Happy Holidays, onetbls! Part 4
Dec. 16th, 2017 05:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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go_exchangeA Visual Treatise on the Material Remains of Witches in the County of Lancaster
Part 4
To her relief, she felt completely fine the next morning. She even woke up before her alarm - although only by a few minutes - and as she went downstairs to unlock her bicycle and head over to the set, she felt rather a bit smug. Half the booths in the pub part of the inn were filled with archaeologists and crew members consuming fried potatoes, bacon, and sausages with the grim determination of people attempting to defeat a hangover with the power of saturated fats. Melissa in particular glared at her, but Anathema only laughed and took a slice of fried bread off her plate.
It was bright and sunny that morning, which would undoubtedly be both a blessing and a curse for most of the crew. Anathema enjoyed it, taking her time with the ride and observing the village as she went. It was a brighter place when it wasn't raining, although any place was, and the sun even softened her mood towards Newchurch's choice in landscaping.
The base camp looked almost familiar now, as Anathema waved her badge at the security guard and got her things set up. She wasn't sure they would need to film any scenes with her at all today, at least not any research ones. She knew they'd almost certainly want her for the end of the day wrap bits, although that was a long way off and her call time was as early as it had been the previous days. The others were starting to filter in, making their way into the kitchen for their second shot of caffeine and carbs. Anathema joined them, being as obnoxiously perky as she dared over her tea (with lemon) and croissant (cheese).
They all made their way over to the crate on the green, and Mark the production manager clambered up and called everyone to attention.
"Good morning, everyone!" he called. Anathema saw at least three people physically wince. "Welcome to Day Three! Lots to do today. We'll be shifting our focus away from Dig Site 1 and towards the Lower Black Moss Reservoir site - site 5 - so some of you will be relocated to that site. We'll have the main camera unit - so Dennis's team - over there, while Emily and unit 2 will be over at Sadler's Farm and roaming as required. As it's the last day, those of you who are archaeologists need to start making sure your documentation is in order for the report and that our closed sites are properly documented so that the clean-up team has everything ready for them. If you're part of the dig clean-up team, please, please bother your colleagues who are not, because the documentation will really help Wessex Archaeology with the final site report."
"Finally," he continued. "We'll have some of the locals 'round in the afternoon to shoot the conclusion, show them what we've found, the usual. This means the site is probably going to get crowded, so please remember to follow the general safety policies for public digs - clean up after yourselves, don't leave your trowels lying about, keep your personal belongings bagged and tagged. Tech crew, that means I want all non-essential equipment packed up before 4 so that no wandering eyes get any ideas, alright? Good. It's been a great shoot so far, we've got some great footage, and thanks to everyone so far."
He stepped down off the crate, and the crowed started to disperse.
"Hold on just a moment!" shouted Melissa, getting onto the box a little unsteadily. "I've got some good news for everyone - a light at the end of the tunnel if you will - the Cross Gaits Inn has agreed to let us use their back field for the wrap party tonight. They donated a sheep - if anyone can tell me why a sheep, that'd be great - and we'll be having a bonfire. There's going to be drinks, we'll have really terrible music. Come on out, we'll send Malkin Tower off in proper witchy style!"
The crowd laughed and cheered a bit, while Melissa got down off the box and took her coffee Thermos back from Clarissa.
Anathema wandered back into the building, to check her email and try to be a responsible historical consultant, since no one seemed to want her for anything yet. She had a few complicated replies to write up - some clarifications and one quote - so she might as well do them now, especially since she'd not really bothered with more than the easy responses since Monday.
That kept her occupied for most of the morning. The base camp grew progressively busier as the day went on, with the finds from the closed sites brought in and recorded. She got the impression that something was starting to really happen over at the reservoir site, because at half-ten Marguerite abandoned her station and went off after Clarissa.
"They've found something exciting, then?" she asked her neighbour, an object tech named Jordan.
"Seems like," he said, looking up from his work. "Dating evidence, probably. They only call her over if they've got something solid and want to shoot a bit on it. Otherwise she gets to stay back here with the rest of us cataloguing monkeys."
Anathema laughed. She was glad something was turning up. It would make the whole thing easier to keep straight in her mind, when people asked her about it later. That was the tricky bit, separating what she knew from tangible sources versus what she knew from more esoteric ones. If they were starting to find dating evidence and interesting finds… Well, it pleased her, to say the least.
Jordan looked a bit miserable, with his trays of finds, and Anathema took pity on him. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Yeah, actually," he said, brightening. "I know you're not an archaeologist, but you have some object handling experience, right?"
"I do," she replied. "I do provenance research, so yeah."
"Great. Do you mind photographing these? I've got the station all set up, it's pretty easy. Just get yourself a pair of nitrile gloves, and I'll show you how to do it." He reached under his table and pulled out a tissue box full of blue disposable gloves.
