Blackwood Read online

  Praise for GWENDA BOND

  "Weird, wise and witty, Blackwood is great fun."

  Marcus Sedgwick, author of Midwinterblood and White Crow

  "This haunting, romantic mystery intrigues, chills, and captivates."

  New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith

  GWENDA BOND

  Blackwood

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  The Silence

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  The Island

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Return

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For my parents (principals but never fascists)

  and

  for Christopher (my partner-in-crime)

  Entry from

  A Brief History of the Unexplained

  The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh began his push for English settlement in the Americas. Establishing a settlement in North America was attractive to both Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I – sure to bolster his influence and power as well as England's by opening access to a New World believed to be full of riches and by providing a staging ground for privateers to capture Spanish treasures on the high seas. Raleigh was granted seven years in which to make a successful colony in the lands then known as Virginia, after the virgin queen herself. The effort instead yielded one of the most enduring mysteries of the modern age.

  After earlier trips proved largely exploratory, more than one hundred would-be colonists signed on to a 1587 voyage designed to finally create a permanent settlement on what is now Roanoke Island, part of North Carolina's Outer Banks island chain. But the journey proved harsh, as did the colonists' new home. Unfavorable conditions for cultivating crops and growing hostility with local Native American tribes made their future in America look bleak, especially without the hope of fresh supplies from England. Governor of the settlement John White – an artist by training whose daughter Eleanor Dare had just given birth to Virginia, the first English child born in the Americas – was chosen to go back to their homeland and petition Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth for help.

  Unable to return for three long years, when White reached the site of the colony he found no sign of those he had left behind – save for a single word carved into an oak tree: CROATOAN. But a trip to that nearby island turned up no further traces of the missing colonists. The disappearance of the one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children of the Roanoke colony, known now as the Lost Colony, remains unexplained to this day.

  For what we sometimes were, we are no more;

  Fortune hath changed our shape, and Destiny

  Defaced the very form we had before.

  Sir Walter Raleigh, Petition to the Queen

  1

  Miranda

  The first time Miranda Blackwood checked the back of her closet for a portal to another world she was eleven. That was the year her mother died. After the closet, she tried other places. She wandered small patches of woods, seeking doors hidden in twisted trees, and peered into mirrors, searching for reflections that weren't her own.

  But Miranda grew up. She no longer hoped to step over a secret threshold and leave Roanoke Island behind forever. Instead, she grabbed whatever escapes were in reach, no matter what they were. No matter that she stayed right here.

  For three summers running, her best escape had been interning for The Lost Colony at Waterside Theater. She sanded wood, hammered nails, sewed seams, and did whatever else needed doing to make the show's version of history – complete with musical numbers – come alive for the tourists. In exchange for those hours of scutwork done without complaint, the stage manager, Polly, let Miranda join her at the side of the outdoor stage every night to watch the show's final scenes.

  The set's faux oak tree, hollow boulders, and packed dirt floor passed for an abandoned settlement, except for the shining spotlights. While Miranda half-listened for her favorite part, she cocked her head back to take in the stars light years above. The view was as familiar to her as the small constellation of calluses dotting her palms, or as the lines of the play drawing to a close beside her. As familiar and set as everything in Miranda's life.

  The season was almost over, and then she'd endure senior year. Everyone was talking about college, preparing for the next act in their lives. She wasn't going anywhere. She wouldn't even have this. After she graduated, it'd be time to get a year-round job that paid more bills.

  "They've survived!"

  The bullish voice of the actor playing Governor John White snapped her attention back to the stage. The line signaled his return to the site of the colony after his trip to England.

  Surrounded by sailors, White gasped as he pointed at the oak on the far side of the stage, the simple cloak around his shoulders flying out with the gesture. Miranda couldn't see the word from where she stood, but the famous Croatoan was carved into the bark in desperate, crooked letters. White went on, overacting like crazy, "My granddaughter, I will see her beautiful face!"

  Miranda and Polly exchanged a look. Polly shook her head, her prematurely gray ponytail bobbing. Director Jack, aka His Royal Majesty, would give the actor a scathing note on that later.

  The governor froze, along with the sailors in the background, and the lights dimmed. This cued up the final reveal. Miranda could never help wondering where the colonists had gone. Disappearing was some trick to pull off, even hundreds of years ago when there were more wild places left. The standard theories involved bad endings and tragedy. Even on such a humid night, not knowing – knowing that no one would ever know the truth – was enough to give her a small shiver.

