by Gwenda Bond
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing at her hands.
“I wanted to make you something.” Her head angles toward the small sewing table in the corner of the tiny room. It’s set up so she has to sit cross-legged on the bed to use it. Scraps of fabric are discarded next to it.
“Please tell me it’s not a gray cloak,” I quip.
Miranda thrusts her hand out. I accept the fabric bundle from her and unfold it. The T-shirt is blue — Superman blue, really — and the block lettering she stitched on is made of a motley collection of fabrics. The words stack on top of each other — Random Fact Boy.
I grin. “I still think we could have come up with something better.”
“Check the label,” she says, sounding too anxious.
I pull the neck down and take a look. Stitched in black thread, twined in script, are two more words — My Hero.
Miranda doesn’t say anything, and it takes me a moment to figure out how to react.
“Best present ever,” I say. “Up there with the Statue of Liberty.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Really.”
Her smile is real then, and finally I kiss her.
Chapter 39
MIRANDA
I’ve spent the past few days convinced that Grant would decide the girl who put him through all this is damaged goods. Convinced that what’s between us would turn out to be nothing without the constant threat of death and destruction.
I almost can’t believe I was wrong.
Grant stops kissing me, and I wonder why. I chase him back onto the bed, but he holds up his hand.
“This is going to sound weird,” he starts, “but… I just saw a glimmer in the air and heard a voice, and I want to know if what it said means anything to you.”
I straighten. My immediate worry that it’s another something terrible kicks into hyperdrive. “I thought you said they were better.”
“They are — they’re pretty much gone. But this voice, it just kind of showed up, just now. Bad timing. But do you know the song ‘Heartbreaker’ by Blondie?”
I swallow. “It was my mother’s favorite song,” I explain. “But it’s not Blondie. A lot of people think that, but it’s Pat Benatar. It was on a double album with both their stuff, that’s why.”
“I love it when you talk nerdy.” Grant reaches out and casually puts his hand against my neck, cradling it. I’m distracted, but not distracted enough not to notice how nice it feels.
“What did this spirit say?” I ask.
“This voice — I heard it once before, when I first came back. When we were at the cemetery at your mom’s grave. I heard it say, ‘Curse-bearer, curse-born child.’”
“Me,” I say. “She was talking about me.”
“But just now, when she stopped singing ‘Heartbreaker’ — which I’ll have stuck in my head for days now, thank you very much, Miranda’s mom — she said ‘Curse-breaker, curse-broken child.’”
I trace a finger along the snake on my cheek. It’s lightened to a pale pink. “Do you think? I still have this.”
“I think we should take a drive and find out. A scientific test.”
“Great idea,” I agree. “Plus, I’m too freaked out to stay here right now.”
Grant’s forehead furrows with confusion. “Why?” He applies slight pressure against my neck.
“Um… my mom was watching us make out.”
“She’s gone now,” he says.
But that doesn’t matter. I want to know if it’s true, if I’m free.
*
I convince Grant that Pineapple is superior to his mom’s car, what with the plastic covering the window I smashed. And I asked him to drive, not wanting to take us both out if it turns out the voice from beyond the grave wasn’t my mom’s or wasn’t right.
But I believe. I can feel the truth of what Grant said.
“I forgot to tell you,” Grant says, “I’m doing senior year here.”
“Congratulations. You’re dating the school freak.”
“Oh, I am?”
I feel myself blushing. Why did I say that?
Grant cuts the tension by laughing. “I am, I am. You think you’re still the freak? After the way you saved everyone. I don’t think so.”
Oh boy, he’s got a lot to learn. Small towns don’t reclassify people. I’ll just be the Blackwood freak who saved everyone. Of course, really that was Dad. I miss him. I miss the times we might have had together without the curse.
“This is going to be a good year,” I say, hoping it’s true. We both deserve one. “Assuming I survive the next five minutes.”
We’re heading out I-64 toward the new bridge, the Virginia Dare Memorial Bridge, not the site of my previous attempt to leave the island. We’ll know whether I can make it over and keep breathing a lot quicker in the car than on foot.
“It’s good luck that the bridge is named after Ginny the good,” he says. “Did I mention I really like my present? You should go to fashion school. Or straight to Project Runway. My Hero could be your label.”
He’s talking to distract me. I appreciate the effort.
“Let’s just see if I’m still cursed.”
I feel an unfamiliar flutter in my stomach at the idea. If the curse has been broken by Dee’s real, final death, then I could. I could go to fashion school. I could go on reality TV — and not be the villain, never say the words of infamy: “I’m not here to make friends.” I could do anything I want.
