Under a Spell by Hannah Jayne

classroom. I felt myself bristle, then grabbed Mrs. Prusch’s role book and went through the hallowed high school ritual of butchering the students’ surnames and, in this decade of Ja Net (pronounced Jenae ), Niola, Suri, and Jacita, their first names as well.
    Didn’t anyone name her kid Jennifer anymore?
    “Uh, Kayleigh?”
    “Here.” A strawberry blond raised her hand as if it weighed eight hundred pounds and her one-word response would be the last she’d ever utter.
    “Finleigh?”
    Kayleigh’s neighbor to her right gave me a finger wave and a dazzling smile.
    “And . . . so—I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to pronounce this.”
    Big blue eyes rolled backward like a slot machine. “It’s pronounced so-fee ,” the other girl sandwiching Kayleigh groaned. “Sofeigh.”
    I wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t there in ballpoint and white. “Interesting. I’ve just never seen it spelled that way.”
    Sofeigh gave me another eye roll and then exchanged the are-you-kidding-me gaze with Fallon and the other ’eigh-ers. I felt sweat beading at the back of my neck.
    You’re the adult, Sophie.
    “Okay.” I snapped the roll book shut and slid up on the front desk à la every sexy actress playing a teacher in every film I’d ever seen. “We’re talking today about The Scarlet Letter. Who wants to explain to me a little about the book?”
    A heavy silence washed over the room and every eye was turned on me, every pair blank.
    Where is a swirling vortex of hell when you need it?
    The bell rang and it was the single most sweet, welcome sound that I’d ever heard. The girls were up with laptops, iPads, and English books packed, iPhones whipped out and already in mid-text before the thirty-second bell ceased.
    “Remember to read the Prufrock poem in its entirety,” I said to the backs of their heads. I could have raised my voice or rapped my hand on the desk to get their attention, but truthfully, watching the herd of teenage girl heads filing en masse out the door took my breath away. Their desertion of my classroom was a thing of pure beauty.
    Until I noticed it wasn’t completely deserted.
    “Everything okay, Miranda?”
    Miranda was hunched at her desk, shoulders sloped, massive waves of frizzy curls tenting whatever it was she studied. She looked up, surprised. “Is class over?”
    I nodded silently, and though I knew should do something teacher-ly and admonish her for reading during my lecture, I felt a certain kinship for her, could understand the overwhelming desire to dip into an artsy world when the real one echoed with monikers like Super Dork and Forever Virgin.
    I smiled softly at her. “So, was it as bad as I thought it was?”
    Miranda looked up from the paper she was doodling on with a shy smile. “No.”
    I held her eye and a blush warmed her cheek; she broke my gaze and studied her notebook. “Well, kind of.”
    I bit my lip. “And to think the only thing I was worried about subbing here at Mercy was . . . well, you know.” I watched Miranda’s eyes for any new flicker of recognition/witchcraft/avoidance. She just blinked at me, her face blank.
    “You know, the kidnapping?” I paused, breathing deeply. “And the other stuff we were talking about earlier.”
    Miranda nodded her head, solemnly. I tried a more nonchalant tactic, sliding up onto my desk, letting my legs dangle. “So, did you know her?”
    Miranda went back to doodling, a blanket of hair hiding her expression. “Alyssa? Or Cathy?”
    “Either,” I said, my heartbeat starting to quicken. “Or both.”
    She continued moving her pencil across her paper, not bothering to look at me. “Alyssa was in this class. Fallon’s sitting in her seat right now.”
    “Fallon took over Alyssa’s seat already?” I tried not to gape.
    Miranda just shrugged, pushed a lock of hair between her lips and sucked on it. “I didn’t know know Cathy, but she’s kind of a legend here now.”
    “A legend?”
    “You know,”