  A single low spotlight fixed on a solemn young blonde girl as she wandered ghost-slow through the frozen men. Her face was chalk pale.

  His Royal Majesty's biggest change to this year's show had been making Virginia Dare the show's deadpan narrator. The actress, Caroline, was a local kid, seven years-old and a mean-girl-in-training, and yet, the casting worked.

  Miranda leaned over to see how the scene was playing for the crowd. The show wasn't sold out, but the curving rows of the amphitheater were nearly full. Probably about twelve hundred people, riveted and silent as Caroline haunted the stage.

  The shadow appeared at the back of the audience. Miranda had no idea what it might be – it was definitely not part of the show – only that it was there. The large unformed shape was simply a growing darkness until it resolved into an immense, old-fashioned black ship. The kind of ship used long ago by colonists and pirates. Strange gray symbols bloomed on each of three billowing black sails, the shapes a mix of straight lines and arcs, a half-moon curving above a circle at the top. The sailcloth rippled in a wind that she didn't feel on her skin.

  Miranda blinked. The ship was still there.

  She put her hand up, and her hand was in front of an immense black ship with tall gray sails. And the ship was moving forward now, swallowing the audience row after curving row.

  In a few seconds half the audience was gone beneath it, and Mir
anda's breath caught in her throat. The ship glided steadily closer. When she turned to Polly, the stage manager smiled at her with the normal relief of reaching the end of the night. She gave off no hint of concern.

  But the ship was heading straight toward the actors, those odd symbols shifting on the sails in curving and slashing lines. The black monster gathered speed, moving faster and faster–

  When Caroline hit her mark at center stage, only a dozen feet separated her from the black ship. She gave no sign of seeing it either. She might be a brat, but she was also seven.

  "Look!" Miranda pointed and staggered forward onto the stage. Caroline opened her mouth to speak and Miranda threw herself at the girl, shielding her with her arms.

  There were a few shocked cries. Miranda closed her eyes and waited for the impact.

  And waited.

  There were more murmurs and questions from the crowd. But nothing else.

  Caroline squirmed in her grasp, struggling. Miranda opened her eyes and the massive curving prow loomed above her unmoving, throwing a heavy shadow over her and Caroline and then – between one blink and the next – it vanished.

  The spotlight blared into Miranda's face and she squinted, not used to the bright heat. She glanced over her shoulder, still holding the wriggling Caroline tight. Governor White stared murder at her, but none of the men broke character. They were supposed to remain frozen until the lights came down, and they were.

  Caroline said, "Let me go, Blackwood." Miranda didn't understand right away, didn't understand anything that had just happened. Caroline yanked a handful of her hair.

  "Ow." And Miranda realised: the spotlight was still on. That meant the show wasn't over.

  She'd interrupted the performance because a giant ship had appeared. A giant ship no one else seemed to have seen. From the side of the stage, Polly said, "Miranda! Get. Over. Here."

  The knowledge that she'd disappointed Polly finally got her moving. She released her hold on Caroline, and hurried off stage. Polly grabbed her arm. "What was that?"

  Caroline looked like an angry ghost, her face pink instead of white. Polly brushed at the sleeve of Miranda's shirt where the girl's make-up had rubbed off.

  "I'm so sorry," Miranda said.

  Polly frowned, but stepped next to her to wait while rosycheeked Caroline managed her last lines.

  "The one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children of the Roanoke colony remain lost, their fate unknown. A mystery trapped in time."

  At last, the spotlight died.

  Walking out from backstage at the end of the night, Polly was trying her best to pull an explanation out of Miranda without passing judgment. Miranda nodded along and kept silent, barely absorbing Polly's chatter about how she knew Miranda loved the theater and would never sabotage the show, but she just couldn't understand what had caused her to interrupt…

  At a hastily called post-show meeting, His Royal Majesty had informed cast and crew that he had never had anyone disrupt a performance while it was in progress before – let alone a member of the crew. And a lowly intern at that.

  The handful of locals in the cast and crew were already muttering that having a Blackwood around was asking for bad luck. That anyone could have predicted Miranda would screw something up eventually. That she'd done it in such spectacular, inexplicable fashion didn't surprise them.

  The director had finally ended with a caution that he'd be consulting with the stage manager about Miranda's future employment and praising the cast for not breaking character. Not finishing the show despite the interruption would have meant ticket exchanges. They couldn't have that.