It really was fairly easy, and Anathema was glad to help. All she had to do was place objects in the little square, make sure the number tag was laid next to it, focus the camera - it was a digital one, very fancy - and take three pictures of each side. Then object and tag were laid in the next tray for Jordan to start logging their numbers and category, so they could be bagged and stored, either for later analysis or for permanent storage. It was so simple that she actually felt a bit guilty for not offering to volunteer earlier in the dig, but no one had really seemed very busy at the time, and well. Anathema had to admit she'd been living a bit in her own head, more than she really should have.
When lunch arrived, she and Jordan finished up the tray they were working on, and went into the kitchen. It smelled unexpectedly good today, which might have been because she'd actually been busy, or it just might have been that she was slowly growing accustomed to catering as a lifestyle. Fortunately for her household budget, the smell turned out to be the soup of the day, which was curried lentil, and far more enticing than the anemic soups of the previous days. She added a bowl of it to her tray, along with an egg-and-cress sandwich (which, in her culinary expertise, she thought would pair better with the soup than the other vegetarian option, cheese and pickle).
Grabbing a ginger ale, she joined Jordan with the others at one of the lunch tables. Marguerite was there, and Raksha, and the other archaeologists, some of which she recognized from the previous day. They were deep in the middle of a conversation about the dig, only half of which appeared to be complaining about paperwork. Raksha had been moved over to the Black Moss reservoir dig, the Newchurch site having been left to the newer crew members, and she was delighted.
"There's actually things coming up, real things. We've got walls - more than just the visible ones," she said, between bites of prawn sandwich. "It's so nice. And the weather's cleared up, so I don't have to get all sticky digging in my rain coat."
"What was the dating on all that, again?" someone asked. Anathema thought she recognized him from her first night, in the hotel.
"It's about right," Marguerite replied. "Late sixteenth, early seventeenth century. We've turned up some bits that are earlier than expected, but nothing later that wasn't surface material."
"Nice," said Jordan. He cracked open his Coke.
"Yeah, it's starting to come together," she replied. She looked around. "Where's Brigid?"
"Still over at the site," Raksha told her. "She's got that section that's in the walls. Said she'd come over later."
"Her loss." Jordan shrugged.
"No, she was starting to get what looked like a skeleton in the wall. She was really excited."
"Oh joy, more faunal," he deadpanned.
The archaeologist whose name Anathema had forgot spoke up. "Could be rats, could be something else. Could be an infant, for all we know."
Marguerite made a face. "I hope not. Who puts an infant in the wall?"
"Someone trying to hide it," he told her. "Happens all the time, even today."
"Lovely. I am eating lunch," Marguerite grimaced.
The man shrugged, but he smiled with his eyes. Anathema paused. She remembered reading something, once… "If I remember right, I think it used to be a practice to put things in the walls for spiritual protection."
"And the dig's local witch comes to the rescue," teased Marguerite.
The other archaeologist nodded. "Makes sense. I've got a mate who works in historic house conservation, says he finds children's shoes in walls all the time."
"They do retain something of their wearer," Anathema agreed. "Lots of animals have spiritual powers in witchcraft mythology, so it's very possible someone put an animal there for a similar reason."
"Neat," said Jordan. "But also disgusting."
There was widespread nodding, and Raksha hastily changed the subject.
It was a little bit past two when Melissa walked over to Anathema's table.
"You're wanted over at site 5," she said. "You won't believe what they've found."
Anathema, who had spent the last half hour reading up on the act of placing objects and animals in walls, was beginning to suspect she might. Still, she packed up her notebook and folder, and followed Melissa out to the car park. There they got into an SUV ("It's not far, but the golf carts don't work on the hill," she explained) and drove the little way over the reservoir site.
The reason Dennis wanted to see Anathema was that Brigid had uncovered a cat in her section of the wall, much to her delight. To Anathema's horror, it appeared to be mummified before the whole structure was buried; it still had bits of skin. She had a fairly high tolerance for morbid things, as anyone raised on eschatological literature would be, but mummified anything was just a bit too much. Thankfully the director didn't want her to look at it or worse, touch it.
"Do you know anything about this?" he asked her, with a tone of voice that definitely suggested she might actively be involved in cat-wall-sacrifices herself.
Anathema thanked her lucky stars she'd thought to go over a few journal articles about household magic and animal spirits after lunch, and replied, "Enough to talk about it for a little bit."
"Good." He called the camera crew over, and once again Anathema stood around with her hands in her coat pockets while the crew got set up. They had her and Tony Robinson - who had been sitting down in one of the find tents - do a painfully fake walk over to the trench, where he hailed Brigid and starting asking her about the cat. They did their bit - a few times over, because Brigid kept talking too fast in her excitement - and then the conversation flowed over to her.
