Текст книги "The Cabinet of Curiosities"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Pendergast gazed carefully around at the scene, scrutinizing the topography, the architecture, for any clue, any hidden link that a mere study of historical records could not provide. At last he turned eastward, where a vast, five-story structure sat, decayed and listing, dark even in the light of the gas lamp. This was the former Old Brewery, at one time the worst of all the Five Points tenements. Children who had the misfortune to be born within were known to pass months or even years without tasting the outside air. Now, thanks to the efforts of a charitable group, it had been rebuilt as the Five Points Mission. An early urban renewal project for which, in 1880, the good Dr. Enoch Leng had volunteered his medical services, pro bono. He had continued to work there into the early ’90s, when the historical record on Leng vanished abruptly.

Pendergast walked slowly toward the building. An ancient sign for the Old Brewery remained painted along its upper story, dominating the far newer and cleaner Five Points Mission sign beneath. He considered entering the building, then decided against it. There was another visit he had to make first.

Behind the Five Points Mission, a tiny alley ran north into a dark cul-de-sac. Moist, fetid air seeped out from the darkness. Many years before, when the Points region had been a marshy pond known as the Collect, Aaron Burr had installed a large subterranean pump for the natural springs at this spot, founding the New Amsterdam Water Company. The pond grew increasingly foul, however, and eventually had been filled in to make way for tenements.

Pendergast paused thoughtfully. Later, this alleyway had been known as Cow Bay, the most dangerous street in the Five Points. It had been crowded with tall wooden tenements with names like “Brickbat Mansion” and “The Gates of Hell,” tenanted by violent alcoholics who would stab a man for the clothes on his back. Like many structures in the Five Points, these were warrens of vile-smelling chambers, honeycombed with secret panels and doors that connected to other houses on adjoining streets by networks of underground passageways, allowing criminals easy escape from pursuing law enforcement. In the mid-nineteenth century, the street had averaged a murder a night. Now it was home to an ice delivery company, a slaughterhouse, and an abandoned substation of the city’s waterworks, shut down in 1879 when the uptown reservoir rendered it obsolete.

Pendergast moved on another block, then turned left onto Little Water Street. At the far corner was the Five Points House of Industry, the other orphanage graced with the medical attention of Enoch Leng. It was a tall Beaux Arts building, punctuated along its north end by a tower. A small rectangular widow’s walk, buttressed by iron fencing, sat atop its mansard roof. The building looked woefully out of place among the shabby wooden houses and ramshackle squatteries.

He stared up at the heavy-browed windows. Why had Leng chosen to lend his services to these two missions, one after the other, in 1880—the year beforeShottum’s Cabinet burned? If he was looking for an endless source of impoverished victims whose absence would cause no alarm, the cabinet was a better choice than a workhouse. After all, one could have only so many mysterious disappearances before someone grew suspicious. And why had Leng chosen thesemissions in particular? There were countless others in lower Manhattan. Why had Leng decided to work—and, presumably, draw his pool of victims—from this spot?

Pendergast stepped back onto the cobbles, glancing up and down the lane, thinking. Of all the streets he had traveled, Little Water Street was the only one no longer extant in the twentieth century. It had been paved over, built upon, forgotten. He had seen old maps that showed it, naturally; but no map ever drawn had superimposed its course onto present-dayManhattan . . .

An incredibly shabby man with a horse and cart came down the street, ringing a bell, collecting garbage for tips, a brace of tame hogs following behind. Pendergast did not heed him. Instead, he glided back down the narrow road, pausing at the entrance to Cow Bay. Although with the disappearance of Little Water Street it was difficult to tell on modern maps, Pendergast now saw that the two missions would bothhave backed onto these terrible old tenements. Those dwellings were gone, but the warren of tunnels that once served their criminal residents would have remained.

He glanced down both sides of the alley. Slaughterhouse, ice factory, abandoned waterworks . . . It suddenly made perfect sense.

More slowly now, Pendergast walked away, headed for Baxter Street and points north. He could, of course, have ended his journey at this point—have opened his eyes to the present-day books and tubes and monitor screens—but he preferred to continue the discipline of this mental exercise, to take the long way back to Lenox Hill Hospital. He was curious to see if the fire at Shottum’s Cabinet had been brought under control. Perhaps he would hire a carriage uptown. Or better yet, walk up past the Madison Square Garden circus, past Delmonico’s, past the palaces of Fifth Avenue. There was much to think about, much more than he had previously imagined—and 1881 was as good a place as any to do it in.

