by Kat Shepherd
Rebecca looked back to see her friends standing on the dais, surrounded by the queen and her attendants. They were chaining the girls’ wrists. Even from a distance, Rebecca could see the look of shock and betrayal on her friends’ faces. She felt all the fight go out of her. She had been wrong. Her heart sank when she realized the enormity of what she had done—she had just risked her life and the lives of her friends to save a monster that was going to die anyway, and all because of some stupid hunch. Why hadn’t she just stuck with the plan?
And what about Kyle? He was reasonably safe now, but how long would that last? She knew the Night Queen would tire of him eventually, and what would happen to him then? Rebecca followed the lusus back to the bonfire. How could I think I could outsmart her? The only way to beat her at her own game is to be tougher than she is. And I wasn’t. I failed.
The Night Queen was beautiful and terrifying in her triumph. She held a twisted bone scepter in her right hand, and her voice was resonant with the thrill of her victory. “Our guests have failed the last challenge. All now belong to us.”
Behind her, Maggie, Clio, and Tanya stood with shoulders hunched in defeat. The tarnished silver chains hung limply from their wrists, and their faces were ashen and bleak with despair. Without any prodding, Rebecca stepped up on the dais to join them. It was her fault her friends were standing here.
A part of her still hoped she could find some way to undo what had happened, or at least persuade the Night Queen to let the others go. Maybe she could still protect them. Yeah, like the way I protected Kyle? I had the chance to save him, and I blew it. There’s nothing I can do for anyone now. With tears spilling down her cheeks, Rebecca could barely raise her head to face her friends. “I’m sorry; I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t believe it was the way to win,” she whispered. “I thought there had to be another way.”
Tanya was crying, too. “I don’t think I could have done it, either,” she whispered back.
“I could have,” Maggie said. “I hated that thing!” Her voice was choked with hurt. “Rebecca, why didn’t you just ask me to do it?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said miserably. “I just felt like it had to be me. It felt like I was doing the right thing.”
“I guess doing the right thing isn’t always the way to win,” Clio said. Her voice broke. “It’s just that we worked so hard, Rebecca! We had a plan. I thought we had this! I thought we were a team.”
“I know,” Rebecca said. “We are. But … I can’t explain it. It was something about that poem, the one from the scroll. I just kept hearing it in my head: Cruelty is as cruelty does, but none—”
The scepter rung out hollowly as the queen rapped it on the dais floor. “Silence!” She turned to her guards. “Wolf Head! Chain the girl!”
Rebecca held out her arms, and the wolf-headed lusus brought forward a set of silver cuffs connected by a heavy chain. Careful not to touch her, he snapped them around her wrists. Rebecca winced at the feel of the cold metal against her skin. But as she slid her fingers over them, the cuffs split in two and fell from her arms, clattering on the wood below. The lusus erupted into alarmed whispers, and Wolf Head shot a terrified look at the queen.
Rebecca could see the queen was shaken, but the monarch was not about to lose control over her subjects. She raised her scepter, and a hush fell over the crowd. “Bonefingers, get the vines. Bind her,” she commanded. Another gray skeleton grabbed a length of vines and began wrapping Rebecca tightly. Rebecca felt like a mummy, her arms rigid against her sides. Every unscratched itch suddenly demanded attention.
“This is dumb. What are they even doing?” Maggie said.
The skeleton stepped away, and Rebecca shifted in place, trying to find a way to get reasonably comfortable. She bent her elbow and stretched her shoulders, working to loosen the tightness around her chest. The vines withered and went limp, sliding off her like dead snakes. Someone in the crowd let out a small scream, and the lusus on the dais instinctively stepped away from her.
“What sorcery is this?” the queen demanded, her eyes flashing with hate.
Still stunned herself, Rebecca faced her wordlessly. Even the attendants seemed too afraid to breathe.
In the silence Rebecca heard a small chuckle behind her. “Now I get it. Oh, that’s good!”
“Clio, shh!” Tanya whispered. “Don’t make her angrier!”
