Claws (9780545469678) (2 page)

Emma set the box she'd carried in on top of the nearest stack. “This isn't so bad, I guess,” she said, even though it was pretty bad. “Once you guys clean it up.”

“Once
we
clean it up,” her mom corrected.

Maybe it really wouldn't be as terrible as she thought. Maybe it really would be an adventure. Their old house had been almost too big and too quiet without Helena. She might have been loud and obnoxious sometimes, but she had filled the space with fun and clothes and magazines and interesting bits of junk.

“Do you want the grand tour?” her dad asked. He waved a hand at the kitchen. It was separated from the living room by a wooden counter. “Here's the kitchen. Not exactly professional, but it'll do. Go through it and you'll find your bedroom on the right, then the bathroom, then our bedroom at the end.”

Emma headed toward the narrow hallway past the kitchen, then stopped. Some of the boxes in the kitchen had been torn open, and huge piles of cereal flakes were strewn across the tiled floor.

“Mom! You didn't tell me this place had mice.”

Her mom hurried to look, and her eyes widened as she took in the mess. She leaned down and ran her finger over a wide slash across the top of one box. Claw marks. “That looks too big for mice . . . I hope we don't have to call an exterminator, we really can't afford —”

“Is it ratters?” Emma asked. “I bet it is. Big, giant ones from the forest.”

“I'm sure it's not ratters,” her mom said uncertainly. “We don't have any secrets they'd be interested in. Certainly not in our cereal. It's probably just a raccoon and I'm sure we've scared it away by now. Why don't you start moving things into your room while I clean up, okay?”

“I still think it could be ratters,” Emma mumbled as she went back for the box she'd brought in, and carried it down the hall.

As she got near the door of her new bedroom, though, she heard a scrabbling sound that made her freeze. She heard it again, a faint scraping of . . . claws on metal?

“Um, hello?” she whispered at the door. “Is someone in here?”

Emma braced the box against the door frame and put her hand on the doorknob. Her heart was pounding. She wasn't actually sure she
wanted
to see whatever it was. But it was in her bedroom, and she couldn't stay outside the door forever.

She took a breath and turned the knob. The door swung open, and at the same time a metal vent cover in the corner of the room fell back into place. Emma dropped the box and ran over to the vent. She sat on the floor and peered through the slits, hoping to see something, but it was too dark.

“And don't come back!” she called through the vent, feeling shaky and ridiculous.

A sound that could only be laughter echoed back at her, then all she could hear was her own breath. She sat, stock-still, for several moments. Obviously it wasn't just a raccoon. Raccoons don't laugh at you. And it was probably too small to be a ratter. Ratters were the size of a short human, according to CragWiki, though Emma had never seen one. They stayed in the forest since no one liked having them around. Not just because they were huge rats that could talk, either. Everyone said ratters could find things out about you, things nobody was supposed to know.

But at the moment that seemed less scary than whatever was hiding underneath their house. Who knew what creatures lived in the forest? Things CragWiki didn't even know about, things that might come crawling back at night while she slept . . .

She pulled the box over the vent. What if it wasn't heavy enough? She'd need something heavier. More boxes, maybe some duct tape.

The room was barely six feet across. The hardwood floor was stained and scratched, and the window frame was warped and yellow with grime. She wrinkled her nose. It smelled like some kind of animal had been living here. Clumps of dirty white fur had collected in the corners.

“Emma, what are you doing in there?” her mom called. “Didn't I just tell you to start carrying things into your room?”

Emma edged out of the bedroom, keeping an eye on the box to make sure nothing was trying to move it, and walked back through the kitchen into the living room. “I want to get my stuff out of the car first,” she said, though really she just wanted to get out of the trailer
right now
.

“Just as long as you're carrying something somewhere useful,” her mom said. She was still trying to clean up the mess in the kitchen. “And don't go wandering off, all right?”

“I think I can manage to walk to the car and back without getting lost,” Emma said.

