Strange Alchemy

by Gwenda Bond

  PRAISE FOR STRANGE ALCHEMY

  “With whip-smart, instantly likable characters and a gothic small-town setting, Bond weaves a dark and gorgeous tapestry from America’s oldest mystery.”

  — Scott Westerfeld, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Uglies series

  “Bond takes some reliably great elements — a family curse, the mark of Cain, the old and endlessly fascinating mystery of the Roanoke Colony — and makes them into something delightfully, surprisingly new. How does she do that? I suspect witchcraft.”

  — Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club

  “This haunting, romantic mystery intrigues, chills, and captivates.”

  — Cynthia Leitich Smith, New York Times bestselling author of the Tantalize series

  For my parents (principals but never fascists) and for Christopher (my partner-in-crime)

  For what we sometimes were, we are no more; Fortune hath changed our shape, and destiny Defaced the very form we had before.

  — Sir Walter Raleigh, Petition to the Queen

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Strange Alchemy

  Title Page

  Dedications

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Back Cover

  Chapter 1

  MIRANDA

  I am a Blackwood, and in this town, on this tiny island, that means taking whatever escapes are offered. I cock my head back and pretend to be in two places at once. Here, in the wings of this outdoor theater, half-listening for my favorite part of The Lost Colony, and there, as far away as the stars, light-years above it all. The night sky is as familiar as the constellation of calluses that dot my palms. As familiar and set as everything in my life.

  I used to think I could get away for real. I was younger then… stupider or more innocent, depending on your point of view. The first time I checked the back of my closet for a portal to another world I was eleven. The year Mom died. After the closet, I tried other places. I wandered small patches of woods, seeking doors hidden in the twisted trees, and peered into mirrors searching for reflections that weren’t mine. No wonder the kids at school decided I was a freak. No, that’s not fair. They would’ve decided that anyway. The Blackwoods are cursed, after all — the unluckiest family on the island.

  Escape is a romantic notion. I’m too practical to believe in it now. I no longer hope to step over a secret threshold and leave Roanoke Island behind forever.

  And yet here I am, staring at the stars.

  It’s almost funny that I’m unable to escape a place that’s famous for people vanishing. Roanoke Island, the site of the first English colony in the Americas, where 114 men, women, and children went missing without any explanation, save for a single cryptic carving left behind on a tree. Disappearing completely is some trick to pull off, even hundreds of years ago when the country was still almost entirely wild places.

  “They’ve survived!”

  The bullish voice of the actor who plays Governor John White snaps my attention back to the stage. The line signals his return to the colony after his trip to England. The set’s faux oak tree, hollow boulders, and packed dirt floor pass for an abandoned settlement, except for the shining spotlights.

  Surrounded by sailors, White gasps — hamming it up — as he points to the oak on the far side of the stage. The simple cloak around his shoulders flies out with the gesture. I can’t see the word from here, but of course it’s the famous CROATOAN carved into the bark in desperate, crooked letters.

  White, overacting like crazy, shouts: “My granddaughter, I will see her beautiful face!”

  I exchange a look with Polly, my boss and the stage manager, the one who lets me stand here in exchange for my intern scut work. She’s the closest thing I have to a friend — well, besides my dog, Sidekick.

  Polly shakes her head, her prematurely gray ponytail swishing. We both know Director Jack, aka His Royal Majesty, will give John White a scathing note on his over-the-top performance later.

  For now, the governor, along with the sailors in the background, freezes. The lights dim. The final reveal is cued up.

  It’s sticky humid out here, but a small shiver runs through me. The same one I always feel when I think about the colonists. Every time I watch the show, I wonder how or where they ended up. The standard theories involve bad endings and tragedy. But the reality is, the truth died when they did. We’ll never ever know what happened to them.

  A single low spotlight draws my attention back to the stage. The beam fixes on a solemn young blond girl as she wanders, ghost-slow, through the frozen men. Her face is chalk pale.

  His Royal Majesty’s biggest change to this year’s show was making Virginia Dare — the first English child born in America — the show’s deadpan narrator. The actress, Caroline, is a local kid, seven, and a holy terror mean-girl-in-training. But the casting works.

  I lean forward to see how the scene’s going over for the crowd. We aren’t sold out tonight, but the curving rows of the amphitheater are still nearly full. Twelve hundred people sit, riveted and silent, as Caroline haunts the stage.

  And then I spot something off… a shadow at the back of the audience. One moment everything’s normal, the next this giant shadow is there, hovering in the air.

  It’s definitely not part of the show.

  The floating darkness grows and grows and then resolves into a recognizable shape — an immense, old-fashioned black ship. The kind of ship that was used by colonists or pirates. Odd gray symbols bloom on each of three billowing black sails, the shapes a mix of straight lines and arcs, a half-moon curving above a circle at the top. The sailcloth ripples in a wind I don’t feel on my skin.

  I blink. And again.

  The ship is still there.

