you can’t publish it…but he can’t stop you from finishing your analysis for yourself, can he?’

‘No. I guess not.’

‘Then I think you’ve found your Saturday project.’

‘Yes.’ Elizabeth’s enthusiasm precipitated another coughing fit.

Taid patted her gently on the back. As she sipped her tea, trying to lubricate her throat, he sat back, spread his arms and smiled.

‘Let the analysis begin!’

Elizabeth’s grin answered his. They hadn’t done this in so long.

‘Ffwrdd a ni!’ Let’s go!

Taid chuckled. He loved it when Elizabeth spoke Welsh.

‘First, what are your questions?’ he asked. ‘Quickly, don’t think about it!’

‘Who were the people in the cemetery? Why do they seem to be so closely related? Were they all buried at the same time? How could Juan misinterpret the remains so badly? What is Carl up to…He can’t seriously believe the unfounded ideas he’s coming up with.’

‘See? Plenty to fill up your Saturdays. Now, you seem to have two sets of questions. One: who were the people and what happened to them? Two: why does Carl seem determined to misinterpret the data?’

‘That’s it.’

‘So, my little donkey, let’s open your shaving kit and apply it to the second question first.’

Elizabeth had created the moniker ‘existential donkey with a philosophical shaving kit’ during her difficult second year at university. Miserable in her yearning for Luke, she had thrown herself into philosophy in a search for inner peace. Taid already referred to her as an existentially challenged, angst-ridden donkey, after her childhood obsession with Eeyore. Once she read of Occam’s Razor, Hitchens’ Razor and Hanlon’s Razor, however, she added the idea of her donkey carrying a philosophical shaving kit.

‘First, Hanlon’s Razor,’ said Taid, ‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. We have to ask, are Juan and Carl’s mistakes due to incompetence, or intent?’

‘Well, even though he’s intelligent, Juan was lazy during our undergrad degrees. I don’t think there was any malice in the mistakes he made with the skeletons, I think he just didn’t care enough to do a proper job.’

‘All right. And Carl?’

‘I honestly don’t know. He has to be smart in order to be the leader of so many excavations, right?’

‘Ambitious, at the very least.’

‘And he keeps going on about how many people’s careers he can influence. Is that an indicator of malice?’

‘Motivation, possibly. We can come back to him. As for answering your first question, who these people were and how they wound up in the cemetery, what information do you have?’

‘My observations of the skeletons, all my metric and non-metric data, and…’ Elizabeth tapped her temple, ‘…everything in the site files, as well as the Mesoamerican datasets of dental non-metrics I found in the literature.’

‘Excellent.’ Taid poked her kneecap. ‘Smart little donkey.’

‘So, what should I do next?’ Elizabeth knew what his answer would be, but she liked hearing him say it.

‘Approach it like any other research question, of course. Define your questions, your methodology for answering them, develop your models, run your analyses, examine your results and…voila.’

‘It’s a plan. I can work on this at night after work.’

‘All right, but don’t overdo it, cariad.’

‘I won’t, I promise.’

Making her way back to her bedroom, Elizabeth wondered if identifying the women and children would help her figure out what Carl was up to. And maybe, if she could work out why Carl was deliberately misinterpreting their remains, she could do something about it.

— —

Over the course of the following week, after work and between cat naps, Elizabeth worked out her approach to her ‘Saturday Project’.

One of her grandmothers delivered a bowl of soup each night for dinner. The previous evening Nainai had brought her ginger and chicken soup, a perennial household favourite in the cold and flu season. Tonight, over an enormous serving of French country chicken noodle soup prepared by Matty, Elizabeth defined her questions. Exactly what did the skeletal remains represent? How closely were the individuals related, both genetically and in time? Where did they sit in the wider population? And…

Her head was still too fuzzy to work properly. She stopped for a break to look around her bedroom. She loved the design: white built-in bookshelves lined the wall opposite the door, surrounding a pressed tin fireplace. The mirror above the fireplace reflected an enormous chandelier that hovered over her white wrought-iron four-poster bed. A matching white writer’s desk displayed her computer and an antique pith helmet gifted from Taid. Beside the desk, a deep-red chaise longue sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors that led to her balcony…

Oh dear. If she was contemplating colour schemes, she was too tired to concentrate. Time for bed.

