Page 29 of Up in Smoke

“A type of burial,” I replied.

“Oh. Papa said he’d always known he’d die in our house, although he hadn’t expected it to be in the cellar.”

All right. I could improvise as needed. “Would you prefer if they were buried in the cellar?”

She bobbed her head. “Papa always said home is where the heart is.”

If I found out the choirs and Mansfield had anything to do with the storms responsible for shattering the little girl’s family, I’d tear him apart so thoroughly they’d find pieces of him in every quadrant—and perhaps even as far away as Mexico. Rather than allow my anger to erupt, I forced my ears forward and kept my tail still. “Then we’ll bury them there, and we’ll see if any of your things are still in your house once this latest storm blows over, okay?”

“Okay. What’s your name, miss?”

“Jade,” I told her, allowing myself a smile. “Sandro will be my husband one day, but I’m going to make him earn it,” I informed her in a whisper, hoping to distract her from the reality of having been yanked away from her parents’ bodies and dumped into another cellar. “Do you have any family around these parts?”

“Unca Devons lives in Antlers,” she announced. “He’s fun. He has horses and cows, and he dug out a cave to hide the animals during the bad blows. Unca Devons taught me how to ride a horse. My favorite horse is Sissa. She’s big and black and she has some white on her nose.”

With the same force of flood gates opening during a bad blow, Alondra told me every little detail about her Unca Devons, right down to him being fussy about how anyone approached his livestock, his love of good tobacco to the point he tried to grow it in the entry of his cave, and how Unca Devons had a bunch of youngins her age, and the youngins had a bunch of different mommas because most men moved on and the mommas liked living in Antlers and wanted to stay—with her Unca Devons.

Then, with zero idea of the innuendo, she informed me that she couldn’t blame any of the mommas for wanting to stay with him, as he was big and strong and kind.

I would hold onto hope that her Unca Devons was still in Antlers, which we’d pass through to get to Tulsa—and that I could get her there in one piece. With no idea how to handle the death of her parents, I let her talk, picking what she wanted to babble about and encouraging her to share her opinion and thoughts.

When the wind’s whistle took a sinister turn, Alondra fell quiet, staring at the cellar door. The familiar roar of a twister passed nearby, shaking the concrete sanctuary.

“It was just like that before Papa died,” she told me in a quiet voice. “That’s when he told me it wasn’t my fault. Mama was gone by then, but she hadn’t been gone for long. He got up once it got quiet, went to the outer door, and couldn’t get it open. He stopped like Mama had, not that long after. A few hours, maybe? The flashlight hadn’t gone out yet. I guess he was sick, too. You came after the flashlight went out. I wasn’t even all that hungry yet.”

I’d forgotten just how good my fox’s vision was in the dark, as I hadn’t even realized it’d been unlit in her cellar. That she hadn’t gotten all that hungry relieved me. She hadn’t been left with their bodies for too long, no more than a day or two—just enough time for the first stages of decomposition to take hold.

“What kind of food do you like?”

“I’ll eat anything. Papa said we had to eat what we could. Pepperoni will eat anything, too. She’s a good kitty.”

I assumed the kitten was Pepperoni, and using one of our flashlights, I checked on her and Sandro.

Sometime since I’d started talking to the little girl, Sandro had woken up, and he watched me with solemn eyes. He pet the kitten, who had curled up on his lap. I breathed a sigh of relief. “How is Pepperoni, Sandro?”

“She’ll be fine. I whispered her a little poem while you were talking to Alondra, as you were taking care of the girl. I can use a poem to warm food for us. I figured I wouldn’t add to your problems until you were ready to add me to your problems, my future wife.”

Crap. He’d heard me. “I will find a way to make you pay,” I whispered to him before getting up and claiming Pepperoni and taking her to Alondra. “Be gentle with her until I can find something to give her for dinner,” I said. “She’s hungry, but she’ll be okay.”

Alondra beamed and took her kitten, snuggling with the animal. “She’ll be okay?”

“We’ll give her some water and some dinner, and she should be fine.” I hoped. The last thing I needed was trying to comfort a little girl who’d already lost everything else important to her. I went to the wagon, rummaged around until I found a can of tuna, grabbed one of the plates from my new set, and made an offering to the animal.

Pepperoni devoured the fish as though she’d never eaten a scrap of food in her life.

With the kitten taken care of, I brought Alondra over to the wagon and had her pick our dinner. She regarded the labels with wide eyes, eventually picking out another can of tuna, baked beans, and peas.

If the girl wanted to eat tuna, beans, and peas, I wasn’t going to argue with her. I put Sandro to work warming the beans and peas and regretted I had no ability to bake bread so I could make her a sandwich. Once I opened the can, Alondra took it, sipped the water out of it like I’d offered her some form of precious nectar of life, and joined her cat in a fishy feeding frenzy.

Within minutes of Sandro working his magic to warm the beans and peas, those vanished with equal enthusiasm. Five minutes later, with her kitten on her lap and leaning against the wagon, Alondra fell asleep.

I stared at the huge can of beans, which had been picked clean. “She ate it all,” I blurted, peering into the can to see if she’d left anything at all. Somehow, she’d even gotten the liquid out. “How can someone that little eat so much?”

“She was well-fed before disaster struck, and she wasn’t in that cellar long enough for her stomach to shrink.” Sandro sighed, shaking his head. “Is this Antlers place on the way?”

“It’s directly on route to Tulsa,” I replied. “If he has that good of a setup, there’s a chance he’s still alive, too.”

“Some chance is better than no chance, so I guess our next stop is in Antlers.”

I nodded. “And if he’s not still alive, what do we do?”

“We take her with us, and I’ll get into a fight with Mansfield over it.” Sandro shrugged. “My mother keeps saying she wants daughters, so I’ll just help her out a little. But we’ll try her Unca Devons first.”

“She’s handling it so well,” I whispered, wondering how we’d get a kitten and little girl to Antlers alive.

“She lives in the Alley, Jade—and probably has all of her life.”

Yes, she did, and all knew death was a way of life in the Alley. “I wish it could be different.”

“I know. That’s why we’re headed to Tulsa. If it can be different, we’ll make it happen. And we’re already making a difference. The Voodoo queens are eliminating these choirs. They won’t sing again—and may the Alley only battle natural storms in the future.”