Lena wanted to scream. She had to find a way to follow her mom and see her in action. Maybe that would give her some idea of how to handle the Pearl situation.
It was only late afternoon, but Lena pulled down the shades and insisted on making Mrs. Martinez some warm milk. Then she launched into the most boring story she could think of, about a quilt she’d worked on last summer. As she described different patterns and stitches, the old lady’s eyelids drooped. Soon, she was snoring away, and Lena’s fingers were tingling again, ready to flare to life as the old woman’s soul danced above her gray curls.
This time, Lena made sure to keep her distance, and her new powers calmed down. She left a note on the kitchen table, saying she’d gone to the store for some more milk, in case Mrs. Martinez woke up and panicked that Lena was gone. The odds of that happening were pretty slim though. Her snores were practically shaking the entire building.
When she looked up the address she’d seen on her mom’s phone, Lena realized it was too far away to walk, but she didn’t have time to figure out how to get there by bus. Then she remembered a bike she’d seen tucked behind some boxes in her mom’s bedroom. She dragged it out and checked the tires. The air in the front one was a little low, but it would have to do. She knew her mom would freak out if she saw Lena riding a bike through Phoenix alone, and maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas, but she was desperate.
After a long ride in the dry heat, she got to the yoga studio. When she peered in through the window, she saw that class was in session and that her mom was in the back of the room, doing her best downward dog. She was by far the youngest person there—most of the other participants looked like grandparents—but also one of the least flexible.
As her mom stretched her entire body, she looked so peaceful that, for a second, Lena wondered if she’d decided to forget about her assignment and enjoy the class instead. But then she noticed her mom squinting intently at something in the corner of the room, and when Lena looked harder, she could see a small ball of light there. A soul. She watched, rapt, as her mom got to her feet and headed to the corner, pretending that she needed to drink some water. Then she seemed to whisper something to the soul. Lena was dying to know what her mom was saying, but how could she get closer?
Through the window, she spotted a side door next to where her mom was now pretending to stretch her neck while everyone else in the class was sprawled out on the floor. Maybe if Lena could peek through that door, she could see what her mom was doing.
She hurried around to the side of the building in time to see a clump of light shooting out through the door. The runaway soul. That meant Lena’s mom would be right behind it.
Lena dove out of sight behind a row of recycling bins just as her mom threw open the door and hurried outside. She scanned the alley, looking for the soul, but she clearly couldn’t see it from where she was standing. Lena, though, had a great view of it as it curled under a nearby windowsill. Even though it was only a ball of light like Pearl, it didn’t look (or feel) exactly the same. The light was a slightly deeper gold color, and the edges of the soul didn’t look as wispy as Pearl’s did—another sign that Pearl’s soul had been around for a long time.
Her mom glanced around the alley one more time, and then she started to head away from the street. In the wrong direction. Uh-oh.
Thinking fast, Lena grabbed an empty soda can from one of the bins and tossed it a few feet in front of her. The can clanged on the pavement, making her mom spin around. She rushed toward the source of the sound just as the soul unpeeled itself from under the window.
“Stop!” Lena’s mom said. “Eleanor, please. I can help you see your husband again.”
At those words, the soul stopped moving. “Kevin?” a tiny voice said.
“He’s waiting for you,” Lena’s mom said. “You only have to stop running away. I know you feel at peace here, but where you’re meant to go is more peaceful than any yoga class. You’ll love it there.”
The soul inched forward. “Kevin always said I needed to relax.”
Lena’s mom smiled. “Imagine the two of you sitting on the beach together, looking out at the ocean, without a care in the world.”
The soul stopped moving. “Kevin can’t go to the beach.”
Lena saw her mom hesitate. “Or somewhere else. Somewhere you both can unwind.”
But it was clearly too late. Lena’s mom had lost her. “Kevin’s not supposed to spend too much time outside. His skin is too sensitive to the sun. That’s what got him, you know. Skin cancer.”
“I’m sorry,” Lena’s mom said. “But he’s okay now. He’s waiting for you. If you just let go—”
“Why should I trust you?” Eleanor asked. “My Kevin always said I was too trusting.”
“It’s all right. Really. I’m only here to help you.”
But Eleanor wasn’t listening anymore. She was inching farther away, backing up toward the very bins where Lena was hiding.
Suddenly, Lena’s fingers flared to life with pale blue energy. The powers didn’t seem to need her help; they knew exactly what to do. The energy shot out of her fingers, wove in between the bins, and wrapped itself around Eleanor’s soul. There was a blinding flash, and then the ball of light vanished.
Lena let out a long breath. The soul was gone. She was sure of it. Unlike with Pearl, there had been no shower of blue sparks. Plus, the relief that now flooded her body was how Lena normally felt when her assignment was complete, though she was usually much more exhausted afterward. This time, she was ready to do it all over again.
When she peeked around the bin, she saw her mom still standing there, looking puzzled. She moved to inspect the spot where Eleanor had been. Lena dove on the ground and tried to make herself invisible.
