The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

  I stayed totally still until the fizzy feeling beneath my fingers faded, the sparkles on my palm first, until it was just my fingertips, then nothing. Slowly I pulled my hand away and put it in my lap. My heart was pounding, and I could feel that sweat had gathered on my hairline. I was embarrassed to look up at Dion, scared that he might not like it. The only sound in the room was the rush of air through his nostrils. I wasn’t even sure I was breathing. He held his arm out, bending it away and then back toward him, flexing and wiggling his fingers.

  “Oh my God,” he said, looking up at me. “You’re amazing….”

  Down the hall, a light flickered on. The clunk of a door swinging open into the wall. Dad’s door. Seconds later, his voice. “Esme, are you still up?”

  Ugh. The Mean Girls would have to wait.

  I woke up with a smile on my face and got dressed accordingly, in my yellow happy-face sweater, which I typically wore only ironically on days when I was in a really bad mood, and my lavender corduroy skirt. My happiness had nothing to do with Kevin and everything to do with Dion. I had very little experience with guys because there had never really been anyone worth having experience with. Dion was different.

  Part of having a “crazy” mom meant there was always this block of ice between me and anyone who came from a family that was even remotely normal, and I couldn’t imagine how much energy it would take to melt that ice. Janis was—or at least had been—my BFF, and even with her, I’d hardly talked about Mom because I didn’t want Janis to think I was too much of a downer. But I’d never met anyone like Dion. It wasn’t even that he and I had talked about Mom. It was just that I got this feeling like I could and it would totally be okay. He brought up serious stuff all the time. Also, even though he’d been joking about Ms. Norbury, I was pretty sure he’d meant it when he’d said he liked girls with glasses.

  My high lasted until I got to school and saw Cassandra waiting for me at my locker. Then it was replaced with guilt. Did she know? Did she care? I mean, nothing had happened yet, so what was there even to say or tell her? She’d said he was a real jerk, but didn’t everyone with a brother think that? He could have just been a real jerk to her.

  “Hey,” I said, shooing her aside so that I could get to my lock. As she moved, I saw that she was once again carrying zero school supplies. “No homework?” I asked. Granted, the only thing I had studied the night before was the curve of Dion’s ear, but I had still dutifully packed up my textbooks and hauled them around.

  She crossed her arms and gazed over my shoulder, down the hall toward the gym. “None that I’m going to do,” she said. “Brian said we should only use our powers for necessary purposes. Not my fault if his definition of ‘necessary’ and mine aren’t exactly the same.”

  I rolled my eyes and pulled my locker open.

  My chemistry textbook had fallen sideways in the bottom of my locker, and as I struggled to get it out, Cassandra took a step back and looked at me. “What’s up with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You seem happy,” she said, “but also not.”

  I gave the book a good hard tug and almost fell backward into a passing pack of freshmen. “Well, last night was weird. Even you have to admit that.”

  “Yeah. Weird and awesome,” she said. “Kevin was kind of small change, though. I want to train with something that’s really scary.”

  I’d finally gotten the book out, and I stood up. “Cassandra, you say that now,” I said. “But last night, you were screaming your head off when Kevin was stuck to your foot.”

  She got a pouty look on her face. “Well, he was stingy. Just not scary.” She bit her lip. “I wonder what happens if you accidentally kill something. Is that going against Sitter code if you don’t mean to do it?”

  “Tell me you do not want to kill Kevin.”

  Now she looked offended. “Of course not! Kevin’s been through enough.” Her face brightened at something over my shoulder, and I turned to see Brian swishing down the hallway looking like he had a bee in his jacket.

  As he passed us, Cassandra fell into step beside him, and I followed, half-panicked that Brian’s look of total displeasure meant he somehow knew I’d used my powers to alter Dion’s tattoo.

  “What’s up, Brian?” Cassandra said. “What’s on the agenda for tonight? Are you going to show us the hole?”

  Brian didn’t miss a step, and didn’t look at her. “You shouldn’t be talking to me at school,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “and you definitely shouldn’t be talking to me about this at school.” I put a few steps between us so it would look like we were maybe going to the same place, just not together, but Cassandra kept pace right next to him.

  “Whoops, my bad,” she said. “So, are you going to show us the hole?”

  Now he stopped and turned to her. “What did I just say?” he said. “Also, please do not refer to the Portal as a hole. It’s diminishing language.” He resumed his stride. “We’re not practicing tonight. Haven’t you seen the news?”

  “The viral video where the cow does ballet?” I asked. “It was all over my feed this morning.” Brian shot me the most withering of stares.

  “No,” he said. “Actual news. Bishop Ward beat Pawnee East, which means if we don’t win this Friday’s game against West Mission, we can kiss our shot at state goodbye.”

  Cassandra stopped walking. “Of course. Football,” she sighed. “You consider that news.”

  Brian made a flustered noise. “I’ve got to call double practices for the rest of this week,” he said. “We’ll resume your training next Monday.”

  “Are you serious?” Cassandra asked. “Tomorrow is Halloween. Isn’t that like demon spring break?”

