Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

by Jennifer Finney Boylan

  “Yeah,” said Falcon.

  “So if you were in charge of a clock,” said Megan, one of her sudden gusts making her flicker and billow translucently, “isn’t the Latin for ‘Time Flies’ the kind of thing you’d put on your door?”

  The others thought this over. “Guess we’ll find out,” said Falcon.

  They’d gone three-quarters of the way around the third floor by now, following Lincoln’s trail of damage. Now they stood together at the entrance to the Tower of Science, its door scratched and clawed. The walls leading upward into the tower bore the marks of the sharp claws of an infuriated werebear.

  “He has ascended into the Tower of Science,” said Pearl. “Home of the Frankensteins and cyborgs, and other creations unknown!”

  “Cyborgs? I haven’t seen any cyborgs,” said Destynee.

  “There’s at least one cyborg I know about,” said Megan. “You know that girl with the alligator face? Snappy Crockbyte? She’s a cyborg.”

  “No way,” said Falcon. “Snappy’s a robot? Seriously?”

  “I have not seen these creatures in the cafeteria!” said Pearl.

  “Yeah,” said Megan. “Because they don’t eat?”

  “Okay, so the three of us,” said Jonny. “Let’s retrieve the werebear. Megan? Falcon? You got Quimby duty.”

  “Okay,” said Megan. She looked at Falcon. “You ready?”

  “You guys don’t do anything stupid,” said Jonny with a smirk, and then he turned his back on them.

  “Jonny…,” said Megan. But Jonny Frankenstein was gone. Falcon and Megan stood there in the hallway, listening to the steps of their three friends ascending the spiral stairs that led up into the Tower of Science. Their footsteps grew softer as they ascended, and then, after a second, grew inaudible. The castle suddenly seemed very quiet.

  “I hope they’re okay,” said Megan.

  “Sure, they’re okay,” said Falcon. “Anyway, there’s no one up there but the Frankensteins. And the cyborgs. And a snarling werebear.”

  “Right.” Megan flickered and billowed again. She looked down the main staircase. The lower stories of the castle looked very dark. “You ready?”

  “Ready.”

  They started down the stairs, their fingers trailing tentatively along the old wooden banister. Beneath Falcon’s foot a step creaked loudly. Megan, who had just walked upon the same step without making a sound, looked at Falcon and whispered, “Sshh.”

  “Sorry.”

  The second floor was almost entirely dark. Another board creaked beneath Falcon’s foot. Megan turned to him and gave him a hard look. “Sorry,” he said again.

  They were standing at the top of the flight that led down to the first floor now. It was almost as dark down there as it was on the second floor, although there was a candle glowing on a desk next to a large, dark lump.

  “What’s that?” said Falcon. They took a step down the stairs, and the candle began to flicker.

  Megan pointed to the lump and silently mouthed something to Falcon, who said “Wha—” But she put one finger over his lips, and mouthed it again.

  “It’s Mr. Shale.”

  Their Guidance teacher had his head down on a large desk near the entry to the castle, and as Falcon and Megan drew closer, they could hear him softly snoring. They were almost at the bottom of the stairs when the step beneath Falcon’s foot groaned again, and Mr. Shale snorted and lifted his head off the desk. “Who’s there?” he said, peering toward the staircase. “Who’s there!”

  Falcon turned to look at Megan, but at the same moment she vanished. Mr. Shale squinted into the dim light. Falcon froze in place on the bottom step of the long staircase that wound upward into the dark heart of the castle. Mr. Shale reached forward and picked up the candle and held it high in the air, hoping to cast a little more light on the place where he sensed the intruder. But at this moment there was a sudden gust of wind, and the candle flickered out.

  “Dagnabbit,” said the grumpy creature. There were more sounds of creaking footsteps as Mr. Shale fumbled with a pack of safety matches. He got one lit, but there was, once more, a blast of wind, as if someone unseen was deliberately blowing the match out. He did this again, and again, and each time the match was extinguished. At last he got the candle lit, and he held it up again, trying to cast light on the entrance hall. “Who’s there?” he growled. “Who’s there?”

