Summer of Lost and Found (13 page)

Not seeing Ambrose, I started to wander. Beyond the visitor center was the reconstructed fort. I ran into the center of it, hoping to feel
something
. Even if it wasn't where the lost colonists' village had been, it was still a spot where a whole lot of history happened. I wanted the weight of time to press on my shoulders. But all I felt was the breeze and a mosquito biting my ankle. The Grandmother Vine, frankly, had more of an energy. I walked onto a path called the Thomas Hariot Nature Trail. The air smelled woodsy and floral-sweet, almost like Jade's mom's favorite perfume. Patterns of sunlight danced on the piney path as I crunched along. The soothing sound of waves crashing on the shore, punctuated by songbirds, was the only noise. I stopped to read some of the placards telling me what the plants were: more loblolly pines, a type of persimmon the Thomas Hariot guy called “medlar.” Suddenly, I heard a rustling in the woods, to my left. I peered into the brush.

“What is up, Nell?” Only one person could be botching slang like that.

Ambrose hurried toward me, waving his hand. “Where are you coming from?” I asked. It didn't even look like he was walking on an actual trail.

“I was taking a stroll.”

I gave him a funny look. “More like taking a
hike
. I hope you're careful about ticks.”

He stopped next to me, panting a little, although his face was sweat-free and not even a bit red. I don't know how someone who works in an outdoor park and spends so much time in the sun can be that pale, but he was.
His mom probably is a sunscreen freak too.
But he kind of had that post-stomach-flu look—perhaps he'd gotten sick. “It's good to see you again, Nell.”

I blushed. “You too.” I cleared my throat. “Let's head inside. I could use a drink. I should've brought the flask.” I winced, almost clamping my hand over my mouth.
Why did I say that?!
I still hadn't figured out how to tell Ambrose that it was gone. Grasping for a quick way to change the subject, I remembered what my dad had told me about my Dare lineage. “Oh! I found out something cool. Apparently I'm distantly related to Virginia Dare's family, because my ancestors were their cousins. My dad's looking into it. Neat, huh?”

“That is very neat!” He looked impressed, but he didn't sound as surprised as I'd expected. “The world is tiny.”

I frowned. “I think you mean ‘small world.' ” It was like he'd never heard of the Disneyland ride.

I wrestled with the visitor center's heavy door. Ambrose slipped in behind me, so close he almost bumped into me as it quickly shut.
What a gentleman
. My mom would chide me for thinking that—she'd tell me that I can handle a door by myself,
thankyouverymuch
. Even so, it would've been nice of Ambrose to help me hold it open as I flailed. Weren't Southern, and British, boys supposedly known for their chivalry and good manners?

Inside, the visitor center had a darkened movie-screening room, a small exhibition room with ornate wood paneling, and a larger exhibition room. Glass cases full of artifacts filled the hushed space, with illustrations, maps, and educational panels mounted above them. Looking at shards of pottery, glass beads, and other items in the cases, I felt a guilty pang. How much would the clue we'd found help the researchers at Fort Raleigh?
Assuming we get it back from Lila, Ambrose and I will definitely turn the flask over to the people here
, I thought.
When we know the truth.

“Where do we even start?” I asked after gulping mouthfuls of water from the fountain.

Ambrose scanned the lobby. “Let's split up to look around.”

“What exactly are we looking for?”

But he had already flitted off to examine something in the room with all the carved wood panels. I walked to the center of the lobby, stopping in front of a big display. The label read:
CARTOGRAPHY: A KEY TO THE MISSING COLONY?
I leaned in to get a good look at a picture of an old map, titled “The Englishmen in Virginia.” I tried to find Roanoke among the shaded areas I took to be land. The labels didn't make much sense to me:
WEAPEMEOC
,
TRINETY HARBOR
,
PASQUENOKE
. Next to it was another map: “The Modern Area.” I recognized the Albemarle Sound on that one.

“Need some help interpreting?” I whirled around to see Lila's dad walking past the gift shop. He slipped a pair of wire-rimmed glasses out of his front shirt pocket and set them on the bridge of his nose.