"What do you think about all of this, Anathema?" asked Tony, waving his hands vaguely towards the cat, the trench, and the site at large.
"It's really fascinating," she replied, trying to remember the mental script she had come up with. "It really reflects the very spiritual worldview people had in the seventeenth century."
"How?"
"Well, people didn't just put cats in walls for fun. It was an act that really held meaning," she said, trying not to stumble over her words. "Cats were particularly complex. They were known to associate with witches - as familiar spirits - but they were also a really important household animal in terms of vermin control. Barn cats were very useful for killing mice and rats, but people noticed that cats were very sensitive and unpredictable, so they developed this reputation for being more in-tune with the supernatural world than humans are."
"How does thinking that Tabby sees ghosts lead to putting her in the wall?" asked Tony.
"Well, like Brigid said, people used to put lots of different things into buildings in order to give that building certain qualities. So putting a cat in the wall could give the building the same qualities as cats. Maybe that was warding off vermin, maybe that was providing the building with some protection against spirits. Some sources suggest that since open areas like doors and windows were more vulnerable to witches, putting a cat nearby could actually protect the building from attacks by witches."
"It all sounds a bit voodoo."
Anathema laughed, but it sounded super fake to her own ears. "It does, doesn't it? But seventeenth-century rural people still had a lot of beliefs and practices that ring distinctly pagan today. Their world was so much more embodied, in terms of spirits really walking amongst the living. Especially with the two families involved - the Devices and the Chattoxes - each believed the other was using evil magic against them, so they would have been very much concerned with making sure that their rivals couldn't attack them."
Dennis yelled to cut after that. Anathema practically crumpled, apologizing for not making any sense, but Tony said she was doing great. Dennis didn't feel quite the same, and had her repeat the whole thing over again.
"This time," he instructed. "Could you try and sound a little surer? You're the expert, here."
Anathema, who had been an expert on the subject of dead cats in walls for about half an hour, didn’t necessarily feel it. Still, Dennis insisted, and they repeated the whole conversation over again. She couldn't remember what she'd said, exactly, but tried to make sure it was vaguely in the same order and that she used less maybes.
This seemed to satisfy Dennis, who handed her off to Melissa, and went over to direct some shots of the other side of the trench.
"You alright?" she asked. "You're doing great. Everyone sounds nervous the first time."
Anathema rubbed her temples. "It's embarrassing, being told you're saying things badly."
"Better than saying bad things, though, right?" Melissa pointed out. "Better to stutter over a good sentence than to say a bad one clearly."
It was a curious kind of logic, and Anathema smiled. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," said Melissa, opening the passenger door for Anathema. "Let's get you back to camp."
It was around 4 when they called everyone together for the final meeting.
"All right!" shouted Mark over the noise of a fuller crew and the sounds of tech slowly packing up. "We're just about ready to shoot the final staged scenes over at site 5. Both camera units are going to be over at that site, and the rest of you as well just to pad out the crowd. Natasha tells me there are already locals over there, and they're pretty eager to get started, so if everyone could make sure their stuff is locked down and we'll head over."
He paused, while Melissa said something. "And no golf carts! We've already had one get stuck in the mud, we don't need to waste time digging out a second!"
That got a few laughs, but for the most part everyone was too tired to really bother. Anathema followed the crowd, and found herself hustled into the back of a Nissan with Jordan.
"'Sup," he said, reaching over her to get his seat-belt.
The short drive over took longer than it should have, mostly because of parking. The small cars had to park on the road, which necessitated some planning to avoid both the holes in the road and blocking anyone in. A few of the larger cars ventured closer to the site, where there was less walking required and more space to park. Anathema and Jordan's driver, who might have been called Nish, parked just on the other side of the hedge, where there wasn't much of a slope but more room to move. This meant that Anathema and the others had to make their way down the hill on foot, which was trickier going now that the road had been chewed up a little more, but Anathema had stayed true to her roots and worn sturdy hiking boots.
A plastic barricade had been put up a few meters from the edges of the trench, where a small swarm of village residents watched and waited. Anathema followed the leads of the others and waved her badge as she squeezed through a gap in the fence; the tech on guard duty nodded. One of the camera crews was standing around waiting, while the other took a few shots of the crowd and the site.
Once everyone was gathered, Emily started moving people about. The non-excavating staff were to stand just over there, inside of the fence but in the same shot as the crowd. She wanted anyone who'd dug on the site in the trench looking busy. She arranged Marguerite with a few trays of key finds (the dating evidence, Anathema guessed) and positioned Mick and Phil over with Tony. Brigid was to be near the cat, since it was her find. Anathema was stood over with Belinda and a few other women with scarves, presumably for the touchy-feely bit.
The two directors conferred for a while, and then split up. Dennis went to talk to Tony and the archaeologists, while Emily went to instruct the crowd and the non-speaking crew members.
