The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

  Instead I wanted to double-tap his living room. It was the coziest place I’d been in a long time—overstuffed couch dotted with indigo-dyed throws and sheepskins, succulents in smooth terra-cotta pots circling the fireplace, a diffuser in the corner that made the whole place smell like Tahitian vanilla and jasmine.

  “Okay,” Cassandra said, flopping onto the couch and sinking into the pillows. “It’s cool if you’re kidnapping us, so long as we’re staying here.” She picked a candle up off a side table and sniffed it.

  “We’re not,” he said. “Get up.”

  We followed him through the kitchen, which was sunny and filled with viney green plants and bowls of bright citrus, through to the bedroom, where a queen-sized bed held more pillows than Pinterest. At the back of the bedroom, he opened the closet and shoved all the clothes to one side. I was so distracted by the fact that he had about twenty nylon tracksuits—and that they were all on hangers—that it took me a second to realize that he’d taken off his necklace and I could finally get a glimpse of the charm. It looked like a sacred geometry version of Prince’s symbol, and holding it flat, Brian pressed it against the wall. The area all around it started to glow purple, there was a beep, and then a door slid open. Brian put the necklace back on, and I started to back away. Cassandra had been right, and I had been wrong. There was something off about Brian. Way off.

  “I like your cozy vibes and all, but I am not going into your dismemberment chamber,” Cassandra said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone. “In fact, I’m calling the school right now and telling them that a teacher forced me to leave campus with him and to go to his house.”

  Brian sighed. “I’m going to force you to do a lot of things.” Then, with a shove, he pushed us both through the door and followed us inside.

  * * *

  —

  Instead of panicking, Cassandra and I raised our hands at the same time, Cassandra to throw flames, me to grab the first thing I could to whack Brian right in the back of the head.

  Except nothing happened.

  “Stop it,” Brian said, sounding annoyed, as if we’d done nothing more threatening than blow him a raspberry. “And sit down. Your kinesis won’t work in here.”

  I froze. What was going on? I would have been less surprised if he had tried to murder us. How did he know about the kinesis? I felt stunned, so I did the only thing I could think to do, which was exactly what he’d told me to. I sat down. Cassandra wavered, then followed suit.

  I looked around as I tried to catch my breath. This room was entirely different from the rest of the house—there was nothing cozy about it. It was sharp and modern, with a large metal desk on one side and a sleek flat-screen on the other. The walls were a deep purple, and lined with glass display cases. When it registered what was in them, I struggled to swallow the lump rising in my throat. They were full of ropes, handcuffs, muzzles, shackles, things that looked like Taser guns. On the other wall hung several framed photos of teenage girls, some of whom were bloody, bruised, and barely standing.

  So, he was going to kill us. He was just going to take his time. I started to think of all the things I was going to miss when I was dead: Dad, Janis, Pig, my closet, even stupid school. I liked being alive, and I didn’t want it to end.

  “Relax,” Brian said. “You’re not going to get murdered or dismembered. But you are in trouble.” He walked around and sat down behind the desk.

  “What you did today was very, very dangerous. You revealed yourself in a highly public, and highly unnecessary, way. And over what? A boy you don’t even like?” He closed his eyes and massaged his temples with his fingertips. “Fortunately, I was able to take care of it, and the cheerleaders will not remember anything other than crossing paths with you by the annexes.” He gave us a hard stare, waiting for his words to sink in. “But that will be the last unnecessary use of any of your kinetic powers. Do you understand me?”

  I was completely lost, but I still nodded. “Esme, it’s bad enough that you manipulated the entire school server to get out of the classes you don’t like. And, Cassandra, did you not think anyone would notice that you’re acing all your tests?”

  She huffed and crossed her arms in front of her. “What? So some teachers see a Mexican girl getting A’s, and suddenly they’re all suspicious? That’s BS.”

