The Babysitters Coven

by Kate M. Williams

“The football coach.”

  The car squealed to a stop. “The pervert coach?” Janis screeched, right along with her brakes.

  “He’s not a pervert,” I said. “He’s my and Cassandra’s Counsel.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s like a Watcher, but for Sitters,” I said.

  “A what for what?” Janis swerved to avoid a papier-mâché cow head that had been dumped in the street, a sad remnant of someone’s costume.

  “He’s the Giles to our Buffy,” I explained. “Though he claims he’s never seen the show. He’s supposed to teach us everything we need to know, and we think someone”—I pointed to the back seat—“got him out of the way so he couldn’t help us tonight.”

  “And your Buffy is?”

  “We’re Sitters,” I said. “We’re supposed to protect the innocent and save the world from evil.”

  “Oh,” Janis said, sounding very blasé for having just heard such a pronouncement. “It’s gonna take me some time to process that,” she added.

  “Me too,” I said. “We just found out this week.”

  “So far, it seems like you’re doing a real crap job,” Janis said. I knew Janis well enough to know that this wasn’t an insult. She was just telling it like it is.

  “We’re still learning,” I said. Janis nodded and sped up through a yellow light. I could see her speedometer. She was doing eight miles over the limit. I could always count on Janis. I turned back to Dion, who was buckling his seat belt. “You need to start talking,” I said. “And now.”

  “Where’s my sister?” he asked. “Did she go with my dad?”

  “Your sister,” I said, “is trapped in the Negative after she went in there to rescue the little girl you kidnapped and sacrificed to the demon underworld. Do you even know what you did?”

  He started to nod, then seemed to change his mind and started shaking his head back and forth.

  “I helped my dad,” he said. “So he could come back from that purgatory. He left his journal and the 8 Ball in the house so I would find them and help him. I just had to follow his directions so he could come back.” He swallowed and looked out the window.

  “What did your dad say you had to do?”

  “He wanted me to kidnap a kid. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I mean, it’s a kid. But he was okay with that. He said there were other ways. He gave me a spell, like the ones that you and Cass do. But I don’t think it worked. There’s a lot I can’t remember after I did the spell.”

  “Dion! He possessed you! And he kidnapped a kid while he was you. Why did you trust a spell that a Magic 8 Ball gave you? How is that possibly okay?”

  “Esme, my sister throws fire with her hands, and I just met a girl who can move things with her mind. I don’t even know what normal is anymore.”

  I sighed. He had a point.

  “What did you think was going to happen if you opened the Portal?” I asked. “That you and your dad were going to go play catch?”

  He sighed and pushed his hair off his forehead in a way that would have made me swoon just twenty-four hours earlier.

  “He was going to come back. We were going to be a family again.” Beside me, Janis lay on the horn and cursed at someone who was clearly texting and driving.

  “OMG, we have a kid to save here, people!” she yelled.

  I twisted back to Dion. There was no way the I-love-my-dad yarn was the whole story. “And?” I said. He hesitated. “Seriously, dude? I’m, like, your sister’s only chance right now, and if something else happens to her, I will dedicate the rest of my life to making sure your life is every bit the hell that Cassandra is in right now.”

  He nodded. “My dad said he’d been wronged, and that it was a mistake that he was trapped in that place. He said he was just as powerful as my mom, but that your kind wouldn’t recognize that.”

  “Keep going,” I said.

  “If I helped him come back, he could finally get what he deserved, and he would share it with me.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Power. And respect.” I couldn’t help it—I laughed, spraying a mist of spit onto Janis’s dash.

  “And he told you all this through the Eight Ball?” I asked. “A plastic toy that seventh graders play with at slumber parties?” He nodded. I picked up the 8 Ball and shook it. Since it was now basically an interdimensional walkie-talkie, I figured I might as well use it. “Your brother is an idiot,” I said to it.

  “You’re telling me,” the triangle said in response.

  We had made it to Brian’s, and Janis parked the car on the street, a few doors down from his house. “You never park right in front of the house you’re breaking into,” she said.

  “We’re not breaking in,” I said, climbing out of the car after her.

  “Well, is Coach Davis here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Did he give you a key?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Then we are definitely breaking in,” she said. “What are you going to do with pretty boy here?”

  Because of the child locks, Dion was still sitting in the back seat of the car, looking up expectantly at us.

  I walked over and opened the door so that he could get out. Janis gasped. “He’s coming with us?”

  “No freakin’ way,” I said. “He’s getting into the trunk.”

  Janis smiled, and then beeped it open.

  * * *

  —

  Anger apparently made my kinesis stronger, and getting Dion into the trunk was no more difficult than loading a sack of groceries. We were heading up the sidewalk when my phone started to ring again. I’d had more calls in one night than I’d ever gotten before in my life. I held it up to see who it was. It was Dad. I debated for a second, then hit decline. He called again. I hit decline again, then thought he was probably calling to tell me about Mom. I took a deep breath and answered it, trying to sound calm. “Hey, what’s up?” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m babysitting. I told you this morning,” I said, even though I hadn’t told him anything. “What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

  “Your mom’s facility just called,” he sighed. “Apparently, she went missing. She broke a window and climbed out.”

