The Last Days Read Online Free PDF

to tell Mom that there were no doctors anymore, just an esoterica. We stayed silent until the limo pulled up outside Minerva’s house. Night was falling by then, lights going on. The brownstone’s darkened windows made the block look like it was missing a tooth.

    The street looked different, as if the last two months had sapped something from it. Garbage was piled high on the streets, the sanitation crisis much more obvious out here in Brooklyn, but I didn’t see any rats scuttling around. There seemed to be a lot of stray cats, though.

    “This used to be such a nice neighborhood,” Mom said. “Do you need Elvis to collect you?”

    “No. That’s okay.”

    “Well, call him if you change your mind,” Mom said as the door opened. “And don’t take the train too late.”

    I slipped out past Elvis, annoyance rising in me again. Mom knew I hated the subway late at night, and that Minerva’s company didn’t exactly make me want to dally.

    Elvis and I traded our funny little salute, which we’ve been doing since I was nine, and we both smiled. But then he glanced up at the house, lines creasing his forehead. Something skittered in the garbage bags by our feet—stray cats or not, rats were in residence.

    “Are you sure you won’t be wanting a ride home, Pearl?” he rumbled softly.

    “Positive. Thanks, though.”

    Mom likes all conversations to include her, so she scooted closer across the limo’s backseat. “What time did you get in last night anyway?”

    “Right after eleven.”

    She pursed her lips the slightest discernible amount, showing she knew I was lying, and I gave her the tiniest possible eye-roll to show I didn’t care.

    “Well, see you at eleven tonight, then.”

    I snorted a little for Elvis. The only way Mom was coming home before midnight was if they ran out of champagne at the museum, or if the mummies all got loose.

    I imagined old-movie mummies in tattered bandages. Nice and nonscary.

    Then her voice softened. “Give my love to Minerva.”

    “Okay,” I said, waving and turning away, flinching as the door boomed shut behind me. “I’ll try.”

     
    Luz de la Sueño opened the door and waved me in quick, like she was worried about flies zipping in behind. Or maybe she didn’t want the neighbors to see her new decorations, seeing as how Halloween was more than two months away.

    My nostrils wrinkled at the smell of garlic tea brewing, not to mention the other scents coming from the kitchen, overpowering and unidentifiable. These days, New York seemed to disappear behind me when I came through Minerva’s door, as if the brownstone had one foot in some other city, somewhere ancient and crumbling, overgrown.

    “She is much better,” Luz said, ushering me toward the stairs. “And excited you are visiting.”

    “That’s great,” I said, but I hesitated for a moment in the foyer. Luz’s take on Minerva’s illness had always been a bit too mystical for me, but after what I’d witnessed the night before, I figured the esoterica was at least a little noncrazy.

    “Luz, can I ask you a question? About something I saw?”

    “You saw something? Outside?” Her eyes widened, drifting to the shaded windows.

    “No, back in Manhattan.”

    “ Sí? ” Luz said. The intensity of her gaze was freaking me out as usual.

    I usually understand where people fit, organizing them in my head, like arranging Mom’s good china in its case. But I was totally clueless about Luz—where she came from, how old she was, whether she’d grown up rich or poor. Her English wasn’t fluent, but her accent was careful, her grammar exact. Her unlined face looked young, but she wore these old-lady dresses, sometimes hats with veils. Her hands were calloused and full of wiry strength, and three fat skull rings grinned at me from her big-knuckled fingers.

    Luz was all about skulls, but they didn’t seem to mean to her what they meant to me and my friends. She was more gospel than