The Darkness Dwellers Read online

  “Oona’s in the kitchen with her grandmother,” Betty said. “Mrs. Fei sent Iris out to get some supplies. I volunteered, but they said I’d be too nice to haggle with the shopkeeper!”

  It was a wise call, in my opinion. Betty would have paid twice the price and left a generous tip. But I changed the subject rather than say so. “What’s Mrs. Fei cooking?” I asked, sniffing at the air.

  “I don’t know.” Betty’s nose wrinkled with disgust. “But from the smell of it, I’d say death.”

  I followed the stench of burned hair and cocoa butter to the kitchen. There, I found Oona’s honorary grandmother, Mrs. Fei, sitting on a wooden stool in front of the stove, stirring something inside a cast-iron pot. Her silver hair was pulled back in a bun, and a gas mask covered her nose and mouth. The kitchen windows had fogged with steam, and condensation dripped from the ceiling.

  “Whatcha making?” I asked, peeking over the rim of the cauldron. The gooey brown substance inside was bubbling and spitting like molten manure.

  “Don’t come too close!” the old woman barked at me through the gas mask. “You think I wear this to look sexy? This stuff could be poison. If we get lucky, it will grow hair.”

  I hopped back a few feet and watched her muscular arms continue to churn the concoction. Although she’d never had a chance to earn an MD, Mrs. Fei was one of the most respected physicians in Chinatown, and her homemade potions had saved hundreds of lives.

  “So that’s the cure? Is it done already?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” Mrs. Fei said with a shake of her head. “This is just an old recipe. It needs to be adjusted. And we are missing the most important ingredient—dong chong xia cao.”

  “Ewwww.” Oona stuck her head out of the kitchen’s pantry. “Is that what you told Iris to get? I hope you don’t expect me to be your guinea pig.”

  “Why? What is it?” I asked.

  Mrs. Fei placed the lid on her cauldron and winked at me over one shoulder. “Caterpillar fungus,” she said. “From the Himalaya Mountains.”

  “Got it!” Twelve-year-old Iris McLeod had arrived, bearing a small brown paper bag. Dressed in pink snow boots and a pink ski jacket, she looked much younger than twelve—an impression reinforced by the fact that she chose to skip all the way across the kitchen.

  Mrs. Fei took the bag. She dumped its contents into one hand and sorted through the shriveled caterpillar carcasses with a finger.

  “Where did you get those?” I asked Iris, expecting to hear that they’d been found alongside a mummified yak—or discovered in the ancient medicine cabinet of a long-dead Tibetan doctor. Iris’s parents were archaeologists, and her house on Bethune Street was packed with bizarre treasures they’d brought back from their expeditions.

  “The corner store,” Iris sang merrily. “They usually charge $259 a pound. I got ’em down to $159!” Then she proceeded to twirl through the kitchen as if a waltz were playing inside her head.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Did you slip and get brain damage on the way back here?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me,” replied the tiny blond girl. “I had a date last night.”

  “Tricking another delivery boy into your house doesn’t count as a date, Iris,” Oona yelled from the pantry. “It’s called kidnapping.”

  “I didn’t trick him,” Iris shouted back. “He came in on his own!”

  “Quiet!” Mrs. Fei ordered through her gas mask. “You want bad energy to destroy all my hard work?”

  “Okay, ladies, let’s go,” I said, shooing everyone under the age of sixty out of the kitchen. “I want to talk to the Irregulars in the living room right now.”

  “Bossy, bossy … Kiki should leave me in charge for a change,” I heard Oona grumbling as she emerged from the pantry.

  “What was that?” I demanded.

  “Nothing!” Oona insisted.

  Finally, all six girls gathered in Oona’s opulent dining room. Only our well-dressed hostess fit in with the scenery. Oona lived like an heiress from another age, and it was easy to forget that she hadn’t been born into great wealth. Her apartment’s museum-worthy antiques and stunning Chinese scrolls were the rewards of her hard work and cunning. As a little girl, Oona had often been forced to Dumpster dive for her dinner. Now she ate her meals at a table that had once belonged to an empress—the same table where a meeting of the Irregulars was about to be called to order.