  Falcon felt an invisible, wavering hand around his left wrist as he was pulled down the black hallway past Mr. Shale, past the entrance to the cafeteria, and into the long hallway for the academic wing. They were well down the hall, and around a sharp turn to the right, before Megan materialized again. She paused and leaned against the wall for a second, holding her head and breathing hard. Then, once more, Megan flickered out completely, leaving Falcon alone in the dark hallway.

  “Uh-oh,” said Falcon. He stood still for what seemed like a long time, although it was probably only a few seconds. Megan reappeared with a sudden gust, blowing Falcon backward in the force of her gale.

  “Are you okay?” said Falcon. She nodded, but she didn’t look well. She flickered in and out again. “Seriously?”

  Megan solidified once more and took a deep breath. “Wheeew,” she said, and the air came out of her mouth like a howling winter wind. “I’m—all right,” she said. “I figured I better blow—that candle—out.” She listened. There was no sound of Mr. Shale.

  “Are you really all right?” said Falcon. “You seem kind of—wavery.”

  “It takes more and more out of me each time,” said Megan. “Going back and forth between—forms. But I’m all right. I just have to—focus.” Megan moved down the hall. “Let’s get Quimby. The door I saw is right up here.”

  They scurried down the hallway in the direction of the classrooms.

  “Here’s the door,” said Megan, and there it was: a small hatch marked TEMPUS FUGIT.

  Falcon tried the handle. “It’s locked,” he said, and sighed. “Of course it’s locked.”

  “Fortunately,” said Megan, pulling the ring of Quimby’s keys out of her pocket, “we have these.”

  “Fortunately,” said Falcon, in a voice that made clear that he was far from certain whether their having the keys was fortunate or not. Megan put one of Quimby’s keys into the lock, and it immediately turned with a sharp click. The door swung open. There was a narrow, twisting staircase before them. Torches flickered along the walls.

  “I have another question,” said Falcon. “If there’s a clockmaster who, like, works the clock or something? You don’t think he’s—up there now, do you?”

  Megan, who had already started up the stairs, turned back to Falcon with a strangely excited grin. “Guess we’ll find out.” Then she turned and began to ascend the stairs into the Tower of Souls.

  Falcon followed behind her, wondering what had gotten into Megan. She had always seemed shy and morose back in Maine. Now she was leading him into a dark tower toward what might well turn out to be danger. It occurred to him that perhaps he didn’t know Megan as well as he thought. Either that or the girl he had known had now begun to change into something he did not understand.

  The stairs spiraled clockwise for what seemed like a long time, then emerged at the end of a long, straight, stone tunnel that led back toward the main mass of the castle. Falcon reached out and touched the walls as they hurried down the tunnel; the old stone felt smooth and cold against his fingertips. Small torches flickered on the walls. As Megan passed, the flames wavered.

  After several minutes the tunnel suddenly opened into an enormous square chamber. Above them rose an immense, hollow tower with a narrow set of stone stairs orbiting the wall and leading toward the impossibly distant castle keep overhead. This chamber, too, was lit by flaming torches set into the walls along the stone stairs. And all around them echoed the loud ticking of the clockworks in the tower.

  “The Tower of Souls,” Megan said, flickering in and out. “It’s awesome!” She stared upward
at the complicated stonework, at the light from the torches shimmering on the massive granite blocks. Her face was illuminated with wonder and awe. Falcon looked at her as she gazed upward. Then she looked at him. “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” said Falcon. “You’re different.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Megan. “Don’t say that.”

  They climbed up the winding stairs, the floor below them growing distant. Falcon remembered seeing the apex of the tower when he’d first arrived here—how impossibly high and disturbing it had looked from the ground. On a crossbeam Falcon saw a row of a hundred black knobs hanging down, and only as he drew near did he realize that some of the knobs had eyes and were moving. It was a long slithery line of vampire bats.

