Summer of Lost and Found (26 page)

After extra days in Roanoke to deal with the media craziness and unexpected research work, Mom and I found ourselves back at the rental-car place, ready to fly home. The coffee vending machine spat a foamy, chemical-scented hot chocolate into a paper cup for me. I dumped a generous amount of coffee creamer into it to make up for the lack of real milk, then walked over to my mom, who was handing over the Jeep keys to the agent behind the desk.

“I hope you enjoyed your time in these parts.” The agent smiled at me.

“We certainly did,” I said.

“And you'll visit again sometime,” she added.

“The next trip's already planned,” Mom said, ruffling my hair. It was true—she would be back in a little over a month. This time, I was begging to come with her.

We both slept on the plane. As my mom put it, we were “bone tired.” I didn't wake up until our wheels touched down at LaGuardia. For once, we didn't have to wait in the hour-long taxi line because as soon as we walked into the baggage claim area, I saw Jade, grinning and holding up a sign with
DARE
written on it in glitter paint.

“Jade!” I shrieked, running over to her.

“I figured we should take the car to get you—save you from the paparazzi, now that you guys are big news,” she said. “We need a sleepover ASAP so I can get all the details. Anyway—sorry I missed a couple of your texts. It was fun hanging out with Sofia and stuff, and the red pandas at zoo camp were super cute, but I still missed my best friend. I'm so happy you're back!”

We hugged, and as soon as we broke apart she started in with the questions. “How did you find a lost colony? Are you going to be on
Good Morning America
? So are you friends with that Lila girl now? What's the deal with
Ambrose
? How come the news didn't mention him at all? And when the heck am I finally going to see a picture of him?”

“Jade! Give them a minute to grab their things,” her mom scolded. But as Jade's parents helped us load our bags into their trunk, I started filling her in on everything that had happened. Not the full story about Ambrose, yet—that was definitely a conversation we needed to have without my mom scrunched in the backseat with us.

“For the record, you totally had the cooler summer,” Jade said. I had to agree.

Their car whisked us through Queens and over the Triborough Bridge toward home. Dusk was falling over Manhattan, and the peach-colored sky reminded me of our last sunset on Roanoke Island. As Mom and I were heading home from the Grandmother Vine woods, we'd driven past the sound. Over the ocean, the sky had taken on a beautiful sherbet-orange color.

“Look at that painterly sky, sprout,” Mom had said. “You never see a sunset like that facing east.”

I like to think that it was a sign from Ambrose and his mom—that somewhere out in that sea, they had reunited with his dad and were all finding their way home.

I could hardly contain my excitement when the car reached my neighborhood.
There's my pizza place!
My stomach growled for a greasy slice.
And my bookstore!
Finally, we turned onto my block. Our walk-up building looked the same as when we left it, except Mrs. Kim had fixed up her window boxes with some pretty violets. I jumped out of the car the second it stopped. Jade helped me drag my suitcase up the stoop.

“Sleepover tomorrow?” I asked. “I'll tell you the whole truth and nothing but.”

She gave me a thumbs-up from the backseat. “You better!” As soon as their car pulled away, I left my bags in the entryway and called to Mom, “I'll go upstairs and open the door!” I bounded up all five flights, key in hand. But when I went to turn it in our lock, the door swung open. My dad stood inside, kind of awkwardly, in front of a banner that said
WELCOME HOME!

“Dad!” I threw myself into his arms, almost knocking him over with a hug.

“Whoa, Nelly! I've missed you so much.” He hugged me back just as hard. “I'm so proud of you. ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce.' ” He added, “That's from
A Midsummer Night's Dream
.” I heard footsteps on the landing, and then I felt a third body glom onto our hug.

“Welcome back, Celia.”

Mom coughed kind of nervously, but smiled and replied, “Same to you.” Not exactly a homecoming that suggested my family was back to normal—but at least we were all together. Including my mom's plants, which had survived a summer without us.