  I grabbed the only remaining chair. DeeDee, dressed in her white lab coat, was clearly impatient to get started. Luz Lopez was making a few last-minute tweaks to her invention while Oona, Betty, and Iris debated the legal definition of kidnapping.

  “Kiki’s at the airport,” I announced, and everyone fell silent. “Before she left, she agreed to let us send her the cure.”

  “Yay!” cried Iris.

  “It’s about time!” DeeDee huffed. It had been her idea to develop a cure for female baldness. “If Livia and Sidonia ever get their hands on Kiki, it could be her only bargaining chip. I don’t know why she refused to postpone her trip until I had something ready to give her!”

  “She doesn’t think she’ll need the cure. The most reliable gossip pages continue to place Livia and Sidonia Galatzina on that island in Scotland,” I said. “Just yesterday there was a report from the set of The One True Queen. Apparently Sidonia has locked herself in her room until the writers give the movie a happier ending.”

  “Here we go again,” Luz Lopez muttered under her breath. “You really think they’re stuck on that island? Don’t you know they have boats in Scotland?”

  “Your optimism has been duly noted, Miss Lopez,” I said. “Now let’s talk hair. DeeDee? Can you give us a debrief? Tell us what Mrs. Fei’s cooking in the kitchen?”

  “Sure.” DeeDee sat up straight. She’d cut her own dreadlocks again, and they sprang from her scalp like miniature snakes. “Kiki told us that her aunt went bald at age seventeen. Setting aside all the superstitions about bald Pokrovian queens …”

  “What superstitions?” chirped Iris.

  “Pokrovians believe witches shed their hair when they reach adulthood. They say a bald woman should never be queen,” I explained.

  “Yes, well, I think there may be a more scientific explanation for Livia’s baldness,” DeeDee continued. “I believe she suffers from androgenetic alopecia. It’s a hereditary disorder that causes the hair to thin. It’s not particularly common among women, but it’s not unheard of, either.”

  “You say it causes the hair to thin?” I butted in. “That time I pulled the wig off Livia’s head, she was as bald as a bowling ball. Are you sure alopecia is the problem here?”

  “No,” DeeDee admitted. “We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.”

  “Great. That always works out,” said Luz. This time everyone ignored her.

  “Where are you at with the cure?” I asked DeeDee.

  “Iris and I have been studying an old recipe that Mrs. Fei found. That’s what she’s cooking in the kitchen. We’re going to update it—add a couple of modern ingredients and run it through the new filtration equipment Luz made for us. I think there’s a good chance the cure could work.”

  “How will we know if it does?” Betty asked.

  “Well—” DeeDee started to say.

  “No!” I interrupted when I noticed DeeDee running her fingers over her dreadlocks. “No experimenting on yourself this time! That was Kiki’s only condition.”

  “Anyone know a bald guy who’d be willing to try it out?” Luz asked.

  “If I can’t test it on myself, I’m not going to test it on some innocent person!” DeeDee argued. “Which means there won’t be any way to know if it works. At least until Livia tries it.”

  “Hold on. Hold on,” Oona jumped in. “Let me get this straight. You’re making a cure for Livia’s baldness. But we’re not even sure if this crud’s gonna work, and we haven’t even discussed how we’ll get it to Pokrovia. Is that right?”

  “Pretty mu
ch,” DeeDee said with a shrug.

  “Good to know.” Oona crossed her arms and warily watched the rest of us as if we’d gone completely insane.

  “Look, no one is claiming that the plan is perfect,” I said. “But we’re all going to pitch in and help. DeeDee, you and Luz seem pretty busy. What can the rest of us do?”

  DeeDee and Luz leaned together and consulted. When they were finished, Luz smiled. “Go out and get us some lunch?” she suggested.

  “It’s way too cold outside,” Oona declared. “Send the munchkin.”

  “Hey!” Iris shouted. “I told you not to call me that!”

  “We need Iris,” Luz said. “She’s DeeDee’s assistant. What we don’t need right now is a computer hacker, Jackie Kennedy, or a girl who’s read too many books about Bigfoot.”

  “No offense,” DeeDee added.

  “None taken,” I said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Oona mumbled.