  “No,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Some teachers see a student with a shoddy academic transfer record, who doesn’t show up to class with so much as a pencil, suddenly start to get a perfect score on everything she touches. Then they get suspicious.” Cassandra sank a little lower in her chair.

  “Some of the blame for this falls on me,” he continued, looking straight at me, “as I should have alerted you to your true identity as soon as your kinesis activated.”

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting up straighter and seizing my opportunity, even if I didn’t totally know what that opportunity was. “This is your fault. What’s wrong with you?”

  He leaned forward, an elbow on his desk and his forehead in his hand, and sighed. “This season is killing me,” he said. “Have you see our schedule? Every week, we’re up against a top-tier school. Jimmy Rodriguez has an arm like Tom Brady, but he got caught smoking weed behind the Dairy Queen. Twice. I was able to get him out of it the first time, but—”

  “Who is Jimmy Rodriguez?” I asked.

  “He’s our quarterback. He could definitely go D-1 and lead us to top in the city if—”

  “Wait,” I said, interrupting him. “You’re trying to tell me that Cassandra and I had to figure this stuff out for ourselves because you were distracted by…sports?” I spat out the last word like it was a wad of flavorless gum.

  “Like I said,” he said, straightening up and dusting a speck of invisible dirt off his track jacket, “I’m sorry.”

  “You actually didn’t say that,” Cassandra said.

  “Well, I meant it,” he said. “And technically, I am only Esme’s Counsel. We were not aware that you were a Sitter, Cassandra, until you showed up. Besides, it’s no big deal if we got a bit of a delayed start on your training, as the Synod’s seal will hold until the end of the season.” He cleared his throat. “End of the year, I mean.”

  My head was hurting from trying to keep track of everything he was saying. Counsel. Sitter. Synod. Freaking football. While I was trying to figure out the best way to formulate a question, Cassandra got straight to the point.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  To my surprise, Brian actually smiled. “My apologies,” he said. “In my anger, I forgot how little you actually know.” He got up, nylon shuffling, and walked to the side of the room with all the pictures. “You have a very proud lineage,” he said, gesturing at all the photos on the wall, “one that has kept our world safe for thousands upon thousands of years.”

  Cassandra leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. She closed her eyes and pressed her palms into them. It was a gesture I’d never seen her make before, like she was stressed, and I realized I’d never seen her look stressed. “Maybe it’s because I’m a transfer student with a shoddy academic record, but I’m still not following you,” she said. “At all.”

  “These are all the Sitters who came before you, or who are currently protecting other Portals around the world.” I opened my mouth to point out that he was still talking about stuff we didn’t understand, but he kept going. “The Synod is our governing council, and I report directly to them and keep them apprised of all activities here in Spring River.”

  “Activities?” I said. “You mean like yearbook club and musical theater?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m not talking about high school. I’m talking about magic.”

  I was starting to feel like that time when I accidentally took a double dose of Mucinex and filled in all the bubbles on my multiple-choice math test. I needed Brian
to pump the brakes and slow down, because nothing was making sense. “I think maybe you should start at the beginning,” I said.

  He tried to stifle a grin as he reached into a drawer and pulled something out. “They said I’d never need this PowerPoint,” he said under his breath, almost as if he were talking to himself. “But I knew it would come in handy.”

  I stared, dumbfounded. Was he really about to show us a PowerPoint? Then I saw what he had in his hand. It was a remote control. The wall behind Brian shimmered and became a giant screen. Then words swam into view. “Congratulations! You’re a Sitter now!”

  He looked at us, and when he registered that we were just as lost as ever, the smile fell from his face. “You should be taking notes,” he said.

  I nodded quickly, dug into my backpack, and pulled out a spiral-bound and a pen. Cassandra, of course, had nothing, so I ripped out a sheet and handed it to her, along with a spare pencil.

