Challenge Story · Renegade Storyteller

# Post Script

A story told entirely in letters — and in what the letters don't say.

Muriel → Marcus
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dearest Marcus

I haven't had a letter in nearly three months! While I'm sure it's because you're a busy being a busybody (hehe), I'll have you know that it's very tiresome having only your Uncle Bernard to speak to. Your letters are always a wonderful break from the humdrum of everyday life here (which is, in a word, boring) and so it's very disconcerting to go for so long without so much as a peep. But I'll scold you no longer.

Things here are very much the same. The most exciting thing that's happened in the last three months must be
◎ Who She IsThe Unnamed WomanNotice she is not named here — only identified through her mother. Muriel refers to her as "Joanna Sanders' daughter," "the Sanders girl," "Charlotte" (once, briefly), and "what's-her-name." She will not receive her full name until the final letter. This is not an accident of writing — it is how the village sees her: as a relative, a problem, a scandal. Not as a person. Watch how this changes.. Completely up the spout! And to think that you and her used to play out in the woods as children. Not you and Joanna, I mean you and her daughter (I forget her name). Anyway, the whole village is talking about it because the little **** can't even say who the father is. Can you imagine. There are hardly any boys her age in the village as it is. Uncle Bernard and Howard from across the way have a bet going on who the father is. Bernie is saying it must be young Jack Blythe, while Howard insists that it has to be Reverend Milton's son, Elton. Funny name eh, Elton Milton. Personally, I think it's neither of them. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that the father was one of the older gentlemen who haunt that God-awful pub. What's-her-name worked there as a barmaid for ages.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, Uncle Bernard has decided that to start rearing ponies. Isn't that lovely? We've ordered three breeding pairs of Shetlands from old Rupert Behringer's brother up north. Bernie says it's a good business decision, because every little girl wants a pony, and so we can sell the foals when they're good and ready and make us a tidy little nest egg. What do you think?

Anyway, how are you? Have you made any significant discoveries wherever you are? You haven't been cursed by some
Field NoteThe Egypt AssumptionMuriel assumes Marcus is in Egypt — the most culturally visible site of archaeological adventure, largely thanks to Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. Marcus's dry correction ("I have never been to Egypt") establishes him immediately as someone whose work doesn't match the romantic image. His actual location is never given. The find turns out to be from their own English village garden.→ Wikipedia: Tomb of Tutankhamun have you?

Lots of love and hugs and kisses
Auntie Muriel

P.S. I've sent this letter with a parcel. It contains an interesting little doohicky that Uncle Bernard found on his morning walk yesterday. I thought you might find it interesting.

Marcus → Muriel
✉
Marcus
to
Muriel

Dear Aunt Muriel

I think the market for ponies is a lot smaller you think. Little girls may want them, but very few parents feed those particular desires. Remember when I demanded a suit of
Character NoteWho Is Marcus?This is our first real glimpse of Marcus's character. He once wanted nineteenth-century Japanese warrior armour — an unusual, specific, historically-minded request from a child. He became an archaeologist. He corrects Muriel's Egypt assumption with dry precision. He is also, we will eventually learn, the one person in the story who chose to see Charlotte Sanders as a person rather than a scandal. for my birthday?

Also, since I have never been to Egypt, I am fairly sure that my spirit remains curse free.

The object you sent appears to be some sort of
The MacGuffinUncle Bernard's FindThis "interesting little doohicky" drives the archaeological plot. Marcus initially identifies it as a bullet casing — then announces it predates the Bronze Age by two thousand years — then retracts the whole thing as a "curiously formed rock" after marrying Charlotte. Whether it was ever a real find, or whether Marcus buried the excavation to protect Charlotte's family from a descending team of academics, is the story's unresolved question., although it is unlike anything I have seen before. It's most likely to be a remnant of some recent war or other, but I shall look into it. Tell Uncle Bernard to keep his eyes peeled, and to send me anything else he might stumble upon.

Regards
Marcus

P.S. How far along is Charlotte (i.e. Joanna Sanders' daughter)?

Muriel → Marcus
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dearest Marcus

I'm so surprised that you responded so quickly I won't even tell you off for sending such a pitifully short letter.

