The Curse Breakers

by Denise Grover Swank

  “That’s fantastic news. You’ll have to sleep with it every night. And tonight, I insist on sleeping on your sofa.”

  “David—”

  He parked his car in the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site lot and held up his hand. “Nope. You agreed to listen to my suggestions and concerns. I’m not trying to hover over you, although I have to admit that I’m protective of the people I care about. But if we’re going to be partners, we need to watch out for each other. I want to keep an eye on you . . . and at the risk of emasculating myself, I’d feel better if you were there to protect me if I need it too.”

  There was no way I could refuse him if he truly felt safer with me. And besides, his argument made sense. If Collin had a problem with us working together, it stood to reason that the spirits and gods wouldn’t like it either. I couldn’t count on the marks protecting David at the inn. I suspected he was a lot like me. If he heard someone screaming for help in the middle of the night, he would be the first person out the door. “Okay.”

  “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he teased, opening his car door. “Now let’s go check out Manteo’s hut.”

  Manteo’s hut. My stomach churned with anxiety.

  David got me checked in at the foundation office, and they gave me a guest pass marking me as a visitor. When we left the building and started down the sidewalk, David snuck a glance at me. “You look nervous.”

  “I am. There’s a lot riding on this.”

  “We know it’s not our only potential source of information. But I do think the hut is going to give us some guidance.”

  The village came into view as we rounded a bend and I froze, my feet sticking to the sidewalk.

  “Have you seen it since it reappeared?” he asked quietly.

  “Only what they showed on TV the day they found it.” I took a deep breath. “Both my parents worked in this park, and I’ve been here more times than I can count. But this . . .” I hesitated. “I wish Daddy could have seen it.”

  David rested his hand on my arm. “If you don’t feel up to this . . .”

  “No.” I turned to him, pleading. “I do. It’s just that Daddy lived his entire life to see this. There were over four hundred years of Keepers in our family, and it all boils down to me. I don’t feel worthy.”

  “Ellie, I’m sure your father would be proud of you. And for what it’s worth, from what I know of you, you are worthy.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I was the one who was here. It was up to me. “Let’s go.”

  After we passed the visitors’ center and walked through a patch of trees, the entire village was spread out before us. My mouth hung open.

  “It’s overwhelming when you first see it. Give it a minute.”

  I could see why. A six-foot-tall chain-link fence surrounded the buildings. The village had disappeared hundreds of years ago and reappeared exactly where it had once stood. Daddy had told me that the landscape of the island had changed over time. The shore itself had crept inland and the ground was higher. Most of the trees in the clearing next to the original fort mounds were less than a hundred years old. But the village didn’t seem to care about the landscape when it reappeared. It had blended in with what was already there.

  Close to thirty buildings covered the ground; trees shot through some, and others were partially underground. Strings that had been set up by the researchers had created a checkerboard pattern. I was no stranger to archaeological sites, but they were usually all dirt and holes. This was truly something different.

  “Ready?” David asked after several seconds.

  “Yeah.”

  We went through the gate and checked in with the guard, showing him our credentials. David pointed out several structures as we walked the perimeter—a blacksmith shop, lodging quarters for the single men in the colony, family homes. He pointed to a slightly larger house close to the edge. “I know you want to see Manteo’s hut, but I thought you might also be interested in this one.” He grinned. “We think it belonged to Ananias Dare.”

  My stomach fluttered. Instinctively, I had known it would be there, but I had been so focused on what information might be found in Manteo’s hut that I hadn’t stopped to think about it.

  I shook my head in awe. “They were just stories. I never believed them. Not really. Especially after Momma died. But now it’s all here.” I waved my hand toward Ananias’s house. “And I’m standing here thinking about what Ananias went through . . . what drove him and Manteo to even consider doing such a thing.”

  David was silent for several moments. “Ananias had a wife and newborn child to protect. Manteo was trying to save his people. They were desperate, Ellie. They would have done anything to save the people they loved and cared about.” He paused, lowering his voice. “We’re not totally unlike them. You’re trying to protect the people you love. We’re trying to save our people. Humanity.”

  “What if we screw up like they did?”

  He looked down at me with a tender smile. “We’ll just have to make sure that we don’t.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  His smile faded. “We don’t have a choice. It’s our only option.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I was surprised by how much I already needed him. Not only for information, but for support. He believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.

  “Do you want to look inside?”

  “Ananias’s house?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  “Okay.”

  We carefully stepped over strings as we headed toward the structure. Several people were writing things down while a couple of others were taking photos. Steven stood to the side, holding a clipboard and talking to a woman.

  As we walked over, he glanced up and smiled. “Good morning, Ellie. Welcome to 1587.”

  “Thank you.” My voice croaked and I tried again. “Thank you for giving me the chance to be here.”

  “Of course. I know how much your father and your mother would have loved to see this.”

  A man walked over and turned to David. “Excuse me, Dr. Preston. We found something that might be of interest to you.”

