Page 103 of The Cupid Chronicles

Hours later, my resolve has crumbled. I can’t find what it wants me to see. No articles in a different tense, no rhymes or riddles, nothing out of the ordinary.

And I can’t be sure, but I seriously think that when I reread parts of the paper, they’re different the second time through, like words have switched around.

I have no idea what it wants me to do.

I fold it up and sigh, knowing I have no choice but to ask for help. Also knowing that I’m not going to sleep until I figure it out.

I take a breath, open my front door, and walk down to Matteo’s apartment. I knock, but there’s no answer.

I spend the next two hours stalking the hallway for any sign of human life. At one point, I hear a door and rush out of my apartment into the hallway. I come face-to-face with my new neighbor, Cash, who is wearing scrubs and holding two bags of garbage, presumably on his way to the dumpster.

“Sorry.” I wince.

He gives me a friendly smile and keeps walking.

I go back to the paper. Still nothing.

And this time, Iknowit’s switching things around, because on the first eight times reading this one part, the story was about a dry cleaner, and the next time, it’s about a shoe store.

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” I say out loud, not even pausing to note how weird it is that I’m talking to a newspaper.

It doesn’t talk back.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Magic sucks.

A few hours later, I hear something in the hallway, and I leap to my peephole.

I see the fish-lensed side of Matteo’s face as he passes my door, and I whip it open and jump out with a “Hey! Hi!”

He jumps away from me, arms up, with a “WHAT THE—!” and after realizing it’s me, he puts his hands on his knees and breathes a few deep breaths. “You scared me to death.”

I’m not sorry. I’ve been waiting for his sorry butt for, like, four hours.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come home.”

It’s then I notice the haggard look on his face. He looks exhausted.

“Tough night?” I ask.

“Long night. Followed by a near heart attack.” He stops. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like if you don’t blurt something out it’s going to jump out of your chest.”

I hold up the newspaper.

“Another one? So soon?” He starts walking again, and I follow him, aware that he’s probably way too tired to talk about this right now.

That should stop me, but it doesn’t. I feel energized. Excited.

I follow him, and he unlocks his apartment and walks inside, leaving the door open.

I take that as an invitation.

As I open the newspaper, I say, “Look, I wasn’t going to bother you, but I need your help with—” I stop. There, right on the front page, is a lone article. The rest of the newspaper is completely blank, except for four large-font centered lines of text.

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