Jamyria: The Entering (The Jamyria Series Book 1)

by Madeline Meekins

  They’ve rented the cottage on the Hederman’s farm since Margo was a child. After Owen left, her mother couldn’t afford rent, so Margo offered to help out on the farm in exchange for the difference. Mrs. Hederman was all too willing to accept free labor.

  Pulling on a pair of work gloves, Margo tries her hardest not to look in the direction of her landlords’ house where she can hear the scratching of Mrs. Hederman’s broom upon her porch. The woman has never particularly liked Margo, all thanks to her sister Kylie. With two buckets of feed in tow, she stomps off through the fields of corn with nothing more than a spiteful glare from Mrs. Hederman.

  Thick fog creeps over the farmlands, the rolling hills peeking through like the fin of a shark. The pond is still, and the distant hum of the tractor lulls her. Stalks of corn sway gently in the wind. It is an ordinary gray day on an ordinary gray farm.

  When she reaches the cow pasture, she climbs over the metal fence, careful not to spill any feed. A curious group of cows already make their way over to her while she dumps a bucket in the trough. A chorus of grateful moos sound as she begins the walk across the field with the other bucket.

  The cows never cease to amaze Margo. How they move in unison, how they expect her to bring their food every day. They seem genuinely satisfied with their short, pathetic lives. Perhaps even happy. It is their perpetual stupidity that amazes her. How can they not see there is a greater field just beyond that gate? One that offers freedom and less ground beef.

  The metal handle of the bucket digs into her palm. She’s no more than halfway across the field but is in such a foul mood she decides to dump the feed right where she stands. A dozen or so cows take notice of her and slowly gather to see what she’s dropped. Spinning on the ball of her foot, she begins her trek back.

  Margo kicks her leg once again over the gate and slushes her way through the muddy pathway that leads back to the cornfield. She’s in no rush to face Mrs. Hederman, so she opts to amble on her way back to the barn.

  It is particularly dark within the confinement of the corn stalks on this day. The lurking fog obscures her vision and the wind rips her hair so violently around her face she has difficulty seeing. Grasping at the loose strands of hair and shoving them into the safety of her hood, Margo suddenly has a terrible sinking feeling that she is not alone in the cover of these crops. She freezes, eyes scanning the stalks, unable to see far beyond the fog. Something suddenly feels very wrong.

  But everything appears the same. Nothing unusual. Except, have the stalks ever stood so still?

  She takes a step forward, more cautious of her footing now. Indeed, the wind has disappeared, but that doesn’t excuse the sinking feeling in her stomach. She tries to shake it away without any luck.

  A crunch beneath her foot. Something vivid orange gleams beneath the soft soil underfoot. Dropping to her knees, Margo digs out the vibrant, pearlescent feather. It’s a shocking shade of orange with flecks of red that shoot through its wispy strands. It’s nearly the length of her forearm, and toward its tip, the color shifts to turquoises and blues, contrasting its vivid body. Its touch leaves a light burning sensation on her skin when she slips it through her fingertips.

  “Strange,” she whispers as the burn lifts and is replaced with an icy tingling.

  Mr. Hederman toots the horn on his tractor to remind Margo of the current time. She shoves the feather into her work jacket’s pocket and rushes out of the rows of corn and across the field, giving him a nod of appreciation in return and feeling slightly guilty for not getting much work done. She is grateful he understands the importance of an education. His wife, on the other hand, would rather spit a string of obscenities at the mentioning of anything that pulls her from her job on the farm. But Margo is determined to become someone and refuses to be eternally attached to this town, like the cows in the back pasture.

  The screen door slams behind her. She drops her boots at the door. Her mother still sits at the table and does not look up from her book as Margo runs past.

  She tosses her work clothes on her bed and searches out a tee shirt and jeans. Atop her dresser in its usual resting place, sits the most precious article in her room. She grabs the silky chain by its gold clasps, gently locking them at the base of her neck. The warm tingling in her middle returns. Margo takes the tiny wishbone charm between her thumb and forefinger, smiling to herself.