It was hard to let my dad out of my sight; I followed him from room to room in our apartment for the first hour or so we were home. When he sat down in his favorite easy chair, I plopped down by his feet instead of on the couch next to him (kind of like Sir Walter did to me, I guess). He was eager to hear everything firsthand—and he had a fresh writing notebook ready to fill with our story. But eventually I figured that maybe he and my mom could use a minute alone. I went to my room to “unpack,” but really stared at them through the keyhole of my bedroom door and listened.

At first they sat awkwardly in the living room, glancing at each other. Finally my mom said, “So what was the deal with London?” Then Dad got up and pulled something out of his battered laptop bag. It looked like a restaurant menu. He handed it to her, and she looked up at him with surprise. “You went back to Arden?” I remembered my mom telling me about a romantic dinner at that restaurant, next to the Globe Theatre, when they were on their honeymoon.

“I thought I went to London to escape everything, but the day I found myself standing at its door I realized that, really, I had wanted to go back where we started.”

Mom looked like she was going to cry again. I've seen enough movies to know that this was like a “grand gesture” on my dad's part, and I wanted her to jump up and kiss him (even though, ew) and then everything would be okay. But she stayed on the couch, sniffling. Finally, she said, “I miss that time too. If we could find our way back . . .” She reached out and put the palm of her hand on top of his.

After they were done talking, I unpacked for real. Putting away my toiletries in the bathroom, I smiled as I placed my toothbrush back in the holder. The tree held three brushes again. Whatever happened next—for right now, nothing was missing. Later that night, the three of us were curled up on our perfectly sized-for-three couch, stuffed with scallion pancakes and watching TV. My phone buzzed. I picked it up to see a message from Lila:
Look! Found these by the Watergate
. The attached picture showed two new artifacts. The first was the flask—which I now understood had Ambrose's father's initials on it. The second was a small, bright signet ring, displayed in the palm of Lila's hand. I knew exactly to whom it had belonged.

My heart swelled. I glanced over at my parents, who leaned against each other on the couch. Outside our windows, the city played its nightly symphony of sirens and horns and dogs barking and laughter. I was
home
. I remembered what Ambrose had said to me in the woods, when I was frustrated about my dad and Lila and everything else going on in my life: “Never give up. What you think is lost may still be found.” And in that moment I thought,
Truer words have never been spoken
.

I can still picture the page of my elementary-school history textbook—especially the tiny black-and-white illustration showing confused Englishmen standing in front of a tree carved with
CRO
. The story of the lost colony of Roanoke was told in only a few short paragraphs—the arrival of the 117 men, women, and children; the struggles they had on the island to support themselves and coexist with the people whose home they occupied; the departure of their leader, John White; and their mysterious disappearance before his return. The most unbelievable part was that four hundred years later we still didn't know more about the fate of the first English settlement in America. The unsolved mystery of the lost colony never stopped fascinating me—and that is why this book is in your hands.

A note on Ambrose: The Viccars family really did travel to Roanoke as part of the 1587 colony. However, the real Ambrose was probably a small child during the time on Roanoke. For storytelling purposes, I made my Ambrose character closer in age to Nell.

Like most mysteries, the story of the lost colony of Roanoke is complex. It's important to note that while the colonists were the first English people to attempt to live permanently in North America, Roanoke Island was already home to many Native people. Carolina Algonquian tribes, including the Roanoke and Croatoan, had lived in the Outer Banks area for centuries. The arrival of European explorers and settlers dramatically, and tragically, changed their way of life. The story of Roanoke cannot be told without acknowledging that the determination, hopefulness, and wonder of the Europeans who crossed the sea would have cruel consequences for the Native people living there.

