For tonight's story, Betty Anne has a demonstrative prop: a book. Absorption in a story, she says, leads one to wonder what menace may lie around the corner - and what you might do if trapped in such a scenario. Your imagination gets you into a story, and if you’re not careful, you might need your imagination to get you out. Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, she calls this story "The Tale of the Bookish Babysitter".
One evening, as Ricky Winter watches White Zombie, his mother sets off to a potential estate sale. The doorbell announces the arrival of the babysitter.
At the door, Mrs Winter, somewhat thrown by the caped, hooded young woman, asks the secret of her unanimous acclaim. With a cryptic smile, Belinda puts it down to having imagination.
Introduced to the babysitter, Ricky folds his arms in obstinate silence. Mrs Winter apologetically cites him to be going through a phase. With a cryptic smile, Belinda shows Mrs Winter out.
Belinda jocularly blocks Ricky’s view of the television screen. She appraises the emblem on Ricky's shirt: the image of an inverted sword.
She turns off the television, sits by Ricky, and unloads her books. Ricky makes to grab from her hand the remote control, but as his hand passes over it, he finds it to have instantaneously vanished.
Belinda offers a compromise: if Ricky reads for a few minutes from one of her books, she’ll let him be for the rest of the night. Bemused, Ricky picks up one of her books, and starts to read.
Aloud, Ricky narrates a nightly scene of storm-lashed moors and visit of a lonely cottage by a fearsome witch. As he reads, the light suddenly flickers, a sudden wind howls outside, and someone, or something, bangs on the front door.
Perplexed, Ricky stands, and pronounces the book to be boring. He tries another: The King’s Sword. He reads of a medieval battle. From a distance sound men's anguished yells, horses' neighing, and clashing blades. Through the open door behind Ricky, a pale, long-nailed hand reaches slowly forth.
Bored, Ricky shuts the book, and the reaching arm fades from view. He reaches for a third book, which Belinda quickly snatches away: he’s not yet ready for this one. Feeling he’s indulged her enough, Ricky makes to leave.
In the darkened hallway, a door behind Ricky slightly opens, to admit a hood-shaded face, which quickly withdraws.
Ricky flops onto his bed with a handheld video game. Footsteps near the bed. Without looking up, he orders Belinda out. The footsteps draw nearer, and a shadow falls over him. He crossly looks up, ready to give a stricter admonishment - to see, towering over him, the metal, faceless figure of a helmeted knight.
Just as Ricky screams and rolls out of the way, the knight brings its sword down on the pillow, scattering feathers.
Ricky runs down the hall. There sounds a deep, tortured moan. From behind, along the hall, glides a hooded, grey-bearded man, whose black robe trails vaporous strands of ectoplasm. With entreating hands, the figure bears down on him. Ricky screams, runs into the living room, and slams the door.
He starts to yelp a report to Belinda, who already knows about the peculiar visitors. As he barricades the door with a chair, she crouches before the fireplace, tearing up books and throwing the pages into the flames. Via Ricky’s imagination, she says, the beings came from the books, so burning the books will expel them.
There comes a knock at the living room door. From behind it, the voice of Belinda urges Ricky not to listen to the book-burning Belinda. Belinda hurries into the room. Ricky wonders what’s going on.
With a screeching cackle, the creature masquerading as Belinda rears up from behind him. While it’s clothes and hair match Belinda’s, its crazed, corpse-like face leers with a mouthful of pointed teeth. Ricky and Belinda run.
In the kitchen, Ricky and Belinda barricade the door, while the cannibalistic witch demands entry. Since the apparitions came from Ricky’s imagination, and the books have been burned, the only escape is for Ricky to compose an ending.
Ricky improvises a narration in which the apparitions give up and go home.
Belinda specifies a more coherent outcome. She consults the forbidden book, and backs away from a cupboard door, which is abruptly splintered by the blade of a battleaxe. The witch then breaks into the room. Ricky and Belinda flee down to the basement.
Beneath the bare light bulb, Belinda enthusiastically asks what happens next. With a glimmer of inspiration, Ricky establishes the basement’s equipment with an Uzi, in case of attack by nightly fiends. He looks around, but sees no such weaponry.
Belinda explains such a revelation to be incompatible with this story. As she consults the forbidden book, Ricky suddenly suspects the ending to lie therein. He demands to see it. She ominously asks if he feels ready. He insists. With an impudent chuckle, she hands it to him.
