Falcon didn’t say anything.
“You missed dinner,” said Megan. She wavered slightly, and her hair blew around. “I brought you some chocolate-chip cookies,” said Megan. “Do you want some?”
“No,” said Falcon.
Pearl buzzed into the room and hovered at the foot of his bed. “You are not yourself, Señor Falcon,” she said. “You should share your burdens with your friends. We who have sworn to protect you!”
“You can’t protect me,” said Falcon, and his dark eye throbbed.
Pearl and Megan looked at each other. Then Pearl said proudly, “I shall decide to whom my protection is offered! I shall be the one who determines—”
“Pearl,” said Megan.
“Ah,” said Pearl. “It is understood. Some things are better addressed with soft words than the point of a dagger.” She bowed gently. “I withdraw.”
Pearl buzzed out of the room, and Megan looked after her. Megan was wavering in and out now, a half-translucent being, blown this way and that by winds unseen.
“What?” said Megan. A strong gust seemed to blow her out for a moment, like the flame of a candle, but then she rematerialized. A smile flickered on her lips for a half second. “Tell me.”
Falcon just looked at her and sighed. She was already becoming unrecognizable to him, and not only because she was transforming into a wind elemental. Megan had discovered something when she’d learned her true nature, and this discovery had given her a sense of wholeness that she had not known before. And it was this very sense of wholeness that now eluded Falcon as he sought to find a name for the thing he was becoming.
“I’m serious, Falcon,” said Megan. “I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”
But no sooner had she said this sentence than Megan vanished completely. The drapes moved as the wind blew threw them, then fell still again.
“Megan?” he said, looking around the room. “Megan?”
In the dream Falcon was standing on the dock at the edge of Carrabec Pond, reeling in his line. A smallmouth bass crashed through the surface of the water, the sun reflecting off its shiny, mucosal skin. Gamm stood next to Falcon on the dock, watching her grandson reel in his catch.
“Look,” said the child, holding up the fish. “I got him!”
The bass flapped back and forth on the hook. Falcon was only eight years old. He’d never caught a fish this large before.
“He’s a feisty fella,” said Gamm, laughing.
“Can we fry him up and eat him?” said Falcon. “Can we?”
Gamm shook her head. “Bass are no good for eating, Falcon,” he said.
“Aw, please?”
“Falcon,” said Gamm, putting her hand on his back. “You should let him go.”
“Let him go? Why? I just caught him!”
“Look at the fish, Falcon,” said Gamm. “He’s a noble creature. You should let him live. Out of respect.”
“Respect for what? For a fish?”
“Respect for the world that has such creatures in it,” she said. “Go on. Let him go. It’s an act of mercy.”
Falcon didn’t really want to let the fish go, but he did what he was told. With one hand he held down the spiny fins, holding the fish’s slimy skin. With the other he removed the hook from its mouth. He took one more look at his grandmother’s face, then kneeled down on the dock to lower the fish back into the lake. It shuddered for a moment, still stunned, as it entered the water. Then, with a flash of its tail, the fish swam away.
“There,” said Gamm. “Now he’s free. Who knows, maybe you’ll catch him again. When you’re both a little larger.”
Falcon stood there on the dock and looked at the waters. “Did my dad like to fish?” he asked.
Gamm put her hand on his back. “He did,” she said.
“Is he with the angels now?” said Falcon.
“I don’t know, Falcon,” said Gamm, looking into the depths of the lake’s dark waters. “All I know is that he’s gone.”
Falcon opened his eyes. His dorm room was dark. Lincoln Pugh snored softly in his bunk overhead.
Gamm, he thought. He’d never been sentimental about his grandmother before; most of the time when he thought of her, he thought of the discouraged, sad woman in the trailer in the heart of winter, trying to start the woodstove. But it hadn’t all been like that. There’d been moments of joy as well, like the day he’d just recalled in his dream. It seemed unfair that he’d only begun to remember these now that he knew that she was gone for good.