  Megan turned around and looked at Falcon for a second. “What are you, Falcon?” she said.

  “What am I? You mean—”

  “What kind of monster?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “I don’t believe you,” said Megan. “I think you know, but you won’t say.”

  Falcon didn’t know how to respond. He did want to tell Megan about his twin hearts, but he was afraid of what she’d think. People always told you that it was best to tell the truth, but Falcon wasn’t sure. Sometimes it seemed as if it was easier to protect people with silence instead of truth.

  “It can’t be worse than giant slug,” said Megan. “Can it?”

  “Maybe,” said Falcon.

  Megan’s form blew back in a sudden gust; then she solidified once more. “Falcon,” said Megan. “You can tell me.”

  He imagined the words. I’m part monster, although they don’t know what kind. And I’m part guardian, a being whose mission it is to destroy creatures like you. As he heard these words in his mind, he felt his eye begin to burn.

  “I can’t,” whispered Falcon. “I can’t.”

  Megan sighed. “Fine,” she said, in a voice that sounded hurt. Now there was a set of iron stairs that twisted left, then right, into the tower above. The sound of ticking was much louder now. There was also another sound, like an electrical hum and a steady grinding of gears.

  Megan started up the staircase, and Falcon followed. Their footsteps rang on the iron grates of the stairs. Falcon felt his hearts pounding from all this climbing. He watched Megan’s back as the girl moved upward and away from him. For a moment he looked down. They were so high up now that the base of the tower was impossibly far away.

  Megan turned back to Falcon suddenly, spinning on her left foot. She looked at him uncertainly.

  The sound of the ticking clock pounded in his ears. “What?” said Falcon.

  “If you won’t tell me what the story is with you, will you at least tell me what’s up with Jonny?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re the only one he really talks to,” said Megan. “Is he all right? He seems—I don’t know. Like he’s hiding something.”

  “He’s,” said Falcon, but he caught himself. “I can’t say.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not my secret. It’s for him to tell, not me.”

  “Why don’t you trust me?” said Megan. “I just want to help.”

  “I know,” said Falcon.

  “If anything happened to Jonny…,” said Megan, “I’d—”

  She vanished completely again. Falcon waited for her to come back. This time it took longer than ever. Falcon stood there in the Tower of Souls, listening to the ticking of the clock, sadly observing once again that it was Jonny Frankenstein that Megan was worried about, not himself.

  Then she rematerialized. Megan wavered for a moment, and held on to the wall of the tower as if it could keep her from blowing away. Then she looked at Falcon with wide, fiery eyes.

  “You’re right,” she said. “What you said.”

  “About what?”

  “I am different,” she said.

  “Because you’re a wind elemental,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “But not only that. It’s because—”

  “What?”

  She grew translucent and thin, almost vanishing once more.

  “Megan,” said Falcon. “Don’t fade out.”

  “I can’t say it,” she said.

  “Then don’t,” said Falcon. He really didn’t want to hear her tell him how she’d changed ever since she’d fallen in love with Jonny Frankenstein. Even if this was the truth, there were some things, he felt, that were just better left unsaid. “You don’t have to.”

  “You know?” said Megan.

  “Yeah,” said Falcon, annoyed. “I know.”

  She solidified a little bit. “Well, you don’t sound very happy about it.”

  “You want me to be happy about it?”

  “You’re not?”

  Falcon began to feel uncertain. Somehow, he and Megan seemed to be having two completely different conversations.

  Megan sighed. “Forget it,” she said. She turned around and climbed up toward a square space cut into the wooden ceiling at the top of the iron staircase.

  Falcon followed her to the top of the stairs, where they stepped into a square chamber filled with enormous rotating gears and flywheels. Some of them were whirling around so quickly that Falcon could barely follow their progress. Others, giant gears with teeth the size of shoe boxes, seemed not to be moving at all. The gears meshed with each other, horizontally and vertically, and some of them led to rods that traveled through the four walls of the citadel and attached to the great black hands of the clocks outside.