  My attention perked up.

  “Of course,” David said. He turned to me, searching my face. “Are you okay with staying here for a little bit?”

  “Don’t worry about her.” Steven waved David away. “If she shares the interest her parents and stepmother have in early American history, she’ll want to stay all day.”

  David hesitated, waiting for permission from me. My original goal had been to examine Manteo’s hut, not Ananias’s. But if David was leaving me here, I knew there had to be a reason. Collin had spent our entire time together hiding information from me. The frustrating part was that I’d known it without being able to do a thing about it. David, on the other hand, had never given me any reason not to trust him. He shared everything he knew and freely admitted when he didn’t know something. I knew without a doubt that David would tell me about any discoveries he made without me. I smiled. “I’m going to hang out here with Steven for a while.”

  David gave me a relieved smile and then took off across the eerie village. Steven watched him go and chuckled, shaking his head. “He’s got it bad.”

  “What?”

  He just laughed and ignored my question. “Ellie, I’m not sure if you realize this, but your father was very highly regarded. His expertise on the Lost Colony was world renowned.”

  I knew he’d been important as the head park ranger here, but I hadn’t realized that he’d had a reputation off the site. “Really?”

  He nodded and wrote on some paperwork, silent for several seconds. “Not just your father. Your mother too, before her death.” Steven handed a young woman his clipboard and took several steps toward a small timber-post house. “Your father was brilliant. We were sorry to see him go.”

  I stepped over an exposed tree root as I followed. “It was hard on Daddy when he began losing his m
emories. For a man who valued intelligence and education so highly, it was difficult for him to accept.”

  Steven stopped and swung his gaze to my face. “We’d lost him several years before that, Ellie. We lost him when your mother died.”

  I blinked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your father traveled and delivered lectures about the first English colonies, particularly the ones in North Carolina. He was greatly sought after.”

  I vaguely remembered him traveling, but I’d never thought about the fact that he’d stopped doing so after Momma’s death. “He must not have wanted to leave me.”

  “I thought so too at first, but about a year after she died, I invited him to a conference that was being held in Chapel Hill. I understood his fear of leaving you, but the conference was close enough that he could attend for just the day and even bring you along. My wife was going to be there, and she offered to watch you. John knew Margaret well, but he still stubbornly refused.” Steven paused and looked out into the trees. “I drove up to Manteo and took your father out to dinner. We all knew how much he loved your mother, so I suspected that he was still grieving. I thought perhaps I could convince him that he still had a purpose in life. That your mother would want him to continue doing what he loved and that we still needed his expertise.

  “He drank too much that night, and I encouraged it in the hopes that it might help me change his mind, but it only made him melancholy. He told me that your mother’s death was his fault. That the colony had killed her, and he would never lecture about it again. His answer made no sense to me, but when I asked him what he meant the next day, he refused to elaborate.”

  “But Myra told me the police suspected that Momma was killed by a man who was mad at Daddy over some zoning issue that was brought to the council.”

  “I’m sorry to dredge up bad memories, Ellie. I only know what your father told me.”

  “Thank you. Daddy kept so much hidden from me and now that he’s gone, I’m trying to piece together anything and everything I can. Especially about the Lost Colony.”

  He took a step toward Ananias’s hut, then stopped and turned to face me. “There is something else, but it never came to anything.”

  My eyes widened in anticipation.

  His mouth pursed, and I could tell he was struggling with whether to continue.

  “Please, Steven. If you know anything, I’m eager to hear it. No matter how inconsequential it may seem.”

  “That’s what worries me about telling you. You just lost your father, and I don’t want to reopen old wounds from your mother’s death.”

  I grabbed his arm before I realized what I was doing. “Anything you can tell me would be helpful. Please. I’ve been having dreams about her death, and the events play out differently than I remember them. I need to know what happened.”

  He sighed and put his hand over mine. “Of course, Ellie. If it involves your parents, you have a right to know.” He stared into my eyes. “Your mother called me a week before her death, which was unusual. She was an archaeologist, although the only digs she had worked on in quite some time were the rare excavations on the Raleigh grounds. She spent most of her time at the foundation doing paperwork and publicity on site, which aggravated her to no end at times. I usually only talked to her when she was with your father.”

  “Why did she call you?”

  He took a deep breath. “She told me that she’d stumbled upon something, a private collection that she suspected had been stolen. She’d been invited to view it but had to sign a nondisclosure agreement before she was given access. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, of course, but she wanted to discuss the situation with someone who was knowledgeable in the field without worrying your father. She said the collection contained English and Native American antiquities. When I pressed her, she admitted that she suspected there were objects from both Roanoke colonies.”

  “Both colonies?”

  “Yes, Sir Ralph Lane’s fort from 1586 as well as the infamous Lost Colony.”

  I leaned against a tree. “Wow.”

