The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

  I closed my eyes and braced for broken bones, loud noises, pain, everything that would overwhelm me when it hit me and then crashed to the floor. Instead, there was silence and the feel of smooth metal in my palm. I opened my eyes to see that I had caught it, right in the center, right where I was supposed to.

  I had expected it to be heavy like a bowling ball, but it was light, and holding it felt as natural and easy as holding on to my phone. Without even really thinking about it, I tossed it into the air and caught it with my other hand.

  What the…?

  I had flashbacks to every tetherball that had ever hit me in the face, every humiliation I’d ever endured in this very room, every time Dad had said “Catch” and I’d closed my hands over air instead of the keys or remote control or can of soda he was trying to throw to me.

  I looked up to see Brian full-on grinning. He reached back into the box and pulled out a long, sharp-tipped spear. He hurled it into the air so that it was spinning end over end. Cassandra stuck her arm out and, like it was the biggest NBD that had ever been dealt, caught it a second before it plunged right into her thigh.

  “The skills needed for a Return are innate,” Brian said. “They don’t need to be taught, since they’ve been inside you since the day you were born and activated at your Changeover. The most important thing is to trust your instincts. If you can learn to block out the noise that surrounds you in daily life, you will inherently know what to do, and you will do what is right.” I cast a side glance at Cassandra, since I was pretty sure that setting fire to a department store and stealing skinny jeans did not count as doing what was right.

  “So,” he continued, “after trusting your instincts, the second most important thing to remember about a Return is the Sitter law of ‘do no harm.’ When a Negative demon manages to get into the Definite, you don’t want to kill it. You just want to send it home.”

  “When you say ‘demons,’ you mean actual, literal monsters?” I asked, and Brian nodded. He turned, held his palm up, and mumbled again. The air in front of him shimmered, and then tiny monsters began to appear, none larger than a penguin. There was something that looked like a cross between a banana slug and one of those blow-up tube men that dance outside car dealerships, and another that looked like a water balloon of maggots.

  “Mind you,” Brian said as a whole carousel of creatures swirled into view in front of us, “these are not actual size. Some can be several stories tall.”

  I gulped.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Cassandra said, and I nodded in agreement.

  “Me either,” I said, “and I’ve lived here my entire life.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Brian said. “It means that the Synod’s seal is working. When a Portal is not sealed, demons are burped up into this dimension on a fairly regular basis.”

  “So why doesn’t the Synod just keep the Portal sealed all the time?” I asked.

  “A Synod seal is the nuclear option,” he said, “and as it’s a major drain on Sitter magic. It is only deployed in drastic circumstances. To renew it would deplete our powers past the point of replenishing.”

  “What happened here, then, that made them seal up this Portal?” Cassandra asked.

  “I’m not privy to that information. But I know it wasn’t good,” he said, not looking directly at us and clearing his throat as he bent toward the smaller box on the dolly. Using his foot, he nudged it onto the floor and scooted it until it was directly in front of us.

  “Now the whole reason we’re here,” he said, straightening back up. “To practice.”

  The box coughed, then started to jerk back and forth and emit a sound like a pack of coyotes going ham on a rack of lamb. Cassandra was looking at it just as warily as I was.

  “Why do these things seem so deadly if we’re not supposed to harm them?” Cassandra asked, holding up the spear so that the harsh fluorescents of the gym glinted off the sharp tip.

  “Oh, I didn’t say they weren’t deadly,” Brian said. “They most definitely are, and even if you’re not supposed to harm them, they will try to harm you.” And with that, he gave the howling box a sharp kick so that it tipped over onto its side. I was no expert, and I’d never seen one before, but I was pretty sure that what came spilling out of the box was a demon. “This is Kevin,” Brian said. “Now catch him.”

  Kevin was pissed. He was also green and drippy-looking, with one giant eye in the middle of his forehead and another one off-kilter, kind of slightly above his ear, like it had just accidentally drifted over, gotten stuck there, and stayed. Kevin was about three feet tall, with long, slappy feet like they were made from Silly Putty. He sputtered and looked around the room. The eye in his forehead fixed on Cassandra, and the one above his ear looked right at me. He left a trail of slime when he moved, and his feet made squeegee sounds peeling off the floor. He was so gross that he was almost cute. Almost.

  “This is our demon?” Cassandra snickered. “He’s not scary. What’s he going to do? Slime me to death?” Kevin gave her the side-eye, literally, and then almost smiled, one snaggletooth spilling out over his bottom lip. With a gurgle, he started to move toward her, and two arms sprouted out of the goo of his body, the fingers on each hand long and skinny, like pieces of sour-apple licorice. “Still not scary, dude,” she said. She stuck out a leg, meaning to nudge him with the toe of her shoe, but as soon as her foot was in reach, Kevin moved as quick as lightning and wrapped a sticky hand around it. Cassandra kicked, trying to shake him off, but Kevin was stuck, and very happy about it, his one rotten tooth on full display.

  “My foot is getting hot?” she said, almost as if she were asking a question as she swung her foot through the air, Kevin’s gloppy body dragging back and forth across the floor. Then, in an instant, all traces of amusement vanished from her face, and she started to scream. “Esme, it burns, it burns! Get him off! Get him off!”

