James got to Celia’s house at five that night. She also lived in Leominster, in a small house on Sterling Hill Road, right on the edge of town. He’d gone home from work, napped for an hour, showered, and now he was feeling moderately human and ready to take on three little girls for the next thirteen or fourteen hours.

Celia greeted him at the door, already in her purple hospital scrubs. “Thank you so much,” she said as she welcomed him into the house.

“Not a problem, seriously,” James replied.

Like a lot of the houses in the area, Celia’s was a little older, probably a hundred years old or so. Gabriella would know better than him. There was a good-sized lawn in front and woods in the back that tempted James to call Graham and ask if anything terrible had been seen in this area. But no, he was not working tonight, and he wasn’t going to bring his work into his fun evening off with the kids. 

He followed Celia into the front hallway, spotting a living room immediately off of it. The staircase was right in front of them and beyond that, he could see the kitchen. Penny, Celia’s eleven-year-old daughter, was watching TV in the living room as he came in.

“Hey, Pen,” he said.

Penny looked over. “Uncle James!” she said. “Can we watch a movie?”

“You’re literally already watching something,” Celia pointed out with a laugh.

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant. I meant like a scary movie with popcorn!”

James looked at Celia, who shrugged. “Works for me,” she said. “I assume you know what kids can watch.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” he said. “But I won’t show them Terminator.”

“Oh, Adam already showed her that a few months ago.”

Adam was Celia’s ex-husband. He was a good guy and very devoted to the girls, but James could absolutely see him showing Terminator to a preteen without thinking about any of the problems that might cause.

“Well in that case, I have Saw lined up and ready to go.”

Celia sighed as she pushed a toy guitar aside with her foot. “Listen, just keep them alive for the next thirteen hours and I’m happy.”

He followed her into the small kitchen. “Okay, so there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge if they want it,” Celia continued, motioning toward a fridge covered in papers and photos. “There’s plenty, so don’t let them trick you into buying more. There’s also snacks. Popcorn’s up here on top of the fridge and there’s a big thing of pasta from my mom. Help yourself to anything. Oh, don’t let Krissy have fruit snacks, she’s been having trouble with them.”

Krissy was five years old and would absolutely try to take fruit snacks when James wasn’t looking. So he moved the cheerful little box to the top of the fridge right now, as Celia nodded approvingly.

This was how it went for a few more minutes. Krissy was hiding up in her room, but she’d come down when she was ready. She was just feeling shy. And baby Jenny woke up crying from her nap just as Celia was showing James the baby supplies and the instructions page she’d stuck to the fridge with a Cinderella magnet.

“And I might not have cell service in the hospital all the time,” she said as she was getting her jacket on. “But I left the list of numbers on the hallway table, next to the phone. Just call the hospital operator and she’ll send you to my floor. Formula info is there too. There shouldn’t be any problems, the kids know things will get really bad for them if they don’t behave for you. And they’re good girls anyway, they’re not going to misbehave. At most, there might be some whining, but just ignore it. You work at a non-profit, you get it. You’re good at that.”

Technically, she was right. Underneath all the ghosts, the Foundation actually was a non-profit. Celia left a few minutes later with another reminder to James that he could call at any point and to the girls to be on their best behavior for Uncle James. And then he was alone in the house, in charge of three little girls until seven in the morning. 

The night went smoothly. Before they watched a movie, Penny wanted to paint James’s nails. She’d already painted her mom’s and Krissy was too small, she’d get in trouble if she tried to paint hers. So James found himself getting an unexpected manicure at his cousin’s kitchen table before he’d even gotten supper ready. He’d have to remember to take it off before work tomorrow, but Gabs had explained nail polish remover to him at one point and that seemed simple enough. So as long as could get his hands on some, it’d be no problem.

He chose a cheerful purple color from the options Penny gave him, then soaked his fingers in her little manicure bath. She said there was a reason for it, that it was for his cuticles or something. Not that he was going to let her anywhere near him with cuticle scissors. He’d seen those fuckers in Amelia’s apartment and no child was going to try them out on him. But Penny had accepted those terms as long as he let her do everything else. So now he was here with his fingers soaking in warm water, listening intently to the sixth grade gossip.

“Ava said that Danny was dating Kelly, but he wasn’t, he was still dating me then,” Penny said as James wondered if his hands had been in the lukewarm water too long.

“So why would she say that?” James asked.

“I don’t know!” Penny threw her hands up dramatically. “I think she was still mad about the play.”

“What play?”

“The sixth-grade winter musical,” Penny said. “I’m playing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.”

“No kidding?” James said as Krissy came into the room, moving innocently toward the snack cabinet. “Hey!” he called over, lifting a dripping hand to point at her. “No gummies.”

She pouted. “I heard the stories,” he said. “Go have an apple or something.”

“You’re no fun,” Krissy muttered.

“Yeah, they tell me that at work too.”

