Astounding Tales --

"Here is the third and final installment in the Melungeon series. Wait till you see what happens in this one.

Virginia Dare

By Adrienne Ray, 2005

To be honest, Arvid Phelps did not feel at home at an Indian Powwow. Here he was, on one of North Carolina's Barrier Islands at night, surrounded by a bunch of people who wanted to be Indians, claimed to be Indians, but didn't look any more like Native Americans than Martha Stewart did.
Arvid's DNA testing had proven he was 3% Native American. So he belonged here as well as anyone. But he just couldn't get into this.
For one thing, a lot of the cultural decorations came from the Plains. It was explained to him that this was the kind of Indians people saw in the movies, so this was the kind of Indians tourists wanted to see at the powwow. To Arvid, this was like honoring your French heritage by serving sauerkraut.

Arvid never did well with group participation, anyway. As he watched the dancers frolicking about in their full regalia of buckskin and feathers, he thought, I have come to the wrong place.

The only reason he had come here at all was a peculiar coincidence he had had involving a dream and a phone call.
Monday night he'd had a dream about Mr. Ahriman, the man who had given him the picture of Arvid's great grandmother, Susan Harvey. Only this time Mr. Ahriman was dressed like a sultan or something.

'Mr. Ahriman!' Arvid had cried. 'What are you doing here?'

'By now you must realize -- I'm not exactly mortal,' the old Iranian said with a wink. 'You need to help a man named Eric Redwolf . . . well, his real name is Eric Williams. He's a Melungeon but he's lost his way. He thinks he's a Cherokee.'
'I don't know anybody by that name.'

'I used my powers to lead him to your Melungeon"