“I’m not going to waste time talking,” Janine continued, “as we are here to study demons. Demons are as unique as humans, and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The sooner you are able to identify each strain, the sooner you will be able to capture them and ensure your own safety and the safety of those around you.” I was listening to Janine, but my eyes were on the box at her feet. I’d seen one of those before, when Brian was first teaching Cassandra and me about demons. This one was bigger, and as I stared, it moved a couple of inches on its own.
“Now,” Janine continued, “your goal here is to identify a demon before it can do too much damage. The collection we are working with today has been carefully curated, so I expect there will be quite a few that you do not know.” Here, she smiled. “This will make it much more exciting.” She nudged the box with one foot, and it let out a howl. Then she took a key from her pocket, bent down, and inserted it in the lock. “Oh,” she said, “I almost forgot. Spells and kinesis won’t work in this room, and the door is locked. Now, have fun!” With that, she hit the lights and popped the lock off the box. Two seconds later, there was a demon in the room.
He was green. He had a snaggletooth, and feet that looked like they were made from taffy. He oozed out of the box and plopped onto the floor. His eyes stared in two different directions because they were on two different sides of his head. He burped, which was met with universal groans.
“Seriously?” said a Caterpillar with a short blond bob. “We’re not in kindergarten. That’s Kevin.” Everyone except Janine laughed, but I found Kevin’s presence strangely comforting. He was the first demon Cassandra and I had ever met, and the one we had trained with, and if everyone else knew him too, then maybe we weren’t that far behind. But no sooner had I thought about how easy it was going to be to capture Kevin than he disappeared. A pop, a sizzle, and then he was gone.
The next demon was about the size and shape of a dachshund, but black with amorphous edges that blurred into the air. And it could fly, or float. It rose up out of the box, and hovered, then took off like a fighter jet, straight for Ruby. It collided hard with her shoulder, knocking her back against a mirror and sending a row of dumbbells clanging to the floor. “Think on your feet, Miss Ramirez!” Janine shouted as Ruby struggled to stand. “If you don’t know what’s going to happen next, you’d better react to what is happening now.”
The demon, whatever it was, was back up in the air, ricocheting around the room and sending everyone diving out of its way. It came for me, and I barely had time to flatten myself on the floor behind a treadmill. “I’ve seen it before!” Mallory shouted. “I just can’t remember what it’s called.” The demon almost took itself out when it collided with an elliptical machine, but it quickly recovered and was going after Amirah when Cassandra picked up a ten-pound weight and hurled it at the demon like she was tossing a tennis ball. It took the demon out with a thud, and dented the wall in the process, but it also gave Amirah time to compose herself. “It’s an Asperitas!” she shouted, and the demon vanished.
Save for some light streaming through the window on the door, the room was dark, and I could see Janine lounging in the corner, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked totally relaxed, but everyone else was getting amped up now that we knew what to expect. The next demon didn’t crawl or float out of the box, it unfolded, like a sheet of paper unfurling in the wind. It looked like a creased bedsheet, and it headed straight for Amirah, and quickly. “Oh God,” she said, turning and running straight into the wall, apparently forgetting that her kinesis wouldn’t work and she was stuck in here, just like the rest of us. “Amirah,” a brunette Caterpillar screamed, “duck!” Then she swung a barbell at the demon, and it crumpled as it wrapped around the bar.
“Wait, wait!” Mallory shouted, and in the dim light I could see she was pinching the bridge of her nose in concentration, like the name she was looking for was just on the tip of her tongue. “It’s a Syncline!” she finally yelled, and the demon dissipated, leaving the brunette holding a bare barbell.
The next one to arrive was a glowing, globby orb, with limbs growing out of its sides. I watched it carefully and jumped when its limbs retracted, with a slurp, into its sides. It moved slowly and deliberately through the air, and as it moved closer to me I could feel it emanating a fierce static electricity several feet in every direction. As the demon moved through the gym, Sitters stepped away to avoid its force. By now, I was starting to feel the hallmarks of the Negative demons. With each new one, I cared less and less, and I steeled myself to fight that feeling. But then the demon did something interesting. It stopped, hovering in front of Cassandra, not like it was about to attack her, but like it was looking at her. And she was looking right back. “Hey,” she said. “I know you.”
“Then say its name and get it out of here,” Blond Bob snapped.
Cassandra shook her head, still looking like she and the demon were locked in a staring contest. “No, I don’t know what kind of demon it is,” she said, “I know this particular one. We met before. On Halloween.” I swear to goddess, the demon gave a little nod. “Do you know what—” she started, and then just like that, the lights were back on and the demon was gone. Janine was striding back toward the box, and then she clamped the lock onto it.
“Well, that’s enough for that part of the lesson,” she announced. “You did okay, some better than others. Now we’ll work on memorization.”
We were all blinking in the sudden light, somewhat stunned. “We were just getting started,” Ji-A said.
“You’ve caused enough damage to the gym,” Janine said.
“You can fix everything in two seconds,” Amirah countered. “And you know that, or you wouldn’t have had us fighting demons surrounded by exercise equipment in the first place.”