  Brian clicked his remote, and a Venn diagram appeared. The circle on the left said “The Negative,” the circle on the right said “The Definite,” and the space in the middle said “The Sitters.” The middle space had a drawing of a girl that looked like it had been done by a third grader.

  Brian’s remote was also a laser pointer, and a tiny red dot made circles over the area that said “The Definite.” “This is our dimension,” he said, then moved the red dot over to the circle that said “The Negative.” “And this is a dimension that runs parallel to ours. The two are connected through interdimensional gates, called Portals, that are protected by Sitters.

  “The Negative sucks positivity from the Definite,” he continued, clicking through to the next slide. “In addition to spawning actual demons, the Negative breeds emotions that allow evil to blossom and fester.” Behind Brian, the screen filled with words—“innocence,” “enthusiasm,” “cooperation,” “encouragement,” “community,” “inspiration”—that were soon eaten up by a new set—“indifference,” “unhappiness,” “ennui,” “boredom,” “selfishness,” “passivity.” And on and on. Then, with a poof, they all vanished, and “THE NEGATIVE” filled the screen in heavy block letters.

  I could see why Brian was so proud of his PowerPoint. It was pretty good, and what was more, I was starting to follow him. From the way she leaned forward in her seat, rapt, eyes on the screen, it seemed like Cassandra was too.

  “The natural order of the Negative is to seep into the Definite, and it is the Sitter’s role to minimize the effects of that. Sitters must protect the values of the Definite, remedy the evil that is the result of the Negative, and Return any entities that manage to breech the Portal.” The screen behind him filled with a crude animation of a girl whacking a ghost with a stick. Apparently there was a reason why Brian taught gym and not art.

  Cassandra raised her hand, which I’m sure she never did in class, and Brian pointed at her. “Who are the Sitters?” she said.

  “I’m glad you asked,” he said, clicking the remote way more dramatically than he needed to. Sure enough, the slide that appeared said “Who are the Sitters?”

  Brian kept clicking, and a list started to appear underneath the question:

  Female

  Young

  Responsible

  Highly trained

  Protective

  Something clicked, and I sat back in my chair, flabbergasted. It had just hit me. “Oh my God,” I said. “When you say ‘Sitter,’ you mean—”

  “In a sense, a babysitter,” Brian said. “You enforce the rules and make sure no one gets hurt.”

  “But instead of a couple of kids, we’re in charge of…” I trailed off.

  “Humanity,” Brian said, finishing my sentence for me.

  As I sat there letting his words sink in, Cassandra jumped up and ran over to the wall of photos. She pointed to a picture of a redhead brandishing what looked like a bear trap. “So my mom’s note that said ‘Find the babysitters,’ this is what that was about?”

  Brian nodded. “Yes, exactly,” he said. “Your mother was a smart woman, and she must have coded the note on the chance that it might fall into the wrong hands. The secrets of the Sitterhood are highly guarded.”

  “Wait,” I said, still reeling. “So all those horror movies about babysitting, like Halloween, there’s something behind that idea?”

  Brian nodded. “Normies do not know about the Sitterhood,” he said, “but occasionally an intuitive one picks up on something and a bit of Sitter mythology makes it into the culture of the Definite. When it comes to true evil and destruction, the traditional normie channels of protection are rather ineffectual. The police don’t have a clue, and governments are useless, but Sitters get it done.”

  My head was spinning at the revelation that my being a Babysitter was about way more than just sitting for babies. “I always thought I liked horror movies because being scared made me feel something,” I said, and Brian shook his head.

  “It is likely that you were subconsciously drawn to them,” he said, “because the female protagonists reminded you of your mother.” I hated the idea of being psychoanalyzed by a guy wearing a whistle, but I had to nod. What Brian was saying made perfect sense.

  “So if Sitters are female,” I said, “where do you come in?”

  “Like I said, I am your Counsel. I am a part of the Sitterhood, but not a Sitter. I have access to information, but I have no inborn kinesis of my own. All the powers I possess have been granted to me by the Synod.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Does this mean that Janis is a Sitter too?”