Krissy took a small packet of cookies out of the pantry and he considered arguing, but it wasn’t worth it. “The auditions were at the end of last year and I got the part. But she wanted to be Dorothy,” Penny continued as she took James’s hands and dried them off with a Frozen face towel. “And she got really mad at me. She tried to push me, but I told her I’d punch her if she did that.”

James looked at her and Penny shrugged daintily. “So she stopped. But now she’s saying that Danny was dating Kelly last year, and he wasn’t, he was dating me. But he’s being a jerk about it because I didn’t want to kiss him.”

“Well, yeah, you’re in sixth grade,” James said.

“Oh please, Uncle James,” Penny said. “Alright, purple?”

“Looks good to me.”

The running commentary on the first few days of school was paused as she painted his nails, focusing intently on each one as she worked. James had to admit, she did a good job. He still reminded himself again to take it off before work tomorrow or he’d never hear the end of it. But Penny kept a steady hand, and the results were very neat. “Looks great,” he said, admiring her handiwork as his fingers were wedged in a little green foam drying thing she’d pressed on him.

“Thanks!” Penny said. “Can we have popcorn and a movie now?”

“Dinner first.”

Of course the girls tried to con him into getting new pizza. But James just reheated what they had and let them have a little soda, so the complaints stopped. Baby Jenny was kicking cheerfully on her brightly colored mat in the living room, so James stayed in with her as the two older girls ate their dinners. 

As they were finishing up, he put Jenny in the bath. It had been so long since he’d babysat an actual baby. Most of the cousins didn’t have kids and all of them were long past babysitting age themselves. Gabs was close to the youngest cousin, but Richie had a kid in college and Uncle Pete’s youngest was maybe a senior in high school. But James had done this plenty of times when he was younger, so it was no big deal to just get back into old habits. And it was actually really fun to take a break from ghosts to do this. 

Especially when it meant scooping formula from a can labeled Catsendo, with an enormous calico cat on the side that looked like a cartoon Fang. He’d tap the cat with his plum purple fingernail and Jenny would let out a little peal of laughter from where she sat on his knee. And then he’d do it again, and again that laugh. And again. It was just fun.

Of course, just as he was thinking that it was such a fun time, the freshly washed and fed baby began sobbing. “I know,” James murmured as he walked her around the first floor of the house, patting her back as she cried against his shoulder. “I know. It’s hard, huh?”

Krissy and Penny were looking expectantly at him as he passed the kitchen. “Get jammies on, then you can watch a movie,” James said.

Penny opened her mouth to say something. “I know,” James said. “Tell you what-” He was barely audible over the crying baby, but Penny listened intently. “Watch something appropriate for your sister, then when she goes to bed you can stay up and watch something else after. Deal?”

“Deal!”

They both hurried up the stairs, and he went back to walking the baby. It was a little earlier than the bedtime Celia had told him to aim for, so he should try and keep her up a little longer. But Jenny kept crying and he kept walking and rocking her, even as the other girls got ready for their movie, Penny popping popcorn in the microwave for them.

“At Carolino’s Honda, we’re your last stop, your only stop,” James sang distractedly as he swayed with the baby in the kitchen, watching through the doorway as the older girls chose a movie. There was some bickering going on, but him moving closer to the doorway put a stop to that quickly enough. “Come to us first and last, Carolino’s Honda. Salem.”

Jenny was settling in, resting her exhausted head against his shoulder. It worked. He had no idea why that one worked with every baby he’d ever met, but he wasn’t going to complain when it got him results. 

He kept singing the stupid car jingle over and over until Jenny was finally asleep against him, breathing softly against his neck. He brought her upstairs and set her in her crib, then turned on the nightlight and mobile and slipped back out of the room.

It was early for Jenny, but not too bad. So hopefully he had a few hours before she popped back up. He’d completely forgotten to ask if she slept through the night at all. Celia had warned him that Krissy was in a night terrors stage so he was prepared for that, at least. Poor kid, he’d dealt with that when he was little too. So he’d make sure to be gentle with her when it was time to go to bed.

Which it was, about an hour after Jenny. She argued, saying she didn’t have to go to bed since Penny got to stay up, but James wasn’t buying it. And finally Krissy relented, her grumpy mood fading as she settled into her bedroom.

“Thanks for hanging out with me tonight,” James said as he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

Krissy laughed, but then her eyes flicked over to her closet door. “What’s up?” James asked, realizing too late that he might be opening a can of worms.

“I don’t want to go to bed.”

“Why not?”

Krissy shrugged and pouted. “I just don’t.”

“You sure?” James asked. “I mean, I’m pretty tired. I’d like to go to bed right now.”

She just continued to glare at him. “Tell you what,” James said, settling in on the beanbag chair beside her bed, knowing he wasn’t getting up from it easily. “Give it fifteen minutes. If you still can’t sleep after that, you can get up for a little bit, okay?”

“Okay.”

