For years, people have told me I should write a book.
And for years, I've been trying. When I was about fifteen or so, I started writing a story about ghosts, teenage angst, and new beginnings. I got about a hundred or so pages into it before I realized it was going nowhere. Over the ensuing ten years or so, I picked it up and put it back down about a half dozen times. I kind of knew what I wanted to happen, but I couldn't find a way to make it interesting enough. I kept asking myself, "What's the point? If I were somebody else, would I really care what happened to these characters?" If you can't sell yourself on an idea, chances are you're not going to be able to sell anyone else on it, either. So I put it down for the last time, and never really picked it back up.
Since then, I've written a great deal. High school papers. Short stories. Mediocre poetry. College application essays. Midterm papers. I even flirted with the idea of penning a few articles for money, although I could never really dedicate myself to it. Nonfiction, admittedly, is a little more difficult for me. That aside, the subject matter of the articles for hire was always something I knew little to nothing about.
I honestly don't know when or how the idea behind the novel came into my head. The idea to write it came back in April, when I'd just had surgery and was going a little stir-crazy and wanted something productive to do. At the time, I was actually pretty hardcore into my cake decorating, and I thought I'd do up some sort of formal business plan. But when I wandered into a Barnes & Noble one fateful day, I found the bible for procrastinating writers, in the form of "No Plot? No Problem!" by Chris Baty, the founder of National Novel Writing Month, known in shorthand to its proponents as NaNoWriMo. The book promised the reader a plan to write a novel in 30 days. I have no idea what it was, because I'm pretty famous for coming up with good ideas and never acting on them, but something about that book lit a fire under me. 30 days? I could commit myself to anything for 30 days. This was gonna be easy.
That same day, I also bought a book called "A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke" by James Horn. I'd always been fascinated by the real-life story of the missing settlers, so I guess the idea of writing a novel about what could have happened to them only seemed natural, especially since one of the rules of the NaNoWriMo book was that the novel had to be something brand new, not based on a work I already had in progress. I really don't know how the concept evolved in my head, but somewhere over the next four months, it did. I toyed with it in the back of my head for a while, and then in mid-August, I made the decision that this book needed to be written, if only to prove to myself that I could do it. The NaNoWriMo book suggested that the month begin at the beginning of the actual calendar month, and I decided on the very next month - September. This gave me approximately two weeks to research, which I did. I bought four books on Roanoke itself as well as colonial life in general. I started Googling pictures of actors I had in mind as visual representations of my characters, as well as looking up real-life locations I wanted to put in the story. I even ended up searching for, finding, falling in love with, and purchasing a necklace that would figure as a prominent plot device in the book. I started screaming on my Facebook profile to anyone who would listen about what I was about to attempt, in part because I was so excited about it, but also because I figured if enough people knew about it, I'd feel just enough pressure to keep it going. In short, I dove headfirst into a world of my own creation.
By August 31st, I was thrumming with anticipation to begin. Just after midnight, I started with a brief prologue. By the morning of September 1, I was alive with the biggest exhilaration I'd ever felt in my life. I knew I was poised at the beginning of something very, very big. I came straight home from work at night and set immediately to work. I turned down invitations from friends at times, and on the odd occasions when I did venture out, I'd always excuse myself early to come home and get to writing. I toted my laptop around to neighborhood cafés and downed countless fat free lattés for the sake of my art. I exceeded my daily quota of 1,667 words and posted word counts and excerpts (or "snippets" as I referred to them) as my Facebook status each and every night. And oddly enough, as ridiculous and impossible as this whole escapade was, I received absolutely nothing but encouragement along the way. I had a huge cheering section, and the comments and "likes" I received on my statuses every day was a helpful boost in keeping me motivated. If I mentioned to anyone in person my idea of writing with a book, the response was invariably some form of enthusiasm. By contrast, when I told my parents, or anyone else, that I wanted to go to college to study acting and the theatre, I did get some half-hearted "I hope that works out for you" kind of comments, but these were typically accompanied by the lift of an eyebrow that said what nobody was willing to vocalize: Are you CRAZY?
However, that never happened when I talked about my novel. Not once. Maybe it's because I wasn't really risking anything by writing the novel. If I failed, or if I gave up on it, I wouldn't have lost out on much, aside from the few nights of tomfoolery with friends that I'd sacrificed in the attempt. There was no significant investment in time or money. I prefer to think, though (even if it isn't true) that the reason I was met with such enthusiasm is that people who knew me understood that this was something I had a knack for, and they truly believed that it was something I was more than capable of accomplishing. And that, more than anything else, is what kept me going for 30 days.