Jonny whispered through the darkness, “You awake?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause. Jonny said, “Rough day?”
“I guess,” said Falcon.
Jonny rolled over. “Megan said you were all black and blue about something.”
“She came back?” said Falcon.
“Yeah,” said Jonny. “After about an hour. I think she’s still trying to get the hang of the whole wind-elemental thing. Sometimes it takes her a while to put herself together.”
Falcon laughed softly, bitterly. “She said, ‘I’ll always be here for you.’ Then she vanished.”
“You know what?” said Jonny. “That happens to me all the time.”
“Your friend turning into a wind elemental?”
“No,” said Jonny. “People disappearing on me.”
They lay there in the dark for a little while. Lincoln Pugh snored.
Then Jonny said, “You in trouble?”
“Yeah,” said Falcon. “I think we’re both in trouble, actually.”
“That’s a surprise,” said Jonny in a voice that made clear exactly how little of a surprise it was. “What now?”
“The doctors,” said Falcon. “I heard them talking. There’s something weird with our tests. They still don’t know what I am. And they think you’re unstable.”
Jonny grunted. “Unstable. Right.”
“I heard all the doctors and the teachers having this whole big meeting about us. They say they’re going to give us a little time to prove ourselves, and if we don’t work out, they’re going to—get rid of us. Turn us into gargoyles.”
Jonny swore. “What do they think? I’m going to blow up?”
“Something like that.”
“So they’re going to turn us into stone. Perfect.”
“You’re not, are you? Going to blow up?”
“Why, you worried?”
“Actually, if you did, it’d solve both our problems.”
“What do they think’s wrong with you? They don’t like your face or something?”
“They think I’m only part monster. They’re afraid the other part is guardian. That’s what they’re afraid of: they think I was sent here to kill everybody.”
“Were you?” said Jonny.
“Were you?” said Falcon.
There was a silence. “We gotta get out of here,” Jonny said.
“Right,” said Falcon. “As if that’ll happen.”
“Sure, it’ll happen,” said Jonny. “If we play our cards right.”
“What?” Falcon felt his hearts begin to pound.
“So far it’s just a plan. But I got somebody working on it. Somebody who wants to get out of here even more than you.”
“Who?” said Falcon, but even as he said this, he already knew the answer.
“Weems.”
“How’s he going to escape? You can’t get over that wall. It’s impossible.”
“No,” said Jonny. “But you could go under it.”
“Under it? How?
“Down in the catacombs. There’s a tunnel. He comes from a long line of boatbuilders or something. He’s going to make a ship out of coffins.”
“He’s building a ship out of coffins? That sounds insane.”
“It’s not insane,” said Jonny. “Why shouldn’t you be able to get out of here that way? I’ve escaped from places worse than this, in ways dumber than that.”
“Seriously?” said Falco
n. “Like what?”
There was a long, long silence from Jonny’s side of the room before he replied. “The orphanage,” he said.
Falcon thought about this. “There are orphanages for Frankensteins?”
“Are you kidding?” said Jonny. “There’s orphanages for everything. Me, I got sewn together by some genius, two seconds later he gets all guilty at what he’s done. Next stop is the workhouse. I knew hundreds of guys with the same story. Only the difference is, they got to stay there. The lucky ones. Me, I got adopted—and returned. Nobody wants you if you’re degrading.”
Falcon considered this.
“So Falcon,” said Jonny. “Who’s Gamm?”
“What?”
“Who’s Gamm? You said that name in your sleep.”
“My grandmother,” said Falcon. “She raised me. The guardians killed her.”
“Oh, for—when? When did this happen?”
“Right after I came here, I think. I just found out. The teachers were talking about it.”
“Nothing’s ever enough for them,” Jonny muttered. “They just have to—” He caught himself. “Now you know how I feel. Now you know what it’s like to be alone.”
“I was alone before,” said Falcon. “I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere.”