  I tried to grab Kevin with my kinesis, but as soon as my powers made contact with his skin, a jellyfish-like sting ripped through my entire body. I turned, and in one big step, I was at the big box and digging through it, carefully, so that I didn’t cut myself on any sharp edges. I couldn’t bang at Kevin with the barbell, or throw a spear at him, without risk of hitting Cassandra too. I tossed aside a sword, a dagger, and a flamethrower. Finally, at the bottom of the box, I found it—a platinum trash grabber.

  I ran back to Cassandra, opened the pincers, and then closed them around Kevin’s midsection. I started to pull, but he had a tight grip on Cassandra, whose screams were getting louder. Still holding on to the trash grabber with my hands, I used my kinesis to empty out the rest of the box of tools, but that was useless, as everything that flew out was sharp or pointy and looked like it would get rid of Kevin by slicing Cassandra’s foot right off.

  “Brian!” I screamed. “Help me! He’s hurting her.” In response, Brian crossed his arms and didn’t move an inch.

  Frantically I unzipped my hoodie and pulled it off, then used my powers to fly it through the air and wrap it around Kevin’s face. He howled as his world went dark. With my kinesis, I gripped the trash grabber again and yanked with all my mind’s might at the same time that I used my powers to grip Kevin’s head through the sweatshirt, digging my thumbs into his big gross eye. He shrieked and let go of Cassandra to try to defend himself. I sprang back and out of his reach. The trash grabber still had a hold of his middle, so I gave it a spin and then released Kevin midair. He arced through the air and landed on the gym floor with a splat. A box of flames sprang up around him, and with a harrumph, Kevin admitted defeat and sank into a puddle.

  Cassandra was right beside me. “You okay?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “One question,” she said, turning to Coach as she caught her breath. “That thing is named Kevin?”

  * * *

  —

  By the end of the
night, we had Returned Kevin so many times that I almost felt sorry for him when Coach put him back for the last time. Almost, because as soon as the thought crossed my mind, Kevin leaned over and hocked up a loogie down the side of his box, and I was completely disgusted again.

  “So he just lives in your house?” Cassandra asked.

  “Kevin works for the Synod,” Coach said, fastening a buckle on Kevin’s box and not really answering the question. “He has helped train generations of Sitters.”

  “Does he get paid for this?” I asked, and Coach nodded.

  I snickered. “With what? Venmo?”

  “Rodents, mostly. Worms too, if we can find a good varietal. He’s rather picky.” I shuddered, hoping I was long gone when it was time for Kevin to collect his wages.

  Cassandra and I followed as Coach pushed the boxes back toward the locker room. When we got to the door, he held his hand up and turned in a circle again, this time counterclockwise, to unseal the gym.

  “How many people know about us?” I asked. “Not me and Cassandra, but Sitters in general.”

  “Non-magical people?” he asked, and I nodded.

  “We like to keep that number at zero,” he said. “Normies don’t believe in magic, so if one is accidentally exposed to it, like during your tussle with the cheerleading squad yesterday, we like to take care of it as quickly as possible.” I shivered a bit, remembering the blank look on Stephani Riggs’s face when I’d run into her in the bathroom.

  “So you just, like, muddle up their mind until they don’t remember?” Cassandra asked.

  “It sounds harsh, but yes,” he said. “Knowing about the Sitters only puts people in danger. You are protecting people by not sharing your true identity.” He stopped for a minute and looked back and forth between the two of us. “Who knows about you?”

  I was about to say “Janis and Dion,” but Cassandra spoke first. “No one,” she said, and said it definitively. Before I could stop myself, I shot her a look of surprise, then hoped that Brian hadn’t caught it. I’d have to wait until we were alone to find out why she’d lied.

  I had one more question, something I’d been wanting to ask all night. “Did being a Sitter make my mom like she is now?”

  Brian shifted in a way that made his tracksuit rustle. “I wish I knew, but I don’t. It could be that the stress of being a Sitter eventually broke her,” he said, “or it could have nothing to do with being a Sitter at all.”

  Cassandra stepped in. “And my mom? She battled demons and protected kids and did all sorts of stuff, then just died in a car wreck like she was a telemarketer or something?”

  Brian looked down and scratched a spot above his elbow. I could hear the rasp of his fingernails on the nylon. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know that it’s hard to believe for both of you, but even in our world, magic isn’t everywhere. Sometimes Sitters have breakdowns, or are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even superhumans are still human.”

  Cassandra stared at him, her dark eyes obsidian marbles, and finally Brian cleared his throat. “Good job tonight,” he said, looking back and forth between us. “There’s a lot of hard work and practice ahead of us, but we’re off to a promising start.”

  * * *

  —

  Cassandra was quiet as we walked back across campus. “Hmm, seems like we’re the ones doing the hard work and practice,” she finally grumbled, “He just stood there.”

  “Why’d you tell Brian that no one knows about us?” I asked. “Dion knows, and Janis knows too.”

  “He’s not telling us everything he knows, so why should I tell him everything I know?” She was heading to the parking lot, and without thinking, I followed her.

