Sparkbolt, for his part, was soon surrounded by five other Frankensteins, including a very sophisticated one who wore a pair of oval, wire-rimmed spectacles. This was a young man who introduced himself as Crackthunder, the editor of the Upper School’s literary magazine, The Gullet.
Sparkbolt caught Falcon’s eye and introduced him to the others. “This Falcon Quinn! Friend!”
“A pleasure,” said Crackthunder, with a crisp British accent.
“Crackthunder publish poems,” said Sparkbolt. “Magazine! Good!”
A creature that looked very similar to Pearl buzzed toward her, then bowed in midair. He had thick black wings and a heavy, drooping mustache. “I am—el Chupakabro!” he said. “The famous goatsucker of Argentina!”
“I send you my greetings!” said Pearl. “I am la Chupakabra! The famous goatsucker of Peru!”
“Uh-oh,” said Max.
“Falcon?” said a voice, and he turned to see two young women standing at his side. They looked familiar somehow, but he wasn’t quite sure where he’d seen them before.
“Are you Falcon Quinn?” said one of them, a girl with shocking red hair.
“Yes?”
“You probably don’t remember us,” she said. “But I’m Maeve Crofton. Megan’s sister?”
“I’m Dahlia,” said the other, who had pale, liquid eyes.
“We’re looking for Megan,” said Maeve. “We heard she was with you?”
Falcon opened his mouth, but no words came out at first. He didn’t know how he could possibly tell these girls what he suspected—that Megan was either dead, or lost somewhere in the winds of the world.
“You’re—alive,” he said lamely. “She thought you—”
“I know,” said Dahlia. “That’s the way it has to be, when you leave the world of humans and enter the world of monsters. But we want to see Megan! We have missed her so badly!”
“Something’s wrong,” said Maeve. She seemed almost angry at Falcon. “What?”
“I…I don’t know where she is,” said Falcon. “She was captured—by the guardians. But I think she escaped. I don’t know where she is. She blew away—and—”
“Did you give her to the guardians?” said Maeve. “They told us you were half—”
“I didn’t give her to them,” said Falcon. “She escaped, and blew away.”
“Blew away?” said Dahlia.
“She’s a wind elemental.”
“I knew it,” said Maeve. “I knew it!”
“We’re elementals too,” said Dahlia. “I’m water, she’s fire.”
“Seriously?” said Falcon.
The two girls looked at each other, then back at Falcon.
“Seriously,” said Maeve.
“Where was she when she escaped?” said Dahlia.
“Outside the Hidden City.” He sighed. “The Crow can tell you more.”
“The Crow,” said Dahlia a little timidly. “Are you kidding? No one talks to the Crow!”
“I do,” said Falcon, and he looked up at the Tower of Souls. But his father could no longer be seen. When he turned to look at her again, there were tears on Dahlia’s face.
“I thought we were finally going to be together again,” she said. “I thought—after all this time…Do you really think she’s okay? You said she escaped?”
“I don’t know for certain,” said Falcon, “but I think so. She blew off over the sea.”
“She doesn’t know anything about being an elemental yet,” said Dahlia. “She’s so young. Megan doesn’t know how to control it!” Her voice caught. “What if she gets stuck and can’t come out of it?”
“Don’t cry,” said Maeve. “You know what happens.”
“I don’t care,” said Dahlia, and she dissolved into a small weeping cloud. Tiny bolts of lightning flickered from its dark underside. “I want my sister!” said a watery voice, and then the cloud blew away, its dark mist dissipating toward the open gates of the Upper School.
Maeve looked at Falcon. “What happened to her?” said Maeve. “Tell me!”
“I don’t know,” said Falcon.
Maeve’s hair burst into red flames all at once, and she shouted at Falcon. “Tell me!”
“I said I don’t know!” Everyone looked over at the flaming Maeve. One of the seniors, a minotaur with a big ring through his nose, came over to them.
“What’s the matter, Maevey? Kid giving you trouble?”
