The Ring
Before her transfer to Turkey, Danica Fairmont had envisioned a glamorous laboratory with white walls, open windows filling the space with natural light, and beautiful artifacts gleaming in precious hues of natural ore.
Upon her arrival, reality had hit her too quickly.
The fluorescent lights on the ceiling of the old basement facilities and the stale smell of old pottery were rapidly giving Danica a dull, aching headache.
On her workspace lay a spread of broken shards of terracotta that were caked in ancient dirt.
According to meticulous informational documents provided by the oversight committee, funded in part by the United Nations and several other private donors, they were fragments of ordinary Roman-era cooking pots.
Her job was to piece them back together after a rookie excavator with slippery fingers had dropped them on the concrete. When she first read the document, she could feel a vein burst in her forehead; her fingertips had dug into the paper as if it were a letter from an enemy.
However, she was the “only” person on the basement repair team with the experience to restore the piece.
Danica sighed as she adjusted the magnifying visor up onto her forehead. Her gloves were steeped in red dust.
When she had accepted the company transfer, she had envisioned herself aging and cataloging crown jewels or stabilizing Ottoman-era silver leaf. Instead, she watched as those jewels and solid-gold coins and silver chalices rolled right past her during her break upstairs—right into the newest state-of-the-art lab.
She had become a pottery repairman instead.
How she longed to be in that lab and see the sun during the day, and let her fingers touch those golden saucers, and to hear the clink of golden coins falling into one another.
As she rolled her chair over to reach her computer, she heard a swish of fabric followed by a crisp clunk.
She swiveled her chair around at a creeping speed, eyes closed, and lips pursed into a straight line. When she finally opened them in resignation, lying beneath her feet was the table’s dust cover that she swore she would secure with tape earlier, before completely forgetting about it.
Her hands trembled as she bent down to unfold it.
The entire base of a pot she had just assembled was lying before her in pieces once again.
She’d been too distracted.
A chuckle sounded from across the room. “Well, look at the bright side...”
Danica looked up to see that her team leader, Ruth, had turned away from her workstation. Ruth was leaning back in her own chair with a broad smile on her face. She pushed her thick, flamboyant purple glasses up her nose, “At least we know gravity still works perfectly well in this department. Want me to log that under ‘zero progress’ for you?”
Ruth’s sharpness hadn’t faded over the years she’d lived. She liked to exchange banter with colleagues. Honestly, it helped lighten the mood in the dark basement.
Danica dropped her head into her hands and let out a defeated groan, “Please, don’t start. I’m already stuck down here with you; the least you could do is show some support.”
“Hey now, I’m in the leading candidate’s spot for that open Assistant Director position. You’d better show me some respect.” Ruth couldn’t stop laughing.
“Were you?” Danica asked, feigning innocent surprise as she leaned back against her desk. “Because word from upstairs is that the director already has another candidate in mind.” She subtly hinted at Ruth’s leading competitor—the current department head’s son.
Ruth wiggled her eyebrows and scoffed, “That kid he’s got is still wet behind the ears, and doesn’t even know the difference between a database and a spreadsheet. Honestly, if he dares to actually do it, he’ll have to contend with the sixteen years I’ve given to the department first. That senile old man.”
Danica laughed, “Nepotism tends to sneak up on other people like that. Honestly, my shattered pot probably has more structural integrity than your promotion track. That Director’s position should have been yours in the first place.”
Ruth was groaning now, too. “Don’t remind me. Every time I pass them on my way to the break room, the old one has his nose up in the air like he won a prize, and the other has this clueless, sloppy puppy look in his eyes.” Ruth began shaking her head. “Honestly, you’re one of the only people I can count on right now. I’m glad you took my offer to come here.”
“Anytime, Ruthie. I’ve got your back.”
Ruth was Danica’s mentor from her first internship. They’d worked together with Irene, another new graduate, at a Mesopotamian-era dig site, and Ruth had shown them all the ropes and treated them like her own daughters.
Danica and Irene had truly become sisters at that time as well.
The task was almost too daunting to restart, but it was only 4:00 PM. She still had three more hours before she was off work. She had the closing shift.
At exactly 7:00 PM, she packed her kit and logged her minimal progress into the database, her back stiff. The facility was completely silent by now. Danica finally shut off her computer, stood up, and slung her bag over her shoulder. The corridor outside the lab was long and narrow, cast in deep shadows where the security lights hadn’t yet kicked in. She locked the door behind her, turning toward the exit stairwell.
It was then that a sharp glint caught the corner of her eye.
She stopped.
It was near an open shelving unit against the old brick basement walls—a temporary staging area where uncatalogued debris from the excavation site was left to be sorted at the beginning of the day.
Her eyes scanned the shelf from top to bottom as she walked over. The shelf itself was empty.
Bending down, on her hands and knees, she peeked into the small gap between the shelf and the floor. Entirely out of place with the crud, dust, and cobwebs was a flash of fiery crimson.
Danica’s hand fumbled beneath, stirring up dust on her fingertips, then touched something hard and smooth before retreating from the space.
It was a heavy, tarnished silver ring. Nestled roughly in its center was a blood-red stone, cut roughly, but polished enough to catch the dim hallway light like a drop of fresh ink. It wasn’t anything like the rough pottery she had nearly drowned in that day. It felt old and substantial, and also cold—impossibly cold against her skin.
She felt the cold shoot straight through to her brain, bringing an unexpectedly eerie feeling. But she only held onto the ring tighter.
It was beautiful.
A prick of guilt hit her chest.
I should unlock the lab and log this immediately, she thought. Or I could walk it up to the security desk.
But the security desk was two floors up, the keys were already buried in her bag, and she was thoroughly exhausted. If she turned it in now, the intake process would take at least an hour of paperwork.
It’s fine, she rationalized, her thumb brushing over the cool, red stone. It’s safe with me. I’ll log it first thing tomorrow when my head is clear.
Before she thought too deeply, she slipped the ring onto her thumb as she walked toward the exit sign. She hurried up the steps on the back end of the basement and into Istanbul’s thick evening air.