“She can be angry all she wants,” Clio said, “but it won’t matter to Rebecca. She can’t capture her. She can’t touch her!”
“Wicked, wicked lying girl!” the queen said, and reached forward to slap Rebecca. As soon as her hand grazed Rebecca’s cheek, the queen shrieked and drew back as if burned. Clio laughed louder.
“That’s what that poem meant,” Clio said. “Remember? ‘But none can rule the heart that loves.’ The lusus can’t imprison you. They can’t control you. They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do now.”
“But why?” Rebecca asked.
“Not important,” Maggie said. “More important: getting us out of here. Do your new magical powers include freeing your friends?”
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said, and stepped toward the other girls. The Night Queen started forward to block her way, and Rebecca’s arm brushed against the queen’s gown. Rebecca heard a sizzle, and the queen recoiled, a scorch mark on her yellowed sleeve. Wolf Head grabbed the silver pole from the changeling’s cage and swung it at Rebecca’s head. She threw up her arms to defend herself, and her hand slapped against the cold metal. The pole shattered into dust, bathing the dais in a cloud of glittering silver. Wolf Head slowly backed away, shocked.
Rebecca moved toward her friends again, and this time no lusus moved to stop her. She touched the cuffs on Maggie’s wrists, and they split open and fell to the ground. She quickly freed the other girls, and the four friends hugged one another. “Come on, let’s go!” Maggie said, hopping down from the dais.
“Not without Kyle,” Rebecca said.
“Shoot! I forgot!”
“Seriously?” Tanya said.
“Well, there was a lot of excitement!” Maggie said.
Rebecca raised her voice to address the crowd formally. “We demand the return of the babe. We have bested the queen in all three challenges, and the babe is to be returned to us by right!”
The night creatures made no move. Rebecca whispered into Tanya’s ear. “What do we do now?”
“Try again, maybe?”
“Okay, this is stupid,” Maggie said. She walked over to the cradle, reached in, and scooped Kyle into her arms. “Now can we go? I am so over this place!” The queen’s face was tight with fury; she turned her back on the girls, her spine rigid.
Kyle squealed and bounced with excitement as soon as he noticed Rebecca. She hurried over and hugged him tightly. “I missed you!” Her eyes blurred with tears as she heard his familiar snuffle in her ear.
Clio checked her watch. “We gotta go, like, right now.” The girls ran across the clearing toward the portal. The lusus silently parted to let them through, their faces like stone.
As the girls reached the yew tree, the queen’s icy voice cut through the clearing. “Lusus naturae never forgive. And we never forget.”
CHAPTER
20
BY THE TIME the girls reached the woods behind the Dunmores’ house, they were dirty and breathless. Rebecca’s arms ached from holding the sleeping Kyle. They had run almost the whole way through the woods, stopping only to mark the way to the portal so they could find it again. Although they had still been able to follow the changeling’s old trail with Tanya’s black light, there was no sign of the creature anywhere. Rebecca was relieved; maybe it really had gotten away.
When they found Kawanna waiting for them in the doorway, Clio checked her watch again. “Did they get back early?”
“Don’t worry, Li’l Bit; you made it.”
“We’d better get in there! We only have a few minutes to clean up before the Dunmores get b
ack,” Tanya said.
Kawanna patted her shoulder. “I told you girls not to worry. I took care of it. I figured it was the least I could do, since you were doing all the heavy lifting.”
“Let’s get Kyle changed and into bed,” Rebecca said.
Maggie rushed ahead of them, and Rebecca heard her shout from the end of the hallway. “You guys! You won’t believe it!”
When Rebecca arrived at the doorway, she was stunned to find that Kyle’s room looked just the same as it always had, as though nothing had ever happened. “But … how?” she asked Kawanna.
“I don’t know. Other than a knocked-over lamp, it looked like this when I got here.”
“Maybe it’s like that old theory of equilibrium,” Tanya said. “The theory’s been widely discredited, but maybe it makes sense in a supernatural context.”
“In English, please?” Maggie said.