  Brian shook his head. “Janis is a babysitter but not a Sitter,” he said. “Janis’s path to babysitting was more traditional. For her, it was a choice. For the two of you, it is destiny.”

  “And Janis’s destiny is Central Saint Martins,” I said mournfully, before realizing that the words meant absolutely nothing to Cassandra and Brian.

  But Cassandra wasn’t paying attention to me anyway. “I’ve only babysat once in my entire life,” she said.

  “And she sucked at it,” I added, causing her to shoot me some serious side-eye.

  “Don’t get caught up too much in the literal,” Brian said, “as you are most definitely a Sitter.”

  “But you and your Synosh, or whatever it is, didn’t know about me?”

  “Synod,” he corrected her. “And no, we didn’t.”

  Cassandra got up and walked over to the photo wall. “But my mom was a Sitter.” She pointed to a teenage girl with bruise-colored lipstick and long, dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore denim overalls that had one leg shredded entirely, and one of her arms was in a sling, but her smile was wide and genuine. “This is her, right?” Cassandra asked.

  Brian nodded. “Sitting sometimes skips a generation, though,” he said. “And when you were born, your mother was under the impression that you did not have powers. After her death, your custody was treated as a family matter, and not one in which the Synod should intervene. No one knew that you were a Sitter until you showed up at Spring River High and set the girls’ bathroom trash can on fire.”

  Cassandra smirked. “You knew that was me?”

  “I figured it out,” he said. “Even the can was incinerated.”

  I expected Cassandra to keep pushing for more info, but instead she just nodded and changed the subject, turning back to the picture of her mom and pointing. “Why does she look like she just got the crap smacked out of her?” she said.

  “That picture was taken right after her first Return,” he said. “She would have been just about the same age that you are now.” He walked down to the opposite end of the wall. “Esme, here’s your mother.”

  I got up and walked closer to the picture that he had pointed out. It was teenage Mom, all right. Though, unlike the photo of Cassandra’s mom, she didn’t l
ook like she’d just been through a werewolf car wash. She was sitting on a picnic table, leaning forward toward the camera, and didn’t have a scratch or bruise on her, though her smile was a little lopsided. “Don’t let that picture fool you,” Brian said. “She’d just been through one of the most dangerous battles in modern Sitter history. It wasn’t physical, but entirely mental, and she nearly lost her mind.”

  “A hint of what was to come, I guess,” I said. Brian looked away and cleared his throat. “So you were a friend of my dad’s, but you also knew who my mom really was?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. “As your Counsel, a friendship with your father was the most likely cover story that would allow me to keep tabs on you without raising suspicions.”

  I was reeling. I’d always felt like there was something off about their friendship, but I never would have imagined it was as nuts as this. “So you two never even played on the same team, or whatever it is that Dad always gets nostalgic about?” I asked, picturing the look of contentment on Dad’s face when he would tell me stories about how long he and Brian had known each other.

  Brian shook his head. “I’m afraid those memories were implanted in him to create a bond. I used to be an interior designer.” So that explained the pillows, but it also made my heart break a little bit for Dad. Brian continued. “I don’t even like football, but now it consumes me. Or, to be precise, our offensive line consumes me. Those idiots couldn’t hold on to a ball if it were covered in glue—” He caught himself. “Sorry. We’re not here to talk about football.”

  “Wait,” I said, still not sure I was hearing him right. “If you don’t even like football, how did you get a job as the coach, then?”

  “The Synod used a few spells on me. At the time I came to Spring River, football coach was the only job available that would allow me to be nearby when you faced your Changeover.”

  “Changeover?”

  “Your seventeenth birthday. Your onset of powers and the assumption of your new role. I didn’t realize it would happen right in the middle of one of the toughest seasons of my life.” He groaned and cracked his knuckles, a faraway look on his face.