— —

The next night Elizabeth sat at her desk nutting out her methodology. She had everything she needed to complete a dental non-metric analysis, which would allow her to see how closely related the Juluwik people were to other groups from Mesoamerica. But what could she do to work out the relationships between her skeletons? There were the DNA analyses that Alice was running, of course, but the results might not be available for months.

What about the timing of the burials? Something had seemed strange about that when she first looked through the site records. She would review the records again in her phrenic library, paying close attention to the stratigraphy.

How about the writing? Carl was hanging a lot of his claims on that. She would contact Henry again, as soon as the first publication was out, and ask him to explain what each of the glyphs meant. That way she could check Juan’s translation of ‘royal’ and ‘male’.

Nainai pushed open her bedroom door with one foot. Elizabeth rose from her chair. ‘Let me help you.’

‘No, Yīlìshābái, please stay there. If you could clear a space on the end of your desk?’

Nainai put down a tray containing a bowl of fragrant slow fire winter melon soup and a beautifully written letter.

Elizabeth read out the characters. ‘Fēng xiàng zhuàn biànshí, you rén zhú qiáng, you rén zào fēngchē.’

She paused. ‘Sorry Nainai, give me a moment. I know what the characters mean: wind, building, walls, people, but I can’t put it together.’

‘I don’t think I taught you this one,’ Nainai said. ‘Literally, it means, “When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, while others build windmills.” ’

Nainai’s look suggested she was solving all of Elizabeth’s problems, but Elizabeth couldn’t see how. ‘Ah. I see.’

‘I think the English equivalent is, “When one door closes, another opens.” Perhaps the path you chose for yourself is no longer available, but you are still you. You can find another way to express yourself.’

This was exactly what Taid kept telling her. Elizabeth suspected grandparental collusion. ‘Yes, I see. Thank you.’

— —

By Friday morning Elizabeth was looking forward to sleeping in over the weekend. She was also eager for her afternoon coffee with Nathan. Lynton, her other friend from Maps, joined them this time.

‘Thank you so much for the card and fruit,’ she said to both of them.

‘It was Nathan’s idea, actually,’ Lynton said, waving happily in his direction.

‘Well, it’s what my mum likes,’ Nathan said. ‘So! It’s weeks since we caught up. Are you better now?’

‘Mostly. Just very tired.’

‘Work was okay this week?’

‘Yep, and Judy was nice. She looked after the service desk so I could work sitting down in the back.’

‘That’s good,’ Lynton said. ‘It can take ages to get over being sick. And how’s everything going with that gorgeous boyfriend of yours?’

‘Well…okay, I guess.’

‘Something wrong?’

‘No, everything’s fine. I’m missing him, that’s all. It’s so hard, being separated most of the year.’

‘I can imagine. I couldn’t bear to be apart from my hubby for even a week!’

‘I’ve been curious about something,’ Nathan said to Elizabeth, ‘but it might be a sore point.’

Was he going to ask how she and Luke maintained a long-distance relationship? That would be too personal to talk about.

‘How’s everything with your volunteering job? If you’ve been sick, you haven’t been able to do it, I suppose.’

That was almost more awkward than talking about her relationship with Luke. ‘Well, things aren’t great. I was fired.’ Saying it quickly hurt less.

‘I’m sorry,’ Nathan and Lynton replied together.

‘It’s okay. I stood up for what was right, and as my grandparents say, sometimes there’s a price. I’m still working on the data I collected, though, just for myself. I want to find out what happened at the site. I can’t stop wondering about the stories of the women and children buried there.’

‘Good for you, don’t let anyone stop you,’ Lynton said.

‘Did you talk to Henry Evans about the site again?’ Nathan asked.