The flame atop Maeve’s head extinguished itself, and the girl stood there for a minute, her cheeks red. “I have to see if Dahlia’s all right,” she said, and walked back toward the Upper School.
The minotaur put his big bull face next to Falcon’s and said, “Maybe you think you’re something special, but you’re not. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a spy.”
“I’m not a spy,” said Falcon.
“That’s not what I heard.” The minotaur puffed his hot breath in Falcon’s face. “You watch your step, angel face.”
Mrs. Redflint arrived on the scene and looked at the minotaur proudly. “Oh, how nice you two have met. Falcon, this is Picador. President of the student body.”
Picador slapped Falcon Quinn on the back. “We were just talking, me and the kid,” he said. “I heard he’s a regular hero!”
“He is,” said Mrs. Redflint. “He swooped right down and saved the day.”
Picador gave Falcon a hard look. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few years, you and me,” he said. “A lot.”
He nodded to Mrs. Redflint, then loped off in the direction that the Crofton sisters had gone.
“How nice,” said Mrs. Redflint. “You’re making new friends already.”
32
THE ENTANGLING SAILS
Tippy sat in a window looking out at the Hidden City, where soldiers were drilling and, just before the portcullis of the fortress, Cygnus was reviewing warriors arrayed in columns. A mockingbird flew in a circle around one of the lower towers, and Tippy watched it with a hungry expression.
“Bite him,” said Tippy. “Bite him with the fangs.”
“What’s that, dear?” said Vega, coming over to the window ledge.
“Mockingbird,” said Tippy. “It does not belong.”
“A mockingbird?” said the queen curiously. As she watched, the mockingbird flew toward the window and then swooped into the room. The bird landed on the back of the smaller chair next to the queen’s.
“You have failed, then,” said Vega, looking at the mockingbird contemptuously. “You have been sent back here—with a beak. And feathers.”
The mockingbird hopped down onto the seat of the prince’s chair and flapped his wings twice. “Aww,” he said.
“I suppose you think I’m going to turn you back into yourself again, after you return here in failure,” said Vega. “Well, you’re wrong.”
“Aww,” he said.
“What’s that?” said Vega. “They wouldn’t have you either? Somehow you found they weren’t enthusiastic about having a creature join them who had worked so successfully—until recently—for their destruction? And what part of this did you find surprising? Is it that they’ve welcomed Falcon? Is that it?”
“Aww,” said the mockingbird.
“Well, Falcon will find what it is like to be torn between worlds. He thinks he’s with his friends now, with his fellow monstrosities. But he is young. They will turn on him, one by one, as they see what the price is for befriending one who is neither one thing nor the other.”
Tippy the dog snuck up quietly behind the mockingbird in his chair, and then crept closer and closer on his soft, padded paws.
“And when Falcon realizes that his precious friends are not his friends at all—well, then he’ll realize his mistake. And do you know what will happen then? He will come back to me. On his hands and his knees, he will come back.”
“Aww,” said the bird. Tippy was a foot and a half below the bird now, frozen still, waiting to pounce.
“Perh
aps he will ask you, when he returns, what it is like to be neither one thing nor the other. Do you suppose? You would be the one to ask, I think, having sought to destroy the dark world, only to be seduced by it in the end. But he will be disappointed, Jonny. For he won’t find you here. He won’t find you anywhere. You will be gone.”
Tippy pounced upon the chair at this moment, and snapped with his tiny mouth at the mockingbird. But the mockingbird spread his wings and rose in the air. The bird circled the room, and the little dog ran in circles on the floor, barking. Then the mockingbird swept out of the window and flew off. Vega stood at the window and watched the mockingbird sail toward the sea.
“I almost had him!” shouted the dog. “I almost bit him with the sharp, pointy fangs!”
Vega watched the mockingbird for a moment longer before leaning down and picking up the tiny dog and cuddling him against her shoulder. “Someday, Tippy,” she said. “You’ll get your poison into something. Something worthy of your poison.”
“I almost had him,” said the dog.
“I know,” said Vega, and sighed. “I know.”
