Inside the Shadow City (5 page)

When the sun is shining and the park is peaceful, getting lost can be enjoyable. At night, however, the maze holds more than its share of monsters. In the weeks before
I found myself following Kiki Strike, the local news had been filled with stories of roving bands of teenage boys who began gathering in the park as soon as the sun set. Dressed in dark colors, their identities concealed beneath layers of war paint, they delighted in ambushing people who were foolish enough to wander into their domain. A businessman, cutting through the park on his way home one night, was forced to swim a half dozen laps in the freezing, polluted waters of Central Park Lake. Not long afterward, a woman and her daughter were discovered one morning, marooned in the snow monkey habitat in the park zoo. Given the frigid New York weather, they might have met a less amusing fate if the monkeys hadn't taken pity and huddled with them for warmth during the night.

As you might imagine, I wasn't thrilled by the prospect of coming face-to-face with the resident thugs of Central Park. Yet when Kiki Strike climbed on top of the wall and leaped into the wilderness, I followed without hesitation.

Kiki maneuvered her way through the frozen park like a seasoned Sherpa. I tried to keep out of sight as she wound around bushes, lakes, and rocks, but the snow had slowly begun to collect on her coat, and it no longer stood out as clearly as it once had. I was forced to move closer and closer in order to see her against the trees. When we reached the Great Lawn—a vast stretch of meadow in the middle of the park—my eyes strained to see through the blizzard. With each step, Kiki Strike, now covered head to toe in snow, started to vanish.

Desperate not to lose sight of her, I began to run,
aware that I could face discovery at any moment. My feet, frozen by the snow that had collected in my inappropriate footwear, refused to cooperate. I slipped and fell to my hands and knees, and as I struggled to pull myself upright, I saw a blurry figure slip into the woods. I found myself standing alone in the middle of an empty meadow, shin-deep in snow and wondering if I had been undone by the weather or outwitted by Kiki Strike.

I made a few wrong turns on my way out of the park, and the sun disappeared before I reached the safety of Fifth Avenue. In preparation for my long journey home, I leaned against a tree to catch my breath and shake the snow out of my shoes. Three young men dressed in camouflage emerged from a mansion just east of the avenue. Big, well-fed types with expensive boots and carefully unkempt hair, they shuffled across the street, heading toward the park. Figuring they were up to no good, I pressed myself up against the tree, and prayed I would go unnoticed.

“It's not going to get away tonight,” I overheard one boy say. “They've put a bounty on its head.”

“Do you really think it'll come back?” asked another nervously.

“I'd bet my life on it.”

“You might have to, considering what it did to Julian. Did you see his face? It broke his nose,” snickered one of the boys.

“Look, Julian was just caught off guard. It's not going to happen again. You got your phones?”

“Yeah.”

“If any of us see it, we're going to call the others.
We're not taking any chances, right? Whatever it is, it's supposed to be pretty small. If we're all together, we should be able to catch it before it hurts anyone else.”

Peering cautiously around the tree, I saw the trio stop by the park's stone wall and furtively check the street in either direction. Once a southbound taxi disappeared from sight, they vaulted the wall and vanished between the trees. Had I been less worried about losing my toes to frostbite, I might have followed them. Their conversation had captured my interest. Fear of the mysterious “IT” had made their voices quiver unnaturally, and I wondered what could have inspired such agitation in three full-grown hoodlums.

By the time I reached the lobby of my apartment building, my body was numb, and the humid heat of the stairwell made my skin prickle with pain. Amazingly, I survived with all of my fingers and toes intact, although both of my feet took hours to thaw. Later that night, as I was getting ready for bed, a snippet from the evening news caught my attention.

Two teenage boys from wealthy Manhattan families were released this evening from Beth Israel Hospital and immediately placed under arrest on charges of assault and criminal mischief stemming from a bizarre incident in Central Park. Thomas Vandervoort and Jacob Harcott stand accused of attacking a jogger near the Literary Walk. According to authorities, they viciously beat the man, a retired advertising executive, and then forced him to don a pink tutu. The boys, members of a gang that's been
terrorizing Central Park for months, were preparing to tie the jogger to a statue of Shakespeare when they were set upon by what has been described as a large elf or albino leprechaun.

