Entranced

by Tamara Hart Heiner

  I scowled and pulled out a notebook instead. I wrote down my thoughts. What would be a good name? Something unpretentious, normal. Yet possibly hot. Michael Thorne.

  I smiled to myself as I wrote it down. Nice.

  The bell rang, and I packed up my stuff quickly. A text came through as I hurried out of the classroom. I slowed down to fish out my phone, hoping it was Aaron.

  I came to a stop in the hallway when I saw Laima’s name. Laima! I opened it.

  Do not involve your boyfriend in this. He can be used against you.

  What? I wrinkled my nose in confusion before remembering the last text I’d sent her. I’d told her my idea to have Aaron friend Karta. Well, no worries, that wasn’t happening now. And what about all my other questions about Karta? With a frustrated sigh, I shoved the phone into my backpack.

  *~*

  Mr. Edwards put me in the copy editing room working on the next day’s paper, and I didn’t even get to sit at a computer connected to the internet the entire afternoon. I mentally worked on the fake Facebook profile, outlining potential likes and hobbies and characteristics.

  Beth pounced on me the moment I walked in the front door.

  “Let’s stalk your lady friend,” she said.

  I laughed, pleased to see her thoughts mirrored mine. “Let’s do it.”

  “Michael Thorne?” she said, watching as I put in the name and the email address I’d just created. “You already have a name?”

  “Doesn’t he sound hot?” I said.

  “Yeah.” She laughed.

  I pulled up my picture files, searching for a suitable avatar for the profile pic. I wasn’t surprised to see one of Stephen on the lacrosse field. I zoomed in on the photo. He looked so much younger. Just sixteen. That was the year we met. I was the journalist who hung out at the games, and we always joked and laughed while he looked at my pictures post-game, cringing and teasing me.

  I touched the computer screen, remembering those moments like they were yesterday. I had been so shy, so withdrawn, troubled by my ability to see death before it happened. He made me forget all that. He was a yellow globe of happy energy. I could see it in his face in the picture, the way his mouth curved as he focused on the game, the intensity in his green eyes.

  I cropped the photo, and then, before I could second guess myself, I dropped it in as the profile picture. Michael Thorne. I glanced at Beth, but she only shrugged.

  “Looks good,” she said. “Let me have a go.”

  “Okay.”

  She jumped into the driver’s seat, and I watched, curious what she’d come up with. In a very short amount of time, Michael garnered a family, a location, and a job.

  “He needs friends now,” Beth said.

  “My turn.” We swapped seats, and while Beth ran to the kitchen to grab a snack, I filled in his hobbies and background, then made fifty Friend Requests. By the time she got back ten minutes later, Michael already had seventeen “friends.” Great. The fake profile was more social than I was.

  “Where did you get the friends?” she asked.

  I shot her a grin. “From Samantha Miller’s friend list. So far, they seem eager to accept my Friend Request.”

  She nodded her head at the screen. “Considering the guy, yeah.”

  “What now? Can I—I mean, Michael—send her a Friend Request?”

  Beth bit into a taffy and chewed while considering the question. “If she looks into Michael’s profile and sees he’s only been on Facebook for a day and she knows all of his friends, she might be suspicious. I would give it a few days. In the meantime, Friend some other people, join some groups, maybe play some games.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s a good idea.” I nodded, getting the gist. “Thanks.”

  She pushed back from the chair. “I have homework to do. Let me know when you Friend her. I want to see what happens.”

  “Will do.” I didn’t look away from the screen, already obsessed with Michael’s life. I randomly sent requests to people connected with his new friends. Michael joined a few groups—apparently he could play the guitar and he liked exotic foods—and then he started playing a game on Facebook, quickly acquiring a variety of fruits and vegetables.

  I had to take a break at dinner, and then Meredith called as I headed upstairs to my room.

  “I really, really need to talk to you,” she said. “Can you come over?”