“Take a seat,” Janine said, ignoring her. I didn’t see where she had gotten them from, but she was holding a stack of thick plastic binders, which she began to pass around. “These are your demonology dictionaries,” she said. “Memorize as much as you can. You will be quizzed at the end of the session.”
I could hear grumbling, especially from Amirah and two of the Caterpillars, but everyone spread out around the room and started to do as Janine had told them. I tried hard to catch Cassandra’s eye, but it felt like she was avoiding me. I sat down between the dumbbell rack and the wall and Mallory sat a few feet from me. Across the room, Ji-A raised her hand, then just started talking. “There are literally thousands of demons in here,” she said. “How are we supposed to memorize this in the next two hours?”
“I’m not here to tell you how to do your job,” Janine said.
“Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why you’re here,” Ji-A countered.
“If you have a problem, you can always leave and I will let Wanda know how you felt about the session,” Janine said.
Ji-A mumbled something that sounded like “can’t wait for the teacher evaluations,” but opened her binder and started reading. I did the same, then felt a nudge on my foot. I looked up and met Mallory’s eyes. She raised her eyebrows and jerked her head at Cassandra, who was sitting with her binder unopened in her lap, staring straight ahead like her brain was off orbiting the moons of Pluto.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Mallory mouthed. I wasn’t sure, but after watching Cassandra for a few more seconds, I turned back to Mallory and nodded. Cassandra wasn’t having an episode right now. She was just being herself.
We sat in silence, no bathroom or water breaks, until the session was almost over and Janine presented us with a pop quiz—ten demon identification questions. Sure enough, it was an impossible quiz, and Mallory, who got six right, was the only one who passed. I got two, and Cassandra got zero, because she didn’t even try. When Janine dismissed us, we flowed into the hallway. “That was a colossal waste of time,” Ji-A said. “Why have us come all the way here just to study
worksheets?” The Caterpillars stuck close together, and I could swear I saw a couple of them shoot dirty looks our way.
“This is the most budget Summit I have ever heard of,” Amirah said. “When my mom went to a Summit, they chased demons through the pyramids! And all we get is frickin’ Kevin.” She spun so that she was facing Cassandra. “What was that all about anyway? You acted like that demon was someone you were trying to hit on at a club. ‘Excuse me, don’t I know you?’ ”
Everyone was looking at Cassandra, myself included, waiting for her to answer and enlighten us, but before she could, or would, say anything, someone called my name from the end of the hallway. We all turned to see Brian striding toward us, his arms wrapped around a miniature Christmas tree.
“The rest of you should head to lunch,” he said, when he got closer. “Esme and Cassandra, please come with me. We’ve got some work to do.” He shifted the Christmas tree to his other arm and kept walking down the hall. When he reached the other end, he realized we weren’t following. He stopped and turned. “Now,” he said.
“I need to go look for someone,” Cassandra said.
“Who?” Brian asked. Cassandra glanced at me for a split second, and I knew she was talking about Cybill.
“Can’t tell you,” she said, and he laughed.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” he said.
“What about our lunch?” I asked.
“I picked up some salads,” he said. “Come on.” Reluctantly, we followed him, while the rest of the group headed toward the cafeteria. I looked back once to see that Ruby was still watching us. Cassandra reached over and squeezed my arm, and when I looked at her, her face was a warning, cautioning me not to say anything. Brian turned left into a large room labeled with a sign that said THE STEVE HARRINGTON BALLROOM. All of our now-transformed party decorations were inside, and a table was filled with bags, tissue paper, piles of candles, silver ornaments with “#springriversummit” spelled out in red glitter, and bags of individually wrapped cookies.
“Ooh, cookies!” Cassandra said, grabbing a bag, but Brian smacked it out of her hand before she could open it.
“Those are for the gift bags,” he said, “and that’s why you’re here. I’ve been trying not to bother you all weekend so that you can do what you’re supposed to do here, which is focus and immerse yourselves in your community. But you need to be involved in this party somewhat.” He held up a tote. “Which brings me to these bags. We need to stuff them. And I thought it would be nice if the two of you wrote each Summit attendee a personal note to thank them for coming.”
“But we didn’t invite them,” I said. “The Synod did.”
Brian fixed me with a look. “I think it would be a nice touch,” he said.
“Fine,” Cassandra said. “There’s probably a spell we can use to get them all done at once.”
Brian gasped. “That negates the whole point of it being personal,” he said. “And besides, spells aren’t allowed.”
“Didn’t you use spells to conjure all of this stuff?” Cassandra said, gesturing at the pile of ornaments.
“That’s different,” he said, but didn’t explain why. True to his word, there were three salads stacked on the table. Brian cracked the plastic lid off one of them, a smile on his face. “Boy, I just love a good Cobb.” I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. Sometimes I envied Brian—there must be times when it’s very cozy being that basic. “Esme, I also have some news about your mother. We can speak privately if you’d prefer.” I looked at Cassandra, who’d taken the lid off her salad and was picking out the bits of bacon.
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I’d tell Cassandra anyway.”