  I tried to muster up sounds of panic in my voice.

  “Oh my God, Dad, where is she? I can call MacKenzie’s parents, and they’ll come home early. I’ll get an Uber—”

  “No, Es, stay where you are,” he said, just like I’d known he would. “I’m going to go help look for her, and I’ll keep you posted. The last thing we need is you running around on a night like tonight.” I pretended to hesitate for a few moments.

  “Okay,” I said. “If you’re sure there’s nothing I can do.”

  “I’m sure,” he said. Then, just as I was about to hang up, he stopped me. “Have you, uh, heard anything about Brian?”

  I played dumb. “No. Is there a football game?”

  “No. I was just wondering.” He paused again. “Did he ever, uh, say or do anything weird to you?” I could tell how hard the words were for him to get out.

  “No way,” I said, scrambling to think of what I could say that might soothe Dad’s worries. “I don’t talk to him at school. Being buddy-buddy with the football coach would be bad for my rep. You know that. But I don’t think he’s offended. He gets it.”

  Dad sighed with relief. “Okay. Thanks, kid,” he said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything about Mom.”

  “I hope she’s okay,” I said, then hung up, a smile spreading across my face as I saw her getting out of an Uber across the street.

  “Thank you, Jeffrey,” I called to the driver, running toward Mom as she was running to me. When we met in the middle of the street, we hugged just like a couple of people in a
deodorant commercial. I didn’t want to let go, and I could tell that she didn’t either, but I finally pulled away. Brian’s neighborhood was fortunately a quiet one, and the streets were empty except for a couple of smashed pumpkins.

  “Where are we?” she asked. “Is this where you live? Is your dad here?”

  I shook my head. “This is Brian’s house. Brian Davis.” I suddenly realized that Brian’s name might not actually be “Brian” or “Davis” or anything involving those letters. “Our Counsel,” I clarified, “though he’s not here. He got arrested.” Mom had been nodding, but her eyes widened at this. “I think someone wanted to get him out of the way.”

  “But he has the supplies for a Return?” she asked, and I nodded. It was just a simple question, but her words were balm to my chapped heart. She knew what to do, and I wasn’t alone with this. I took her hand, and we started toward Brian’s house.

  I stopped after a few feet. “Mom,” I said, “how are you here and not…”

  I didn’t want to use the word I’d been using, but Mom smiled and supplied it for me. “Crazy?” she asked, making air quotes, and I nodded.

  “I never lost my mind,” she went on. “I was cursed. It’s complicated, and I’ll tell you the whole story later. Right now we have to find Erebus. Him running around up here isn’t good for anyone.”

  “I met him earlier,” I said. “He certainly seemed like a d-bag extreme.”

  “Someday when we have more time, you’ll have to explain to me what a d-bag is,” she said, “but for now, I need you to tell me what happened tonight. My release from the curse depended on his release from the Negative. Since I’m here, I can assume that someone let him out. Was it you?”

  I shook my head. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin to do that. It’s football season, so we haven’t really started training.”

  “What does football season have to do with training?”

  “Never mind,” I said, trying to stick to what was relevant. “But yeah, he got his son to let him out. It looked like there was some sort of ritual? There was a big drawing and stuff, like what we use to cast a spell, but different. And a kid, Mom. MacKenzie. She’s gone. She got flushed!”

  Somehow Mom had followed what I was saying. “Red Magic,” she said. “Red Magic is what normies use to acquire Sitters’ powers. It’s never good, and it’s what got Erebus flushed in the first place. The Red Magic spell to open the Portal requires the sacrifice of a child. If we’re going to get the little girl back, we don’t have much time.”

  I took her hand and pulled her up the sidewalk. She was right. There was so much I wanted to know, ten billion questions I wanted to ask her, but all of that could wait until we had MacKenzie and Cassandra back. “Mom,” I said, “this is my best friend, Janis. You’ve actually met before.”

  Mom smiled. “Oh yes,” she said. “I remember. You had on that darling ochre cable-knit and those cute checkerboard slip-ons.”

  “Esme, your mom has good taste,” Janis said.

  I figured we should go in through the back, just in case someone was watching, even though, if someone was watching, they had already seen us shove a guy into the trunk. As we rounded the corner, something in what Mom had said clicked, and I stopped and turned toward her.

  “Wait,” I said. “So all this time, all we had to do to get you back was release Erebus from the Negative?”

  Mom smiled, though it seemed a little forced. “It’s not that simple. Everything about Red Magic is complex and dangerous, and this is about a lot more than just Erebus.” I said nothing. She reached out and squeezed my hand but didn’t meet my eyes. “Now come on. Let’s get Cassandra back.”

  * * *

  —

  Standing on Brian’s back porch, I pressed my face against the window to look inside. There wasn’t a light on in the entire house. Janis jiggled the doorknob. “It’s locked,” she said, and before I could offer my services, she leaned down, picked up a garden gnome, and smashed the window. With her elbow, she knocked out the rest of the glass; then she reached in and unlocked the door. My mouth dropped open, and I saw Mom biting her lip. “I saw it in a movie,” Janis said with a shrug, then tossed the orb into the bushes.