  At least she was talking to me again. I already knew I wouldn’t see Aaron today. Given yesterday’s conversation, I wasn’t sure I ever would again.

  “Yeah, but just for a bit,” I said as my chest constricted. I couldn’t think of that. “I have to get ahead on my homework.”

  “Great,” she said, and hung up.

  “Mom,” I called, grabbing my backpack and trotting down the stairs, “I'm heading to Meredith’s.”

  The TV was on in the den. I heard her affirmative response and left.

  I’d barely pulled into Meredith’s driveway when my phone rang. My heart skipped a beat, the painful hope that it might be Aaron pounding in my chest. An unknown number scrolled across the screen, and the hope died before it had a chance to live. I turned off my car and answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, is this Jayne?” a croaky voice said in my ear.

  “Yes.” I leaned against my seat.

  “This is Mrs. Clark, Trey’s mom?”

  “Oh, hi.” I’d forgotten about the boy who’d been arrested for mutilating ducks. Was that only yesterday?

  “I visited Trey this morning and gave him your message. He wanted me to tell you something.”

  I cocked my head, curious now. “Okay.”

  “He said it was really important, made me write it down.” She cleared her throat. “He said, ‘if you want answers, go to the source.’”

  Go to the source. The words rang familiar, and I realized he’d said them to me the one time we’d talked. “What does it mean?” I murmured.

  “Oh, you don’t know? I hoped you would.”

  I hadn’t meant for her to hear me. “Thanks, Mrs. Clark. I really appreciate it. Will you let me know if anything changes?”

  “Of course. Come by again sometime.”

  Go to the source. I pondered the words while I walked up the path to Meredith's front door. The source of what? The source of the duck massacre? Would that be Duncan Catholic? The kids who did it? Did he mean himself?

  How the heck was that supposed to help me?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Finally,” Meredith breathed as soon as I came in. She bounced on the balls of her feet, fairly vibrating with nervous energy. “I’ve been dying to talk to you. It’s not that I didn’t believe you yesterday, when you told me those things. It was just so crazy, you know, do you know?”

  “I know,” I agreed, still standing in front of the door. She paced the entryway.

  “So! I wasn’t sure yesterday, but by the time I got home from school today, I knew you were telling the truth. I’ve spent hours researching Karta and Dekla and Laima, and I found out tons and tons of stuff. But first, I need to know more!” She paused for a breath before plunging on. “If you’re her, if you’re the goddess, you have powers. Responsibilities.” She moved to the kitchen, and I followed her. Meredith plopped into a chair at the table and opened a file folder. “Right?”

  “Right.” I joined her, relieved that she believed me. “Here’s how it works. The original Karta, who lived hundreds of years ago—”

  “Almost a thousand,” Meredith interrupted.

  I nodded. “She was immortal. She and Dekla were sisters who formed a tri-head of three goddesses, similar to the Fates in Greek mythology. Laima was their leader. When the world grew larger and there were too many people for them to track and take care of, Karta and Dekla decided to give up their immortality. In exchange, Laima took their powers and handed them out to certain mortals. I got my powers from a woman named Adelle. She named me her successor before she died, and upon her death, I inherited t
he ability . . .” I trailed off. That might be too much info.

  “The ability to what?”

  “To change fate,” I finished. I tried not to dwell on the fact that if Adelle hadn’t named me as a successor, she might not be dead now. But I would be.

  “So Dekla gave her powers to someone, who gave their powers to someone, and so on, until eventually it got to you?” Her eyes grew wider behind the glasses.

  “Kind of. Dekla gave her power to multiple someones. All across the globe, people began to have the same power Dekla had.”

  “Oh. So there are multiple Deklas.”

  “Yes. And multiple Kartas.”

  “And how does your role differ from hers?” Meredith closed the file folder, either because what I was saying was more interesting, or because the information she’d found online didn’t quite match up.

  “I’m responsible for young people. Anyone not an adult yet, which in our culture means under the age of twenty, mostly. After that, they fall into Karta’s jurisdiction.”

