Ignoring the July sun burning the back of her neck and with her vest sticking to her back, Anita crouched in her section of the trench. She scraped a bit more soil off a shard of pottery with her trowel. Either side of her, other students from Miskatonic University archaeology department together with amateur volunteers knelt, all engrossed in the dig.
Putting down her trowel, she dusted off the fragment with her one inch paintbrush, revealing more of the coarse, grainy unglazed ceramic. This wasn't a modern piece, or even European, but ancient; at this depth it had to be native Micmac from centuries before the Colonial era. Carefully, Anita lifted the piece out and placed it in the plastic box behind her for later evaluation.
The sun shining directly into the excavation revealed further fragments. With her trowel again, she carefully loosened them from the earth. It was amazing to think that these had been buried in the ground for hundreds of years and that she was the first person to see them after all that time.
Anita wondered if she should call over Professor Keeble and tell him about her find but on second thought she decided against that. It was only a few pieces of broken pottery after all and not of a particularly high quality neither. This wasn't something that would have graced a Chieftain's feast or been received as tribute from another tribe. No, this was just low grade clayware for everyday use.
All the same, Anita was excited by her find and picking up her trowel again, slowly and methodically worked on exhuming the next pieces. Sweat trickled down her forehead as she did so. She was thirsty but didn't want to break off. Another piece of pottery, probably from the same platter, joined the first in the box. This wasn't earth-shattering but would help give a better idea of daily life in the tribe.
Using her trowel, Anita scraped deeper beneath the remnants. She put the soil to one side for later so it could be sieved for small items, such as seeds or shells. Her trowel scratched something else; something that sounded like pottery but wasn't. Could it possibly be...?
Her heart leaped. Anita thought it might be a skull. She knew she should now call Professor Keeble over for a find of such importance and sensitivity; but, well, she was a third year student and knew enough to safely remove bones. Looking up, Anita saw that everyone else had left the trench. She must have been so engrossed in her work that she missed the call for the rest break. Never mind, she would have something significant to show old Keeble on his return. The professor would be so pleased.
Leaning forwards, Anita excavated around the skull, careful to avoid any damage. Gradually, the rounded cranium emerged from the loose earth, then its face. The skull was easier to dig out than Anita had expected, the pottery over the top had protected it from being compacted or broken. As she dug, her tongue sticking out slightly with concentration, Anita wondered why the skull had been interred beneath pottery. That wasn't usual practice – it was like the Micmacs were trying to conceal these bones for some reason. But now they were seeing the light of day.
Eventually, after a last sweep of her brush, the skull was ready to extract. It was remarkably well preserved with most of its teeth. Looking around, there was still nobody in sight. Carefully, well aware of how fragile it was, Anita lifted the skull with both hands and raised it up to her face. For an instant, an image of a Micmac medicine-woman's face filled her vision superimposed over the bones. She frowned, the vision vanished, and then Anita looked deeper into its dark eye sockets.
A little spark shone deep in the holes. Her imagination or the sun reflecting off a chip of mica? No, the light kindled, grew stronger, a pale wild-fire lighting up the skull from within like a ghastly Halloween lantern. Alarmed Anita tried to tear her eyes away but her gaze was held captive by the wild-fire.
Still brighter grew the light from deep within the skull. Vivid, scintillating, hypnotic witch-light holding her gaze. Anita couldn't even blink, unable to break its evil spell. Suddenly her viewpoint shifted. Now she was looking up at her own face – through the eye-holes of the skull her own hands were holding.
Anita sensed tendrils invading her brain as the coils of the skull's personality intertwined with her own. They felt dark, cold and monstrous. With a blast of hot terror, Anita flung the invaders out and immediately her viewpoint returned to normal. Yet before she could drop the skull the mental tendrils returned, redoubling in force and her mind re-entered the foul skull.
She shrieked with fright, sheer terror as she felt more and more of her own mind and personality leaving her brain and taking up residence in this worm-eaten brain pan. As she did so, the skull's jawbone dropped open in a silent scream.
And then her vision tumbled to the foot of the trench as Anita watched her hands cast the skull away and then her body standing upright, dusting off the dirt and walking away. Gradually, as Anita's senses left the hostile abode of this long dead skull, her vision dimmed and blackened away to nothingness.
Yes, the shaman of the Micmacs was freed from the spell trapping her in this earthen tomb at long last and could walk underneath the sun and the stars again. Her tribe hadn't understood her new ways of worship and had murdered her in the brightness of the day, cutting off and burying her head where she could never trouble them again. The shaman wondered whether this strange, new world would be more receptive to her ways.
Iä! Shub-Niggurath. The Goat with a Thousand Young.