But the book wasn’t much help at the moment. According to its crackling pages, you were never supposed to kiss a girl on a first date. Last night hadn’t even been a date, so now what?
Should he call her? Text her? Show up at her house? The thought of doing any of that stuff made his stomach shudder, but he couldn’t wimp out, not when things were finally going right.
He flipped through the book for what felt like the hundredth time. Don’t be too eager, it reminded him in its friendly font. “When you see her, always bring flowers.” Bingo. He’d wait until tomorrow and bring her some roses from his sister’s garden. (On top of all her other annoying accomplishments, Ann-Marie managed to grow the biggest rosebushes in town.)
That settled, Marcus finally gave up on his homework and went over to his worktable, where his latest project—a vintage moon ship he and Grandpa Joe had found at a yard sale—was waiting. He’d had to slowly take the model apart to figure out which pieces were missing and then start to put it back together again. There were still a couple of parts he hadn’t been able to find, but he was sure he’d track them down. Then he’d reassemble the pieces, touch up the paint, and the ship would be whole again. Maybe once it was done, he’d finally work up the courage to go to the nursing home to show Grandpa Joe the finished product. Since it was identical to a model that Grandpa had had growing up, Marcus knew he’d get a kick out of seeing it restored.
Marcus’s phone rang, pulling him out of his thoughts. He put down his tools and said “Hey, Eddie” without checking to see who it was. Now that Pradeep lived in a whole other country, no one else ever called. “Got another assignment for me?”
“You got it, kid,” said Eddie. “I wish all my employees were as excited as you. I will send the details in a minute.”
“I checked on the couple from my assignment last month, and I could still see a spark between them. I think they’re going to last.”
“You did a good job with that one,” Eddie said with a distracted chuckle. “What is that? Four out of four?”
“If you count yesterday’s, five for five,” Marcus said, his chest filling with pride.
As long as the couple from the movie theater stayed together, he’d be the first matchmaker to have so many successful matches out of the gate. That was a pretty big deal, considering that they’d only lowered the matchmaking age to thirteen a few years ago.
“Of course a hopeless romantic like you is a natural,” Eddie said. “That must be why you already see auras. I did not see my first one until I was a young man of nineteen, and I had already done dozens of matches by then.”
“Wait, you used to do matches?” Marcus asked. For some reason, he’d assumed Eddie had always been a middleman.
“Oh, yes,” Eddie said, his voice growing quiet. “I did for a while, before I got this job.”
“So if I keep doing well, one day I’ll get promoted to a manager like you were?” He had never met a fellow matchmaker, and Eddie didn’t like to say too much about “the network,” but Marcus was dying to know how it all worked.
Eddie coughed. “Listen, kid. You should probably get going or you will miss your match.” Then, before Marcus could say anything else, he hung up.
Marcus stared at his phone for a minute, trying to figure what he’d said wrong. He’d never asked Eddie about his past before, but it was clearly a sore topic. He wanted to apologize, but he had no idea what to apologize for. Sadly, a lot of the conversations he had with people ended that way. If only he’d inherited Grandpa Joe’s talent for talking to people and making them laugh. Instead, he’d only managed to figure out how to get people to laugh at him.
Marcus sighed and threw open his bedroom door. He almost tripped over his sister, who was doing some kind of weird stretch in the middle of the hallway, one foot up on each wall.
“Hey!” Ann-Marie said. “Watch it!”
“Can’t you do that in the basement?”
“No,” she said, huffing. “Dad gave me some new stretches, and he said this one should be done in a hallway. Besides, Mom’s working on another trash sculpture downstairs. It reeks.” She looked past him. “Ew! Do you still have that gross terrarium on your desk? That turtle died, like, a month ago!”
“So?” He quickly shut his bedroom door behind him.
Ann-Marie snorted. “Are you gonna cry all over again if you have to get rid of it?”
Marcus felt his cheeks go hot. The worst moment of his life had been seeing George, the turtle he’d had since he was a little kid, lying lifeless in the corner of the terrarium. The second worst moment of his life had been a minute later when his parents and sister had witnessed him bursting into tears. His dad had barely looked at him for days. After all, Ann-Marie had broken her toe during a track meet last year and still managed to win her race, all without shedding a single tear.
He picked his way through the hallway, weaving around the free weights and exercise mats his dad was always bringing home for Ann-Marie to try out. When Marcus went past the living room, he noticed that two more medals had appeared on the mantel, meaning the last visible family photo with Marcus in it was now covered up.
As he passed a rowing machine near the couch, he gave its leg a frustrated kick. No wonder he couldn’t make any new friends. How was he supposed to invite anyone over when his mom’s weird eco-sculptures were always smelling up the house and his dad had turned the living room into a cross between a gym and a shrine to all his sister’s accomplishments?
His phone beeped. Half an hour to get to the park. Marcus grabbed a piece of cold pizza from the fridge and inhaled it, then washed it down with some orange juice.
“Where are Mom and Dad?” he called to his sister.
Ann-Marie let out a groan that probably meant she was contorting herself into some ever-weirder stretch. “Visiting Grandpa again before Dad takes me to the track later. Are you ever gonna go with them?”
