Part 2

"Don't jump to conclusions."

Stupid, stupid edict. Don't tell me what to do, she answered the professor's voice. Easy for an archeologist but how did mere mortals dowse their imaginations?

It was impossible. Lying here, enjoying the luxury of the tent all to herself with nothing better to do but gaze at the canvas seams of her quarters, her mind reached out to the cold bones in the grave on the hilltop.

A full afternoon's mapping and recording the site hadn't solved the mystery of the lady with the ring. Sarah hadn't really expected it to and she knew she'd drive herself mental wondering how and when the lady got there. Renfrew favored the view she was a relatively modern burial. Perhaps a woman who met her fate accidentally? The ring probably brought him a measure of relief. He hadn't said it but, if it hadn't been for the ring, there was no way he would have allowed her to continue on without stricter oversight. It made more sense that this was a recent (or relatively recent) burial than to believe she had stumbled onto a culture that had developed metallurgy tens of thousands of years before any other known people.

What if he's wrong? a sly voice whispered. What if he's not sure. He left Andrew, didn't he? What if he left Andrew because he's having doubts. What if she is that old or at least from the early Bronze Age?

Ha! Just because the archaeologists had to follow a game plan didn't mean she was bound by their methodologies and limitations. I'm not one of you.

Who was her lady?

Renfrew's face was still speculative as Andrew delivered his preliminary report at the end of the day.

"The skeleton is in good – remarkably good – condition, if we presume its age is contemporary with the Eve site. Rocks arranged cairn-like over the body indicate deliberate placement. Gender most likely female. Cranium is virtually intact, evidence of a full or near to full set of teeth. Once I get a better look I shouldn't have any difficulty estimating a range of age at death. Sieving revealed no artifacts, no animal bones, no charcoal or plant matter but basic examination of strata demonstrates some similarities to Eve burial.

"We reliably placed Eve in the upper level of the Lower Ndutu. This new site is approximately one hundred and sixteen feet from the Eve site. But, see, here's the thing, prof–" Andrew's hand went to his cheek, wiping a smear of dirt. "If it weren't for the location we found her or the obvious signs of aging in the bones, I'd say there was no way she'd been in the ground that long. I'm dying to have a closer look at the teeth tomorrow. I'd almost swear some of them have been worked on."

The professor stroked his chin. He took his time answering. In the end he counseled scrupulous care and attention to every measurement in recording details.

"We've got a week left on site. Just keep at it. If she is a recent addition to the site, she'll give up her secrets soon enough."

After a discussion about Piltdown man, dating techniques and sample collecting, none of which interested Sarah, they'd called it a day, and she had slipped away to her tent.

Her first find. Hers. A woman. A woman carefully buried. A woman who didn't tally. A woman of mystery. A woman alone on a hill overlooking a valley of incredible beauty. How lonely she must have been. And if she were a modern burial, how strange that her final resting place should come so close to such an ancient resting ground.

Mitochondrial Eve lived about a hundred and fifty thousand years ago. Yesterday that had just been another large, meaningless number. Sarah had never been any good at recalling what dates to associate with the taxonomy of human evolution; homo erectus? homo boisei ergaster? homo australopithecus? They were names that bled into one over-riding concept: a long, long time ago. As she strained to work out what that meant for her lady, Sarah chided herself for not paying more attention to her sister's lecturing.

She shuddered as her mind sifted through imagined snapshots of life in the Stone Age. Calloused hands knapping flint; tools struck from rock. Life in caves or sheltering under the branches of some savannah tree. Lithe hunters ranging prey, collectors fossicking in the growth, digging for tubers and roots.

Cultivation, writing, civilization were still a geological age away; enough time for thousands of generations of humans to be born, grow, procreate and pass on. In this climate, little need for even a fur pelt. A hard, short life lived under a blazing, fertile sun with all the unmitigated pain of life's little side effects: a bad tooth, a headache, a broken limb (what were modern trifling concerns now enough to make the everyday act of living a misery then). The uncertainty of knowing so little about the world, the capricious nature of climate and the never-ending search for subsistence – Sarah didn't envy it.

Fuck.Thinking about it this way made her marvel that humans had ever convinced themselves life was worth the effort. It was enough to make her silently thank God for being born in modern times.

She had to check herself. Maybe Renfrew had it right. Who was she to judge this woman's life and feel sorry for her? Hardness had to be relative. If you didn't know any better, you wouldn't miss the modern comforts of drugs and instantaneous relief.

Sarah lay on her camp bed, staring up. Her fingers laced and made steeples as her mind churned. She kept her bottle of sleeping pills rolled up in a sweater which she always had tucked under her bed. She resisted the urge to travel down that path tonight. She was almost there by herself without chemical assistance. Better to save the medication until she really needed it.

On the cusp of sleep, her mind shifted with the force of tectonic plates heaving. Her eyelids flew open but all she saw was the skeleton, tiny finger bones and the ring.

"You were loved."

Breath rasped in her chest. It hurt. She squeezed her hands. There was all the difference in the world between academic knowledge and intuition. And academic knowledge never made her breathless.

She cringed as the flap on her tent was flung wide and a shaft of intense golden sunlight pierced her eyes.

Andrew's voice filled her sanctum before she could let loose invective.

"One last chance to get your lazy ass of out of the sack and down to the bar, Clarke!"

"Fuck off."

At last her words seemed to have some effect. He was hesitant when he replied. Maybe he finally sensed he was overstepping her carefully constructed emotional barricade.

"It could be fun, you know."

"Yeah. Sure. Fun," she said, rolling on her side and curling. "Have some of that for me."

She couldn't work out why her eyes were dry. She didn't know why she was being so mean.

The light didn't shift. Andrew must still be standing in the doorway. Let him stand there. Dusk couldn't be far off, he'd be gone soon enough.

She remembered previous years; how when the dig broke for the day she and Laura would head back to their tent (Sarah had liked the look of the cabins, but Laura wouldn't have a bar of it). They'd clean up, Laura would go over her notes and make sure her site forms were filled in. Then she'd always rouse Sarah from her post-dig nap to watch the onset of dusk. Shading her eyes with one hand she would reach her palm forward like she was patting the sun.

"Think, Sarah. That's the same sun, the same scene, people saw thousands of years ago, millions of years ago ... time – pfft – what a meaningless concept; we're all connected."

Then they would hitch a ride with the other students and volunteers in a rusted out Toyota, down to the local bar for wicked local drinks.

How many evenings had they wasted this way? Sarah wanted nothing to do with the memories. She didn't want memories. This season she hadn't been out drinking once.

"Amazing what you've done with the place."

Great. He hadn't gone.

"I mean, it's old school. Don't see many of these old army tents anymore, but at least you've got standing room – room even for a shelf, photos, your guitar. Haven't seen that in a long time..."

He stopped and cleared his throat.

"Good night, Sarah."

"You were loved," she whispered long after the flap had fallen. Her fingers curled around her sister's tattered copy of Bass. "Who loved you? Who put your hand on your heart when they laid you down to sleep? How much was their heart breaking? They were the last to see you until me."