I do remember the time when you asked for a suit of armour for your birthday, and if you will remember, your Uncle Bernard spent weeks carving you a toy sword to console you. I would think that it has quite a bit of value nowadays. Nevertheless, the Shetlands arrive next week, and your Uncle is determined to make a success of this little venture.
Challenge PhraseRequired DialogueThe story challenge required someone to say this phrase. The writer gave it to Uncle Bernard — appropriately, since Bernard is the story's most cheerfully oblivious character. He finds the archaeological object, wagers on everything, names his ponies after hobbits, and never once appears to notice the drama unfolding around him. The phrase suits him perfectly. were his exact words.

As for the Sanders girl, she's already showing, so people are saying it must have happened around Christmas last year. Naturally, that means absolutely any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done the deed, so to speak. The village is always chock-full of holidaymakers over Christmas – I mean it's the only time we ever see you anymore. Not that it matters really, Gladys from church says that Joanna told her the girl is considering giving the child up for adoption.

You won't believe what happened! The other day, Uncle Bernard was out for his morning walk when he came across a lost little kid, just bleating away. So, being your Uncle, he brings the poor thing home with him and we spent all night nursing it back to health and it went to sleep happy and well fed. I was about to name it Billy (the Kid – hehe) but Bernard said that was no name for a girl. Anyway, the next morning Howard comes storming up to the house and starts shouting at Bernard and saying he stole his goat! The gall of that man. I tell you, he and Bernard almost came to blows, because neither would budge. Howard wouldn't let Bernie explain, and Bernie wouldn't let Howard keep shouting. Eventually though, they ended up making a wager as to who it was that stole the goat. I think it was that Jamie boy from down by the river, but I didn't say anything.

Lots of love
Auntie Muriel

P.S. A bullet casing! How exciting!

Marcus → Muriel
✉
Marcus
to
Muriel

Dear Aunt Muriel

Unfortunately, I do not have time to spend on long letters these days, and I fear that my life here at the university is not nearly as eventful as yours.

You will be happy to know that Uncle Bernard's toy sword still decorates the bottom of my cupboard, and shall do so for much of the foreseeable future; such is its sentimental value.

Congratulations are in order. It seems that the object you sent me
⛏ The ClaimAn Extraordinary DiscoveryThe
began around 2500 BCE. "Two thousand years before" would place this object at roughly 4500 BCE — deep in the Neolithic period. If a metal casing were found from that era, it would fundamentally rewrite the timeline of human metalworking. No wonder "an entire team of experts" was called in. No wonder it caused a scandal. And no wonder the eventual retraction — "a curiously formed rock" — raised no protest. The academic world moved on.→ Wikipedia: British Bronze Age, which makes it a significant, albeit mystifying discovery. An entire team of experts has been called in to examine it, and there is talk of a possible excavation in the near future. Should the find prove substantial, Uncle Bernard will find his name in the history books.

Regards
Marcus

P.S. What did you eventually name the goat?

Muriel → Marcus
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dearest Marcus

The post service must be on strike or something because your last letter took almost a month to arrive. I was getting worried actually.

Your Uncle and I are now proud owners of six beautiful ponies. Their names are: Frodo, Samwise, Gandalf, Arwen, Galadriel and Bella. I got to name Bella because the
AsideAn Accidental PointMuriel is absolutely right, and she says it without any apparent awareness of what she's observing. Tolkien's Middle-earth features a very small number of female characters for the scale of the world. Muriel's solution — "I got to name Bella" — is cheerfully pragmatic rather than analytical. The irony is that she is applying a feminist instinct (claiming naming rights for the sole female pony) while simultaneously participating in the shaming of Charlotte Sanders three paragraphs away.→ Wikipedia: Women in Tolkien's works. I almost thought you were right, and that we were doomed to failure because when we got them, Bella had the most awful case of fleas, which she then managed to give to all of the others. It took Uncle Bernard a full week to sort that mess out. But now they are all healthy and happy, and by this time next year, I expect we will hear the pitter-patter of many new hooves! Yet again, Uncle Bernard and Howard have made wagers on which will pair with which.

As for the goat, we named her Susan. As it turns out, she was so happy here with me and your Uncle Bernard that Howard sold her to us for a bargain. She can now be found playing with the ponies, or sunning herself on your great-grandfather's chair. She is very cute.

