Chapter One: Mushroom Cirlces

*This is an unedited chapter and subject to change *

PMS Stands For…

If I kill him in the jungle, can I blame a wild animal and get away with it? Staring at the back of Dr. Manfred Burt’s head, I was tempted to try. I had already suffered twelve excruciating days with him as team lead. 

My own research team. Five more days, and you never have to deal with him again.

“Hurry. Dr. Thomas. I’d rather not be caught out after dark,” Dr. Burt said.

It was midday in the heart of South America during their autumn equinox. While night fell sooner than in summer, it did not happen before two in the afternoon.

I grunted, following our guide while stomping through the knee-high vegetation. 

Manfred angled his head back, sweat sliding between his scruff near his temple down his wiggling gowls, and collecting in the already soaked polyester bandanna around his neck. 

Who wore polyester in the jungle? 

I plucked at my cotton tank top, which was soaked through. My spandex sports bra was the only synthetic fabric I begrudgingly wore. Big C’s did not enjoy hiking through the wilderness without ample support.

Something Mr. Synthetic Fabrics in front of me would never understand. I doubted his balls were big enough to swing.

I forced a deep breath in, letting it out. I was hot and grumpy; neither was conducive to a clear mind while working. If Dr. Burt gave me a good review after this research project, then the university would grant me my own team and take my research proposals seriously. 

No more sweating in the forests of South America to better understand how humans had evolved independently of technology. Not that I didn’t enjoy the research, but I longed for a quieter, less buggy landscape.

Archaeological anthropology. It was the field I had fallen in love with as a girl. I wanted to uncover how those humans who came before us had lived. What did the civilizations of early, pre-written-word humans look like? How did they mirror our modern lives?

Garbology was one of my favorite classes. I adored the brilliance of the field. Anyone who knew how to look could uncover a great deal about someone’s habits simply by lifting the lid on garbage day.

Manfred stopped so suddenly that I nearly collided with his sweat-wet back. I would have thrown myself into a vat of acid to scrub clean if that had happened.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, stilling and scanning the horizon. There were leopards and boar in these parts of the jungle, but so close to winter and at the height of the day, they were not normally active.

Manfred twisted, his excessive stomach straining the buttons on his—obviously—polyester shirt. His hair was completely gray, but brown strands still existed in his unkempt facial scruff.

“Keep up, Dr. Thomas. I’ve had enough of being delayed by… women issues.”

My brow flattened. This was not the first time he had made such claims. Apparently, “women issues” included needing to sit or squat while peeing, being unable to flatten my breasts so as not to offend anyone—not sure who, but someone—and choosing to sleep at a respectable hour rather than listen to another bland tale of how Dr. Manfred Burt was awarded the university’s research grant over an inexperienced anthropologist. 

He’d meant me.

“And what ‘women issues’ might I be experiencing, Dr. Burt?” I emphasized my disdain the only way I could professionally; I thumped my hands onto my hips.

Manfred gestured to my entire body. “Your inability to keep up during an arduous physical task.”

“You’re sweating worse than me.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Hardly.” He puffed out his limp chest. “You must be experiencing PMS to be so sour.”

“Perhaps you’re right. I am feeling very… pre-man-slaughtery,” I said. “I would like to return to the village.” I raised my hand, gesturing for him to walk and catch up with our guide, who had realized his charges weren’t behind him.

Manfred twisted his lips. “I was wrong. You must be perimenopausal for such a snarky remark to your superior. I’ll let it slide, but it will go in my notes.”

Perimenopausal? 

I was only thirty-two. Though the undue stress of working with him had caused me, perhaps it was early onset.

We kept walking under the blistering sun. I was desperate for five days to be over. Then I could go back to my comfortable, air-conditioned office and do what I did best: pore over data and understand the links in our findings, anomalies, and what pointed toward the support or disproof of Dr. Manfred Burt’s brilliant hypothesis:

Do non-modernized tribes use foraging to bolster their inadequate farming methods?

A horse-shit theory, in my opinion, but the university approved it. Indigenous populations such as the Yanomami, Guarani, and Quechua had thrived for millennia before being “discovered” by European explorers. Those explorers were possibly the worst epidemic the indigenous populations ever experienced. A research paper for another anthropologist.

I wanted nothing more than to leave the humid landscape and return to my comfortable space. Manfred bristled, stomping through the wild vegetation to catch up to our guide. 

Today’s outing had proved fruitless. It was autumn; the harvests were gathered, and most of the villages had begun the preparations for winter storage. An oversight by Dr. Burt when he suggested the expedition take place as soon as the university approved his grant. 

Idiot.

