Chapter 1 The Maw
The Maw
The body: the Maw.
The crime: existing.
Sascia first noticed the feeling on her third day giving tours of the Maw six months ago.
A sensation along her spine, a muted hiss in her ears.
The instinct to just bolt. It was one of the security guards who put a name to it, after he noticed Sascia’s hunched shoulders.
Feels like something’s breathing down there, don’t it?
A monster in the darkness, lurking in anticipation.
But to Sascia, the Maw is far more than a crime to be feared.
Get your life together, her dad had said after their massive blowout when it became evident Sascia was squandering her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at an Ivy League education.
Except Sascia’s life was the Dark, and that wasn’t socially acceptable, so she settled for the next best thing: running exclusive tours of the New York Darkworld to pay for her ridiculous remedial courses and ridiculous SAT retakes.
The Maw is, in a way, her second chance.
“Its scientific name is NY18 Sinkhole,” she says now to her latest client, launching into her familiar monologue, “but people call it the Maw, after that viral footage, you know, of the delivery guy on his scooter, racing away from the emerging Dark.”
“Yeah,” her client says, and dutifully quotes, “Everything’s disappearing into it—like it’s a damn maw.”
Yvonne Coleman-Zhao is from Chicago, a first-year student at Juilliard, a violinist or cellist or something, and she’s never seen the Maw before.
Her eyes are big and unblinking, her body tense; she refuses to step any closer than necessary.
(Chicago might have the occasional runaway Darkbeast, but it does not have a Maw.)
“The Pit of Shanghai is bigger, of course,” Sascia recites, “and xenoscientists—scientists who study the Dark—believe there are cracks in the deep ocean that dwarf the ones on land, but, yeah, the Maw of Manhattan is catalogued as the second-largest host of Dark in the world. It is home to a number of monstrosities, as you can see.” She gestures at the talon marks on the concrete barrier surrounding the Maw.
“As you surely know, there are no humanoids in the world where the Dark comes from, but there’s plenty of Darkcreatures, something akin to our own animals, and a few Darkbeasts, ranging in size from an elephant to Godzilla-level giants.
Fortunately, no Darkbeasts have managed to burst out of the Maw in five years, since the Blackout.
If something big is crawling through the Dark, movement sensors at the lowest ring of the barrier automatically turn on lights fortified with nova energy to the highest brightness and release light bombs to send the beast scuttling back. ”
Sascia pauses, because this is the point where most of her clients need to pose the question. Right on cue, Yvonne asks, “Does that happen often?”
“In New York? It happens three, four times a year.” Her breezy answer is well rehearsed; after almost half a year on the job, she knows to offer the sense of safety her clients are craving.
“Tradition says if the skyline blazes white and you’re still alive when the lights switch off, you have to go get blackout drunk. ”
“Well, let’s hope my parents never hear about that.
It was hard enough to convince them to let me move to a city with an active Darkhole.
” The girl glances at the black-and-orange water bottle peeking out of the side pocket of Sascia’s backpack—a gift from her father when they visited Columbia University last summer. “So you’re at Columbia?”
Uh-oh rings like an alarm in Sascia’s head.
She doesn’t want to have the college conversation, least of all with a bright-eyed first-year student.
They’re so full of dreams, opportunity ripe for the taking; dreams that Sascia should share, opportunity she should be taking advantage of.
I was recruited by the elite Umbra Program for Young Researchers at sixteen, offered an early provisional spot at Columbia a few months later, botched all my conditional exams at seventeen, and now, at eighteen, I have to complete remedial courses and retake the SATs just doesn’t have a good ring to it.
“Uh-huh,” she drones instead. “But I’m taking a gap year right now.” (At least this part’s kind of true.)
“Oh, fun! And this is your side gig? These private tours?”
This is good money and me getting my life together is the real answer, but no one should have to say that aloud. “Hey,” she evades, pointing at the entrance with her chin, “it looks like there’s a big group coming. Do you want a photo before the place gets swamped?”
She opens her palm, but to her surprise, Yvonne doesn’t hand her phone over. “Doesn’t feel right,” the girl mumbles, which earns her another point in Sascia’s tally.
(The first one: pronouncing Sascia’s name right, when she called to book a tour three days ago. Almost everyone goes for Sasha at first try.)
(For the record, it’s: SAH-skee-ah.)
They descend the stairs to a typical late-October day in New York, orange speckling the green along the street, gray clouds peeking between the buildings.
