Entranced Read online

  His tone was gruff, abrasive. Not at all the eager, happy voice I’d hoped for. “Hey,” I said, and then fell silent. I played with my pencil.

  “Hey,” he replied.

  Should I apologize? I cleared my throat and decided to pretend all was well between us. “I think I have a lead on the suicides. Two leads, maybe.” When he didn’t respond, I jumped into my ideas. “First, I found this poem at the police station. If I can figure out what it’s from, I might have some clues. Second—”

  “A poem, Jayne?” he interrupted. “What do you think that’s going to prove? That one of the guys who committed suicide was a sappy romantic? Poor fellow. And what were you doing at the police station? Leave this to the pros. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  I took a sharp intake of breath, my words falling away at his rebuke. I blinked, clutching the phone to my ear with both hands, stunned. Aaron had never spoken to me that way, and there were so many innuendos in his words that it would take time to fully analyze them. Rallying, I said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But also there’s this kid in school who was arrested, and I think if I could just talk to him, I might—”

  “You think,” he snapped, impatience lacing his voice. “You might. Theories. Ideas. None of it amounts to anything.”

  If he was trying to cut me down, it was working. “Well, I’m going to try and see him.”

  “In jail? I hope you’re not calling to see if I’ll tag along.”

  My eyes burned, and I swallowed hard. “No,” I said, my voice a little higher than normal. “It’s not as if I don’t have other people I can ask.”

  “Skip the formalities and just ask them first next time.”

  “Fine,” I said, hating the quiver in my voice. “I will.” I hung up, and tears of frustration and indignation made their way down my cheeks. What had he really meant by all that? My thumb hovered over his contact info, tempted to delete it and spare myself any further humiliation. Instead, I pulled up a new text message. I couldn’t leave things the way they were.

  Are we breaking up?

  It wasn’t a ridiculous question. Aaron didn’t have the best communication skills, and the one time we’d broken up before, it had been via text. I held my breath after I hit Send, waiting anxiously for the response. It came right away.

  Your call.

  My call. Did he really imagine for even a moment that I wanted to? My fingers shook as I texted, I don’t want to.

  This time the response wasn’t immediate, as if it took thought to work out what he wanted to say. When it came, my heart sank.

  I’m not so sure. Let’s take some time. Give each other some space.

  How long? I asked.

  A week. Maybe two.

  Letting out a slow, shuddering breath, I answered, OK. Then I closed my phone and shoved it away from me.

  I heard the garage door open and knew my mom was home. She spotted me as she entered the kitchen from the side door.

  “Did you get the mail?” she asked.

  I glanced around and spotted the scattered papers sitting on the counter. “No, but somebody did.”

  “Thanks.” Mom tossed her binder by the stove, one finger flicking a strand of honey-brown hair back from her face.

  I stared at the math equations as they went in and out of focus in front of my eyes. What had Aaron meant? I flipped my phone open and then shut it before I could reread his text. Stop obsessing, I told myself. Lots of couples took time off.

  Most didn’t survive it, though.

  A small envelope landed on my open book.

  “What’s this?” I asked, picking it up.

  “I don’t know,” Mom replied. “It’s addressed to you.”

  There was no return address. Grateful for the distraction, I slipped my finger beneath the flap and pulled it open. Stationary paper with a carefully centered poem on it fell out.

  A poem. Someone had written me a poem.

  Could it possibly be from Aaron? The postmark said it was mailed two days earlier, from Maryland. Probably not Aaron. I read through the flowery language, but the words slipped out of my mind as quickly as they slipped in. Red and black images flashed behind my eyes, hot and cold. A chill entered my chest and filled every part of me, and I started shivering. I put the paper back into the envelope and stared at it. My chest tightened with the desperate need to cry.

  “Jayne?” Mom’s footsteps tapped across the tile, stopping behind me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.” My voice cracked and my teeth chattered. I rubbed my arms.

  “Why are you crying?”

  I reached up and touched my cheeks. Sure enough, tears clung to them. “I don’t know.” Irrational anger flooded me. My fists clenched. Despair and fury volleyed back and forth in my mind. “I-I think I need to go to bed.”

  “Honey?” Mom began, reaching for me.

  I slapped her hand away, and then gasped at my own behavior. “I’m sorry.” And I was. But that didn’t stop the overwhelming urge to punch the wall. I jerked my chair backwards and stumbled past her.

  I made it halfway up the stairs before all the energy drained out of me. I sat down on the steps. My head sank to my knees and I sobbed, wrapping my arms around my head.

  Mom crouched beside me. “Jayne, honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I feel so . . .” I sucked in a shaky breath.

  “Are you hurt? Sick? Should we call a doctor?”

  I shook my head. None of those things could help me, and it angered me that she thought they could. “Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Her cool hands stroked my face. “It’s not even five o’clock. Can I bring you something?”

  I shoved her hands away. Didn’t she get it? “Just leave me alone!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “I said I’ll feel better in the morning!” I turned and ran to my room, slamming the door behind me. A moment later I collapsed on my bed, smothering my face in my pillow and sobbing.

  *~*

  “Jayne?” A girl’s voice came from over my head. “Wake up, Jayne. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  My head throbbed, and my eyes refused to respond.

