Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

by Jennifer Finney Boylan

  “What do you mean, like, none?” said Max.

  “They don’t,” said Falcon. “I tried them all.”

  “Try them again,” said Pearl.

  “Where did these keys come from again?” said Mortia.

  “From Jonny Frankenstein,” said Falcon.

  “Who’s a guardian, right?” said Mortia.

  “Sort of,” said Falcon.

  “And you think he’s trying to help us?”

  “Dude,” said Max. “What are we going to do?”

  “They are coming,” said Pearl, buzzing several feet over their heads.

  “It’s a trap,” said Mortia. “Your friend Jonny wanted you to get caught!”

  “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do!” said Falcon. “I don’t know!” He pounded his fist against the iron gates.

  One of the gates groaned inward.

  “Dude,” said Max. “It’s open.”

  “Open?” said Falcon.

  “Open,” said Max, pushing forward on the gate. It swung inward with a creak.

  “Sssh,” said Pearl.

  “Hurry,” said Mortia, and the four of them rushed forward through the gates of the Upper School. Once they were all through, they pushed the gates closed behind them. There was a heavy click, and the gates locked shut behind them.

  “Uh-oh,” said Max again.

  “Now they lock,” said Mortia. “Great.”

  “It would appear that entry to the Upper School is not the problem,” said Pearl. “The problem is getting out, once admitted.”

  “Whoa,” said Falcon, looking at the grounds of the Upper School.

  “Whoa,” said Max as he turned around.

  The grounds of the Upper School contained castles and gingerbread houses, observatories and gatehouses, oddly shaped cottages with tall chimneys. Around the perimeter of the campus was a vast forest. Small crooked pathways wound from building to building and into the woods.

  “It’s like a college for monsters,” said Mortia.

  “Yeah,” said Max. “Monster U.”

  “Hey guys,” said Falcon. “Where is everybody?”

  They realized at this moment that this was the most peculiar aspect of the campus—there was no sign of life whatsoever.

  “I don’t know,” said Max. “Maybe we should try to avoid finding out?”

  “I have located a signpost,” said Pearl, buzzing forward. Fifty feet in front of them was a tall post with various signs attached to it. Each sign was shaped like a human arm and hand, with a long bony finger pointing in one dircection or another. HALL OF UNSPEAKABLE TONGUES said one. HALL OF HORRIBLE EXPERIMENTS said another. There was the HALL OF REVOLTING OBSERVATIONS and the HALL OF DISMAL SCIENCES and the CENTER FOR SOCIAL DISENGAGEMENT AND DISINTEGRATION.

  “Lots of options,” Max said.

  “HALL OF ADMINISTRATION, ADMISSIONS, AND PUS,” Mortia read. Beneath this, in smaller letters, were the words OFFICE OF THE HEADMASTER. A long finger pointed to the right, and the four of them looked, in unison, to a creaking, dilapidated building with a tall widow’s walk. A black cloud the exact size of the building hovered above the roof. As they watched, a bolt of lightning flickered and crashed upon the building’s tall chimneys.

  “Uh-oh,” said Max.

  “I am not afraid of this falling-down, chunky, broken place!” said Pearl. “Now is the time for us all to unveil our powers! Let us think of our friends, whom we have been sent to set free!”

  “Okay,” said Max.

  Another bolt of lightning crashed on the roof of the building.

  “She’s right,” said Falcon. “Let’s do it. Monster up!”

  They all put their hands together, then rushed toward the Hall of Pus, and the office of the headmaster of the Academy for Monsters.

  The building had a set of crooked stairs leading to a warped veranda with stained wicker furniture on it. They tried to be careful as they stepped across the porch, but each step that Falcon made seemed to make another giant creak. Then they opened the torn screen door, which creaked softly, and peeked into the building.

  It was empty and covered with dust. There were some antique computers—a Kaypro II and an IBM Peanut.

  “Where is everybody?” said Max.

  “Ssh,” said Falcon. Before them was a long hallway, at the end of which was a door with an old, mouldering sign that read HEADMASTER.

  They looked at each other and nodded. “Pearl,” said Falcon. “Get your stinger ready.”