I came home from work on the night of September 30th at approixmately 7:00 pm and marched straight to my computer. I threw everything I had at the keyboard for five solid hours. At literally 11:59 pm, I typed the words "THE END." I've never really been a huge fan of that phrase, mostly because I figure if the author did his/her job properly, those two words would be unnecessary. Then again, when the mayor shows up on the site of a new building in town and digs his chintzy silver-plated shovel into the dirt, everyone knows he hasn't done anything to contribute to the actual construction. This phrase felt somewhat necessary and ceremonial to me, like the proverbial groundbreaking of my story. I made haste in posting the final entry to my Facebook page, then proceeded to jump up and down, do fist pumps, and cast a thousand silent screams in the air to nobody. I had done it. For once in my life, I'd finished something.
I still get a giddy, satisfied feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about the book. The weight of the world that I somehow always impose on myself through the "woe-is-me" attitude we're all guilty of adopting now and then has lightened significantly. Instead, I think of what I've done in the past weeks, and I'm nothing but happy. I faced (quite literally) stress, fatigue, muscle twitches, missing persons, pain, infidelity, death, and some very nasty cases of writer's block. I underwent grief and complications both at work and at home. I broke off what was left of the closest thing I could possibly relate to a relationship that I've had in a number of years. Any of this would normally have been sufficient to throw a mild excuse at the effort and just quit it altogether. But that never happened here. I pressed on for all the people who were supporting me, but more importantly, I pressed on for me.
Now that my initial 30 days are over, I've still got a great deal of work to do. This is not a finished product. It is still very much a work in progress, and I assure you that I have no plans to abandon it. For those who have asked what's next: the next step is editing. Tons of it. I knew that the first draft would leave a lot of questions unanswered in the story, but I just didn't have the time to dwell on these as they came up. I've got to go back through all of my plot holes and plug them up. Yes, I do plan on publishing it. Yes, there will be a sequel. To be honest, I am a little daunted at the idea of the task ahead of me. But hell, I wrote a novel in 30 days. I don't think it's at all out of my reach. Because now, I'm a person who does things. I'm someone who can get something done if I try hard enough. Hell, I'm a writer.
For years, people have told me I should write a book.
And now, I have.
Snippets:
Day 22:
I spied Alexander at the edge of the fire. His brows were lowered in thought, and his head turned slowly. It seemed he’d caught me watching him, and his gaze met mine. It grieved me to do so, but I tore my eyes from him, my dearest... friend, and snuggled deeper into the shelter of my husband’s embrace. I remembered all too well the conversation that had taken place earlier that day a bare hare’s leap outside the old cottage that Nias and I had taken as our own. He’d spied me plucking blueberries from a bush along the crude trail we’d carved and dropping them into my apron.
“Ellie,” he’d said, as though he had forgotten himself, and quickly recovered. “Mrs. Dare.”
I had laughed, and my mirth had somehow seemed to cause him further upset. “Are we not old companions, Alexander? Must you address me so formally?”
“I must,” he replied, “For it is only proper. Although I do admit to some concern as to your safety. What are you after here, alone and unguarded with no one to look after you?”
His voice was of strange comfort to me, despite the concern in it, and I could not help but smile. “Goodwife Early confessed to me that if I should drink the juice of the blueberry, I would be gifted of a girlchild. It is a bit foolhardy, perhaps, but I do so long for a daughter. I would do well with a daughter, Alexander, do you not think?”
But he was not concerned so much with the sex of my child as he was with the immiment threat he apparently saw at this moment, where there certainly was none. “Do you not know,” he had asked, “Have you no idea of the danger that lurks in this place? You must not wander so far from home when there is no one to look after you.” His eyes lowered, almost unwittingly, to my stomach, and I wondered if he had meant the ‘you’ as plural.
A murmur of wrath had bubbled up within me, and I stiffened my shoulders beneath his scrutiny. “It is not for you to command whither I shall go, Alexander,” I had retorted, one hand clutching my apron, the other resting as it often did across the swell of my womb. “You are not my husband.”
I watched as he reeled backward a step, as though he had been physically stricken. He took the briefest of moments to compose himself before he responded. “No, Eleanor, so I am not,” he’d replied, and turned on his heel and stalked off into the distance.