Her mom looked up at her. “I'm serious, Emma. Don't go off on your own, don't go near the forest, don't talk to anyone you don't know. You mustn't be rude, but try to be smart, okay? If something doesn't feel right, come right home.”

“Okay. I'll be careful,” Emma said. Her mom hadn't been this paranoid about letting Emma go somewhere alone since Helena first disappeared. It was broad daylight outside, and Mr. Simbi seemed more likely to lecture Emma to death than to hurt her somehow.

She went outside, staring at her feet as she walked down the steps of the trailer to their car.

“What're you doing here?” a voice croaked to Emma's right. Emma jumped and spun around, nearly tripping on the last step. A hunched old woman stood in the other neighboring yard, staring at Emma and gumming her lips. “They said human childrens don't come to crag places.”

The eyes were the same ones she'd seen peeking out of the neighboring trailer. And there was something strange about this old woman. Her small, wrinkled face looked somehow familiar, even though Emma was sure she'd never seen her before. Her eyes were bright and clear.

“I'm not a child. I'm twelve,” Emma said.

The old woman sniffed at the air. “Still a child, still a child,” she sang softly.

There was a gentle breeze, and Emma smelled cinnamon and baking cookies. “Are you baking something?” she asked. She leaned forward, inhaling the delicious smell.

The old woman laughed. “Can't be helped, can't be helped. We both smell food, but we'll both go hungry.”

Then the smell changed. Instead of cookies Emma smelled Vietnamese pudding — coconut and banana and ginger. Her mouth watered and her heart ached. She loved that smell. It was her only memory of her grandfather, who had died when she was a little girl. The old woman seemed so kind and sweet. Emma wondered if she could go inside her trailer and have some of the pudding.

She found herself taking a step forward.

“You stay away from her, hag!” Mr. Simbi shouted from his hot tub.

Emma reeled away until her back was against the car. “You're a hag?”

“Snakes.” The old woman spat on the ground. “Snakes is always hissing, always slimy, always underfoot.” According to CragWiki, the only way to recognize a hag was to look for double rows of sharklike teeth hidden behind their gums. Emma now realized that if you were that close, it was probably already too late.

Emma noticed now that the hag wore a long, shapeless brown dress stained with dirt, and a gray shawl wrapped around her head. She wasn't wearing any shoes, and her yellow toenails were long and curled. She no longer looked kind or sweet.

“You should stay away from her, especially at night,” Mr. Simbi said. “The government took her teeth so now they say she can't eat children anymore, and she's allowed to live here for free. But you can't trust hags. I bet she couldn't resist cooking someone's child even if she couldn't eat them afterward.”

“Yes, yes, listen to snake-man's hissing,” the old woman said. “Very dangerous is hags, can't be trusted.” She sniffed the air again and smacked her lips, then dug around in the pockets of her shapeless dress and pulled out two cotton balls and a small bottle of clear liquid. She unscrewed the bottle's plastic cap, and the smell of alcohol and mint made Emma's nose twitch. Then, grumbling to herself, the hag soaked the cotton balls in the liquid and stuffed one up each nostril.

Emma slid along the car toward the front door of her own trailer. Her mouth felt dry and her heart was beating quickly. She imagined herself going inside the hag's trailer and never coming out. The sweet smell of dessert faded as Emma began wondering exactly how hags cooked children.

“You're scared now, yes?” the hag said in a slightly nasal voice, her eyes watering. She grinned her toothless grin and took a step forward. “Now you'll change your mind, move away. Won't have to smell you anymore, won't have to feel so hungry.”

“Ha! You think they'd be here if they had any other choice?” Mr. Simbi said. “Why should they care about your hunger anyway? No, you're stuck with them now!”

“I'm not scared,” Emma said, but her voice shook. “Not if you don't have any teeth.” She could run at any second. The trailer, her parents, they were right there.

The hag scowled at her.

“It's not like I want to live here, either,” Emma said, and suddenly the words came pouring out of her, as if the hag really was her kindly old grandmother. “My dad wanted to move here because he thought maybe the crags would help him if he was one of them. Like they could help him find Helena. That's my sister. She ran away from home and the police couldn't find her, so my parents hired private detectives. Only they couldn't find her, either, and then my dad lost his restaurant. We don't have any money for anything, and my mom says it's cheaper here and —”

“How old was she?” the hag asked.

