30

I STEP BACK TO PULL MY HAIR OUT OF HER grasp. “Back off.”

The old lady shrug and point her chin back at the boys. “I got two strong boys. Used to have three, but one gone now. Down underneath. The rope come back.” She reach into a pack on her back and pull out a coil of rope made from vines, fibers, and locks of human hair. I look at her and realize for the first time her head be nearly shaved bald. Them boys, too. Nothing but blond and brown stubble, same color as the rope. She hold it up to me. “See? Three feet short. Cost me a house diver. But you . . . you got more braid than you need. Give it to me, and we help with your treasure.”

I hesitate. Don’t know why. Ain’t like I be uppity about my looks or nothing. I been bald before, I been all kinds of things. But I reach up and feel my braids tied on top my head, and my eyes start to sting. Lydia done this for me. From the first day, she took me in, cleaned me up, got the tangles out. My hair softer and shinier than it got a right to be ’cause of her. Uncle Rom say she treat me like a doll, always brushing and smoothing it down. I say she treat me better than that. She treat me like a person. Like a person she love. These braids all I got left of that.

Then I think of Daniel down there with whatever it be bit off the end of this woman’s rope. These braids gonna have to come out sometime. Might as well be now.

I sigh. “Follow me.”

The old lady nod and the boys come scampering around me like a pack of street dogs, bounding in front and behind, stepping in places I be too afraid to go. Like they got bubbles on they feet, for sure. When they see where I be heading, though, they slow down.

“You afraid?” I ask.

The boys look at each other, then at the old lady. I know they be missing friends what fell down these holes before, so I try to act casual. “Daniel?” I call into the hole.

I can see a pale light way down inside, but not much else.

“Fen?” he call back. He don’t sound so good. “Thank God,” he say.

“You find that rope?”

“No. For God’s sake, hurry.”

“I will.” I turn to the old woman and pull my knife out of my boot. “How much?”

She shrug and hold her hands out a length. I stretch out my braids and lop them off at the string holding them in a tail. The string come undone and little bits of black curls fall around my shoulders. My hair be sticking up all over the place. I still smell the palm oil Lydia use to keep the braids soft. I hand them to the woman. She grin without all her teeth.

“Good. Good. Now.” She drop to the ground, cross-legged, like Daniel, only she don’t seem to mind the mud bubbling up around her. She be quick with them old fingers, undoing the braids and weaving them back around her rope ’til she got what she came for and then some. It don’t take long at all. I watch, trying hard not to touch my head and feel the missing hair. I blow a bit of broken stubble off Baby Girl’s face. She wave a fist at me. The woman hand me the rope and I tie it around my waist. The boys come up to the edge of the hole.

“There be monsters down there,” one of the boys say, and I see he just a little kid, younger than I thought.

“And the old dead,” the other boy say with a nod. “That be a hole to Hell.”

“True,” I tell them. “So we best get him out while we can.”

That make some kind of sense, so they hold on to the rope behind me and I call for Daniel to be ready to climb. I drop the rest of the rope down into the hole and the old lady watch us pull in the slack as Daniel haul himself up. Then the pale little light be rising, and finally Daniel come up out of that hole.

When I finally drag him over the edge, he fall to the ground, coughing through his suit filter.

“You okay?” I ask. I can’t say more with the scavengers listening, but I hope he brought up everything he went down with, including that damned black case.

“Where the treasure at?” the old lady ask. Daniel look up at me, confused.

“What it be to you now?” I ask her. “You been paid.”

The little boys back up, but the old lady look at me, suspicious. Daniel sit up. “There’s something down there,” he say.

It dark as pitch down there now, without Daniel’s glow stick.

The lady shake her head. “That’s what took my rope, and my other boy,” she say.

Then it move, whatever it be, a dry rasp below the earth. The boys scream, high and loud, “The Devil!” They run away. Baby Girl start to cry. The old lady give me the evil eye, but she don’t come any closer. She spit at me, then scurry away.

“What was that?” Daniel ask. I shake my head, bouncing Baby Girl to calm her down. She gonna need a bottle soon, and a new diaper, and I wonder how I be managing any of this, let alone the two of them at once.

“Nothing. You all in one piece?” He hesitate, then nod. I help him to his feet easy enough.

“Come on, then,” I say, soothing Baby Girl’s tears into hiccups and sighs. When she quiet down again, we pick our way out of Rooftops toward the lake where the Ursulines live.