Spells Like Teen Spirit Read online

  “A-holes,” Cassandra said as she slammed the phone down onto the receiver so hard I could swear I heard the plastic crack.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “They said they don’t have ravioli on the menu, and they never had it,” she explained. “And when I told them to just go to the store and get some, they got offended!” She huffed. “So we’re getting pappardelle primavera. It seemed to be the closest.” She paused for a second. “What is pappardelle primavera?”

  “It’s got peas in it!” Janis yelled from the bathroom, over the sound of the water that she was splashing onto the floor. Then she came out, drying her hands on a towel. “Well,” she said, “should we let them out, so that they have some time to get used to the place?”

  I swallowed as I thought of Dad’s credit card, already pushing its limit, which had been used to make the room reservation. Then I looked at Mom, who was staring intently at the floor, where she was trying to get a hairbrush to fit onto her foot. “Sure,” I said. “Let ’em out.”

  Janis was so excited that she actually jumped into the air and clapped her hands. Then she walked over to one of the bags and lifted out a wire cage with two chickens inside. “You were so good, and so quiet on the way up here!” she cooed at them. “What good chickadees you are!” She set the cage on the bed and opened the door. The brown-and-white one hopped out and immediately pecked Janis’s finger. “Ouch!” she squealed, jumping back. “That’s the mean one, right?”

  “Nope,” Cassandra said. “The brown-and-white one is the nice one, remember? It’s the black one that’s a little brat.” Janis took a big step back from the bed as the black one stepped out of the cage and began pecking at the bedspread.

  There had been two chickens present when Cassandra’s curse had been accidentally removed, both of which Cassandra and I had conjured into existence during the Summit. Over the past couple of weeks, we’d tried as hard as we could to spell up a chicken, but the closest we’d gotten was a six-piece nugget. The original conjured chickens were now in New York with Amirah, and while she hadn’t thought twice about parting with her clothes, the chickens were a different story. Especially since their @city_chicks account had fifty-three thousand followers, one of which was Ariana Grande. It turned out that Amirah was really good at making chicken-sized Balenciaga knockoffs, and that got a lot of likes.

  We’d had to buy these foul birds, and as it had turned out, it wasn’t all that easy for three teenage girls to buy two chickens, even in Kansas. We’d driven forty-five minutes outside of Spring River one day, only to get denied when Janis let it slip that we didn’t have a coop. Another time, some woman called us a string of very nasty words when Cassandra said her chickens were “the wrong color.” These two were the right colors, but they hadn’t spent much time around humans. Fortunately, the farm supply store we’d bought them from had a forty-eight-hour return policy, and these two hens were headed right back at hour forty-seven.

  Cassandra’s phone dinged with a text. “Dion’s here,” she said, reading from it. “I’ll be right back.”

  She disappeared out the door to go meet her brother. “I’m nervous,” Janis said. The mean chicken pecked the alarm clock. Mom stood with her forehead pressed against the window, staring into the parking lot. I said nothing, and five minutes later, Cassandra was back with what I hoped, what we all hoped, was the final piece of the puzzle.

  Her name was Petunia, and she was definitely a pit bull. She was white, her head was square, and I could tell the minute she walked in the door that she was a real good girl. “Yo,” Cassandra said, shutting the door behind them and unclipping Petunia’s leash. “She let one rip on the third floor, and I thought I was going to pass out. She’s practically Pig!”

  I bit my lip and nodded, thinking that there was Pig and not Pig, but probably no “practically Pig.” Then I walked over so that I could scratch Practically Pig behind the ears. She was a little heavier than Pig. Her ears were cropped, which made my stomach turn a little bit, but she had big, sweet Oreo eyes and she licked my hand. “We’ve only got her for two hours,” Cassandra added. “And apparently she likes these.” She held up a big ziplock bag of what appeared to be dried sow ears.

  “What did Dion tell his coworker we needed her for?” I asked.

  “Well, I sent the texts for him,” she said. “Because he can’t be trusted, and I said we needed her to model a new line of dog perfume.”