  “And what do you do, exactly?”

  “Well.” I exhaled. This was the tricky part. “I See how people are going to die.”

  “All people?” she whispered in a voice that reminded me how truly morbid my gift was, her hands going to her mouth.

  “No. Just certain people. If it’s someone in my jurisdiction, I have to make a judgment call—do I change their fate or no?”

  She dropped her hands, her brow furrowing. “But why wouldn’t you? These are kids we’re talking about. If you have the power, why don’t you prevent all their deaths?”

  I splayed my fingers on the table and stared at my nails, noticing the chipped polish. When Laima first told me about my power, I’d thought the same thing. Now I recognized how ludicrous the idea was. “Everyone has to die at some point, right? So it would only be delaying the inevitable. Either they die the way I Saw, or they die a different way later.”

  “So you do nothing?” She sounded appalled, and I felt a flash of irritation.

  “It’s a judgment call,” I said, trying to make her understand something I was still trying to figure out myself. “Sometimes, the nature of the death is too grisly, or the timing seems off. Those are the ones I try to change. We’d all rather die in our sleep, wouldn’t we? After a long, satisfactory life?” I didn’t wait for her answer. “But I can’t give that to everyone. Because it’s a give and take. Every time I prolong someone’s life, I shorten someone else’s. I don’t get to choose who that other person is. I don’t even get to know. And I have to live with the knowledge that my decision negatively affected someone else’s life.”

  She let out a slow breath. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “So I use my power very, very carefully.”

  “That’s . . . heavy.”

  Heavy. Perfect way to describe it. My stomach twisted, and I pulled my phone out, checking for a text message without thinking.

  “There’s something else you said, though,” Meredith said, pulling me from my thoughts. “What if it’s not a kid? Why do you even see those ones?”

  “I See less of them now than I did before. I think before I inherited my powers, I was just all over the place, Seeing death everywhere. If it happens now, I pass the information on to Karta. She’s in charge of them. She gets to decide.”

  “Okay.” Meredith nodded. “So how do you change someone’s future? You just like, wave a magic wand or something?”

  I shook my head. “No. Laima’s still in charge. She has all the real power. I send her a request for the change and then cross my fingers. She doesn’t tell me if she approves it or not.”

  “How do you send the request? A text message?”

  I hid a smile at her sarcasm. “Yep.”

  “You’re kidding me!” She threw her hands up. “We’re talking ancient Latvian goddesses here, and you guys communicate via text? Couldn’t you find something cooler?”

  “You mean, more traditional? Like kneeling at a stone alter in a temple or something? That’s not very practical. Or convenient. We live in a modern age. Why shouldn’t we take advantage of technology?”

  Meredith laughed and shook her head. “I guess it kind of makes sense.”

  I waited, wondering if she had any other questions and hoping she wouldn’t ask me for a list of all the deaths I’d Seen. I had the list, of course. I kept it in my room. But I didn’t want to dredge it up.

  I didn’t want to talk about the serial killer who nearly killed me last spring, either.

  “So if Karta’s your ‘sister goddess,’ why is she sending out a poem meant to highlight suppressed fears?”

  “I don’t know,” I said softly. “Something’s going on, and I’m not sure Laima knows what it is, either. She’s not omnipotent.”

  “Fascinating,” Meredith murmured. “What about all the other gods and goddesses? Like Saule and Daugava.”

  Hadn’t the professor mentioned the first one? “I don’t really know much about them.”

  “You’re a journalist, but you didn't bother to research more about the other gods related to you?”

  Her words struck a chord. Why hadn’t I? “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. Too busy creating fake Facebook profiles.”

  She frowned. “Why would you do that?”

  “So I can Friend Samantha. Where’s your computer?”

  “My room.” She led me there, shoving clothes onto the floor to make room in the chair at the desk. I found a spot on the bed without too many books and gingerly sat down. She opened Facebook, and I came closer to pull up Michael’s profile. He had more friends now, thanks to his groups and extracurricular activities. Some people were even posting on his wall. I made a few quick replies, talking about music and sports. It was kind of fun, pretending to be someone else.

