Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (29 page)

Allie rolled out of bed, walked to the bathroom. When she came back to the bedroom, she turned on the desk lamp and sat down at her computer. Better write all this in the log before I forget it. Chesapeake was still open on her computer monitor. She minimized it, made a mental note to return later; then opened her log, typed in everything she could remember from the night’s dreams; was again astounded at how the events fit together like scenes in a story, a book, a movie. She hit print. Can’t wait to talk to Dressler. Hope he’s not some ether-breathing geek. Seemed pretty cool when I heard him speak last year.

She looked at the computer clock. Ouch. Three thirty. Gotta get more sleep, or I’ll be a goofy idiot tomorrow, but first—she brought up the passage on Chesapeake. Let’s see, before I went to bed, I decided 1585 was too early for the Chesapeake colony . . . so maybe colonists went there in the 1600s from somewhere else. She typed in Chesapeake colony, saw Jamestown, clicked on it, saw a picture of people dressed like those in her dreams. “Wow! Looks like them.” She skimmed the words for names.
Captain John Smith
. Wrong John.
Pocahontas
. Nope.
John Rolfe
. Nope. I remember this from school. Liked the name
John
, didn’t they?
Virginia
. Nope. Wait a minute! Virginia . . . Virginia. Heard Virginia. Person or place? Damn! Can’t remember. Chesapeake’s in Virginia, dummy. Yeah, but I heard it in a dream,
tonight
, and Jamestown doesn’t fit. So now what?

I know they’re
after
1585, know they’re on an island, and it
maybe
starts with
R
. So try this. She typed in
1585 English Island colony
. A list of websites with the name
Roanoke Colony
came up. Holy shit! Roanoke. That’s it! She double-clicked on a site and saw another picture of people dressed like those in the dreams. But these people stood around a big tree, pointed at the letters
CRO
carved in its side.
CRO
. What’s that? Hmm. At the end of the last dream they talked about carving a message on a tree. Another picture caught her eye; this one depicted a group of men pointing at the word
CROATOAN
carved into a log that looked like a post in a fort. I wonder if . . . the leader . . . John White . . . said to carve something on a tree or post. Yeah, if they left the island for somewhere else, they were
supposed to carve the name of where they were going on one of the posts in the fort . . . called it something besides a
fort
though . . . Wow! Look at that. A third picture showed a drawing of Roanoke Island with a fort depicted on it and Indian villages across the water on the mainland. Hot damn! This is it . . . read it all.

Allie’s eyes followed the cursor as she dragged it down the screen, looked for words from the dreams.
Virginia
. Damn! There it is again . . . place name again.
Walter Raleigh
. Heard that one. He’s the guy in England who sponsored the colony, knows the queen. What else? “Son . . . of . . . a . . . bitch!”

The Lost Colony
.

No!

The Lost Colony is the name given to an early settlement on Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina
.

Can’t be right.

The colony is called “lost” because no one has ever discovered what happened to it. Roanoke Island and North Carolina were then part of a vast territory called Virginia that extended from the present state of Pennsylvania to what is now South Carolina. The first group settled there in 1585, but because survival was so difficult, they returned to England the next year. Immediately after they left, a second group arrived, but with the exception of fifteen soldiers who remained behind, they quickly returned to England, as well
.

I remember the 1585 group . . . and the guy who brutalized the Indians. They talked about it. White and the Indian remembered it, both were there when they raped that Indian’s wife and killed her . . . and her kids. Oh my God. This is surreal.

In 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh sent a group of 117 settlers to reestablish the colony. John White
—there it is . . . oh my God—
who led the group, was instructed to
settle on the shores of Chesapeake Bay about fifty miles north of Roanoke Island. However, the pilot of the ship, for some reason that remains unknown, refused to transport the settlers farther than Roanoke Island, where they had stopped to pick up the fifteen men who were left there the year before. Not one of the fifteen was ever found alive
.

Allie looked at the wall, her mind spinning like a tight tornado. I know what happened to them. Heard the Indians tell it; they killed two on Roanoke Island and the rest up north, tortured some of them. She shivered as she recalled the horrific details. How the hell could I dream this? I’ve never heard of it before. And now I know more about it than any historian. Or do I? Scary. She looked back at the computer.

Relations with the Indians near the island had been destroyed by the 1585 expedition, and several days after the colonists’ arrival, George Howe, a member of the expedition, was brutally murdered by them. Nevertheless, the settlers remained on Roanoke Island, where in August a baby girl was born—the first English child born on American soil. She was John White’s granddaughter and was christened Virginia Dare
.

“Oh my God! I saw her born.” She shuddered. I
did
read about these people, about Virginia Dare, in ninth grade history, or somewhere. “But I saw Virginia Dare being born.” Chills raced down her back like a millipede stampede. “How . . . how can this be?”

The colonists expected to live on their supplies from England, but these soon ran out. And as the ships that brought the settlers to Roanoke prepared to leave, the colonists’ situation grew desperate. They insisted that John White return to England on the ship to obtain supplies and more settlers. White reluctantly agreed, leaving his daughter, Elyoner Dare, and her baby, Virginia Dare, behind on Roanoke Island
.

Where I woke up. Oh my God!

Immediately after White reached England, open war broke out between England and Spain (See “Spanish Armada”), and Queen Elizabeth closed all English harbors.
Thus, because of the war, John White did not return to Roanoke until 1590, three years after he had left
.

“Nooo . . .”