  I raise my hand, and my hand is in front of an immense black ship with tall black sails. The ship glides forward, swallowing the audience row after curving row.

  In a few seconds, half the audience has disappeared beneath it. No one reacts.

  My breath catches in my throat as the ship moves steadily closer.

  I turn to Polly, and she smiles with the normal relief of reaching the end of the night. A smile with no hint of concern.

  The ship is heading straight for the stage now. Those odd symbols shift on the sails in curving and slashing lines. The black monster gathers speed, faster and faster.

  When little Caroline hits her mark at center stage, there are only a dozen feet separating her from the ship. She gives no sign of seeing it either. She m
ight be a brat, but she’s also only seven years old.

  “Look out!” I finally point and stagger forward onto the stage. Caroline opens her mouth to speak, and I throw myself at her, shielding her small body with my arms.

  There are a few shocked cries. I close my eyes and wait for the impact.

  It never comes.

  Murmurs and questions from the crowd reach my ears, but nothing else.

  Caroline squirms in my arms. I open my eyes, and the massive curving prow looms above us, unmoving, throwing a heavy shadow over Caroline and me. Then — between one blink and the next — it vanishes.

  The spotlight is suddenly blinding in my face, and I squint, not used to the bright heat. I glance over my shoulder as I hold wriggling Caroline tight.

  Governor White glares murder at me, but none of the men break character. They’re supposed to remain frozen until the lights go down, and they are.

  Caroline says, “Let me go, Blackwood.”

  I don’t understand her meaning right away, don’t understand what’s happening. Until Caroline grabs a handful of my hair and yanks hard.

  “Ow.”

  And that’s when I realize — the show isn’t over.

  I interrupted the performance because a giant ship appeared. A giant ship no one else seems to have noticed.

  From the side of the stage, Polly gives a low command. “Miranda! Get. Over. Here.”

  That’s what gets through to me. I’ve disappointed Polly. Let her down.

  I release my hold on Caroline and hurry from the stage.

  Polly takes my arm. “What was that?”

  On stage, Caroline looks like an angry ghost, her face pink instead of pale. Polly brushes at the sleeve of my T-shirt where the girl’s stage makeup rubbed off onto it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell her. But finding the right words proves difficult. “I don’t know… I thought I saw…”

  “What?” Polly asks.

  A phantom ship, coming right at us, I think. But I can’t say that. I don’t believe in phantom ships. I’m the practical one, the steady one, the one who takes care of things in the Blackwood household. Someone has to. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

  Polly frowns but stays beside me while rosy-cheeked Caroline manages her last lines:

  “The one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children of the Roanoke colony remain lost, their fate unknown. A mystery trapped in time.”

  At last, the spotlight dies.

  *

  Backstage, His Royal Highness — also known as our director, Jack — stalks back and forth in front of the cast and crew. He’s backed by a life-sized model ship that can’t help but remind me of the one I — and I alone, apparently — saw. Normally Jack doesn’t bother me. He’s short with a square jaw and golden-brown hair. If you passed him on the street you’d forget about him as soon as he was out of sight. Unless he trained his outsized dictatorial personality your way. Tonight I barely hear the sloshing waters of the Roanoke Sound behind Waterside Theater as I wait, my heart pounding in my ears, for the director to start talking. This hastily called meeting is mainly for my benefit, and every member of the cast and crew knows it too.

  “I had to ask someone your name, you know,” the director finally says, stopping in front of my section of the crowd. “Who, I asked, is the girl who decided to become the first person ever on my stage to disrupt a show in progress? The answer? Miranda Blackwood.”

  Leah from costumes sits on the ground in front of where I’m standing. I’m looking down and so I see her flinch at my name. Polly’s roommates, Gretchen and Kirsten, are beside Leah, and they exchange a whisper that only ends when Jack looks at them. Behind me, Polly puts a reassuring hand on my back to shore me up.

  Jack continues. “I was told that I should have expected no less from an infamous Blackwood, even a lowly intern.”

  I cringe but only inwardly. Outside, I remain calm, collected. I’ve heard it before — not at the theater, not often. That’s only because Jack and Polly, like most of the actors and a significant number of the crew, aren’t from the island. The few locals here know all about the infamous curse. We’re the unlucky Blackwoods of Roanoke Island, supposedly going all the way back to the time of the lost colonists — there’s no record of a Blackwood among the settlers, but why let details get in the way of a good rumor?

  Jack makes a flamboyantly dismissive gesture. “Never trust a Blackwood; they’re bad luck. That’s what they told me. It sounds like superstitious hogwash, but the theater loves superstitious hogwash. I’ll be consulting with the stage manager about your future employment —”

  “Miranda is an excellent employee, Jack,” Polly interrupts. “She’s been with us for three years. She’s willing to sand wood, help with construction, pitch in with costumes. I’m sure she had a good reason for what happened. I’ll speak with her.”

