Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror

by Jennifer Finney Boylan

  “I got a question,” said Max. “Mr. Shale. Oo! Oo! Me! Call on me!”

  “Whaat?”

  “It’s about the werecreatures. Like Turpin. And the weredogs.”

  “Werewolves!” growled Ranger and Scout.

  “Yeah. And the others. How come when they change—it’s not, you know, when there’s a full moon and stuff? I mean, some of them are sort of changing all the time, but others—like Lincoln Pugh—only change once in a while. It seems all random, man! It’s messin’ with my mind!”

  “Werecreatures are still creatures of the gloaming,” growled Mr. Shale. “This was just explained! Their nature is still emerging, still unstable. Eighteenth birthday, all transform permanently to monster selves. Unless you learn the method to resist. To suppress!”

  “Wait,” said Mortia. “I want to know about the world we left. The—Reality Stream. What do people think happened to us—back there?”

  “They think you’re gone,” said Mr. Shale. “Kicked the bucket. Had an accident. We arrange for mishaps for each of you.” He snickered softly.

  “How did I go?” asked Mortia. “Was it sudden?”

  “Mortia Moulder,” said Mr. Shale, rubbing his face again. “You got hold of a bad clam.”

  “I—got hold of—a clam?”

  “A bad clam,” said Mr. Shale.

  “Eee-eww,” said Merideath.

  “But I’m vegan,” said Mortia. “I don’t eat clams!”

  Mr. Shale shook his head sadly. “Not anymore.”

  “Mr. Shale,” said Mrs. Redflint, standing at the back of the room. “If I might have a word with Mr. Quinn. Now.”

  “Oooooo,” said the young monsters.

  “Take him,” said Mr. Shale. “Take all of them.”

  “I do not want all of them,” said Mrs. Redflint. “I just want Falcon Quinn.”

  Falcon got up and followed the dragon lady down the hall, his hearts pounding. The others remained in their seats but looked after him with expressions of dread.

  “This way, please,” Mrs. Redflint said, leading him into a small, unused classroom. Mr. Hake, Dr. Medulla, Algol, and the moth man were sitting to one side. “Sit,” she said, indicating a chair in the front row. He sat down.

  “Is there something you would like to tell us?” she said. “Anything?”

  It was happening just as Jonny had foretold. As he looked at the faces of the authorities before him, Falcon felt very much like he had been called before a tribunal. His black eye began to burn.

  “I don’t have anything to tell you,” said Falcon.

  “Please,” said Dr. Medulla gently. “What did you see last night? In the Black Mirror. In the Tower of Souls, when you and the wind elemental were sneaking around.”

  “It tells us the truth,” said the moth man. “Or it suffers.”

  “So…,” said Falcon, “you know about that?”

  “Falcon, of course we know about that,” said Mrs. Redflint. “The headmaster was quite impressed that you got it working. It can be a bit cranky, the Black Mirror.”

  “I didn’t—” Falcon looked from face to face, confused. “Is he the clockmaster? Is that who was watching us?”

  “It is not permitted to speak of it,” said the moth man. “It tells us what it saw in the mirror.”

  “Why is it not permitted to—”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” said Mrs. Redflint. “We’re asking the questions. What did you see in the Black Mirror, Falcon? And please try to be truthful, no matter how convenient you find it to lie.”

  “I don’t—” Falcon felt his black eye throbbing again. “It’s kind of hard to remember now. I felt like I was being sucked down a drain or something—”

  “Good! Good!” said Mr. Hake. “It’s fun to be sucked down a drain!”

  “Sssh,” said Mrs. Redflint. “Concentrate, Mr. Quinn. Try to focus.”

  Falcon tried to conjure the vision in his mind. For a second he saw it—the shadowy creature with its huge wings. “There was this—thing with a dark eye, an eye as black as oil. It was shining.”

  “One eye, or two?” said the moth man excitedly. “It tells us!”

  Falcon thought. “I can’t remember. Uh—one, I think. I mean—it was in shadow. I only saw one side of it. It’s hard to…”

  The adults were hanging on his every word. “One eye, then,” said Mrs. Redflint. She sounded sad. “Only one dark eye. I see. Anything else?”