FOURTEEN

NORA STOPPED AT the nurses’ station to ask directions to Pendergast’s new room. A sea of hostile faces greeted the question. Clearly,Nora thought, Pendergast was as popular at Lenox as he had been at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt.

She found him lying up in bed, the blinds shut tight against the sun. He looked very tired, his face gray. His blond-white hair hung limply over his high forehead, and his eyes were closed. As she entered, they slowly opened.

“I’m sorry,” Nora said. “This is a bad time.”

“Not at all. I did ask you to see me. Please clear off that chair and sit down.”

Nora moved the stack of books and papers from the chair to the floor, wondering again what this was about. She’d already given him her report about her visit with the old lady and told him it would be her last assignment for him. He had to understand that it was time for her to get back to her own career. As intriguing as it was, she was not about to commit professional hara kiri over this business.

Pendergast’s eyes had drooped until they were almost closed, but she could still see the pale irises behind the slitted lids.

“How are you?” Courtesy required she ask that question, but there wouldn’t be any others. She’d listen to what he had to say, then leave.

“Leng acquired his victims from the cabinet itself,” Pendergast said.

“How do you know?”

“He captured them at the back of one of the halls, most likely a small cul-de-sac housing a particularly gruesome exhibit. He would lie in wait until a visitor was alone, then he’d snatch his victim, take the unfortunate through a door at the rear of the exhibit, which led down the back stairs to the coal cellar. It was a perfect setup. Street people vanished all the time in that neighborhood. Undoubtably, Leng selected victims that would not be missed: street urchins, workhouse boys and girls.”

He spoke in a monotone, as if reviewing his findings within his own mind instead of explaining them to her.

“From 1872 to 1881 he used the cabinet for this purpose. Nine years. Thirty-six victims that we know of, perhaps many more Leng disposed of in some other way. As you know, there had in fact been rumors of people vanishing in the cabinet. These no doubt served to increase its popularity.”

Nora shuddered.

“Then in 1881 he killed Shottum and burned the cabinet. We of course know why: Shottum found out what he was up to. He said as much in his letter to McFadden. But that letter has, in its own way, been misleading me all this time. Leng would have killed Shottum anyway.” Pendergast paused to take a few breaths. “The confrontation with Shottum merely gave him the excuse he needed to burn the cabinet. You see, phase one of his work was complete.”

“Phase one?”

“He had achieved what he set out to do. He perfected his formula.”

“You don’t seriously mean Leng was able to prolong his own life?”

“He clearly believedhe could. In his mind, the experimentation phase could cease. Production could begin. Victims would still be required, but many fewer than before. The cabinet, with its high volume of foot traffic, was no longer necessary. In fact, it had become a liability. It was imperative for Leng to cover his tracks and start afresh.”

There was a silence. Then Pendergast resumed.

“A year before the cabinet burned, Leng offered his services to two workhouses in the vicinity—the Five Points House of Industry and the Five Points Mission. The two were connected by the warren of old underground tunnels that riddled the entire Five Points area in the nineteenth century. In Leng’s day, a foul alley known as Cow Bay lay between the workhouses. Along with the sordid tenements you’d expect, Cow Bay was home to an ancient subterranean pumping station dating back to the days of the Collect Pond. The waterworks were shut down and sealed for good about a month before Leng allied himself with the workhouses. That is no mere coincidence of dates.”

“What are you saying?”

“The abandoned waterworks was the site of Leng’s productionlaboratory. The place he went after burning Shottum’s Cabinet. It was secure, and better still it provided easy underground access to both workhouses. An ideal place to begin production of the substance he believed would prolong his life. I have the old plans for the waterworks, here.” Pendergast waved his hand, weakly.

Nora glanced over at the complex set of diagrams. She wondered what had so exhausted the agent. He had seemed much better the day before. She hoped he hadn’t taken a turn for the worse.

“Today, of course, the workhouses, the tenements, even many of the streets are gone. A three-story brownstone was built directly above the site of Leng’s production laboratory. Number 99 Doyers Street, erected in the 1920s off Chatham Square. Broken into one-bedroom flats, with a separate two-bedroom apartment in the basement. Any traces of Leng’s laboratory would lie under that building.”

