I looked up to the tiny attic window at the top of the peak, one of the four panes broken. I’d played with friends up there, among the trunks and crates in storage. Now all the windows were dark and the door barred. I bit my lip and continued on, nearly home. It might be helpful to know a bit more about Letty and her allergy…. I decided to track down my old headmistress, Mrs. Rankle.
22
BLAST FROM THE PAST
It took some asking around the night market, but the ladies at the bodega on the corner were finally able to give me Mrs. Rankle’s new address… ish. I looked up from the rough map they’d sketched for me on the back of a paper napkin and eyed the fork in the sewer tunnel ahead of me. The left branch soon disappeared into darkness, an ominous rushing noise coming from it. The right branch glowed golden with torches mounted every so often on the curved, algae-covered walls.
I looked back down at the map and with relief followed the right-hand tunnel. I trudged through the slimy sludge in my old boots—I didn’t want to ruin my new ones, but now my toes were wet with sewer water. I glanced down at my feet and curled my lip—I’d have to burn my toes off later to feel clean again. I shuddered and continued on till echoing voices and odd squeals and chirps reached my ears.
The ladies at the bodega had said something about a main thoroughfare and a waterfall. I sighed and continued on—guess there weren’t street names and numbers in the secret underground shifter lair. Why had my old headmistress decided to retire down here?
I passed more people, men and women, old and young, dressed in anything from suits to rags to what appeared to be homemade armor made of broken shards of glass and rusted pipes. I gave those guys a wide berth.
Parrots winged overhead, bats hung from exposed pipes, and I even had to plaster myself to the wall to make way for a brown horse that trotted by. Finally, I entered a tall chamber. Near the top, a large round pipe poured water down into a rusted drain, little droplets forming a mist of sewer water. So pleasant.
That had to be the waterfall, which meant I was getting close. I entered an enormous, stories-tall pipe bustling with people, animals (shifters in their other form) and businesses tucked into alcoves and side tunnels. I squinted down at the napkin and tried to make out the slanted handwriting.
“On the left… near a cantina?” I glanced up and spotted a little alcove fitted with a round manhole cover hung sideways as a front door. It sat raised on a sort of sidewalk beside the main channel of the tunnel. Gray gravel created a sort of lawn, with a pink flamingo stuck in it.
I grinned at the old woman who lounged in a white metal lawn chair and watched the parade of shifters go by—Mrs. Rankle. She lifted a hand in greeting at a gray wolf, who turned and gave a nod. I waited for a break in the foot (and paw and hoof) traffic, then darted across the wide tunnel and climbed up the stone bank.
“Mrs. Rankle?”
She looked up, her white curls bouncing around her face, and peered at me for a long moment before her face split in a wide grin. “Well, if it isn’t Jolene Hartgrave.” She pushed herself up out of her chair and waved me toward her, then embraced me in a tight hug. I felt a tinge of alarm at how thin she was under her pale blue tee and open button-up.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.” She winked and grabbed her wand. “What can I get you?” She looked me up and down. “You old enough to drink now?”
I nodded, and she winked.
“I know, doll, just teasin’.” She waved her wand, and two yellow drinks magically appeared in our hands, topped with paper umbrellas and skewers of fresh pineapple.
I blinked at the elaborate cocktail. “Wow.”
She thumbed at the crumbling cement wall beside her, string lights magically hovering in front of it. “I’ve got an arrangement with the cantina next door.” She clinked her glass against mine. “It’ll go on my tab.”
I nodded, impressed.
“Have a seat.”
She motioned at the white metal chair beside her own, and we settled in. We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the steady stream of shifters going by or stopping in at the little mart across the sewer tunnel.
I took a sip of the fresh cocktail, sweet pineapple flooding my mouth, and nodded. “This is pretty nice.”
She scoffed. “Shocker, right? It’s not bad—especially for what you’d expect down in this dump of a sewer.” She shrugged her thin shoulders. “But it’s all I could afford. Being headmistress of an orphanage doesn’t pay as well as you’d think.”
I took another sip of my drink, unsure what to say to that.
She swept an age-spotted hand at the flow of people and animals in front of us. “Tunnel floods sometimes, but up here on higher ground, it’s only reached the flamingo once. Plus, when it does, I’ve got a riverfront view.”
I grinned.
“Except the river’s made of raw sewage, but you take what you can get.” She barked out a laugh, then sipped from her drink. “So, Miss Hartgrave, what brings you down to my bend of the tunnels?”
I angled myself toward her. “I wanted to ask you a few questions, actually, about a girl named Letty Jones.”
Her expression grew pinched. “Aw. I heard about her.” She shook her head. “Poor thing—that’s a real tragedy. She was a good
