Something in the mud
The city had been planning the drainage for over a year. The Aldermoor Canal—a slow, grey ribbon of water cutting through the industrial heart of Marveston—was overdue for its decennial clean. The last time workers had gone in, back in 2013 it had been a partial draining, and they’d pulled out a bicycle, a cash register, and a mini refrigerator sealed shut. Nobody had been surprised. That was Aldermoor for you.
On the morning of March 4th, Declan Hurst arrived at the pumping station before sunrise. He was a maintenance supervisor for the city’s waterways authority, a broad-shouldered man of fifty-two who had seen most things a canal could hide. He signed the pump manifests, checked the weather—cold, dry, no rain for four days — and gave the order to begin draining. By noon, the water was down by three metres. By three in the afternoon, the mud had shifted, and something had emerged.
“Declan.” His junior, a young woman named Priya, was standing at the bank’s edge staring down. Her voice was steady, but her face wasn’t. “You need to see this…”