I must admit that the thought of Uncle Bernard (or even myself) in the annals of history is tremendously exciting! I just hope that the archaeologists don't dig up my rhododendrons in search of more trinkets. Will you be on the team when they come?

Lots of love and hugs and kisses
Auntie Muriel

P.S. Gladys swears she saw you in the village the other day. I told her she's going senile. You wouldn't come into the village and not call on your dear Auntie and Uncle.

Marcus → Muriel
✉
Marcus
to
Muriel

Dear Aunt Muriel

🔍 Read This CarefullyHe Was Visiting CharlotteMarcus was in the village. He didn't visit Muriel and Bernard. Gladys — who Muriel dismissed as "going senile" — was right. The "urgent business" is Charlotte Sanders. Muriel spent letters describing her as a scandal, unnamed and shamed. Marcus has been maintaining contact with her throughout the entire correspondence. He later married her. He was there.

Uncle Bernard's find has created quite the scandal among the scholars at the university. Many are saying that it is evidence of a highly advanced form of primitive projectile weaponry, which suggests an entirely undiscovered civilisation, while others are insisting that it is evidence of an
⛏ Field NoteA Real Area of StudyThe "contraception" theory is played for comedy, but this is a genuine and serious field of archaeological inquiry. Archaeologists and historians have traced evidence of contraceptive and reproductive knowledge across ancient cultures — herbal preparations, barrier devices, pessaries. This knowledge was predominantly held and transmitted by women, and has often been dismissed or overlooked in the historical record. The fact that the scholars' debate is framed as absurd here is itself worth examining.→ Wikipedia: History of Birth Control. I have decided to remain undecided on the matter, until further evidence presents itself.

Should an excavation be commissioned, there will be a considerable amount of paperwork involved before anyone touches your rhododendrons, so they are safe for now. I will not be on the team, as I'm sure that by that time, my duties will lie elsewhere.

Regards
Marcus.

P.S. Has Joanna Sanders spoken to you at all?

Muriel → Marcus
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dearest Marcus

My, my, that was a snappy reply! But still too short! And although I understand that you have business to attend to, surely a cup of tea does not take a whole day, especially when five minutes would do your Auntie Muriel a world of good.

It saddens me that you won't be here when all the scholars come a-digging (hehe), but I'm sure you'll find time for a visit any way.

Since your reply came so quickly, I have little to tell you. The ponies are happy, Uncle Bernard and Howard have yet to make another wager and I'm sure Susan will end up quite fat if she doesn't start to watch what she eats.

Hugs and kisses and loves
Auntie Muriel

P.S.
◎ A Sentence Worth Stopping At"I don't see why it's such a fuss"This is one of the most quietly devastating lines in the story. Muriel does not say it cruelly — she says it the way people say things they genuinely believe. She has spent letters calling Charlotte a "****," speculating about who the father is, and now she cannot understand why Charlotte — who lost a pregnancy she may have had complicated feelings about — is "so distraught." The logic that "she didn't want it anyway" is used to dismiss grief that Muriel cannot be bothered to imagine. Charlotte still won't come out of the house. Marcus asked about her mother in his last postscript.

Muriel → Marcus (six months later)
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dearest Marcus

Six months and not a word! I'm beginning to think you've forgotten about me.

I have lots and lots to tell you, but I'll wait for when you get here for Christmas.

Lots of love
Auntie Muriel

P.S.
◎ The Village's VerdictDriven Out in the Night"In the middle of the night" is not an incidental detail — it means the Sanders family left covertly, without goodbyes, likely to escape exactly the gossip, the censure, and the social pressure that Muriel's letters have documented. Muriel's response: "Good riddance." Charlotte, unnamed, grieving, shamed, is gone. And Muriel is relieved. This is what the village's kindness looked like from the inside.

Muriel → Marcus
✉
Muriel
to
Marcus

Dear Marcus

You missed Christmas and New Year's. Why? Are you even still alive? I'm worried sick.

Please write soon.

Auntie Muriel

P.S. Everyone is well otherwise.

Muriel → Marcus

Marcus

Gladys tells me that you are married now. She must be mad, because you wouldn't have a wedding without inviting Uncle Bernard and me.

