Work Text
As a literary archeologist, Belle knew her job would include dust, books, mustiness, and more dust. It was, however, a bit of a surprise for the young college student to get called in by her mentor, Professor Harry Mills I, on a day in which she didn’t have to attend class. “French!” the elderly man’s voice echoed through the phone. Belle stumbled out of Dream Land, still processing her current situation in the early winter morning. Sultan, her overly-scruff old mutt, whined as his mistress pushed him off the bed. Belle's classes had taken a pause, briefly, this season, so she took the time to get all the sleeping-in she could take. But, that didn’t mean Belle’s mentor or her fellow classmates were cordon-offed entirely. “Professor Mills!” she squeaked in reply, glancing at her alarm clock. Nine O’clock sharp. Why must the professor call her this early? On a Sunday, too!“I have an assignment for you,” he said, followed by the shuffling of papers, an older woman’s distant screech of complaint, and two younger women having a yelling match. Mills sighed and excused himself, bawling something back. Belle couldn’t help but chuckle—The Professor’s family, while clearing waning on him, were always a hoot. He returned with an apology, and then continued. “Are you free this upcoming week?”Belle yawned and ran a hand through her bedhead. “Hmm…” She checked her phone’s calendar. “October something? Yup-sir!”“Good, good, very good,” Mills sighed in relief. “There is a house up in Frontlands—you’ve heard?”“The Frontlands? Yes, it’s an Indian and nature reservation around Quebec, isn’t it?”“Correct you are, French. The college directs and I have talked to the tribe’s head, Chief Powhatan, and he’s agreed to let you and the others stay at Sucki House. A group of youths went playing down by the woods near there, and fell across an old burial site—““I thought we’re not suppose to mess with those? All sacred ground, ya’ know… The Shining set a pretty good example, Professor.”He gave a heartless grunt of amusement. “Yes. Well, turns out the natives here have no claim on it what-so-ever.”“You’re kidding.”“No. These aren’t Indian remains.”“…come again?”“It’s a mass grave site of European soldiers from the French and Indian War—nearly two hundred and sixty years old! The house, Sucki House, is right over a battleground, too. That’ll be the others’ problem. Your main concern will be what’s in Sucki. Whoever lived there is long gone, now, but it’s chock-full of what you love best. And I want you to do what you do best, French. I will send an email with the directions… Can you manage this?” Belle nearly fell off her bed upon processing these words. “Can I!? Oh, yes! Yes! Thank you, Professer Mills, thank you! I won’t let you down!” Oh, how she’s wished for a moment like this! Finally, finally!, a chance to prove her worth! She squealed in excitement, kicking her legs giddily as a wave of glee took her over. If Belle was called in to do a dig, it meant there were books to be found. And, well, books were her specialty. She barely managed to exchange a farewell to Mills before hanging up, flinging herself out of her teacup-printed bed sheets. Quick as lightning, Belle hopped in the shower, dressed, placed a little makeup on, threw some necessities in her Disney in Paris suitcase, ties Sultan’s leash on, and flings herself out of her itty-bitty Maine apartment.Sultan barked at her as she stuffed him and her belongs into her Ford Model-T. Two things: the car, while older than basically the dinosaurs, belonged to her father who one day decided he’d like to be an inventor. That didn’t work out so well for Papa. So, he tried car repair. Better, but in the end he came up with an old, busted ancient automobile beyond repair (or so people thought), and a mangy mutt Papa’s co-workers just called “Sultan”. Belle almost got everything of Papa’s when he… well, it’s better not to dwell on sad things, right? The car, if one even wished to call the horseless carriage that, was composed of poorly polished hardwood, a gold-colored roof and frames, and pure black steel. It was an ugly thing, really, but with the hood up and the doors closed it felt cozy like any other car. Belle secretly loved the seats. Sultan enjoyed it enough, too, hanging his head out the door while the car’s engine popped and banged and puttered. Belle sighed and started the car, finger on the wheel’s accelerator. She reached under the chair and pulled out a map.Siri was not to be trusted with directions, Belle decided long ago.And like that, the young woman and her mangy mutt were off to the Frontlands.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
