But now she wasn’t just crying. She was sobbing. And it was his fault.
Suddenly, the ghost cat was at Marcus’s side, batting at him with a glowing paw. Then it jumped off his bed and bolted out into the hallway. Marcus watched as the cat crept toward Ann-Marie’s room and pawed at her door a few times. He thought he heard the faintest scratching sound, almost like a real cat would make.
Clearly, Ann-Marie heard it too, because her door opened a crack. Seeing its chance, the ghost cat darted into the room right before Ann-Marie shut the door again.
Marcus had thought the cat hated Ann-Marie, but it seemed to know that she needed some comfort. He could picture it curled up on the bed beside her, nuzzling her while she cried. He didn’t know if his sister could feel its warm presence beside her, but he wished more than anything that she could.
• • •
As Marcus stumbled out of second period in a fog the next day, he was surprised to get a message from Mr. Perris on his phone. Have you seen Lena? She never made it to school. Her mother hasn’t heard from her, and her bike is still here.
The words swam in front of his eyes. Lena was missing? He instantly replayed their awful conversation yesterday. Was it his fault she was gone? He dialed Lena’s number, his fingers shaking, but she didn’t pick up.
He ran through the hallway toward Natalie’s locker, managing to catch her as she was walking away. “Lena’s gone!” he cried. “Her dad can’t find her. Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Natalie shook her head. “Have you talked to Eddie? He should be able to track her down.”
Right. Eddie. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He left Eddie a message, praying his boss called him back right away.
Marcus couldn’t even think about going to English. Instead, he went to the nurse’s office and pretended to be sick. It wasn’t hard, considering that his head was pounding and he was so jittery that he thought he might throw up. Where could Lena be? If her bike was still at her house, did that mean she’d gone somewhere on foot? Or by bus?
As he waited for his mom in the school lobby, he tried calling Lena again, and this time he heard a click after the first ring.
“Lena?” he asked. “Are you there?”
In the background, he thought he heard muffled squeaking, like something was being hoisted up on a pulley. Then there was another click, and the call ended.
Marcus frantically redialed the number, but it went straight to voice mail.
His mind raced. What had that squeaking sound been? He knew he’d heard it before, but where?
Something in his brain clicked. He was almost positive that it was the sound of a theater curtain being drawn. He’d heard it plenty of times during play rehearsal. Encouraged, he ran into the auditorium and scanned the stage and the wings, but there was no one there.
Marcus went back to the lobby and slumped onto a bench. Clearly, his mind was playing tricks on him. Besides, why would Lena come to school and hide out in the auditorium? It would only remind her of everything that had happened with Alice.
Suddenly, he thought of the Blue Hills Theater. Even though Lena had flat-out rejected the tickets he’d gotten her, Marcus was suddenly convinced that that’s where she’d gone. After all, it was where Lena had first realized she wanted to be an actress. Considering that her dreams of being one had been crushed, maybe she’d needed to go back there.
When his mom came to pick him up, Marcus waited until they were in the car and then begged her to take him to the theater.
“That’s a half hour drive away!” she said. “If you suspect Lena’s there, you should tell her father.”
“But I could be wrong. Can’t we go to the theater and check? I think it might be my fault she ran off in the first place.”
His mom sighed. “This girl means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”
“She’s…she’s the best, Mom.” Even after everything, Lena was still his match. She was the only person he could really laugh with, and he knew that if he needed her help, she’d be there in an instant. He wouldn’t have given up his robot model for anyone else.
His mom finally nodded and turned the car toward the highway. “But don’t think you can pull something like this again, okay? Next time I get a call from your school saying you’re sick, you better be on death’s door.”
He wanted to hug her for trusting him on this. He only hoped that he was right.
Chapter 29
Lena sat in the empty theater, on the stage where she’d seen her first real play. The space looked smaller than she remembered it, but she could still picture the actors in their elaborate costumes, spouting Shakespearean language in a way that was both foreign and mesmerizing.
She heard voices out in the hallway and froze. She’d managed to sneak into the theater when the woman at the box office wasn’t looking, but it was only a matter of time before she was discovered. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing here, only that she’d needed to get away from everything so that she could think.
After a minute, the voices faded again. Lena sighed in relief.
She lay back on the stage and closed her eyes, the stage lights making the insides of her eyelids glow pink. What if she’d gone along with Mr. Jackson’s silly exercises? Would she still be in the play now? Would Connie Reynolds’s wrist still be intact, or would she have found another way to wheedle her way in between Lena and Marcus?
When Marcus had called her a few minutes earlier, she’d answered it, almost ready to talk to him. Almost, but not quite. Because suddenly she’d imagined him saying that he wanted them to stay broken up, and the thought had been too painful to bear. So she’d hung up on him and turned off her phone instead.
Maybe going with her mom was the best option. She could start over at a new school, try out for the play there, and maybe do things the right way for once. Maybe she could even figure out how to make things right between her and Marcus again. Or what had gone wrong in the first place.