Nora thought for a moment. Excavating Leng’s production laboratory would no doubt be a fascinating archaeological project. There would be evidence there, and as an archaeologist she could find it. She wondered, once again, why Pendergast was so interested in these nineteenth-century murders. It would be of some historical solace to know that Mary Greene’s killer had been brought to light—She abruptly terminated the line of thought. She had her own work to do, her own career to salvage. She had to remind herself once again that this was history.

Pendergast sighed, turned slightly in the bed. “Thank you, Dr. Kelly. Now, you’d better go. I’m badly in need of sleep.”

Nora glanced at him in surprise. She had been expecting another plea for her help. “Why did you ask to see me, exactly?”

“You’ve been a great help to me in this investigation. More than once, you’ve asked for more information than I could give you. I assumed you wished to know what I’ve discovered. You’ve earned that, at the very least. There’s a detestable term one hears bandied about these days: ‘closure.’ Detestable, but in this case appropriate. I hope this knowledge will bring you some degree of closure, and allow you to continue your work at the Museum without a sense of unfinished business. I offer my sincerest thanks for your help. It has been invaluable.”

Nora felt a twinge of offense at this abrupt dismissal. She reminded herself that this was what she had wanted . . . Wasn’t it? After a moment she spoke. “Thanks for saying so. But if you ask me, this business sounds totally unfinished. If you’re right about this, 99 Doyers Street seems like the next logical stop.”

“That is correct. The basement apartment is currently unoccupied, and an excavation below the living room floor would be most instructive. I plan to rent the apartment myself and undertake that excavation. And that is why I must recover as quickly as possible. Take care, Dr. Kelly.” He shifted with an air of finality.

“Who’s going to do the excavation?” she asked.

“I will find another archaeologist.”

Nora looked at him sharply. “Where?”

“Through the New Orleans field office. They are most flexible when it comes to my, ah, projects.”

“Right,” said Nora briskly. “But this isn’t a job for just any archaeologist. This requires someone with special skills in—”

“Are you offering?”

Nora was silent.

“Of course you’re not. That’s why I didn’t ask. You’ve more than once expressed your desire to return to a more normal course of work. I’ve imposed upon you too much as it is. Besides, this investigation has taken a dangerous turn, far more so than I initially assumed. An assumption I have paid for, as you can see. I would not wish you exposed to any more danger than you have been already.”

Nora stood up.

“Well,” she said, “I guess that’s settled. I’ve enjoyed working with you, Mr. Pendergast—if ‘enjoy’ is the right word. It’s certainly been interesting.” She felt vaguely dissatisfied with this outcome, even though it was what she had come down here to achieve.

“Indeed,” said Pendergast. “Most interesting.”

She began to walk toward the door, then stopped, remembering something. “But I may be in touch with you again. I got a note from Reinhart Puck in the Archives. Says he’s found some new information, asked me to stop by later this afternoon. If it seems useful, I’ll pass it on.”

Pendergast’s pale eyes were still regarding her attentively. “Do that. And again, Dr. Kelly, you have my thanks. Be very careful.”

She nodded, then turned to leave, smiling at the baleful stares that greeted her as she passed the nurses’ station.

FIFTEEN

THE DOOR TO the Archives gave out a sharp creak as Nora eased it open. There had been no response to her knocking, and the door was unlocked, in clear violation of regulations. Very strange.

The smell of old books, papers, and the odor of corruption that seemed to suffuse the entire Museum hung in her nostrils. Puck’s desk lay in the center of a pool of light, a wall of darkness beyond. Puck himself was nowhere to be seen.

Nora checked her watch. Four P.M. She was right on time.

She released the door and it sighed back into place. She turned the lock, then approached the desk, heels clicking on the marble floor. She signed in automatically, scrawling her name at the top of a fresh page in the logbook. Puck’s desk was neater than usual, and a single typewritten note sat in the middle of the green felt pad. She glanced at it. I’m on the triceratops in the back.

The triceratops,Nora thought, looking into the gloom. Leave it to Puck to be off dusting old relics. But where the hell was the triceratops? She didn’t recall having seen one. And there were no lights on in the back that she could see. The damn triceratops could be anywhere. She looked around: no diagram of the Archives, either. Typical.