Now, with the firelight dancing upon his features, I could see his pained expression, and I felt a pang of regret for my harsh words. He had always been as a brother to me, yet for all my effort at kinship toward him, there had been a certain reluctance, a tentative hesitation in his arms when I embraced him that I had always been at a loss to understand. He was, apart from my father and before Ananias, the only family I had known. Why, then, did he always shy away from me as though fearing that my very touch would set him ablaze?
I felt the tremble of Virginia’s foot struck fast against my belly. My hand instinctively smoothed across it in answer.
“Be still, little one,” I whispered. “Soon, all will be well.”
Day 23:
I thought again of the memory of watching my father fix his motorcycle, reaching my tiny arms up to him and begging for a ride. I watched in my memory, remembered his sun-bronzed arms gliding across the polished chrome, and I wonde...red how in the world he could ever bear to touch it again after what it had stolen from him. “Why?” I asked.
Her answer surprised me. “He needed it, Lane. You’ve got to remember, he was just a kid when all this happened. Younger than you are now. For all his recklessness and foolhardy decisions, he loved your mom. More than I ever knew until I saw what he became without her.”
“What was that?” I asked cautiously.
“A shadow,” she replied without hesitation. “I didn’t really see that light in his eyes anymore after the accident. And he had no idea what to do with himself around you. Your mama was mostly the one who looked after you all the time. That maternal instinct grabbed hold of her from the very beginning and never let go. Your dad, though… most of the time he was just plain uncertain.”
A half dozen memories appeared before me, in which I’d run to him, squealing with laughter and begging him to play with me, and he’d merely tugged gently at my little brown curls, smiled, and shaken his head, sending me on my way. It hadn’t been my imagination, then. He’d never wanted me. And he’d taken the first opportunity he could to remove himself from my life. The tears in my eyes rose to the breaking point and threatened to spill over. Much as I loved her, I couldn’t stand to let Gran see me cry, so I turned, none too subtly, away from her.
She was at my side in an instant, clutching fiercely at my shoulders and whirling me about to face her. “Oh, you listen,” she said sternly. “Don’t you think for a minute that he didn’t love you, Lane. I know for a fact that he did. He loved every bit of you, so much that it damn near killed him. And it was partly because you were his, yes, but I think it was more because you were hers. That’s why he left.”
I gritted my teeth, and it was all I could do to force my lower lip to stop trembling. “What do you mean?”
“When he came to, on the third day after the accident, the first thing he did was ask for your mother. I tried to steer him off the subject, of course. I didn’t want to shock him. But he wouldn’t let up. And when I told him… he began to sob. Her name, and yours, over and over. Then he asked for you. Begged me to bring you to him. All he wanted was you. But I couldn’t do it. You always hear about those freak accidents in hospitals where someone seems to be doing well and they suddenly take a turn for the worse, and they’re gone. I couldn’t have your last memory of your daddy be seeing him in a hospital bed. But when he came home, and you ran toward him, screeching his name… God, I don’t know who was crying harder, you, him, or me. It didn’t last long, though. He’d look across the dinner table at you and see your pudgy, happy little face, and he never saw all the things that made you his. Those chipmunk cheeks of yours. The big brown eyes. Even the curls. Those are all him. But all he saw was her. Every time he laid eyes on you, he was remembering how much he’d lost. And I think it got to the point where he just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Day 24:
I gritted my teeth, and it was all I could do to force my lower lip to stop trembling. “What do you mean?”
“When he came to, on the third day after the accident, the first thing he did was ask for your mother. I tried to steer him o...ff the subject, of course. I didn’t want to shock him. But he wouldn’t let up. And when I told him… he began to sob. Her name, and yours, over and over. Then he asked for you. Begged me to bring you to him. All he wanted was you. But I couldn’t do it. You always hear about those freak accidents in hospitals where someone seems to be doing well and they suddenly take a turn for the worse, and they’re gone. I couldn’t have your last memory of your daddy be seeing him in a hospital bed. But when he came home, and you ran toward him, screeching his name… God, I don’t know who was crying harder, you, him, or me. It didn’t last long, though. He’d look across the dinner table at you and see your pudgy, happy little face, and he never saw all the things that made you his. Those chipmunk cheeks of yours. The big brown eyes. Even the curls. Those are all him. But all he saw was her. Every time he laid eyes on you, he was remembering how much he’d lost. And I think it got to the point where he just couldn’t take it anymore.” She picked up her own forgotten coffee cup and sipped from it. “At least, that’s what he said in the letter.”
My head snapped up. “What letter? Gran… there was a letter? And you didn’t show it to me? You never let me read it?”