Marcus coughed. “What? Yeah. I’m busy, that’s all.” His mom had assured him that Grandpa Joe was going to be okay after the heart attack he’d had a few weeks ago, but Marcus had been avoiding visiting him. The thought of Grandpa in some all-beige nursing home like the ones on TV, surrounded by old people who didn’t even know their own names, was unbearable. Grandpa didn’t belong in a place like that. “Tell them I went to the park, okay?”
“Since when do you like nature?” Ann-Marie asked.
“I have to, um, study some leaves for a project.” Marcus tried to base his lies as much on the truth as possible so he didn’t get caught. Still, making up excuses seemed to get harder every time he had an assignment.
“Leaves?” his sister asked, finally sitting up. Her face was flushed from being upside down for so long. “I don’t remember a project like that.”
“Yeah, it’s for science. It’s new.”
She tugged her hair out of its ponytail and cornered him. “I’m so glad I’m in high school. We don’t have to do dumb stuff like that anymore. In my honors English class, we’re…”
And then something strange happened. As Ann-Marie went on about how interesting and challenging and amazing all her classes were, for a moment, Marcus saw a blindingly bright light shining from inside her. It made her whole chest light up as if she had a lamp lodged in her rib cage.
“Um, Ann-Marie?” Marcus asked. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t seem to hear him as she babbled on about her English project. And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light started to fade. Marcus blinked, still seeing the outline of it on the backs of his eyelids. And then it was gone.
What on earth was that? He’d seen auras when he was matchmaking, but those only showed up when he was looking at people who were assigned to him. And this hadn’t been a hazy outline around someone’s head. This had been something else.
But then Marcus’s phone buzzed, reminding him that he was running out of
time to get to the park. As he dodged around his sister and rushed out the door, he temporarily forgot all about the strange light he’d seen.
Chapter 5
Marcus was panting by the time he got to the end of his street. He was going to have to run all the way to the park to avoid being late. And that was only if he got past Caspar Brown’s house without a problem. If he missed his assignment, well…Marcus wasn’t sure exactly what would happen, but Eddie was always talking about “maintaining the balance of the universe.” If a couple wasn’t matched when it was supposed to be, that couldn’t be good for the balance of anything.
As he rounded the corner, Marcus held his breath, praying Caspar wouldn’t be outside. His stomach sank when, sure enough, he spotted an ape-shaped boy in the middle of the street. In true simian style, Caspar was hurling rocks into a nearby pond.
Marcus froze in his tracks. Should he turn around and go the long way instead? If he ran at full speed, maybe he could still make it to the park on time. At least Caspar hadn’t see him—
“Hey, Marcus! Come over here!”
No no no no no!
Marcus spun around, trying to flee, but Caspar was on him in an instant. “Where are you going?” he asked, grabbing his shoulder with a meaty paw.
“I-I’ve gotta go,” Marcus stammered. “I’m late.”
“I don’t see you around anymore. And what happened to your sidekick? Did he get shipped off to nerd camp?”
“He moved,” Marcus said, wishing Pradeep were here with him now. His friend would have made a goofy joke and lightened the mood so Caspar would let them go. Now Marcus was on his own.
His phone buzzed. Ten minutes until the match. “I really have to go,” he said, trying to wriggle out from under Caspar’s enormous grasp. The two of them were in the same grade, but Marcus was convinced that Caspar had been held back in kindergarten—probably twice. How else could he be so much bigger than everyone else?
Caspar didn’t let go. Instead, he yanked the phone from Marcus’s hand and sneered at it. “Where’d you get this piece of junk? Did your mom find it in a landfill?”
“Give it back—”
“I saw her Dumpster diving behind the school last week. What are you guys, homeless or something?”
Heat flared in Marcus’s chest, like someone had lit a torch in his lungs. “She’s an artist,” he said through clenched teeth. “She uses that stuff in her sculptures.” He took a step forward and tried to snatch his phone back, but it was too late.
Caspar’s lips stretched into a grin as he wound his arm back and flung the phone toward the pond. It landed in the mosquito-infested water with a soul-crushing plop.
Marcus stared. Oh God. His phone. It was his only way of contacting Eddie.
He realized that Caspar had finally let go of his arm, so he scrambled over to the edge of the pond. He could make out the shape of the phone on the bottom, like a rectangular pebble.
“You gonna go diving for trash like your mom does?” Caspar called.
Marcus wanted to punch him. He wanted to jump into the water, grab the phone, and throw it in Caspar’s face. Instead, he took one more look at his ruined phone and turned away. Then he ran as fast as he could.
• • •
By the time Marcus got to the park, he was gasping for breath and his entire body was shaking. He couldn’t tell if the shaking was from exhaustion or rage. If he missed his match on top of everything that had happened…
No. He was going to make it. He didn’t know why he was so certain, but he knew that he still had another minute.