Feeling an undercurrent of irritation, she moved to the banks of ivory light switches. She snapped a few on at random. Lights sprang up here and there, deep within the Archives, casting long shadows down the rows of metal shelving. Might as well turn them all on,she thought, flipping whole rows of switches with the edge of her hand. But even with all the lights, the Archives remained curiously shadowy and dim, large pools of darkness and long dim aisles predominating.

She waited, half expecting Puck to call out to her. There was no sound except the distant ticking of steam pipes and the hiss of the forced-air ducts.

“Mr. Puck?” she called tentatively.

Her voice reverberated and died. No answer.

She called again, louder this time. The Archives were so vast she wondered if her voice could penetrate to the rear.

For a minute, she considered coming back another time. But Puck’s message had been most insistent.

Vaguely, she recalled seeing some mounted fossil skeletons on her last visit. Maybe she would find the triceratops among them.

With a sigh, she began walking down one of the aisles, listening to the clatter of her shoes against the marble. Although the entrance to the aisle had been brightly lit, it soon grew shadowy and dim. It was amazing how poorly illuminated the place was; in the middle sections of the aisles, far from the lights, one almost needed a flashlight to make out the objects stacked on the shelves.

At the next pool of light, Nora found herself at a junction from which several aisles wandered away at a variety of angles. She paused, considering which to take. It’s like Hansel and Gretel in here,she thought. And I’m fresh out of bread crumbs.

The aisle closest to her left went in a direction that, she remembered, led to a grouping of stuffed animals. But its few lights were burned out and it vanished into darkness. Nora shrugged and took the next aisle over.

It felt so different, walking these passages alone. The last time, she’d been with Pendergast and Puck. She had been thinking about Shottum and hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings. With Puck guiding their steps, she hadn’t even bothered to notice the strange jogs these aisles took, the odd angles at which they met. It was the most eccentric layout imaginable, made even more eccentric by its vast size.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the aisle took a sharp turn to the left. Around the corner, she unexpectedly came upon a number of freestanding African mammals—giraffes, a hippo, a pair of lions, wildebeests, kudu, water buffalo. Each was wrapped in plastic, bestowing a muffled, ghostly appearance.

Nora stopped. No sign of a triceratops. And once again, the aisles led away in half a dozen directions. She chose one at random, followed it through one jog, then another, coming abruptly to another intersection.

This was getting ridiculous. “Mr. Puck!” she called out loudly.

The echoes of her voice gradually faded away. The hiss of forced air filled the ensuing silence.

She didn’t have time for this. She would come back later, and she’d call first to make sure Puck was waiting at his desk. Better still, she’d just tell him to take whatever it was he wanted to show her directly to Pendergast. She was off the case, anyway.

She turned to walk out of the Archives, taking what she thought would be the shortest path. After a few minutes, she came to a stop beside a rhino and several zebras. They looked like lumpy sentinels beneath the omnipresent plastic, giving off a strong smell of paradichlorobenzene.

These aisles didn’t look familiar. And she didn’t seem to be any closer to the exit.

For a moment, she felt a small current of anxiety. Then she shook it away with a forced laugh. She’d just make her way back to the giraffes, then retrace her steps from there.

As she turned, her foot landed in a small puddle of water. She looked up just as a drop of water splattered on her forehead. Condensation from the pipes far overhead. She shook it away and moved on.

But she couldn’t seem to find her way back to the giraffes.

This was crazy. She’d navigated through trackless deserts and dense rainforests. How could she be lost in a museum in the middle of New York City?

She looked around, realizing it was her sense of direction she had lost. With all these angled aisles, these dimly lit intersections, it had become impossible to tell where the front desk was. She’d have to—

She abruptly froze, listening intently. A soft pattering sound. It was hard to tell where it had come from, but it was close.

“Mr. Puck? Is that you?”

Nothing.

She listened, and the pattering sound came again. Just more water dripping somewhere,she thought. Even so, she was more eager than ever to find the door.

She chose an aisle at random and moved down it at a brisk walk, heels clicking rapidly against the marble. On both sides of the aisle, the shelves were covered with bones stacked like cordwood, each with a yellowing tag tied to its end. The tags flapped and fluttered in the dead air stirred by her passage. The place was like a crypt. Amid the silence, the darkness, and the ghoulish specimens, it was hard not to think about the set of grisly murders that had occurred just a few years before, within this very subbasement. It was still the subject of rumor and speculation in the staff lounge.

