Unmarked by Kami García

the same source I have not taken
    My sorrow—I could not awaken
    My heart to joy at the same tone—
    And all I lov’d—
I
lov’d alone—
    Then
—in my childhood—in the dawn
    Of a most stormy life—was drawn
    From ev’ry depth of good and ill
    The mystery which binds me still—
    From the torrent, or the fountain—
    From the red cliff of the mountain—
    From the sun that ’round me roll’d
    In its autumn tint of gold—
    From the lightning in the sky
    As it pass’d me flying by—
    From the thunder, and the storm—
    And the cloud that took the form
    (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
    Of an angel in my view—
    “The last line is wrong. It should say ‘Of a demon in my view.’ ”
    Jared looked at his brother. “Think it’s a code?”
    “I need some paper.” Lukas was already scribbling on his hand.
    Elle riffled around in her junk drawer of a purse until she found an old history test. “Here.”
    Lukas flipped over the test and held it against the display case. He copied the last line of the poem and began systematically crossing out letters. We watched as he wrote random words down the side of the page, until he had exhausted the possibilities. “It’s not letter substitution.”
    Priest studied the poem. “Try unscrambling it.”
    Lukas tried different combinations while the rest of us called out words with letters that weren’t even in the line of the poem.
    “What if you use the right version—‘of a demon’ instead?” Alara asked.
    I stood in front of the poem again. This time, I visualized the words as if they were images in a painting—focusing on the shapes of the individual letters, the shape of the poem as a whole, and the negative space around the words. Nothing jumped out at me, but the label above the poem caught my eye:
Donated by Ramona Kennedy
.
    It can’t be a coincidence.
    Lukas crumpled up the paper and chucked it on the floor. “The person who forged it was probably an idiot and screwed up.”
    Priest stared at the ceiling. “Or we need the Shift to read the message. It’s probably sitting on some firefighter’s mantel right now.”
    “Then we’re screwed.” Jared slammed his palm against the display case.
    I couldn’t take my eyes off the label. “My dad wrote that copy of the poem, or he had someone else do it for him.”
    The script didn’t match the handwriting on the note he left my mom twelve years ago, but the forger had obviously copied Poe’s style.
    Jared interlaced his fingers with mine. “How can you tell?”
    I pointed at the label. “I hated my name as a kid. Whenever I complained about it, my mom said the samething: ‘Maybe I should’ve gone with your father’s first choice.’ He wanted to name me Ramona, after his favorite band, the Ramones.”
    Mom was sipping coffee at the chipped round table in our kitchen while my dad stood in front of the stove, in his Jane’s Addiction T-shirt, flipping pancakes.
    “Ramona is a unique name, and the Ramones were punk rock gods,” my dad said over the sizzle of bacon frying in the other pan.
    Mom balled up her napkin and tossed it at him, smiling. “You’re lucky I let you choose Kennedy’s middle name.”
    “From
your
list. Rose was your grandmother’s middle name.” My dad munched on a piece of bacon and winked at me. “Ramona Kennedy would’ve been my pick.”
    I forced their voices out of my mind as Alara marched past me. She returned moments later, carrying a taxidermy goat with a mermaid tail from the front of the museum. She walked up to the display case and pulled her sleeve down, covering her hand. “Back up.”
    Elle covered her ears. “What if someone hears the glass break?”
    Alara turned the goat so its horns faced the glass. “Like Lukas said, this place is closed. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
    Jared reached for the mer-goat. “Why don’t you let me—”
    Alara swung the goat by its mermaid tail, releasing it just as the horns hit the case. A crack splintered