  “And the guy bought that?” Janis asked.

  “He thinks she’s going to be internet famous,” Cassandra said. “And I may have stretched the truth a bit and said that Khloé Kardashian was an investor.”

  “Isn’t this guy going to want to see these pictures?” I asked, but Cassandra ignored me.

  “Two hours,” she said. “We’d better get cracking.” As Cassandra and I had been talking, Petunia’s nose had started to twitch, and a confused, then focused, look crossed her face.

  “Cass,” I said, “maybe we should keep her leash on, because we don’t know how she’s going to do with the—”

  Too late. Like a bolt of white lightning, Petunia leapt over one bed in a single bound and let out a window-shaking bark before snapping her jaw shut mere millimeters from the mean chicken’s tail. Both chickens let out a torrent of panicked clucks and took to the air. They might have been smarter than they looked, because they split up. The nice one flapped furiously toward the closet, and the mean one shrieked its way to the bathroom. Janis shrieked too, and dove out of the way as the nice one almost took out an eye with her claw.

  Petunia barked again, as she seemed to debate for a second which chicken would be the tastier prize. Then she bolted for the mean one, now perched on the shower curtain rod. Petunia jumped at it, and her front paws caught in the shower curtain, bringing the whole thing down with a crash that I was sure could be heard all the way in the lobby.

  “Petunia! Stay! Down, girl!” I shouted, but Petunia was now locked in a furious battle with the shower curtain and did no such thing. Just as it appeared that the curtain might win, the dog managed to free herself, shaking it off triumphantly. Cassandra had grabbed the leash, and positioned herself inside the bathroom door, blocking Petunia’s escape, but right as she bent down to clip the leash to Petunia’s collar, the dog made another desperate lunge for the chicken. Her big block head plowed right into Cassandra’s knee and knocked her off balance on the wet bathroom floor. Like a cartoon character who’s stepped on a banana peel, Cassandra spun halfway around, running in place, before her feet slid right out from under her. She flew up in the air and came down on her back, water splashing up around her as she hit the floor, her head thunking like a gourd as it collided with the base of the toilet.

  This was the exact, literal same thing that had happened the day Cassandra’s curse had broken. It was déjà vu all over again. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Janis and I both said at the exact same time, and then we sprang into action.

  In the commotion, Mom had hidden behind the drapes, so she was effectively out of the way as I held out my hands, grabbed Petunia with my powers, and lifted her up and away from the chickens, over Cassandra, still sprawled on the floor in a limp puddle, and out into the hotel room. The experience of flying through the air disoriented Petunia enough that she forgot about the chickens, and let out a little whimper as she looked at the ground passing underneath her. I set her down on one of the beds, then used my kinesis to grab the leash from the bathroom and zoom it to me. I ran over, looped it around one of the legs of the bed, and then clipped it to Petunia’s collar.

  Though, really, one look at her face told me that I didn’t need to worry. In a matter of seconds, she’d gone from ferocious fowl fighter to trembling snowball, and she’d curled up as tight as a tortellini, facing the wall, with her nose stuffed between two pillows.

  Fortunately, it didn’t seem like Cassandra was seriously hurt
, and Janis helped her up and over to the other bed while I set about the much harder task of catching the chickens. The relatively nice one was in the bathroom now too, and it sat on the closed toilet cover, while the mean one had settled down into a feathery fluff in the tub. I decided to get what would likely be the harder task over with first, and crept toward the tub, keeping my hands at my sides and planning to grab the bird and pin its wings, just like I’d practiced back at Cassandra’s house.

  But the chicken knew my game, and as soon as it saw me coming, instead of trying to get away from me, it flew out of the tub and sprinted straight toward me so fast that its scaly spaghetti legs became a blur. I jumped out of the way and collided with the bathroom door, sending it bouncing off the wall with a crash. Whoever was in the room next door was going to think that Mom and Dad were having one heck of an anniversary. Mom peeked her head out from behind the drapes, then darted right back in. I didn’t blame her.