“He asked me not to,” she said. “And as angry as I was when I read it, I had half a mind to tear it up and toss it in the garbage. Instead, I crumpled it in my hands, then stuffed it in the back of a drawer and forgot all about it.” My jaw popped open, but before I could say a word, she waved a staying hand at me. “If you really want to read it, it’s in the drawer in the kitchen, closest to the fridge.”
I’d barely begun to digest this information when I heard voices from the hallway, and Ted and Alexander reemerged into the kitchen. Gran turned, the topic at hand already forgotten, and offered the two of them a hearty smile. “So, boys, ready to go?”
Day 25:
“It was just as Manteo had said,” he continued. “I saw him dart into the circle, stand in the center of it, and this time, he merely removed a blade from his belt and dashed it across the palm of his hand. He rubbed his other palm ...across it, and so bloodied them both, and lifted them to the sky. I heard him cry out, and the wind began to howl. The blood ran down his arms, and when the first drop hit the earth, it was suddenly glowing as though set aflame. The wind whipped through the trees, and the light became so blinding that I raised my arm to shield my eyes. I could not have said what caused me to do it, but in that moment, I felt as though I must do something to prevent whatever it was that was about to happen. So I charged forth, through the trees and into the ring, fully blinded by the light that seemed to blaze from the moon itself, relying only on my memory of where he had been standing and whatever instinct I possessed to guide me to the spot where he stood.” As he said this, he began to wander slowly into the center of the clearing, as though reliving the moment in slow motion. “I threw myself at him with all my strength, and I felt my shoulder make contact with something solid. I heard an outraged scream, and something swung down and struck my head. With all else that had been lost to my sight when the flash occurred, I suddenly saw stars floating in my vision for only a moment before it all went black. When I came to, I was lying in this very spot, and Wanchese was gone. At first I thought only a few hours had passed, but as I glanced up at the moon I realized that its position in the sky had not changed as it should have. It was only upon finding my way back to the shore that I knew something very, very odd had happened.”
I remained where I stood at the very edge of the clearing. Phillip and Scout, for their part, did not seem inclined to move off the grass where we’d dismounted them. There was little to motivate them to it, I supposed, due to completely lack of anything to eat, but their refusal to come any farther seemed rather indicative of the eerie feeling that emanated from the so-called ring. Alexander stared at the ground on which he’d first set foot in the twentieth century, seemingly transfixed by it.
“What do you think happened?” I asked softly.
He glanced up with a brief shake of his head. “I do not know,” he replied. “Were I the sort to believe in legends and folktales, I might be inclined to believe that Wanchese had somehow struck a wager with Kiwasa, whether for blood or sacrifice or his very soul, to motivate him to another time. I am not that sort at all, but I am otherwise at a loss to explain my presence here. And I am here, am I not?”
He held his hands wide, and for a moment I stared at him, afraid that whatever force or being or freak occurrence of the paranormal had sent him here would suddenly have an impulse to snatch him back. The thought ignited a flame of pure dread in me. “Alexander…” I asked, feeling more than a little silly. “Would you mind very much stepping away from there?”
Day 26:
“My father worked as a welder at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington,” Gran was saying. “He met my mother at a diner over on Burnett Boulevard where she used to work nights. He used to joke that he braved omelets ...you could anchor a boat with just for the sake of her company.”
The dinner dishes having been cleared, Gran was busily dishing out generous portions of her Grandma Ginny’s apple pie, despite the weak protests of everyone at the table. It was so infrequently that I ate anything that didn’t come out of a microwaved tray, I’d overindulged a bit on the pot roast, and at present was feeling rather like I could easily anchor a boat. The mention of the term sparked something into my memory, and I dug into my pocket.
“Oh! Gran, speaking of which, I found this stuck in one of the drawers in that old vanity table you gave me. I thought you might want it.” I produced the anchor pendant, holding it out toward her in my open palm.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Alexander’s gaze pass casually over the pendant before returning to the fork in his hand, about to dig into the pie. It took only a half second before his head snapped up and stared at it in disbelief. He froze, fork in hand, and I watched his face grow ashen before my eyes.
“Where did you say you got that?” He asked.
I couldn’t see why a piece of old jewelry would incite such a reaction in him. “It was stuck in the drawer of my vanity table. Is it yours, Gran?”
She took it from me, holding it up to the light, frowning in concentration. “No… I think this might have been your great-grandmother’s. I think I saw her wear it on occasion. By God, but it’s filthy. I’m not really one for gold, Lane, but you’re welcome to it if you want to keep it. Let me just polish it up for you.”