“Neither Vandervoort nor Harcott has offered his version of events, but the jogger, who admits to feeling quite woozy at the time, insists that his savior was no more than four feet tall and wearing a Russian-style fur hat.

By morning, the newspapers were having great sport with the jogger, who had offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any information regarding the albino elf that had saved his life. A story in the
New York Post
featured a blurry mug shot of the Lucky Charms leprechaun along with a caption that read:

The thought of collecting the reward crossed my mind once or twice. In fact, nothing would have pleased me more than to tell the world that the mysterious crime-fighting leprechaun was just a twelve-year-old girl. But Kiki Strike's secrets were worth far more to me than a pot of gold. And I wasn't going to give up until I had them all.

• • •

The next day, I dropped by Verushka's bookstore on Second Avenue, hoping that the Marble Cemetery might
offer a clue to Kiki Strike's identity. When I arrived, I found the store dark and deserted. The window display had been altered to showcase a collection of Grimm's fairy tales. Where the map of the Marble Cemetery had once lain was a thick book with an image of Briar Rose on its cover, her dainty finger poised above a spindle. A faded sign pinned to the door of the shop read: “Closed until further notice.” I was about to leave, when I spotted a red envelope tucked in the side of the door. My name was written on the front.

I tore open the envelope and fished out the note inside.

You're not very good at following people,
it read in a tight, controlled hand.
If you want to know something, perhaps you should ask.
It was signed Kiki Strike.

One of the many tricks I've learned from the remarkable Kiki Strike is the fine art of “tailing.” You may be tempted to think that following someone is a simple skill to master. Don't fool yourself! Tailing demands patience, concentration, ingenuity, and most of all, preparation. Before you attempt the real thing, try following a teacher, a brother, or parent just for fun. (Who knows what you might find out!) Once you feel like you're starting to get the hang of it, you can rely on these helpful pointers …

1. When following someone, never get too close. Stay at a distance or walk on the opposite side of the street. Try to avoid looking directly at the person. Whenever possible, watch her out of the corner of your eye.

2. Everyone has a unique way of walking. Does the person you're following have a limp? Does she swing her behind
from side to side? If you can memorize her walk, you'll be able to keep an eye on her from a distance.

3. If you think the person you're following has spotted you, turn and have a nice chat with a stranger on the street. The stranger may think you're a lunatic, but the person you're tailing will think you're harmless.

4. By walking ahead of your target, you can erase any suspicions she might have. Just take a small mirror from a compact, cup it in the palm of your hand, and use it to keep track of the person behind you. If you don't have a mirror handy, you can use other reflective surfaces, such as store windows.

5. Don't call any attention to yourself. Never wear loud colors or shirts with slogans or logos. In general, try not to look too fabulous.

6. Change your appearance by pulling your hair into a ponytail or trading your glasses for sunglasses.

7. Wear comfortable clothing. Never try to break in a new pair of shoes while following someone. And try to be dressed for the weather.

8. Always carry a few extra dollars. You may have to jump on a bus or catch a cab on a moment's notice.

When I first read Kiki Strike's note, I felt like a Peeping Tom who'd been caught peering through her neighbors' windows or rifling through their garbage. Fortunately, it didn't take long to swallow my shame and decide that I might as well take Kiki up on her offer. Our endless game of hide-and-seek had grown tiresome, and I was ready to get some answers the old-fashioned way.

The following Monday, I watched through a window overlooking the school's entrance until I saw Kiki make her way into the building. The second I spotted her black fur hat, my brain began tingling with anticipation. But when the first bell rang, Kiki's desk was still empty and a pop quiz on the many wives of King Henry VIII had been slapped down in front of me.