After a minute, her mom must have been satisfied that Eleanor was gone, because she took out her phone. “Yvonne? It’s Jessica. Listen, I got the soul at the yoga studio, but…something seemed off. It looked like she was going to get away again, and then suddenly, she crossed over.” There was a long silence. “I’m not complaining, but it seemed a little too easy.” She laughed. “I’m just glad I get to go home and have dinner with my daughter instead of chasing this one around all night.”
Lena sucked in a breath. Oh no. Her mom was heading home, and Lena wouldn’t be there when she got back. As her mom headed the other way down the alley, Lena crept out from the bins. Then, with a glance over her shoulder, she ran to the bike, jumped on, and started furiously pedaling home.
Chapter 15
“Jealousy,” Connie said, plopping down on Marcus’s couch. “It works every time.”
Marcus sank into an armchair and gently placed his grandpa’s dating guide on the coffee table. “Not according to this book. It says jealousy is a negative tactic that you should try to avoid.”
Connie rolled her eyes. “That book is also about a million years old. Trust me. If you want to fix Albert up with your sister, you need to make him and Peter jealous of each other.”
“But we don’t even know if Ann-Marie is supposed to be matched with either of them.” Until last night, Marcus would have said there was no way his sister and Albert were compatible, but after how Ann-Marie had acted, he wasn’t sure what to think anymore. Maybe Connie really did know what she was doing.
“It doesn’t matter,” Connie said. “It seems like she could like both of them. So let them fight it out, and see which one wins.”
Marcus sighed. It seemed cruel to pit the two guys against each other, especially when one of them was afraid of the sound of his own voice. But maybe Connie had a point. Maybe the reason Ann-Marie and Peter hadn’t been matched yet was because Ann-Marie had feelings for more than one person.
“Or you could just let me zap someone,” Connie added. “That’ll solve everything.”
“It won’t!” Marcus insisted. “If we pick the wrong guy, it’ll all fa
ll apart anyway, and they’ll all be miserable.”
“Okay then,” Connie said. “Let’s go with my plan.”
“Fine. We can give it a try. But how do we get the two guys to fight over her?”
Connie grinned. “I have some ideas.”
The gleam in her eyes was a little unnerving. Marcus enjoyed his job, of course, but for Connie, it was clearly more than that. She didn’t seem to care how anything actually worked. She hadn’t asked Marcus any questions about his powers or about other matchmakers. He hadn’t told her about Lena being a soul collector, since he wasn’t sure he could trust her with the information. Really, he didn’t know if he could trust Connie at all.
“You haven’t matched anyone else, have you?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” Connie waved her hand, as if she were trying to pull a Jedi mind trick on him.
“What does that mean? Have you matched people or not?”
She rolled her eyes. “You said you didn’t want to know.”
“No, I said you shouldn’t do it at all!”
But Connie was already focused on listing ways they could make Peter and Albert compete for Ann-Marie’s attention. “A duel could work, but that’s a little clichéd.”
“A duel? Like with swords?” Marcus said.
“Or pistols at dawn. Some people find that kind of thing romantic.”
Ugh. This was not helping. And the longer Albert went without a match, the more messed up the balance of the universe would get. Add that to all the other supernatural jobs that weren’t getting done because of the power outage and, well…Marcus didn’t want to think about it. The idea was too overwhelming and scary. He’d started leaving the room whenever his dad watched the news, because he couldn’t help thinking every bad thing happening in the world was due to the power outage.
“Whatever you do, it has to give the two guys a fair shot, okay?” Marcus asked. “I mean, Peter is this laid-back popular guy, and Albert is…not.”
Before Connie could answer, the basement door opened, and Marcus’s mother came up, bringing a cloud of moldy dough scent with her.
“Oh, hello,” his mom said, giving Connie a startled look. “Marcus, I didn’t realize you had a friend over.”
He could tell she was surprised he had company for the second time that week, given his track record of absolutely never bringing anyone over to the house.
Before Marcus could do introductions, Marcus’s dad burst out of the bathroom holding a severed pipe. “Out of my way!” he hollered, barreling past them with the rusty, leaking monstrosity. Behind him, water was trickling out of the bathroom and onto the hallway floor.
“What happened?” Marcus’s mom cried as he ran for the front door.
“I’ll fix it!” his dad shouted from the porch.
Marcus’s mom huffed and then marched outside, slamming the door shut behind her. A second later, Marcus could hear his parents arguing. Again. Couldn’t they at least pretend to get along during the one time he actually had a friend over? (Or whatever Connie was.)
“Is everything okay?” Connie asked.
“Um, yeah,” Marcus said. “They’re just, um…” He didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“My parents used to fight all the time too,” she said softly.
“Did they ever stop?”
“Kind of. They split up and both married other people, and they’re a lot happier now.” She let out a soft laugh. “If they were still together, I’d probably try to zap them.”
“Connie, you can’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” She sat back in her seat. “Zapping people isn’t the answer to everything. But when you see someone who’s miserable, you want to do something about it, right?”
Marcus couldn’t argue with that.
Just then, Ann-Marie burst through the front door. Her slumped shoulders told him that his parents were still arguing outside. “Oh.” She froze at the sight of Connie.