Before I could protest, she went to the cabinets in search of some cleaner and a cloth.
Not in the least bit concerned with the topic at hand, Ted had delved into the apple pie with admirable aplomb, praising it between bites. “I’ll tell you, Evelyn, Grandma Ginny sure knew how to make a pie.”
Alexander slowly lowered his fork to the table, brows furrowed deeply over his eyes. “You had a grandmother named Ginny, Mrs. Corrigan?”
“Sure did,” Gran answered, crouched under the kitchen sink. “Best cook I ever knew. And you wouldn’t believe some of the stories she told.”
“By chance,” he said slowly, “Was her name Virginia?”
“Of course,” she said, crossing to the counter and rubbing the rag over the faded golden surface of the necklace, which was slowly regaining some of its former luster. “That’s what Ginny’s typically short for, isn’t it?”
Ted continued shoveling forkfuls of pie into his mouth, wholly oblivious to the tension I suddenly felt in the air. I watched Alexander closely, and saw the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed thickly. “Do you know what her mother’s name was?”
Gran continued to buff the face of the pendant. “Eleanor. Her mother’s name was Eleanor. Lanie here is named for her, didn’t you know?”
His focus turned slowly upon me. “You didn’t tell me that.”
I could see the conclusion his mind was leaping toward, but it didn’t make sense. The timeline for it was all wrong. My great-grandma Ginny was two centuries too young to have been the same Virginia he had in mind. The thought, therefore, had never entered my mind. “I didn’t think…” I began.
“She’s never gone by Eleanor,” Gran cut in. “And she’s not really a fan of the name, so I’m not surprised she hasn’t mentioned it. Her mother put it on her birth certificate to honor my great-grandmother, but her daddy shortened it to Lanie practically the moment they cut the cord, and it’s been that way since.”
I could only imagine what he was thinking as he stared at me, his features growing paler by the moment. I’d never been terribly good at reading people, but at the very least I could see confusion tinged with hurt in his eyes. “Eleanor?” he questioned.
I nodded. “Eleanor Evelyn Champan.”
Gran returned to the table, laying the pendant down in the space between us before taking her own seat, a fresh mug of coffee in her hands. Alexander reached toward the necklace tentatively, and his eyes met mine, questioning. I had no idea what he could possibly have wanted with it, but I felt now was not the time to ask. Instead, I simply nodded, and he closed his hand around it.
Gran motioned to the two of us, and our untouched plates. “Go on, you two. Eat up. Grandma Ginny’s pie loses a little of its magic when it’s cold.”
Day 27:
He seated himself on the hope chest at the foot of the bed, cradling the pendant in his palm, the chain spilling between his fingers. Not wanting to spook him any further, I sat beside him, as close to the edge of the chest as I co...uld, so that at the least we weren’t touching. A moment’s silence passed between us.
“How closely did you look at this necklace?” He asked finally, without looking up.
“Not very,” I admitted. “I saw the anchor on the surface of the pendant, and the scrollwork around the edges…”
“It’s not a pendant,” he cut in.
I frowned, feeling a bit confused. “It isn’t?”
In response, he held the necklace in the palm of one hand, while the thumb of the other traced around it, the nail inserted into a seam I hadn’t noticed was there. I heard a soft click, and it popped open.
“A locket?” I asked, and immediately felt stupid.
He said nothing, but pulled the two halves gently apart. Inside were two sketches facing each other, the paper they were drawn on yellowed and brittle with age. The ink was still sharp, though, enough to see the details, few as they could be given the size of the canvas. On one side was a young woman, her features vague, but unmistakably familiar. On the other was depicted the image of an infant, too young for its sex to be easily determined at a glance, but I had no doubt as to who she was.
“God…” I murmured. “Is it possible?”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “But here it is, before our eyes. I am at a loss for how to explain exactly how it came to be, however.”
My fingers reached out gingerly to trace over the gold that framed the pictures. “These portraits,” I said slowly, recalling Alexander speaking of drawing a miniature of Eleanor in the months prior to embarking for Roanoke. The other must have been drawn sometime after the child’s birth, just before the colony vanished forever. “You drew them?”
He nodded. “I did, and upon my return, and in reading about the disappearance of the colony, I thought never to see them again.”
I thought back to the dinner conversation, the way he had paled when he’d first laid eyes upon the locket. “You can’t possibly think that my great grandmother was Virginia Dare.”
