Shapeshifted

“Something like that.” I folded the wrapper back over the end of my burrito, my appetite gone. “I got fired, and now I don’t know where they are anymore.”

“But you’re looking for them now. Why?”

“I didn’t promise to tell you that,” I said, setting the burrito down. I wished I’d brought out my Coke. “Your turn. Are the Reina de la Noche really run by a queen?”

His eyes widened, and he got a silly grin. “Oh, yeah. But here’s the thing—no one’s ever seen her.”

“Really?”

“Seen her and lived. Even her own people don’t know what she looks like. She’s like a ghost.” He squinted at me. “Or a vampire? The teeth and the blood of the Reinas—is that what you think?”

I shrugged mysteriously, trying to act like I knew more than I did, while still desperate to hear him go on. “You tell me.”

“Whoa. Whoa.” He set his cup down. “Then all the stories would be real. They say she killed all of the Port Boyz gang in one night—that’s how the Reinas got their territory.”

That did sound like a vampire, if, and only if, it were real. I could see the stories he’d heard through his mind.

“They said she ripped their heads off. I didn’t believe it—how could a girl rip off anyone’s head? But—”

I waved my hands for him to slow down. “People make up stuff all the time. And it’s always been cool to have other people scared of you. Right?”

He closed his mouth, trapping all his previously outlandish stories inside, and nodded. “Yeah. Right.”

We were quiet then, eating. The sun was beating down, and everything was still. People were walking in and out of a small store a few corners down, and behind us was a low hum of conversations I couldn’t understand, but right now it seemed like it was just the two of us sitting outside, Olympio, me, and a few brave ants.

And whatever was moaning across the street from us in the storm drain.

“You cannot tell me that you don’t hear that,” I told Olympio.

“What?”

The day was completely still. The only other sounds were from people inside the clinic.

“That,” I said, pointing to where it sounded like it came from, the drain. “Maybe it’s my ghost. Or the Queen.” I gave him a look.

Olympio seemed like he was trying to listen. He leaned forward, tilting his head. “Nothing.” I heard the moan again.

“Oh, come on. What good are your curandero powers if you can’t hear that?” I said, but the moaning had stopped, and Olympio shook his head.

I stood and walked out to look back to where the train was. Could the train be moving air? Or was the sound of it running on its tracks echoing back off a certain spot? The sound began again. I silently pointed at the drain, and Olympio made a face but slowly began nodding.

“Okay, that is creepy.” He shoved the rest of his chips into his mouth and set his soda down.

I walked closer and squatted down beside the drain’s mouth. “Is someone down there?”

“?Aqui abajo?” echoed back to me.

“It’s creepy, but it’s not—” Olympio began, coming near.

“Pero no es—” echoed back to him, from a different voice. And then what sounded like a sob. We both jumped back and heard sounds of actual crying—someone choking back tears.

“We have to go down there,” I said.

Olympio shook his head violently back and forth. “Call nine-one-one.”

I knelt closer. “Can you hear me?” The crying continued. Louder. “Olympio—how do we get down there?”

He reached for my mouth with his hand. “Don’t tell her my name!”

“Sorry, sorry.” I stood and dusted off my knees. There had to be some way to get down in there. “Show me where. Please.”

“We can tell the others,” he said, pointing back to the people in the clinic.

“I could barely get you to believe me,” I said. “And how often does nine-one-one get people to come down here?”

He closed his mouth and looked back and forth from me to the storm drain, where the crying kept on. “Fine. I’ll show you, for ten dollars.” 

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

We walked down the street together, a little back toward the station, then to the left before Olympio stopped in front of the pharmacy. “We need five dollars.”

Not in a position to deny him favors, I handed the money I hadn’t used on breakfast this morning over to him.

“Good. Wait here,” he said, and went into the store without me. I waited, the sun beating down. Just as I started to suspect that he’d ditched me and run out through the back, Olympio returned. “Here.”

He showed me a small flashlight, free of packaging, with batteries already in it, and handed me a fistful of change. I shoved the change back in my pocket as he led on.

* * *

We went down a few alleys, and then between buildings and behind another alley, before storm drains opened up into one final wide cement ditch in the ground, like a footpath for giants. There were makeshift tarp tents along either side of the open ditch. We wove through these quickly as people slumbered inside. “This is Tecato Town,” Olympio announced. “Tecatos are—”

“I know what tecatos are.” We started walking down the steep graffiti-covered hill, leaning back as we did so, and I was glad I’d worn tennis shoes today. There were shards of broken glass everywhere—I wished I had my gloves. “Can your grandfather cure them?”

Olympio grunted in thought. “No. I don’t think so. To be healed, you have to want to be healed. I’ve never met a tecato who wanted to be healed all the way. They’re all a little in love with the drug. Why do you ask?”

I glanced up at the tents that were disappearing above the cement horizon. “My brother. He could be sleeping up there.” He probably wasn’t—he was probably at a homeless shelter—but I hadn’t asked him where he was staying the last time I saw him. On purpose. My foot skidded, and I almost had to put a hand down. “Gah!”

“That’s your ghost, then. He’s haunting you.” Olympio reached the bottom, taking a few running steps to land on mud-stained cement. I followed him, much less gracefully. “Maybe you should see my grandfather. Even if he can’t help your brother, he could help you.”

“Why do I need help?”

“He’s haunting you—your worry. He’s causing your susto, stealing your spirit.”

I snorted. “He’s been susto-ing me for years, then.” I almost told him about my mom, then caught myself. He was just a kid; he didn’t need my problems.

“Why don’t they sleep down here?” I asked as we reached the ditch’s flat bottom.

“Flash floods. Wash everything away. Us too, if it rains.”

Huh. It was humid today, as always, but the sun was still out. At the bottom, we started heading toward the three circular metal tunnels that led beneath the street and then down. They looked like the beginning of some joke, where the devil asked you to pick a door. “How come you know so much?”

“Everyone plays here as kids. When you’re little, you tell each other stories about La Llorona, the stories that your mom told you, to scare you away from here. When you’re older, you take other kids here to beat them up.” We took a few steps into the tunnel. “It dumps out on the far side of downtown. I know where it comes out, but I’ve never gone all the way through.” The entrances to the tunnels were colored with graffiti, the floors strewn with rocks and glass. I saw the orange cap from an insulin syringe.