  Polly defended her, saying there must have been some explanation and she'd talk to Miranda. The problem was Miranda couldn't tell her the reason.

  She had listened closely to everyone talking about what she'd done. No one else said anything about a big black ship with billowing sails. No one said anything even close. She was the only one who had seen it. But she had seen it. Hadn't she?

  "I hate for you to go straight home after that," Polly said. She stopped next to head of the trail that looped along the coast to the complex where the non-locals lived. "Come out to the Grove and I'll sneak you a margarita. We can talk more about it tomorrow, OK?"

  Miranda bit her lip. She had to ask, to make sure. "You didn't notice anything…"

  "Anything?" Polly prompted.

  "I don't know… Odd?"

  Polly frowned again. She'd never seen Polly frown this much. "You mean besides what you did?"

  Yes. "Was there anything else?"

  Polly's response was careful. "No. I didn't notice anything else odd. Did you?"

  So Miranda really was the only person who'd seen the ship. "Probably not. I better go on home."

  "Sure?" She waited, giving Miranda a chance to say more. Then, "OK. Be careful. We'll figure this out." Polly split off toward the trail with a wave, rushing to catch the people who'd left a few minutes earlier.

  One of the reasons Miranda liked the theater so much was that the out-of-towners who worked summer stock didn't know much of anything about her or her family. They had always treated her like they treated each other. Normal. That was over.

  She knew all too well how losing normal status felt. The kids at school hadn't truly decided to turn on her until she was thirteen. Her mother was dead, which was bad enough, but then the new police chief's kid – Phillips Rawling, radiating cool like all new kids did – had humiliated her in front of everyone. She didn't believe he'd done it on purpose, but that didn't matter. What mattered was he'd given the others the confirmation they needed that she'd never be like them.

  And her night just kept getting worse. The instant Miranda hit the pavement of the mostly-deserted parking lot, her incredibly sad nemesis Bone's pickup truck roared alongside her. There were a dozen Tarheels stickers pasted on the bumper and back window. Basketball was the closest thing North Carolina had to a state religion. He was a devoted member of the faithful.

  He rolled down the window and Miranda asked, "What?"

  That his rich kook of a dad had to force him to work at the theater didn't usually get to her. Life wasn't fair. That she already knew. The fact she hallucinated a phantom ship and that she knew he was about to remind her yet again of her family's reputation, well, that got to her.

  Bone's elbow jutted out the window. He was gawky, skin and bone, the source of his nickname.

  "Sorry about your Blackwood luck," he said.

  Grrrr. "Sorry you're a jerk."

  "I'm going to hang out with some friends. Where are you going? To pick up your dad?"

  Miranda raised her hand and made a shooing motion. "Leave, begone, scram."

  He hesitated, stumped for a comeback. Finally he said, "I will," and roared away.

  Miranda reached her beloved car, Pineapple, and patted the pale yellow hood. "Thank you for not roaring."

  When she started working at the theater, she'd bought Pineapple for a few hundred bucks. The original make was impossible to determine, and she never had to figure it out. She'd never signed on the dotted lines of any insurance or registration papers. Her dad claimed that forms and laws were for other people. Respectable people.

  Miranda drove out of Fort Raleigh, the plastic hula girl stuck to Pineapple's dash wobbling seductively with each turn. Downtown Manteo, the island's main drag, was packed with tourists on this warm summer Wednesday. The town center resembled a perfect model of itself, preserved Victorian houses and Colonial-style storefronts with the Sound's peaceful waters as scenic backdrop. Gelato shops and fancy restaurants were tucked next to pricey B&Bs that offered tickets for fishing expeditions and dolphin spotting.

  Her street was off a more remote stretch of highway, a small pocket of cheap, mostly rental houses shoved where the tourists would never see. A different kind of lost colony.

  Miranda pulled into her usual spot at the curb and got out. Maybe she'd hallucinated the ship, like when Gaius Baltar hung out with his not-
really-there Cylon girlfriend on BSG. Maybe. She gripped her keys so their teeth stuck out through her fist. Her dad had shown a rare flash of concern when she started at the theater, forcing her to promise this little action whenever she was outside at night alone.

  Walking quickly, she crossed the patchwork yard to the house. The white paint had been flaking for years. The porch light was off, and in the darkness she tested the front door. It was locked.