She took in a long breath and tried to calm her emotions, the way she’d done when Marcus was using his powers.
And suddenly she smelled it. Buttered popcorn. That was weird. This wasn’t a movie theater after all. And the concession stand was closed today anyway.
She sat up, sniffing the air. Sure enough, the smell wafted toward her again. It was coming from the wings.
Lena got to her feet and slowly followed the scent until she got to the costume closet. She pulled it open and gasped when she saw a clump of light hovering in between the musty suits.
“Mr. Watts?” She couldn’t believe it. Her mom’s weird soul-tracking trick had been right! “What are you doing here?”
The ball of light didn’t react for a second, only stayed there glowing. Finally, she heard Mr. Watts’s voice. “This was the first place I ever performed.”
Lena’s mind blurred, and for just a moment, she saw this stage many years ago as a group of teenagers in funny clothes put on a variety show. Mr. Watts, about fifty years younger, was prancing around the stage like a horse while the audience laughed hysterically. Then the memory faded, but Lena was left with a sense of warmth and comfort in her chest.
“I love this place too,” Lena told him. “I saw my first real play here.” She laughed sadly. “My boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—even got us tickets to see it here again, but I think that was only out of pity for me getting kicked out of my school play.” She didn’t know why she was telling a lost soul all of this. It felt even worse to say it out loud.
The ball of light drifted toward her and hovered near her shoulder. It bounced up and down like a tennis ball, and Lena had the impression that it was trying to cheer her up.
“Mr. Watts, I know you feel happy here, but it’s time for you to move on.”
The ball backed away slightly. This wasn’t working. She had to try something else. “You know Viv, your studen
t? She raves about you all the time. And she said you loved playing pranks when you were younger because they made you feel alive. I bet that’s why you’ve been playing all those pranks on me now, right?”
The ball didn’t move, but she could tell it was listening. Encouraged, Lena kept talking. “But if you’re a performer, then you have to know when to close the curtain and end the show.” She closed her eyes for a moment, unable to believe the words that were about to come out of her mouth. “You have to trust the process.”
The ball of light drooped in defeat. Then it slowly drifted toward her.
As if they knew exactly what to do, Lena’s fingers flared to life with a deep-purple light. Maybe that meant Marcus was calm wherever he was. Or, Lena realized with a jolt, now that they’d broken up like Eddie had suggested, the link between them was gone. Their powers were free again.
Lena should have been happy at the thought, but she only felt worse. That meant things between her and Marcus were really over.
But she pushed all of that way. “You’ll be happy where you’re going,” she told Mr. Watts. “Think of all the people there that you can play tricks on.”
She thought she heard a faint chuckle as the light drifted toward her hand. And then, as it was about to touch her finger, it hesitated. And backed up.
“No, Mr. Watts!” she said. “It’s okay. Let go!”
But it was too late.
“Your shoe’s untied,” the faint voice said with a cackle. Then the light zipped back into the wings and was gone.
Chapter 30
Lena frantically searched the wings for Mr. Watts, but it was no use. She’d been so close, but he’d disappeared. Again. She nearly let out a scream of frustration, but voices sounded in the hallway, and she hurried into the costume closet instead. A second later, one of the theater doors creaked open, and she could hear a muffled conversation moving toward her.
“She’s in here,” someone said.
Lena sighed. She’d been found.
Would they arrest her for trespassing? She couldn’t imagine what her parents would say to that. Her dad would probably have her head scanned to see if he could spot a pattern in her brain that explained her rebellious behavior.
After a minute, she heard footsteps coming up the stage steps. Then a voice she recognized said, “She should be here somewhere.”
It was Eddie.
Lena closed her eyes and nestled deeper into a scratchy lace gown. Of course her boss had been able to track her down. If he knew where her assignments were supposed to be before they happened, surely he had a way of keeping tabs on his employees too.
She tried not to breathe as she heard Eddie walking around on the stage. It was silly to hide from him, but she didn’t want to deal with anyone right now.
“Dad, do you want me to check in the wings?” a girl’s voice called out.
“Sure. You take that side,” Eddie called back. “I’ll take this one.”
Huh? Since when was Eddie someone’s father? And why did the girl’s voice sound familiar?
Lena sunk as far back into the closet as she could as light footsteps came closer. And then, through the crack in the door, Lena saw her. Natalie.
“No one here!” Natalie called back. “Are you sure your info is right?”
“The info is always correct. She must be here. Lena, can you hear me? We want to make sure you’re all right. Your family is worried about you.”
“Dad, look!” Natalie suddenly called. “Her bag is on the seat over there!”
This didn’t make any sense. How could Eddie and Natalie be related?
She heard them walking around and around the theater for a few minutes. Finally, Eddie let out a loud, frustrated sigh. “It looks like we missed her.”
“What do we do if Marcus finds her first?” Natalie’s voice sounded lower-pitched than usual, not to mention more serious and worried. No wonder Lena hadn’t recognized it when she’d first heard it in the theater.
