“Many things. But specifically—” Luna looked at Cassie with an expression of feline amusement. “—I think your grounding crystal may have… grounded into the wrong thing.”
Cassie’s stomach dropped. “The quartz touched her phone.”
“And the quartz was charged with your energy. Which has been very… romantically satisfied lately.” Luna’s whiskers twitched. “Congratulations. You’ve accidentally enchanted your best friend’s dating profile.”
“WHAT?”
“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!”
“EVERYTHING IS AN ACCIDENT WITH YOU.” Diane was scrolling frantically now, her face cycling through emotions Cassie couldn’t quite track. “Why is my app showing matches from—this can’t be right. This says I matched with someone in 1987. That’s not how apps work. That’s not howtimeworks.”
“Let me see.” Cassie grabbed the phone.
The Tinder interface looked normal at first glance. But the matches—there were forty-three of them now, and climbing—weren’t behaving normally at all. Some of the profile photos were crisp and modern. Others had the grainy quality of old photographs. One appeared to be a Polaroid. Another was clearly a yearbook photo, complete with feathered hair and a powder-blue tuxedo.
“That’s Jimmy Kowalski,” Diane said faintly. “From high school. He took me to prom. In 1986.”
“Maybe he’s… also on Tinder?”
“He’sfifty-two. And married. And a grandfather.” Diane grabbed the phone back, scrolling with increasing horror. “And apparently eighteen again, according to this photo. Which is definitely his senior portrait. I remember it because he had that stupid earring his mom made him take out.”
A message notification popped up.
Jimmy K. says: Hey. Long time. Coffee?
Diane made a sound like a tea kettle reaching boiling point.
“Cassie.”
“Yes?”
“Why is my high school boyfriend messaging me through a dating app that didn’t exist when we dated?”
“I don’t?—”
“Why does he look eighteen?”
“I can’t?—”
“WHY IS TINDER SHOWING ME MATCHES FROM FORTY YEARS AGO?”
“I might have accidentally enchanted your phone with residual romantic energy from my grounding crystal which may have been absorbing ambient magic from my extremely satisfying relationship and I’m very sorry?”
Diane stared at her.
Cassie attempted an apologetic smile.
The phone buzzed again. And again. And again.
“Fifty-seven matches,” Diane said, her voice reaching octaves usually reserved for dog whistles. “I have fifty-seven matches. Men are messaging me frommultiple decades. My ex-husband just appeared in my queue, Cassie. Myex-husband. The one who left me for his CrossFit instructor. He’s nineteen in this photo. NINETEEN.”
“That’s… thorough?”
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.”
“To be fair,” Luna offered, “you did say you missed sparks.”
“NOT LIKE THIS.”
