She leaned even farther off her chair, so much so that I was afraid she would topple it. In fact, it wobbled enough that Lila dropped the scowl from her face for a second while she caught her balance.
“Girls! Come set the picnic table. Food’s about ready,” my mom hollered. She and Lila’s parents stood around the grill, clutching sweating glasses, huge relaxed smiles on their faces. I welcomed the chance to escape Lila, so I nudged Sir Walter and then sprang out of my chair. Lila followed close behind me, practically hissing.
“Nell! What did you mean? Tell me now!”
I ignored her, grabbing the stack of melamine plates and tumblers. I arranged them on the checkered tablecloth, humming nonchalantly just to drive her that much crazier.
Kate called, “Lila, help me carry the food to the table.” Lila stomped over to her mom. I tried to set the table such that I could sit next to mine, or maybe Lila’s dad, who might have some useful information for me. But I was thwarted when my mom came over and pressed her palms onto my shoulders. “I thought you girls could sit next to each other. We’ll put Kate, Luke, and me across the table.” Great.
After we sat down to eat, I felt something nudging my leg under the table. I thought it was Sir Walter wanting table scraps, but it was actually Lila. “You have to tell me what you were talking about.”
“None of your business,” I hissed in between bites of biscuit and veggie burger. Even though the spices smelled delicious, I still couldn’t bring myself to touch the fish. My mom had thrown a veggie patty on the grill for me before the rest of the food.
“Nell, what have you done so far on Roanoke?” Kate pulled a piece of the crab out, dipped it liberally in some melted butter, and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm, that is delicious.”
“Yes, tell us,” Lila said, reaching for a napkin.
“Let me see—mostly tourist stuff. Mom and I went for a beach day at Corolla. I’ve gone to the Festival Park and the Elizabethan Gardens. Tomorrow, I’m going to start helping out at the vine.”
Lila seemed to take note of where I’d been. I’m sure she was calculating what I possibly could’ve uncovered in those places.
“Have you gotten to Fort Raleigh yet?” her dad asked. He had a napkin tucked politely at the top of his shirt and ate his crab carefully with a fork. Lila was a hybrid of her parents, angrily cracking into her seafood and then spearing it daintily with silverware.
“No, but I’d love to visit soon.”
“Let me know when you stop by—my office is there, and I can show you around. We have an excellent exhibition of maps right now.”
“Cool. That sounds fascinating.” Lila glared at me.
Mom, sensing the tension, changed the subject. “Lila, honey, what do you like to do?”
Lila sat up a little straighter. “Historical research. Like my father, except our methods aren’t the same. He looks for artifacts, and I look for ghosts.”
Her dad chuckled. Lila’s mom added, “On the land and the water. We hunt shipwrecks together on the weekend.”
“What a neat hobby.” My mom sounded impressed, and it made me grit my teeth. “Do you need a lot of fancy equipment for that?”
“Not really,” Lila said. “I mean, you’d be surprised what you’ll find with an underwater metal detector.”
“There’s an old fisherman’s trick,” Lila’s mom butted in, “that the best fishing spots are also the best shipwreck-hunting spots. Wrecks on a sandy bottom are where the fish looooove to hang out. Gives ’em a good place to hide.”
Lila looked annoyed that her mom was changing the topic. “Anyway, I’m trying to prove that paranormal energy can teach us what happened to the lost colony.”
“Although there’s not much solid evidence,” her dad joked. Lila stabbed at her crab in frustration—and I felt a little bad for her that her dad didn’t consider ghost energy a real clue, even though I had to agree with him. Ghosts were good for sleepover stories, not science.
“Very funny. But this is important—when they start constructing the golf course, it’s going to upset all the energy. That’s why investigating is a way better use of my time than being in the background of a play.”
“That’s very interesting,” my mom said. “Maybe Nell could tag along with you when she’s not helping me out.” It was all I could do not to drop my head onto my plate of salad.
Lila swallowed her bite. “Maybe.”