  “I do not wish to sting this Crow once more,” said Pearl. “Since last time it nearly drained me of my life. But I shall reveal the stinger if I must—to save our friends, and defend our precious freedom!”

  “Ssh,” said Mortia.

  Together they crept down the hallway. The floor creaked beneath Falcon’s feet. They exchanged one last glance, then swung open the door to the headmaster’s office.

  They were at one end of an elegant chamber, with high ceilings and a chandelier. At the other end was a large fireplace with two andirons that had the faces of gargoyles. Above the fireplace was a marble mantelpiece with a clock upon it that ticked softly in the quiet space; next to the clock were old photographs in ornate frames. There were three floor-to-ceiling windows with long, tattered curtains in front of them. In the center of the office was an enormous desk covered with papers. A candle was stuck into a bottle covered with many different colors of wax.

  “Dude,” said Max, looking carefully at the desk. There, spread out neatly in a row, were four folders, marked QUINN, FALCON; PARSONS, MAXWELL; PICCHU, PERLA; and MOULDER, MORTIA. “Wait,” said Mortia. “Why is my file—with yours…?”

  “You are among our company!” said Pearl. “Why should your name not be with ours?”

  “But I only joined you ten minutes ago,” said Mortia. “I mean, they’d have had to…”

  They all looked at each other. “Okay,” said Max. “So where’s the entrance to this—dungeon?”

  No one said anything. At that moment the door to the headmaster’s office swung closed, and there was the sound of locks turning and bolts being drawn. At the same moment bars clanged down over the windows, blocking their escape. Max pulled on the heavy wooden door, but it would not budge. “Great,” he said.

  “I suggest we find the entrance to this dungeon with an increase of speed,” said Pearl.

  “Right,” said Mortia.

  “It’s a trap,” said Falcon. “Here. You take these keys, start trying to open the door. I shouldn’t have made you all come with me.”

  Max looked confused. “What are you talking about?” he said, nervously jingling the keys on the ring.

  “This is something I have to do,” said Falcon. “I shouldn’t have wrapped you up with it.”

  “Shut up,” said Max.

  “Yeah,” said Mortia. “Shut up.”

  “If you continue to talk the stupid, I shall be forced to sting you just on principle,” said Pearl. “Let us find the dungeon we seek, without delay!”

  They walked around the room, looking for doors or secret panels, but nothing revealed itself. Max examined a small, framed photograph on the mantel.

  Mortia seemed a little irritated. “Who was it that said the entrance to the dungeon was in here?”

  “Sparkbolt,” said Falcon. “He told us when we sailed past him on the River of Crud.”

  Mortia blinked. “Timothy Sparkbolt?” she said. “We’re here because of information you got from Timothy Sparkbolt?”

  “Dude,” said Max, standing by the fireplace. “It’s you, Falcon.”

  “What’s me?”

  “This photo,” said Max. “It’s you.”

  Pearl and Mortia moved toward the fireplace to examine the picture. It was a photo of Falcon, taken back when he was in Cold River Elementary.

  Falcon felt the cold sensation in his blue eye again. “What’s my photograph doing here,” he asked, “in the office of the headmaster?”

  “Aw,” said Max. “Look
at you! You’re so little!”

  Max picked up the photo in its frame, but as he did, something completely unexpected happened. The photo triggered some sort of mechanical device that rotated the fireplace and the semicircular hearthstone on the floor. There was a grinding, swiveling noise, and a moment later Pearl and Max and Mortia had disappeared behind the wall. Another fireplace and mantel and section of wall swung into place behind them. There was a click, like the closing of a lock.

  Falcon was just about to cry out for his friends when he heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. The steps drew closer and closer to the headmaster’s office. Then, as Falcon watched, the door’s locks began to turn. Then the door flew open with a loud bang.

  For a moment no one was there. Then a shadow fell upon the floor as the creature drew closer. He stood for a moment, framed in the doorway, the tall wraithlike man with the giant black wings outstretched above him. A stopwatch hanging around the man’s neck ticked loudly. He stared at Falcon for a long time without speaking, as if lost in thought; then an odd smile flickered across his lips.

  He walked toward Falcon, paralyzing him with his gaze as he approached, then extending his suction-cup hand and placing it on the side of the boy’s face.