"Right," she heard Emily say as she approached. "You lot. You're mostly just going to be smiling and nodding with the rest - but don't be fake about it, just act natural but interested, okay? Belinda and Anathema, Tony's going to ask you a few questions about your feelings. You can say what you want, but stay positive, alright?"
"Well, I won't need to lie about my feelings," Belinda informed her. Anathema rolled her eyes, and Emily sent her the kind of sympathetic glance that spoke to a communal history of dealing with Scarf Women before walking back over to her camera crew.
It wasn't long after that Anathema heard the clapper and Dennis' shout. The two camera crews both focused on Tony, but from different angles. It was weirdly fascinating, watching them orbit around him and the two senior archaeologists like satellites around fleece-and-questionable-jumper-clad planets. They filmed quite a bit of talking there, and then went over to Brigid and the cat, and Marguerite after her, with Phil climbing down into the trench to talk a bit more about the archaeology and the layout of the site. Finally, Tony and Mick came over to Anathema and Belinda, who practically fluttered once she noticed the cameras on her.
"I'm really amazed, you know," she told Tony. "It's just extraordinary. I really think this settles the question as to where Malkin Tower was located."
She fussed with her scarf. "It's been such a point of debate in the community, and now we know where it was. It will be so good to be able to get a plaque up and be able to mark it properly."
And add it to the town witch map, and sell little Time Team: Malkin Tower magnets, and an entire unending stream of tourist rubbish, Anathema thought, a tad unkindly.
Mick, on the other hand, just shrugged. "It's definitely very possible that this was the site, but we really don't have any archaeological evidence tying the Devices specifically to this cottage. It's the right period, it's the right size, it's got the cat which really shows that the occupants were the kind of people that were concerned with witchcraft and magic. But we cannot say for 100% certain that yes, this was the same Malkin Tower where the Device family lived."
"I agree," Anathema found herself saying. "There's very strong documentary evidence that this might be the case. We know that Malkin Tower was probably not an actual tower, as you mentioned, and this site certainly seems like a building more in keeping with what we know of their economic status. The cat is definitely an important indicator of the culture and beliefs the people that lived there, but we just can't say for sure."
"Is that a bit disappointing for you?" asked Tony. "As a Device yourself, were you really hoping to find conclusive proof they lived here?"
She paused, considering. The smells of the site flickered at the edge of her psychic memory, the ghosts of Devices past.
"I'm not, actually," she said at last. "As an historian, I know that there's not a lot we can be certain about when it comes to events and places from four hundred years ago. There are things we do know, and there are things we can say are very, very likely to be true, but there's a lot of uncertainty about it."
She shrugged, fidgeted with her hands in her pockets. "I can see how they might have lived, if they lived here. We know they lived in the area of Pendle Forest, so even if this isn't the site of Malkin Tower specifically, it's very likely they came through here at one point or another. So I do feel their presence, here. It's a very connected feeling."
Tony nodded along with Mick, and then he turned to the camera to give his final lines and close out the episode. Then Dennis yelled, "Cut!"
Thankfully, no one asked her to repeat anything this time. It seemed like it was far too much effort to have to re-do the entire shot, or maybe they were happy with what she’d said this time around. She rather thought the last part was pretty good, even though she just knew Newt would make fun of her for it.
The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. The villagers were shown around the dig in a slow procession; Brigid pointed out the cat while people flinched and children shrieked; Marguerite went around with her tray of pottery to explain how they determine dates. It was all very well-organised, and at the end everyone was marched back up to the top of the hill and out to their cars, Anathema and all the other auxiliary crew included, leaving only a few archaeologists behind to get the site under cover for the clean-up crew.
Getting out of the field was a nightmare, however, and Anathema sat in the Nissan for what felt like half an hour while people tried to back out into the narrow road.
"You coming to the wrap party?" Jordan asked, as Nish the Nissan Driver slowly inched forward. "There's going to be a sheep, apparently."
"Yeah, I think so," Anathema replied.
Nish caught her eye in the mirror. "What is with the sheep? Does anyone have any idea?"
"Mutton isn't on anyone's proscribed religious diets?" Jordan guessed. "I mean, a pig would be tasty but then some people don't eat pork, and cows are huge and anyone Hindu couldn't eat that…"
Anathema laughed. "I mean, that's true, but I'm pretty sure it's just because James Device stole a sheep for the witch's meeting at Malkin Tower."
"You're not serious?" Nish said.
Anathema smiled wryly. "I wouldn't put it past these people."
"Yeah, they're a bit much on the witch thing, aren't they?" agreed Nish, before slamming the gas to seize an opening, driving them away from the dig site for the last time.