  Chapter 3

  The Prettiest Thief in New York

  I led the way along the treacherous path to the grocery store. Ahead of me, a professional dog walker swaddled in multiple coats, scarves, and mittens slipped and slid around the corner, dragging two beagles and a pit bull behind her. I silently thanked Betty Bent for my custom-made snow boots. The metal spikes that covered their soles gripped the ice like tiny talons.

  “Mmai mhunt mahliv mha mhay mi mha!” I heard behind me. Oona Wong was grumbling again.

  “Mwa?” Betty replied.

  The scarves wrapped around Oona’s face muffled her words, but nothing short of a gag would have kept her from complaining. Betty and I weren’t exactly thrilled to be demoted to lunch ladies, either. But unlike Oona, we knew when to stay quiet.

  Finally our destination appeared, beckoning us like a tropical oasis. The sidewalk surrounding Chu’s Fruit and Fish was clear and dry, as if the storm had steered around the store. Tall pyramids of brightly colored fruit rose behind the windows, and perfect puffs of hot steam floated into the atmosphere every time the front door swung open. Inside, we found Mr. Chu at the register, dressed in the same spotless white tank top he wore every day. None of us had ever seen him step out from behind the counter, and Oona liked to speculate that he might not wear any pants.

  “Good afternoon!” he greeted us cheerfully. I mutely lifted one heavy arm in response.

  “Mmho mmoo mhay think I am, their maid? It’s my house!” Oona fumed as she unwound her scarf and snatched the hat off her head. “Luz and DeeDee have some nerve! I’ve got seniority.”

  “Give it a rest, would you?” I sighed. “Who’s got the shopping list?”

  “I do.” Betty searched through the pockets of her sleek black overcoat.

  “You!” someone said with a growl. Mr. Chu’s sunny smile had shriveled into an angry pucker. “I told you to never come back here!”

  I scanned the shop. Aside from a skinny stock boy who was cowering behind the bok choy, we were the only people around.

  “Excuse me?” Betty inquired politely. “Are you talking to us?”

  “I’m talking to her!” Mr. Chu shouted with one crooked finger pointed just to the left of Oona. “She comes in here and tries to sneak money out of my register, and then she thinks she can come back the very next day?”

  “What?” Oona blurted, two round red patches growing on her cheeks. Oona had never been anyone’s idea of an upstanding citizen, but I had to admit—her shock looked genuine.

  “Call the cops, dummy!” Mr. Chu ordered the stock boy as he ducked around the counter. “I caught the thief!” When he appeared in front of us, I was briefly relieved to see that his lower half was clothed in cut-off dress pants, knee-high socks, and rubber sandals. “No more Mr. Nice Guy!” he yelled at Oona. “You’re going to jail, girlie!”

  Mr. Chu started to stomp toward Oona, and I had a split second to act before he could reach her. I plucked a giant grapefruit from the base of a five-foot fruit pyramid, hoping to bury him up to his knees in an avalanche of citrus. When the pyramid proved solid, Betty took over, shoving a tower of pineapples into his path.

  “Sorry, Mr. Chu!” she cried as the man howled in fury.

  “Move it!” I shouted, grabbing a still-stunned Oona by the arm and dragging her out the door. We were barely half a block down the street when Mr. Chu came barreling out of his shop.

  I think it’s fair to say that most people, when chased, usually have a good idea why they’re being chased. Perhaps they’ve robbed a bank, egged the mayor’s house, or winked at a lady wrestler’s boyfriend. As far as I knew, it had been at least three days since I’d done anything worthy of a sprint. But as a member of the Irregulars, you learn to run first and ask questions later. When you’ve made as many enemies as we have, sometimes answers are a luxury you have to live without.

  Our snow boots should have given us a clear advantage over Mr. Chu’s sandals, but our layers of winter clothing were no match for the shopkeeper’s sporty ensemble. He stayed right behind us for a half-dozen blocks. When we reached Chatham Square, I glanced over my shoulder and saw the middle-aged man fly over a fire hydrant with the perfect form of an Olympic hurdler. A few seconds later, I tried to turn onto Catherine Street, but one of my legs remained behind, and I flopped face-first into a grimy snowbank. Oona and Betty slowed to watch as I wrenched my boot free from a crack in the sidewalk.

