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“Come over to the Outer Banks and I’ll get you a visitor’s pass and show you around.”
She blinked in surprise. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m totally serious; just give me a day or two of notice so I can get it pushed through the approval process.” He set the coffee cup on the desk. “In the meantime, I hope you still like vanilla soy lattes.”
“You know that I do.” She grinned and took the cup, then glanced up at me.
“Ellie, this is Penelope Fisher, my favorite archivist.” He winked at her and an amused smile spread across her face. Then he motioned toward me. “Penelope, this is Ellie Lancaster, daughter of John and Amanda Lancaster. They both lived and breathed the Lost Colony before their deaths. John was well known for his work—”
“On the colonists and their relationships with the neighboring Native Americans,” Penelope finished. “We have some of his work in the North Carolina collection.”
My mouth parted in astonishment. “You do?”
“I attended one of your father’s lectures twenty years ago when he came to Chapel Hill. He had some fascinating insights. He was a great man. I’m sorry to hear about his passing.”
“Thank you.” I waited for the familiar lump in my throat when talking about my father’s death and was surprised when it didn’t come. Maybe I was getting desensitized to that too.
“Ellie’s mother was an archaeologist who worked at Fort Raleigh. She specialized in English artifacts dating back to the colonies. Ellie practically cut her teeth on anything to do with the Lost Colony, so you can appreciate her fascination now that it has reappeared.”
“Of course,” Penelope agreed. “Are you two here to research something connected with the colony?”
“Yes, but I’m studying Manteo’s hut that was located on the site, and I need to research some books and letters that might help me interpret what I’ve found. And there’s also an old letter I’d like to examine.” David handed Penelope the printout.
She studied the list before looking up at David. “The books I can get for you right away. But it will take me a bit to get the letter.”
“Thanks, Penelope.”
“I’ll bring the books into the reading room. Why don’t you two wait for me there.”
David nodded his agreement and led me into a large room full of wooden tables and chairs. The marble floor was set in a checkerboard pattern, and tall arched windows lined the walls. The multiple gold chandeliers hanging overhead completed the impressive décor. Less than a dozen other people filled the room, not that I was surprised. Who wanted to spend a Saturday morning in the library the first week of school? Even one as nice as this.
“This place is amazing,” I murmured.
He looked around with a grin. “One thing I love about it is that there’s always plenty of light in here. I spent so much time in this room when I first came to Chapel Hill, I was grateful it wasn’t some dark, dingy hole.”
The archivist appeared ten minutes later with several books and set the stack on the table. “Give me about twenty minutes notice before you want to see the letter. Then I’ll take you back to examine it.”
David smiled softly at her. “Thanks, Penelope.”
“I’ve missed your face around here,” she said with a wink before she left us.
“You haven’t been gone that long,” I murmured, sitting next to David.
“True. But I haven’t been here in the library since last spring. As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time here when I first came to Chapel Hill. There were so many documents about the Cherokee I could access from the archives. But I was also lonely and didn’t have anywhere else to go. After spending so much time here, I got to know Penelope pretty well. She lived in London in her twenties and early thirties, so we had that in common. She felt sorry for me and started baking things and bringing them for me to take home.” He pulled the first book from the stack. “I’m going to put you to work on this too. These books are older, but they’re not rare and fragile. I’m not sure how much we’ll find, but a few pieces of information here and there could help. If you find something that looks useful, let me know.”
“Okay.”
We spent the next hour and a half reading and scanning through the books before I found something that mentioned Ukinim, the malevolent badger. “David, look at this.”
He leaned closer, reading the passage. “This is good. And a few more of the deities are mentioned as well.” He reached for the book. “Do you mind?”
I gladly slid it over to him. “I’d like to read it when you’re done but go for it.”
He scrawled several pages of notes and then glanced up at me with excitement. “I’ve got a list of twelve supernatural beings, some considered good, some evil. This is fantastic.” Glancing down at his phone, he grimaced. “The library closes in two hours. I’ll go tell Penelope we’re ready to look at the letter as soon as possible. We can come back when the library opens tomorrow to review the rest.”
“Sounds good.”
He passed the book back to me and I read the material about the assorted spirits. There was a rabbit that watched over crops, a white crane that brought good luck, and a lizard that liked to play tricks on children. I read about a bear that brought destruction to those who offended the gods—I suspected I’d meet him at some point—and a large bird with razor-sharp teeth that liked to eat young men as they passed into adulthood. But the scariest was the Wendigo, a demon that possessed the body of a human before attacking and killing other humans.