She turned from the window, still carrying the dog, and walked out of the throne room, down the hall and up the stairs to the top of the Pinnacle of Virtues. From there the queen observed her realm—the calm and rigidly regulated city where there was neither sickness, nor fear, nor aberration.
“Do you think he knows we have her?” said the dog.
“No,” said Vega, and turned to look at the shoulders of Mount Silence. “He thinks she’s free. I think he imagines that he did Falcon a great service, rescuing the girl so that she might blow away from us.”
There on the mountain, upon an outcropping of rock, was a dark blue windmill, its sails whirling around madly.
“He’s wrong,” said Tippy.
“Sssh,” said Vega. “Listen.”
They looked at the windmill, and as they did, they could just barely hear the voice of Megan Crofton, crying out and carrying on the wind.
Falcon. Help…I’m here…. Help…
“She just keeps those sails going round and round, doesn’t she?” said Tippy.
“It’s the perfect trap for a wind elemental, those Entangling Sails.”
“And you really think he’ll come for her?”
“Of course,” said Vega.” And then—”
“And then?”
“Then he takes his rightful place. And the chair beside mine will no longer be empty.”
Tippy watched the sails of the windmill rotating around, and around, and around. The girl’s voice blew past them again, crying out for help.
“I would have bitten her,” said Tippy, “the girl. But you can’t bite the wind. It’s impossible.”
Vega petted the little dog on the head and smiled, as the sails spun before her in an endless circle.
Falcon…help…
“You think?” she said.
33
THE ZOMBIE JAMBOREE
The faculty and students at the Academy for Monsters were dancing with abandon to the music of the green men. Ankh-hoptet, the fearsome mummy, was swung through the air on the arms of Lincoln Pugh, the werebear. Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff kicked his cloven hoofs in the air and butted heads and horns with Picador, the young minotaur. Willow Wordswaste-Phinney danced on the arm of nearly immobile Mr. Shale, as the moth man stood to one side, thoughtfully chewing on a red mitten. And Turpin, the wereturtle, stood absolutely still, watching this all with slow and patient wonder.
Miss Cuspid approached a microphone at center stage and sang.
Back to back, belly to belly
I don’t give a darn ’cause I’m all dead already
Oh, back to back, belly to belly
At the Zombie Jamboree.
Then the green men pounded their drums and tin cans and old refrigerators with mallets, and everyone’s ears rang. Mr. Hake transformed into the Terrible Kraken and tossed a group of Frankensteins in the air like round rubber balls—Sparkbolt and Crackthunder, as well as several other guys from the Upper School: Shockbottle and Deadfinger and Stumblevolt. The zombie force did the electric slide.
Falcon stood at the edge of the dance hall, watching the action. The arrival of the students from the Upper School had completely altered the feeling of the Academy, as the small group of first-year students was now overwhelmed and outnumbered by these older monsters, all of whom had their own long history together. And yet many of the older students were reaching out to the younger ones, especially those of their own kind. There were ghouls and Sasquatches and mummies, werecreatures and vampires and banshees. Even Pearl had found another Chupakabra, this guy el Boco, the famous goatsucker of Argentina, with whom she was now doing a kind of flamenco watusi.
Everybody has somebody like themselves, Falcon thought. Except me.
It was true. Of the many different kinds of monstrous beings dancing to the music of the green men in the gym, only one was an angel.
Oh, back to back, belly to belly
At the Zombie Jamboree.
Oh well, Falcon thought. There are worse things than being one of a kind.
The cafeteria lady walked past him, holding a large bouquet of cotton candy. She paused, with her sour, lizardlike expression, and then she nodded.
“I still don’t like you,” she said. “Much.”
Then she walked away, licking at her cotton candy with her long, sticky tongue.