  The bed sank a bit as someone sat down. “Jayne, it’s Meredith. I’ve got to talk to you about what you told me to look up.”

  Her words made no sense. “Just go. Whatever it was doesn’t matter now. I just can’t take it.” Fresh tears wet my eyes, and I turned my head as they leaked out.

  She pulled the pillow out from under my head and shook my shoulder. “Look at me. Jayne.”

  I squinted against the invasive bright light. I could just make out her fuzzy figure crouching over me. A piece of paper fluttered next to my head, clutched in her hand.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked. “Who sent this to you?”

  My chest ached, and I closed my eyes. Why did it matter?

  Meredith slugged my shoulder, and then she whacked my face. I let out a gasp and my eyes flew open. “That hurt!” I cried, bolting upright.

  “Did you read this?” she demanded, waving the paper at me.

  “Yes,” I said, finally recognizing the stationary with the poem. “It came in the mail.”

  She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a spiral notebook. Flipping through it, she stopped on a page and ripped it out. “Read this.”

  I took it in my hand and let it drop to the ground. “Why? What’s the point?”

  “Jayne!” she exclaimed. “Fine, just listen.” She cleared her throat. “Soft sighs of wind breathe joy through my hair . . .”

  I closed my eyes again, seeing her words in my head. Warmth flooded through my limbs like sunbeams, and I saw an image of myself with rays of light escaping my fingertips. I opened my eyes and focused on Meredith.

  It was gone. All of the despair, the anguish, the rage. Even the sadness I’d felt over Aaron was replaced with a shaky hope that we’d be okay. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

>   Meredith looked at me, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “It was me. It’s all my fault.”

  I blinked at her, uncomprehending. “What?”

  She held up the envelope I’d gotten in the mail. “I wrote this poem.”

  “You?”

  She nodded. Her lip trembled a bit and she said, “I figured it out while I was doing the internet search you asked for. When I did a search for Karta, I found this page.” She handed me her phone, which was opened to a Facebook page.

  “What is this?” I murmured, taking in the dark-haired woman in the profile picture.

  “Read it.”

  I read a couple of status updates, my fingers awkwardly scrolling down the screen for some kind of clue. So far just stuff about work, bad hair days, fighting cats. And then I read the update that must’ve caught Meredith’s attention.

  “Happy birthday to me! Thanks be to Karta that nobody can guess my age today.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “What makes you think this means something?”

  “Because I know her.” Meredith took the phone and jabbed her finger into the profile photo. “That woman came to my house. She’s the one who asked for my poem.”

  I tumbled out of bed and yanked my notebook out of my desk, then sat down. “Start from the very beginning,” I demanded, finding a pen and making a numbered list down the side of my paper. I grabbed her phone and laid it face up beside me, tapping the screen every once and awhile to keep it awake.

  “Okay.” Meredith pushed her glasses up on her nose. “She came to my house about four months ago, saying she was selling cleaning cloths or vacuums or something like that. I let her in, I don’t know why, because it was just me at home and I was lonely or bored, or who knows, because I sure didn’t intend to buy a vacuum. Then I said something or she did, and the next thing I knew, we were talking about my poetry.

  “She asked to see a few of my poems, so I pulled them out. After she read some, she said she really liked them, and she asked if I would write one for her. I admit, it felt nice, to have someone paying attention to something I do. So I said sure. I thought she’d ask for something happy, romantic, sweet, something to send to her friends. But she said she wanted something to express your deepest fears, your worst feelings, when anger makes you blind or you get so depressed that you think you can’t go on another day. Weird, yeah, but I did it. I gave it to her and never heard from her again.

  “Then you told me to research Karta and those other people. There really wasn’t a lot on Karta, by the way. But this came up, and I recognized her. I saw her picture and remembered my poem. Coincidence? Maybe. So I called you, wanting to tell you I found something. Your mom answered your phone. She said you were really upset. All I could think of was Trey, and whatever other weirdness is going on with you and Aaron and Stephen, and I got worried, so I came over.

  “Imagine my surprise, Jayne, when I get here and you’ve got my poem! I’ve always known that my poems create emotions in people, that I can make them feel things. But I never expected this! And there’s something else. That line you told me about from the poem the police gave you? It’s in this poem.” She waved the mysterious stationary paper in front of me, then dropped it like it was on fire. “I shrugged it off. Someone else might write a line or two exactly the same as one of my poems. There are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Could happen. But now I’m thinking, what if that guy who died was actually quoting my poem?”

  She paused for a deep breath, and I took advantage of the moment to jump in. “So you’re saying she came to you on purpose and requested a poem. How did she find you?”

  Meredith shook her head, her face miserable. “I post my poems on my blog sometimes. Just the good ones. There’s been an anonymous commenter for months. Could that be her?”

  I looked at the paper with the suspected poem lying innocently on the carpet. I wanted to pick it up but didn’t dare. “Is this the poem from the police station?”

  “Yes. But why do you have it? Who sent it to you? Was it her?”

