Yeah, sometimes the things I saw and felt hurt, but I still loved knowing other people’s secrets. And judging from the weird look on her face, Paige was hiding something—something big.

“Paige?” I asked again, a little louder this time, my voice rising over the chatter of the other girls, the squeak of shoes on the floor, and the constant slams of the locker doors.

Paige partially snapped out of whatever trance she’d been in and met my eyes in the mirror.

“Gwen? Gwen Frost?” she asked in a daze, almost as if she didn’t recognize me.

I looked at my own reflection in the mirror. Sure, my wavy brown hair was a loose, sweaty mess right now, which is why I wanted Paige’s hairbrush to start with, so I could pull my hair back into a ponytail. My winter-white skin was all flushed and splotchy from attempting to play basketball during gym class, and my violet-colored eyes were a little strange-looking to start with. Okay, okay, my eyes were very strange-looking to start with.

But Paige and I had gone to school together since kindergarten. Sometimes we even hung out when our mutual friends got together on the weekends. She should know exactly who I was—especially since she’d hired me to find her missing cell phone.

Phones, keys, wallets, laptops, crumpled bras, and bunched-up boxers. For the right price, the kids at Ashland High School hired me to find things that were lost, stolen, or otherwise not where they were supposed to be. Yeah, I used my Gypsy gift to make extra money instead of fighting some great, ancient evil with my magic. Sue me for being an entrepreneur and not wanting to work at some greasy fast-food dive like other kids did.

Thanks to my psychometry magic, it was easy for me to find stuff. Usually, all I had to do was run my fingers over a girl’s desk or look through her purse to get a good idea of where she might have left her cell phone or dropped her favorite bracelet. And if I didn’t immediately see where the lost object was, then I kept touching stuff until I did. Kind of like Nancy Drew following a trail of psychic bread crumbs to wherever they led her.

People left psychic vibes everywhere, on everything they touched, and those vibes revealed everything from what they’d had for lunch to what they really thought of their best friend’s new boyfriend. Most of the time, the girl either secretly thought the guy was a total jerk or she wanted him for herself. All I had to do to tap into those vibes, to see people’s actions, to feel their true emotions, to discover their secrets, was stretch my fingers out and touch all the objects around me, big and small.

In Paige’s case, she’d promised me twenty bucks if I could find her phone before her mom realized it was missing. So two weeks ago, after school, I went over to Paige’s house, walked around her room, and ran my fingers over her desk, bookcases, and nightstand. Mostly, images of Paige filled my mind—sitting at her desk doing homework, looking at the collections of fairy tales she loved to read, stashing some Oreos in the back of her nightstand, even though she wasn’t supposed to have sweets. All the things she did in her room on a regular basis and all the emotions that went along with them—dull boredom over the homework, bright happiness looking at the books, sly satisfaction at sneaking her favorite treat right under her mom’s nose.