“Well,” Brian continued, dabbing at the corner of his mouth, “I wasn’t able to get ahold of your father, unfortunately. His phone must be dead—it goes straight to voice mail when I call.” I nodded. Or it could just be that, like with everything else, Dad hadn’t paid the bill. “But I was able to speak with someone at your mother’s facility, and her outstanding balance has been taken care of.”
Everything since the Summit started had been such a blur that I hadn’t had much time to think about Mom, but as soon as he said that, my eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God,” I said. “Brian, thank you so much. Did you use a spell to erase it from their books?” Brian shook his head and finished chewing a bite of hard-boiled egg before he spoke.
“Of course not,” he said. “You know full well that Sitter magic, in any form, is not to be used for material gain.” I nodded. Of course I knew that.
“What’d you do, then?” I asked.
“I put it on my credit card.”
“A Sitter card?” I asked, and Brian shook his head.
“No, my personal one.”
“B-B-Brian,” I stuttered, “it was several thousand dollars.”
“I have good credit,” he said. “And a high limit.” My chin trembled, and Brian looked away. He didn’t need to explain further, because I just knew: This wasn’t something he’d done as my Counsel; this was something he’d done as a friend. As Dad’s friend. Maybe their friendship wasn’t totally fake after all.
“I’m sure your father will pay me back once everything is sorted,” he said, looking down at his salad and trying to gather blue cheese on his fork.
“He will, I’m sure,” I said, even though I was less than sure. “Thank you.” Those were two paltry words to express how I was feeling right now, but they would have to do. I would have gone over and given Brian a hug, but he didn’t seem the hugging type, so I decided to show my gratitude by doing what he had asked me to do: I picked up a pen and started to write some thank-you notes.
Brian kept us busy through lunch, and by the time we were finished, my fingers were cramping from writing “We hope you enjoyed your time in Spring River,” over and over again. Our afternoon session was with Dierdre in the Mary Anne Spier Library, and I was excited to get a look at the books that Cassandra and I had spent hours unloading the day before. As we walked down the hall, I grabbed her sleeve and held her back a little.
“Hey,” I said, “in demonology, what did you mean, you knew that demon?”
Cassandra looked up and down the hall, then stepped to the side so that we were standing close to the wall. “Just that,” she said. “Like, we’d met before. He looked familiar.”
“We’ve never Returned anything like that,” I said. “I’d remember if we had.”
“I know,” she said, nodding. “Which means there’s only one place where I could have met him.”
I nodded. “The Negative,” we both said at the same time.
“That’s good, right?” I asked. “Because it means you’re remembering something?”
Cassandra’s normally calm face wrinkled up like a shar-pei’s. “Maybe,” she said. “But it’s just a ghost of a memory. If I could talk to the demon, I could ask him about that night, what I don’t remember. It’s my best option. I can’t ask MacKenzie, and if I can find out what I don’t remember, then maybe I can find out why I’m not supposed to remember, and then find out why I’m…”
Her voice trailed off. “Cursed?” I said, and she nodded, biting her lower lip. “We’ll look for Cybill at dinner. If she’s working the continental breakfast tomorrow, maybe she’ll also be in the cafeteria tonight.” Cass nodded. Just then, Deirdre came walking down the hall, a smile on her face.
“Come now, girls, you’re with me this afternoon,” she said. “And you don’t want to be late.”
* * *
—
When it came to clothes, Deirdre and Wanda went for the same silhouettes, but with a totally different vibe. While Wanda favored shades of oatmeal, Deirdre was all about the power clash: hot, feverish wax prints that burst with tropical hues, orange and blue on her skirt, pink and yellow on her top, and red and green on the scarf tied
around her nearly waist-length dreads. She smelled like palo santo, and unlike Wanda, who seemed distracted, and Janine, who was as icy as a frozen shrimp, Deirdre actually seemed like she wanted to be here.
And unlike demonology in the Fran Fine Fitness Center, which had remained basically just a hotel gym, the Mary Anne Spier Library had been transformed. There were flickering candles, the tables were draped with brocade fabric woven with thick gold thread, and a pyre of frankincense burned in a goblet. All the books had been removed from their boxes, and some sat in short stacks, while others stood individually. Their pages rustled softly, even though there was no wind, and with all the books’ energy, the room felt very crowded.
That was one half of the room. The other half looked like the discount aisle at a dollar store, with spice rack dregs and a recycling bin thrown in for good measure. From where I was sitting, I could see yellow caution tape, a Mr. Potato Head, rolls of recycled toilet paper, giant tins of Folgers coffee, tinsel, candy canes, a California Raisins nativity scene, a dog collar, and on, and on, and on….
At the front of the room, Deirdre sat down at a table and held her hand over a thick volume with black-stained edges and a cover of iridescent scales. She smiled at it, and as she did, the book gave an audible sigh. “They love Reiki,” she said, and looked at the book like it was a goldendoodle puppy. “So, as you all know by now, our books are perhaps the Sitterhood’s most precious commodity. Like us, they are ever-evolving beings and it is us who are here to serve them, not the other way around. I am assuming that most of you, in your training, have been able to spend some time with your Counsel’s books and familiarize yourselves with more than a few spells.” She paused and looked around the room at everyone’s nodding heads. “Does anyone have a favorite spell they’d like to share?”
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