  I tapped my pen against my lips. “Hang on. Let’s say she got lucky, and just happened to stumble across you. She finds out that you write amazing poetry that can stir people’s emotions and gets you to write a poem that makes people feel despair and anger. Then she starts mailing it out to people to play with their emotions.”

  Meredith leaned forward. “And the suicides? Did all those people get her—my—poem?” Her face whitened.

  I reached over and took her hand, trying to comfort her. “It’s not just your poem, Meredith. All you did was put words on paper. Something else happened to make it affect people that way.”

  She dropped her head and pulled her hand away, clutching both hands together until the knuckles turned white. “What if it didn’t?” she whispered.

  I shifted my head closer to her. “What do you mean?”

  “What if it’s just me?” She looked at me again. “I told you this has always happened. I used to write poems to manipulate my mom.” Her brief smile was humorless. “I’ve maneuvered my way through classes before by giving a poem to the teacher. I always knew exactly what to write to make them feel a certain way.”

  “Wow, that’s…” I didn’t even know what to say. “That’s some gift.”

  “But that means it’s all my fault. I wrote that poem.”

  “You didn’t know what she’d use it for, Meredith.” I shook my head. “You can’t take the blame. It was Karta.”

  “No, it was that girl.” She nodded toward her phone. “Samantha Miller.”

  Samantha Miller. I looked at the Facebook profile again, noting for the first time the name attached to it. “Is she Karta?”

  Meredith gave me an odd look. “Jayne, I just told you. She’s Samantha.”

  I stood up. “Come on. I need a real computer.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We headed toward the den. The scent of rosemary and roasting potatoes pervaded the house, and I paused a moment to inhale their earthy goodness. Hard to believe an hour ago I’d thought there was nothing worth living for. How could that be when potatoes still existed?

  My mom spotted us as we passed through the sitting room. She sat cross-legged in the love seat, work papers scattered on the couch and floor in front of her. “Jayne, are you all right? Did your nap help?”

  “Mom.” Shame flooded me at the way I’d snapped at her, even hit her. “I am so sorry. I was like, psycho with tiredness.”

  The worried pinch between her eyes smoothed. “But you’re okay?”

  “Totally okay. I’m just so embarrassed I lost control like that.”

  “It’s all right, Jayne.”

  It so wasn’t. I glanced at the clock in the living room and noticed it was almost seven. “Did I miss dinner?”

  “I saved some in the fridge for you.” Her shoulders visibly relaxed, and I knew she was relieved to see me acting like myself. “Did something happen? Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I’m good. Thanks for letting Meredith come over.”

  Mom shot a grateful smile in Meredith’s direction. “Your phone’s still in the kitchen, Jayne.”

  I retrieved it, hoping my mom hadn’t read any of my texts.

  “What was it like?” Meredith murmured as we stepped down to the den. “How did you react after reading the poem?”

  I shrugged, not exactly excited to relive those memories. “I wanted to hurt something. Or myself.”

  She didn’t respond, just ran her fingers along the wall.

  “Okay.” I sat down at the old computer and booted it up. “Let’s find out everything we can about Samantha Miller.”

  “What are we looking for?” Meredith asked. She held her phone up, doing her own search, I assumed.

  “Um…” What, exactly? “See if you can find a birth date for her.” I pulled up Facebook. I had an account, of course, though I’d quit using it extensively around the time Stephen and I broke up. I typed “Samantha Miller” int
o the search field, and instantly it pulled up several pages. I surfed through until I recognized the girl Meredith had shown me. Only a few of her posts were visible, and the one Meredith had found was on the front page. Samantha had written it four years earlier.

  “Hmm,” I said. “Either she hardly ever posts on Facebook, or most of her posts are only visible to friends.”

  “I can’t friend her,” Meredith said. “She’ll be suspicious. She’ll remember me.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t Friend her either. If she was Karta and she’d sent me that poem, she knew who I was and was already out to get me. I couldn’t let her figure out I was onto her. I drummed my fingers on the desk. Who could friend her? Normally I’d ask Aaron, but—well, things were a bit weird between us right now.

  I checked Samantha’s hometown. Laurel, Maryland. “She doesn’t live anywhere near here, Meredith. How did she end up selling vacuums at your house?”

  “I don’t know,” Meredith murmured, staring at the screen.

  “Well, let’s assume that this Samantha found your blog. Maybe she—”

  “Do you think there are others like me?” she interrupted.

  “Others like you?” I frowned at her, furrowing my brow.

  “You know. People with special—gifts. Who can control people.” She bit her lower lip.

  How should I know? I’d never even known there were people like Meredith. “Good question. At any rate, let’s assume she knew your abilities before she got to your house. Maybe that’s why she went.”

  “Who is she, Jayne?”

  “Now you’re asking the right question.” I opened another tab on the browser and typed in Karta’s name. A page I’d already bookmarked came up. “‘Karta. One of the three goddesses of fate and destiny. From the western part of Latvia.’”

  “Okay.” Meredith nodded as she read the page. “I know you had me search for Karta, but how is this connected to Samantha? Because she mentioned her on Facebook?”

  I drummed my fingers on the desk, a bit heady with the idea that I was about to reveal all my secrets to Meredith. “I’m answering your question.”

  “What question?”