As I struggled to remember which of Henry's wives had kept their heads, a crime was being committed. By the time I turned in a half-answered test, the hallways were buzzing. I stepped out of my classroom and
squeezed passed a group of ninth graders who were clustered near the bathroom

“I heard they broke in while she was in swimming class,” I heard one girl say.

“Who leaves something like that in her gym locker?” another asked.

“It wasn't just sitting there waiting for somebody to take it, you imbecile,” a third girl huffed. “It was inside a locked jewelry box. She had the key around her neck.”

“Somebody took Erica Whittaker's tennis bracelet last week,” announced another. “They opened her locker like a pro. It's got to be one of the scholarship girls.”

“Oh my God!” yelped a girl who was frantically tugging at her earlobes. “My emerald earrings are still in my locker!”

“Nobody's going to steal your crappy jewelry, Courtney,” snickered the first girl. “Everyone knows it's all fake.”

“I hope they never find it,” I heard a nearby scholarship girl whisper to a friend. They shared a smile that froze in panic when they saw I'd overheard them.

“What's going on?” I asked a girl from my algebra class. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have ignored me, but this time the gossip was too good not to share.

“Someone stole Sidonia's ring.” She pointed in the direction of a haughty ninth grader with jet-black hair and yellow eyes who was exiting the principal's office at the end of the hall.

“This morning?” I asked, suddenly feeling a bit queasy.

“Yeah,” said my classmate with a nasty grin. “There's a dead girl walking the halls today.”

As anyone at the Atalanta School could have told you, Sidonia Galatzina wasn't your average crime victim. She was the last princess in the exiled royal family of the former kingdom of Pokrovia, and the ring she had so carefully concealed was no ordinary piece of jewelry. Featuring an enormous diamond in the palest shade of pink, it had graced the fingers of countless queens and was rumored to have been on Sidonia's aunt's right hand when she was murdered the night before her coronation.

It wasn't the theft itself that had the whole school talking. Everyone wanted to know who had dared to mess with Sidonia, the tyrant of the Atalanta School for Girls. Aside from being thoroughly evil, Sidonia—or the Princess, as everyone called her—was beautiful, rich, and unusually charming. Most adults found her entrancing, with her dimpled cheeks, European accent, and impeccable grooming. One heartwarming smile or girlish giggle, and they fell under her spell. Few could see that Sidonia had been born with a heart filled with venom and a natural ability for wreaking mayhem. By my count, she was personally responsible for a dozen nervous breakdowns and at least one case of hives. School legend had it that she had forced five scholarship girls to transfer to other schools in her kindergarten year alone.

The Princess traveled with a pack of four girls who mimicked her in every way. If she arrived at school in a miniature mink coat, the others would appear the next day in identical furs, looking like a ferocious band of well-groomed squirrels. If Sidonia adopted a new hairstyle, they all scrambled to their hairdressers no matter how unflattering the results. But however ridiculous they
may have appeared, the Princess's friends were best avoided. Like the other girls who lacked protective layers of designer clothing, I stayed out of their way. For the most part The Five, as they called themselves, left me alone. There was usually far easier prey to be had. They ate a scholarship girl for lunch every day.

I wouldn't have given the Princess's ring much thought had the theft not reeked of Kiki Strike. Only a girl who was new to the school could have made such an idiotic mistake, and Kiki had been cutting class at the time of the crime. I was disturbed to discover her criminal tendencies, but I was curious to see how she had done it. Getting past two locks demanded skills most seventh graders didn't possess. So when the classroom doors closed for second period, I slipped downstairs to the pool's locker room and examined the front of the Princess's locker. I found no evidence of tampering, and the combination lock looked as sturdy as any other.

“Forget something?” snarled a voice behind me. I felt the contents of my stomach begin to bubble as I turned to see one of The Five, a ninth grader named Naomi Throg-morton. Naomi had the honor of being the Princess's very best friend—not to mention her favorite victim. Though she was said to be the prettiest of The Five, Naomi was also the poorest, and the Princess treated her like something she'd found floating in a public toilet.