To her disappointment and frustration, “Quebec” wasn’t the city of Quebec. Professor Mills had meant the province of Quebec (Belle really wishes she’d read his email earlier). The Canadian province was miles, miles, and miles of land. Less than a half of Quebec was covered by anthropogenic activity, while the rest was nothing but wilderness. Belle’s Ford Model-T couldn’t possibly get her and Sultan over 800kms of snow and trail.Sultan whined the whole way, once he finally realized they weren’t just driving across town. Belle tried to sooth the mangy old thing, but the short-legged dog wouldn’t relax. Especially once they got to border patrol. He was checked over by the Canadian authorities before giving him (and her things) back. She and Sultan were then ushered off to a hotel where the others in her team awaited for further instruction. The college directors and organizers of the dig rented out a meeting-room there, where they all had to meet-and-greet. The dig was bigger than she originally thought—it hadn’t been let-known to the public, but they’d already started calling it the Frontlands Project. Dr. Victor Whale, Jefferson, and Ruby Lucas were all archaeologists like Belle. However, they all specialized in very different fields. Dr. Whale is a man of prestige and precision, and probably the most accomplished among them. Victor was the only one holding a doctorate’s degree. He was their osteologist, aka the “Bones” of the group. The man was enthralled by the human body… well, the more boney bodies, that is. There was a running gag amongst the scholars that rumored the doctor was a necrophiliac. Not unexpectedly, they all took a strong liking to calling him “Dr. Frankenstein”. He wasn’t a fan of the nickname. Jefferson was their ethnoarchaeologist with a clear case of millinophilia. No one really knew why the man loved his hats, and he never tried explaining why, either. In fact, no one even knew his last name. He just called and introduced himself as Jefferson. Jefferson would talk anyone’s ear off about the hat he was currently wearing, but never the obsession itself. Ruby theorized it was his fetish, but Belle thought the reason ran a bit deeper. She and the quirky man ended up sitting together on a whim one evening in a Medieval Literature course in Belle’s freshmen days. They became fast friends quicker than one could say “Rogatywka”. Belle thought he was a student like her, but to her alarm, Jefferson was an advisor in the anthropology unit of the college. Occasionally he’d teach a class or two, and Belle had to admit—his classes were crazy as hell. In a good way, that is.Ruby was Belle’s best friend—besides the group’s zooarchaeologist. She loved animals just like her bookish friend, but the Lucas girl had the spirit of a wolf where Belle was the wuss-puss. Ruby could tell you all about different relationships between humans and animals in nearly every historical society. Once, she’d managed to swipe a mummy-dog from a dig down in Egypt, hid it in her backpack, and successfully brought it over to Belle’s apartment in Maine to laugh over it with her. Jefferson, unsurprisingly, had been with Ruby during this whole scandal. Belle had been terrified—one, a 3,000 year old mummified mutt was in her living room (Sultan, that poor creature, looked horrified of it), and two, those couple of idiots had stolen a piece of history that could very well throw both their butts in jail. Ruby was sneaky, and Jefferson had his ways; the mummy-dog soundly made it to a museum without suspicion. Belle didn’t bother asking how they pulled it off. Her friend was beautifully complex in her own ways, albeit reckless and a bit of a danger-magnet, but loyal to a fault. They were as close as two peas in a pod throughout their high school days and till now. Belle was a bit more different than her team. Unlike them, Belle didn’t mess with the down-in-the-dirt stuff. She was a literary archaeologist by personal choice, having more to-do with books than other artifacts. Yet, that’s not all Belle did. She was a highly sought linguist as well; a mistress of philology. To say that she was an A-OK logophile besides a professional bibliophile was an understatement. Belle was saturated in everything regarding literature. If she had to go decipher some hieroglyphics, she’d do it happily even if books weren’t present. The three welcomed Belle and her curious scruffy mutt