“I was just going,” Connie said, grabbing the list and shoving it in her bag.
“You were?” Marcus asked. “But what about—”
“Don’t worry. I know what to do.” She gave him a sparkling smile. “No swords or pistols, I promise. Just come to the Y tomorrow afternoon, okay?”
Marcus wanted to press, but Connie only gave him a little wave and headed out the door. Too late, he realized that she’d have to pass right by his parents who were still out on the porch arguing. Great.
He strained to hear and was relieved when his parents’ voices died down. At least they had the decency to stop chewing each other out while Connie was walking by.
“What are they fighting about now?” Ann-Marie asked, wiping her forehead with a towel. “I heard Mom say something about a flood?”
Marcus pointed down the hall where the rusty water had finally stopped trickling out of the bathroom.
“Gross,” Ann-Marie said. “Maybe when this whole renovation thing is done, they’ll stop yelling at each other all the time.”
“Maybe,” Marcus said, but the truth was, this had started well before his dad tore up the bathroom. In fact, Marcus wondered if part of the reason his dad had started the project in the first place was to focus on something other than all the stuff he and Marcus’s mom didn’t agree on.
Marcus grabbed a few dish towels from the kitchen and tossed them on the wet hallway floor, but it didn’t do much good. No doubt his dad would come in and yell at him for doing it wrong anyway, even though he was the one who’d made a pipe burst in the first place. Still, letting the dirty water seep into the carpet couldn’t be good.
“Hey,” he called to Ann-Marie, “can you grab some more towels?”
There was no answer.
“Ann-Marie?” he tried again, peering down the hallway. She was standing by the coat rack, staring into space and not moving.
Marcus frowned. His sister not moving was like her not breathing. She was always doing something—stretching, squatting, flexing—to keep her muscles going.
“Are you okay?” Marcus called out to her. As he took a step closer, he saw that her eyes were open, but they were empty. She was so still that she could have been made out of marble.
And then her eyelids fluttered, and she was back.
“Marcus?” she said in confusion, as if coming out of a dream.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think I just saw… But that’s impossible. It couldn’t have been…”
And that’s when something clicked in Marcus’s brain. He’d witnessed this before. When he’d watched Natalie having one of her visions, she’d frozen like that too. Then she’d woken up and frantically written down what she’d witnessed so that she wouldn’t forget it.
“Ann-Marie, what did you see?”
“It didn’t make any sense. But it seemed so real, like I was there.”
“Quick. Tell me! Before it disappears!”
“It was this year’s New Year’s Eve dance. But that’s impossible. It hasn’t even happened yet. That’s like being able to see…”
Marcus sighed. “The future.”
Chapter 16
“Ann-Marie, you can’t pretend nothing happened!” Marcus said, following his sister to her room. He was so used to hiding the magical part of his life, denying that it even existed, that he was tempted to act as if the whole vision thing hadn’t happened too. But he couldn’t. Because he needed to know everything about what his sister had seen. It could be important.
“Leave me alone.” She tried to slam the door in his face, but he blocked it with his foot.
“Come on, talk to me. You saw the future, okay? I know it sounds crazy, but—”
“Crazy? Crazy doesn’t even begin to cover it. I just zoned out for a second. Probably had too much sugar or someth
ing. It wasn’t a vision or whatever you called it. It was nothing.”
“Please, Ann-Marie. At least tell me what you saw! You said it was the New Year’s Eve dance? What was happening? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Was I there? Was Lena? Anyone you knew?”
She shrugged. “What difference does it make?”
He struggled to remember what he knew about how the visions worked for Natalie. He remembered her scribbling things down in her notebook, not just what she’d seen but phrases that stuck with her. Things like “Alice ruined by red” which, it had later turned out, had been about Lena crash-landing onto the stage during the school’s production of Alice in Wonderland.
“Okay, if you didn’t see anything, were there any words you remember? Any phrases? Anything?”
“Will you leave me alone? I have homework to do!”
“It’s vacation!” Marcus roared. “Can’t you take a break for five seconds and talk to me?”
His sister blinked at him. He realized he’d never screamed at her like this before. He’d never had the guts.
“No kiss at midnight,” she said finally.
“What?”
“It’s stupid, but those words were in my head when I, you know, woke up. Are you happy?”
“But what does that mean? What else—”
“That’s all I know,” she said. “Now leave me alone!” Then she shoved him out of the way and slammed the door in his face.
• • •
When Lena got back to her mom’s apartment, she was drenched with sweat. She’d never pedaled so fast in her life. When she didn’t see her mom’s car parked in its usual spot, she thought she was safe. She could slip into the apartment before Mrs. Martinez woke up, stash the bike back where she’d found it, throw away the note she’d left, and pretend that she’d been working on memorizing her lines the entire time her mom was gone.
Then Lena went around the building and saw her mom’s car out front, as if her mom had parked it in a rush. As if she’s been determined to get home before Lena did. Uh-oh. Then Lena checked her phone. Eleven missed calls, all from her mom. Oh no. She’d been so intent on getting back as fast as possible that she hadn’t even noticed it ringing.
Match Me If You Can Page 8