One of his oldest bedtime babysitting tricks. He had a few stories he pulled out for that one, and just rotated through them when the occasion called for it. Like Carolino’s Honda, it almost always worked. Most of the kids stopped falling for it somewhere around the age of six or seven, but not always. 

“I’ll go to bed,” Krissy said, before he could even start to tell her about the weird cat he’d seen once eight years earlier.

She grabbed her stuffed bear and settled in under the blankets as James squirmed his way out of the beanbag chair. He made sure her night light was on beside the bed, but noticed she was still looking at the closet door as he walked out. And despite everything, it was a little unsettling.

Penny was already watching a new movie when he got downstairs, so James sat in the enormous chair as she curled up on the couch. “What did you guys watch?” he asked her.

He didn’t recognize the title, but it was a kids’ movie about a monster. Nothing too scary, she assured him. Krissy had been fine with it. And he believed her, as much as he was going to believe what any older sibling said about their younger sibling. 

Penny was allowed to stay up until ten. Around nine-thirty, James was in danger of falling asleep himself. And he knew Penny was a good kid, but there was no way she wouldn’t take advantage of it if he did. But then a scream from upstairs tore him back to full wakefulness, and he was running up the steps at full sprint before he remembered what Celia had said about Krissy’s night terrors. 

He flipped on the light in Krissy’s bedroom to see her pressed against the wall behind her bed, sitting up wide awake and screaming. “Krissy!” James exclaimed, hurrying over to grab her. 

He expected her to fight him off, but instead she fell against him, sobbing. “It was here!” she cried into his shirt.

“What was, sweetie?”

“The monster! It was back!”

She thrust a finger toward the closed closet door. It was an ordinary wooden door, cheap and badly painted with a Minnie Mouse sticker in the middle of it. Despite a decade and a half of working as a paranormal investigator, James was pretty confident that the closet was going to be empty of monsters. But as a good uncle, decent paranormal investigator, and exhausted babysitter, he was still going to go check it for her. 

Penny was lingering in the doorway and she came in to sit on the bed with Krissy while James went over to the closet. It was still pretty dark over here, since the light switch he’d turned on was actually for a lamp on her bedside table. The light didn’t reach very far, leaving this part of her room in shadows. He opened the closet door and looked inside. “It’s fine, honey,” James said, going to close it again. “There’s nothing-”

It was pressed against the back wall, blending in almost too well to see. James’s throat went dry as he spotted it, a humanoid figure that slipped behind the row of dresses as he watched. “Penny,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “You bring Krissy downstairs, alright?”

“Uncle James?”

“It’s alright,” he said, eyes locked on the figure as it reappeared again against a large cardboard Huggies box. “Everything’s alright, just get your sister downstairs. Get your shoes on.”

“Uncle James?” Penny sounded close to tears.

“Pen,” he said firmly, “Go now. I’ll be right down with Jenny. Help her get her shoes on, then wait for me by the door. It’s alright.”

The shadow figure was moving along the back of the closet, rippling over the wooden shoe rack and a plastic bin full of Barbie dolls. James kept his eyes on it, waiting until he heard the girls leave the room. He had nothing on him to keep it in there, there was nothing to do about it but keep it in sight until the girls were safely out of there.

Then the figure paused. It was stopped in the middle of the closet, directly in front of him. And as James watched, it began to peel itself off the wall. He threw the door shut and ran, going straight into the baby’s nursery. Jenny was asleep, and he picked her up as gently as possible, running down the hall as fast as he dared with a baby against his shoulder. When he got to the bottom of the stairs, Krissy and Penny were already there by the door, Penny with shoes on just like he’d said, Krissy struggling to put hers on as Penny tried to help her.

James was about to run straight out the door with the girls, but he had a baby here. He had to at least look for a diaper bag in the hallway. But then a door slammed upstairs. Both older girls screamed. “Out!” James yelled as Penny tore the door open, grabbed Krissy’s hand, and ran.

He’d left his car keys and wallet by the door, so he scooped them up, along with the phone numbers list, and stuffed them in his pockets as he ran, going out and down the front stairs as the baby wailed directly in his ear. Penny helped Krissy into her booster seat and then got in the front passenger seat, holding Jenny as James fumbled with the infant seat Celia had left for him in case of an emergency. It had seemed simple enough and now he was furious with himself for not clipping it in while she was still there and waiting until a shadow creature was chasing them out of the house. 

“Uncle James, the window!” Penny shrieked over the wailing of both Jenny and Krissy.

The last clip fell into place, pinching his finger as it slid in. James looked at the house. In Krissy’s bedroom window, he could see a tall, human-like shadow behind the lacy curtain. He grabbed Jenny, then got the screaming, squirming infant into her car seat as Penny continued to look in horror at the window, tears now streaming down her face. 

Once Jenny was secure in her seat, James ran for the driver’s side as the figure continued to watch from above them. He turned the car on with shaking hands, then tore out of the driveway as all three girls sobbed. When he looked back at the house, just for a second, he could still see that outline in the window.

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 6