  “Hm. He looks an awful lot like Stephen.”

  The grin dropped off my face. “It is Stephen,” I growled.

  “Huh.”

  I shot her a glare and pulled up Samantha Miller’s profile. My heart pounded as the mouse hovered over the “add friend” button. One of two things would happen now: either she would accept my request, or she wouldn’t. I clicked the button and let out a slow exhale. “Done.”

  “Now we wait and see,” Meredith said in a hushed voice.

  “Well.” I sighed and checked my phone. “I guess I’ll go home and crack down on that homework.”

  “Yeah.” Meredith nodded as she scrolled through her phone. “Hey, look at this. There was another animal massacre. A bunch of cows in Manchester Township. Police found some weird symbol carved in them. Think it’s related to the other symbol?”

  “Criminy,” I gasped. “It has to be! Finally, we have a link between the animals and the suicides!”

  She looked up at me. “What’s the symbol look like?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never seen it.”

  “Too bad. Do the police know what it is?”

  “No. There are too many possible matches. No one even knows how to begin speculating on what it means.”

  She quirked a smile. “Because they don’t know to look for a connection to a Latvian goddess.”

  “Right? If I could just see the symbol.”

  “We could see it now.” A mischievous glint entered her eyes. “If we went out to the pasture and examined the dead cows.”

  My stomach churned at the very idea. “I doubt it’s open for tours.”

  “Oh, come on.” She shoved me lightly. “Are you an investigative journalist or not?”

  “Not. Not even a journalist, really. Just a wannabe.”

  She grabbed her purse and dangled the car keys. “Sense of adventure. Let’s go.”

  “Okay,” I said, her words spurring me on. “Nothing better to do.”

  Meredith plugged the coordinates into her phone and handed it to me, and I guided her out of Forked River and into the countryside. Half an hour later, we hit a police barricade.

  “No cars coming through
here tonight, ladies,” the cop said, shining his flashlight into our car. “Sorry.”

  “Really?” Meredith said. “I just need to get to my grandma’s house. She lives down this road.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You’ll have to take a different way.”

  “But that will put me out by nearly half an hour,” she said with a very believable pout.

  For a second he hesitated, and I almost thought he’d let us through. Then he shook his head. “You’ll still get there before nine if you turn around now.”

  “Well,” Meredith said with a sigh as she turned the car around, “that was pointless.”

  “And just as well. What if he’d let us through? We didn’t bring flashlights, and if we had, the cops would see us. We’d be arrested for sure.”

  “On what charges?”

  “Oh, trespassing, to begin with. Then maybe tampering with evidence. Possibly even as suspects.”

  “Hm.” She frowned, then perked up again. “But at least we’d have the symbol!”

  *~*

  The first thing I did Wednesday morning was rush down to the den to check Facebook. I made a face and sank back with disappointment when I saw Karta hadn’t accepted my request.

  My phone was ringing by the time I got up to my room. Nobody called before school unless it was an emergency. I knew better than to hope, but still . . . I sighed when I saw Meredith’s name.

  “Hey,” I said, throwing on a shirt and looking for a matching scarf. “What’s up?”

  “Five suicides,” she breathed out.

  I stopped moving. “What?”

  “There were five suicides last night.”

  “Where?” I whispered, collapsing half-dressed on the bed. “Who?”

  “Manchester County. All of them. All within twenty miles of the cow massacre.”

  “Wow.” I didn’t know what to say, what to think. What would happen now?

  Her voice turned urgent. “You need to get that symbol. We need to track this down.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “I’ll do that at work.”

  “See you in a few.”

  I almost skipped school and went straight to work, but I managed to force myself to sit through all my incredibly long classes. I only checked my phone twice, desperate for anything from Aaron. A hello, a smiley face, some indication that he was missing me as badly as I missed him.