  Brian glanced nervously up and down the hall as students and teachers flowed past us. “Even if the Portal hadn’t been sealed by the Synod, Spring River has never seen much activity on Halloween. Most of the demons travel to hot spots like Disneyland.”

  “Disneyland?”

  Brian nodded. “All those kids in one place, and people in costume. Keeping the demons out of there is like playing Whac-a-Mole. I’m always thankful I wasn’t assigned Anaheim.” Brian nodded at a passing administrator, then looked back at us. “I really have to go, okay? We’ll go full speed ahead next week. Until then, I promise there’s nothing to worry about. If you’re really itching for something to do, I can see if Kevin’s available.”

  “Don’t bother,” Cassandra said. “We’ll just go trick-or-treating with the normies. Maybe we can catch someone trying to smash a pumpkin or steal a Baby Ruth.”

  “Did you talk to the Synod?” I asked, not wanting to let him go. “About the Goblin King and Voldemort?”

  He glanced up and down the hall, more impatient with each second. “I did,” he said. “And they confirmed that there has been no Portal activity in Spring River. Nothing has passed in or out, and they suggested that the next time someone breaks into a house while you are babysitting, you do not handle it yourself and instead call the police.”

  “Ha,” Cassandra scoffed. “You yourself said they were useless.”

  “Against demon activity, yes, but that is still the protocol with…uh…” He paused and seemed to cast about for the right word. “Perverts,” he said finally. “I really have to go. The only way we can get away with this much interaction at school is if you two decide to manage the football team.”

  “Gross,” I said at the same time Cassandra said, “Never.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Now bye.”

  “Maybe I should just burn down the football stadium,” Cassandra said as he turned the corner out of sight. “That would get his attention.”

  “I have to babysit tomorrow,” I said. “You should come with me.”

  Cassandra smiled. “Perfect,” she said. “I’m excited. I don’t think
Sitter do-no-harm rules apply to human kidnappers.”

  I nodded, but hoped that Cassandra wasn’t going to get to test her theory, even though I had to admit that I had a feeling too. Babysitting on Halloween—what could not go wrong?

  * * *

  —

  In spite of the existence of the movie Halloween—basically the blueprint for the let’s-torture-the-babysitter genre—I’d never been freaked out about babysitting on Halloween. Until now. Cassandra had a point. What better way to catch a kidnapper than being with a kid? I wasn’t even sure we were actually trying to catch a kidnapper. It just kind of seemed like, well, what else were we supposed to do, now that we knew we had superpowers but the only person who could tell us what to do with them was busy with a bunch of androgen-addled primates who only knew how to drink water when it was squirted directly into their mouths?

  As I waited for the bus after school, I pulled out my phone, took a deep breath, and then hit one of the two numbers in my favorites. I grew more nervous with each ring. Janis and I hadn’t talked much since the night at the Reynoldses’. Even a week ago, it would have been inconceivable that I would hang out with a guy and not rehash every second and dissect every detail with her. But I hadn’t even told her about Dion yet, and that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about now.

  The call went to voice mail, and I hung up without leaving a message. I was about to put my phone back into my bag when she called me back.

  “Hey,” she said, and I could tell she was driving.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Silence.

  “What’s up?” I added.

  “I was going to call you,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to dress up tomorrow. My mom accidentally washed my wig and now it looks like crap, and I kinda already wasn’t really feeling it.”

  “Okay,” I said. Janis’s wig was a frizzed-out red triangle she’d ordered from Amazon weeks before, so if she said it looked like crap now, it must have been really bad. We’d been planning on going as our redheaded fashion heroines. She was going to be Grace Coddington, and I was going to be Vivienne Westwood. It was an idea that had been sparked by a pair of knockoff pirate boots I’d found at the end of the summer. My outfit was going to be perfect.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “No worries. I’d kinda forgotten about it anyway.”

  “Cool,” she said. “I’m glad you’re not mad.”

  I saw the bus round the corner, and I pulled out my card to get on. “I wanted to ask you about that night you were babysitting.”

  She responded with nothing.

  “You remember that night that someone came into the house dressed like Voldemort?”

  “Yes, Esme, I remember the most terrifying night of my life. What about it?”

  Ugh. I wanted to kick myself. I couldn’t believe I’d said something that stupid.

  “I wanted to ask you about what you saw. What did it look like?”

  “You’ve read the books. You’ve seen the movies. You know what Voldemort looks like. Black cloak, botched nose job. The whole deal.”

  I swallowed. “Did it look human?”

  She was quiet again, but even through the phone, I could tell that it was a different kind of quiet.

  “Kind of,” she said. “Yes and no. It gave me a weird feeling, like I was hyper and pissed off. You know like when you drink too much coffee? It made me feel like that.”

  I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. That definitely sounded like a demon from the Negative.

  “But I saw its shoes, and those were definitely human.”

  “Janis! You saw its shoes, and you’re just mentioning this now?”

  “I was scared out of my mind, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I know. But what kind of shoes were they?”

  “They were like that kind of boot that Aaliyah wore, and then they did that Off White collab…” I was dumbstruck, and I didn’t know which was more mind-blowing, that the kidnapper had worn Timbs, or that Janis appeared to have forgotten what they were called.

