The Curse Keepers (Curse Keepers series) by Denise Grover Swank Page B

know that Daddy had Alzheimer’s. And I still had a phone and the Internet. Unless he cut my lines. I shook my head. Now I was bordering on paranoia.
    Right, because believing that evil spirits are out to get me isn’t paranoid.
    What the hell had happened to my life?
    The real question was why didn’t Collin teach me to defend myself against any malevolent spirits that might come my way? Why just tell me to stay hidden? Paranoia or not, I didn’t trust him. Which brought up another point. In Rodanthe, Collin had told me not to trust him, then a few hours later on my front porch he told me that I
should
trust him. So which was it?
    I was siding with not trusting him. So did that mean I could go out or not?
    I needed to talk to Daddy, but given his condition, that rarely went well over the phone. If nothing else, I could talk to Myra and see if she knew anything about the colony site.
    I snuggled into my overstuffed sofa and called Myra. She answered her cell phone on the first ring. “Ellie, are you okay? I’ve been calling you for hours, and you never showed up to the inn this afternoon.”
    I glanced at my phone and realized I hadn’t turned it off vibrate after I left the restaurant. And my phone had been in my purse. And for some reason, it had completely slipped my mind that I needed to work at the inn. “Sorry, Myra. I was in Rodanthe.” Although I rarely left Roanoke Island, Rodanthe was still within my comfort zone. Still, it was unusual behavior for me, and Myra would know it.
    After a second pause, she asked, “Do I want to know why you went to Rodanthe?”
    And tell Myra that I’d hawked Daddy’s precious cup? “You probably don’t. Tell me about your day.”
    She sighed. “Which part? The crazy day dealing with the press and curious onlookers or your dad when I got home?”
    I sat up straight, leaning over my knees. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”
    “Nothing, Ellie. I didn’t mean to scare you. He was just agitated when I got home.”
    “So he’s having a bad day?”
    “Had. It was so bad I gave him a sedative and put him to bed early.”
    “Why was he so worked up?”
    “The curse.”
    I took two deep breaths before I could continue. “What did he say?”
    “Oh you know, the usual, but somehow he knew the colony had been found, even though I specifically told his home-care worker to keep it from him. He kept mumbling that the curse had been broken.”
    My blood rushed in my ears. “Anything else?”
    Myra hesitated. “Why the sudden interest? You usually don’t want to hear anything about the curse.”
    I shrugged before I realized she couldn’t see me. “Oh, I don’t know. The Lost Colony discovery is making me feel guilty that I didn’t indulge Daddy more with the curse stuff.”
    “Well, I for one am glad you didn’t. I can’t help but wonder if all this curse belief drove your father mad.”
    We both knew it wasn’t true. Alzheimer’s didn’t work that way, but it was always nice to have
something
to blame. The curse was a convenient and ever-present scapegoat.
    “So why do they think the colony just appeared out of thin air?”
    “It’s amazing you put it that way. I heard several archaeologists use that exact phrase today. They said they had examined that site a couple of years ago. They performed ultrasounds of the site and found nothing. And now it’s all just
there
. It’s unbelievable.”
    I couldn’t help thinking about my mother. She would have loved this. She’d devoted her life to finding the colony to prove my father’s belief in the curse wrong. I still found it surprising that two people with such different beliefs could have been so crazy in love. “What do they think happened? Why is it suddenly there?”
    “The storm? It’s as good a guess as any, but they would expect the huts and artifacts to be covered with dirt and mud. It’s as though the village had always been there, undisturbed for over four hundred years. They’ve never seen anything