Ant found out he was babysitting because Celeste told him five minutes before leaving.
"Watch the child," she said, already putting on earrings.
Ant looked up from the couch. "What child?"
"The one arriving in five minutes."
"That is not enough information for a sentence, let alone responsibility."
Ramon was by the door fixing his jacket. "It's Pastor Bone's niece or cousin or some church-adjacent little demon. One of those."
"She is not a demon," Celeste said.
Vice, upside down on the armrest, raised a paw. "Important question. Is she bitey?"
Milo perked up immediately. "Can I keep her if she is?"
"No," everybody said.
Ant sat up. "Why am I babysitting? I'm not even stable."
"Exactly," Nyla said, scrolling on her phone as she headed out too. "This is field research."
Ant stared at all of them. "Y'all are really just leaving me with some random supernatural child?"
Celeste gave him a look. "You survived employment for almost four hours. I believe in growth."
"That was not survival. That was public humiliation."
The doorbell rang.
Nobody moved.
The whole family looked at Ant.
Ant pointed at himself. "This house hates me."
At the door stood Pastor Bone in a cream suit and a tired smile, beside a tiny girl in black boots, a yellow raincoat, and two puffs tied with red ribbons. She looked about seven. Big eyes. Blank face. One little stuffed rabbit in her hand.
"This is Seraphina," Pastor Bone said.
Seraphina stared straight at Ant.
Then at the house.
Then at Vice.
Vice stared back. "I don't like how grown her silence feels."
Pastor Bone lowered his voice. "She's… spirited."
Ant folded his arms. "That means destructive."
"Creative," Pastor Bone corrected.
"What's the difference?"
Before he could answer, Seraphina lifted one finger toward the hallway.
The wallpaper peeled itself off for six feet.
Ant jumped back. "Oh, hell no."
Pastor Bone winced. "She does that when nervous."
"You brought me a haunted iPad kid."
"Just for a few hours," Pastor Bone said. "No sugar, no mirrors, no unsupervised singing, and under no circumstances let her near moving water."
Ant blinked. "That sounded way too specific."
But Pastor Bone was already backing away.
"God bless this home," he said.
Vice muttered, "Questionable choice."
Then Pastor Bone left.
The door shut.
Silence.
Ant slowly turned around.
Seraphina was gone.
"…Milo," Ant said, voice tight. "Where the fuck did the little church cryptid go?"
Milo pointed upward.
Seraphina was on the ceiling.
Just sitting there.
Like it was normal.
Pebble looked at her with deep respect.
Ant took a breath. "Okay. Cool. We can work with weird. Weird is manageable."
Seraphina dropped lightly to the floor and walked past him into the living room. Every lamp she passed dimmed for one second, then came back brighter. Vice followed at a safe distance like a journalist entering a war zone.
Ant tried being nice. "So. You like cartoons? Snacks? Coloring books? Threatening architecture?"
No response.
Milo sat beside her with Pebble. "Do you wanna see the hallway thing?"
Seraphina finally spoke, voice soft and flat.
"Yes."
Ant slapped a hand over Milo's mouth. "Absolutely not."
That was the first hour.
The second hour got worse.
Seraphina made all the cereal whisper. She blinked once and turned the TV to a channel that did not exist. She fed Vice one cracker, and Vice spent fifteen emotional minutes insisting she was "an old soul with powerful management instincts."
Then Ant made the mistake of getting distracted by his phone.
When he looked up, Seraphina was gone again.
So was Milo.
And the bathroom was flooding.
Ant sprinted down the hall. "I KNOW PASTOR BONE SAID NO WATER!"
He threw the door open.
Milo and Seraphina were sitting cross-legged in two inches of rising bathwater while little shadow-fish swam through the air above them. Pebble wore a shower cap. The faucet was pouring glittering black water straight up toward the ceiling.
Ant just stood there in shock.
"What," he said slowly, "the fuck is this?"
Seraphina looked up at him and smiled for the first time all day.
"Aquarium."
The toilet exploded.
Vice screamed from the hallway, "THE CHILD HAS INVENTED INDOOR OCEAN!"
By the time Celeste and Ramon got home, the bathroom was destroyed, three floating fish were stuck in the chandelier, and Seraphina was peacefully asleep on the couch with her rabbit.
Pastor Bone arrived ten minutes later, took one look around, and sighed.
Ant crossed his arms, soaked and furious. "Your little cousin owes me emotional damages."
Pastor Bone nodded slowly. "She had fun then."
Seraphina opened one eye, looked at Ant, and said, very softly:
"You are a good babysitter."
Ant froze.
Then immediately pointed at her. "Don't say sweet shit after domestic terrorism."
Vice sniffed. "I think they bonded."
"No we did not," Ant snapped.
But when Seraphina left, she waved only at him.
And Ant, against his will, waved back.