  “Crap,” she mutters when she catches sight of her clock in her dresser mirror reading a backwards ‘seven-eighteen.’ She snatches her bag and dashes to the kitchen.

  “Before you leave,” her mom says firmly as she claps her book shut. “I think you should think about what I said earlier.”

  Margo grabs a bottle of water and a granola bar. “Fine, Mom. But I can’t think before I leave.” She makes her way to the front door, turning to add, “I’ll think about it at school. Promise.”

  She hears the scoff just as the door slams shut behind her.

  The wooden porch steps sag and creak with each bound. She slips through the picket fence and breaks out in a run. Not twenty feet across the field, she hears the screen door a second time.

  “Wait! Margo, wait!”

  She hopes her eye-rolling goes unnoticed as she turns back to meet her mom. “This is why I’m late every day.”

  “You know how much I love you.” Her mother grips her face to kiss her cheek. “Let’s just forget about our argument and move forward, okay?”

  “Already forgotten,” Margo mutters through tightly squeezed cheeks. “I’ve got to run. Literally.”

  Her mom chuckles. “You’re just like me, you know? Stubborn.” And Kylie is like Owen. It’s what people have said for as long as Margo can remember. Of course, Kylie isn’t as self-absorbed as he is. She carries his gene for passion in a more positive way. Their mother, on the other hand, is stubborn, unmoved by an argument. Margo is her daughter to a tee.

  As far as looks are concerned, Kylie and Margo both inherited Owen’s with a dapple of their mom’s. Their heart-shaped faces favor his with their dominant cheekbones and widow’s peaks. Kylie, however, has their mother’s creamy skin and blond hair. Margo has her hazel-colored eyes that blend in with Owen’s olive skin and light brown hair. What sets the sisters apart the most is their six-inch difference in height. Kylie towers over Margo’s mere five-foot-one.

  “If you decide to play hooky and skip out on work again this afternoon, you call me,” she fusses, pulling Margo back into the present.

  She nods, and as soon as her mother releases her, Margo takes off across the fields.

  “Oh, and don’t play hooky,” she calls after her.

  Margo simply waves without turning back.

  Chapter Two: For Curiosity’s Sake

  The morning air is crisp, leaving Margo’s fingers numb, a sure sign that a fierce winter approaches in the coming months. The dirt road meanders through the woods until it meets the graveled one a mile and a half from her home. It is to this intersection she heads to catch the bus, and with only a few minutes’ delay, she has no choice but to start jogging. She kicks up a trail of dust behind her.

  “Morning, Indiana,” calls a familiar voice. She grits her teeth. With a mile already behind her, she’s made it to the crossing of Old Dobbin Drive, and Michael Peters strolls around the corner at that precise moment. His attempt at getting underneath her skin does not go easily ignored.

  “Silent treatment’s getting old,” he says from behind her shoulder. Margo can hear his feet shuffling not too far behind, his long legs easily keeping up. “I liked it better when you fought back.”

  Anger pulses through her. Resisting the urge to turn around and tell him off is beyond difficult. What’s worse is she’s been resisting for weeks now. But like a deep, pestering splinter, if you try picking it out it will only end up irritating you more.

  “Fine,” he huffs.

  The bus is already waiting at the stop by the time they arrive. This has become somewhat routine; neither is known for their pun
ctuality.

  “Ladies first, Indiana.” Michael gestures in a mocking manner.

  “You know, that’s really getting old.” Margo snaps her mouth shut. He grins victoriously.

  She stomps her way up the bus steps and slings her cursed bag into the first empty seat she can find without speaking to anyone. Not that they care. Everyone went silent around her after the accident.

  She presses her head against the cold glass, longing for the time when the stares were minimal or nonexistent as long as her sister was near. The only person at school who speaks to her nowadays is Michael with his lame Indiana jokes, and only a half-wit can find his moronic sense of humor entertaining. So why does she still shrink up inside?

