She shook her head and hunched over the book for a minute, quiet, and I watched her, her blond hair pooling on the pages.

“Do you have to memorize it?”

“Yeah. Well, I can always refer to the book, but it’s tricky because it’s in Hungarian. If I say one syllable wrong, the Touch won’t work and both the person receiving the Touch and I will …” She cringed. “I don’t want to think about that right now. But anyway, that’s why I want you there. If anything happens, I’d hate to be alone.”

She didn’t have to complete the sentence. I knew what she meant. If she didn’t do it, she’d die. If she didn’t do it right, she’d die. Death was a pretty big part of the whole thing. For some reason, the thought comforted me. Like maybe I’d finally found someone with a curse worse than mine. “Your grandmother—”

“Not the same,” she muttered. “She would probably just stand over me and curse my stupidity in Hungarian.”

She studied the page, her brow furrowing and her lips moving slowly. Every once in a while some strange syllable came out of her mouth. Then she exhaled heavily and took another bite of pizza. “I am so not cut out for this. You know when we moved to Maine, I had it in my head I was going to be a veterinarian.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said. Explained why she liked seagulls so much.

She nodded. “But my parents just patted my head and said, ‘That’s cute.’ I guess because all kids under ten want to be veterinarians.”

“I never wanted to be one,” I pointed out. But then again, I never wanted to be anything. I never had any plans for the future. I just wanted to be … normal.

“Okay, so you’re the only one. But really, I still wish I could be one. I love animals. And I really think I could be good at it.” She looked at the book in front of her. “Not this. I never wanted this.”

“Who would?”

“Well … I get the feeling my grandmother doesn’t mind doing it.”

“She’s probably just been doing it so long, it doesn’t bother her.” I leaned forward. There were four more red tabs sticking out from other pages. “Are the tabs the Touches that haven’t been used yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Not that many.”

“I know. Only five. And when I was saying that I didn’t have any Touches my ‘friends’ would be interested in, it’s because there aren’t that many left. I’m sure they would have clawed each other to death to get ahold of Evan’s Touch, even if they knew it would cause them tumors. That’s how shallow those girls are. That’s another problem. I attract all these weak people. But I can’t help them all.” She snorted. “Help. I know. Hilarious, right?”

I said, “Which ones are left?”

She didn’t need to look. “Flight of Song. Open Heart. Broken Ice. Invisible Assassin. Architect of—”

“Whoa. Invisible Assassin? That sounds brutal.”

She swallowed. “It is. I don’t … it’s the ability to kill whoever you want, in … It’s—”

As she spoke, I suddenly had this really uneasy feeling that made me grip the edge of the table. My thumb got stuck in something mushy on its underside. Taryn studied me and asked, “What?” as I pulled my hand away and saw a line of white gum that smelled like peppermint. Nasty.

I plucked a napkin from the dispenser. “That sounds like a pretty powerful Touch. And that other one. The one you’re doing tonight. The power to make people do what you tell them to do. You’re saying that in hundreds of years, your ancestors couldn’t find someone who wanted that Touch?”

“First of all, if you looked at every Touch in this book, you’d see that they’re all really powerful. And second, the ones left over are the hardest ones to perform. So my ancestors never recruited for them.”

“Recruited?”

“Well, we don’t actively recruit. When someone approaches me, if I touch them, I can tell what their need is. Or I can tell what Touch they’ve been given. If I have a Touch they might like, I’m supposed to take them aside and explain things to them. Grandma says she’s never had anyone say ‘no thanks,’ even after she explained how much it cost or what the dangers are.”

I smirked at the thought of my mom dropping everything and running to Babe’s tent with all the money in her savings account. Nan had said she’d been a free spirit, always doing things without care to the consequences of her actions. That was nothing like what I knew of her. I sat there, not speaking, thinking of my mother piling that money on the table in the tent and demanding her Touch. I wondered what she did when she realized that her life had been changed irrevocably for the worse. I wondered if she’d lost her sense of adventure overnight, or if it had happened in baby steps. Maybe she had tried to stay the free spirit she once was, but the Touch had eventually beaten her down, taking all the things she loved and twisting them into something ugly and frightening. Then I said, “I really can’t wait for tonight, then. Watching another unsuspecting person ruin his life. Good times.”

Taryn looked me up and down. She furrowed her brow for a moment. “I know it might be a lot to ask, knowing your mother … If you really feel bad about it.…”

“I said I’ll be there. I’m not backing out,” I told her.

“Thank you. Maybe we should have signals. In case Grandma suspects something. Like, if I yawn, that means get out.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t help sounding amused, which was probably why she thought I was making fun of her. She was really cute when she thought seriously about things. “And if you cough, that means all clear. I can come out.”

She nodded. “Right. And we should have a meeting place. The front of the arcade, next to the crane game with the fuzzy dice. If I run my fingers through my hair, it means we should meet there.”

I tried to think of what a secret agent would say, but nothing came to mind. “Got it.”

She stood up. “I’ve got to get going. Grandma will be there any minute. You know how to get to the hiding spot? Through the arcade?”

“No problem.”

“And …” She looked a little flustered. “You know, forget the cough. Don’t come out, okay? No matter what happens. If Grandma finds out you’re there, she’ll … I don’t know what. But it won’t be good.”

“Okay,” I said, shrugging.

The whole thing seemed kind of pointless, me hiding there, unable to do anything to help her, but then I thought of what she’d said. What if she died tonight? I didn’t see that happening. I knew when she would die. But we couldn’t talk of things like that. Not now. Not when she was so on edge.

She was visibly shivering, her lower lip trembling, so when she leaned forward—to give me a hug? A kiss on the cheek? I’m still not sure—I turned the wrong way and ended up jabbing her cheek with my jaw. We both pulled back suddenly, and I could tell she was in just as much pain as I was by the way she rubbed her cheek and grimaced. Total idiot move. I wanted to bury my head in the sand. Instead I walked to the Kohr’s stand and got an orangeade so I could have adequate refreshment for the “show.”

Ten minutes later, I’d thrown away my last dollar’s worth of quarters on a classic video game called Mr. Do! and my orangeade was gone. The clock on the wall said 4:45. The arcade wasn’t busy yet, but I knew it would be soon; it was Sunday. Right now, it was mostly families, a lot of kids trying their luck at Frog Bog and the fishing game. From where I stood, I could just see the wall I’d need to shimmy over to make it to the hiding spot. Part of me wanted to go there right away, but I’d forgotten to ask Taryn how long the Touch took, and another part of me didn’t want to be sitting there for hours. As I stood there trying to decide, the orangeade hit me full force.

When I came back from the men’s room, I saw a face I recognized. I stopped abruptly because I wasn’t expecting to see anyone I knew. It took a while to place the face, but it was her, my old babysitter and Seventh Avenue badge checker. Jocelyn. She’d been there the day Emma died. It was Jocelyn who’d finally gotten through to me as I tried to revive the little girl. She’d put her hand on my shoulder and yanked me back from the lifeless body, saying, “Nick! Nick. Get ahold of yourself.” She’d looked at me the way she’d done when she sat for me, and I’d found the knife drawer. Condescending, but mostly just horrified.