Of course, the illustrious Dr. Manfred Burt did not heed my advice to postpone the trip until winter when supplies from the harvests would be closer to dwindling and his chances of discussing foraging with the villagers would be more fruitful. He had shushed me, literally, and suggested that due to my age and natural disadvantage as a woman, I didn’t know what I was talking about. As though I weren’t a published cultural anthropologist with as many accolades as he. My only disadvantage was my lack of experience in the field. The university board had suggested I do this trip, and they would consider reviewing my request for my own team.

I ground my teeth the rest of the walk back to the village. Bureaucracy was such bullshit. 

“Sorry, Dr. Thomas, we gave the grant to Dr. I Have A Dick, who is naturally more qualified than you.”

How many times had my proposals been passed up for a junior researcher because I was a woman and they worried about my specific needs out in the field. 

Currently, my specific needs were a forensic anthropologist who was willing to help me plan, execute, and get away with murder.

We finally reached the village, tucked peacefully in the shade of the trees. I could live here. The humidity and blistering heat didn’t reach the cool shade of the forest. The homes were small, handmade, and arranged in a community of family, friends, and their children.

The village we resided in was one of the first to accept ‘pale-faced’ outsiders, and many were educated in English, making communication a little easier. 

“Miss Morgan,” one of the older women waved when I entered the clearing toward my hut. 

At least this village had a few vacant huts for Manfred and me to be able to have our own spaces. I waved back to her, though I was sweaty and tired and not prepared to socialize. In the community, people worked until dark. They all helped one another, and on more than one occasion, I had observed elders teaching children how to gather seeds, prepare the harvests for storage, or even just regale the little ones with history lessons. I had enjoyed those stories when Hemru, the village’s oldest man, invited me to listen. 

I waved back to Injne, hopeful she didn’t need my assistance with anything. My mental battery was gone for the day.

Injne rushed toward me, one of her daughter’s children in tow, and gripped my elbow before I made it to my hut’s door.

“Come, come. You listen,” she insisted. Her English wasn’t very good, but as I couldn’t speak her language, it was all we had.

Stifling an exhausted groan, I dropped my pack near my hut and followed her. My tank top had been a comfortable choice for our outing this morning, but under the cool canopy, I was chilled. 

A crackling fire was going, and I was grateful Injne sat me near it. I was handed a basket of beans, the implication clear: shell the beans. 

I didn’t mind the task; it was part of an anthropologist’s job to understand the complexities of a society, and as food storage preparation fit into the parameters of the research thesis, I participated happily.

Well, not happily, but willingly.

I observed the women around the fire, each chatting with their companion. Most of it I didn’t understand, but the women whose English was good would sit next to me and talk, so I wasn’t excluded. It was refreshing to be surrounded by women who didn’t view each other as competition. These women were family. 

The village was maternal. In most of my research on ancient civilizations, children were given the mother’s name. Unlike patriarchal societies, like mine, women and children were not property of men; ergo, it made more sense for the children to take their mother’s names. There was never a doubt about who your mother was when she pushed you out. 

History proved time and again how men believed a child to be theirs, only to end up with the bastard child of the much more attractive stable hand or knight. I might reconsider children if a gorgeous knight swept me off my feet. 

I snorted, returning to my pile of beans.

“Why laugh?” Klinlee asked. She was about my age, perhaps a few years younger, and pregnant with her third child. 

Shrugging, I chose to be honest. “I was thinking I would have children if the father was handsome and brave.”

A few of the older women chuckled along with Klinlee. She rubbed her rounded belly, jutting out from beneath her bare breasts. “Father was handsome, not brave.”

We all had a laugh at that. Klinlee was one of the many female gatherers before her pregnancy made bending difficult. 

Manfred was aghast when he learned that the village women, as well as the able men, would go on the hunt. Klinlee was one of their best, but was told to stop once she had her first child. Women were equal until they became mothers, and then even here in the jungle they became delicate and suitable only for minding children. 

“So you no want children?” an elder woman asked.

A flicker of regret wandered through me. “I hadn’t considered them either way. I wanted my career. My research. I guess they just weren’t meant for me.”

Not that thirty-two was archaic, but I understood my window for parenthood was closing, and without any worthwhile prospects in my life, I had resigned myself to zero children.

Probably for the best. My girlfriends who did have kids had longer days than their husbands. On our weekly video calls, a few would end up falling asleep. Fine by me, at least I knew they were getting some much-needed rest. What had shocked me most was that it wasn’t their newborns keeping them tired; it was their husbands. My friends would complain about having to do laundry, clean the bathrooms, cook, get the kids to soccer or the doctor or piano, all while the fathers of these children complained about working all day. 

Give me a fucking break.

My friends were all working professionals. They worked all day too; why was his job harder than hers? I’d asked my best friend’s husband that once at their son’s birthday party—which Catherine had organized. 