Tanya sighed. “Basically, nature likes balance. And the Night Queen disrupted nature. She had everything so out of whack that maybe when we defeated her, everything went back to how it was.”
“Things will go back to normal for people, too, right?” Rebecca asked worriedly, looking down at Kyle. She placed him in his crib, and he reached for Bearbear, pressing his face into the soft, worn fur.
Just then, the girls heard the door open below. “We’re home!” Mr. Dunmore called out.
“We’re all upstairs!” Tanya answered. “Clio’s aunt Kawanna got here a few minutes early. Kyle must have had a bad dream; he woke up not too long ago, so we’re keeping him company.”
Footsteps trooped up the stairs, and Mr. and Mrs. Dunmore appeared in the doorway. “Wow, all of you?” Mrs. Dunmore asked.
“I’m sorry; we just couldn’t help it. He was just being so cute tonight!” Tanya said.
“Yeah, tonight’s just one of those nights you don’t want to let him out of your sight, you know?” Rebecca said.
The Dunmores bent over Kyle’s crib, and Rebecca could feel their love for him like a physical presence in the room. “We know exactly what you mean,” Mrs. Dunmore said.
Rebecca beamed. Kyle was home.
* * *
The next morning the friends sat in the costume shop sipping steaming cups of chamomile tea. Kawanna, dressed in a brilliant blue-and-vermillion silk robe, complete with fuzzy slippers shaped like monster feet, carried out a crystal cake stand loaded full of chocolate frosted cupcakes.
“Now we’re talking,” Maggie said, helping herself to the largest one. “Bring it on!”
“Are you sure, Mags? How do you know it won’t turn into a big pile of worms?” Tanya teased.
“Don’t remind me.” Maggie took a huge bite and pulled her head back in surprise as something long and wiggly dangled from her teeth. She screamed, spitting out the bite. The other girls pushed their cupcakes away in horror.
“Oops, I forgot to mention I put worms in these,” Kawanna said. She reached into her pocket and flung a shower of colorful worms over the screaming girls. “Gummy worms!”
Clio scooped a handful of the candy from the floor and tossed it at her. “I swear, Auntie, one of these days!” She picked up her cupcake again. “There isn’t anything else in here we should know about, is there?”
“That’s it, Li’l Bit.” Her eyes sparkled. “But you never know.”
Rebecca took a cautious bite. “I think it’s safe,” she said. She sipped her tea. “You guys, what happened last night? I mean, I failed that last challenge. The Night Queen knew it, and I knew it. So why were we set free?”
Kawanna sat down next to the girls. “In books, lusus naturae are selfish creatures, capable of few emotions beyond amusement, greed, and cruelty. They serve no one but themselves, and nothing gives them more pleasure than to twist the hearts of human beings. And I think that was the queen’s plan for y’all. She hates to lose, so she wanted a way to win no matter what. If she could get you to harm the changeling, it would have put a cloud of darkness in your heart. Kyle may have been freed, but then you would have been hers. Maybe not right away, maybe not last night, but someday she would claim you for the Nightmare Realm. She was counting on it.”
“Until Rebecca here decided to mess up her whole plan,” Tanya said.
Maggie’s mouth dropped open in indignation. “Wait a minute, you mean if we had played by the queen’s rules, we would have lost no matter what?”
Kawanna nodded.
“Oh, man, I should have known,” Maggie said, reaching for another cupcake. “Well, I definitely would have been toast. I was ready to put that little beast right out of its misery without a second thought.”
“I don’t know,” Tanya said. “Do you think you really would have been able to do it, if it came right down to it?”
“Luckily, we don’t have to find out, because Rebecca wasn’t having it,” Clio said. “Apparently she’s a heck of a lot more loving than the rest of us.”
Kawanna poured more tea into her cup. “I don’t know about all of that, but like my daddy used to say, ‘If you don’t like the rules, change the game.’ Rebecca changed the game, and her compassion saved you. She was willing to risk sacrificing everything she loved the most, just for an unwanted changeling that had never shown her even a moment of love. That’s pretty powerful.” Rebecca felt her cheeks grow warm, and Kawanna smiled at her.