The Roanoke colony of 1587—the lost colony—was not the first to set foot on Roanoke Island. The English visited the area in 1584 while searching for a potential colony site between Spanish Florida and Newfoundland, and in 1585 a fortified camp was made on the island as a base for exploration of the coast and mainland. That group consisted of men only, mostly soldiers, miners, gentlemen, tradesmen, and sailors, and was led by Sir Richard Grenville. Shortly after arriving, the Englishmen lost a silver cup. They blamed the people of the Aquascogoc village for taking it—and responded by setting fire to their homes. After two months, Grenville decided to sail back to England for more supplies and left a small contingent of men on the island, with Ralph Lane as their governor. After Grenville's departure, the colony became a disaster. The men did not have enough food. Tensions with the local tribes, a result of the Englishmen's arrogant behavior and constant demands for food, erupted. Wingina, the leader of the Roanoke, convinced several tribes to plan an attack on the English settlement. But Lane's men struck first, and murdered Wingina. Their violence brought chaos to the region. When the explorer Sir Francis Drake passed by, the men begged him to take them back to England. Within weeks of their departure, Grenville arrived at the island. Finding the settlement deserted, he left another small group of men, with enough supplies to hold the fort for two years.

It was in that troubled environment that the 1587 colony tried to create a home. But, in fact, they never intended to settle permanently on Roanoke. Sir Walter Raleigh had sent them to start a new English colony, incorporated as the “Cittie of Ralegh,” in the Chesapeake Bay—where they hopefully would have more success than the previous attempt. On their way, the colonists stopped at Roanoke Island to check on the men Grenville had left behind to maintain the fort, but upon arrival they made the grisly discovery that all had perished. The colonists' fate was sealed when the master and pilot of their fleet, a “scoundrel” and former pirate named Simon Fernandez, would not let them back on the ships to travel to the Chesapeake. They were abandoned at Roanoke.

That is where the tantalizing story of their disappearance begins. We know that the colonists struggled on the island—they didn't have enough supplies; they didn't have enough time to plant crops, as they arrived in late summer; and their relationships with the Native people were shadowed by the brutal behavior of the previous colony as well their own mistakes. Scientists studying tree rings today have learned that in 1587 the area suffered a serious, devastating drought. Even those who had lived there for many years would have struggled to survive as a result of it.

The floundering colonists had a lifeline in their friendship with Manteo, whose family ruled the Croatoan tribe. Manteo had returned to England with two explorers in 1584, as an honored guest. He had sailed back to Roanoke with the 1587 colony and helped them as a guide and translator. They never could have survived without Manteo's guidance and generosity. But even with it, their situation was dire.

In August 1587, the colonists convinced their governor, John White, to return to England for help. White was hesitant to go—he worried that it would look like he had abandoned his colony. He would be leaving behind his own family. His daughter, Eleanor, had given birth to the first English child born in North America: Virginia Dare. But the best hope for the group was for White to seek help. He intended to come back right away, but three whole years passed before he was able to return. He finally made it back to Roanoke on August 18, 1590—his granddaughter Virginia Dare's third birthday. As you know, White found the colony abandoned. All the buildings had been taken down, and there were no signs of distress. Only the letters
CRO
carved into a tree and the word “Croatoan” into a post offered clues as to the colonists' whereabouts.

There are many theories about what the colonists' fate may have been. John White understood the
CRO
carving to mean that they had moved to Croatoan Island (called Hatteras today) to live in Manteo's village. He was unable to search for them there during his 1590 return because a brewing storm and problems with his ships forced him back out to sea. But it's impossible to know if he would have found the colonists on Croatoan at all. They could have suffered a devastating illness, or a hurricane could've ruined their settlement. They may have fought with a local tribe or been attacked by the Spanish. Or they may have traveled “fifty miles into the main,” trying to finally get to the Chesapeake Bay. Perhaps the most likely scenario is some combination of those theories. Over the years, more clues have been found—from the “Dare stone” on which Eleanor Dare allegedly carved the story of the colony's fate, to tales of seventeenth-century European explorers encountering Native people using English building techniques inland—but we still don't have an answer. Research into what happened to the colonists is ongoing. During the summer of 2015, researchers announced important evidence that at least some colonists had traveled sixty miles from the island, to a site on the western shore of the Albemarle Sound. Concealed markings on a sixteenth-century map led researchers to a secluded North Carolina spot where they uncovered Border ware pottery—compelling evidence that some of the lost colonists had found their way there. Perhaps by the time you are reading this book, scientists will have discovered new clues!