  “He’s the only person who’s told us anything,” I said, playing devil’s advocate, even though I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Besides, we’re going to be training for a long time, so this is just the beginning of what we’re going to learn.” I wasn’t sure I really believed what I was saying. I just wanted to hear her confirm what I was already thinking.

  She pulled her new jacket tighter around her. “He’s lying,” she said. She fished a stick of gum out of her pocket and folded it into her mouth, then crumpled up the wrapper and dropped it to the ground.

  I groaned and picked it up, then held the wrapper out to her. “What do you mean, he’s lying?”

  “About our moms. Esme, think about it. He’s sitting there telling us how everything in our lives in predetermined, and yet somehow we’re supposed to still believe that my mom just died in a car wreck and your mom just snapped? And right around the same time?” She smacked her gum. “I don’t buy it. I mean, the guy has a Bat Cave hidden in his closet, and this Synod sounds like the Illuminati on Adderall, but when it comes to our moms, they’re just like, ‘IDK, coinkydink?’ ” She held up her hands and raised her eyebrows in mock stupidity.

  “I know,” I said. “I actually think you’re right. Only, I don’t know exactly what he’s lying about.” I was still holding the gum wrapper, but she wasn’t taking it, so I put it in my pocket.

  “I’m going to find out,” she said. “Though I assume you’re just gonna do you and do whatever he tells you?” she asked.

  “No. Not exactly, at least. But I’m also not trying to rebel against something I don’t even understand yet.”

  “I’m not either,” she said. “I’m just trying to be careful. Until we understand what’s really going on, I think it’s safer to leave Janis and Dion alone. They know you can move stuff and I can start fires, and we can just leave it at that. We don’t have to tell them about the spells, or the Portal. I don’t want their brains turned to peanut butter, okay?”

  I didn’t like lying to Brian, but she had a point. The last thing I wanted was to do something that could get Janis in even more danger.

  “Are you going to take the bus?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m going to walk.” I started to walk away, but turned around when she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

  “Esme, this is bigger than us, but it’s also about us,” she said. “We’re seventeen, and up until now, our lives have pretty much sucked.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said automatically, but I knew I wasn’t being completely honest. So did Cassandra, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Trust me, I want to do all this rad stuff Sitters do, and I am going to fulfill all my responsibilities, but I’m also going to have some fun with it. And you should too.”

  “Because we deserve it,” I said.

  She nodded. “And because we can. We’re powerful,” she said. “You are powerful. Don’t forget that.”

  * * *

  —

  I figured I’d just go home, but my feet had a mind of their own. They were headed to see Mom, and were taking the rest of me with them. Usually when I walked, I put my headphones on and zoned out, imagining I was someplace far away doing something very different. Today, though, after everything that Brian had told us, I had an urge to stick my head down drains and peer in dark windows.

  Cassandra’s words echoed in my mind. Yeah, so maybe she was a rule-breaking, fistfighting shoplifter, but maybe she was also right. You are powerful, I said to myself, then repeated it again and again like it was my mantra. As I walked down the block, I almost wanted someone to jump out of the shadows to screw with me, just so I could show them who was boss. It was me. I was the boss. When I got to an intersection, I crossed the street without even waiting for the light to change.

  At the facility, I signed in to the visitors log and was escorted into her ward.

  In Mom’s room, the TV was on, some game show with the volume turned down, and she was sitting on the bed, just staring straight ahead at the pictures I had taped to the wall. There was one of me, Dad, and her from my first birthday, grinning and gathered around what easily c
ould have been a big cookie cake from the same cart where Janis would someday work. One of me and Dad from my fourth-grade Christmas recital, where I’d played a camel. One of young Mom on a beach. One of young Dad riding a bike. And the most recent pic was from Thanksgiving last year, all three of us looking like we’d rather be someplace else, Mom focused up and off to the right, not looking toward the camera.

  A few years before, I’d bought her a whole bunch of clothes from the thrift store and brought them in, but one of the nurses had told me that they didn’t have time to dress the patients in “outfits.” In all the before pictures I’d seen of her, she had dressed cool and creatively, like she had set trends instead of followed them, but now she was wearing sweatpants with dirty hems, and some slippers that had probably come from the dollar store.

  I sat down in a chair across from her and started doing what I normally did—talking. Only, instead of the normal nothing I used to fill the air with, this time I talked about how I’d felt currents of power run through me when I dangled Stephani Riggs in the air by her ankles. How Cassandra’s recklessness was scary and exciting at the same time, and how I could feel myself changing by the day. After about five minutes, I realized that something felt different. I wasn’t just talking. She was listening,

  Mom didn’t take her eyes off me the whole time I was speaking, and when I finally stopped, we sat there in silence, looking at each other. Then she got up, walked over to her dresser, and opened the top drawer, the one filled with what Dad and I referred to as her collection. She reached down and scooped up an armload, then came back and dumped it into my lap. Glue sticks, plastic barrettes, souvenir key chains, glitter gel pens, jars of spices, eyeshadow quads, dog biscuits, balloons, goggles, fruit-shaped erasers, and more. I looked up at her, and she uttered the most coherent sentence I’d heard her say in years.