After all the plates were clean, Mom asked me to bring out some ice cream for dessert. I was stacking up the dishes when Kate volunteered Lila to give me a hand in the kitchen. As she followed me, I “accidentally” let the screen door shut right in her face. “Oops!”
She yanked it open and stomped in. “Okay, now spill.” I shook my head no. She scowled, dropping the forks into the sink. “What gives you the right to go poking into Roanoke’s history on your own?”
I shrugged. “It’s a free country. If I want to learn more about the lost colony, I can. After all, I’m a Dare.”
She stuck her hands on her hips. “Yeah, but I’m from here. My family has lived on Roanoke Island as long as anybody can remember. There are streets named after my great-grandparents. I’ve grown up playing in these woods and swimming in the bay. This is my home, and it’s my job to find the truth about it. You’re a silly girl from New York City who’s just here for the summer. You barely knew a thing about the lost colony until I told you! If anything, you’ll probably mess up any evidence you come across and make it useless. I have something to prove here—this isn’t just a lark for me.”
My not knowing specifics about the colony before her lecture was kind of true. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have a right to learn. And it wasn’t a lark for me; I needed this mystery to get my dad back. “There aren’t rules about what a person can find interesting. You’re just jealous because I’ve been around for, like, a week and I uncovered something already. Despite spending your whole life here, all you have to show for it is a quacky ghost-meter, some spooky stories, and a bunch of regurgitated facts.” That wasn’t very fair of me to say, and “quacky” wasn’t a real word.
Lila looked stung for a few seconds before smacking a dish towel on the counter. “Tell me what you found,” she demanded, although her voice had a pleading edge. “At least so I know where to look.”
A small part of me felt she was right: Lila knew a lot more about the island than I ever would. But letting her in on Ambrose and my secret would mean our investigating duo would become a trio—and I definitely didn’t want that. I liked afternoons alone with him, splashing around the sound or wandering the woods. I shook my head no. “You’ll find out when I help my dad write a book on the secrets of Roanoke—and it’ll be a bestseller.”
I thought she’d turn into a living cartoon with steam coming out of her ears and a train-whistle sound blasting out of her head. Instead, my mom bustled into the kitchen and found me with an ice-cream scoop in my hand and a melty half gallon sitting between Lila and me on the counter.
“Nell! Ice-cream emergency.” She stepped between us and took the scoop out of my hand. “But I like seeing how much you two have to chat about. We’ll have dinners together often while we’re here.”
Lila and I both smiled through clenched teeth and nodded.
“I have to use the bathroom. Excuse me.” Lila darted off to the one next to my room.
“New friend material?” my mom asked.
I shrugged, sad at disappointing her. “Maybe.” Which really meant, heck no.
Mom took three bowls and went outside. My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a message from my dad: “The wheel has come full circle, [you are there].” From King Lear. Translation: You’re not the first in our Dare family to set foot on Roanoke Island. We’re descended from cousins of the Dares who were part of that colony! I dropped my spoon on the counter with a clatter, then scrolled to keep reading. Later on, our relatives came to America. I’ll try to look up more info if I can. Love, Dad.
I took the remaining bowls of ice cream out to the table. Lila’s portion was almost entirely melted by the time she emerged from the cottage. I sneaked a glance at her, and she looked a little disheveled. Had she been crying? Maybe I’d really upset her. I thought better of rubbing the Dare stuff in her face.
Eventually, Luke couldn’t stifle his yawns and Kate announced that they’d be on their way home. Lila woke up Sir Walter, who had been snoozing by my chair. I leaned down, ruffled his fur, and gave him a doggy kiss good night—the one bright spot of the evening.
Lila’s mom hugged us with fish-bone-crushing strength, promising my mom a slew of recipes and some of her fresh catch, and promising me a trip out in her boat one of these days.
“You don’t have an aversion to catching fish, do you?”
I shook my head. “Just eating them.” Although catching them without plans to eat them seemed a little cruel.
Lila stood next to her dad, arms crossed tightly against her chest. Before they left, she whispered, “This is not over, Nell. From now on, I’ll be watching you. If anyone is going to find the lost colony, it’s me.” With one last glare, she left.