“Yeah, well,” said Jonny. “If you’re half monster, and half monster destroyer, that would explain that, wouldn’t it? You know, what you could do, Falcon, is hunt yourself. The guardian side of you could hunt the monster side of you. It’s a problem that solves itself, isn’t it?”
Falcon didn’t say anything in response to this. “Sorry,” said Jonny. “That was supposed to be a joke.”
“You really think they’re just going to let us float out of here on some boat?” said Falcon. We sail down that tunnel in the catacombs, and they’ll just let us go?”
“I don’t know,” said Jonny. “Beats getting turned to stone, though, doesn’t it?”
Falcon hoped that this was true. But as he thought about it, he recalled the words his grandmother had spoken so long ago, about catching and releasing. He wondered whether the faculty at the Academy for Monsters would agree with her, that sometimes you have to let creatures go—out of respect for them, and out of respect for a world in which such creatures are contained.
13
QUIMBY RISING
The young monsters settled into a routine. Each morning they gathered in the cafeteria for scrambled eggs and scrapple, then headed off to their classes—Guidance with Mr. Shale, Human Behaviors with Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff, Language and Fabrications with Willow, Numberology with Mr. Pupae, the moth man. After lunch there was Mad Science, and Monster Ed, followed by Shame and Band. There was a study hall before dinner, followed by another study hall, followed by lights-out.
As the days went by, and March turned into April, Falcon and Jonny kept waiting to be summoned by Mrs. Redflint, to be drawn into a tribunal where their dooms would be pronounced. In the afternoons, as Falcon walked across Grisleigh Quad, his eyes frequently rose to gaze upon the calcified gargoyle that stood upon one of the marble columns beside the gates to the Upper School: the former Scratchy Weezums, his mouth frozen forever in a marble scream. He knew that his own stone form might well stand atop some other column unless his own monster nature, whatever it was, revealed itself in time.
By mid-April, however, it was no clearer to Falcon, or anyone else, what it was he was becoming than it had been upon the day of his arrival. The skin on his back continued to flake off and wrinkle, and his two eyes continued to glow a deeper black, a deeper blue. In his chest Falcon felt his second heart pulsing more intently each day. He could feel it now, beating beneath what Falcon thought of as his first heart. But the other was growing. Sometimes his twin pulses seemed identical to him, synchronous. At other times the second heart followed its own rhythm, ignoring the beat of the first.
None of this was visible to anyone who might have looked at Falcon Quinn. On the surface, one would not have seen a boy who looked much different from the small blond one who had stood at the top of the hill on the day of the spring equinox, holding a tuba case with one hand.
The same could not have been said of Falcon’s friends and classmates. Scout and Ranger grew larger and more doglike, their long canine teeth turning to sharp fangs. Mortia and Crumble and the other zombies began to shrivel; the leprechauns grew smaller and more furtive, and were often seen burying pots of gold or digging them up again. Max and Peeler and Woody continued to grow larger and hairier, and as they did, they grew happier and more expansive in their joy.
Weems, for his part, lost no time commencing work upon his coffin ship.
He began by drawing out plans on the stone floor with a piece of chalk. Then he began to gather materials, mostly from the old caskets piled up in the mausoleums in the catacombs. The ghoul appeared never to sleep; instead he spent the evening hours ripping apart coffins and making piles of various timbers.
One night Falcon tried to assist him. But Weems just waved him off.
“Why would you want to help me?” said Weems. “You already have all that I desire.”
“I want to come with you,” said Falcon. “I have to get out of here. I’m in danger.”
“Danger? What danger is this for Falcon Quinn?”
“They say they’re going to turn me to stone,” said Falcon. “They think I’m—a threat.”
“Perhaps you are a threat,” said Weems. “That would not surprise me at all.”
“How am I a threat?” said Falcon.
“You are a threat, perhaps, in ways you do not know. But I have heard the things they say. That Falcon Quinn does not belong.”
“Who says that?” said Falcon angrily. “Tell me!”
“My, my,” said Weems. “So angry we get, all at once. And that eye of yours—the blue one. Look how it starts to shine!”