  “Esme, get it!” Janis hissed. She and Cassandra barely had time to move their feet out of the way as the chicken barreled by the bed. I started to run after it again, then stopped. I was a powerful witch. Why was I chasing after a bird?

  I held out my hand and, using my kinesis, scooped up the mean one, and held it hovering in the air. Keeping it in place, I walked over to the bathroom and used my kinesis to pluck the nice one off the toilet cover. They looked kind of funny, two no-fly chickens just floating there in the air, and then back into the cage they went.

  Where, I had a feeling, they were going to stay.

  “Come on, Mom,” I said, walking over and unwrapping her from the heavy blackout fabric. “It’s safe to come out now.” I took her hand and walked us over to the bed. We sat down, and I leaned over and gave Petunia a quick pet. She’d stopped shivering, and scooted close to me and then dropped her big head onto my thigh.

  “You okay?” I asked Cassandra, who was now holding a can of LaCroix to the back of her head.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m just soaked. And I can’t believe it happened again. I never thought that my personal nemesis would be a hotel toilet. I ought to blow it up.”

  “Well, technically, the first time, it was your savior,” Janis said. “It’s just this time that it seemed like it wasn’t on your side.”

  Cassandra took the can of LaCroix down from the back of her head, cracked it open, and took a sip. The chickens seemed like they were mad at each other. Janis looked at me, and even though she didn’t say a word, I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking it too.

  I reached over, took Mom’s hand, and gave it a squeeze. “This isn’t going to work,” I said, feeling my nose start to itch as the tears seeped into my eyes. “There are just too many variables. Those are real chickens; this isn’t Pig.” Petunia grunted.

  “We could still try?” Janis said, her face lifted hopefully. “Just to make sure?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never liked the idea of making Mom hit her head on the toilet anyway,” I said.

  “Honestly, that part’s not that bad,” Cassandra said. “It’s just the being wet and cold afterward.”

  Suddenly I looked at Mom. She was still staring off at a corner of the room, where there was nothing, but I swear that I had just felt her squeeze my fingers, like she was trying to send me a message that it was okay.

  There was a knock on the door. Instantly I hugged Petunia close to me.

  “Who is it?” Janis called.

  “Room service!” a voice called back.

  I looked around quickly, at three teenagers, a grown woman, two chickens, and a dog that populated this hotel room. “Um, leave it in the hall,” I called back, “and we’ll get it in a minute.”

  “Someone needs to sign for it” was the response.

  Crap.

  “Can you slide the paper under the door?” I asked. Whoever was on the other side didn’t answer, but then a second later, a small piece of paper poked through under the door. I grabbed it and winced when I saw the total. Poor Dad, poor Dad’s credit card, but I added a tip and signed Mom’s name anyway, realizing as I did that I’d never seen her do that herself, and I had zero idea what her signature looked like. Then I slid it back and looked out the peephole. I waited a few seconds for the employee to leave, then opened the door and wheeled the cart in.

  Whatever pappardelle primavera was, it sure smelled good, and Petunia let out a long, low whine. Cassandra and Janis got up and started lifting lids and spreading the dishes out on the desk.

  “Well,” Janis said, stepping back and looking at everything, “at least we feast.”

  For the next two hours, we put a serious dent in the room service dinner. Then we packed up any leftovers to take home to Dad, and even let Petunia have a french fry. Okay, a few french fries. When I texted Dad that he could come pick Mom back up, he didn’t even ask if it had worked. He just responded with a thumbs-up emoji. I couldn’t help but wonder if, deep down, he’d known that it was the longest of long shots, and had just gone along with it because at least it was something.

  In my weaker moments, I had imagined grand reunions, Mom and Dad sitting up late into the night, having the first real conversation they’d had in decades, maybe even ever. Instead, when he came to pick her up, she grabbed one of the drapes and tried to take it with her. I was able to pry it out of her hands, but then she grabbed the bedspread and held on to that for dear life too. We finally settled on a pillow, and she held tight to it as they walked down the hall and waited for the elevator.