‘Not yet, but I will. There are a few things I want to ask him. I’ll email him tonight and ask if he’s free to talk over the weekend.’

— —

By dinner time the following evening Elizabeth had pieced together a full framework for her literature review, methodology and models. She explained her progress to Taid over a bowl of French onion soup. They both made noises of appreciation as they ate and talked. Grandmère was an expert at choosing just the right onions, the exact brandy and a perfect sprig of thyme to produce a divine onion soup.

That night, excitement prevented Elizabeth from falling asleep straight away. Despite still feeling disappointed at losing her place on the Olmec team, there was a deep satisfaction in continuing her investigation at home. And she would talk to Luke tomorrow. She couldn’t wait!

She finally fell asleep, her cartouche curled in the palm of her hand. She dreamt that the ballplayer was talking to her, but she couldn’t make out the words.

— —

Elizabeth stayed in her room most of Sunday. The Skype bell didn’t sound. She managed to distract herself by watching DVDs of Black Books and Doctor Who. As soon as each episode ended, though, she was aware of the sound of her own pulse in her ears. It was six weeks since she and Luke last spoke…wasn’t he as anxious to talk to her as she was to him?

In the end, she had to give up and prepare for bed. She hadn’t heard back from Henry, either, she realised. Then, a bell, just as she crawled beneath the covers. Elizabeth flew to her computer desk and flicked the mouse – Luke! She was so relieved to see his handsome face.

‘Hi, Lizzie-bear. Long time no see!’

‘Is everything okay? Are you all right? Why didn’t you call me earlier? Weren’t you worried about me? Have you heard about your job applications?’

Luke smiled. ‘Lizzie, slow down. I have plenty of time now, let’s catch up.’

‘So, have you heard anything about your applications?’ she repeated more calmly.

‘No, it’s far too early for that.’ Luke paused. ‘I don’t want you to get your hopes up too much, Lizzie. It’s possible that I won’t get a position, you know.’

‘Of course you will. You’d be perfect for either the lecturer or tutor roles.’

‘We have to be realistic,’ Luke smiled disarmingly again. ‘It’s likely that one of the other applicants has a lot more experience than me. Don’t worry. If it’s meant to be, it will be. So, how’s your work on the Juluwik site going?’

They talked for more than an hour, covering everything to do with Carl’s deceit, the Olmec remains, her illness, her job application, Luke’s work at his Mayan excavation and his plans to come home for a long break after Christmas. Luke was suitably outraged by Carl’s behaviour, and Elizabeth felt her annoyance with Luke’s extended silence fade as they chatted.

Drifting off to sleep, Elizabeth felt more herself than she had in weeks.

— —

When she logged on to her computer on Monday night, Elizabeth found the first email in her inbox was from Henry.

Elizabeth

The paper has come out. I’ve pasted the link below. It’s almost as if you and I spoke about a different site.

Henry

What was Henry on about? Oh well, didn’t matter. This was it! The moment she had been waiting for. Finally, her name – Dr Elizabeth Pimms – on a real academic paper in a real academic journal.

Elizabeth clicked through to the link.

It was an online journal Elizabeth hadn’t heard of before.

She scanned the page.

Her name wasn’t on the paper.

Anywhere.

— —

Elizabeth let the shock of this latest disappointment wash over her during dinner. Although she was outraged, given Carl’s behaviour up until now she probably should have seen this coming.

Climbing the stairs to her bedroom after dessert, Elizabeth decided to look through the paper more carefully. It wasn’t what she expected at all. There was no overarching description of the site, no photos…in fact, nothing concrete. The paper was just more of Carl’s wild speculation, which explained Henry’s comment.

Elizabeth leant back in her chair to work out her next steps. She needed to let Henry know she wasn’t responsible for Carl’s paper, and that she was working on Juluwik in her own time. Perhaps she should Skype him on the weekend.

There was something else: Alice’s name wasn’t on the paper either. Just how many people had Carl duped?