Summer of Lost and Found (7 page)

“My mom's super overprotective too. And I'm also helping mine at work for the summer. So, what's your name?” I wasn't normally capable of asking a boy I'd just met for his name, much less after establishing myself as a total dork by curtsying in front of him. Maybe it's because I had caught him staring at me the day before. That gave me some confidence.

His face flushed. “Where are my manners? I'm Ambrose Viccars Junior. My mother is Elizabeth Viccars. And you are?”

“Nell Dare, and my mom's Celia Wood.” I stuck my hand out to shake his, but he didn't reach for it. I quickly pulled back and clasped my hands together. My palms were kind of sweaty, anyway, so maybe that was for the best.

“Dare!” His eyes lit up with excitement.
What is it with people around here and
Dare?
I get that it's a famous name, but it's not like I freak out about every Hudson or LaGuardia I meet.

“I know, like this county.”

His cheeks lost some of their paleness. “Er, right.” He glanced over at his mom. “Excuse me for one minute? I'll ask my mother permission to take you on a tour of the grounds. If that's, um,
cool
.”

I nodded, and Ambrose raced over to his mom. She looked at me somewhat suspiciously at first, her mouth set in a tight frown. But he kept talking and suddenly she smiled. I could see her nod yes to Ambrose, then take his face in her hands and kiss his forehead. She disappeared around the side of the building as Ambrose walked back to me, turning once to wave, but she had already slipped away. It seemed kind of weird that he was such a mama's boy, but at the same time it was nice.

Ambrose and I strolled to the American Indian village. “The park is very accurate. It's almost as though the people who created it had been able to see John White's drawings. Or speak with Manteo themselves,” Ambrose said.

John White
—I remembered that name from Lila's lecture on the bookstore porch. “He was the governor of the colonists, right?”

Ambrose grinned at me. “Yes! So you know about him?”

“A little. I've started learning the history of this island—I figured I might as well, if I'm stuck here for the summer.”

Ambrose nodded. “Me too.”

“I thought you lived here all the time?”

He paused thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I live here
and
I'm stuck.” His voice still had an accent. It wasn't unlike the one Renée at the bookstore had, and other people in the area, too. Maybe that was some kind of Southern drawl, although it sounded more like a brogue. I smiled at him, and we kept walking.

“Does your dad work here too?” I didn't know why I'd asked that. I wasn't normally so nosy, and I'd been trying to keep off the subject of dads as much as possible, so long as mine was MIA. But there was something about Ambrose—he was easy to talk to. Mellow. The opposite of Lila, who made me feel oddly competitive with someone I'd just met and never had to see again.

“My father left us,” Ambrose said. “But he'll be back someday.”

I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I actually stopped midstride, and Ambrose took two steps ahead of me before he realized that I was standing still. “Nell?” he asked. “Are you all right?”

“Sorry,” I said, a little dazed. Hearing Ambrose talk so matter-of-factly about his own dad leaving was a shock. I still hadn't even told Jade what was really going on with mine. “It's that, well, my dad is gone too, and I don't know when he's coming home.” It felt good to say that out loud to someone. I let out a deep breath.

Ambrose's smile showed so much sympathy that I thought I might cry. “Home to Roanoke?” Ambrose stood next to me, so close our arms were almost touching. It felt like we both wanted to reach out and give each other a hug, but neither of us had the guts to do it.

I shook my head. “New York City. Where I'm from. Apparently he went to London.”

“London!” Ambrose said, grinning. “That's where I'm from.”

“I knew it! I could hear it in your voice.” It wasn't just the fake colonial speak, or that local twang, but traces of a British accent that hid in his vowels and certain words, like “over” and “never.” “How long have you lived here? And why'd you move?”

He shrugged. “My parents wanted a new life, I suppose. We've been here a few years.”

We'd walked past the village and were at the edge of the park, close to the shimmering Shallowbag Bay. “So if you work here, you must know a lot about the lost colonists,” I said.

Ambrose was quiet. I hoped I sounded curious and not like an interrogator, as Lila had, even though Ambrose had brought John White up in the first place. Being near the water reminded me of the scene I had imagined, of the man on the coast with the doll for his granddaughter, Virginia. Even though I had made it up, I couldn't erase it from my brain. It was so painful to think of the friends and family of all those colonists, never knowing what became of them. “I can't get it out of my head. It's unbelievable that they still don't know the truth, after all these years.” Right then, I had a thought—one that should've occurred to me sooner. This island was the site of a massive, centuries-old mystery. My dad writes about those two very things: mysteries and histories. What if he could write about Roanoke? What if he—or
we
—could figure out what happened? Or find clues about where the colonists had lived. It would be the best kind of mystery to solve—a real one. “I want to find them,” I said. “Or at least some clues that nobody has been able to uncover yet.”

Ambrose turned slowly, letting the idea sink in. “Maybe you could. Exploring this island is practically all I do, and I know all the places they might have been—and gone.”

“Really?” I asked. He nodded, biting his lip. “Then let's explore the island together.” I felt a little flutter in my chest. As curious as I was about the lost colony, and excited about the idea of solving the mystery to help my dad, I have to admit that I also wanted to spend more time with Ambrose.

He grinned, his eyes shining. “Awestruck!”

“You mean ‘awesome'?”

“Er, yes.” He shrugged. “That's what we say around here.” Ambrose was definitely a little odd, with his reenactor clothes and having to get permission from his mom to walk around with me. But there was something very charming about him. I'll admit it: He was super cute. Every time his floppy hair fell over his blue eyes, I had to restrain myself from reaching over to brush it away. I wanted to take his picture with my phone and send it to Jade. She would gush over how adorable he was. She'd probably get on the next plane to come visit me (and meet his friends).

