A sticky note was on Adrienne’s nightstand.
The woman’s gaze followed hers, resting on the yellow square.
Adrienne studied the woman again, noticing the sweat dripping down the side of her face and the clammy sheen of her skin. The woman appeared to be under some sort of strain. She weaved as she stood, and there was tightness around her eyes and lips. Her clothing was rumpled, dirt along one leg of the pants.
Was she diseased? Sick? Crazy?
Moving back into the hallway, Adrienne silently thanked her daddy for paying the phone bill, so she could call the police.
“Don’t run, Adrienne,” the woman said, her attention slowly shifting back to her. “Please. Just let me talk to you.”
“You know who I am.” Adrienne’s panic grew too strong for her to contain.
She wasn’t calling the police – she was getting the hell out of there! She turned to dart down the hallway towards the door.
The woman was at the other end of the hallway.
Adrienne froze, her body aching with the tension of her muscles.
“Please,” the woman said again. “I don’t have much time or … ” She wobbled and caught herself against the wall.
Adrienne backed away. A frantic glance into her room revealed it was empty. Her breathing was fast enough that her ears were starting to buzz and tunnel vision formed. With her escape route and ability to reach the phone blocked, Adrienne sank against a wall, shaking.
The woman knelt as well, even paler.
Adrienne closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on her breathing, terrified of what might happen if she passed out. Tears squeezed from her eyes as she struggled to control her body’s frantic response to finding a stranger in her house. After a moment, the dizzy spell passed, and she forced herself to focus.
The woman was leaning against the wall, eyes closed. Her breathing was rough and quick.
“What do you want?” Adrienne managed.
“I brought you a … note.” She pointed with a quaking hand towards the bedroom.
With effort, Adrienne pushed herself up and went to her room. She picked up the sticky note on her nightstand.
“It’s blank,” she said, confused.
“I know,” the woman said from the hallway.
Curiosity got the better of her. Adrienne went to the doorway of her room, feeling somewhat safe knowing she could close the door and hide, if need be.
“I didn’t have time to write it,” the woman admitted.
“What should it say?”
“Help Jax.”
“What? Why?” Adrienne asked. “Omigod! Is he the man in red?” As soon as she asked the question, she realized it was stupid to ask a stranger about something from her sister’s journal.
“No,” the woman said. “He’s lost his way.”
The woman appeared to be growing weaker in front of Adrienne.
“Who are you?” she asked again.
The woman laughed, a husky, strained sound. “I don’t even know.” She drew a deep breath then pushed herself up to her feet.
“You came here to my home to tell me to help Jax. Did you write the other notes?”
“Yes and no.” The woman took a step towards her.
Adrienne shrank away, recalling what Candace said about the possibility that a spirit possessing different people had written the notes. This woman didn’t know who she was. Was she under the influence of a spirit?
“I wrote the warnings. Not the notes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Just … you have to sing, Adrienne. You have to. Soon.” Her voice was growing faint, more strained.
Adrienne didn’t know what to say.
The stranger smiled then turned and started towards the door.
“Wait!” Adrienne cried, forcing herself forward. “I have so many questions! What does the song mean or do or …”
“Sing, sweet Addy. Sing.”
“Please wait! Tell me what this veve means!” Adrienne ducked into her room and wrenched open the nightstand, where she kept the other sticky notes and the drawing she’d traced of the Red Man’s veve.
When she returned to the hallway, the woman was gone.
With some apprehension, Adrienne ventured away from the safety of her room. She peeked into her daddy’s bedroom once more and the living room then the kitchen.
“Hello?” she whispered.
The door was locked from the inside, and the woman gone.
Shaking, Adrienne sat down numbly on the couch, unable to explain what just happened. Had she just met a possessed woman? If so, whose spirit was inside her?
I wrote the warnings. Not the notes.
Adrienne didn’t let herself consider the possibility she’d just run into her dead sister’s spirit in a new body. After minutes of furiously searching her mind for a different explanation, she finally relented and gave the idea a full minute of thought.
It scared her, but it was possible.
Adrienne grabbed a pen from the coffee table. She wrote the woman’s warning on the sticky note.
Help Jax.
Two people thought he’d lost his way, and Adrienne didn’t understand what that meant or what it had to do with her.
Afraid to be alone in her own home, she grabbed her bag and left, too rattled to sit and think in the silent apartment. She didn’t go far, but curled into one of the faded, old chairs in the lobby. The in and out of residents and weekend visitors soon eased her fear and tension. She watched for a while, unable to digest completely what happened.
A strange woman who knew her randomly appeared in her apartment with a message. Then disappeared, after alluding to the idea she might be Therese.
Why didn’t she come out and say so, if she was? Had Adrienne missed her chance to ask her sister directly what was going on? What happened to her?
What if this was the only chance she’d ever get to ask and she blew it?
Distress growing, Adrienne nibbled on her lower lip, staring at the floor a couple feet in front of the chair. She found herself gripping the dog tags for comfort and praying to the family gods that the protective spell was enough to keep away whatever danger people seemed to think was headed her way.
Unable to understand why the woman showed herself now, after leaving anonymous notes for two weeks, Adrienne focused on what she knew. She had to figure out the song from her sister’s journal. Jax, Therese, the curse, the robed man … all were somehow tied to the song encoded in the journal.
Adrienne pulled out the sheaf of papers with trembling hands. She blinked away tears, studying the first page again. She wrote out the notes in the lower margin then paused, frowning. She knew the notes, but a string of notes wouldn’t give her the rhythm required to turn it into a true song.
She gazed at the first line of the journal and began counting the letters and spaces between the circled letters. The rests and slides were there, disguised as more letters and spaces.
She wanted to cry but concentrated instead. She drew an uneven staff and bar lines then began to fill in the notes and their lengths and pauses between.
After ten grueling minutes, she had the first three lines decoded into what resembled a tiny musical score.
She started to hum the tune, coughed loudly then stopped, eyes watering.
She couldn’t sing. No matter how horrible school would be Monday, she had to find Kimmie and ask her to lift the curse. There was no other guaranteed way to get rid of the hex preventing her from singing.
Adrienne stared listlessly into space for a moment. Monday would be the worst day of her life, but Candace was right. If she didn’t go back and try to reason with Kimmie, she’d end up disappearing or dying like her sister. The curse might take the rest of her sisters.
Therese discovered how to stop it through the song. Why didn’t she do it? Was it incomplete, inaccurate or did it not work when she tried?