warmly like always, ushering her inside the meeting room to fawn over the dig they were headed to. According to their emails, in the morning they would load onto a private jet, which would take them to a small village outside of the Frontlands. Sometime there, Chief Powhatan’s daughter was going to greet them and give them the lowdown of her tribe and its rules. “Them” being Belle’s team, and… others.Unfortunately, they were not alone in this. The four scholars did a lot of prep-work under their Professor’s guidance, but this dig would be the first official one for them as a team. To hear that other historians were tagging along didn’t generate avidity among them. There were four of them coming—a duo-team of anthropologists and two solo scholars.Hardly an hour after Belle’s arrival, the duo arrived. They were history specialists under the name Mary Margaret and David “Charming” Nolan; a married couple from Europe—never settling in one place, always moving to and from different dig sites. Mary Margaret was a slender and soft-spoken woman with short black hair and wide innocent eyes. It gave her a youthful look, so everyone was shocked silly when the raven-haired admitted she was nearing her fortieth birthday. She’s an environmentalist archaeologist, yet she knew just about everything her charming husband knew. David couldn’t say the same about his wife, but his profession was fascinating enough— a recceologist as well as a battlefield archaeologist! Despite being an expert in everything war related, David was gallant to a fault; a real-life Prince Charming. So much so that his wife called him “Charming”. It was a favored nickname by his friends, apparently, so says his wife.Belle’s team quickly warmed up to the older couple, instantly labeling them as Mom and Dad of them all. This flustered the couple adorably—they’d always wanted a child of their own, but due to several private reasons unsaid, they were without. “Have you been to Canada before?” Ruby asked Mary Margaret, Belle curiously following them as they ventured out to the cafeteria of the hotel. Bell hoppers had taken their tings up to their rooms already, but Belle didn’t trust Sultan to behave himself locked up there alone, so he tagged along too—with his leash, which he hated, but it was a rule in the hotel. He looked like a dirty old mop as Belle dragged him along the slick white tile.“Me? Oh, no,” Mary Margaret admitted with a smile. “David says he went to some bootcamp way west of here—but he still hasn’t shown me the metals he supposedly won.”They laughed, and continued to share some stories. Mary Margaret eased into Ruby and Belle’s friendship, despite being older than both, and more experienced in the field. It was near one o’clock in the morning when one of the two “solo scholars” arrived.Emma Swan is a remote blonde girl born and bred in Boston, Massachusetts. At least, according to her. She made it a point to mention she had no family, and therefore, she needed no one’s help with anything. Belle’s heart lurched at that, despite the other girl’s indifferent persona. Emma’s specialty, however, sparked interest in everyone. She was a forensic archaeologist trainee at the University of Massachusetts Boston—studying crimes, historical mass-murders, criminal behavior, and cold-cases older and bigger than Jack the Ripper. Despite her newbie-ness and lack of hands-on experience, several mentors in the anthropology discipline recommended her onto the Frontlands Project. She’s also young – the youngest next to Belle and Ruby; Ruby was twenty-three, Belle twenty-one, yet the blonde was hardly a day over nineteen. Emma wasn’t friendly like the others. No, she was rather cool in approach. Ruby mirrored the girl’s attitude right back at her, but Belle and Mary Margaret became immediate doters upon Swan. Even David, albeit more caught-up with the other guys, seemed to behave paternally toward her. It was late, and all were exhausted. Sleep was a must, but they knew the eighth member of their band of history nerds had yet to arrive. Their hotel provided Belle’s team with two rooms: one for her and Ruby, and the other for Victor and Jefferson. The Nolan’s took to their own room. Emma was trying to prove to them all that she didn’t need anyone’s help by being quiet and invisible. Belle herded Mrs. Nolan into a corner and questioned Swan’s situation—No one saw Emma get a room, nor hear her explain her plans on this dig. They knew the girl’s university of choice wasn’t anything terribly fancy, and her clothes (jeans and a