Enchanted Forests (35 page)

the way she'd run out that morning.

Eleanor knotted the ends of the yam together. Then she went

outside, her daughter's yells still loud behind her.

Within the huddle of houses was a small open space, the clos-

est thing the settlers had to a village square. Most of them were

already there, talking in small groups. Once, Ac square wouldn't

have had enough space to hold them all. But three winters, with-

out supplies from England, had taken their toll. Half the houses

were empty now, their walls beginning to rot.

Eleanor hurried across the square, looking for Ananias. Light

rain still fell, but the wind had subsided. Off to one side, Eleanor

saw a wet deerskin on the ground, with a lump beneath it that

had to be a body. The guard had been found then—but not alive.

Eleanor's throat felt dry. How many more would the Savages

kill? She turned quickly away and kept walking.

She found Ananias by one of the deserted houses. His hair and

beard dripped rainwater; muddy brown curls fell into his face.

He argued with Manteo. Several other colonists stood around

them, listening. Eleanor moved to Ananias' side.

"No wild animal did that!" Ananias' voice was fierce. He ges-

tured toward Manteo. "The hole in our man's chest was made by

an arrow. An Indian arrow."

Manteo shrugged; the gesture looked wrong on his wiry frame.

"I said nothing about wild animals." His English was perfect, but

his voice held an accent that flattened the words, twisting the

VIRGINIA WOODS             229

meanings in all the wrong places. He wore the same English

wool as the others, but his beardless face was too thin, his eyes

and straight hair too dark. The time he'd spent in England, the

fact that he'd been baptized once he returned to America—none

of that mattered. He was still a Savage. Eleanor didn't under-

stand why the others trusted him at all. If it were up to her, he'd

be in the woods with the other Indians, not living here in the vil-

lage.

"You're the one who mentioned animals." Manteo's dark gaze

fixed on Ananias. Neither of them seemed to notice Eleanor at

all.

"You said—" Ananias measured each word, "—that your peo-

ple didn't do this."

"There are things besides Indians and wild animals that can

kill a man. Surely you know that by now."

"Don't complicate this with fairy stories." Ananias' voice

turned suddenly low, threatening. "If your people did this, they

won't go unpunished. If the Indians are hiding in these woods, or

anywhere else on the island, we'll find them. You can be sure of

that."

"The Croatoan are gone." Manteo stared at Ananias, as if he

expected some answer to that.

Ananias ignored him. He turned to Eleanor, as if seeing her for

me first time. "Why aren't you repairing the damage the Savages

did to our fields? It's bad enough that one of us had to be away."

Eleanor looked down, away from his sharp gaze. When Ana-

nias spoke like that, the gap in their ages felt much larger than

the decade it really was. "I wanted to see what you found."

"We found a dead man," Ananias snapped. "Did you expect

any differently?" Eleanor just shook her head.

Margery Harvie walked up to join them. "We'll ali be dead

before this spring is through." As always, Hugh stood by his

mother's side. His straight yellow hair fell neatly into place; his

blue eyes were serious in his small face.

Margery wiped a hand across her forehead- "Our only hope is

that our governor stops tarrying in England and spares some time

for the colony in his care." She cast a long look at Eleanor, as

if she were to blame for all the colony's problems.

Eleanor measured her words, afraid she might yell if she

didn't. "My father will return as soon as he can."

Margery laughed at that. and Hugh echoed the sound. Then he

turned away, suddenly embarrassed, and hid behind his mother.

230 Janni Lee Simner

Eleanor's cheeks felt red. "Many things could keep a man in

England. Spring storms, or lack of funds to hire a ship."

"A gentleman of his rank, lacking funds?" Margery laughed

again.

"It's hardly unheard of," Ananias said. his voice suddenly

mild. Whatever the others thought, he still believed that

Eleanor's father meant to return.

The conversation drifted; Ananias and Margery began discuss-

ing other reasons me governor could have been delayed. Ship-

wrecks, trouble with the Spanish—Eleanor had heard all the

reasons before.

Her attention wandered. She watched Manteo drift away from

the small group, watched as he and several settlers carried the

dead man's body from the square. Hugh released his hold on his

mother and walked off as well. Eleanor almost called Margery's

attention to the fact, but decided against it. Hugh never went

very far, after all.

She began to think that Ananias was right, that it was time to

start repairing their fields. She needed to check on Virginia, too,

to make certain the child had calmed down.

Ananias and Margery were still talking when she left. She

walked past them, walked past the small knots of settlers still

talking throughout me square. There were a few other women,

and somewhere an infant cried, though most of the colonists

were men. Eleanor walked past wooden houses, some sturdy and

well-kept, others crumbling into the dirt. Two chickens scratched

me ground beside one house; a boy herded several sheep by an-

other. Like all the colony's animals, these had been brought over

from England; there were no tame animals in the New World.

Eleanor walked up to her house, pushed the door open, and

stepped inside. Then she stopped, stone-cold, in the doorway.

The chair was empty. Yam trailed, untied, to the floor. Virginia

was nowhere in sight.

Eleanor slowly untangled the yam from the chair, twisting it

around her hands. How could she have been so foolish? She

should have known Virginia was old enough to untie herself.

Behind her, me door creaked open. Eleanor turned around.

Margery stood there, hands on hips. "Where's my boy?"

"Hugh?" Eleanor thought he would have returned by now.

"After you left, I looked down, and he was gone. He was with

me until then. What have you done with him?"

"I did nothing. Virginia's gone, too." As she spoke, Eleanor

felt a cold lump in her chest

VIRGINIA WOODS             231

"I'd expect that from your child." Margery folded her arms

across her chest. "Not Hugh. If they're gone, it's Virginia's

fault."