  She loops the strap of her bag around her fingers absentmindedly. It wasn’t long after Owen gave her this ugly thing that she was dubbed Indiana. “Looks like something out of ‘The Temple of Doom,’” Michael had taunted back then.

  Suddenly it isn’t the boy sitting across from Margo who angers her but her father. This bag is the last gift he gave her before he walked out high and dry on her mom at their lowest point. The last positive memory she has of him. But it is also a reminder of what he did to them.

  It doesn’t make sense, really. How hatred swarms Margo’s thoughts, yet she cannot unclench her hand from the strap of his bag.

  This is exactly what Michael gets off on: her weakness.

  She squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on the changes in the drive as the bumpy road shifts to smooth concrete, allowing her mind to wander.

  The shadows of two empty faces fill her thoughts, both fading memories. She has long since given up on the girl. The boy, however, still holds a fraction of a chance, and every once in a while, his blue eyes slip into Margo’s dreams. His warming smile, his thick chocolate-brown hair, his sun-kissed skin… A flicker of hope rises within her that he will make his return, acting as if his absence the previous summer had never occurred. Margo understands his reasoning, of course. After what her family has gone through, she would never have expected his parents to send him and his sister to visit. But a phone call explaining his absence was expected.

  “Hey, Margo.” The boy snickers.

  The memory fades. Gawking with a couple of his friends on his heel, Michael grins the usual smirk he wears before a joke at Margo’s expense.

  “Is it true what they say?” he blurts. The laughter rising within him makes his words almost unintelligible. “What they say about your sister? That she —”

  Before Margo realizes what she’s doing, she’s already towering over him. Michael cowers away, a look of utter fear on his face.

  “Say it!” she threatens, inching closer to him with each word. “Just try to pull that one!”

  “Sit down, Margo,” the bus driver yells. “Michael, if she hits you, I’m sure I won’t see a thing.”

  The bus roars with laughter, for once on her side. It takes every ounce of restraint within her to sit back down across from him, but somehow Margo finds the strength. And after another five minutes of riding, her anger fades and is replaced by the depression she works so hard to keep buried deep within. The last of the trip is, for the most part, painless and quiet, other than the boy across the aisle muttering private jokes to himself — trying to recover his pride, Margo guesses. Another student whispers to Michael something about taking it too far as students file out of the bus.

  Margo stays behind.

  After the last person shoots an awkward glance in her direction just before exiting, she lugs herself to her feet dragging the stupid bag behind her.

  “It really ain’t fair,” says the bus driver when she reaches the stairs. “Life, ya know?”

  Margo sighs. It isn’t the first time she’s heard this. “Teenagers are vicious.” Once her feet touch the asphalt, she turns to add, “Thanks.”

  “Anything to see that pretty smile.” The air brake exhales as he cranks the door shut.

  Margo faces the building. Rogers High School. The penitentiary of her eleventh grade sentence. Swarms of different classes are fighting their way inside the building. There are the popular ones: cheerleaders, athletes, preps. The expressive and talented: artists, band members, glee club. The techies. The ‘individually unique’ — the definition of ‘unique,’ of course, meaning whatever is considered ‘in’ this year. The dark wearers.

  Below all of these classes rests one lone category. Margo’s category. The nobodies. They consist of the randoms who don’t quite fit into any other group. The lone rangers. The brave souls. Just fancy terms for who they truly are: the rejects.

  Last year things changed slightly, though not willingly. For a short while, Margo became the school’s most talked about nobody. The whispers were like the buzzing of cicadas. Only upon her entering the room did it stop so abruptly that the eerie silence became palpable. Nothing could have made that first day back more humiliating.

  A year later and the iciness still follows her through these halls, the bubble of silence around her so chilling. The torture behind her lids every time she shuts her eyes is unmanageable enough without the tangible reminder.

  Michael Peters does not talk to her in lunch. Or in fifth period, the only class they share. His eyes shy away nervously throughout the whole hour. It isn’t until the ride home that he does something unexpected.