  I walked into the kitchen and flipped on a small light above the stove. What I saw was a shock. It looked like a crime scene, though I guess that’s because it was. The place had obviously been searched. Cabinets hung open, and Brian’s tall vase of flowers, which I’d admired so much the first time we’d been there, now lay on its side, petals scattered on the floor and water pooling in the grooves between the counter tiles.

  I led the way into the bedroom, where the mattress was shoved off the bed frame onto the floor and all the pillows had been split open.

  “Dang,” Janis said, looking around. “This looks like crap now, but I have to say that I like the coach’s style.”

  “He’s actually an interior decorator, not a football coach.”

  Janis nodded. “Of all the wild things I’ve heard tonight,” she said, “that might be the wildest.”

  I picked up a few pillows and tossed them back onto the bed. “Brian told us the Portal had been sealed, and that we didn’t have anything to worry about for a while. That’s why we barely trained.”

  “Red Magic doesn’t play by the rules,” Mom said. “And Erebus was, or is, tricky. To his credit, he mastered more magic than most Sitters. It just isn’t good magic.” She sighed.“This should have been expected. You shouldn’t have been so unprepared.” She looked around the room at the mess. “This just looks like normal stuff. Where are all the goods?”

  Ugh. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My kinesis could handle a regular lock, but the Bat Cave had probably been built with that in mind. I went over to the closet. The tracksuits had all been cleaned out and tossed onto the floor as well, but I was relieved that the door was barely visible, camouflaged so that it looked like seams in the wall. I was about to give it a good hard kick when I heard Janis behind me.

  “Dang,” she said. “I had Coach pegged as more Jesus-on-the-cross, but this is wild.” I spun around to see her about to put Brian’s gold key necklace on over her head. I yelped and leapt over to rip it out of her hands.

  “Sure, you can see it,” she said, giving me a look.

  “Janis,” I said, “I love you so much. Where did you find that?”

  “It was on the floor, under some stuff.” I was sure Brian had left it on purpose, and I sent a mental thank-you to whatever weird holding cell he was sitting in right then. I swiped the pendant out of her hand, then held it flat against the wall and moved it around. When it hit the right spot, it started to glow, and then the wall silently slid open behind it.

  Thankfully, everything in the Bat Cave was still in perfect order. Mom started to laugh. “This is more like it,” she said. She walked straight to the wall of tools and grabbed the razor barbell Brian had tossed at me that night in the gym. It was in her hand for just a second before it crashed to the floor, and she was barely able to jump back in time to keep it from crushing her foot and slicing it to bits at the same time.

  “Oh no, Esme,” she said. “This is not good.”

  She bent to pick it up. I could see the strain on her face, but the barbell didn’t budge. I was next to her in two steps, and bent down and picked it up for her. “You’re just rusty,” I said, holding it out to her. “You’ll get used to it again in no time.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not that,” she said. “My powers are gone.”

  I felt like I’d been thumped in the stomach with a soccer ball, and all the air went out of me. “What?”

  “You’re going to have to get MacKenzie and Cassandra back on your own.”

  “Mom, I’m not trained,” I said as soon as I got my breath back. “I can’t do that!”

  “You don’t have a choice,” she
said. “You’re going to have to.”

  * * *

  —

  Mom knew that the Portal flushed automatically when Sitters were doing a Return, but to open it and pull something out rather than send something in required a spell. Part of Mom’s powers being gone meant that she had absolutely no idea what that spell was.

  Mom was sitting in Brian’s chair when she told me this, and for a second, I had an out-of-body experience where all I could focus on was her sweatpants, so large that they pooled around her ankles. I could feel myself getting hot and my breath quickening, sure signs of a panic attack coming my way. “Oh God,” I moaned. “There’s got to be someone who knows. If Brian’s in jail, he gets one phone call, right? Does that mean we can call him?”

  “Why don’t you look the spell up?” Janis asked.

  “Janis!” I snapped, my panic getting the better of me. “It’s not like it’s going to be on Wikipedia or anything.”

  “I mean in a book,” she clapped back. “Dude’s got a whole medieval library here.” She pointed behind me. I spun around, then practically yelped with joy. There were Brian’s books, all of which were massive, dusty tomes that looked like they’d been pulled straight out of the Jim Henson props department. We hadn’t touched them in our training, but Janis was right: if there was a spell to open the Portal, this would be the best place to find it.

  It was also an intimidating place to start. Each book was as thick as my thigh, and there were dozens of them. Think, I said to myself. What did I know I could do? I could move things with my mind. I’d unlocked doors, dangled humans, wrecked cars, and thrown dodgeballs. Some of that hadn’t been intentional (sorry, baby birch tree), but when it had been, I’d just thought about the end result, and it had happened. So maybe that would work here? If I wanted to use kinesis to open the book to the Portal page, maybe I could do that, even if I didn’t know which page that was. Except Brian had said that our powers wouldn’t work in the cave.

  “Come on,” I said to Janis and Mom. “Help me move them into the bedroom.”