For Better or Cursed

by Kate M. Williams

  “A party?” Janis said. Even though we were best friends, in a lot of ways Janis and I couldn’t have been more different. For one, she loved parties.

  “It won’t be any fun,” I said. “It has this après-ski theme and—”

  “Ooh,” Janis said, “I like it. Are there going to be drinks with cinnamon sticks in them?”

  “Probably,” I said. “But really, I’ll call as soon as it’s—”

  “No way,” Janis said. “I’m staying.”

  “The party really won’t be that cool,” I said.

  “Not for the party,” she said. “Though it sounds very festive. But I’m not going back out there, and Pig isn’t either. Not by ourselves at least.”

  Cassandra had been quietly sitting on my bed this whole time, but now she cocked her head and looked at Janis. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Well, for one, that thing Esme trapped in a dumpster is probably still out there,” she said. “And for two, my family’s out of town, and for three, I bet it’s not the only one. I swear there was something outside my house last night.”

  The skin along my spine prickled. “Wait,” I said, “something, not someone?”

  Janis nodded. “But it wasn’t that dumpster thing. It was different. It sounded like a dog, but bigger, and more gooey. That was when I started to call you. And then when I saw my feed this morning, I knew I wasn’t the only one. People have been seeing stuff all over town.”

  My mouth went dry. “What people?” I asked. “And what are they seeing?”

  Janis pulled out her phone and handed it to me. It was open to Natalie Bedecker’s account, and a dark, shaky story that had been posted thirteen hours ago. Natalie’s voice was a whisper as she pointed the phone at a tree barely visible on the edge of her backyard. “It’s right there,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’ve never seen a bear run so fast. It was like its feet didn’t even touch the ground.” I felt the back of my neck prickle, and my fingers started to go numb. That sounded like a demon, all right, and not a Flash. How many were out there? I handed the phone to Cassandra, who watched the video, her eyebrows twitching. When she was done, she looked up at Janis.

  “Go to Pete Anderson’s page,” Janis said. “He’s got one too.” Pete Anderson was a guy who had graduated last year and who Janis still followed because he posted sneaky shots of the customers who came into the gas station where he worked. He was pretty funny and was well known for breaking a car windshield with his forehead, from outside of the car. But in this video, he was hiding in a closet, crying, because he was scared to go outside.

  Cassandra handed the phone back to Janis. “Have you seen stuff anywhere else?” she asked.

  “There was something on the news this morning,” Janis said. “But I guess the city’s trying to say it’s a bobcat? But that’s a lie. It’s not a bobcat.”

  “What do your parents say?” I asked.

  “I haven’t told them,” she said. “Because they don’t know I’m home alone. They still think you’re staying with me, remember?”

  Guilt washed over me. “Okay,” I said. “You’re definitely staying here, but you have to stay in this room and hide. No one else can know about you, because you’re not supposed to know about them.”

  And with that, I heard a click as the door unlocked. Fortunately, I’d bolted it after I let Cassandra in. “Just a second!” I called to Amirah as I hurried Janis and Pig into the bathroom. I’d just shut them in when Cassandra unlocked the door and stepped aside. Amirah came in and started tossing pillows and pieces of clothing in the air. Ji-A, close on her heels, perched on a table. They both seemed high.

  “We’re going down to watch the movie,” Amirah said. “And I need my mints. Have you seen them?”

  “I haven’t,” I said. Amirah looked back and forth between me and Cassandra.

  “Are you sure?” she continued. “If you ate them, that’s cool. Just tell me.”

  “We most certainly did not eat them,” I said, and Cassandra raised an eyebrow. I’d never licked the bottom of a rowboat, but I was pretty sure the taste of Amirah’s mints was comparable.

  Suddenly, she stopped her search, and her nose wrinkled. “Why does it smell like dog in here?” The question caught me off guard, as I was surprised she could smell anything other than leftover smoke. Instinctively, I glanced at the bathroom door and wondered how intensive Amirah’s mint search was going to be.

  “You’re being paranoid,” Ji-A told her, then turned to me. “Amirah hates dogs.” Great, I thought, that’s awesome. Also, how could anyone hate dogs?

  “I don’t hate dogs,” Amirah said, crawling out from under her bed, still without mints. “I just think they’re gross, and I don’t understand what the big deal is. Like, if you want to carry around poop in a plastic bag, just start babysitting.” Amirah kicked a Kenzo pouch out of the way, and I saw her eyes drift toward the bathroom door. Then, I spotted them, on the bedside table, half obscured by an Hermès scarf.

  “Your mints!” I screamed, lunging toward the bedside table. Everyone looked at me, probably wondering why I was so gosh-darn excited about finding Amirah’s mints. I turned and handed them to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, opening the tin and popping one in her mouth. “You want?” I shook my head. Ji-A did the same, but Cassandra, who didn’t know any better, took one.

  “Thanks,” she said, tossing it into her mouth.

  “See you down at the movie?” Amirah said.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “We’ll be down in a sec.”

  I waited as long as it took Amirah to pull the door closed behind her, then ran to the bathroom to let Pig and Janis out.

  “Sorry,” I said to Cassandra. “I didn’t have time to warn you about the mints.”