“Tell me who’s saying these things about me!” shouted Falcon. “I deserve to know!”
“No, no,” said Weems. “I would not want you to shine that eye on me. I think it best if I sail away, on my coffin ship. And get as far away as I can from Falcon Quinn and his eye.”
Falcon put one hand over his blue eye, which had begun to feel cold. He felt his second heart beginning to pound. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t know—what’s happening to me. I’m—turning into something. But I don’t know what.”
“How can you not know what?” rasped Weems. “How can you not know?”
“I think—I’m a combination of things,” said Falcon. “The doctors said I might be something they haven’t seen before. Something new.”
Weems looked at Falcon curiously. “It might be difficult,” he said thoughtfully. “To be turning into something without a name. A thing without—history.”
“What it is, is lonely,” said Falcon. “To tell you the truth.”
Weems nodded. “I am familiar with that feeling,” he said.
He slowly reached into a pocket of his tattered cloak, removed his paddleball, and began to bounce it softly. “I suppose there is one thing you might do to help,” he said. “Not that this is possible. But I only mention it so that Falcon Quinn can understand. That Weems is not a heartless thing, like others.”
“What?” said Falcon. “What can I do?”
Weems hissed through his sharp, pointed teeth. “You must convince her,” whispered Weems. “She must come with us.”
“Who? You mean Destynee? You want Destynee to escape with us?”
“The beloved. She will not come to be with me—oh no, of course not,” said Weems. “If I were to ask, she would only recoil in disdain. But perhaps she would come, if she thought it meant being with Falcon Quinn. Yes, perhaps she would, if asked by you.”
“Weems…,” said Falcon. “I don’t think she’s going to—”
“You convince her. The beloved.” He began to paddle his ball again. “If she joins us, then perhaps there will be room. But if she remains—then so doe
s Falcon Quinn! So does Falcon Quinn!”
One afternoon toward the middle of the month, Falcon was walking toward study hall when he heard the sound of groaning and weeping coming from a bathroom. He paused for a moment, then opened the door to find Sparkbolt standing in one corner, banging his head against the wall. On the counter by the sink was a composition book. In Sparkbolt’s large, scrawling hand was written, “Poetry Book of Rhyming Poems. By Timothy Sparkbolt.”
“Sparkbolt?” said Falcon. “Are you all right?”
“Go—away,” said Sparkbolt. “Sparkbolt SAD.”
“What’s up?”
“Teacher. Willow. Said poems—BELONG DEAD!”
“What do you mean, belong dead? She didn’t like what you wrote, you mean?”
“Said poems—NEED WORK. RRRRRRRRR!”
“Wait,” said Falcon. “There’s a difference between her saying your poems need work and her saying—”
“POEMS BELONG DEAD!” said Sparkbolt, weeping. “DEAD!”
From down the hall Falcon thought he heard raised voices. Mrs. Redflint was yelling at someone. He heard Willow’s voice too, as well as that of Mr. Hake, and several others. Falcon wanted to go see what this was all about, but he didn’t want to leave Sparkbolt in this condition. He felt his blue eye throbbing, and his secondary heart began to pulse.
“What’s going on?” said Falcon. “Was there some kind of fight or something?”
“Jonny Frankenstein save Sparkbolt,” said the monster. “Jonny pick up Willow and—RRRRR!”
“Is she all right?” said Falcon.
“Sparkbolt—NOT CARE. Sparkbolt—WORKING ON POEM.”
The sounds from the hallway died out, and now things were quiet again. “What’s this poem you’re working on?” asked Falcon. “You want to read it to me?”
Sparkbolt looked unsure. His eyes fell upon his composition book by the sink. “If Falcon Quinn laugh,” he said, “Sparkbolt will crush skull, will CRUSH.”
“Fair enough,” said Falcon.
“Will read one poem, then,” Sparkbolt said, picking up his composition book. “Poem about—about—” He sighed. “Rrrrrrr.”
“Just read it,” said Falcon. “I’m all ears.”
Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror Page 13