  High overhead were a half dozen gargantuan iron bells, hanging from the ceiling. The clappers were attached to long wires strung down into the heart of the clockworks below.

  There was a small arched doorway in one wall, and Megan stepped through it and out onto a small balcony that ringed the tower. Falcon followed her. They were standing in front of one of the four enormous clocks, the hands pointing to the seventeen and the two and one hand going backward. Below them was the wide expanse of the Academy’s grounds. Beyond the wall at the Academy’s perimeter was a dark forest, and beyond that, what looked like the sea, stretching toward the horizon. The light of the moon shone down on the waves.

  “Before,” said Falcon, “when you were talking about how you’ve changed…I didn’t mean to make you angry. Okay? I just didn’t want to stand there and have to listen to you tell me how wonderful you think Jonny Frankenstein is.”

  Megan looked confused. “What’s this about Jonny?” said Megan.

  “Nothing,” said Falcon. “Forget it.”

  Megan opened her mouth, then shut it. “Falcon,” she said, slightly surprised. “You thought I was talking about—Jonny Frankenstein?”

  “Well, yeah,” said Falcon, as if this was obvious, which it was. Wasn’t it? “Weren’t you?”

  “Falcon,” said Megan, moving a little closer to him. Wind from the sea blew toward them, and Falcon could smell the salt in the air. “I wasn’t talking about Jonny.”

  The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Falcon took a step toward Megan. Her hair blew gently in that salted breeze from the distant ocean.

  “Help!” said a voice.

  They blinked.

  “Help!”

  Quimby was bobbing against an overhang about fifty feet over their heads. The rope he was trailing hung down; it looked like they could almost reach it from a balcony that was even higher up, above the gears of the clockworks.

  Megan looked back at Falcon. “Quimby,” she said.

  15

  THE BLACK MIRROR

  Megan and Falcon went back into the tower and worked their way around the scores of rotating and intermeshing gears. It wasn’t immediately clear, though, how to get up to the high balcony, or the overhang beneath which Quimby was lodged. Then Megan found a small archway on the far side of the clockworks, and she and Falcon ducked their heads in order to squeeze into the passage. Inside there was nothing except a shaft leading directly upward,
like a chimney, and some iron rungs embedded in the stone.

  “Going up,” said Falcon.

  Megan nodded.

  This time Falcon went first. Their ears continued to ring with the loud ticking of the clockworks, along with the sound of their own panting breath. The chimney rose in a straight and ever-narrowing column for twenty feet, until at last they crawled through a hole even smaller than the one they’d entered at the shaft’s base.

  Falcon and Megan entered a chamber with oak-paneled walls, high carved rafters, and a cobweb-covered chandelier dangling from the ceiling. There was a large arched window on each of the four walls, although these were hard to see at first because the room was stuffed full of junk, like the world’s largest and mustiest attic. In the center of the room, amid the piles of junk, was a large poster bed, a dent in the pillow.

  “Falcon,” said Megan in a whisper. “Someone sleeps here.”

  There was a creak behind them, and they both turned swiftly to face whoever this was. But no one appeared.

  “Hello?” said Falcon. “Who’s there?”

  The room was now silent, except for the unending ticking of the clockworks.

  “I’m here,” said a voice from the opposite direction. “It’s Quimby! It’s Quimby!”

  They turned around again and headed toward the window. Megan threw open the sash. There was the head, lodged under the overhanging roof at the very top of the Tower of Souls. “Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” said Quimby. “I can’t stand heights.”

  Megan reached toward the head’s dangling string. She could almost reach it, if she stretched her fingers out far enough. But she couldn’t quite get close enough to get any purchase. “Falcon,” she said. “If you hold me around the waist, I think I can get him.”

  “Okay,” said Falcon.

  “Or,” she said, “I could try to blow him back, using the wind.” She thought about it for a second. “But I might just dislodge him. And I’m not sure if I have the energy….”

  “Don’t use the wind,” said Quimby. “I don’t want to end up in outer space!”