For my parents (principals but never fascists)
and
for Christopher (my partner-in-crime)
About the Author
XXX xxx xxx xxx
XXX xxx xxx xxx
Praise for GWENDA BOND
"Weird, wise and witty, Blackwood is great fun."
Marcus Sedgwick, author of Midwinterblood and White Crow
"This haunting, romantic mystery intrigues, chills, and captivates."
New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Leitich Smith
GWENDA BOND
Blackwood
STRANGE CHEMISTRY
An Angry Robot imprint
and a member of the Osprey Group
Midland House, West Way
Botley, Oxford
OX2 0HP
UK
www.strangechemistrybooks.com
Strange Chemistry #1
A Strange Chemistry paperback original 2012
1
Copyright Gwenda Bond 2012
Cover art Steven Wood
Gwenda Bond asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Set in Sabon by THL Design.
Distributed in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.
All rights reserved.
Angry Robot is a registered trademark and the Angry Robot icon a trademark of Angry Robot Ltd.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
ISBN 978-1-908844-07-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-908844-08-8
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Entry from
A Brief History of the Unexplained
T he Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh began his push for English settlement in the Americas. Establishing a settlement in North America was attractive to both Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I sure to bolster his influence and power as well as England's by opening access to a New World believed to be full of riches and by providing a staging ground for privateers to capture Spanish treasures on the high seas. Raleigh was granted seven years in which to make a successful colony in the lands then known as Virginia, after the virgin queen herself. The effort instead yielded one of the most enduring mysteries of the modern age.
After earlier trips proved largely exploratory, more than one hundred would-be colonists signed on to a 1587 voyage designed to finally create a permanent settlement on what is now Roanoke Island, part of North Carolina's Outer Banks island chain. But the journey proved harsh, as did the colonists' new home. Unfavorable conditions for cultivating crops and growing hostility with local Native American tribes made their future in America look bleak, especially without the hope of fresh supplies from England. Governor of the settlement John White an artist by training whose daughter Eleanor Dare had just given birth to Virginia, the first English child born in the Americas was chosen to go back to their homeland and petition Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth for help.
Unable to return for three long years, when White reached the site of the colony he found no sign of those he had left behind save for a single word carved into an oak tree: CROATOAN. But a trip to that nearby island turned up no further traces of the missing colonists. The disappearance of the one hundred and fourteen men, women, and children of the Roanoke colony, known now as the Lost Colony, remains unexplained to this day.
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
1
Miranda
T he first time Miranda Blackwood checked the back of her closet for a portal to another world she was eleven. That was the year her mother died. After the closet, she tried other places. She wandered small patches of woods, seeking doors hidden in twisted trees, and peered into mirrors, searching for reflections that weren't her own.
But Miranda grew up. She no longer hoped to step over a secret threshold and leave Roanoke Island behind forever. Instead, she grabbed whatever escapes were in reach, no matter what they were. No matter that she stayed right here.
For three summers running, her best escape had been interning for The Lost Colony at Waterside Theater. She sanded wood, hammered nails, sewed seams, and did whatever else needed doing to make the show's version of history complete with musical numbers come alive for the tourists. In exchange for those hours of scutwork done without complaint, the stage manager, Polly, let Miranda join her at the side of the outdoor stage every night to watch the show's final scenes.
The set's faux oak tree, hollow boulders, and packed dirt floor passed for an abandoned settlement, except for the shining spotlights. While Miranda half-listened for her favorite part, she cocked her head back to take in the stars light years above. The view was as familiar to her as the small constellation of calluses dotting her palms, or as the lines of the play drawing to a close beside her. As familiar and set as everything in Miranda's life.
The season was almost over, and then she'd endure senior year. Everyone was talking about college, preparing for the next act in their lives. She wasn't going anywhere. She wouldn't even have this. After she graduated, it'd be time to get a year-round job that paid more bills.
"They've survived!"
The bullish voice of the actor playing Governor John White snapped her attention back to the stage. The line signaled his return to the site of the colony after his trip to England.
Surrounded by sailors, White gasped as he pointed at the oak on the far side of the stage, the simple cloak around his shoulders flying out with the gesture. Miranda couldn't see the word from where she stood, but the famous Croatoan was carved into the bark in desperate, crooked letters. White went on, overacting like crazy, "My granddaughter, I will see her beautiful face!"
Miranda and Polly exchanged a look. Polly shook her head, her prematurely gray ponytail bobbing. Director Jack, aka His Royal Majesty, would give the actor a scathing note on that later.
The governor froze, along with the sailors in the background, and the lights dimmed. This cued up the final reveal. Miranda could never help wondering where the colonists had gone. Disappearing was some trick to pull off, even hundreds of years ago when there were more wild places left. The standard theories involved bad endings and tragedy. Even on such a humid night, not knowing knowing that no one would ever know the truth was enough to give her a small shiver.
A single low spotlight fixed on a solemn young blonde girl as she wandered ghost-slow through the frozen men. Her face was chalk pale.
His Royal Majesty's biggest change to this year's show had been making Virginia Dare the show's deadpan narrator. The actress, Caroline, was a local kid, seven years-old and a mean-girl-in-training, and yet, the casting worked.