  “Hello, son,” said the Crow.

  26

  FROM THE HALL OF WRIGGLING CREATURES

  As the fireplace spun around, Mortia, Max, and Pearl found themselves rotated from the bright world of the headmaster’s office into a circular stone chamber lit only by slits cut into the walls. They appeared to be at the base of some sort of tower, with a circular iron staircase before them leading down into the earth. “Falcon!” shouted Mortia, hoping that he could hear them through the stone wall. “Are you there?”

  But even as she said this, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, and then the door to the headmaster’s office opening. A man’s voice said something, and then they heard the sound of Falcon screaming. Then there was silence.

  “Dude,” said Max.

  “We must find a way to aid our friend,” said Pearl. “Surely there is a device on this side of the wall that will spin us around once more!”

  But they found nothing; the trip wire attached to Falcon’s photograph did not cause the fireplace wall to swivel again, and there appeared to be no other latches in sight.

  “Falcon?” said Mortia. “Are you there?”

  There was no sound.

  “Somebody came and got him,” said Max.

  “This whole thing was a trap!” said Mortia.

  “Oh, man,” said Max. “We’re toast!”

  “I agree that this adventure is doomed,” said Pearl. “That all our hopes are now dashed! And so! Since we must resign ourselves to catastrophe, let us at least do some good for those still imprisoned in the chamber below us, before what shall surely be our own painful and most unpleasant demise!”

  “‘Demise’?” said Max. “What do you mean, ‘demise’?”

  “What she means,” said Mortia, “is we can at least take a few of them with us on our way down. Mrs. Redflint! Mr. Hake!”

  “Their cries of dismay shall be our consolation!” shouted Pearl.

  “Wait,” said Max. “When you say ‘demise,’ you mean, like, what exactly?”

  “That,” said Pearl, “is what the dungeon below shall make clear!”

  “Yeah, okay, fine,” said Max. “You first.”

  “I intended to go first!” said Pearl.

  “Okay,” said Max. “Nobody’s stopping you.”

  “I shall descend these circular stairs and learn of our fate!”

  “All right already, descend.”

  “I shall descend.”

  “Guys,” said Mortia, “let’s just do this. Anyway, there’s no place else to go. We can’t go back, and there’s no way up.” She looked overhead at the conical interior of the tall, thin spire. “So it’s down, or nowhere.”

  “Then down we shall go!” said Pearl, and buzzed into the darkness below.

  Max paused for a moment, looking into the dark after her.

  “What?” said Mortia.

  “I was just thinking…,” said Max. “We’re probably going to get, like—fried, or slapped into chains, or turned back into music, or eaten by Mr. Hake, or something, down there, right?”

  Mortia nodded.

  “Okay. And we’re doing this again—why?”

  “Because we’re trying to help other people,” said Mortia.

  “But how are we going to help them, if we get—”

  From downstairs came the sound of Pearl shouting.

  “That’s Pearl!” said Max. Then he plunged down the stairs, Mortia right behind him. “Hang on! I’m coming!”

  When they reached the bottom of the circular stairs, they found that Pearl was not in distress but had come up short before a large iron door that was, indeed, locked shut. This one did not swing forward, however, and it took Max several moments of trial and error with Quimby’s keys before he found the one that fit.

  “Okay,” he said. “Everybody ready?”

  “I have always been ready!” said Pearl.

  “What have we got to lose?” said Mortia.

  Max looked at her. “Seriously?” he said. “You want a list of all the stuff we have to lose?”

  Pearl buzzed around him impatiently. “She does not wish a list!” she said.

  “Let’s go,” said Mortia.

  “All right,” said Max, and he swung open the heavy door.

  Before them was an enormous stone chamber with torches on the wall. On the floor their former classmates were gathered, looking rather the worse for wear: Destynee and Sparkbolt, Weems and Turpin and Owen Kearney, the Irish abominable. Elaine Screamish, the banshee, sat on the floor next to Augusten Krumpet. Three zombies sat in the center of the room together, playing Uno. Ankh-hoptet leaned against a wall next to Bonesy the skeleton.

  “I know you,” said Destynee. “You’re—somebody!”

