Bitter in the Mouth

Linda begins the chapter with the start of the story of Virginia Dare, whose ghost supposedly haunts North Carolina. Virginia was born in 1587, the first English child to be born at the Roanoke Island settlement and the granddaughter of the governor of the colony, John White. Shortly after her birth, though, John returned to England with a group of volunteers to collect more supplies; however, they return amid war with Spain, and John is unable to return for several years longer than intended.

When Linda was eight, her father gave her an illustrated book on North Carolinian history that was intended to “foster a sense of security and belonging” (52). The book, however, offered a slanted perspective of the history of the state: e.g., in it, “there was only one mention of a slave, George Moses Horton, who had earned extra money for his master by writing love poems for the young men of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill” (52). Other stories were missing details, such as an unnamed boy from Kitty Hawk who witnessed the first flight whom the authors chose to “separate […] from the group, and then leave him standing on the sand of Kitty Hawk, nameless and without a word to contribute” (52).