  “We ended the call with her planning to come to Chapel Hill and Duke the next week to search the libraries at both campuses. But days before I was supposed to meet her at Duke, I heard about her death. I immediately contacted the Manteo police.”

  My breath caught. “You think the collection had something to do with her death?”

  “I thought it was suspicious, but when the police investigated, they couldn’t find any information about any such meeting or collection, and no one at the foundation knew anything about it.”

  I bristled. “Do you think she made it up?”

  His brow furrowed at my accusation. “No. If your mother was correct, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, I suspect the collection was so secret there wasn’t a paper trail for the police to follow.”

  I took several breaths, letting his information sink in. “Did Daddy know about this?”

  “Yes, but he insisted the culprit was the man the police suspected.”

  “And what do you think?”

  His face softened and he gave me a sad smile. “Honestly, Ellie, I don’t know. Your father said that whoever broke in wanted you. If your mother was killed because of the collection, why would they be looking for you? Your father’s explanation seemed more plausible.”

  I nodded, my throat tightening. I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. Was her death related to the curse as I’d always thought, just in a way I hadn’t suspected? Could the collection she’d examined have been the Ricardo Estate?

  “This was a lot to throw at you and not the best place to do it. I apologize. But with the appearance of the Lost Colony and hearing about your father’s death, it’s been heavy on my mind. I felt compelled to tell you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I appreciate you sharing this information with me. Thank you.”

  “Just don’t let the past consume you, Ellie. It’s the curse of the historian, I’m afraid. It makes losing people that much more difficult.” His voice sounded scratchy, and he cleared his throat, patting my arm. “Why don’t you take a moment, and then I’ll show you the inside of Ananias and Elinor Dare’s home.”

  I nodded again, my shoulder pressed into a tree as I took several deep breaths. Steven had given me more information about my parents than I’d ever hoped to get. But it was overwhelming after finding nothing at all for weeks. Or years. How much had my father kept from me?

  He’d done what he’d thought necessary to protect me, and I would never fault him for that. Perhaps if I hadn’t shut him down so effectively about the curse, he would have shared this information with me. The blame belonged squarely at my own feet.

  But wallowing in guilt wouldn’t help me find out who’d killed my mother, nor would it help me lock away the evil that roamed the earth. There was a reason I was at this site—to find any helpful information that Manteo or Ananias might have left behind. Standing here feeling sorry for myself was a waste of time and resources. I squared my shoulders and joined Steven at the opening of the hut.

  “Ready to step back in time?” he asked with a smile. When I nodded, he ducked through the doorway. “All I ask is that you don’t touch anything.”

  “Of course.”

  “This home is actually larger than most of the others because of the Dares’ status, but it’s still quite small by today’s standards.”

  I stood in the center of the dirt-floored structure as my eyes adjusted to the dim light, amazed that a family of three had lived comfortably in here. A bed, slightly larger than full-size, sat in one corner, a skeleton tucked beneath the quilt.

  I gasped as I realized I was staring at my namesake, Elinor Dare.

  Steven turned back to me. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you that the bodies haven’t been removed yet. Do you need to get some air?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. It just caught me by surprise.”

  “As a father, the cradle is mu
ch more difficult for me,” he murmured.

  The cradle. My eyes sought it out, next to the head of the bed and in Steven’s shadow. I took a step closer. A tiny skull was visible at the top of the infant’s bed, a cap covering its head.

  “We’re fairly certain this is Elinor and Virginia Dare, but there’s no sign of Ananias.”

  “You’re sure this is their house?”

  “Not one hundred percent, of course, but as certain as possible. We’ve found a Bible with Ananias’s name inscribed inside, as well as other papers leading us to believe he lived here.” He pointed to the table on the opposite wall from the bed. A stack of papers sat in one corner, a candle in the middle.

  I took a deep breath, the full impact of the situation hitting me. Ananias had sat at the table. He had slept in that bed next to his wife. Held the tiny baby that now lay in the cradle. How had he gone on after realizing he’d lost everything and everyone? “What was in the papers you found?”

  “We’ve only begun to scratch the surface, so I can’t really answer that question yet. The two weeks we’ve been granted isn’t nearly enough time for us to examine everything. After David requested an extension, I’ve decided to file one as well. I’d like to be the lead researcher.” His mouth twisted, and he shrugged. “We’ll see if that happens or not. Only the fates decide.”

  “Do you believe in fate, Steven?”

  “I never used to, but I’m becoming more and more of a believer.”

  I was too.

  David returned about thirty minutes later. We were standing outside when Steven saw him coming. He leaned close to me and lowered his voice. “I’m not a meddler, Ellie, but David is like a son to me.” He rubbed his chin. “He doesn’t get close to people very easily. I can see there’s something going on between you two.”

  “Oh.” We’d tried to be discreet with our partnership, and I felt bad that Steven had misunderstood, thinking our mutual interest was romantic.

  “What you two do is your own business, but it’s obvious he’s taken with you. I wanted you to know how rare that is for him.”