red leather jacket) weren’t fit for the bitter winter. All she had on her was a rag-tag backpack and a yellow Volkswagen.So Mary Margaret was the one to descend upon the blonde with as much enthusiasm as a vulture to fresh offal. She offered her the pullout couch in her and her husband’s room, and after much insisting on the Nolan’s part Emma finally relented and accepted. But, Emma volunteered herself to wait in the lobby (the hotel people kicked them out of the meeting room at 2:00am) for the last archaeologist.Belle crashed once she sat on her bed, and didn’t wake up until Jefferson barged into her and Ruby’s room with plates of hot breakfast. They ate, showered, dressed, brushed, threw their stuff together, walked Sultan, and then found themselves downstairs meeting August Booth.August was a writer, a globetrotter, and a… well, there wasn’t a specific name for what he did. He was an anthropologist, yes, who favored the field of “intangible cultural heritage”. Folktales, fairytales, lore, historical anecdotes—those kinds of things. Belle was taken with the man’s interests like fire to oil. They both clicked concerning the literature world. Finally, all the scholars were together. They bickered over luggage and seating arrangements at the bus, letting their truer colors shine now that they knew each other better. Mary Margaret fussed over everyone’s clothing like an old mother hen, David went around checking to see if everyone had everything, Jefferson was telling the others about the drudgery of early hatters, Emma was texting away at her scratched android, August was telling Belle about his cat Figaro, and Ruby and Victor were in a flirt-off. Sultan sat on Belle’s lap while furiously wagging his tail, looking out the windows at the rolling snowy hills. The snow glistened in the late dawn’s light like diamonds. The bus was preparing to drop them off at a private airport when August decided to open his messenger bag to show David his traveling journal.Instead, a small black and white kitten popped its fuzzy little head out. The owner of said cat hardly seemed fazed.“Cat!” Belle cheered, smirking. “I thought you said Figaro was home sleeping?”“I did—“ August scooped the adorable little creature up and plopped it in Ruby’s outstretched arms. “He lives in my bag. Follows me everywhere.”“Well, why aren’t you just the cutest wittle thing!?” Ruby baby-cooed with fish lips, letting the curious ball of fur walk around on her lap and then over to Victor’s lap, who handed Figaro back to August, who gave him to Belle. Sultan perked his scruffy brown ears and eyed the small creature suspiciously. Figaro leaned in to sniff the dog’s nose, and hissed in distaste. Belle promptly handed the kitten back to her neighbor.“No one told me it was bring-your-pet-to-work week,” Emma said, frowning but watching the passing of Figaro with light merit in her eyes. Belle laughed at that.“Sultan’s older than dust, but he thinks he’s still a puppy. If I left him with a sitter, he would probably jump out a window to case after me,” Belle crooned.Then they all jumped into a long, surprisingly passionate, conversation about pets. Figaro became a makeshift talking stick, kneading and snuggling up in the anthropologists’ laps. Sultan presented open jealously for the kitten, and stood like a guard dog at Belle’s feet, staring up at her with the biggest, saddest puppy-dog eyes she’d ever seen. Jefferson was in the midst of talking about how his beloved British Shorthair, Chess, once fell into a can of purple paint, and he and several others spent a whole hour searching for him in a newly painted purple house. Belle asked him who’s house it was, and who these other people were, but unsurprisingly Jefferson didn’t answer. The man did admit that Chess was still around.., and he hadn’t quiet gotten rid of the lilac stains in his fur despite having several baths. My purple tiger, he’d called Chess. As Jefferson was finishing up his tale, the buss stopped and the gang loaded off onto the charter airport. The scholars were quickly led to a private jet, many of them oohing and awing over the sleek, chic décor. A blonde stewardess in a tight pencil skirt named Ashley Boyd (she instead being called Ella) seated them comfortably and attended to their every whim—she seemed happy to help, and even openly taken by their professions. Belle, among others, were delighted that Ella knew about several things in their field. Yet, startlingly, Emma asked her a question that threw a hush over them all. “Why do you work here if you know so much about history and crap?”Ella blinked once, but then smiled softly. It was not a sad smile. “My husband, Thomas. He’s the pilot.”