  “Wings,” said Falcon.

  “Wings are good, too!” said Mr. Hake. “This is happy-happy!”

  “Would you say bat wings?” asked Dr. Medulla. “Or, say, eagle wings? Or—”

  “I don’t know,” said Falcon. “I can’t remember.”

  “These wings were black?” said Mrs. Redflint.

  Falcon tried to remember what he had seen, but it all seemed unreal to him now, like something that had taken place in a dream.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “It tells us,” said the moth man, “if it went within the mirror.”

  “What the acting headmaster means,” said Mrs. Redflint, “is that the Black Mirror can, hmm—well, it can pull one in. And once one is in, it is very difficult to get out.”

  “I felt it pulling me,” said Falcon. “But I didn’t go into it. I just looked.”

  “Once you’re inside the mirror,” said Mr. Hake, “you need to get out quickly. Or else you get absorbed! Like liquid into a sponge! Yes, absorbed! That’s what you get!”

  “Absorbed?”

  “It gets absorbed,” said the moth man. “It does not come out.”

  “Well, at least we were spared this,” said Mrs. Redflint. “I suppose we should be grateful. But still there is the matter of the reflection. This—hmm—entity you saw. Did it have one wing? Or two?”

  “I don’t know!” shouted Falcon. “What difference does it make?”

  “Oh, it makes a difference,” said the moth man. “It makes all the difference in the world to Falcon Quinn.”

  “Would someone please tell me what this is about?” Falcon asked.

  “The Black Mirror in the Tower of Souls,” said Mrs. Redflint, “reflects a creature’s monster nature. This is why Megan Crofton was not reflected, of course. Her nature is that of the wind, a thing unseen.”

  “Okay, but what about me?” said Falcon. “What was the thing I saw?”

  The adults exchanged grave looks. “Falcon,” continued Mrs. Redflint. “There is great concern about your case. For weeks now you have eluded diagnosis. This alone is not unheard of; we have had students over the years who have conformed to no mutation but their own. But there is the fear”—she paused here to look her colleagues in the eyes, one by one—“that no matter what form of monster you are, you are only half monster. And that your nonmonstrous half might well be something counterproductive.”

  “And that would be bad for you,” said Mr. Hake. “Oh yes. I’m afraid we’d have to dispose of you! Yes indeedy! Oh, we’d do it nicely of course, but still: dispose!!”

  “I’m not a guardian,” said Falcon. “I’m not!”

  “What does it know of guardians?” said the moth man. “It knows nothing.”

  “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” said Falcon. “I just want to be with my friends.”

  “Oh, but it will want to hurt someone,” said the moth man. “It will wish to hurt lots of ones.”

  “I don’t,” said Falcon.

  “This is what the guardians say,” said Mr. Hake. “They pretend to be happy-happy. When they’re really unhappy-happy.”

  “Falcon,” said Dr. Medulla. “Why did you go into the Tower of Souls last night? Do you know?”

  “We went because…” Falcon paused, and for a moment he wondered whether he understood his own motivations. Had he really gone on that insane adventure in the middle of the night just to do a good deed?

  “Yes?”

  “We were trying to rescue Quimby. He got out of his jar and floated out the window. He was stuck be
neath the overhang of the tower.”

  “Oh, we know about Quimby,” shouted Mrs. Redflint, “whom you have loosed upon the world! We know all about him!”

  “Quimby is not the issue,” said the moth man. “Falcon Quinn is the issue. It tells us why it cared.”

  “Why I cared?”

  “Did it not know,” said the moth man, his unpleasant, dusty mouth chewing the air, “did it not know it was leading its friends into danger?”

  “I wasn’t leading,” asked Falcon. “I was following. We were just trying to get Quimby back. And protect Lincoln Pugh.”

  “You knew,” said Mrs. Redflint, “that this little adventure was one of peril. That the others were endangered. Didn’t you?”

  Falcon was not sure how to answer. He had known they were doing something reckless last night. But he hadn’t led them into danger on purpose. Had he?

  “I thought it was a risk worth taking,” said Falcon simply. From the expressions on the adults’ faces, it was clear that this was not the right answer.