Next: Afterward (Part 5)
Part 4
To her relief, she felt completely fine the next morning. She even woke up before her alarm - although only by a few minutes - and as she went downstairs to unlock her bicycle and head over to the set, she felt rather a bit smug. Half the booths in the pub part of the inn were filled with archaeologists and crew members consuming fried potatoes, bacon, and sausages with the grim determination of people attempting to defeat a hangover with the power of saturated fats. Melissa in particular glared at her, but Anathema only laughed and took a slice of fried bread off her plate.
It was bright and sunny that morning, which would undoubtedly be both a blessing and a curse for most of the crew. Anathema enjoyed it, taking her time with the ride and observing the village as she went. It was a brighter place when it wasn't raining, although any place was, and the sun even softened her mood towards Newchurch's choice in landscaping.
The base camp looked almost familiar now, as Anathema waved her badge at the security guard and got her things set up. She wasn't sure they would need to film any scenes with her at all today, at least not any research ones. She knew they'd almost certainly want her for the end of the day wrap bits, although that was a long way off and her call time was as early as it had been the previous days. The others were starting to filter in, making their way into the kitchen for their second shot of caffeine and carbs. Anathema joined them, being as obnoxiously perky as she dared over her tea (with lemon) and croissant (cheese).
They all made their way over to the crate on the green, and Mark the production manager clambered up and called everyone to attention.
"Good morning, everyone!" he called. Anathema saw at least three people physically wince. "Welcome to Day Three! Lots to do today. We'll be shifting our focus away from Dig Site 1 and towards the Lower Black Moss Reservoir site - site 5 - so some of you will be relocated to that site. We'll have the main camera unit - so Dennis's team - over there, while Emily and unit 2 will be over at Sadler's Farm and roaming as required. As it's the last day, those of you who are archaeologists need to start making sure your documentation is in order for the report and that our closed sites are properly documented so that the clean-up team has everything ready for them. If you're part of the dig clean-up team, please, please bother your colleagues who are not, because the documentation will really help Wessex Archaeology with the final site report."
"Finally," he continued. "We'll have some of the locals 'round in the afternoon to shoot the conclusion, show them what we've found, the usual. This means the site is probably going to get crowded, so please remember to follow the general safety policies for public digs - clean up after yourselves, don't leave your trowels lying about, keep your personal belongings bagged and tagged. Tech crew, that means I want all non-essential equipment packed up before 4 so that no wandering eyes get any ideas, alright? Good. It's been a great shoot so far, we've got some great footage, and thanks to everyone so far."
He stepped down off the crate, and the crowed started to disperse.
"Hold on just a moment!" shouted Melissa, getting onto the box a little unsteadily. "I've got some good news for everyone - a light at the end of the tunnel if you will - the Cross Gaits Inn has agreed to let us use their back field for the wrap party tonight. They donated a sheep - if anyone can tell me why a sheep, that'd be great - and we'll be having a bonfire. There's going to be drinks, we'll have really terrible music. Come on out, we'll send Malkin Tower off in proper witchy style!"
The crowd laughed and cheered a bit, while Melissa got down off the box and took her coffee Thermos back from Clarissa.
Anathema wandered back into the building, to check her email and try to be a responsible historical consultant, since no one seemed to want her for anything yet. She had a few complicated replies to write up - some clarifications and one quote - so she might as well do them now, especially since she'd not really bothered with more than the easy responses since Monday.
That kept her occupied for most of the morning. The base camp grew progressively busier as the day went on, with the finds from the closed sites brought in and recorded. She got the impression that something was starting to really happen over at the reservoir site, because at half-ten Marguerite abandoned her station and went off after Clarissa.
"They've found something exciting, then?" she asked her neighbour, an object tech named Jordan.
"Seems like," he said, looking up from his work. "Dating evidence, probably. They only call her over if they've got something solid and want to shoot a bit on it. Otherwise she gets to stay back here with the rest of us cataloguing monkeys."
Anathema laughed. She was glad something was turning up. It would make the whole thing easier to keep straight in her mind, when people asked her about it later. That was the tricky bit, separating what she knew from tangible sources versus what she knew from more esoteric ones. If they were starting to find dating evidence and interesting finds… Well, it pleased her, to say the least.
Jordan looked a bit miserable, with his trays of finds, and Anathema took pity on him. "Anything I can do to help?"
"Yeah, actually," he said, brightening. "I know you're not an archaeologist, but you have some object handling experience, right?"
"I do," she replied. "I do provenance research, so yeah."
"Great. Do you mind photographing these? I've got the station all set up, it's pretty easy. Just get yourself a pair of nitrile gloves, and I'll show you how to do it." He reached under his table and pulled out a tissue box full of blue disposable gloves.
It really was fairly easy, and Anathema was glad to help. All she had to do was place objects in the little square, make sure the number tag was laid next to it, focus the camera - it was a digital one, very fancy - and take three pictures of each side. Then object and tag were laid in the next tray for Jordan to start logging their numbers and category, so they could be bagged and stored, either for later analysis or for permanent storage. It was so simple that she actually felt a bit guilty for not offering to volunteer earlier in the dig, but no one had really seemed very busy at the time, and well. Anathema had to admit she'd been living a bit in her own head, more than she really should have.
