“Our school librarian is having kind of a dramatic breakup, and Kiki’s a little obsessed with it,” I say with a smile because it’s so silly and so Kiki. “I mean, she didn’t originally say it was our school librarian on the podcast, but we all know it is, because Ms. Adams is always on the phone in the library and she doesn’t follow her own ‘Shhh’ very well. Rumor is she’s hooking up with the librarian at our town’s middle school, and Kiki’s trying to confirm it, with the help of her little sister, who’s in sixth grade.”

“That … is bizarre.”

“Isn’t it?” God, I miss my friends. They’re so weird. I have to remember to message them later about my new job and about how much I love this episode of the podcast; Kiki lives and dies by her fandom. “Kiki’s obsessed with mysteries. It’s her thing. She has to find out if it’s really him so she can dig into how they met and what went wrong, because of course she does.”

Jasmine laughs. “You should bring her to Roanoke.”

“Roanoke? Isn’t that in Virginia?”

“Different Roanoke. Haven’t you ever learned about the lost colony in school? The settlers who disappeared?”

Oh, yeah, this is vaguely familiar. “I think so. Maybe.”

“Guessing history is not your subject,” Jasmine teases, and I confirm that it’s definitely not. “Anyway, it was this whole thing in the late sixteenth century—the first attempt at a colony. These people came over from England, set up a town, and then … completely disappeared. Nothing left but a single word: CROATOAN. There are all sorts of theories about whether they were murdered or just moved to another place, but no one’s ever been able to definitively say. There’s a theater right near the gardens we were at today that does a show about it every night. I bet your friend would love it.”

“Oh man, she would!” Bringing Kiki down here for a weekend sounds like a lot of fun, and there’s no way a mystery like that isn’t already super high on her radar. “Do you think your dad would let me have a friend here for a couple of days?”

Jasmine shrugs. “Sure, why not? If you’re still gonna be here August 18, that’s the day to go. It’s silly, but they call it Virginia Dare Day. They even use a real baby in the show, in honor of Virginia Dare’s birthday—she was the first new settler born on colonized soil. Garden admission is discounted that day, too, if you wanna take her there.”