  I watched them go, and felt the life force melt out of me. As Sitters, we were supposed to be powerful. We were supposed to be protecting the innocent. We were supposed to take care of our own, yet Mom had been cursed for almost my entire life, I couldn’t do a dang thing about it, and the worst part was that no one seemed to care.

  Wait, that wasn’t totally true. Dad cared, and Brian—who was our Counsel, aka the adult charged with teaching me and Cassandra stuff—cared, and Cassandra and Janis of course, but that still only amounted to a few hours in a hotel room, spending a month’s mortgage payment on room service, and hoping for a miracle. It wasn’t fair, and I was mad, but that was pointless. My anger felt like a shotgun blast, shooting out of me in every direction with no particular target. I had discovered on Halloween that Mom was cursed, and I’d first thought this guy Erebus—aka Cassandra’s deadbeat dad—was behind it. He was an all-around tool whose Red Magic practice had gotten him banished to the Negative, but not before he’d cursed Mom for ruining his Red Magic plans.

  Or at least that was what we’d thought, before we’d found out that Wanda had really cursed Mom, and set Erebus up to take the blame. Wanda too was now in the Negative, where they both would stay. So, yeah, everyone who could be punished for Mom’s state had been as punished as they were going to get, but she was still cursed.

  More than anything or anyone else, though, I was mad at myself. Every day that went by where Mom stayed cursed felt like a fail. I was starting to see that I couldn’t save her, no matter how hard I tried. And if I wasn’t going to save Mom, then who would?

  “Esme?” Janis said, coming up behind me. “You okay? You’ve just been standing there with your hand on the doorknob.” I shook myself out of it.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Just thinking. You guys ready to go?” Behind her, Cassandra was busy trying to get the chicken cage back into a bag, and was too busy cussing at the birds to answer my question, as the nice one kept trying to peck her fingers from between the bars.

  Finally she succeeded and we filed out of the hotel room, then lugged everything down the hall, and down the stairs, Petunia following faithfully behind us. We left through the back door to the parking lot, where Dion was waiting for us in the van.

  “How’d the photo shoot go?” he asked cheerfully as we loaded everything into the van. “Do you think Khloé’s people will like it?” I s
hot a sidelong glance at Cassandra. Erebus had once manipulated Dion into being his accomplice, and Cassandra—rightfully so—still hadn’t forgiven him. As his punishment, she’d cast spells on him that basically made him do her bidding, no questions asked—Dion had probably completed ten thousand late-night Twizzler runs at her request—but I think she’d grown tired of having a slave and wanted her brother back. Over the last few weeks, she’d softened a bit. She wasn’t so mean to him anymore, and had started to trust him with bits and pieces of her real life.

  But I’m pretty sure she just lied to him for fun sometimes.

  “I think Khloé’s people are going to love this dog perfume campaign,” I said as Janis and I climbed into the back. The heater in Dion’s van put out about as much heat as a flashlight, and as Janis and I sat on the floor, I saw her shift positions several times, trying to tuck her feet underneath her, and then trying to get Petunia to sit on them. As we pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back at the hotel, and realized I had zero desire to ever see it again. It could explode for all I cared. I mean, as long as no one was in it or got hurt or anything.

  We dropped Janis off first, and as she ran up the front walk to her house, I resisted the urge to yell after her to put on some socks. Cassandra and I were going to go with Dion to return Petunia to her owner, but as we drove past a strip mall, I felt something, like being brushed with a leaf across the back of my neck. I scrambled to my knees to look out the window, and then looked at Cassandra, who was gripping her door handle.

  “Stop the van, Dion,” she said.

  “I need to get gas anyway,” he said. “There’s a Quik—”

  “Stop it now!” she shouted, causing Dion to slam on the brakes. The van screeched to a stop, and Cassandra and I jumped out. Or rather, she jumped out and then wrenched open the side door so that I could jump out too. As my flats hit the pavement, I was glad I’d resisted Janis’s urge to dress for the occasion. I’d worn something I could run in.