The aisle ended in another jog.

Damn it,thought Nora, looking up and down the long rows of shelving that vanished into the gloom. Another welling of anxiety, harder to fight down this time. And then, once again, she heard—or thought she heard—a noise from behind. This time it wasn’t a pattering, so much as the scrape of a foot on stone.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, spinning around. “Mr. Puck?”

Nothing save the hiss of steam and the drip of water.

She began walking again, a little faster now, telling herself not to be afraid; that the noises were merely the incessant shiftings and settlings of an old, decrepit building. The very corridors seemed watchful. The click of her heels was unbearably loud.

She turned a corner and stepped in another puddle of water. She pulled back in disgust. Why didn’t they do something about these old pipes?

She looked at the puddle again. The water was black, greasy—not, in fact, water at all. Oil had leaked on the floor, or maybe some chemical preservative. It had a strange, sour smell. But it didn’t look like it had leaked from anywhere: she was surrounded by shelves covered with mounted birds, beaks open, eyes wide, wings upraised.

What a mess,she thought, turning her expensive Bally shoe sideways to find that the oily liquid had soiled the sole and part of the stitching. This place was a disgrace. She pulled an oversized handkerchief from her pocket—a necessary accoutrement to working in a dusty museum—and wiped it along the edge of the shoe. And then, abruptly, she froze. Against the white background of the handkerchief, the liquid was not black. It was a deep, glistening red.

She dropped the handkerchief and took an involuntary step back, heart hammering. She looked at the pool, stared at it with sudden horror. It was blood—a whole lot of blood. She looked around wildly: where had it come from? Had it leaked out of a specimen? But it seemed to be just sitting there, all alone—a large pool of blood in the middle of the aisle. She glanced up, but there was nothing: just the dim ceiling thirty feet above, crisscrossed with pipes.

Then she heard what sounded like another footfall, and, through a shelf of specimens, she glimpsed movement. Then, silence returned.

But she had definitely heard something. Move, move,all her instincts cried out.

Nora turned and walked quickly down the long aisle. Another sound came—fast footsteps? The rustle of fabric?—and she paused again to listen. Nothing but the faint drips from the pipes. She tried to stare through the isolated gaps in the shelves. There was a wall of specimen jars, snakes coiled in formaldehyde, and she strained to see through. There seemed to be a shape on the other side, large and black, rippled and distorted by the stacks of glass jars. She moved . . . and it moved in turn. She was sure of it.

She backtracked quickly, breath coming faster, and the dark shape moved as well. It seemed to be pacing her in the next aisle—perhaps waiting for her to reach either one end or the other.

She slowed and, struggling to master her fear, tried walking as calmly as she could toward the end of the aisle. She could see, hear, the shape—so near now—moving as well, keeping pace.

“Mr. Puck?” she ventured, voice quavering.

There was no answer.

Suddenly, Nora found herself running. She arrowed down the aisle, sprinting as fast as she could. Swift footfalls sounded in the adjoining aisle.

Ahead was a gap, where her aisle joined the next. She had to get past, outrun the person in the adjoining aisle.

She dashed through the gap, glimpsing for a split second a huge black figure, metal flashing in its gloved hand. She sprinted down the next aisle, through another gap, and on down the aisle again. At the next gap, she veered sharply right, heading down a new corridor. Selecting another aisle at random, she turned into it and ran on through the dimness ahead.

Halfway to the next intersection, she stopped again, heart pounding. There was silence, and for a moment relief surged through her: she had managed to lose her pursuer.

And then she caught the sound of faint breathing from the adjoining aisle.

Relief disappeared as quickly as it had come. She had not outrun him. No matter what she did, no matter where she ran, he had continued to pace her, one aisle over.

“Who are you?” she asked.

There was a faint rustle, then an almost silent laugh.

Nora looked to the left and right, fighting back panic, desperately trying to determine the best way out. These shelves were covered with stacks of folded skins, parchment-dry, smelling fearfully of decay. Nothing looked familiar.