If Lila started keeping tabs on me, she would probably interfere with Ambrose and my expeditions, and might piggyback on our clues to find her own. If we were right, and evidence of the lost colony’s settlement was along the shoreline, Lila would have a much easier time searching for it than we would. What with her underwater gadgets and all.
• • •
I felt rattled after dinner. Maybe it was from fighting with Lila. Or maybe it was seeing someone else’s family together while my dad was away. I wanted to try asking Mom again what was going on, but then I thought about her red eyes from “onions” in the kitchen. She looked so sad anytime we edged anywhere close to that topic.
I didn’t feel like I could sleep, so I turned on my flashlight to read under the covers. I sent Jade a text, telling her how Lila came over for dinner and it was kind of a disaster. When I didn’t hear back from her, I wondered if she was too busy hanging out with Sofia. Eventually I conked out with the flashlight still on, illuminating my shadow under the sheet pulled over my head.
I jolted awake in the middle of the night. Why is it so bright? Then I felt something heavy in my hand—the flashlight, which I was still clutching. I snapped it off. I pulled the sheet off my head and sat up in bed. The room around me, normally bathed in blue moonlight shining through the loose curtains, now was pitch-black. The kind of inky darkness a room gets late at night, right after you turn out the lights and your eyes haven’t adjusted. What was that? I heard something, like a door softly shutting. The noise it makes when a cupboard has magnets to keep it closed—the click as they attract and connect. The sound wouldn’t have been nearly loud enough to wake me on its own, but because my senses were on hyperalert, it sounded like it had gone through a megaphone. I heard the faintest footstep, followed by a tiny sigh from the floorboards.
I did not feel alone in my room. But strangely enough, I didn’t feel frightened, either—at least at first. I opened my mouth, about to ask if my mom was there. Except I knew she wasn’t—why would Mom be lurking in my room in the total darkness? If she had wandered in to turn out my flashlight and tuck me into bed, then she would have said something when I woke up. So whatever, whomever I could feel in the room—he or she or it wasn’t my mother. There were eyes on me, watching me. I knew it. Just like that first day in the woods by the Grandmother Vine—and that had turned out to be something, even if it had been only a deer.
My heart pounded, so hard I could feel it in my ears like a drum. I clenched the sheets in my fists, pulling them closer to me. I had a flash of the magical thinking I used to have as a little kid, that so long as nothing could see me (with a sheet over my head, with my hoodie pulled up and over my face, et cetera), I was safe. I strained to listen to the room around me. It was silent—even the floorboards now. I could only hear the rustle of the trees outside and the hum of someone’s generator or air conditioner. I didn’t understand how a person could be so quiet—whomever the intruder was.
This is stupid, I thought. This is all because Lila was here, talking about her ghost hunts. I’m letting my imagination run away with me.
I reached for my phone, just in case. When I woke up the screen, though, I saw that I had no service. My stomach dropped, as I realized that whatever was in the room with me now knew that I was awake, thanks to the phone’s illumination. I held my breath until the light faded.
I sat still for what felt like hours, but probably was only seconds to minutes. Eventually, my eyes adjusted to the room around me. I didn’t see anyone, not even a shadow. I tried to muster the courage to turn on my flashlight, quick. Shine it around the room and catch whomever was there. That scared me more than anything else—the not knowing what I would see once I turned it on. I’m being ridiculous, just like a kindergartener afraid of monsters under the bed.
I took a deep breath, pressed my index finger down on the flashlight’s switch, and turned it on. I squinted as the light shone around and I saw . . . nothing. I mean, just the normal stuff in my cute cottage room. And when I shined it past the vanity mirror, there was no evil ghost reflection in it like a horror-story cliché. The room looked safe and empty, just my clothes draped over the chair and my glass of water untouched on the nightstand and me cowering in my bed. My heart stopped pounding a little. I could’ve sworn . . .