  * * *

  —

  Halloween was my favorite holiday, but I woke up with a sense of dread that even the smell of fake blood in the air couldn’t dispel. I dragged myself out of bed and stared at my closet. Janis or no, I couldn’t let Halloween pass without a costume. This was the only day all year when I almost didn’t hate my school, because on Halloween, the halls are hyped on horror and sugar, and even the teachers get into it. You can find Freddy Krueger teaching math and Norman Bates giving a sex ed lesson, and the cafeteria just gives up on cooking and passes out Tootsie Rolls and peanut M&M’s. I had to figure out what I could pull together from the clothes I already had, since rolling solo as Vivienne made me too sad. When my eyes settled on a tan, cable-knit cardigan, I knew exactly what I was going to wear.

  Fifteen minutes later, in a forest-green mock turtleneck, said cardigan, knee-length floral skirt, cream-colored tights, and penny loafers, I, Esme Pearl, Babysitter on Halloween, left for school dressed as Laurie Strode, babysitter in Halloween.

  * * *

  —

  No one got it. Oh well.

  * * *

  —

  Even with the costumes and the candy and the girls screaming bloody murder to stoke the ego of every idiot in a hockey mask, the day was a drag. Janis didn’t dress up, and Cassandra was nowhere to be seen, and the cafeteria made a big deal about a “two-per-person limit” on the Tootsie Rolls, even though they were, like, the smallest size possible. Finally, I set out for my job, starting to regret that I’d said I’d do it, even though I definitely needed the money.

  The thing about MacKenzie McAllister—or MacMc, as Janis and I sometimes called her, but never to her face—was that I wasn’t sure that I liked her. Or, more specifically, I wasn’t sure that she liked me. She was well behaved and caused no trouble, but it was like she’d been a grown-up since she was seven years old. She didn’t laugh at any of my jokes. She thought most stories were silly (“I prefer nonfiction,” she’d said to me once when I’d suggested a book of fairy tales), and she considered all games except chess a waste of time. But as long as I could put aside the fact that MacKenzie was probably smarter and more mature than me, she was the easiest money I could make.

  Mrs. McAllister left a large plastic pumpkin of candy for us to pass out to the trick-or-treaters. She and Mr. McAllister were headed to a costume party, dressed as Princess Leia and Han Solo. MacKenzie was clearly unimpressed with her parents, but I had to admit that Mrs. McAllister was really rocking that sex-slave-in-a-precious-metal-swimsuit look. I guess her eighty-dollars-an-hour Pilates lessons had paid off.

  As soon as they’d pulled out of the driveway, MacKenzie turned off the porch light. “Let’s just pretend we’re not home,” she said. “I’m not in the mood to coo over some half-hearted re-creations of commercial icons taped together by parents who couldn’t really be bothered.”

  “Ooohhhh-kay,” I said. “More candy for us, then. What do you want to do tonight?” I still had two hours before MacKenzie would put herself to bed.

  “I’m configuring my new phone,” she said, holding up the shiny, brand-new device that I’d seen on the counter and had just assumed belonged to one of her parents.

  She quickly typed in a password, then looked up at me. “We should have each other’s phone numbers, just in case,” she said.

  I bit my lip to keep from smiling, then recited my number for her. The instant I was done, my phone dinged. Her full contact information, complete with email address and home number. In the company field, she’d entered “Sunrise Elementary, fifth grade.”

  I trailed after her into the family room, where she sat down on one end of the couch, barely looking up from the screen. I sat down on the other end and started to pull out some of my homework. Then my phone dinged with a text from Cass
andra.

  omw

  Crap. I’d forgotten to clear Cassandra’s presence with Mrs. and Mr. McAllister before they’d left, and now I was in the position of having MacKenzie see me break the rules.

  “Hey, MacKenzie,” I said, “do you mind if my friend Cassandra comes over to hang out tonight?”

  She looked up at me, genuine wonder in her face. “Why?”

  I could have said for a school project or to study for a test, but I knew that Cassandra wouldn’t bring any books, and that MacKenzie would see through that in a second. I settled on the truth. “Because it’s Halloween,” I said. “And two babysitters are better than one.”

  “Does my mom know?”

  “I forgot to ask her. You can say no if you want, or if you don’t like Cassandra, she’ll leave. We won’t bother you.”

  She stared at me for a few moments, brown eyes big and serious under heavy brown bangs that set off a smattering of cocoa-dust freckles across her nose. “Okay,” she said, turning back to her phone. It looked like she had the stocks app open, probably tracking the progress of her college fund. “That’s fine.” Which was good, because two minutes later the doorbell rang.

  * * *

  —

  Never underestimate the effect of beauty on guys, or kids. From the minute Cassandra showed up, MacKenzie was way more interested in her than she’d ever been in me. She asked Cassandra all kinds of questions, like where she was from, and how we knew each other. She even played hostess, getting up from the couch and saying, “I’m going to get a snack. Cassandra, would you like anything?” before heading into the kitchen.