The second day was somehow even more hectic than the first, and no amount of Bluey could settle the energy of the three spiders. When Jesse and Siobhan arrived Saturday evening to take over for Hank, it was almost as if the kids had a plan put together to inflict the maximum amount of suffering they could on their babysitters.

  They refused to eat mac and cheese two nights in a row, something that they only informed them after they had already prepared the meal, so they had to scramble through Cynthia’s instruction packet to find something else for them to eat that also included the growing spiderling’s necessary bug intake. The end result was hot dogs with flies in the place of relish, and as Jesse was finishing grilling the dogs, he was beginning to rethink his stance of how good monster food was.

  After he and Siobhan made sure that the kids had eaten everything on their plates, they tried to pull the same trick with the TV again, but they weren’t having it. They didn’t want to sit still tonight, instead insisting on playing a game. The game was one that they had invented together called Super Thief and, underestimating how bad it could possibly be, Jesse and Siobhan agreed to play. It wasn’t until the entire living room was covered wall to wall in strands of thick webbing that they realized their mistake.

  The rules of the game were that they had to navigate through the webs over to the corner of the room where they had set up a “jewel” for them to “steal”, grab it, and bring it back to the start, all without touching a single strand, or else the kids would declare them caught and they’d have to redo the entire game over again. The jewel in question looked to be necklace taken straight from Mrs. Vanderwebb’s jewelry box, making it an utmost priority to return it to its rightful place, but that was easier said than done.

  During the first attempt, they failed almost instantly because Jeremy had purposefully placed a web right near the beginning where they could trip on it. Jesse had only taken a single step forward before falling on his face, ungracefully taking all the surrounding webbing down with him.

  During the second attempt, they had just almost made it, having ducked and weaved carefully through the strands of webbing until they were nearly within reach of the necklace, until Siobhan suddenly had to sneeze, knocking her head into Jesse’s and causing them both to fall.

  It was during the third attempt that he’d had enough.

  After glancing at the clock and seeing that it was already past 7:00, he abruptly stood up from where he had been crawling. “Okay you three, playtime’s over. It’s time for bed.”

  “Not yet!” Jeremy protested. “You haven’t gotten the jewel yet!”

  Losing all of his remaining patience, he swatted the webbing away and grabbed the necklace.

  “Hey, that’s not how the game works,” Charlotte said.

  “The game’s over,” Siobhan said, backing him up. “It’s time for all of you to go to sleep.”

  “But we’re not tired yet,” Jeremy insisted, at the same time that Mason let out a giant yawn, or at least relative to his body size.

  “You look pretty tired to me.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Your mother told us that she wants you all in bed by seven o’clock,” Jesse said, crossing his arms. “We’ve already done you a favor by letting you stay up past seven.”

  “But I’m not tired.”

  “Jeremy,” Charlotte started timidly. “If mommy wants us in bed now, then maybe we should listen.”

  “But how do we know they’re telling the truth?”

  Jesse held up the packet Cynthia had left for them. “We have it right here, in writing.”

  But Jeremy just scoffed. “It doesn’t say that.”

  “We can’t read yet,” Charlotte helpfully informed them.

  Why did he think that would work?

  “Look, seven o’clock is when your mom usually wants you to go to bed, isn’t it?” Siobhan reasoned. “So, it wouldn’t be any different just because she’s gone.”

  “She’s right.”

  Jeremy rolled all eight of his eyes. “Well Charlotte might be ready for bed, but we’re still not, right Mason?”

  While they had been arguing, the youngest of the spiderlings had already curled up and fallen fast asleep right there on the floor.

  “Well, that settles it.” Jesse scooped up the sleeping spider, along with his sibling, and carried them all to their room, despite the protests still coming from Jeremy.

  “Good night,” he told them after putting them to bed.

  He shut the door behind him, making sure that all three of them were still in the room when he did so, but it wasn’t until he slouched back onto the couch next to Siobhan that he finally relaxed.

  “I didn’t think it was possible for them to get worse. Is it like a full moon or something?”

  “That’s werewolves,” she reminded him. “But remember what Bella told us about certain days of the year being when the veil gets thinner?”

  “Vaguely.” All his brain’s processing power had been used up while babysitting. It was a struggle to recall basic facts at this point.

  “Apparently today is one of those days.”

  He sat up a little straighter. “You’re kidding.”

  “April 30th; the last day of April, and the day opposite Halloween on the calendar. Beltane, I think it’s called.”

  “Maybe that’s what’s making the kids go crazy.” He shook his head. “Man, I can’t believe all of this started six months ago.”

  She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I know right? It feels longer, but also shorter somehow?”

  “If I had known that going to that block party would lead to us having to babysit three spider babies, I would have refused to go.”

  “If I had known that going to that block party would lead to me becoming a witch, I would have gone without you.”

  With some reluctance, Jesse pushed himself off the couch. “Alright, that’s enough reminiscing. Noah and Alicia are probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”

  Tonight was the night that they planned to do their investigation of the old house on River Street and try to put an end to the rumors once and for all. At least, that was the reason that they had insisted they were doing this for; make sure that no one at their school got hurt by an unfriendly ghost or accidently gained the ability to see through the veil. Jesse suspected the real reason his friends were so eager was because they just really wanted to go ghost hunting and were now leaping at the opportunity to do so.

  Now that the kids were asleep for the night, it was time to meet up with their friends, who were currently waiting for them at the house, and start the investigation.

  “We can tell them that Cynthia’s demon spawn refused to go to bed,” Siobhan said.

  “Maybe we should put sedatives in their food tomorrow,” Jesse suggested as he shrugged his backpack on. Since they were heading to the house directly afterward, he brought it along just to be prepared.

  “Okay, one, we’re not drugging children. And two, even if we did, Cynthia comes back tomorrow night, do you really want to explain that to her?”

  “Good point. We’ll just have to power through it.”

  But before that, they had something much easier to do; ghost hunting.