Finally, in the middle of US History, I couldn’t take it anymore. We were watching Braveheart. Again. In US History. The teachers typically didn’t start in with the movies until at least December, but the rumor was that Mr. Hedgeman was going through a divorce. This would certainly account for the motorcycle he now rode to work every day, the black leather jacket he wore, and the fact that he’d walk into class, slap a DVD into the player like he was about to blow our minds, and then promptly fall asleep at his own desk.
In the midst of a scene of good ol’ anti-Semitic, misogynistic, long-haired Mel Gibson running up a hill in a skirt and yelling (which was basically the whole movie), I got up and walked to Mr. Hedgeman’s desk. I didn’t want to startle him, so I used a low, calm voice to ask for a bathroom pass. When that didn’t work, I tapped him on the shoulder. First with just one finger, then with my fist. He sat bolt upright, blinking like he wasn’t sure where he was. Which was entirely possible. “Can I get a bathroom pass?” I asked.
“Of course, of course,” he said. “I was just resting my eyes. Gotta recover from all the screen time of grading essays.”
“I bet,” I said, smiling as widely as I could. “You teachers work really hard.”
“So, what can I do for you?” he asked.
“Um, bathroom pass?” I said again. He nodded, and fumbled around on his desk. When he couldn’t find the passes, he settled for scrawling his name on a Post-it, which would at least hold up in a detention court of law. He was asleep again before I’d even left the room, which meant I could spend the rest of the period wandering the halls and dip back in right before the bell to pick up my backpack.
I was digging through my locker, looking for a granola bar that I was 99 percent sure was in there somewhere, when a “Hey” from behind me made me jump. I spun around, and Cassandra was right there.
“Nice outfit,” she said, and I nodded. I pushed my hair out of my face, my heart beating so fast that I thought it might burst out of my cropped turtleneck. “You seem nervous.” I nodded again, not sure what to say to that. She spun halfway around so that she was leaning up against the locker next to mine, and she was smacking her gum. “You know, I was thinking about you last night,” she continued. “And how yours really is the superior power. Think of everything you could do with it. You could take whatever you wanted, from wherever. You could even kill someone and never get caught.”
I swallowed. “I doubt it. Even if I wanted to kill someone, which I don’t, I can barely control it.”
“Did you practice any more last night?”
“A little,” I admitted.
“I practice all the time,” she said, and a few lockers down, a wadded-up napkin on the floor began to smolder, then caught fire. I went over and stamped it out.
“Careful,” she said, a wry smile on her face. “Your shoes might melt.”
“Cassandra,” I said finally. “I don’t understand what’s going on here. At all.”
“I don’t either,” she said simply, “so we’d better figure it out. What are you doing tonight?”
* * *
—
We agreed to meet up at five-thirty, and since Cassandra had some stuff she had to do after school and I didn’t, I killed time in the library, actually doing my homework in advance. I worked there until five, then gave myself thirty minutes to get downtown to meet her. She still didn’t know much about Spring River, so I’d picked where to meet and had chosen the Park Perk, a dingy downtown coffee shop that Janis hated because it always smelled like ham and pickles, even though neither were on the menu. I didn’t want to run into her and have to explain why we were having a “club meeting” without her.
The days were getting shorter now, and the sky already had a hazy sunset glow when I opened the door to the Perk and ham smell hit me in the face. Cassandra had gotten there before me and was already sitting in a booth in the back with a large mug. I ordered an iced coffee at the counter and set it on the table as I slid in across from her. I looked at her mug, the contents of which were dusted with a sprinkle of chocolate. “Mocha?” I asked.
“Hot chocolate. I don’t like coffee.” My mouth dropped open. Who was this person? This dislike of the elixir of life might cancel out everything else that we had in common.
“You’re joking, right?” I asked.
“Why would I joke about coffee?” She had a point. I mean, I didn’t joke about coffee either. She sat back in the booth, ripped open a Sweet’N Low packet, and dumped the contents onto the table, then drew designs in it with her finger.
“So, everyone says your mom is…”
“Crazy,” I finished for her, and she raised an eyebrow. “It’s kind of apt. She doesn’t have a diagnosis. They’ve ruled out bipolar, schizophrenia….Sometimes it’s like psychosis, sometimes PTSD. Every time she gets a new doctor, they spend a couple of weeks determined to figure it out, but they all eventually give up. Drugs don’t help either, no matter what they try.” I faked a smile. “So, medical mystery, I guess.”
“What happened?” she asked.
I ripped open my own packet—Sugar in the Raw—and gave her the abbreviated version.
“It’s like something in her brain broke,” I said, “and now there are oceans between her and the rest of the world.”
“Do you ever wonder what caused it?” Cassandra asked.
“Sure,” I said. “When I was younger, I filled notebooks with theories.”
“But now?”
It made me feel like a horrible person, but I told Cassandra the truth. “It hurts too much,” I said, “so I try not to think about it.”
I waited for the kind of reaction I normally got when I told people about Mom, awkward fumbling for the right words, looks of pity, and the eventual hints at questions about whether we knew if it was genetic.
When all she said was “Dude, that sucks,” I was actually relieved.