Ambrose suggested we meet up at the Elizabethan Gardens the next morning at eleven. From there, we'd figure out how to start our investigation.

“Maybe we should exchange numbers, so we could text before meeting up.”

He looked embarrassed. “I don't actually have a telephone.”

I nodded. “It took years for me to convince my parents to put me on the family plan and get me my own phone.” What finally made it happen was the day that Dad, on a deadline for some freelance thing, got caught up in his writing at the coffee shop and forgot to pick me up from school. I walked home, which was fine, but once I got there I was locked out of the apartment. Mrs. Kim found me sitting on the stoop and took me in for tea and cookies. She had me call Mom at work to let her know where I was, and Mom freaked. After that, I got my own phone. Also, Mr. Cohen had watched the whole thing unfold from inside his front-facing apartment, so he pulled an old manual on locksmithing from the depths of his bookshelves and gave it to me, along with a few lessons in lock picking. I wasn't a natural, which is to say I've never managed to get a lock open.

“Do you really think we could find something?” Maybe I was being foolish, a city girl coming here and thinking she'd stomp around the woods and on the beach for a couple of weeks and solve the oldest mystery in America.

“As a colonist would've said,
perchance
,” Ambrose said. “I really do.”

Maybe this summer would be more exciting than I thought.

If the voyage were rough, our arrival was e'en more so. Once the last of the planters loaded into the boat for shore, the slippery and wicked Fernandez announced he would take us no farther. How absolute a snake was he for leaving us to find our way to the Chesapeake.

Until we could journey thither, Roanoke was our home. For not yet a week we had stood on its shores, when already one of our colony we lost: George Howe, assistant to Governor White and father to my friend George. The elder George we found dead in the shallow water whither he had gone to crab.

'Twas a murder!

When news reached the village that sixteen arrows had struck him, 'twas as though a cloud covered the whole island. Nary a soul knew what caused him to be killed. Mother and I stayed with his son, George, day and night, to console him as best we could. In light of that most wicked event, the island grew dark and eerie. How hopeful we all were, on the way to our new land. Upon his death, we all clearly saw the struggles that lay ahead.

Fortune had given us the assistance of Manteo, the Croatoan man returned from England with us. He was our friend and our guide. Two days after poor George was found, Manteo and some of the men sought answers on Croatoan Island. Thither they heard that George had been killed by Roanoac men, led by Wanchese—who still wanted to avenge the werowance Wingina's murder. The Croatoans, though, had shown much compassion in helping our group, so long as we agreed to ne'er take their grain. They would help us plant crops and gather for the coming winter. 'Twas a blessing, nothing less, to have their help—especially as, for lacking salt, we would struggle to store food for the cold weather.

Despite the danger that lapped at our settlement, like the waves upon the shore—Roanoke was a beautiful isle. The flowers and trees, most bountiful. The sandy ground smelled nothing like the mucky, malodorous dirt in London, but had a fresh and rich scent. 'Twas the goodliest soil any of us had e'er seen. We were most eager to set our plantings.

Upon us was the task of repairing the structures from the failed colony of 1585. When at long last we found the fort, 'twas filled not with Grenville's men, but with an overgrowth of melon vines—and bleached bones of those who had tried to settle the isle before. We were not to stay thither, among the fallen, for long. Mother was relieved—she was afeard whilst living among the ruins. Although I boasted to Thomas that I had no qualms to sleep in the old fort, in truth I was happy that we should leave. I still dreamt of the Chesapeake, full of riches: glittering gold and copper, fresh crabs and crops. And pearls as big as cherries.

Thomas and I (and sometimes young George) devised sport and merriment in the woods. We frolicked and explored, enjoying majestic trees and quiet spaces unlike anything e'er seen at home. We gulped up the water from the streams, so fresh and clean. And we gorged on grapes—the island was thick with vines from which the largest, most juicy white grapes dropped like manna from heaven. Dare say I they were more delicious than anything I e'er ate in London? Explorers who had come hither before proclaimed that this island was “so full of grapes . . . in all the world, the like abundance is not to be found.” My father fretted about drought, but I was not afeard: How possibly could we starve with so much bounty from nature, hither to take? 'Twas our good fortune that we 116 planters might feast upon it.

I
had such a wonderful day today!” Mom burst through the kitchen door into the back garden, where I sprawled across a chair, reading about the lost colony. I'd stopped at the bookstore on my way home from the park. When Renée had recommended a title to me, she'd said, “I'm absolutely tickled that little Lila finally has a pal. You history-loving girls are peas in a pod.” I just smiled and took my change. I hadn't
completely
given up on being pals, but I didn't think we'd be sharing a pea pod.

Mom flung herself into the chair next to mine. “Well, mostly wonderful. The construction for that golf course starts soon, so now I'm scrambling. Not to mention the archaeologists are concerned. For all they know, the secrets of the lost colony are one dig away from being uncovered—and a bulldozer coming into the picture could mean that they're never found.”

I set my book down. “Wait. Hasn't most of the evidence been found near the historic site, not your vine?” The book mentioned some of the artifacts scientists had uncovered.

She shrugged. “The reconstructed fort there is from the 1585 colony—not necessarily the lost one. It was excavated way back in the nineteen fifties, when methods weren't as great, so parts could even be from the Civil War. Most people think the second colony's village was near the fort, or possibly along the edge of the island. There's nothing to suggest that the site was anywhere near Alder Branch—the stream where the Grandmother Vine is. But there's no evidence it
wasn't
, either.”