“Hi, Mr. Midgett,” I said. “I'd love help, if you're not busy.”

“Not at all. It's been quiet here today.” Luke stopped beside me and peered at the display. “Can you tell what these two maps have in common?”

“Hmm . . .” I squinted back and forth at the two. “Both have something called ‘Weapemeoc' marked.”

“Excellent! That's a village on the mainland, across the water from Roanoke Island. It's where the Weapemeoc people lived.”

“Okay.” I nodded my head. “Why's it on both maps? Is it because . . .” I thought about the labels for each. “One shows what places were called in the sixteenth century, and one shows today?”

Luke smiled. “You're right! This map is made from John White's drawings of the area in 1585. It's remarkably accurate. The other shows the same area today. But it's not just the names of places that have changed—the land has too. A lot of these inlets”—he pointed at breaks in the little islands sketched on the old map—“have disappeared. Roanoke Island itself is smaller by almost a quarter mile along the shoreline. Places that were safely on land at the time of the colonists are now underwater. That's because of erosion. Entire islands that were south of Roanoke in White's time are now gone.”

“So the lost colony could actually be underwater?”
Like the knee-deep spot where I stubbed my toe on the flask.

He nodded. “It's possible. That's why in addition to searching for archaeological evidence on land, we search in the sound, too.”

“How?” I could only picture archaeologists working in dirt and dust.

“Same tools—just plastic, because that's waterproof. Things that divers use—like scuba gear—help us access sites.”

I wished Ambrose were around to hear this information. I scanned the lobby, but I didn't see him anywhere. Looking back at the map, I thought about what the flask's scratches said—that some of the colonists had left Roanoke. “Could the colonists have fled to the islands that are now underwater? Maybe that's why we've never found clues they left behind.”

“Perhaps. There are lots of theories.” He pointed to the tribe labels on the map. “We can use what we know about the history of Native people living in this area to figure out what happened to the colonists. If they moved, they might have assimilated with tribes in other places, becoming part of those communities. There are stories of European explorers meeting Native people with typically European features, like gray-blue eyes or light hair. The research your mother is doing interests me—because the colonists and the local tribes had different methods of cultivating plants.”

“Cool.” I thought about the old map. “If White made maps, then why didn't he draw one showing where he left the colonists?”

“The colonists faced a lot of threats. White wouldn't have wanted some people—their enemies—to be able to find them. Here.” Luke motioned me over to a small map, locked a big glass case. He pulled a key chain out of his pocket and undid the lock, then removed the paper. He carefully set it on the glass in front of us.

“Is it very old?” The paper looked crumbly and thin. The whole map was covered in little patches and almost worn through in places. The writing was so faded, it was hard to read.

He nodded. “This is a map Sir Walter Raleigh actually used.” I assumed he didn't mean his dog, but the other one.

“Are you serious?” I breathed. “Don't you need gloves to touch that?”

He shook his head, laughing a little. “Honestly, those gloves are mostly for show. Using them on parchment this delicate might actually cause more harm, because it can make it difficult to handle the paper gently. When we use gloves, it's partly to remind others not to touch.” He pointed to one of the patches stuck on the paper. “See that? For a long time, we thought that the patches were here simply to preserve the map, or correct errors. But”—he carefully tapped the square—“now we've discovered that they actually
conceal
portions of it. Perhaps because it was so important that the English keep their location secret from Spanish spies.”

“Maybe they
were
hiding the location of the colony!” I whirled around again. What was taking Ambrose so long? He was totally missing this!

“We can see that the shape of the island underneath has changed. Whether it was drawn that way to confuse people, whether the mapmaker made a mistake, or whether it's simply because of geographical changes like erosion, we don't know.”

“Interesting. So have you found any evidence in the water?” I was thinking of the flask. Who knew what researchers had already discovered, or what else was waiting below the waves.