His idiotic reply was, “I work the line; all she does is answer a phone. My job is harder.”

Unfortunately for him, I knew what he did as a line worker. He pushed a button. Pushed. A. Button. She was the executive assistant for a partner in a major law firm. She did not just answer a fucking phone.

I rolled my neck; obviously my mind was exhausted if I was slipping profanities into my thoughts.

The women around me slipped back into easy conversation about nothing and everything. It was peaceful to observe.

I’d finished my task, and set the basket down at my feet. One of the young boys, who had taken it upon himself to improve his English by speaking to me, rushed forward to take the basket away. He paused, wide brown eyes on me.

“You have pretty hair,” he said; his English was the best in the village. “How did it get that color?”

I smirked; even in North America people often commented about my hair. It was bright red, seeming brighter because of my pale complexion, though the sunshine of the southern hemisphere brought out a band of freckles over my nose.

“Fun fact: the gene responsible for red hair is not hereditary, but a genetic anomaly. Though many cultures are predisposed to present the anomaly. I have Scottish ancestry, and I get it from my father,” I explained, always happy to open the minds of young people. 

The boy blinked at me. “I like it. Can I touch it?”

Also, not the first time anyone had asked me that. I leaned closer to him, letting my jaw-length hair slide forward. The boy pinched the ends, squealing. One of the women shouted at him. He jolted, gripping the basket and running off.

Klinlee laughed beside me. “He flirts already. He will make a baby before he even grows hair on his chest.”

The boy was a flirt. I laughed. “I’m sure he will.” 

There was no such thing as an underage pregnancy in a village with a life expectancy of sixty. 

“Your voice has a strange sound. Not like Doctor Burt,” Klinlee said.

“I’m from the south.”

She raised her brows at me. They were from the south. 

“That’s what people in my country call it. Louisiana. Some people tease us because of our accents.”

“You have a pretty voice,” Klinlee said, returning to her maize. 

I offered to help her, which she gladly accepted. I fell into silence as I listened to the chattering of the others, though I didn’t understand. It was something of a trance as I peeled the corn stalks, tossing their coverings into a basket, or so I had thought.

One of the elders sucked in a sharp gasp from behind me. I turned, following their outstretched finger to the ground in front of me.

They spoke rapidly, and I caught little of their meaning. They seemed afraid. Klinlee’s lips thinned as she listened, her eyes flicking to me.

The older woman sucked in a deep breath, her gnarled fingers tented above her chest. One of the other women escorted her away from the fire, and all conversation had died.

“What happened?” I asked Klinlee, worried I had broken an unknown rule.

Klinlee pointed to my feet, where some of the corn silks had tumbled from the basket. “Circles in nature are an omen.”

I glanced at the relatively circular shape of the discarded corn silks. “An omen of what?” I wished I had kept my notepad with me.

“Change. New life. Death.”

A shiver raced through me. “Are you suggesting I’m going to die?”

Klinlee shook her head. “It is not for us to know until we know.”

I’d prefer not to die before I got my own research team.

I gathered up the silks and set them in the basket. Injne snatched it from behind where I sat, tossing the entire thing into the fire.

That seemed… dramatic.

“Dinner, Dr. Thomas. We have an early day tomorrow,” our guide, Glimme, said. 

I stood, unable to shake the odd chill sweeping through me. I thanked the women for allowing me to help, then followed Glimme for dinner.

“Dr. Burt says we hunt tomorrow. Up early,” Glimme told me as I arrived for my meal. He handed me a bowl, already prepared.

Hunt? That was not part of our research parameters.

“Thank you. I’ll take this to my hut.” I raised the bowl, bowing my head toward the cook. 

I wandered through the dark village, passing screaming children and chatting adults. The chill had yet to leave my skin, seeping into my bones. I hoped I wasn’t getting sick after twelve days of being too hot and sweaty during the day and cold at night. That would be one more thing for Manfred to hold over me as a woman issue. 

Because men never got sick.

I shut myself into my hut and wrapped up in the few blankets and sweaters I’d brought. I scribbled the information I’d learned helping the women down in my notebook before I forgot. I ate my meal in silence, my mind trotting over everything I had learned on the expedition.

Pfff. What I had learned was that Manfred Burt was a misogynistic ego-maniac who assumed normal bodily functions were women’s issues.

There was no validity behind omens. Only cultural beliefs and what they meant to the culture they originated from. I wasn’t concerned with circles or omens or worries over death. I was an anthropologist. I believed in facts.

I repeated that as I settled in for an early evening.

Facts.

Circles were common in nature and found in a wide variety of places. I wasn’t concerned about any omens.

I believed in facts.