  “Even if the others were at risk,” said Mrs. Redflint. “Even if the others were destroyed?”

  “I didn’t want anything to happen to them,” said Falcon, “to my friends.”

  “Miss Crofton,” said Mr. Hake, “hanging by a thread, suspended in midair. She might have fallen to her doom. Mightn’t she? Were it not for the headmaster’s intervention, she would be dead. Wouldn’t she? You know, Falcon, in death there is no happy.”

  “The others, in Chamber X!” hissed the moth man. “In Chamber X!”

  “What did he tell you?” asked Mrs. Redflint. “The headmaster? I take it he gave you a command, when you looked into the mirror? Well?”

  “The voice said I should—seek my soul.”

  “Seek your soul, yes,” said Mrs. Redflint. “And what did you see, when you sought your soul in the mirror’s dark heart? What did you see?”

  “I—I…,” stammered Falcon.

  “Tell us!”

  Again Falcon tried to conjure in his mind the image of the thing he had seen: the wings, the glow that surrounded its form. His black eye burned like it was about to burst into fire, and as it did the other one began to glow as well. A soft blue light flickered from that eye, and the adults gasped for a moment and covered themselves, as if to avoid contact with something deadly and toxic.

  “I don’t know!” said Falcon. “I don’t know what I saw!”

  The adults looked at each other gravely, as if with these words, some conclusion was now obvious. “That will do, Mr. Quinn,” said Mrs. Redflint. “You are excused.”

  Falcon encountered the moth man again later that afternoon, in Numberology. For weeks now they’d been reading math problems out of textbooks, pushing the buttons on calculators, and writing down the answers.

  The moth man began the class by standing motionlessly at the front of the room, staring at Falcon. He did it for so long, in fact, that his classmates started shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

  “Dude,” said Max, looking at Falcon, whose blue eye began to burn and glow once more.

  Then the moth man turned his back on them, his powdery gray wings twitching softly. “First problem,” he said, and wrote on the board:

  “It uses the calculators. The calculators.”

  The room filled with the sound of students pushing the buttons. A few of them raised their hands.

  “It,” said the moth man, pointing to a skeleton girl named Bonesy. “It writes the answer on the board.”

  Bonesy went up to the board and wrote:

  “Perhaps it is correct,” said the moth man. He looked very intently at her sweater. “It gives that to us,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It gives that to us,” he said again.

  “My sweater?” said Bonesy.

  The moth man took the wool sweater from her. “It takes its seat again.” As Bonesy sat down, the moth man started chewing on the wool sweater. It didn’t take him very long to gnaw a big hole in it.

  “Wool,” said the moth man, chewing. “So crunchy good!”

  Lincoln Pugh sighed loudly. “This is stupid,” he said.

  “Not stupid,” said the moth man. “Crunchy good!”

  “Hey, Bonesy,” said Merideath. “Next time maybe you should bring some mothballs.”

  “Hey,” said one of the minotaurs, laughing, “mothballs!”

  “It solves,” said the moth man. “It uses the calculator.”

  “Hey, Mr. Pupae,” said Mortia. “Are we ever going to actually learn how to figure out these problems, or are we just going to punch a bunch of buttons on a calculator?”

  “It uses the calculators,” said the moth man.

  “At my old school we learned how math works,” said Mortia, “instead of just punching buttons.”

  The moth man turned to Mortia. “It doesn’t need math,” he said in his quiet, silvery voice. “No one needs math.”

  The students looked confused at this.

  “Math was invented by humans,” said the moth man, “to torture the young. To torture them. All the answers can be found on the calculator. By pushing the buttons. No need for torture. No need for math. It is—pointless.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” said Lincoln Pugh. “How much more of this are we supposed to take?”

  “Wait,” said Merideath. “Are you saying we don’t need to know how to do math? We don’t need to know the quadratic equation, or how to multiply complex numbers, or how to divide polynomials?”

  “No need for math,” said the moth man. “Pointless. Uses the calculators. There are the answers.”

  “But shouldn’t we know,” said Mortia, “like, the principles of algebra?”

  “Enough misery,” said the moth man, “enough torture in human world. Enough pain and sadness, death and sickness. No need for that, plus math too. Horror of the world enough already. Use calculators. Reduce misery.”

