It still felt wrong to me. But from the way Griffin was avoiding my eyes, I was fairly sure he wasn’t in the mood to discuss it. Besides, Nyla was probably the closest he had come to having a real friend too.
Rose pointed to the journals. What. Find? she asked Griffin.
Glancing from Rose to me, he opened the first journal and held it up. At the top of the page was a single word: CROATOAN.
Nyla pulled the journal around so that she could see it too. “What’s Croatoan?” she asked.
I wished I knew exactly how much she’d already learned. “It was written on an old bridge column in the region we came from,” I explained. “Alice saw CRO written on the wall of a cabin over on the mainland too.”
Nyla never took her eyes off me. “But what does it mean?”
“Tarn says it’s a legend—an ancient colony that disappeared.”
Griffin was still holding up the journal, his finger pressed against another line of text farther down the page. The handwriting was faint, the glow from the lantern barely enough to read by. But the words were all too familiar: union of Ananias and Eleanor.
“Why does it say that?” Rose’s voice shook. “I don’t understand.”
Neither did I. Had Ananias and Eleanor been promised to each other? Had an arrangement been made without them knowing?
Griffin leafed through the pages again, stopping at one that featured a strange diagram, like the branches of a tree connecting different names. Ananias and Eleanor were joined by a straight line; another smaller line hung down from it, and beneath the line was the word Virginia.
Virginia. I’d read that name before, but I couldn’t remember where.
Nyla handed Griffin the second journal—the one from our father’s dune box. He opened it to a page I’d seen back on Roanoke Island. It was an illustration of a little girl with giant flames shooting from her fingertips. Beneath the drawing was the same word: Virginia.
Nyla must have seen this page too, but if so, she didn’t seem to make anything of it. Maybe she thought it was just a picture, nothing more.
I studied the journals side by side. I had an inkling what it must mean, but it seemed impossible that there had been another Ananias and another Eleanor. And that they, too, had been connected.
Griffin tried to get my attention again. He was pointing to Ananias’s last name: Dare. Before I could process this, he slid his finger above Eleanor’s name. Her father was named John White.
I looked at my brother, confused. The name meant nothing to me, and yet Griffin behaved as though this name, not Dare, was the one I should be focusing on.
Exasperated, he stabbed a finger against the picture of Virginia in the other journal. Below it were two letters, presumably the initials of the artist: J.W.
John White.
“What does this mean?” asked Rose.
I struggled to piece it together. “Tarn said Croatoan was a legend. But what if that ancient colony didn’t disappear? What if these people were our ancestors?”
Rose continued to stare at the page. “The Guardians reused their names and possess their journals. I’d say we’re definitely related.”
Griffin watched us carefully. He no doubt had ideas of his own. When he had my attention, he put down the book and signed: Need. All. Dare. Logbooks.
No, I responded, the motion short and sharp. Dangerous.
“What’s he talking about?” demanded Rose. “What Dare logbooks?”
Griffin was already annoyed at me. So was Nyla. But Rose would be angriest of all once she knew the truth.
“Answer me, Thomas,” she pressed.
I rubbed my eyes, heavy from tiredness. “Alice found a key to Dare’s cabin. Griffin’s been reading Dare’s logbooks.”
Griffin waved a hand. When. Get. Logbooks?
No, I signed again. I pointed in the direction of the ship. Much. Dangerous.
“He’s trying to work out who we are,” snapped Rose.
“Doesn’t matter.” I shook my head vehemently. “We have to stop this now. We could’ve been caught last night. We risked everything . . . and for what?”
Griffin slapped his palm against the book. Sign!
I knelt down beside him, wishing so much that Nyla wasn’t around to see all this. No. More. I picked up the two journals and laid them gently on the ground. Everything. Different. Now.
I didn’t expect him to agree, but I at least hoped that he’d understand.
We. Safe, I tried again. He watched the signs, but I may as well have been speaking out loud for all the effect they had. Safe.
Nothing. Safe, he responded. He picked up the journals and pulled to a stand. With a nod to Nyla, he limped into the room where the others were still sleeping.
There was no mistaking the look Nyla gave me then. I’d broken up their meeting, and let Griffin down. Both were unforgiveable. She took the lantern beside her and turned it off, so that I could barely make her out as she retreated to her room.
Rose moved in front of me. “What’s going on, Thomas?”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you about Dare’s cabin—”
“I don’t care about Dare’s cabin,” she hissed. “When you first discovered your element, you said you wanted to know who you really are. Now you won’t even let Griffin find out about himself. If he’s the solution—”
“We didn’t come here to find out if Griffin can cure the Plague.”
“I know. We came here to start a new life. But what about the old one?”
“The old one was a lie. You said so yourself.”
“That doesn’t mean we can ignore it. If we pretend our life on Hatteras never happened, this place will be a lie too.” She crouched down beside me. “We can’t ignore what we are, Thomas. We’re elementals. What else do we have to offer this place?”
“There are other ways we can help.”
“Like what?”
I hesitated. “Food-gathering squads. Chief sends groups out to get food from other islands in the harbor.”
Rose leaned against the wall. “Tell me there aren’t any rats.”
I wasn’t willing to lie, so I said nothing.
“Let me get this straight,” she continued. “You’d sooner risk your life on a rat-infested island than let me use my element to catch fish.”
“We can’t just live on fish, Rose. Chief says there are vegetable gardens on the islands. This is how life has to be here. We’re part of this colony now.”
“Is that how it felt while we were hiding on our own ship last night? Like we were part of it?” She folded her arms. “Seems to me, Chief has you saying all the right things already.”
“He’s a good man, Rose.”
“I hope you’re right about that.” She looked over her shoulder at the empty parade grounds. Or maybe she was looking beyond, to the harbor, and the islands, and whatever might be on them. “At least tell me you’ll take Griffin. If he’s the solution, he can protect you—”
“No! Our elements are done now.”
She flared her nostrils. “Not using them doesn’t mean they’re done. We are what we are. Denying it doesn’t change a thing.”