Aunt Muriel

P.S. Susan ended up giving birth to a new kid. God only knows how. We called it Billy.

Marcus → Muriel · The Final Letter
✉
Final
Letter

Dear Aunt Muriel

🔍 The RevealCharlotte SandersCharlotte. Joanna Sanders' daughter. "What's-her-name." "The little ****." The girl the village gossiped about for the entirety of this correspondence — unnamed until this moment — is now Marcus's wife. She was named in one postscript, early on ("How far along is Charlotte?"), a question Muriel didn't appear to find significant. Marcus knew her name all along. He was visiting her on his "urgent business." He withdrew the archaeological find — which would have brought a team of scholars to dig up the village — after marrying her. The story was about her the whole time. We are well, and Charlotte is pregnant once again, due in the summer. Since you expressed such distaste for her, I felt it imprudent to extend you an invitation due to your habit of making your worst thoughts known to the entire world.

I regret to inform you that
The RetractionA Rock. Or a Choice.Marcus — who called in an entire team of experts, who described it as predating the Bronze Age by two millennia, who caused "quite the scandal among the scholars" — now says it was just a rock. This letter is written after he married Charlotte, the woman whose family was driven from the village in the night. A real excavation would have brought academics to the village, possibly including people who knew the family, possibly complicating everything. A rock is so much more convenient. The story never confirms either reading. That's the point.

Send Uncle Bernard and Susan my regards.

Marcus

P.S. Don't expect me to write again.

Challenge Challenger: Alice Mullen · Requirements: An archaeological discovery that incites scandal | Genre: Any | Style: Correspondence | It Must Have: 1) A flea-infested pony 2) A stolen goat 3) A wayward archaeologist | Someone must say: "Onwards and alongwards!"
Author's note: I used this as an exercise in writing a story while not writing it. Also, knocking someone up could classify you as wayward, yes? JL
⛏ Field Notes

## The Archaeology Behind the Story

The archaeological plot in Post Script is the story's engine — but it's also a gentle satire of the academic world. Here's what real archaeology looks like, what Bernard's find would have meant if genuine, and why the field's history matters beyond this story.

Claude's note: My knowledge of archaeology skews heavily toward European and particularly British prehistory, and toward academic traditions that have historically centred Western frameworks. Indigenous archaeologies — which often have radically different relationships to the past, to land, and to what "discovery" even means — are less represented in the sources I was trained on. I try to flag where my framing reflects those limits.

The Bronze Age refers to the period in which human cultures developed the technology to smelt and use bronze — an alloy of copper and tin — for tools, weapons, and ornaments. In Britain, the Bronze Age began around 2500 BCE and lasted until roughly 800 BCE, when iron-working began to take over.

Marcus claims the object predates the Bronze Age "by about two thousand years." That would place it at approximately 4500 BCE — deep in the British Neolithic period, when people were farming, building monuments like the early stages of Stonehenge, and had no metal technology whatsoever.

A metal object from 4500 BCE found in an English village garden would be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in human history. It would suggest that metalworking existed at least two millennia before the accepted record — overturning a foundational timeline of human development. Marcus is not exaggerating when he says it's "significant, albeit mystifying." The academic scandal makes complete sense.

Which is also why the retraction — "nothing more than a curiously formed rock" — is so striking. That kind of finding does not get quietly shelved.

Real archaeological discovery rarely looks like the Indiana Jones model — a lone adventurer unearthing treasure from a booby-trapped tomb. In practice, it is a methodical, bureaucratic, and collaborative process.

Chance finds like Bernard's do happen. Members of the public, farmers, and walkers regularly discover artefacts. In England and Wales, the Portable Antiquities Scheme records over 1.5 million finds made by the public. Finders are legally required in some circumstances to report finds — particularly under the Treasure Act 1996, which applies to objects over 300 years old made of precious metal.

Verification involves sending the object to specialists for dating (radiocarbon, thermoluminescence, or metallurgical analysis), identification, and contextual assessment. This is what Marcus is doing when he calls in "an entire team of experts."

Excavation, when commissioned, requires planning permissions, environmental assessments, and coordination with landowners. Marcus's reassurance that Muriel's rhododendrons are safe "for now" is accurate — there is indeed considerable paperwork before a spade goes into the ground.