Clio stretched and stood up, picking up her plate. “Well, the important thing is we won. The Night Queen is stuck on her side of the portal for now, and once we find a way to seal it up for good, she won’t be able to come back. She’ll think twice before trying to mess with us again.” She gathered up the other plates and carried them out of the room.
“I should get going,” Rebecca said, rising to her feet. “I promised my parents I’d watch Isaac for a few hours while they go to the gym.” She waved to the others and stepped through the shop’s front entrance, the bell jingling brightly as the door swung open. There was something on the threshold. Rebecca bent down to pick it up. “Hey, Kawanna, there’s something at the front door.”
Kawanna walked over, and Rebecca handed her a scroll of paper tied with a scarlet silk ribbon. Kawanna untied the ribbon and slowly unrolled the scroll. There in immaculate calligraphy was one single word:
Remember.
Something fluttered to the ground at her feet.
It was the feather of a great horned owl.
Acknowledgments
Writing books is hard and scary, punctuated by crippling self-doubt, and there were so many wonderful humans (and dogs) that encouraged, inspired, critiqued, supported, and helped to make this book possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my magical unicorn of an agent, Erin Murphy, for knowing that I was a writer long before I knew it myself. Thank you one million times for believing in me. Huge and teary thanks to every member of the EMLA family for including me and welcoming me so warmly, even when I was just a lowly Plus One at my very first retreat. Being part of this community means so much to me, and I feel lucky to know every single one of you.
Heaps of thanks to my brilliant editor, Erin Stein, and the entire team at Imprint for bringing Babysitting Nightmares into the world. Your insight, humor, and patience always remind me that this series has found the perfect home. To illustrator extraordinaire Rayanne Vieira, I am in awe of your artistic prowess and appreciative of your patience as you helped bring these girls out of my brain and onto the page.
Kirsten Cappy and Deb Shapiro, I thank you both for your insight, expertise, and joyful commitment to connecting books to readers. I’m fortunate to have you on my team. Deepest thanks to my two wise and thoughtful sensitivity readers; I am so grateful for your willingness to help me grow and improve. I loved the opportunity to learn from you, and I will keep striving to get it right. I am indebted to all of my early readers for their critiques: Sarah Azibo, Nicole Valentine, Lisa Robinson, Joyce Ray, Charlie Barshaw, and Martine Leavitt. Thank you for your time and kindness as we worked to make this book better.
Thanks also to the wonderful copy editors whose thorough precision saved my bacon on several occasions. Thanks also to Sarah Aronson for your support, guidance, and book bubbe goodness. Hugs and a huge high five for Claire Gunthert, my first kid beta reader, who gobbled this book up and wrote me my very first fan letter. Marvelous Claire, you are the reason writers write.
Thanks to all my friends and family, both on social media and IRL, who answered my questions, gave me encouragement, and shared their enthusiasm for my efforts. Extra-Special Thanks to Elly Swartz because I would never have finished this book without you. You are an incredible friend, and you cheered me on and helped me overcome every obstacle from Day One, even when I was working two jobs and had no time to write. For you my gratitude knows no bounds.
And finally, finally, FINALLY (which breaks our precedent because we always said you have to thank the spouse first!), I reserve my deepest and most bottomless thanks to my first, last, and best reader, my incredibly inspiring and supportive husband, Eddie Gamarra. You believed I could do it, so I did.
About the Author and Illustrator
Kat Shepherd is thrilled that her writing debut is a fast-paced story that is likely to engage reluctant readers because, as an educator, she believes that reading should be a joyful experience for every child.
She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, their two dogs, and a rotating series of foster dogs. Each year she and her husband travel to a different national park for their wedding anniversary, and they have been lucky enough to also visit places like South Africa, Paris, and the Galapagos Islands. Babysitting Nightmares is her first middle grade series.
Visit her online at katshepherd.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Sign up for email updates on Rayanne Vieira here.
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