Even though he couldn’t double-check the info on his phone, he spotted his target right away: a young woman with short dreadlocks and a nose ring, her face framed by oval glasses. Olivia Monroe, age 26. The way she sat on the park bench slowly untying and retying her running shoes told him that she needed a “love boost,” as the manual called it. He squinted, searching for the grayish aura that normally hovered around his targets and the feeling of loneliness that usually went with it, but nothing changed. That didn’t matter. Marcus was sure it was her.
As he got closer though, he realized that without his phone, he wouldn’t know the exact time to zap Olivia. He had no idea who she was going to be matched with—maybe the guy eating a bagel on a nearby bench or the tall woman across the street—but if he didn’t make the connection at the right moment, he’d miss his window. He’d have to try to do it by feel.
Marcus took a shaky breath and concentrated on getting the spark into his fingers. It flared almost right away, much more quickly than it had the other times. For some reason, it was darker in color than normal. Closer to purple than red. Maybe that meant his matchmaking powers were getting stronger. Good! The more powerful that first jolt, the more time the two people had to get to know each other before the spark wore off. That would definitely keep his success rate high.
He stood there for a second, breathing everything in. He knew somehow that the moment was almost right. He moved his hand into position behind Olivia’s shoulder and—
BAM!
Something smashed into his chest and sent him sailing back through the air. His hand barely grazed Olivia’s neck before he fell to the ground. And then everything went dark.
Chapter 6
Someone was on top of him, yelling words he couldn’t understand.
Marcus’s head swam, and it was hard to focus. He vaguely registered that he’d fallen onto the grass and that he must have hit his head pretty hard. But why was some crazy person pinning him to the ground?
Finally, his eyes cleared, and he recognized her. Lena Perris.
He had to be seeing things. Why would Lena be here? And why would she be sitting on top of him and screaming?
“Marcus!” she was shouting, her words coming to him through a fog. The voice really did sound like Lena’s. Maybe it was her. “Did you touch her? Did you?”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. For some reason, all he could think about was the book his grandpa had given him. Always pay the girl a compliment, it said.
“You look nice today,” he told her.
Lena let out a cry of frustration. Then she jumped up, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
As Marcus finally pulled himself together and sat up on the grass, he remembered Olivia. He’d missed his window to zap her! Or had he? He’d felt at least some of the energy leave his fingers before Lena had knocked him over.
When he looked toward the bench, Lena was leaning over someone else who was on the ground. Was she going around tackling everyone?
As Marcus got to his feet, his head pounding, he realized that it was Olivia who was spread out on the grass by the bench. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t moving.
“You!” Lena cried, pointing to a redheaded man who was jogging by. “Call 911!”
The man stopped and stared down at Olivia. Then he nodded urgently, pulled out his phone, and started dialing.
That’s when it finally clicked for Marcus that something was wrong. He ran over and knelt beside Olivia. She was breathing, but her breaths seemed small and shallow.
Lena was checking the woman’s airways and pulse like they’d learned during first aid last year. Since she didn’t start CPR, he thought maybe that was a good sign.
“Is she okay? What happened to her?” he asked.
“You almost killed her,” Lena said softly.
Marcus couldn’t help it. He laughed. “What are you talking about?”
Lena shook her head. “I’m not sure why, but somehow things got mixed up.” She glanced at the people gathering around to see if the woman was okay. The redheaded guy was hovering over them, still holding his phone. “I shouldn’t be talking about this here. I shouldn’t be talking about this at all!”
“Talking about what?” Marcus asked, but at that moment, the ambulance pu
lled up. After that, everything was a blur of flashing lights and stretchers and IVs. It made Marcus think of his grandpa. Is this what things had been like after he’d collapsed at home a few weeks ago?
“Marcus?” he heard Lena say.
He blinked, realizing that the ambulance was pulling away. No one had asked him what had happened. Lena must have done all the talking.
“I still don’t understand what’s going on,” he said.
“Come on,” Lena said as she led him to a nearby bench. “I have to tell you something. This is going to sound crazy, and it’s against the rules for me to even think about telling you this, but you need to know or you might hurt someone else.” She peered down at her sneakers, as if she were trying to find the right words in her shoelaces. “The thing is, I’m a soul collector. And I think somehow you got my powers. When we, you know…when we kissed last night.”
Marcus stared at her. “A soul collector?”
“I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not the grim reaper or anything like that. See? No hood or pointy gardening tool. And I don’t kill anyone, but I do have the power to draw souls out of people’s bodies and send them to…wherever they go. Only I think you have my power now. Or at least part of it.”
All he could do was stare at her, oddly focused on her slightly crooked front teeth.
“When I realized something was wrong,” she went on, “I stopped by your house, and your sister said you were here. I rode my bike over as fast as I could, but I don’t know if it was in time. You…you almost pulled that woman’s soul out of her body.”
He should have been shocked at the idea of someone being able to take souls, especially someone like Lena. But if he could make people fall in love with a bolt of energy, then why couldn’t those other things be true? Still…people didn’t just swap powers. He’d memorized the manual Eddie had given him, and nowhere did it even hint at anything like that being possible.
He wanted to tell Lena all this, but instead he found himself saying, “It’s a scythe.”
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