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“You got it.”
We left the room and David grabbed my hand, practically dragging me outside the library.
“Okay,” I said, barely able to contain myself. “What did you find?”
“Let’s go to my office. I want to upload these photos and show you.”
While I could see the wisdom in that, and I knew we shouldn’t be talking about this out in the open, I was dying to know. “So it’s good?”
“It’s better than good. It’s the best we could hope for.”
Thankfully, his office building was practically behind the library. He pulled his keys out as we climbed the stairs to the second floor and had the door open within seconds. The room was small, less than eight feet wide. There was a window with vinyl blinds in the outside wall, and a wooden desk sat against the wall, perpendicular to the door. There was a tall metal file cabinet next to the desk.
“I guess you get a proper look at it this time, huh?” he said as he shut the door behind us and sat in his office chair. He opened a drawer and pulled out a cord to hook his phone to his computer.
“It’s so weird,” I said, looking around. “I was with you the last time you were here. As you were getting ready to leave.” I had come to see him over a month ago. He’d been packing for Manteo at the time, though I hadn’t realized that. At first, he’d thought I was an overzealous undergrad who was trying to get into one of his intro classes. “I bet those poor girls who moved mountains to get into your class are beyond devastated to find out you weren’t their instructor after all.”
He laughed, sounding embarrassed. “I’m mortified when I think about how incredibly rude I was to you that day.”
“You were pretty bad. But I’ll let it go if you tell me what you found in that letter.” The suspense was starting to eat at me.
I perched on the edge of his desk as he started the photo upload.
“Parts were a bit smudged, but I was able to make out most of it. The man who wrote this letter was a farmer from the Albemarle colony in northern North Carolina. He came down from Jamestown with a group who started a settlement along the Albemarle Sound in the mid-1600s. The note we found from your father said your ancestors went to Jamestown and then down to Albemarle with the initial colonists. In any case, this man—George—was part of a scouting expedition.”
“So, this George is one of my ancestors?”
He glanced up, shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so, and I’ll tell you why in a second.” He picked up an ink pen and pointed the end at his screen. “It says here that there had been some skirmishes with the natives and the colonists decided to take the offensive and scout for any hostile parties. They took three boats and set out on the sound. After a long day on the water, they landed on an island and started to look around, but something spooked George’s friends and they took off without him. Soon after they left, the sun went down. George was worried, but he figured his friends would come back. There was a new moon, though, so he knew they wouldn’t be able to retrieve him until morning. He decided to walk around the perimeter of the island and he came upon two boats—one obviously native, the other English. Worried, he pushed into the woods until he heard voices and saw a fire in the distance. While he was hiding in the trees, he saw a Native American man and an Englishman deep in the forest. The native was conducting a ceremony of some kind while the Englishman stood to the side and watched.
“There were multiple circles and markings on the ground. The native—George calls him a conjurer—had a spear in his hand, along with something else. He smeared his own blood on the objects, and then a huge storm rolled in out of nowhere. He said the trees shook violently, but the conjurer and the Englishman paid no attention, and the conjurer continued his chant. Suddenly something appeared in front of an oak tree—a gate.” David scrolled to the next photo and enlarged it, then read: “‘All manner of beasts and demonic creations were trapped behind the massive gate. The air was filled with wailing and moaning and screaming pleas to be set free.’”
My mouth gaped. “He saw Popogusso? When was this written?”
“1687.”
“A hundred years after the curse? How is that possible?” I tried to make sense of it. “So he had to be on Roanoke Island.”
“Agreed.”
“You said this was good. There must be more.”
David spun his chair around so he could look up at me. “George wrote that while the conjurer ignored the demons and spirits, the Englishman looked frightened. Then one of the demons—a man with black hair that was long on one side and short on the other, who was dressed in native attire—grabbed the bars and shouted at the men.”
“Okeus,” I breathed out in a gush. That was how he’d looked when he’d passed through the gate the night Collin let the demons loose.
David nodded and then turned back to the computer and pulled up another photo, reading the text on the screen. “He shouted, ‘Conjuror! Give up this madness. Find your fellow Croatan brother, the Manteo Keeper, and have him join with the Dare Keeper to open the gate. If you do this, I will offer you great rewards.’”
“How did the conjuror have the power to expose the gate?”
“I don’t know,” David answered, deep in thought. “After reading the rest of this letter, it sounds like Ahone set the whole thing up.” He turned back to the screen. “It says here that an older man appeared as the conjuror continued his ceremony. He had long white hair and a beard, and he told the demon behind the bars, ‘One day you will be free, but not for long. Once the seal to the gate breaks open, I will set in motion a plan that will seal the gate permanently with you and your vile creations locked behind it forever.’ Then the white-haired spirit chanted words and the spear and the other object in the conjuror’s hand—a gold ring—began to glow so much that they lit up the forest. The demons started to scream and the white-haired man’s voice rose above the noise, telling the Englishman, ‘You now have a weapon to use on your own. And the other Keeper has one too. When you bring the weapons close to the gate of Popogusso, they will sing, and that’s your sign that the weapon will allow you to send the demons back to hell.’”
“The weapons sing?” I asked. A thought tickled in the back of my head, a memory just out of reach. “The ring that sings at the gate of Popogusso,” I murmured.
David sat up straighter. “You say that like you’re remembering something.”
I closed my eyes to concentrate, but nothing emerged. Shaking my head, I opened my eyes. “There’s a memory there, but I can’t reach it.”
He snaked my hand and cradled it in his. “Obviously your memories have information we can use. Perhaps we should consider hypnosis to bring them to the surface.”