  Her sticking up for me makes my eyes sting. Polly knows I won’t be back next year. Senior year starts soon, and after graduation I’ll have to find a year-round job that will pay more bills. No more doing whatever needs doing to make the show’s version of history — complete with musical numbers — come alive for the tourists.

  “I’ll take that into consideration when we talk. Tomorrow.” He broadens his attention to encompass everyone else. “The rest of you get an A plus for not breaking character. The fact we finished despite the interruption means no ticket exchanges or refunds. Which is the only reason, Miss Blackwood, that you’re not already fired. You can thank everyone in the final scene for that. And you should.”

  His eyes gravitate back to me. He waits.

  “Thanks, everyone,” I manage.

  “Dismissed,” Director Jack says.

  The rest of the group is instantly chattering, but no one says anything about a big black ship with billowing sails. But I did see it. Didn’t I?

  “See you later,” I mumble to Polly, heading for the path through the trees to the parking lot. I need to get out of here.

  “I hate for you to go straight home after that,” Polly says, following me. Kirsten and Gretchen nod at her on their way past but don’t offer to wait. I assume they’re headed home. The out-of-towners all live at Morrison Grove, just up the coastline. “Come out to the Grove, and I’ll sneak you a margarita. We can talk, okay?”

  I bite my lip. I have to ask, to make sure. “You didn’t notice anything…”

  “Anything?” Polly prompts.

  “I don’t know… odd?”

  Polly frowns. I’ve never seen her frown so much. “You mean besides what you did?” she asks.

  Yes. “Was there anything else?”

  Polly’s response is careful. “No. I didn’t notice anything else odd. Did you?”

  So I really am the only person who saw the ship. “Probably not. I better go on home.”

  “Sure?” Polly waits, giving me a chance to say more. When I don’t take it, she shrugs. “Okay. Be careful. We’ll figure this out.” She gives me a hug, then splits off with a wave, in a rush to catch up with Kirsten and Gretchen.

  I watch them go. So much for the theater being my great escape. The people who work summer stock have always treated me like they treat each other. Normal.

  That’s over.

  It was going to end anyway, but that doesn’t mean I was ready to have all my good memories of this place cast into the shadow of a dark cloud. I wasn’t ready to not fit in here.

  The sensation of losing normal status — of no longer being treated the same as everyone else — is all too familiar. The other kids at school didn’t truly decide to turn on me until I was thirteen. My mom was dead, which was bad enough, but then the new police chief’s kid, Grant Rawling — radiating cool like all new kids do — humiliated me in front of everyone. I don’t even think he did it on purpose. It doesn’t matter. What mattered was he gave the others the c
onfirmation they needed that I will never be like them.

  The instant I hit the pavement of the mostly deserted parking lot, a pickup truck roars alongside me. A dozen Tarheels stickers cover the bumper and back window, and I know instantly who it belongs to — Bone, my sad-sack nemesis and the only other intern at the theater this summer. Basketball is the closest thing North Carolina has to a state religion, and Bone — so called because he’s basically skin and bones — is a devoted member of the faithful.

  My night just keeps getting better.

  Bone rolls down the window.

  “What?” I snap, waiting for some insult.

  Unlike me, Bone doesn’t work at the theater by choice. His rich kook of a dad — a conspiracy theorist who’s obsessed with the lost colony — forces him to. This doesn’t usually get to me. Life isn’t fair. I know that. The fact that I hallucinated a phantom ship and Bone’s doubtless about to remind me yet again of my family’s reputation, well, that gets to me.

  Bone’s elbow juts out the window. “Like father like daughter, I guess. Screwing up just runs in your family. Sorry about your Blackwood luck.”

  “Sorry you’re a jerk.”

  “I’m going to hang out with some friends. Where are you going? To pick up your dad?”

  He means from whatever bar Dad’s installed himself at tonight. I raise my hand and make a shooing motion. “Leave, begone, scram.”

  He hesitates, stumped for a comeback. Finally, he says, “I will,” and roars away.

  I reach my beloved car, Pineapple, and climb into the driver’s seat. I turn the key, and Pineapple starts up. I pat the dashboard gratefully. “Thank you for not roaring.”

  I bought Pineapple with my first few hundred bucks of paychecks. The original make is impossible to determine, and I’ve never had to figure it out. I never signed on the dotted lines of any insurance or registration papers. Dad claims that forms and laws are for other people. Respectable people. I just assume the town police must feel too sorry for me to bust me.

  I drive out of Fort Raleigh, the plastic hula girl stuck to Pineapple’s dash wobbling seductively with each turn. Downtown Manteo, the island’s main drag, is packed with tourists on this warm summer Wednesday. The town center resembles a perfect model of itself, preserved Victorian houses and Colonial-style storefronts with the sound’s peaceful waters as scenic backdrop. Gelato shops and fancy restaurants are tucked next to pricey B&Bs that offer tickets for fishing expeditions and dolphin spotting.