The air is thick with fried food and ketchup.
Any good guide knows the drill: start with lesser attractions first, like the Darkgriffin sculpture installation at Washington Square Park, move on to the highlight of the tour, aka the Maw, then end the walk with a shopping opportunity at the flea market by the entrance of the observation deck.
Street vendors line the cobbled street, booths heavy with Darkworld memorabilia, food stalls packed with Darkbeast-inspired delicacies.
“Sooo,” Sascia drawls. “Like we discussed, I charge twenty for the one-hour tour. If you enjoyed it, I’d greatly appreciate you passing the word to your friends.”
She notices the infinitesimal drop of Yvonne’s eyebrows. Sascia’s heartbeat heightens, her senses sharpen. This is the moment. It’s why she tolerates the crush of tourists at the Maw and performs her parroted speech in every snippet of free time she has.
Yvonne says, “Oh. I thought—”
Sascia puts a puzzled frown on her face. “Yes?”
“I heard—”
C’mon, Sascia thinks with twin pangs of panic and anticipation. Don’t chicken out now.
The girl’s voice drops to a whisper. “Well, the person who referred me to you said you take your clients…fishing.”
And there it is. Hook, line, and sinker. Sascia shrugs, but it’s a hard facade to maintain. Her belly fills with self-congratulatory pleasure. “If they want to.”
“I want to,” Yvonne hastens to say.
“Fishing in the Dark is not exactly legal,” Sascia warns, but Yvonne won’t care—the ones who seek Sascia’s services never do.
This is, after all, what her word-of-mouth campaign advertises: an immersive, collaborative experience, emphasis on immersive.
Any proper tour company in the city can show you around the Maw and jabber about the legendary Darkgriffin and its many littler brethren.
But only Sascia will take you fishing, so you can see (and let’s be honest, touch) those littler brethren with your own two hands.
Yvonne says eagerly, “It’s a hundred, right? For the fishing tour?”
“Depends on what you want to catch. Darkbeetles and roaches are eighty—”
“I want Darkfireflies,” Yvonne replies without skipping a beat.
Sascia has to fight, like full-body wrestle, the urge to roll her eyes.
She did it once for a visiting Harvard sophomore in June, and now that’s all her clients ever ask for.
Apparently, that girl was a sorority influencer or something, and she listed a Darkfirefly jar lantern as the must-have item for your dorm room decoration.
Luckily, Darkfireflies are essentially the most harmless, docile creatures to ever come out of the Dark. Catching them is both easy (which is great for Sascia) and spectacular (which is great for business).
“Darkfireflies are a hundred, yes,” Sascia replies. “I’ve got a good fishing spot, but it’s a bit of a walk.”
Yvonne doesn’t mind, so they spend the next twenty minutes walking uptown, during which Sascia makes sure to ask the girl lots of questions, carefully steering the conversation away from any facts about her own personal life.
When they reach Hell’s Kitchen and Sascia leads Yvonne into a narrow, dark side street, the girl is visibly spooked, lingering at the mouth of the alley.
“Don’t worry,” Sascia soothes. “I’ve done this dozens of times. It’s perfectly safe. Look.”
She removes the portable nova-lights from her backpack and arranges them in a circle at the end of the alley.
With a click of the remote, the floodlights flick on, washing the brick and cement in white.
The lights congregate over a manhole cover emblazoned with geometric designs and the word Sewer in narrow, square letters.
The legitimacy of it seems to settle Yvonne’s nerves. She approaches and proceeds to gawk at Sascia’s gear. A folding fishing rod (modified to hold bug bait instead of fish bait), a nova-gun (just in case), a waterproof canvas to sit on, and two small plastic specimen cups.
“What’s that?” Yvonne asks.
“Our bait,” Sascia answers, depositing the tiny Ziploc bag filled with gray dust next to the cups. “It’s Darkflowers ground to powder, which research has shown is akin to pollen in the Darkworld. Scientists believe Darkfireflies love it.”
(Tactfully, Sascia doesn’t say my research, or I believe.)
She’s almost set up, fishing rod extended, glue strips and bait hanging from its tip.
There’s none of the bone-chilling fear now.
The big Dark is terrifying, but the smaller Dark, Sascia can handle just fine.
In fact, she kind of excels at it. Her body is brimming with excitement, movements swift and focused, mind razor-sharp, and when she launches into her familiar fishing directions, she talks a little too fast.