When lunch arrived, she and Jordan finished up the tray they were working on, and went into the kitchen. It smelled unexpectedly good today, which might have been because she'd actually been busy, or it just might have been that she was slowly growing accustomed to catering as a lifestyle. Fortunately for her household budget, the smell turned out to be the soup of the day, which was curried lentil, and far more enticing than the anemic soups of the previous days. She added a bowl of it to her tray, along with an egg-and-cress sandwich (which, in her culinary expertise, she thought would pair better with the soup than the other vegetarian option, cheese and pickle).
Grabbing a ginger ale, she joined Jordan with the others at one of the lunch tables. Marguerite was there, and Raksha, and the other archaeologists, some of which she recognized from the previous day. They were deep in the middle of a conversation about the dig, only half of which appeared to be complaining about paperwork. Raksha had been moved over to the Black Moss reservoir dig, the Newchurch site having been left to the newer crew members, and she was delighted.
"There's actually things coming up, real things. We've got walls - more than just the visible ones," she said, between bites of prawn sandwich. "It's so nice. And the weather's cleared up, so I don't have to get all sticky digging in my rain coat."
"What was the dating on all that, again?" someone asked. Anathema thought she recognized him from her first night, in the hotel.
"It's about right," Marguerite replied. "Late sixteenth, early seventeenth century. We've turned up some bits that are earlier than expected, but nothing later that wasn't surface material."
"Nice," said Jordan. He cracked open his Coke.
"Yeah, it's starting to come together," she replied. She looked around. "Where's Brigid?"
"Still over at the site," Raksha told her. "She's got that section that's in the walls. Said she'd come over later."
"Her loss." Jordan shrugged.
"No, she was starting to get what looked like a skeleton in the wall. She was really excited."
"Oh joy, more faunal," he deadpanned.
The archaeologist whose name Anathema had forgot spoke up. "Could be rats, could be something else. Could be an infant, for all we know."
Marguerite made a face. "I hope not. Who puts an infant in the wall?"
"Someone trying to hide it," he told her. "Happens all the time, even today."
"Lovely. I am eating lunch," Marguerite grimaced.
The man shrugged, but he smiled with his eyes. Anathema paused. She remembered reading something, once… "If I remember right, I think it used to be a practice to put things in the walls for spiritual protection."
"And the dig's local witch comes to the rescue," teased Marguerite.
The other archaeologist nodded. "Makes sense. I've got a mate who works in historic house conservation, says he finds children's shoes in walls all the time."
"They do retain something of their wearer," Anathema agreed. "Lots of animals have spiritual powers in witchcraft mythology, so it's very possible someone put an animal there for a similar reason."
"Neat," said Jordan. "But also disgusting."
There was widespread nodding, and Raksha hastily changed the subject.
It was a little bit past two when Melissa walked over to Anathema's table.
"You're wanted over at site 5," she said. "You won't believe what they've found."
Anathema, who had spent the last half hour reading up on the act of placing objects and animals in walls, was beginning to suspect she might. Still, she packed up her notebook and folder, and followed Melissa out to the car park. There they got into an SUV ("It's not far, but the golf carts don't work on the hill," she explained) and drove the little way over the reservoir site.
The reason Dennis wanted to see Anathema was that Brigid had uncovered a cat in her section of the wall, much to her delight. To Anathema's horror, it appeared to be mummified before the whole structure was buried; it still had bits of skin. She had a fairly high tolerance for morbid things, as anyone raised on eschatological literature would be, but mummified anything was just a bit too much. Thankfully the director didn't want her to look at it or worse, touch it.
"Do you know anything about this?" he asked her, with a tone of voice that definitely suggested she might actively be involved in cat-wall-sacrifices herself.
Anathema thanked her lucky stars she'd thought to go over a few journal articles about household magic and animal spirits after lunch, and replied, "Enough to talk about it for a little bit."
"Good." He called the camera crew over, and once again Anathema stood around with her hands in her coat pockets while the crew got set up. They had her and Tony Robinson - who had been sitting down in one of the find tents - do a painfully fake walk over to the trench, where he hailed Brigid and starting asking her about the cat. They did their bit - a few times over, because Brigid kept talking too fast in her excitement - and then the conversation flowed over to her.
"What do you think about all of this, Anathema?" asked Tony, waving his hands vaguely towards the cat, the trench, and the site at large.
"It's really fascinating," she replied, trying to remember the mental script she had come up with. "It really reflects the very spiritual worldview people had in the seventeenth century."
"How?"