Eleanor opened her mouth to say something, then closed it

again. She didn't have time for idle talk; she had to find her

daughter. Maybe Virginia hadn't left very long ago. Maybe she

hadn't had time to get very far. Eleanor pushed past Margery,

through the door. Margery followed her out.

In the mud outside Eleanor's house, they found tiny footprints.

The footprints led around the house, through the village, and

across the fields. A second set of footprints, even smaller, joined

the first. Margery took this as proof that leaving had been Virgin-

ia's idea, and that Hugh had only followed.

The footsteps stretched to the edge of the field, and the grass

beyond was trampled. "Windy trees," Virginia had shouted, only

hours ago. Eleanor had been able to stop her then- This time,

she'd been too late.

The rain stopped. Sun broke up the clouds, letting bright blue

patches show through the gray. Between the trees, though,

Eleanor saw only darkness.

She didn't dare enter that darkness alone. She turned back to-

ward the village. Margery followed, but Eleanor hardly noticed

her.

She thought of the wet deerskin, Jof the guard's still body be-

neath it. She followed Virginia's footsteps back home, praying

that this time the search party wouldn't be too late.

Eleanor found Ananias beside the house, hooking an ox to the

plow. She explained what had happened, as quickly and calmly

as she could.

Ananias ran a hand through his hair, splattering water in every

direction. "You should have taken time to tie her properly, in-

stead of chattering outside." His voice was harsh, his face taut

with concern.

**I did tie her properly." Eleanor twisted her hands together.

"She figured out how to untie the knots herself."

"She should have been raised to know better."

Eleanor couldn't argue with that; she wished, more than any-

one, that Virginia was a tamer child.

Ananias' face tightened. "I'll gather a party together." He

turned abruptly away, starting toward the square without another

word.

He gathered the searchers quickly, twelve men in all. He in-

232 Janni Lee Simner

sisted Manteo join them. "This way," he said, "if the Indians at-

tack, they'll have to take one of their own, too." The men lit the

wicks on their muskets before leaving, to make certain they

could fire on a moment's notice- Assuming, of course, mat the

gunpowder stayed dry.

Eleanor didn't ask whether she could go with the men; she

simply followed. Ananias glanced back at her once, his gray eyes

telling her that she should return home, but so long as he didn't

speak aloud, Eleanor didn't have to listen. She didn't bring a

gun, though; seeing her armed might have been enough to make

Ananias send her back after all.

Margery also followed. But men, her husband had died during

the colony's first winter; there was no one to tell her what she

should or shouldn't do.

Manteo led the way, through fields of ruined maize toward the

edge of the woods. The search party crossed the trampled fields,

following Virginia and Hugh's small prints. The smell of their

sweat mixed with the smell of muddy weeds and wet wool.

There should have been larger footprints, too, Eleanor realized,

from the Indians who*d destroyed their crops last night. Or had

the momiag rain already washed those prints away?

Manteo crossed the scrubby grass to the edge of the forest.

The men fanned out on either side of him as they entered the

woods; Margery followed close behind. For a moment Eleanor

just stood there, watching them disappear among the twisted

trees. Then she hurried after them. Whatever she feared in those

woods, she didn't fear it half as much as she feared finding Vir-

ginia's lifeless body in the mud.

At first, the trees were still. No wind blew; light shone through

the gaps in the forest and cast bright patches of sun onto the

ground. Eleanor thought maybe she'd imagined the wild

branches and deep shadows. Maybe her father had known what

he'd painted after all.

But the trees grew thicker and more twisted as she walked.

The light thinned, until it barely penetrated the leaves at all. Twi-

light settled early over the forest. The space between the trees

was crowded with bushes and vines. Eleanor's shoes kept getting

tangled in low branches; thorns tore at her skirt. Dead leaves

were everywhere, heavy with the smell of decay. Animals rustled

beneath them. Eleanor shivered. Animals could attack children,

too, and do as much damage as Savages.

The wind picked up, shaking water down from the branches.

It cried with a high animal sound as it blew, at odds with me rus-

VIRGINIA WOODS             233

tling Eleanor expected. Her skirt blew around her ankles, and

wisps of damp hair came loose into her face.

The others slowed their pace. Their low conversation faded to

silence- Whatever Eleanor felt, maybe they felt it too.

All but Manteo. He continued steadily forward, as if he didn't

even notice that the others had slowed down.

Margery screamed, a high, hysterical sound. Eleanor froze; a

chill ran down her spine. She saw Margery collapse to the

ground. Several of the men raced to her side. Eleanor ran after

them, into a small clearing. Her foot caught on a vine, and she

tumbled to the ground. Scrambling to her feet, she kept running.

The smell hit her first—like fresh-killed meat, heavy with

blood. What she saw on the ground beside Margery looked like

meat, too, all torn flesh and bloody tatters, bright against the

grass and leaves. For a moment Eleanor was all right; so long as

it didn't look like a child, she didn't have to believe it was real.

Then she saw a shredded piece of linen. Following it, she found

a hand—a tiny child's hand—clutching the fabric through the

blood. Eleanor's stomach rolled; she fought to keep from vomit-

ing.

The hand was too small to belong to Virginia. Eleanor felt re-

lief, then guilt. Margery's child lay dead on the ground in front

of her. Eleanor knelt by Margery, putting an arm around her

shoulders to offer what comfort she could.

Margery flinched as if touched by fire. She pushed Eleanor

roughly away. "Your child did this. Hugh would never—'*

Margery's voice rose, men cracked. She leaped forward, shoving

Eleanor into the brush. "You killed him!" The men pulled