“What else, Lanie?” He asked. “After seeing what I have seen, things I once thought impossible, at what other conclusion could I possibly arrive?”
I struggled for an answer. He himself had stepped into a barren clearing in a forgotten corner of the wilderness and emerged into another place entirely, where torches burned with no fire, where horses were no longer used for anything other than recreation and people propelled themselves about in motorized carriages, and where people who had not yet been born when he lived had now been resting beneath hundreds of years’ worth of soil and sod. Was it likely? No. But possible? After the events of the past week, I was at a loss to even define the concept of “possible” anymore.
“But… how?” I managed finally.
He shook his head. “I can only speculate. I fell into this time. If Eleanor and Virginia… if somehow they were able to escape whatever fate befell the others, and they found this place as I did… I found this time. Perhaps… just perhaps, they found another.”
His head lifted then, and his eyes met mine, and I saw in them something I hadn’t seen since our first meeting that day in the library that seemed as though it had happened a century or four ago.
Hope.
Day 28:
“You were not there when they came,” he said, his voice breaking into my thoughts, and I instantly released my hold upon the pendant. His face, or rather the vague shape of it, came back into view. “The red fever laid its hand on m...y brothers, my sisters, my father, my chief, and many others. We burned them all in the night and cast them to the wind, and even as the smoke lingered in the air, I went to Kiwasa to beg his aid. He told me to set upon the English and destroy them all, and only then would the curse be lifted from our land. Destroy them, he said, or else cast them off to the shore whence they came. So by next nightfall our warriors stole into the village and dispatched them, as the curse had done to our own.” His voice had a steely edge that I could hear as he took a breath, and a chill rain down my spine as he said my… her name. “But you were not there, Eleanor. I know you were not, because I asked after you. Gone, they said. Gone, and the babe with you. They rousted your mate from his bed, and he swore to his last breath that he knew not where you’d gone. The knowledge of you would not have saved him, though. I had asked that they be certain to bring me his head when their task was done.”
I saw the face of Ananias in my memory, as I had seen him in the vision, his face softened with a father’s love as he bent to kiss his young daughter upon returning home. If what I had heard from Alexander in the previous hours had been at all true, it was entirely possible, even likely, that this man whose face I saw so clearly was my great-great-grandfather, and with the dawning realization came a fierce anger that such a fate could have befallen someone who was more closely related to me than I ever would have thought.
“Why?” I asked, unable to keep my voice from trembling with fury.
His voice was suddenly closer, and I could make out the shape of his form leaning forward as he continued to row. “His was the babe who had brought death to my people. His the first pale-skinned child who had been born upon our shore. His the woman who had run, and in her flight may have touched the curse upon countless living things on our land. I would have had all three of their heads that night, had she not. Instead, I had his alone, and a fine trophy it made, poised on a pike at the edge of our village.”
“Bastard,” I spat.
Whether he knew the word or not, he certainly sensed my meaning, and the ire behind it, and he laughed again. “Be not vexed, dear Eleanor. I do not imagine he had time to feel fear or furor ere he was relieved of his life. And you, dear heart, shall soon be rid of this place. I have a grander plan for you.”
“And what is that?” I asked. “Do you intend to rid me of my head, too?”
“Of course not,” he said smoothly. “What good would that do, when many of your own are still looking for you?”
Even now, I was having trouble guessing at his intentions. Did he really think that the descendants of Eleanor Dare, few as they were (I, in fact, was an only child, I thought with some irony), were still looking for her? “I should hardly think so, at this point.”
“You underestimate your father,” he replied. “Even as I left, the young lion had reappeared on our shores. Your father, I have no doubt, was with him. I had not thought he would return, but apparently the memory of his daughter and grandchild was sufficient to compel him to our shores once more. I had thought at first to take his head in the stead of his child and grandchild’s upon his return, and when I saw the ships approaching the following spring, I lit a signal fire and carved the name of the Croatoan village into a tree. Upon sight of it, he would make his way to Manteo’s village to find what remained of those he had left behind. What he did not know was that on the road to Croatoan, an ambush would await him.”
However, as history had told it, that was not what had happened. “You didn’t expect Alexander, did you?” I asked.
I felt some small amount of satisfaction in the grunt that preceded his response. “No. His arrival sent me to the ring of Kiwasa. I had not known at the time what good fortune that would turn out to be, Eleanor, for it led me straight to you.”
