Josie nodded. “Absolutely sure. Believe me, everyone did a lot of research and double-checking before putting out something like this to the public. Come,” she said, “let’s go find the Sea Venture. To this day it’s called ‘the shipwreck that saved America.’ At least that story has a happy ending. There are a lot of what-if theories that if the Sea Venture hadn’t been shipwrecked and had arrived with the other supply ships instead of a year and a half later, the British might have given up any idea of establishing a colony in the New World. Everyone at Jamestown almost certainly would have died—or disappeared like the lost colony of Roanoke.”

No one spoke as Quinn and I followed Josie until we reached the display depicting the wreck of the Sea Venture on the island of Bermuda. Knowing what we knew now about the cannibalism that had preceded the arrival of the two smaller boats built out of the salvaged remnants of the Sea Venture, it seemed even more astonishing that the passengers had found anyone still alive in Jamestown that spring. Had the Jamestown survivors hidden what they’d done from the unsuspecting colonists who arrived with fresh supplies and an improbable story of their own survival on an island that everyone had believed was enchanted?

“There’s a quicker way back to the Visitor Center than walking through the fort and across the bridge,” Josie said. “It’s used by staff and the researchers, but it’s so cold and windy we’ll take it, since it’s more protected.”

We were still subdued as she led us to a path that took us into the forest behind the museum and the fort.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“The staff buildings are back here,” she said as the path widened into a dirt-and-gravel road.

The fort, the river, and the Archaearium had disappeared. We came to a fork in the road where two moss-covered stone pillars looked as if they’d once marked the entrance to the settlement. A wrought-iron gate with ivy curling through it was propped against one of the pillars.

Quinn and I exchanged glances. The woods surrounding us were completely silent. No birdsong or the scrabbling noises of squirrels or other animals anywhere.

“Come on,” Josie said, as we left the road, “this path will take us back to the parking lot.”

“It’s even spooky here,” I said.

“I know what you mean,” Josie said. “You don’t want to be walking through these woods alone at night … are you all right, Quinn?”

“Just thinking,” he said, “about the Donner Party. They ate their dead when they got stranded in the Sierra Nevadas on their way to California back in the Gold Rush days.”

“The Donner Party,” I said. “I forgot about that. My God, how bad does it have to get when people do something like that?”