It feels like fate when Jack Dahlgren’s family inherits his great-aunt Ruth’s home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. His dad has lost his job, and all the family’s savings are gone. But twelve-year-old Jack doesn’t want to live on Roanoke Island, especially in a house that the kids at school say is haunted. He also feels responsible for his little sister’s accidental fall off of a nearby sea cliff, which put her in a hospital in Raleigh. On top of everything, a hurricane is bearing down on the Outer Banks, howling like a monster.
…Or is it a hurricane? There’s definitely some stormy weather, but there’s also something dark and scary living in the woods near the Dahlgrens’ new house. When Jack investigates, he finds a mysterious, vanishing mastiff, and something much wilder. Later, Jack meets and befriends their Algonquin neighbor, Manny Braboy, who explains it all– the evil living in Jack’s woods is a Witiku: a demon summoned by the natives of Roanoke Island in the sixteenth century to rid the island of all invaders. Incredibly, Manny tells Jack that he, Jack, must be the one to defeat the Witiku. The twelve-year old is skeptical, but when Manny takes him back to the sixteenth century to observe the events of the Lost Colony unfold, he begins to believe. Will Jack defeat the Wikitu? Will Roanoke Island finally be at peace? Will Jack ever be happy in his new home?
Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.
The grounds of Marshfield Manor are buzzing as history enthusiasts have started transforming the museum site into an 1860s Civil War campground for the upcoming week-long living history program. As scholars and buffs – and men, women, and children – reenact the past, there is one person who would not like a repeat of a certain previous episode. Unfortunately for Grace Wheaton, curator of the manor, she is about to get a bad case of déjà vu. What started as a minor disturbance with two strange women ended with a living listory leader dead. This scenario is all too familiar for Grace, whose tenure was fast-tracked as a result of her predecessor’s murder at the Manor only a few months earlier. As painful as those memories are for Grace, she learned much from them, and those lessons are proving useful this time. In the midst of trying to be useful to the detectives without getting in their way, Grace is also trying to negotiate the relationship she has with Jack Embers, the hunky landscape architect of Marshfield Manor. As she learns more about Jack, his family, and their past, Grace must use her strong discernment skills to trust her feelings. Her new, sweet friend, Bootsie the kitten, helps Grace relax and reflect on what she’s feeling.