  “What about them?” she said. I could hear the mint clacking around in her mouth.

  “You like them?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Sure,” she said, “I mean, they’re not orange Tic Tacs, but then what is?”

  Tonight’s post-dinner activity was a showing of Better Watch Out in the Laurie Strode Auditorium. The room was dark, and the movie was already a few minutes in when Cassandra and I arrived. I’d seen the film before, and liked it a lot: creepy, misogynistic twelve-year-old decides Christmas is the best time to confess his crush to his babysitter, with murder and torture served as steaming side dishes. I clearly wasn’t the only one who’d seen it, as the crowd booed every time the kid came on-screen, and cheered for the babysitter. It was my kind of movie, and my kind of crowd, but I couldn’t concentrate. There was so much going on in my head that I felt like I should make a list. The world’s most impossible to-do list:

  Solve Dad’s money problems

  Remove curse from Mom

  Remove curse from Cass. Who did it?!?

  Demons outside. Why? Make sure no one hurt.

  Host holiday party

  Hide BFF

  Hide dog

  Get dog food

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I said to Cassandra, before realizing she’d fallen asleep. Maybe a walk, even if it was just around the hotel lobby, would help me think. I’d barely left the auditorium, though, when I ran right into Adrian. My heart started to pound, and I could feel that gonna-smile-real-big feeling build, but I wasn’t totally sure I was happy to see him. I made a mental note to add “Cute boy—what’s his deal??” to my list.

  Adrian was confusing, and more confusion was not what I needed. But we were the only two people in the hall, and he was walking right toward me. Plus, he was holding something that I could not ignore: a venti iced coffee.

  “You drink iced coffee in December?” I gasped. By now he was standing just a few feet from me, and he looked me straight in the eyes and took a long drink, almost like it was a d
are.

  “Aw,” he said, when he was finally finished. “So refreshing. And I don’t care what you say: it’s always iced coffee weather.”

  “N-n-no, no, I would never!” I stammered. “I mean, I never want to go to Antarctica because I’m pretty sure they don’t have Starbucks there, but if I did, and if they did, I would definitely order iced. In fact, I’m kind of jealous right now. Like, really jealous.”

  He smiled and then, to my shock, he reached out and took my hand. “Come on, then,” he said, pulling me down the hallway. “Let’s go find you a glass. I’m happy to share.”

  “So, you got to leave the hotel to go to Starbucks?” I said, making small talk to distract myself from the feel of his fingers intertwined in mine.

  “Well, technically, I was working,” he said. “But you know, if I’m working and there happens to be a Starbucks, and I just happen to need a coffee, then yes, I can go.” We reached the dining room, and Adrian pushed the door open, but didn’t flick on the lights. In a corner, a still-on Christmas tree cast little pools of white light on the floor and on a nearby table and chairs. By now everything had pretty much been cleaned up, and dishes were already out for tomorrow’s breakfast. Adrian took a water glass off the stack, then cracked the lid on his iced coffee.

  “So, when you were outside, was everything okay?” He was concentrating on pouring half the coffee into the glass and trying not to spill, so I couldn’t see his face.

  “Yeah,” he said, as he handed the glass to me. “Why do you ask?”

  “Much obliged,” I said, raising my glass in a cheers before I took a sip of the cold, bitter, burned, watery deliciousness. “When I went out to meet my friend earlier, there was a demon. It tried to attack us, and when I tried to Return it, the Portal wouldn’t open.”

  “Well, the Portal is sealed,” he said, though I could almost swear I heard a note of hesitation in his voice when he said it.

  “I know. But then how did the demon come through?”

  “Maybe it came through a while ago.” Even though the fact that Adrian hadn’t seen anything made me think that Wanda had handled it, my shoulders sank at this statement. It was the same thing Wanda had said, though it hurt a lot more coming from Adrian. The implication was, of course, that Cassandra and I sucked at our jobs. I started to say I was heading back to the movie, when Adrian pulled a chair out from the table nearest the Christmas tree and sat down.

  “Was everything okay with your friend?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, sitting down in the chair next to him. “She just, uh, wanted back a shirt I’d borrowed. It was no big deal.” It struck me that this was twice now Adrian had been outside tonight, and my curiosity was piqued, especially after what everyone else had been saying about him earlier. It felt like asking him, straight out, what his powers were was maybe a little too blunt.

  “So, when you’re working, what do you do?” I asked instead.

  “It could be anything,” he said. “I’m kind of like an assistant, so I help out with what’s needed. But really, it’s a lot of errands. Really boring stuff.”

  “Like returning library books?”

  “Boringer,” he said.

  “Picking up dry cleaning?”

  “Boringer than that, even,” he said. “For example, I went to the post office twice today.”

  I laughed. “That is the boringest. Why on earth?”

  He took a sip of his iced coffee and then traced the stick-on label with his finger. “Can I tell you something? And you promise you won’t tell?”

  “Of course,” I said, instantly, then hoped I didn’t sound too eager, like, “Oh, Adrian, tell me all your secrets.”

  “So, Wanda’s kind of an addict. That’s why I’ve been working so much.”