Twenty feet farther down the aisle, she spied a gap in the shelving, on the side away from the unknown presence. She sprinted ahead and turned into the gap, then doubled back into yet another adjoining aisle. She stopped, crouched, waited.

Footfalls sounded several aisles over, coming closer, then receding again. He had lost her.

Nora turned and began moving, as stealthily as possible, through the aisles, trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and the pursuer. But no matter which way she turned, or how fast she ran, whenever she stopped she could hear the footfalls, rapid and purposeful, seeming to keep pace.

She hadto figure out where she was. If she kept running around aimlessly, eventually he—it—would catch her.

She looked around. This aisle ended in a wall. She was at the edge of the Archives. Now, at least, she could follow the wall, make her way to the front.

Crouching, she moved along as quickly as she could, listening intently for the sound of footsteps, her eye scanning the dimness ahead. Suddenly, something yawned out from the gloom: it was a triceratops skull, mounted on the wall, its outlines shadowy and vague in the poor light.

Relief flooded through her. Puck must be around here somewhere; the intruder wouldn’t dare approach them simultaneously.

She opened her mouth to call out softly. But then she paused, looking more closely at the dim outline of the dinosaur. Something was odd—the silhouette was all wrong. She began to move cautiously toward it. And then, abruptly, she stopped once again.

There, impaled on the horns of the triceratops, hung a body, naked from the waist up, arms and legs hanging loose. Three bloody horns stuck right through the man’s back. It looked as if the triceratops had gored the person, hoisting him into the air.

Nora took a step back. Her mind took in the details, as if from a long distance away: the balding head with a fringe of gray hair; the flabby skin; the withered arms. Where the horns had speared through the lower back, the flesh was one long, open wound. Blood had collected around the base of the horns, running in dark rivulets around the torso and dripping onto the marble.

I’m on the triceratops in the back.

In the back.

She heard a scream, realized that it had come from her own throat.

Blindly, she wheeled away and ran, veering once, and again, and then again, racing down the aisles as quickly as she could move her legs. And then, abruptly, she found herself in a cul-de-sac. She spun to retrace her steps—and there, blocking the end of the row, stood an antique, black-hatted figure.

Something gleamed in his gloved hands.

There was nowhere to go but up. Without an instant’s thought, she turned, grabbed the edge of a shelf, and began climbing.

The figure came flying down the aisle, black cloak billowing behind.

Nora was an experienced rock climber. Her years as an archaeologist in Utah, climbing to caves and Anasazi cliff dwellings, were not forgotten. In a minute she had reached the top shelf, which swayed and groaned under the unexpected weight. She turned frantically, grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a stuffed falcon—and looked down once again.

The black-hatted man was already below, climbing, face obscured in deep shadow. Nora aimed, then threw.

The falcon bounced harmlessly off one shoulder.

She looked around desperately for something else. A box of papers; another stuffed animal; more boxes. She threw one, then another. But they were too light, useless.

Still the man climbed.

With a sob of terror, she swung over the top shelf and started descending the other side. Abruptly, a gloved hand darted betweenthe shelving, caught hold of her shirt. Nora screamed, ripping herself free. A dim flash of steel and a tiny blade swept past her, missing her eye by inches. She swung away as the blade made another glittering arc toward her. Pain abruptly blossomed in her right shoulder.

She cried out, lost her grip. Landing on her feet, she broke her fall by rolling to one side.

On the far side of the shelving, the man had quickly climbed back down to the ground. Now he began climbing directly through the shelf, kicking and knocking specimen jars and boxes aside.

Again she ran, running wildly, blindly, from aisle to aisle.

Suddenly, a vast shape rose out of the dimness before her. It was a woolly mammoth. Nora recognized it immediately: she’d been here, once before, with Puck.

But which direction was out?As she looked around, Nora realized she would never make it—the pursuer would be upon her in a matter of seconds.

Suddenly, she knew there was only one thing to do.

Reaching for the light switches at the end of the aisle, she brushed them off with a single movement, plunging the surrounding corridors once again into darkness. Quickly, she felt beneath the mammoth’s scratchy belly. There it was: a wooden lever. She tugged, and the trap door fell open.

Trying to make as little noise as possible, she climbed into the hot, stuffy belly, pulling the trapdoor up behind her.

Then she waited, inside the mammoth. The air stank of rot, dust, jerked meat, mushrooms.