Over the course of my story I’d drained my drink down to the ice, but Cassandra had barely touched her hot chocolate, with the whipped cream melting into an oily skim on top.
“Okay,” I said. “Now your turn.”
“I told you,” she said, running her finger along the rim of the mug. “We don’t know much. I was three when our parents died in a car accident; Dion was four. We ended up in foster care because I guess there wasn’t any family that could take care of us, or who wanted to take care of us.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know, really,” she said. “I was pretty young. But kids pick up on things, you know?”
I nodded, because as a babysitter, I definitely did know this.
“I think my mom’s family was scared of her,” Cassandra continued. “As weird as it sounds, I think they were scared of us too, even though we were just kids. Like, I distinctly remember waking up one night to my aunt sprinkling me with holy water.”
“You weren’t eating a lot of pea soup, were you?” I asked.
“Ew, gross. Why?” she asked. “I hate peas.”
“Never mind.” I said. If she hadn’t seen The Exorcist, now wasn’t the time for me to stop and explain.
“What about your dad’s family?”
“Who knows?” she said. “Even if they were out there somewhere, no one showed up to take us in.”
Cassandra leaned forward, her hair falling around her face like a privacy curtain for our conversation, and she lowered her voice to a whisper. “So, the note wasn’t all I found.”
I nodded, wondering if she was going to try to make me guess everything again. Instead, she didn’t say anything and reached into a tote, and pulled out another ziplock bag, then slid it across the table toward me. Inside was a black spiral notebook. It was battered and creased so that veins of white showed on the cover.
“Take it out and open it,” she said.
“Should I wear gloves?” I asked, and I was only half joking. The notebook was well-used but clean, and the way Cassandra kept it sealed in plastic told me that it was very, very important to her.
“Just don’t spill on it,” she said.
I nodded and unzipped the bag, and pulled the notebook out. I flipped the cover open, and the pages were as soft as fabric. The handwriting was neat and precise, like it had been carefully copied from somewhere else. Cassandra didn’t take her eyes off me as I flipped through it. Each page had a different word written at the top, in a language that was not one I spoke, i.e., English or any Spanish that was covered freshman or sophomore year.
Underneath each word was a list. Some of the things were stuff I’d never heard of, like mugwort and tourmaline sand. Some were normal grocery-store gets, like pumpkin pie spice or frozen gyoza. And then others, like the hair from a Barbie doll or a used pink razor, seemed like the kinds of things a stalker would keep in a special box.
I looked up at Cassandra, baffled. “What is all this?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I thought it was maybe a scavenger hunt, or even just a grocery list, but none of it really makes sense. And that’s not all. There’s also this.” In her other hand, she was holding yet another ziplock—she had more baggies than a drug dealer. In it, I could see the back of a printed photo.
Slowly I reached out and took it from her, then turned the photo around. It was two women and two babies. One woman and one baby I’d never seen before. This first woman was hands down one of the most gorgeous creatures I had ever seen outside of the pages of a magazine, with long, curly dark hair that swooped haphazardly over her forehead, like she’d just run her fingers through it to get it out of her face, deep brown eyes with mile-long lashes, and pillowy lips that were accented with perfect dark-maroon lipstick.
I’d seen those eyes before, and that hair that wouldn’t stay put. It was clearly Cassandra and Dion’s mom, and from the diamond studs that glittered on the model baby’s ears and the fact that it was wearing a dress, I could guess the baby was Cassandra, even though I couldn’t imagine her wearing anything sparkly now.
The other woman and baby I did recognize.
In fact, I knew them well.
The woman was my mom, and the baby was me.
My hands were shaking, half with shock, half with anger. “Where did you get this?” I spat the words at Cassandra.
“It was in the notebook.”
“And you didn’t bother to show me when I went to your house?”
“I didn’t want to blow my load right away.”
“Nice, Cassandra,” I said, my voice rising. “Very classy. I’m leaving.” I stood up to go at the same time that her coffee mug arced into the air and crashed to the floor, where it cracked into a dozen pieces.
“Oh crap,” Cassandra said loudly, looking around. “I’m so clumsy.” She turned to me, and in a lower voice said, “Esme, sit down, and don’t get mad or you might send the table flying out the door. We’re in this together. We need each other.”
“Maybe that’s true,” I said, “but that doesn’t give you the right to manipulate me.” I could feel tears seeping into my eyes. “If you knew something about my mom, Cassandra, you should have told me right away.”
Her face softened. “I’m sorry. I really am. I keep messing up.” I sat down, because she looked like she meant it. “But you can’t deny that we’re connected,” she continued. “And there has to be a reason behind all of this. Something that’s bigger than you and me put together.”
“That may be true,” I said, “but we have no idea what that is.”
“Well, then we have to find out. And I say we start with this book.”
She tapped it, and with that, every candle in the coffee shop flickered to life.
* * *
—
Cassandra wouldn’t let me borrow the notebook or take pictures, because she was worried about spies in my iPhone. But she did agree to let me make copies, so we walked three doors down from the Perk to a copy shop, and I made copies of every page, Cassandra standing under the fluorescent lights with her back to me, scanning the place like she was my bodyguard. Or, to be more precise, the book’s bodyguard. When I was done, I handed it back to her, and she carefully sealed it up in plastic and tucked it back into her tote.