  “Go!” I shouted at them, and the two girls disappeared down the street. Just as I started to follow, I felt someone grab the back of my coat with one hand and whip my hat off with another.

  “Humph!” Mr. Chu exclaimed at the sight of my mousy brown hair. He spun me around and shook a finger in my face. “You tell your Chinese friend I mean business. If I see any of you again, I will send you all to prison! You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, figuring it was best to play along. I could have unleashed one of my new kung-fu moves, but Mr. Chu had suffered enough for one day.

  “Good,” he huffed. He dropped my arm and left me standing on the street corner, listening to the sound of his sandals slapping against his heels.

  I had almost reached Oona’s house when I saw the doors of a graffiti-covered delivery van pop open. Betty and Oona leaped from the back of the parked vehicle.

  “Is he gone?” Betty asked nervously.

  “Yeah, he’s gone,” I told them. “What was that about?”

  “I have no idea,” Oona insisted. “I shop at Chu’s all the time. I never stole a thing.”

  “Not even a grape or two?”

  “Everybody takes a grape or two,” Oona snapped. “How else would you know if they’re any good?”

  “I’m kidding,” I assured her.

  “Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity,” Betty offered. “I wonder who Mr. Chu thought you were.”

  “Mistaken identity? How many people out there are as gorgeous as …” Oona stopped mid-boast, and her eyes grew large. We all knew there was one person (other than herself) whom Oona deemed “gorgeous.” A girl by the name of Lili Liu.

  The Irregulars had only glimpsed Lili once, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That was when we learned that Oona Wong might have a twin. Oona’s mother had died in childbirth, and her criminally inclined father had shown no interest in raising a daughter. Lester Liu had given Oona to Mrs. Fei, who worked in one of the sweatshops he owned. While her father grew wealthy, Oona and her honorary grandmother suffered in terrible poverty. And for fifteen years, that had been our friend’s sad, shameful story. She didn’t know that her mother had given birth to a second child in the hours before she died. Mrs. Fei knew about the baby named Lili, but she’d always believed that Oona’s twin sister had been too weak to survive.

  Then Oona’s double appeared at a museum gala, and Lester Liu had introduced the girl to the world as his daughter Lillian. She looked coddled and spoiled—like the only child of a very rich man. As jealous as Oona might have been, I had a hunch that she would have welcomed a sister. But Lili disappeared th
e same night Lester Liu was arrested. As far as we knew, she hadn’t even visited the jail where he was serving a forty-year sentence for kidnapping, forgery, art theft—and the attempted murder of Oona Wong.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of this until we know for sure that it’s Lili,” Oona warned us.

  “So you really think someone might be impersonating you?” I asked.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I got kicked out of the dim sum place on Baxter Street yesterday,” Oona admitted. “The manager claimed I’d been dining and dashing. I figured all that e-coli had finally eaten her brain, but now …” Oona shrugged helplessly, and my heart flooded with pity. Less than three months had passed since she’d sent her own father to jail. The last thing Oona needed now was more family drama.

  “Come on,” Betty said softly, wrapping an arm halfway around Oona. “Let’s pick up lunch and get you home. Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to fix all of this.” The look she shot at me behind Oona’s back wasn’t as confident as her words.

  Chapter 4

  The Case of the Snow-White Lilies

  When we reached the next grocery store, Oona refused to go inside. She hid around the corner instead, behind a multicolored mountain of snow and uncollected garbage. By the time Betty and I finished shopping, Oona’s teeth were chattering and her nose had turned purple. The three of us trudged silently back to her house, where we found a delivery man scaling the icy stairs to the front door.

  “You girls live in this building?” the man asked between the blooms of three dozen red roses.

  “I do!” Oona instantly perked up.

  “Your name Gertrude Sing?”

  “No.” When Oona sighed, her face disappeared behind a cloud of frozen breath. “Gertrude’s on the fourth floor. Up the stairs to the right.” Oona opened the front door for the delivery man, and then turned back to us with a miserable expression. “You know your life sucks when your ninety-year-old neighbor gets Valentine’s flowers and you don’t get squat.”