"Well, people didn't just put cats in walls for fun. It was an act that really held meaning," she said, trying not to stumble over her words. "Cats were particularly complex. They were known to associate with witches - as familiar spirits - but they were also a really important household animal in terms of vermin control. Barn cats were very useful for killing mice and rats, but people noticed that cats were very sensitive and unpredictable, so they developed this reputation for being more in-tune with the supernatural world than humans are."
"How does thinking that Tabby sees ghosts lead to putting her in the wall?" asked Tony.
"Well, like Brigid said, people used to put lots of different things into buildings in order to give that building certain qualities. So putting a cat in the wall could give the building the same qualities as cats. Maybe that was warding off vermin, maybe that was providing the building with some protection against spirits. Some sources suggest that since open areas like doors and windows were more vulnerable to witches, putting a cat nearby could actually protect the building from attacks by witches."
"It all sounds a bit voodoo."
Anathema laughed, but it sounded super fake to her own ears. "It does, doesn't it? But seventeenth-century rural people still had a lot of beliefs and practices that ring distinctly pagan today. Their world was so much more embodied, in terms of spirits really walking amongst the living. Especially with the two families involved - the Devices and the Chattoxes - each believed the other was using evil magic against them, so they would have been very much concerned with making sure that their rivals couldn't attack them."
Dennis yelled to cut after that. Anathema practically crumpled, apologizing for not making any sense, but Tony said she was doing great. Dennis didn't feel quite the same, and had her repeat the whole thing over again.
"This time," he instructed. "Could you try and sound a little surer? You're the expert, here."
Anathema, who had been an expert on the subject of dead cats in walls for about half an hour, didn’t necessarily feel it. Still, Dennis insisted, and they repeated the whole conversation over again. She couldn't remember what she'd said, exactly, but tried to make sure it was vaguely in the same order and that she used less maybes.
This seemed to satisfy Dennis, who handed her off to Melissa, and went over to direct some shots of the other side of the trench.
"You alright?" she asked. "You're doing great. Everyone sounds nervous the first time."
Anathema rubbed her temples. "It's embarrassing, being told you're saying things badly."
"Better than saying bad things, though, right?" Melissa pointed out. "Better to stutter over a good sentence than to say a bad one clearly."
It was a curious kind of logic, and Anathema smiled. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," said Melissa, opening the passenger door for Anathema. "Let's get you back to camp."
It was around 4 when they called everyone together for the final meeting.
"All right!" shouted Mark over the noise of a fuller crew and the sounds of tech slowly packing up. "We're just about ready to shoot the final staged scenes over at site 5. Both camera units are going to be over at that site, and the rest of you as well just to pad out the crowd. Natasha tells me there are already locals over there, and they're pretty eager to get started, so if everyone could make sure their stuff is locked down and we'll head over."
He paused, while Melissa said something. "And no golf carts! We've already had one get stuck in the mud, we don't need to waste time digging out a second!"
That got a few laughs, but for the most part everyone was too tired to really bother. Anathema followed the crowd, and found herself hustled into the back of a Nissan with Jordan.
"'Sup," he said, reaching over her to get his seat-belt.
The short drive over took longer than it should have, mostly because of parking. The small cars had to park on the road, which necessitated some planning to avoid both the holes in the road and blocking anyone in. A few of the larger cars ventured closer to the site, where there was less walking required and more space to park. Anathema and Jordan's driver, who might have been called Nish, parked just on the other side of the hedge, where there wasn't much of a slope but more room to move. This meant that Anathema and the others had to make their way down the hill on foot, which was trickier going now that the road had been chewed up a little more, but Anathema had stayed true to her roots and worn sturdy hiking boots.
A plastic barricade had been put up a few meters from the edges of the trench, where a small swarm of village residents watched and waited. Anathema followed the leads of the others and waved her badge as she squeezed through a gap in the fence; the tech on guard duty nodded. One of the camera crews was standing around waiting, while the other took a few shots of the crowd and the site.
Once everyone was gathered, Emily started moving people about. The non-excavating staff were to stand just over there, inside of the fence but in the same shot as the crowd. She wanted anyone who'd dug on the site in the trench looking busy. She arranged Marguerite with a few trays of key finds (the dating evidence, Anathema guessed) and positioned Mick and Phil over with Tony. Brigid was to be near the cat, since it was her find. Anathema was stood over with Belinda and a few other women with scarves, presumably for the touchy-feely bit.
The two directors conferred for a while, and then split up. Dennis went to talk to Tony and the archaeologists, while Emily went to instruct the crowd and the non-speaking crew members.
"Right," she heard Emily say as she approached. "You lot. You're mostly just going to be smiling and nodding with the rest - but don't be fake about it, just act natural but interested, okay? Belinda and Anathema, Tony's going to ask you a few questions about your feelings. You can say what you want, but stay positive, alright?"