“We deal with it,” Eddie said. “But the longer we can keep those two apart, the better.”
Lena sucked in a dusty breath that nearly made her cough. What were they talking about?
“If you had done your job correctly, this would not be an issue,” Eddie added.
“I tried!” Natalie said. “I did everything you said, and it seemed like she was going to go to Arizona and the whole problem would be over.”
Eddie sighed. “We will figure it out.”
“But what if we can’t break them up for good?” Natalie asked. “The last future I saw said they’d be apart, but what if it changes again?”
“All right, let me go call the boss lady and see what she wants us to do.” He walked off the stage, leaving Natalie standing there alone. A minute later, Lena heard the theater door creak open again as Eddie went out into the hallway.
Lena’s brain felt like it was too big for her head. Not only was Natalie Eddie’s daughter, but she’d been assigned to break Lena and Marcus up? And had Natalie actually said that she could see the future?
Suddenly, Lena didn’t care about being discovered. She wanted answers. She pushed her way out of the closet and marched over to Natalie, brushing a coating of dust off her clothes.
Natalie jumped at the sight of her. “Lena! How much did you hear?”
“Enough to know you’ve been lying to me since the second I met you. You’re Eddie’s daughter? So all that stuff you said about wanting to reconnect with your dad was a lie?”
“It wasn’t a lie. I only met him a few weeks ago, and when he said he had a job I could help him with, I took it in exchange for being able to come live with him.”
“And the job was getting me and Marcus to break up? Why would you agree to do something like that? And what’s all this about you seeing the future?”
“Marcus didn’t tell you that I’m a seer?” Natalie asked.
Lena gaped at her. He knew something like that and didn’t tell her? Focus, Lena told herself. That’s not important right now. “So whatever you saw in the future made you convinced that Marcus and I had to break up?”
Natalie nodded. “It was like that haunted hospital times ten. I saw people losing their abilities for days, souls wandering away and getting harder to catch, and people doing crazier and crazier things for love. Dangerous stuff.”
“Like hanging off skyscrapers to profess their love for each other?” Lena asked, suddenly remembering the woman she’d seen on the news.
Natalie nodded. “Tons of people like that all over the world, all because of the link between your powers. When I told my dad about my vision, he was afraid that if the connection between you and Marcus grew any stronger, he’d never be able to separate it. And when he tried to convince you guys to break up, you refused.”
“So he sent you in to mess with us. Was all that stuff you said about Marcus flirting with you and Connie even true?”
“No.” Natalie lowered her eyes. “I didn’t want to lie to you about things, but I thought it was the only way.”
“So you lied about other stuff too?” Lena asked, her mind whirling. “Were you even in Alice in Wonderland?” She gasped. “Are you even a soul collector?”
Natalie’s silence was all the answer she needed. Lena couldn’t believe it. She’d opened up to Natalie from the minute she’d met her, amazed at herself for trusting someone so easily, and now it turned out she’d been an idiot to believe a word out of the girl’s mouth.
Just then, Eddie came back into the theater. “So you are here,” he said. He didn’t sound surprised, only tired and sad.
“Eddie, what is going on?” Lena asked. “And tell me the truth this time!”
He ran his hand through his graying hair. Now that Lena knew he was Natalie’s father, she realized they had the same dark eyes.
“I knew from the time you and M
arcus swapped your powers that they were linked, but I did not know how they would affect each other. I thought if I brought Natalie in to weaken the connection between you two, we could end this before it became a problem. But I was wrong. Your feelings for each other are too strong, and they’re clouding your judgment.”
“My judgment is fine!” Lena cried.
“Lena,” he said softly, “I know firsthand how badly things can go when emotions interfere with the order of things. I could not let it happen again.”
“Again?” Lena asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Tell her about the probation, Dad,” Natalie said. “Maybe that will make her understand.”
Eddie sighed. “It was years ago, back when I was still a matchmaker. If the boss lady had not intervened in time, things could have been a disaster.”
“But what happened?” Lena asked.
“It…it’s not my story to tell. Or at least, it’s not only my story. Someone else was also involved, and I am not sure she would want you to know the truth, Lena.”
“Why would some random person care if I knew the truth?”
“Because,” Eddie said with a soft sigh, “the other person involved is your mother.”
Chapter 31
On the drive to the theater, Marcus tried to pay attention as his mom described a new trash sculpture she was working on, but his head was swimming. What would he say to Lena when he saw her? Would she even want to talk to him?
Suddenly, he heard a faint “meow” from the backseat. At first, he was sure he’d imagined it. But then it came again, more insistent this time. “Mrow!”
Marcus oh-so-casually glanced over his shoulder and bit back a smile. Sure enough, the ghost cat was curled up in the backseat of the car. Apparently, it had gotten bored waiting for him at home and had decided to go for a ride.
“What are you looking at?” his mom asked after a minute. “Is that old takeout container still back there?”
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