“Ready?” Grant says as the bridge comes into view ahead. “You sure you want to chance it in the car?”
He lets up on the gas, waiting for my answer. I take a moment to admire the nice view I have of the side of his face before looking ahead. The water sparkles on both sides of the road like a sea of diamonds.
“Don’t slow down,” I say.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story was inspired both by Roanoke Island’s history and its present-day reality. As in most mash-ups of history and reality with fiction, I’ve taken some major liberties. Locations have been altered in many cases, and some have been invented. I also tweaked the structure of local law enforcement. And I hope it goes without saying that nothing in this story is meant to reflect on the real people living on the real island. Sources differ about the final tally of missing colonists, so some books may give a different number than 114.
On the historical side, I enhanced John Dee’s role in the colonization effort. That said, Dee actually was the title holder for the land and was consulted by Sir Walter Raleigh in developing the route for the journey. In fact, I had the odd experience of finding some historical support for just about every outrageous leap. We really do know very little about the colonists and why they made the voyage. And it turns out that alchemy was a bigger influence in the early New World than we’re taught in history class — at least, my classes tragically neglected the subject. I discovered from Walter Woodward’s book Prospero’s America that John Winthrop Jr., who was elected governor of Connecticut in the 1650s, actually did found a “New London” in America, intending it to be a great center of alchemy. He even used Dee’s monas hieroglyphica as his signature. And it was recently discovered that a piece of Governor John White’s artwork did hide clues to a possible location the colonists may have traveled to.
Of course, it’s still unlikely that the majority of the lost colonists were alchemists who longed for immortality and world domination… or is it?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a weird one, because it was my first published novel — but now it’s also this novel, a different one, and not my first. So I feel like I should still thank all the people who helped me out originally, plus a couple new ones.
Like most first novels, this one wasn’t born in a vacuum of just girl and computer. For looking at very early versions of this story, my thanks
to Write Club (Melissa Moorer, Katherine Pearl, Christopher Rowe, and honorary member Melissa Schwartz) and the Left Door Workshop. Thanks are also due to the entire wonderful community at the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Writing for Children and Young Adults program, but especially to my last semester advisor, Martine Leavitt, and to my last workshop group (Kelly Barson, Kari Baumbach, Liz Cook, Pam Watts, Rachel Wilson, and leader Cynthia Leitich Smith) for comments on the beginning of this novel. Emily Moses was invaluable in offering insider theater dirt and gave me Dare County Night. I also offer many thanks to Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Scott Westerfeld for help as I was finishing up. And, of course, thanks to the best agent in the world, Jennifer Laughran, for everything.
A few closer to home: George the Dog, poster boy for American Values, aka the original Sidekick, and Emma the Dog, LLC, no one’s sidekick; my parents, who always believed I could do this; and to my husband, Christopher Rowe, for talking me down and reading more drafts than any person should ever have to.
I’ve been lucky over the years to have the support of more people than I could ever possibly name here. I appreciate each and every one of you. Dear readers, booksellers, librarians, and other book people: I love you. And I’ll add here a thanks to Amanda Rutter, the book’s original editor, who took a chance on a new writer, and to the fabulous Beth Brezenoff, as well as my ever-insightful editor on this book, Alison Deering, and everyone else at Capstone for wanting to give it a new life.
If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review or telling a friend. To learn more about my other books, visit my website at www.gwendabond.com or sign up for regular emails at http://tinyletter.com/gwenda.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gwenda Bond writes young adult and children’s fiction. Her novels include the Lois Lane series (Fallout, Double Down, and Triple Threat), which brings the iconic comic book character front and center in her own YA novels, and the Cirque American series (Girl on a Wire, Girl Over Paris, and Girl in the Shadows) about daredevil heroines who discover magic and mystery lurking under the big top. She and her husband, author Christopher Rowe, co-write a children’s series together, The Supernormal Sleuthing Service.
Gwenda has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and many other publications. She has an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband and their charming/unruly pets. She might have escaped from a screwball comedy. Visit her online at www.gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.
Strange Alchemy is published in 2017 by Switch Press,
A Capstone Imprint
1710 Roe Crest Drive North Mankato, Minnesota 56003
www.switchpress.com
Text © 2017 by Gwenda Bond
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on the Library of Congress website.
ISBN: 978-1-63079-076-9 (paper over board)
ISBN: 978-1-63079-099-8 (ebook)
Summary: On Roanoke Island, the legend of the Lost Colony still haunts the town. And when 114 people suddenly disappear from the island in present day, it seems history is repeating itself.
Designer: Kay Fraser
Image credits:
Shutterstock: SSokolov, forest image
Shutterstock: run4it, texture