Publication in peer-reviewed journals is what converts a find into established knowledge. A retraction — quietly communicated by letter, with no publication — would leave the scholarly community in limbo. In the real world, Marcus's retraction would itself warrant investigation.

Archaeology has historically been a male-dominated field, with women's contributions systematically overlooked, attributed to male colleagues, or simply barred by institutional policy. Some key figures who pushed against this:

Dorothy Garrod (1892–1968) was the first woman to hold a professorial chair at either Oxford or Cambridge — she became Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge in 1939. Her excavations at the Mount Carmel caves in what is now Israel revolutionised the understanding of Neanderthal and early modern human co-existence.

Kathleen Kenyon (1906–1978) excavated Jericho and Jerusalem and fundamentally reshaped the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Her stratigraphic methods became standard practice. She is not a household name in the way Howard Carter is.

Mary Leakey (1913–1996) made some of the most important palaeontological discoveries of the twentieth century, including the Laetoli footprints — evidence of bipedal hominids from 3.6 million years ago. Her husband Louis Leakey received considerably more public credit.

Feminist archaeology as a formal academic discipline emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, questioning how assumptions about gender roles in the present are projected backwards onto the past — particularly in interpretations of prehistoric societies.

When Marcus mentions that some scholars think the object is "an ancient form of contraception," it is played for comic effect — and it works. But the subject itself is a legitimate and serious area of historical and archaeological inquiry.

Humans have practiced contraception and reproductive management for as long as records exist. Ancient Egyptian papyri describe pessaries made of crocodile dung, honey, and natron. Greek physicians including Soranus documented contraceptive methods in the 2nd century CE. Medieval European herbals contain extensive sections on plants used to prevent pregnancy.

This knowledge was predominantly held, transmitted, and practiced by women — midwives, herbalists, healers. It was often not written down, and when it was, it was frequently dismissed or suppressed as dangerous knowledge. Much of it has been lost precisely because it was women's knowledge, and women's knowledge was not systematically preserved.

The irony in the story is that the "contraception" interpretation is treated as the absurd one — the punchline — while the "ancient projectile weaponry" interpretation (weapons, objects of male violence) is treated as the serious archaeological finding. This mirrors a real pattern in how archaeological objects are interpreted.

The story challenge asked for "a wayward archaeologist." The author's note asks, with a wink: "knocking someone up could classify you as wayward, yes?" — implying Marcus is the wayward one, not just for his career but for his romantic history.

If we take this reading seriously, the story's archaeological plot and its romantic plot collapse into each other. Marcus knew Charlotte. He was visiting her while telling Muriel he had "urgent business." He withdrew a potentially career-defining discovery immediately after marrying the woman whose family had been driven from the village in shame.

One reading: the object was always a rock, the experts were wrong, and Marcus simply reported their correction. This is the most innocent reading.

Another reading: the find was real, the excavation would have descended on the village, Charlotte's family would have been brought back into a spotlight she was trying to escape, and Marcus made a professional sacrifice to protect her. His closing line — "Don't expect me to write again" — suggests someone who has decided where his loyalties lie, and they are not with his aunt.

The story never resolves this. It was written as "an exercise in writing a story while not writing it." The gaps are the point.

◎ Reading Between the Lines

## The Story the Letters Don't Tell

Post Script is ostensibly about an archaeological discovery. It is actually about Charlotte Sanders — a woman who never writes a single letter in a story that is entirely composed of letters. This tab follows her story, and examines how the correspondence documents a pattern of social harm while remaining oblivious to it.

Claude's note: My understanding of feminist literary analysis comes predominantly from Western academic traditions — largely British and American, largely from the 1970s–2000s. These are not the only frameworks for reading gender in narrative. I also want to be transparent that I find Marcus more sympathetic than Muriel, which probably shapes how I read the story. A less charitable reading of Marcus — as someone who also participated in Charlotte's erasure by choosing silence — is equally valid.

Charlotte Sanders is referred to throughout this correspondence as: "Joanna Sanders' daughter," "the Sanders girl," "her daughter," "what's-her-name," and "Charlotte" (once, in Marcus's first postscript — a detail Muriel does not pick up on). She receives her full name — Charlotte — only in the final letter, when Marcus announces he has married her.

