Poisoned Letters

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 4

ADAM LOCKE

All good things must come to an end. The day Ivy left was her last in Ravenswood. There was no trace of her in this small town of ours. It's only been one month since she disappeared and no one remembers her and ever will.

The moment I sit on my hard wooden chair in the corner of my apartment's living room, the memories of Ivy pulse through me. Every one of them. All of them serving as a reminder to keep looking for her.

On her last day in this town, she took everything that belonged to her, which wasn't much. I had nothing to remember her by, not even pictures. We left all of them in a box at our old house, and when we returned to get them...they were gone.

I feared I would forget Ivy like everyone else in this disturbed town since there was nothing to remember her by. That was until I was leaving the apartment to get my groceries to keep me alive for the week. I opened the door and stepped on a faded orange packet.

The day I found the packet, I brought it in immediately, and when I opened it a crumpled piece of paper emerged. I thought it was the poison-pen writer threatening me. I was almost glad because then I would have a good reason to leave this world.

Avoiding the letter would've been the best response, but my curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know what secret has been used against me. When I smoothed the paper, it revealed a written poem similar to the one sent to Ivy, except this wasn't as neat.

It wasn't until after I read the letter that I realized it wasn't the anonymous writer, but Ivy. She had that same neat, childish handwriting as the letter did. It was also written in pencil, unlike the poison-pen letters which are written in ink.

Her letter was strange. It wasn't your average letter to a family member, and it wasn't just a warning. There was always another meaning behind all of Ivy's writing.

I recieved the letter a week ago and have been reviewing it everyday, looking for hints ever since. I re-read it repeatedly until I committed it to memory. Sometimes at night, I would find myself reciting it while I slept.

"Relief is not on its way. Anonymous letters appear on Your doorstep, mailbox, private property. No one is safe in the town we live in. Even I could not Handle insanity. After everything that happened, leaving was for the best. Be careful of who you trust, especially those who are not Really who They seem to be," I would say.

† † †

My eyes fall on the clock at the corner of study table. It read: 4:27 a.m. I see through the corner of my eye the sun just started to rise. I yawned in exhaustion from the lack of sleep for the past two days now.

I then returned my attention to Ivy's letter. It's an actual enigma. I've tried rearranging the words, reading every other word, reading it backwards, and nothing, I can't figure it out. Ivy definitely knew how to perfect her writing. She overestimated me; how could she possibly think I would be able to understand this.

There were no mistakes, but I check for them anyway because it might lead to something. After ten minutes of reading through it, I see there are no mistakes at all. All her words were spelled correctly, she punctuated correctly, she used precise word choices, and capitalized any proper nouns and words at the beginning of each sentence.

I go through I mental checklist to make sure I covered any mistakes she could've made:
✓ spelling
✓grammar
✓punctuation
✓capitalization

After going through the checklist, I skimmed through the letter one more time. Then something caught my eye. There was an error, actually multiple errors. Some letters of words were capitalized when they weren't supposed to be, and I began to circle the errors

Ⓡelief is not on its way. Ⓐnonymous letters appear on Ⓨour doorstep, mailbox, private property. Ⓝo one is safe in the town we live in. Ⓔven I could not Ⓗandle insanity. Ⓐfter everything that happened, leaving was for the best. Be careful of who you trust, especially those who are not Ⓡeally who Ⓣhey seem to be.

When I was finally done, I saw something the nearly made me fall off my seat. The circled letters spelled out something.

It was a name.

Rayne Hart.