  “I can’t stand it,” said Lincoln Pugh. “Can’t you all see, he’s not real? HE’S A HALLUCINATION! THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A MOTH MAN!”

  “Dude,” said Max.

  “He’s telling you we don’t need math! He’s wrong! The whole world runs by numbers! On fractions and equations! Imaginary numbers and binaries! Without math, the world is—is,” Lincoln screamed, “unquantifiable! AGGGGHHHH!” Lincoln Pugh started running around the room, throwing students’ calculators on the ground. As he ran he started growling, and as he growled, in his frenzy, he started looking more and more like a werebear.

  The moth man picked up the telephone on the wall and spoke into it. “It is Mr. Pugh,” he said. “Yes. Send me Reverend Thorax. Yes. Reverend Thorax!”

  Lincoln had transformed entirely into werebear form now, although he was still speaking in his own voice. “There are no such things as monsters!” he shouted. “There are no such things as”—he pointed to each of the students in the room as he named them—“zombies! Or Frankensteins! Or vampires! Or”—he pointed at the teacher—“or moth men!”

  At this moment the door to the classroom swung open, and a gigantic praying mantis appeared in the doorway. Everyone froze as he entered, even Lincoln Pugh. The mantis wriggled with surprising speed over to Lincoln Pugh, regarded him dispassionately with his vast, triangular head, then clasped him with his raptorial legs and bore him out of the room.

  The stunned students looked at the door through which Reverend Thorax and Lincoln had vanished. Then they all turned toward the teacher.

  “It was wrong,” he said. “As it turns out, no such thing—as Lincoln Pugh!” And then he made a sound that none of the students had heard before. It took several seconds, but gradually they understood that the sound they were hearing was moth laughter.

  “Mr. Pupae?” said Megan, raising her hand.

  “It has a question?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Where are they taking him? Where’s he going?”

  “The dungeon,” said the moth man. “It is going to
the dungeon now.”

  “Dude,” said Max. “How’s he supposed to learn math in a dungeon?”

  Mr. Pupae picked up Bonesy’s sweater again and started chewing another hole in it. “Doesn’t need math,” he said.

  Dinner that night was lima beans, served in several different ways. There was a succotash with lima beans and purple corn; there was a lima-bean loaf that had the texture of meat loaf but had a pale, gruesome green color. And there was a lima-bean “salad” that contained lima beans and baby green corns and green tomatoes and some hard-boiled eggs, all of which tasted like lima beans. There were lima-bean pizza, and lima-bean tacos, and lima-bean burgers.

  Max and the Sasquatches partook of their lima-bean medleys without complaint, wearing strange expressions.

  Falcon leaned toward Max and said, “What’s up?”

  Max nodded conspiratorially. “We’re in,” he whispered.

  “What do you mean, you’re in?”

  “We’re all in. We’re going with you.”

  “But—you don’t have to leave,” said Falcon. “Jonny and I are the only ones they’re going to…” His voice trailed off. “Never mind.”

  “Turn to stone?” Max said. “Dude. Did you see what they did to Lincoln Pugh today? A giant—mantis thing hauled him off to some dungeon! Face it, this whole Academy has turned out to be totally bogus.”

  “You know about the turning to stone? I thought that was a secret.”

  “Yeah, well. Destynee told everybody, okay? What’s your problem, not going to your friends when you’re in trouble? Are you stupid or something?”

  Falcon didn’t know what to say. “Maybe,” he said.

  “We talked it over, and we decided. We’re with you. Me and Pearl and Peeler and Woody. Weems and Destynee. Jonny Frankenstein and Megan. We’re all going.”

  “Megan’s going to go too?” said Falcon, his features brightening.

  “Dude, she’s coming,” said Max. “Jonny told me. He’s the one who asked her to go away with him.” Max blinked. “With us,” he added.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Falcon. “You aren’t in any danger.”

  “Dude,” said Max. “You think I want to stay here and learn how to be a big fake? I’m a Sasquatch, okay? A Sasquatch! And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that!” He roared. “Wherever you’re going, I’m going with ya.”