Falcon walked out of the dance hall and through the swinging doors of the gym. The night was warm, and the quad was illuminated by the glow of a full yellow moon in the sky above. The campus was beautiful, lit by soft lights, and the gates to the Upper School stood wide-open. Falcon could see all the academic buildings and the long paths that meandered across the manicured lawns of Castle Gruesombe and the Hall of Unspeakable Tongues and the Hall of Horrible Experiments. Closer at hand were the high citadels of the Towers of Moonlight, and Science, and Blood, and Aberrations. Above them all was the pointed roof of the Tower of Souls.
A breeze blew through the air, bringing Falcon the far-off scent of the ocean and the sand. His hair was lifted gently by the soft gust, and for a moment he thought he imagined a distant voice crying on the wind. Falcon, it said. I’m here.
He saw the shadow of a figure at the bottom of the stairs that led down to the quad, and for a moment he was uneasy, wondering who this could be. Then he recognized the silhouette.
“Max?” said Falcon. His friend turned around halfway and cast a glance toward him. Then he turned back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Max.
“You’re sure?”
Falcon drew near to the Sasquatch and saw that his eyes were watery, and his lip thrust forward in a pout.
“What’s up?” said Falcon.
“Nothing,” said Max. “I just want to be alone for a while, okay?”
“If you want to talk or something—”
“I just want to be alone, okay? I guess that’s not, like, a crime or something?”
Falcon stood there in the half shadows for a minute, unsure what to say but unwilling to leave.
“You’re not worried about Pearl, are you?”
Max shrugged. “What do you think?”
“Max, come on! You’re not serious.”
“Dude,” said Max, turning toward Falcon. “She’s dancing with him. That el Boco dude, with his stupid mustache and his stupid bandito hat. They’re having, like, some whole Chupakabra meltdown.”
“Why don’t you join them? You know she’d make room for you, if you asked.”
“They’re speaking Spanish, okay? Spanish! I don’t know any Spanish. I took French!”
“Max,” said Falcon. “You can’t blame her for wanting to hang out with someone like herself. It gets lonely, being one of a kind.”
“Don’t you see what’s going to happen?” said Max. “They’re going to hang out now, all the time, talking Spanish, talking about—I don’t know. Goat sucking and stuff. Pr
etty soon? It’s going to be, So long, Sasquatch.” He sighed.
A mockingbird flew out of the night and landed on the limb of a tree nearby. “Aww,” he said.
“Aww, yourself,” said Max. “You don’t know what it’s like—to die of a broken heart!”
“Max,” said Falcon. “You’re not going to die of a broken heart, okay?”
“What would you know about it?” said Max angrily. For a moment the boys stood there in silence. Then Max leaned toward Falcon and clapped him on the shoulder, next to his wing. “Sorry, dude,” Max said. “You know a lot about it, I guess.”
Falcon looked up at the sky. There were two bright stars shining down on them, and he thought of Peeler and Woody.
“Aww,” said the mockingbird.
Max moved a little closer to his friend. “Don’t worry, man,” he said softly. “We’ll find her. Megan, I mean. I promise.”
“¡Estúpido!” said a voice. Pearl buzzed out into the night air. “He shall rue the day he has misjudged la Chupakabra! This day shall spell the beginning of his doom!”
“Pearl,” said Max, his features transforming from dejection to hope.
“¡El estúpido! ¡El—chumpo! This so-called goatsucker from Argentina! He is not a gentleman!”
“What did he do?” said Max. “Are you all right?”
Pearl buzzed around in a small circle for a moment, attempting to regain her composure. “He has attempted,” she said, “to press his advantage.”
“Wow,” said Falcon. “He doesn’t waste any time.”
Max said, “I thought you—wanted him to—”
“What?” said Pearl. “I do not understand!”
“The way you guys were dancing. It was like you were having some big Chupakabra-rama.”
“I should sting you myself,” said Pearl, dumbfounded. “How could you think I could wish this thing? When I have sworn my allegiance to yourself—the largest of the large!”
Max smiled from ear to ear. At that moment he looked like the happiest creature on Earth.
“Aww,” said the mockingbird.
“What is this bird,” said Pearl, “who watches us from the bush of juniper?”
Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror Page 32