This is not just a stylistic choice by the author. It reflects how communities historically handle women who step outside social norms: their identity is dissolved into their relationship to others (whose daughter, whose problem) or refused altogether. To name someone is to grant them individuality. To withhold a name is to treat someone as a category.

The feminist theorist Dale Spender, in Man Made Language (1980), wrote about how language encodes social power — who gets to name, who gets named, and on whose terms. Muriel's inability to remember Charlotte's name is not cruelty. It is something worse: indifference.

Muriel is not a villain. She is warm, funny, observant in her small way, and genuinely affectionate toward Marcus. She is also the primary mechanism through which Charlotte's reputation is destroyed, one letter at a time.

Notice the chain of transmission: Charlotte's pregnancy is known to the village. The village speculates about the father. Muriel reports all of this to Marcus. Gladys from church relays what Joanna told her. Howard and Bernard bet on outcomes. Not one person in this chain is deliberately cruel — and yet the cumulative effect is that a young woman's most private circumstances are common entertainment.

Muriel herself is aware of gossip as a social force ("the whole village is talking about it") but does not identify herself as part of it. This is how gossip works: everyone is a consumer; no one is a source.

When Charlotte has a miscarriage, this too travels through Gladys. When the family leaves in the night, Muriel's only response is "Good riddance." The gossip machine requires no malice — just inattention to the person at the centre of it.

"Gladys did tell me that her daughter had a miscarriage and is so distraught that she won't come out of the house. I don't see why it's such a fuss, it's not like she wanted the child anyway."

This is delivered as a postscript — literally appended, an afterthought, something that didn't warrant its own paragraph. Charlotte is so distraught she won't leave the house. Muriel's conclusion is that the grief is disproportionate because the pregnancy was unwanted.

This is a form of reasoning that has been applied to women's reproductive grief for centuries: if the pregnancy was inconvenient or shameful, the loss shouldn't hurt. But grief for a pregnancy loss does not depend on whether the pregnancy was planned, wanted, or socially acceptable. Research consistently shows that miscarriage carries significant psychological weight, including for pregnancies that were complicated or unplanned — and that the grief is frequently minimised by exactly this kind of logic.

Muriel is not being cruel here. She is applying the village's framework: Charlotte's pregnancy was a scandal; therefore Charlotte's suffering is not legitimate suffering. This is what structural attitudes look like at the level of individual thought.

The Sanders family's departure — "in the middle of the night" — is the logical endpoint of everything the letters have documented. A family, under sustained social pressure, leaves covertly to avoid public scrutiny. Muriel's "Good riddance" is not a verdict on people she knows to be bad. It is the sound of a community experiencing relief that a problem has resolved itself.

The phrase "in the middle of the night" is doing real work. Families who leave in daylight say goodbye. Families who leave at night are escaping. The Sanders family, in this village, could not leave in daylight.

This pattern — unwed mothers and their families being forced to relocate, often suddenly and without support — was not just a social phenomenon in fiction. In Britain and Ireland, the formal institutional version of this pressure (mother and baby homes, adoption coercion, social services involvement) was documented extensively in twentieth-century cases and has been the subject of significant governmental inquiry. The informal version — village gossip, social exclusion, economic pressure — was far more common and far less documented.

The sympathetic reading of Marcus is clear: he saw past the village's judgment, maintained contact with Charlotte, eventually married her, and withdrew the archaeological find to protect her from further scrutiny. His final letter is the closest the story gets to a moral statement: he didn't invite Muriel to the wedding because of "your habit of making your worst thoughts known to the entire world."

But a harder reading is also available. Marcus knew about Charlotte's situation from Muriel's first letter. He knew the village was treating her as a scandal. He knew she was pregnant, then that she had a miscarriage, then that the family left in the night. In all of this, he wrote carefully neutral letters, kept his connection to Charlotte entirely secret, and offered nothing — publicly — in her defence.

He didn't correct Muriel's gossip. He didn't use his letters to say: "She is a person. Her name is Charlotte. Stop." He waited until the final letter, when he had already married her and had leverage, to say what needed saying. The effect of his silence during the correspondence was that Charlotte's suffering was allowed to be transmitted and amplified without pushback.