  He quietly slips into the empty seat next to her. Even though they are mere inches apart, neither speaks. She waits patiently to see where this will lead.

  His shoulders wilt. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” he nearly whispers. “I didn’t mean to —”

  “You sounded like you knew exactly what you meant,” Margo says hotly.

  He nods stupidly.

  “Well then, I guess I’m done talking to you, Michael.” She turns to watch the hills roll by, counting cows as they pass. Michael doesn’t leave her side.

  “Margo, do you… Can you ever forgive me?”

  She scowls at him. “No.”

  His lips sullenly twitch downward the slightest bit, and suddenly Margo feels obligated to elaborate. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” she huffs. “But you don’t mean it. Not really.”

  Her cheeks shake as the bus turns onto the gravel road. Relief rushes through her knowing that her escape is near. Michael heads toward the front of the bus long before they reach the stop. She doesn’t rise until the bus slows.

  The walk home is quiet. Margo is grateful for the silence and takes in the calming scenery. The trees’ leaves have shifted into warm hues over the past few weeks and have formed a tunnel of gold around the road on which they walk. The afternoon sun warms the air.

  The two near the crossing of Old Dobbin. Margo welcomes the impending lone walk, albeit she is aware of Michael’s eyes on the back of her head. Of course he would find a way to prolong their time together….

  “Can we talk about this?”

  Without faltering her steps, Margo replies, “I don’t have anything to say.”

  The thudding of feet behind her speeds up until Michael blocks her path. “Well, I do.”

  She groans.

  “I shouldn’t have brought up your sister like that.” His voice is firm, eyes strong upon her face. “It was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

  “So what?” she shouts so loudly a flock of birds take flight at the sharpness of her tone. Suddenly it all spills from her lips. “Did you really expect me to forgive you just because you realized you took it too far this time? How about the past twelve years of you messing with me? Am I supposed to forgive you for that, too?”

  “Look, Margo, I’m just saying that I —”

  She jolts from under his touch, and in an attempt to keep her in place, Michael catches hold of her bag from which she also jerks away. Her textbooks fall out in a series of loud plops.

  Defeated, Margo holds stock still, hands balled at her side, cheeks darkening. A hiss escapes through clenched teeth, and a rush of energy pulses down her arms to her fingertips. Her fists
tighten in reaction, eyes squeezing tighter until the spasms subside. Her heartbeat slows to an even rhythm.

  Michael, noticing nothing, grunts and steps forward to help retrieve her books.

  “Just go home, Michael!” She kicks up a cloud of dust in his direction and falls to the ground; her head drops to her knees. Disgust builds inside her once she realizes just how close she is to breaking down. She wills her tears away certain that crying will only allow him to win, and lifts her head to pick up her fallen books.

  “I’m just sorry,” he whispers. “That’s all.”

  Shoving her belongings back into her bag and not wanting to even acknowledge him, Margo mutters under her breath, more to herself than to the boy standing over her, “You’re just lucky I’m not suicidal or something.”

  Michael’s body tenses, unsure how to respond to such a morbid thought. He turns toward Old Dobbin as if her statement went unnoticed and continues walking along. Once he’s around the corner, he runs beyond sight.

  A hysterical laugh breaks through her lips. Suicidal? Yes, she is far from that. Of course, there are other ways to cause pain to oneself, and she allows them more often than not. She shuts her eyes to prove her point. The two silhouettes are burned in her lids.

  It is far past time to move on, and she knows that. She isn’t entirely certain why she has endured the memories for so long. It’s not because she is being selfish and coveting the past, exactly. Nor is it because she is too fearful to forget. The truth is she simply cannot, no matter how hard she may try, force them out of her mind.

  Margo pulls the buckle of her bag and dusts off the bits of leaves from her pants when out of the corner of her eye a sudden flash of orange light streaks through the woods. The unexpectedness startles her; she instinctively whips her head in that direction. The breeze picks up, rustling the stray leaves on the road. Her eyes dart about the trees searching frantically for any reflective, shiny object to no avail.