Day 29:
I’d stumbled any number of times as I picked my way gingerly along the trail. Wanchese was barefoot as I was, and seemed unconcerned about the rough terrain. No doubt he was far more used to this than I was, the skin at the soles o...f his feet toughened and accustomed to such abuse. He didn’t bother threatening me with the knife, certain at this point, I was sure, that I had nowhere to run, and no one who was readily available to come to my aid. Instead, he merely gripped one of my wrists tightly in his hand as he expertly wound his way between the trees at a swift gallop. At length I tripped over a large root I hadn’t seen, and was thrown forth onto my knees. I instantly felt the harsh sting of the scrapes on my shins, and the moisture of fresh tears sprang anew to my eyes. I gasped for breath, sucking the cool night into my lungs, and felt the burn in my chest.
“Please…” I said weakly. “I need to rest.”
Ignoring my plea, he jerked me back to my feet. “It is not much farther,” he said. “Kiwasa will be angered if we tarry too long.”
I continued to trip over unforgiving rocks and twigs in the path, cutting my feet more than once. It was only when the trees suddenly ceased altogether and we burst into the open night air that we stopped. The abrupt change in pace sent me hurtling forward, landing in the barren earth on my belly with a hard smack.
As I began to lift myself up, I glanced about and realized that I did, in fact, know this place. I had been here only hours before, watching the sun stream into the clearing as the horses huddled beneath the trees. The light from the sky, dim though it was, was unfiltered in this spot by the branches that surrounded us on all sides. The large, gray rock was where I remembered it, and now knowing its significance, I was unable to suppress a small shudder.
“Kiwasa…” Wanchese called softly as he drifted toward the center of the clearing, as though in a trance. “I have come.”
An answering breeze rose softly up to greet him. Coincidence, I thought as I sat back, placing my palms in the dirt and scooting backward toward the protective shelter of the trees. I watched warily as he began to chant in a tongue I could not understand, and for that I was at least somewhat grateful. To my amazement, what had begun as a soft breeze grew slowly into a roar, until it was whipping about him with the fury of a freight train.
Then a heavy weight dropped like a boulder into my stomach as he turned, his eyes on me. He held out a beckoning hand, and I knew that whether I chose to grasp it of my own will or not, he would soon be hurtling over that threshold, carrying me with him. My heart began to race, and every muscle in my body tightened as he began to advance toward me, the knife clutched with a viselike grip in his hand.
“Come, Eleanor,” he said, and I could see his eyes glinting in the darkness. “It is time.”
In time with the frantic pounding of my heart, I could feel the solidity of the pendant perched atop it, throbbing like a steady beacon. Startled, I glanced down, and though I could easily have dismissed it as a hallucination brought on by the stress of the last few hours, I could swear I saw a soft glow from beneath the white linen of the nightgown.
Optical illusion or no, my hand flew to my chest to grasp it tightly in my fist.
Please, I cried out silently, having no idea to whom I was casting this futile prayer. Help me.
As if in answer, I felt a stirring behind me, though I didn’t dare turn around. Instead, I watched as Wanchese lifted his gaze from me, and the calm serenity upon his features was instantly transformed into a snakelike sneer.
“Lay one finger upon her, savage, and you shall not live long enough to regret it,” came the familiar, soothing voice behind me.
Day 30:
I raced down the steps as quickly as my feet could carry me, willing myself not to stumble and break my neck as I did. When I finally reached the bottom, panting wildly, Marge looked up from the latest tale of the dashing Dr. Fleet... in which she was now engrossed, and her eyebrows flew so high they nearly disappeared into the unruly mess of curls on her head.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” She asked. “Fletcher ambled out of here twenty minutes ago. I was about to send a search party. Did he get you spooked or something?”
I placed a hand on the counter, struggling to get the words out of my mouth even as I fought to catch my breath. “Phelps’ notes. I need to see them.”
Her features screwed into a look of utter confusion. “Whose notes?”
“The Croatan dig!” I snapped impatiently. “Dr. Phelps’ notes. One of his research assistants transcribed them into the database, didn’t they?”
Realization dawned in her eyes, and her face relaxed. “Oh. Those. Yeah.” She turned toward her computer, lazily tapping at the keys as though she had all the time in the world. And perhaps I did, too. After all, the events I was seeking knowledge of had happened hundreds of years in the past, and whatever they were, there was no changing them now. That fact, however, did nothing to hamper my sense of urgency.
After what seemed like an eternity, an article popped up onto the screen, titled “Findings of the Roanoke Voyages, October 1998.”