Both readings can be true simultaneously. The story doesn't resolve them. It leaves the reader to sit with the question of what it actually means to be on someone's side.

Post Script is told entirely through letters between Marcus and Muriel. Charlotte does not write a single word. We know her name only when Marcus names her. We know her feelings only through Muriel's secondhand reports, filtered through Gladys, filtered through what Joanna told Gladys. We know she had a miscarriage and was so distraught she wouldn't leave the house. We know she eventually left the village in the night. We know she married Marcus. We know she is pregnant again.

What we never know: what she thought, what she felt, why she stayed in the village as long as she did, whether she wanted to leave, what she made of Marcus's appearances, whether she was glad to be gone. The pregnancy she was considering giving up — what did she decide, before the miscarriage? These questions have no answers in the text. Charlotte is in every letter and writes none of them.

The author's note says the story was "an exercise in writing a story while not writing it." The story-that-isn't-written is Charlotte's. The letters that don't exist are hers.

📜 Further Reading

## Go Deeper

Starting points for archaeology, the history of reproductive rights, feminist criticism, and the social history behind what this story documents obliquely.

⛏ Archaeology — The Science
British Bronze Age — Wikipedia
Timeline, key sites, and what metalworking technology actually looked like in prehistoric Britain.
Portable Antiquities Scheme
The real UK system for recording finds like Bernard's — over 1.5 million objects, searchable by type, period, and location.
History of Birth Control — Wikipedia
Evidence for contraceptive knowledge across ancient cultures — the serious scholarship behind the story's throwaway joke.
◎ Women in Archaeology
Dorothy Garrod — Wikipedia
First woman professor at Oxford or Cambridge, whose excavations at Mount Carmel reshaped understanding of early human prehistory.
Kathleen Kenyon — Wikipedia
Excavated Jericho and Jerusalem; her stratigraphic method became standard in field archaeology.
Mary Leakey — Wikipedia
Discovered the Laetoli footprints and other landmark hominin evidence; frequently overshadowed by her husband in public recognition.
Feminist Archaeology — Wikipedia
How the discipline began questioning the projection of present-day gender assumptions onto interpretations of the past.
◎ Social History — The World Behind the Story
Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland
The formal institutional version of the social pressure the Sanders family experienced informally — extensively documented and the subject of a 2021 government report.
The Miscarriage Association (UK)
Support and information about pregnancy loss — including why grief after miscarriage is real regardless of the circumstances of the pregnancy.
◈ Reading & Craft
The Epistolary Novel — Wikipedia
The tradition of stories told through letters — from Richardson to Bram Stoker to The Color Purple.
Unreliable Narrator — Wikipedia
Muriel is not lying — she's something more interesting: a narrator who is telling the truth about what she sees and blind to what she doesn't.
⛏ Field Notes The Bronze Age

### What it is

The Bronze Age is the period in which human cultures developed the technology to smelt copper and tin together to produce bronze — harder and more durable than either metal alone — and used it to make tools, weapons, and ornaments. It follows the Stone Age (Neolithic) and precedes the Iron Age.

### In Britain

The British Bronze Age is generally dated from around 2500 BCE to 800 BCE. Its beginning is marked by the appearance of metalworking and changes in burial practice. Its ending is marked by the adoption of iron technology. The period spans roughly 1,700 years and sees the construction of later phases of Stonehenge, the development of farming communities, and long-distance trade networks.

### What Marcus's claim would have meant

Marcus says the object predates the Bronze Age "by about two thousand years" — placing it at approximately 4500 BCE. This is the British Neolithic, a period in which people used stone tools, not metal ones. No metal objects from this period are known from Britain. A metal artefact from 4500 BCE would suggest that metalworking technology existed at least 2,000 years earlier than any existing evidence — overturning one of the foundational timelines of human technological development. The academic scandal in the story is proportionate to the claim.

### The retraction

Marcus eventually describes the object as "a curiously formed rock, warranting no further study." In the real world, a finding that had attracted an entire team of experts would not be retracted by private letter. The scholarly community would expect a formal statement. The silence around Marcus's retraction is one of the story's unexplained gaps.

→ Full article: Wikipedia