And when he landed on Roanoke Island, he found no trace of the colonists—only the letters
CRO
carved on a tree and the word
CROATOAN
, the slightly misspelled name of a nearby island (Croatan Island) inhabited by friendly Indians, carved on a palisade (log fort) post in the village. But neither carving was accompanied by a cross to signify distress, such as White had ordered if the colonists departed in danger
.

Last thing he said before he left.

White returned to his ship and attempted to sail the short distance south to Croatan Island in search of the settlers and his family, but a severe storm forced the ship to sail out to sea for safety. The captain then refused to return to Virginia, and John White never again set foot on American soil
.

“He never came back? How could he do that . . . his daughter . . . the baby.”

Nothing certain has ever been learned about the fate of little Virginia Dare and the other colonists. Thus, unless some chance discovery or excavation yields evidence to solve the puzzle, we shall never know what happened to this first English settlement in America
.

Allie stared at the page. She tapped a monotonous rhythm with her fingers on the desk.
We shall never know . . . never know
. “Damn! Can’t be! ” She glared viciously at the computer as if anger could change the words, change history. “Damn it! Why is this happening to me? Emily, George Howe, Hugh Tayler, Elyoner . . . they can’t just disappear. They can’t.”

Stunned, numb, overcome by sudden depression, Allie turned out the light and walked to the bed. She sat on the side, stared at the wall. It’s like reading that your hometown and your family have been wiped out by a
tornado or an earthquake. I know these people. But how can I? It’s just a dumb dream. But somehow I’m dreaming
real
history—don’t know why or how, but it’s real history, and these people are real. Emily, I feel you, know you, care for you, feel like you’re part of me. With tearing eyes, she flopped onto her back, pulled the comforter over her. Damn it! They’re all gonna die.

But they’re already dead . . . lived over four hundred years ago.

“No. They’re alive, I see them, know them.”

Not so. They’re already dead! Get it through your head, dummy. One way or another, they’re already dead.

“No. They’re alive in my mind. They’re gonna make it. They can’t die.”

A sudden jolt of excitement raced through Allie’s body. Wait a minute! There was no cross by the name in the picture. So they
weren’t in danger
when they left. Said they went to Croatan Island. Maybe history’s wrong. Maybe they
did
make it. Just because they weren’t found doesn’t mean they didn’t live out happy lives somewhere. They’re
gonna
make it. I know they are.

Allie dried her tears with the end of the comforter then rolled over; buried her face in her pillow and exhorted her mind to ponder the imponderable, explain the inexplicable; whispered, “Emily . . . Emily . . . you have to make it . . . have to make it . . . have to . . .”

The four full-haired Indians from the far, far north were nearing the territory of the Chesapeake tribe, which was at the south end of a large, long, north-south water that most people called by the tribe’s name. The Chesapeake village was on a square-cornered spit of land, the north side of which formed the south end of the large water, and the east side of which faced the Great-Water-That-Cannot-Be-Drunk. The men had spent several days with the mountain tribes, nearly all of whom spoke slight variations of their own language—variations that were close enough to allow voice communication in lieu of hand signs. But their dialect was unrecognizable to the tribes between the mountains and the large water, most of whom were
members of a strong alliance led by the Powhatan tribe and their powerful leader, Wahunsunacock. The Powhatans and the mountain tribes were bitter enemies and had done much injury to one another over the years. So in their journey to the Chesapeakes, the four north men stayed well south of the large, west-to-east river that flowed into the large water by the Chesapeake village, hoping to avoid contact with both the Powhatans and their allies, most of whom resided north of the river. The Powhatans had pressured the Chesapeakes to join their alliance, even threatened them on occasion; but the Chesapeakes enjoyed their independence, preferred a less formal relationship with the Powhatans, and refused to officially join the alliance but paid significant tribute to the Powhatans to preclude being treated as an enemy.

Because of their location, the Chesapeakes were rich in a large variety of seashells which the north men and their people treasured. Though they had huge waters of their own, some too wide to see across, their water was drinkable; and for some reason, the variety and color of shells yielded by their waters were far less suitable for jewelry than those of the Great-Water-That-Cannot-Be-Drunk. So the north men planned to trade their furry robes for vast amounts of shells, as well as the red stones the coastal peoples procured through trade with certain inland tribes, including the Powhatans. The shells would be used for jewelry, while the red stones would be used either for jewelry or to craft the red medicine pipe bowls cherished by their people. Similar red stones could be found in their home territory, but their craftsmen were not as skilled as those of the coastal and inland tribes. In addition to trading, the four would spend the winter with the Chesapeakes to gather even more shells; but these undrilled shells would be less valuable than the drilled ones they procured from the Chesapeakes, for the latter were either ready to be strung on necklaces and bracelets or were already strung and ready to be draped around a warrior’s or pretty girl’s neck or wrist.

While most of their robes would be traded to the Chesapeakes, a number equal to the fingers on both hands would be traded with another people, the Croatans, one day’s canoe trip to the south on the Great-Water-That-Cannot-Be-Drunk. For a reason understood by no one, the waters around the Croatan’s island yielded uniquely colored shells that brought an
even higher price in the north country. While some were the color of the red stones, others were a mix of the stone color and the color of the sand, and still others had dimples in them that made them even more attractive, further increasing their value.

The leader, who wore the five eagle feathers, and one other north man would visit the Croatans while the two who remained with the Chesapeakes began trading and building the lodge that would shelter them over the winter. The leader planned to remain only two days with the Croatans before returning to help with the lodge and the hunting and fishing required to prepare for the winter.