  Destynee’s face still had a soft bruise on one side.

  “Are you okay, dude?” said Max.

  “I like cheese,” she said slowly.

  “She’s not quite herself,” said Weems. “Since the sucking of her brain!”

  “Weemso,” said Max. “How are you?”

  “Imprisoned,” he said. Then he cast a glance at Destynee. “Weems has been trying to help. Weems always tries to help!” He held up his paddleball, but the ball was gone now. The elastic string trailed toward the floor. “How did she sail?” he asked. “The Destynee II, I mean—did she serve you well?”

  “It was an awesome ship, Weemso,” said Max. “It brought us out through that tunnel, sailed us out across the Sea of Dragons. Megan Crofton filled the sails.”

  “I am sorry I could not sail with you on Destynee II. But I have been doing what I can—to attend to Destynee I.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Destynee, looking at Weems. “Have we met? My name’s Kennedy!” She smiled. “I like cheese!”

  “I can’t believe they got you,” said Bonesy. “Now you’re down here with us—nobodies.”

  “We have not been gotten!” shouted Pearl. “We—Señor Max the Sasquatch, Mortia the zombie, and I, la Chupakabra!—have come to rescue you, to release you from this prison! Together we shall rise and take revenge upon those who would bind our brethren—and sisthren!—in chains!”

  The prisoners looked at her as if she had spoken only gibberish.

  “She’s lost her mind,” said Lincoln Pugh. He was sitting by one of the windows with the iron bars that overlooked the River of Crud. “We’ve all lost our minds!”

  “What do you mean, release?” asked Weems.

  “Dude,” said Max. “She means we’re breaking out!”

  “Falcon Quinn,” said Sparkbolt. “Where Falcon Quinn friend?”

  Pearl and Max and Mortia cast their eyes downward. “Falcon got caught. The Crow got him.”

  “What is the plan?” asked Augusten. “Whateve
r it is, we’re with you!”

  “Let us go and avenge our friend Falcon,” said Pearl. “Together we shall stop the evil of this Academy. We shall embrace our destiny, rather than run from it!”

  “You’re insane,” said Lincoln Pugh. “I’m staying here. This is where it’s safe.”

  “Not to agree with Lincoln,” said Bonesy, “but he’s right. We can’t fight them. We’re nobodies.”

  “I am not nobody, Miss Bag of Bones!” shouted Pearl. “I am—¡la Chupakabra, the famous goatsucker of Peru!”

  “I shall join this fight,” said Ankh-hoptet.

  “Sparkbolt FIGHT!” said Sparkbolt. “SPARKBOLT ANGRY!”

  “We’re with you,” said the zombies.

  “I’ll freeze them where they stand,” said Owen Kearney.

  “I’ll wail until their eardrums shatter,” said Elaine Screamish.

  “I’ll sprinkle their dreams with fairy dust,” said Augusten Krumpet.

  “Go on!” shouted Lincoln Pugh. “You won’t get far. You think you’re fighting the teachers, but you’re wrong. You’re only fighting yourselves. Maybe you think you’re monsters, but you’re wrong. The only monsters are the monsters in your brain. And until you all accept that—like I have—you’ll always be prisoners of your own sickness.”

  Augusten Krumpet walked over to Lincoln Pugh and sprinkled some fairy dust in his eyes.

  “Ack!” shouted Lincoln Pugh. “Ackk—” His eyes grew large, and then there was a flash of light, knocking Lincoln Pugh out cold. Everyone watched this, impressed.

  “Rrrrrr!” said Sparkbolt. “FAIRY DUST GOOD!”

  Augusten Krumpet smiled happily.

  “I don’t suppose you have any food on you,” said Bonesy. “I’m so unbelievably hungry.”

  “What are they feeding you, anyway?” said Mortia. “You all look terrible.”

  “The moth man comes with these buckets of macaroni and cheese twice a day,” said Ankh-hoptet.

  “The moth man,” said Max. “He’s the acting headmaster. But what about that Crow? Does he come down here?”

  “No one sees the Crow,” said Bonesy. “He stays up in his tower.”

  “He came down only to prevent your escape,” said Weems. “He erased the mind of the beloved.”