  “What?” I gasped. The statement shocked me. There was nothing about her that seemed like she was on drugs, but then, you could never tell. But wait…“What kind of addict needs someone to go to the post office all the time?”

  “She’s addicted to eBay,” Adrian said, his voice low as he leaned forward. “And it’s gotten really bad.”

  I started to laugh. “What the heck? Is she collecting baseball cards?”

  “Worse,” he said. “Beanie Babies.” I waited for the punch line. Wait, Beanie Babies was the punch line. But Adrian wasn’t laughing; actually, he looked very serious.

  “I thought it was harmless at first,” he continued, “but now she’s buying two or three a day. She’s spending thousands of dollars, and she’s selling her own stuff to pay for it. Last night, she had me take her mother’s wedding ring to a pawnshop so that she could get money to bid on a tie-dyed crab.”

  I still couldn’t believe it. Beanie Babies? Tiny stuffed toys? Granted, I knew tons of people who were obsessed with Beanie Babies and would do anything to get a new one, but all of those people were…in preschool. The whole thing was preposterous, but staring at Adrian’s face, I could see there wasn’t a hint of humor in it.

  “That’s insane,” I said finally.

  “His name is Claude.”

  “Who?”

  “The crab. Claude the Crab. That’s the one Wanda wants. She said it’s really rare, and this one has a misprint on the tag, so that makes it even more special.” Adrian sighed and took another sip of coffee. “When I accepted her offer, I thought I’d be doing important stuff. You know, like what you do—trying to save the world and all that. I don’t know if I would have said yes if I’d known this was what it was going to be. It’s gotten to the point where managing Wanda’s watch list and all her bids is almost a full-time job. Like, she’s bidding on stuff that I know she doesn’t have the money to pay for. Those purple Princess Diana bears are not cheap, if you know what I mean.”

  “We are talking about the same Wanda here, right?” I said. “Because I’m talking about the one who looks like she thinks heaven is an Eileen Fisher store? Who looks like she gets really excited about tea?” He nodded, and then my mind caught on something else. “Wait, what do you mean, her offer?” I asked.

  Adrian just smiled and poured some more coffee into my glass. “Never mind,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I mean, we don’t get many chances to hang out one-on-one, so I don’t want to waste this one complaining about my job.”

  “I like hearing you complain about your job,” I said, which was the truth, but I was also hoping he would answer my question.

  “Well, I don’t,” he said. “Tell me about you. Are you having fun this weekend?”

  I traced triangles in the condensation on the side of my glass. “I guess,” I said, “but it’s also stressful. I’m learning a lot, but not all of it is good.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Like, I didn’t know that there were Sitter family weekends,” I said. “And that most of these people have known each other almost all of their lives. It makes me feel like an outsider, you know?”

  “Trust me,” Adrian said, “you should be glad you missed all those family weekends. I’ve attended enough talentless talent shows to last me my entire life. Juggling can get ugly. Besides, I think it’s cool you weren’t raised in the Sitterhood. It can get pretty insular. But you’ve got a different perspective, and you know about all kinds of things the other Sitters don’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like music,” he said. “Most of these girls don’t even know who André 3000 is. And you know about fashion.”

  “Amirah knows about fashion.”

  “Amirah has money and she buys designer stuff,” he said. “That’s different from knowing about fashion.”

  I smiled at him. “Okay,” I said. “If you insist. But I’m still a little jealous of her wardrobe, and I would take a single shoe if she ever offered it to me.” Adrian laughed, and I was glad we were in a dim glow, so he couldn’
t see me blush. “So, post office runs aside, there have to be some perks to working with the Synod.”

  “Sure,” he said. “We travel a lot, so I’ve already been to forty-three states.”

  “Wow,” I said, “that’s a lot. Which was your favorite?”

  “Montana,” he said. “It’s like the sky is a living thing there. What about you? What’s your favorite place you’ve been?”

  “I haven’t been to that many places,” I said. “Just Colorado, Missouri, Oklahoma. And Illinois once, but that was by accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “Long story,” I said, “but my dad missed an exit.”

  “I like Colorado,” Adrian said. “The mountains are cool.”

  I nodded. “Dad and I used to go camping, before we realized neither one of us likes camping. On one trip, we stayed right by a lake, and there were all these small, round rocks at the edges of the lake in the morning, and I thought they were fallen stars. I collected dozens of them in a ziplock and took them home. The next night was cloudy, and I got totally freaked out that there weren’t any stars in the sky because I’d stolen them all. I started crying, so Dad and I went into the backyard, and we threw all the rocks I’d collected up into the air. Dad told me we had to wait for them to resettle, and then the next night, it wasn’t cloudy and I could see all the stars, and I thought I could pick out the ones that had been mine because they glowed a little brighter.”

  “The girl who gave the stars back,” Adrian said. There was something different in his voice when he said it, and the way he was looking at me made me want to look down at my feet, but I forced myself to hold his gaze. The lights from the Christmas tree reflected off his cheekbones, and his eyebrows had an arch that would make a beauty blogger salivate with envy. He could tell I was looking.

  “What?” he said, a smile creeping onto his face.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I should get back to the movie before anyone notices I’m gone.”