He nodded. “Most of my finds have been on land, but others have discovered artifacts in the sound. Sonar can find a lot of stuff, and so can some underwater metal detectors. You should talk to Lila about that.”

I frowned. Lila had access to all this museum stuff, and everything her dad knew, all the time. If I told him what I was interested in, it might get back to her.

“Anyway, I was just about to add new information cards to our exhibit in the next room. Do you want to help me?”

“Sure!”

He locked up the map. “Excellent. I'm going to grab them from my office. I'll be right back.”

I just needed to wrangle Ambrose. I found him in the doorway of the smaller exhibition room, tracing the carved wood with his fingertips.

“These walls tell a story,” he said, dreamily. “The wood panels are from an Elizabethan estate in England. It reminds me of home. I mean,” he added quickly, “what I remember of it.”

“They're beautiful,” I said. “But there's something else you should see. I've been looking at the maps with Mr. Midgett.” Ambrose gave me a blank look. I added, “Lila's dad?” When he shook his head, I realized that I'd never mentioned her to him. “She's a girl I met at the bookstore. She's kind of a frenemy.” He gave me a third blank look, like he didn't know what “frenemy” meant. “You know, a friend who's not really very friendly.”

“Frenemy,” he said. “Like the colonists were to those already on Roanoke.”

That was one way to put it. “Kind of, but that was definitely a lot more serious. Anyway, Mr. Midgett is a researcher here, and he's working in that room over there. Want to go talk with him?”

He looked unsure. Just then, Lila's dad stuck his head into the room. “Coming, Nell?” Ambrose's face brightened a little when he saw him. “
Okay
,” he whispered to me.

“Hi there,” Luke said to Ambrose. “Didn't I see you out by the theater the other day? Taking a break from
The Lost Colony
?”

“Yep,” Ambrose said. “It was time for one.”

Lila's dad smiled. “You must work really hard. I know my daughter wanted to be a part of the show—you're lucky! Who are you this year?”

“Just a villager,” Ambrose replied. “A small part.”

“Well, congrats,” Lila's dad said. “Now, you two follow me.”

“
You didn't tell me you were in the show!
” I whispered.

“Er . . . it's a long story,” he said, blushing.

The other room held a hodgepodge of artifacts, documents, paintings, and displays. Ambrose darted over to a glass case in the far corner. Nobody else was in the room, not even a security guard. Mom's museum had security everywhere, and if they had even the tiniest inkling that you were about to touch—or even think about touching—the dinosaurs or another artifact on display, they were all over you. “You would be amazed at what people try to do in a museum,” Mom once told me.

Luke stopped at the cases along the wall. “Shoot. I printed the wrong cards,” he said, pointing to the thick card stock printed with curatorial notes on top of the box he was carrying. “I'll be back.”

Alone in the room, Ambrose and I strolled around, examining the bits and pieces on display. All of a sudden, he let out a yelp, and I asked, “What are you looking at?” I scooted next to him and practically pressed my nose against the glass. He did the same. His face was so close to mine that my breathing got a little shallower. After a few seconds Ambrose straightened up. He looked excited, maybe, but not happy. Distressed, I guess, was the right word. “Are you okay?”

Ambrose swallowed hard and took a long blink. Was he holding back tears? I glanced away for a few seconds. Maybe he wouldn't want me to see him cry, if he was on the verge after all. “I'm fine,” he said eventually. He sighed and pointed at the third row of items behind the glass. “It's that.” His voice cracked a little.

I followed his finger to a ring. The tag below it read:
ELIZABETHAN-STYLE SIGNET RING, 10-CARAT GOLD. RECOVERED: 2004, FROM ALBEMARLE SOUND
. “It's a . . . very nice ring,” I said.

Ambrose faced me. His eyes were brighter than ever, but red-rimmed. “It shouldn't be here,” he said. “There must've been some mistake. It belongs in my family.”

“Wait.” I tried to wrap my head around this. “That's from
Elizabethan
England. How can it be from your family?”

“A relative.” He paused, pressing his palm to the glass. “A distant relative must've lost it. See the crest?”