"Well, I won't need to lie about my feelings," Belinda informed her. Anathema rolled her eyes, and Emily sent her the kind of sympathetic glance that spoke to a communal history of dealing with Scarf Women before walking back over to her camera crew.
It wasn't long after that Anathema heard the clapper and Dennis' shout. The two camera crews both focused on Tony, but from different angles. It was weirdly fascinating, watching them orbit around him and the two senior archaeologists like satellites around fleece-and-questionable-jumper-clad planets. They filmed quite a bit of talking there, and then went over to Brigid and the cat, and Marguerite after her, with Phil climbing down into the trench to talk a bit more about the archaeology and the layout of the site. Finally, Tony and Mick came over to Anathema and Belinda, who practically fluttered once she noticed the cameras on her.
"I'm really amazed, you know," she told Tony. "It's just extraordinary. I really think this settles the question as to where Malkin Tower was located."
She fussed with her scarf. "It's been such a point of debate in the community, and now we know where it was. It will be so good to be able to get a plaque up and be able to mark it properly."
And add it to the town witch map, and sell little Time Team: Malkin Tower magnets, and an entire unending stream of tourist rubbish, Anathema thought, a tad unkindly.
Mick, on the other hand, just shrugged. "It's definitely very possible that this was the site, but we really don't have any archaeological evidence tying the Devices specifically to this cottage. It's the right period, it's the right size, it's got the cat which really shows that the occupants were the kind of people that were concerned with witchcraft and magic. But we cannot say for 100% certain that yes, this was the same Malkin Tower where the Device family lived."
"I agree," Anathema found herself saying. "There's very strong documentary evidence that this might be the case. We know that Malkin Tower was probably not an actual tower, as you mentioned, and this site certainly seems like a building more in keeping with what we know of their economic status. The cat is definitely an important indicator of the culture and beliefs the people that lived there, but we just can't say for sure."
"Is that a bit disappointing for you?" asked Tony. "As a Device yourself, were you really hoping to find conclusive proof they lived here?"
She paused, considering. The smells of the site flickered at the edge of her psychic memory, the ghosts of Devices past.
"I'm not, actually," she said at last. "As an historian, I know that there's not a lot we can be certain about when it comes to events and places from four hundred years ago. There are things we do know, and there are things we can say are very, very likely to be true, but there's a lot of uncertainty about it."
She shrugged, fidgeted with her hands in her pockets. "I can see how they might have lived, if they lived here. We know they lived in the area of Pendle Forest, so even if this isn't the site of Malkin Tower specifically, it's very likely they came through here at one point or another. So I do feel their presence, here. It's a very connected feeling."
Tony nodded along with Mick, and then he turned to the camera to give his final lines and close out the episode. Then Dennis yelled, "Cut!"
Thankfully, no one asked her to repeat anything this time. It seemed like it was far too much effort to have to re-do the entire shot, or maybe they were happy with what she’d said this time around. She rather thought the last part was pretty good, even though she just knew Newt would make fun of her for it.
The rest of the day passed in a bit of a blur. The villagers were shown around the dig in a slow procession; Brigid pointed out the cat while people flinched and children shrieked; Marguerite went around with her tray of pottery to explain how they determine dates. It was all very well-organised, and at the end everyone was marched back up to the top of the hill and out to their cars, Anathema and all the other auxiliary crew included, leaving only a few archaeologists behind to get the site under cover for the clean-up crew.
Getting out of the field was a nightmare, however, and Anathema sat in the Nissan for what felt like half an hour while people tried to back out into the narrow road.
"You coming to the wrap party?" Jordan asked, as Nish the Nissan Driver slowly inched forward. "There's going to be a sheep, apparently."
"Yeah, I think so," Anathema replied.
Nish caught her eye in the mirror. "What is with the sheep? Does anyone have any idea?"
"Mutton isn't on anyone's proscribed religious diets?" Jordan guessed. "I mean, a pig would be tasty but then some people don't eat pork, and cows are huge and anyone Hindu couldn't eat that…"
Anathema laughed. "I mean, that's true, but I'm pretty sure it's just because James Device stole a sheep for the witch's meeting at Malkin Tower."
"You're not serious?" Nish said.
Anathema smiled wryly. "I wouldn't put it past these people."
"Yeah, they're a bit much on the witch thing, aren't they?" agreed Nish, before slamming the gas to seize an opening, driving them away from the dig site for the last time.
Next: Afterward (Part 5)
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-17 05:26 am (UTC)This last quarter I was volunteering in my campus’ anthropology labs and I spent so many afternoons doing almost exactly this, spending literally an hour arranging a single animal skeleton specimen into a square next to a ruler and tag, photographing it, and then spending 5 minutes packing away all my work and starting again on a new one :p Sorry, I was just tickled imagining doing something so similar.
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-19 02:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-20 01:09 am (UTC)