I sat still for another couple of minutes, trying to get to a point where I felt comfortable lying down and going back to sleep. I couldn’t, though, not after feeling so convinced that someone was in there, watching me. For all I knew, if nobody was in the room then maybe some creeper was at the window. I shivered. I’d only ever lived on the third floor of a building or higher, and at that height no one can stand at street level and peer into your room. (Seeing into your neighbor’s windows, well, that’s another story. Jade and I sort of love to spy on the people in the apartments across from ours and make up stories about their lives.)
Finally, I gave up. I jumped out of bed, wrapped the comforter around me like an invisibility cloak, and ran into my mom’s room. She actually was awake and sitting up against the headboard of her bed; I hadn’t realized that she still wasn’t sleeping well even now that we were in North Carolina. In fact, her eyes were red-rimmed and she sniffed and wiped her nose as I busted in, like she had maybe been crying again.
“Nell? Is everything okay?”
I was going to sound nuts if I told my mom I thought someone had been in my room, or at least watching me in there. That was the last thing she needed right now. “Um,” I paused. “I had a bad dream. I feel so lame coming in here for that, but I’m not used to waking up in that room. . . .” I trailed off. Mom already looked so miserable, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad about my being in an unfamiliar room in the first place. “Can I sleep in here with you for the night?”
She smiled at me, like she was really happy to hear that. “Sure, crawl in.” She pulled back the sheets for me to slide inside. I hopped into her big bed and curled up next to her. Mom put her arm around me and kissed my forehead. “My little sprout,” she said. “Sleep tight.”
I tried not to think about how lonely she must feel most nights, in a big bed in a cottage not her own, on a strange island far from home. More important, though, being alone after all those years of always having my dad snoring next to her and accidentally kicking her with his restless legs.
When I woke up the next morning, I could hear Mom puttering around the kitchen. I slipped out of her bed and padded into my room. It looked as fresh and friendly as it did every morning, and I felt extra silly for acting like such a baby the night before. I grabbed my book and flashlight off the tangle of sheets and set t
hem on my vanity. That’s when I noticed it.
The door to the bottom cabinet was hanging slightly ajar—the compartment keeping the flask safe.
My heart fluttered. That door had those magnet thingies in the closure, so it would make that slight click when you opened or shut it. I hadn’t left it open the day before—especially not after I put the flask inside.
I yanked the door fully open. The crumpled dishcloths were still there, but the rest of the cabinet was empty.
I sank down onto my heels, head in my hands. I know I made sure it was safely inside. The dishcloths proved it. There was no way I had done something else with the flask. And my mom definitely wouldn’t have gone into my room and taken it without talking to me. I thought of hearing the click noise last night, and I shuddered. Had somebody been in my room that whole time? Stealing the flask? But who would know about it, or care?
But wait: Maybe the noise had been the door popping back open, or fully shut, because someone hadn’t closed it properly earlier. I remembered Lila’s long trip to the bathroom during dinner. How she seemed a little rattled when she came back to the table—or perhaps guilty! Maybe, after I told her that I was investigating too, and that I had found a clue, she went into my room and poked around. My hand clenched the dishcloths. Lila probably found the flask. If anyone could recognize an artifact, it would be her—and I would not put it past her to steal my discovery.
It was the only explanation. I wanted to kick myself for not checking my room last night after she went to the bathroom. Also for bragging about my find—I should’ve kept that secret to myself. But it was too late, and the flask was gone. I wanted to cry. How am I ever going to tell Ambrose about this?
“Nell! Breakfast! We’ve got to get to the site by nine thirty,” my mom called from the kitchen. I wanted to tell her what was going on—that Lila was a thief and had stolen something precious from my room while we were hosting her for dinner. But then my mom would want to know what she’d taken, and I’d have to tell her about the flask. She’d probably be mad that I hadn’t told anyone official about it yet. So instead I sat down for some whole-grain toast and kept my mouth shut. The only thing that got me through it was picturing Ambrose and me eventually finding the site of the lost colony, and then getting to watch Lila’s horror at not having done it first.
Summer of Lost and Found Page 8