“You were gonna do something else?” Jefferson asked curiously, tilting his head.“Well… I loved anything archaeological, and actually I still do—Thomas keeps pushing me to peruse a job in archaeology, but…” Ella bit her lip and a light blushed bloomed on her cheeks, “what I like isn’t really an important field.”“Not important?” August said with disbelief, looking up from his book, Figaro lapping away at a little dish of goat milk beside him. Jefferson backed August up with good cheer. “Any field is important, no matter how big or how small! Come on, my lady, come! Tell us this ‘not important’ field of interest of yours!”Ella smiled bashfully and looked down at her stilettos. “Calceology.” ~Sultan was just about ready to defy gravity, Belle mused, from how desperate he was to get out of the jet. When the aircraft finally landed at the village outside of the Frontlands, he all but bolted outside and ran to the nearest tree, doing his business for all to see. For the group, it was a relief as well to stretch their legs. The Boyd’s, Ella and her pilot-husband Thomas, were the perfect attendents to their every need. They dropped them off in a tiny town with a name too long to remember. Here they met Pocahontas. The Chief’s daughter introduced herself warily at first, yet quickly opened up and became enthralled with the group of outsiders. She wasn’t all “heathen-ed” as some of the crew predicted. But besides her tribal winter-clothes and distinctive Native American features, Pocahontas was like any other young woman Belle had ever met.The long-haired raven walked them over to a cluster of trucks, and the scholars piled in while clutching their belongings, giddy for what was to come. In one of the cars, Pocahontas sat in the back with Belle, who sat in the middle with Sultan on her lap, squished up next to Ruby. The driver was a man named Kocoum, a tribal member of Pocahontas’s. A Caucasian man named Greg accompanied them, too. Greg was there as a journalist and Kocoum's guest, and was enthusiastically asking questions about the two Indians’ daily lives, their culture, and other relative things.“On the reservation lives two different tribes. My father’s and the Algonquian tribe. It’s easy to forget this, because we pretty much live together. I cannot say this for every neighboring tribes, but we are friendly together.”Greg nodded and wrote this down. “Do you guys have jobs? Kocoum here has a license, so—““Some of us do. We tend to keep to ourselves, however… but there are difficulties with your people’s government.”“Oh?” he piped, scratching things down on his notepad. Belle was too caught up in their conversation to pay attention outside. When something dark moved from the corner of her vision, she looked outside her window for the first time in what felt like forever.It was practically a blizzard. Thick flakes of snow flurried down from lightless skies, blanketing the landscape in darkness. The only light was from the truck’s one remaining headlight, which flickered meekly. The brunette gasped at the sight, hoping their stoic driver knew the way enough to drive through what seemed to be pure blackness! Or, at least, hopefully the others following can even see them.Pocahontas was about to respond to a question of Greg’s, when suddenly she lurched forward as if she just realized she sat on hot coal. One of her hands flew to Greg’s eyes like a blindfold, while the other went to Kocoum’s shoulder. Her body was angled to where Belle couldn't see the road in front of them. She shouted something in a her native tongue, and Belle struggled to remember what she'd learned from her Native American Languages classes. Yet, she could barely register what Pocahontas was saying, much less the sudden turning of the tides.It happened fast. It happened quick. Belle didn't have time to process anything other than instant, surreal sensation.The car hit something. Metal from the bumper groaned as it collided with a hard, sturdy object. Passengers were hurled forward in their seats like useless sacks of meat. The windshield made a sickening crack as something rolled onto and over the front of the car, propelling through the window.Glass shattered. Blood splattered.Belle's head bashed into the car door. Warm, dark liquid dribbled down her face. Then she saw nothing, felt nothing, and faded into blissful blackness beside bloodcurdling screams of agony.