Her phone was dead, so she used mine to text Dion for a ride, though, much to her chagrin, he didn’t respond. And to my chagrin too, since I was already wondering when I would see him next. I had big plans for when that happened—like to not pass out or puke or anything.
“What does Dion think about the book?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I haven’t told him.”
“Why not?” That surprised me. It wasn’t like she was hiding her powers from him.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with him,” she said.
“You found it in his house,” I pointed out.
A cloud crossed her face. “I guess,” she said, “but I want to figure out what all this stuff is first. And then I’ll see if it has anything to do with Dion.”
With no ride on the horizon, Cassandra and I took the bus together, and as soon as she got off at her stop, I pulled out my phone to see the text she’d sent, but she’d deleted it, not even leaving his number. When it came to cell phone etiquette, I didn’t know if this was polite or rude.
I got off at my stop and pulled my jacket around me as I walked to the house. Dad wasn’t home, and when I let myself in, I went straight to my room, Pig at my heels, without detouring through the kitchen to see what we didn’t have for dinner. I dropped my backpack and sat down on my bed to pry off my shoes. In my mind, I kept seeing all the candles in the Park Perk igniting as Cassandra just sat there and smiled. She wore her power well, like it was something that was owed to her.
When I’d started to figure out what was going on with me, I’d felt the opposite. Like it was a curse instead of a gift. I’d never felt powerful in my entire life. I mean, I was forever paying with large bills because I was too scared to hold up the line while I dug for exact change. I lived in fear that a stranger would ask me what time it was. But I could do things that other people couldn’t. Not that I wanted to, but if I had, I could even have smashed the hell out of everything Stacey Wasser made in pottery class, and really made her pay for touching my turtle.
With my chunky Mary Janes finally off, I lay back on the bed and flexed my toes at the ceiling, then flipped over so I was looking at my closet. I focused, and Pig howled as a black crushed-velvet minidress and an oversized black hat flew through the air above her. I knew just how she felt. I didn’t bark, but I did feel my cheeks stretch into a smile. As the clothes arranged themselves into an outfit on my chair, I texted Janis.
lydia deetz goes to the beach. small dress, big hat. U?
rich black bitch
lol
u watching the nina simone documentary again?
u know it. C u tomorrow with my headwrap on.
Thank God for online dating, because it meant Sharon needed a babysitter at least once a week. I was nervous about what had happened last time, but my savings account needed me to get over it, and I headed to their house just after six the next day. Kaitlyn answered the door when I knocked. I could tell it was her, because although I could hear lots of clicking from the other side, and see the knob turn a little bit, the door remained closed. It made me uneasy, and something dark welled up in me—a toddler who couldn’t work a doorknob could not have opened the window—but I pushed that aside and I let myself in, to be greeted by a two-year-old in footie pajamas, wearing a unicorn horn and a rainbow tail, sticking her tongue out at me.
I returned the gesture and stuck my tongue out at her. “Does Mommy know you’re opening the door?” I asked, as it didn’t seem like a habit she should be getting
into. Her answer was to throw her hands into the air and run around me in circles, screaming at the top of her lungs. When she stopped, she wrapped those chubster arms around me to give my knees a hug. That was when I realized she was also covered in a fine layer of glitter, because my tights sparkled as soon as she pulled away.
“I thought I was just babysitting a kid tonight,” I said. “I didn’t know that there was a magical beast here!” Kaitlyn neighed, and I followed her as she galloped off down the hallway. In the kitchen, Sharon scooped her up and deposited her back at the table, in front of a plate of peas and mini pizza bagels. Sharon was wearing a shimmering silver camisole and a pair of sweatpants.
“Oh, Esme,” she said. “I love that hat. It’s so chic. Is it Michael Kors?”
I smiled and shook my head. “Salvation Army,” I said, but Sharon was already heading back down the hallway.
She yelled to me through the open door to her room. “Doll, can you please make Kaitlyn eat her dinner? I have to finish getting ready.”
“No problem,” I called back. Kaitlyn was already back out of her booster seat, galloping laps around the table.
Part of being a good babysitter was doing what you had to do to get the kid to do what it needed to do, so I cut up some bites of pizza bagel and put them and some peas into my hand. Then I held out my flat palm and said, “Does the unicorn want some magic rainbow nuggets to make it fly real high and real fast?” The unicorn nodded, then trotted over to eat out of my hand, sliming it in the process. Thank God for hand sanitizer.
I was used to Sharon being about as scattered as birdseed, but tonight she seemed extra flustered. By my count, she changed outfits five times, all the while complaining, in detail, about some stomach issues she’d been having all day (“I thought I should just glue my ass to the toilet seat, ’cause I wasn’t ever coming out of that bathroom,” she said at one point), and telling me about the fish massacre Kaitlyn had staged earlier that afternoon by squirting dish soap into the aquarium. I complimented her on her combo of black cigarette pants and kitten heels, and asked what they’d done with the dead fish.
The Babysitters Coven Page 9