With a flash of white light, the scene fades. Ricky finds himself no longer to be in the basement, but in a windowless, torchlit stone corridor. As he looks at the book, a previously blank page suddenly bears his recent bewildered utterance. More lines blur onto the page, in narration of his relocation from his suburban house to the dank crypt of an ancient castle.
Just then, metallic footsteps announce the approach of the Knight. Ricky hastily reads, and learns the spectral knight to have guarded, through the ages, the tomb of his beloved King, in wait for a sign.
Just as the Knight corners him, Ricky realises the raised sword to resemble the image on his shirt. He pulls back his outer shirt, and presents the sacred emblem. The Knight kneels before him, bows, and proffers the sword, which Ricky takes.
His duty completed, the Knight remains still, and the suddenly empty armour falls to pieces.
In verse, the book then specifies any claimant of the sword to defend something to the death. Alarmed, he stops reading. The voice of a small girl gingerly calls in request for direction home.
The book notes the child to seem out of place - or out of narrative, Ricky realises. When he next looks, the child’s medieval clothes are worn by the cannibalistic Witch.
Rick backs away in fright, and trips over the fallen armour. In desperation, he picks up the sword, and swipes it across the witch’s garment. As the fiend screeches, green goo seeps from the slash. The witch, in a green glow, melts to a green puddle.
With a heavy rumble, a piece of the wall behind slides forth, to reveal a secret chamber, in which lies a coffin set with some regal effigy. The book specifies Ricky to know, in his heart, the answer. He ponders. Behind him, the hooded, grey-bearded ghost calmly glides towards the hidden chamber, floats backwards towards the coffin, and halts by it, to solidify into the robed, crowned figure of the imprisoned King.
A shaft of ethereal light illuminates the freed spirit. The King proffers a hand. Ricky kneels, bows, and proffers the sword.
As Belinda reads a narration of the scene, Ricky finds himself, still kneeling, back in the basement. She quietly hands him her spare copy of the book. Ricky reads aloud a prose interpretation of his resolve not to limit his own imagination.
Mrs Winter appears in the doorway, and notices the author of The Dark Tomb to share Ricky’s name.
Mrs Winter offers payment, but Belinda, carrying The Dark Tomb, claims already to have been paid. With a merry goodnight, she offers her open services.
Ricky, Betty Anne closes, searched the library for copies of Belinda;s books, but found none - as they were first and only editions. As Gary closes the meeting, Tucker remains curious about Betty Anne’s book. While she cautions Tucker to be too young for this one, he snatches it: and opens it to a page whose printed lines include an unflattering description of Tucker’s intrusive act of curiosity. To general laughter, they all go home.
This episode provides examples of:
- Ancient Tomb: Ricky’s unwitting manifestation of two stories culminates in his transportation to the crypt of an ancient castle.
- Chekhov's Gun: The sword emblem on Ricky’s shirt later serves, in his solidified story, as a portent to which the knight adheres.
- Cool Sword: The knight’s is pretty impressive.
- Dark Is Not Evil: While Belinda’s hooded cape; mystique and implied affinity with solidified stories may be a tad disquieting, her playful, if alarming approach teaches Ricky self-confidence.
- Declaration of Protection: The knight, throughout centuries, indefatigably guards the tomb of his king.
- Fusion Fic: In-Universe, since the witch tricked Ricky into burning the pages, which results in the plot of three books to merge.
- Genki Girl: Belinda maintains a playful enthusiasm.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Belinda implies the witch to want to eat Ricky.
- Kneel Before Frodo: On presentation with the sacred insignia on Ricky’s shirt, the knight kneels and proffers its sword.
- Light Is Good: On release of the king from undead wanders, his spirit reverts to its regal form, and is bathed in a heavenly shaft of light.
- The Prankster:
- Belinda shows impudent amusement at the manifestation of various alarming fictional characters.
- Betty Anne deftly lures Tucker into reading aloud what appears to be a book which, just like in the story, describes his recent actions.
- The Public Domain Channel: Ricky watches White Zombie on TV before the babysitter arrives.
- Reality-Writing Book: The blank pages of a book carried by Belinda, and eventually passed to Ricky, are instantaneously filled in with descriptions of current or imminent events.
- Wicked Witch: A cannibalistic fiend, with deceptive shapeshifting powers.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: While Belinda explains the apparitions to be conjured by Ricky’s imagination, the knight seems tangible enough to do some damage to a pillow and a cupboard door.