“What? Sixteen. Almost seventeen.”

“Mmm, no, didn't eat her,” the hag said. Her words sounded comforting, even though they shouldn't have been. “Never liked hunting ones that old. Not scared enough when they get lost. Hard to smell. But there was one, all scared and alone . . . so long ago, but I still remember how his bones crunched, and the marrow . . . oh yes, so sweet. It was a ratter child, with so many little crunchy bones.” She sucked on her gums. “They're a lot like human childrens, once you're past the fur and the squeakings.”

A shiver ran up Emma's spine and she felt sick. She clutched her stomach and took several deep breaths. She might have read about hags on CragWiki, but hearing it from a real hag, hearing the way she said it, that was a lot worse. “What, um . . . what do you eat now that you don't have any teeth?”

The hag made a disgusted face. “Cans. With meats in them. Tastes like chalks and gives me gases and bellyaches, but I never, ever, ever feels full.” She sighed and rubbed her stomach. “But at least no one hunts me. Hard for old hags, with ratters and howlers in the forest, humans everywhere else. So I eat cans, and I live in peace, until today.”

“Don't you feel bad for her!” Mr. Simbi called out. “I never understood how you humans can treat honest, hardworking people like me so badly, but let monsters like her have a free placeto live.”

“Never did like snakes much,” the hag said, louder than before. “Their eggs is disgusting inside, and the little ones is like eating worms.”

“Like you could ever get near a coatl egg-room. Back when my people ruled the Aztec empire, we hunted your kind for sport until every last one was dead and burned!”

“Emma, what is going on out here?” her mom said, walking down the metal steps. “What've you been saying to Mr. Simbi to get him so —” She stopped abruptly when she saw the hag. “Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. Do you live in the other trailer? I thought there weren't any other humans living here.”

“She's not a human. She's a hag,” Emma said. “But her teeth are gone, so I don't think . . .”

Her mom gripped the handrail so tight that her knuckles turned white. “I see. Emma, get inside, now.”

“But —” Emma started to protest, even though she wanted nothing more than to run away from the hag.

“Now!” Her mom turned back toward the trailer. “Chien! Get out here!”

Emma could hear her dad's footsteps thudding through the kitchen, then clanging as he ran out onto the steps. “What? What happened?”

“
That
,” Emma's mom said, pointing toward the hag. “That happened. Would you mind explaining what that . . . that
thing
is doing living next to our daughter?”

The hag nodded and hobbled toward Emma's parents. “Not safe, not safe for human child. You will have to move away, yes, must keep child safe from horrible monsters.”

“Hanh, calm down,” her dad said, holding up his hands. “The police said she's completely harmless, and she mostly stays inside during the day anyway. I was going to tell you, but I only found out two days ago, with the house practically sold already, and —”

“Don't you dare tell me to calm down!” her mom shouted, and then she switched to Vietnamese to continue yelling. It was almost always bad when they switched to Vietnamese.

This was supposed to be her life now, Emma realized. She wanted to get away — from Mr. Simbi, from the hag, from her parents yelling most of all — but where could she go? Down the road? Into the forest?

For once, she did what her mom said and went back inside. Not that it was much better inside the trailer, with her smelly room and the thing inside her vent, laughing at her. Her mom was busy worrying about the toothless old hag, when something else was living right under the trailer. They'd be lucky to survive the night.

There was nowhere to sit in the living room, so she sat down on one of the boxes. What would Helena have done? She always seemed to have an answer for everything. Emma thought about what things used to be like, what
normal
used to be like. Her old house, her old room. Her sister.

Helena probably would have said something sarcastic, like she didn't care that their parents were fighting or that they'd lost the house. Then she'd have lounged around, reading her glitter-covered faerie magazines and gushing over the descriptions and illustrations of their fancy clothes and expensive parties.