“Let me see it,” I said, nudging her hastily out of the way even as she’d started to read.
“Hey!” she protested. “What gives?”
I ignored her and frantically scanned the article, finally pulling up a search box and hastily typing Alexander’s name into it.
Marge, always happy to be party to any sort of excitement, read over my shoulder as I searched. “Hey, isn’t that the name of… God, Lane, what the hell is going on?”
I remained silent as the cursor jumped to another part of the page, where Alexander’s name was highlighted in the text of the epitaph just as I’d seen it. I skipped over it, having no desire to read it again, and continued to the paragraph below.
Further research of the passenger manifests and London records has indicated that Alexander Kendall was an artist in the employ of John White, and accompanied White on his second and third voyages to Roanoke. Upon their last arrival on the island, Kendall promptly disappeared and was not seen for some four months. His whereabouts during this time are unknown, but when he re-emerged from the woods and wandered into the Croatan settlement, he was covered in blood and carried with him a locket belonging to Eleanor Dare, White’s daughter and one of the colonists who had vanished along with the rest of the Roanoke settlement some three years earlier. The bodies of Eleanor and her young daughter were never found, but the evidence found at hand was sufficient to convict Kendall of their murder, and he was condemned to hang at the gallows outside the settlement. Court documents state that the sentence was carried out on the evening of April 14, 1590.
The moments passed by in slow motion as I struggled to process the words on the page. “No,” I whispered. “God… please, no, no, no.” I murmured the word over and over, as though by that simple act of repetition I could somehow undo the centuries that had passed between then and now.
My heart hammered in my chest, and my hands instinctively clutched at it, as though they could somehow slow the frenzied beating, or stop it altogether. I felt a hard lump beneath my fingers, and it took me a moment to remember the pendant. I hadn’t taken it off since I’d been released from the hospital, and it was such a permanent fixture around my neck that I very frequently forgot it was there. Now, however, it pulsated wildly against my palm, demanding to have its presence known.
I recalled my last moment of desperation in which I had clung to it like a homing beacon, and whether by sheer happenstance or not, my salvation had arrived in that very moment. My eyes squeezed shut in fervent prayer.
“What do I do?” I whispered. “What do I do?”
An image of Alexander flashed before my eyes, and I gasped, not only at the sight of his face, but by the noose around his neck. My perspective swung about and I suddenly saw the world through his eyes. He stood on a crude wooden platform beneath a tree, a solemn-faced, seething crowd at his feet. The only light came from the burning torches they carried. He glanced up, searching the empty sky. A few stars had begun to wink overhead, but there was no sign of the moon.
No sign of the moon.
The pendant suddenly grew hot under my hand, and I dropped it in a reflexive gesture. The present came rushing back to greet me, and I opened my eyes. Along with it came the utter certainty of what I had to do.
“Whoa…” Marge whispered behind me, having been reading over my shoulder. “That’s some coincidence, huh? Same name and everything. Spooky.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” I murmured, in a voice so soft that even I could barely hear it. I stepped back from the computer and whirled about on my heel, grabbing my jacket from the coat hook, my bag from the floor just beneath it, and made a beeline for the door.
“Hey!” Marge called after me. “Where are you going?”
“There’s something I need to do,” I called back.
“Wait!” She cried. “Jesus, Lane, there’s something very odd about all of this. It doesn’t make sense. Explain it to me.”
I threw a parting glance over my shoulder as I hefted the strap of my bag onto it. If I had attempted to explain to any rational person the events which I myself had just within the last few days begun to accept, they would have written me off as a loony. But if anyone in the world had the capacity to understand or believe any of it, it would be Marge. Silly-hearted, daydreaming Marge. The outlandish tales of the dashing Dr. Fleet may have proved useful after all, if only to prepare her for what was to come.
“Do me a favor, Marge,” I said. “Read that entire article. Read everything you can get your hands on about the history of the lost colony of Roanoke. Then give me about a week, and read it again.”
She stepped out from behind the counter, her voice tinged with panic and desperation for the first time since I’d known her. “Lanie… are you coming back?”
I took one long, last look at her, and felt a pang of regret. For all her quirks, Marge had been a dear friend to me in these past months, and I knew already that I’d miss her terribly. The simple truth of the matter was that I honestly wasn’t certain how, or if, I would be able to get back. But I couldn’t really concern myself with that now.
“Tell Fletcher I’m on sabbatical. A research project involving the effect of decomposition in the soil on hammered gold.” That, at least, he would understand.
