Falcon Quinn and the Crimson Vapor

by Jennifer Finney Boylan

  Creeper sobbed piteously. “He said he was my friend! He said we were two of a kind!”

  “Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Redflint. “You’ve had such an ordeal, Copperhead. But you’re going to be fine now. It’s over, for now. You’re going to be fine.”

  “You’re right,” said Creeper. “I am going to be just fine among my friends.”

  Chapter 11

  A Little Black Rain Cloud

  Falcon flew above the Sea of Dragons, the waves below him flickering faintly with moonlight. As he flew, the awful images of the last several days careened through his mind. None, however, was so terrible as the one of Pearl lying in a pool of blood. In his mind he heard the voices of his friends, chanting, Traitor! Enemy! Destroy!

  As he thought of these things, he felt his two hearts pounding. He remembered asking Copperhead, What are you doing here? And her reply, Keeping an eye on you, of course. Hoping that you’ll come to your senses. About who you are. About where you belong.

  For the first time he felt his guardian heart beating more strongly than his monster one.

  The sea beneath him was calm. Falcon felt a warm thermal current passing beneath his wings, and for a moment he stopped flapping them and just rose on the thermal. It was very beautiful out here above the ocean in the bright moonlight.

  He thought of Mr. Sweeny, sitting on a stump on Monster Island, smoking his pipe, as Mrs. Grubb made an enormous feast. The Squonk played with his caged bird. Clea ate a cherry. Fascia hammered away at her shoes. Willa the Wisp twinkled and shone, indicating the approach of a stranger.

  Hey, Falcon thought. I’m no stranger.

  When that time comes, remember us. You will always find yourself welcome among those who live apart.

  Falcon flew toward Monster Island as the waves beneath him rolled and swelled. A little while later, he saw the silhouettes of the closed-down rides illuminated by moonlight. Soon his feet were touching the sand by the ocean, and he bent over, winded, pulsing his wings. The skies were slowly growing lighter as sunrise approached.

  He’d landed at the very spot where just a few weeks earlier he’d enjoyed the Monster Beach party with his friends. To his left was the fire pit where Mortia had played “I Wish They All Could Be Zombie Mutants” on her guitar; in front of him was the place by the ocean where Lumpp had dug up the amulet.

  He looked down the beach and saw a small misshapen sphere bobbing in the waves. There was a voice. No, Falcon thought. It couldn’t be.

  “My, my, what’s this?” said Quimby, the floating head. He rose toward Falcon now. “Falcon Quinn, all alone on Monster Island during the off-season! That can’t be right!”

  “Quimby,” said Falcon. The bald, blubbery face looked Falcon in the eyes.

  “Would you like to ride,” sang Quimby, rising and falling on the breeze. A thin necktie, like a string, hung down from his round, blobby face. “In my beautiful balloon? Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon?” Thank you, Las Vegas, thank you!

  “I thought you blew away,” said Falcon. The last he had seen of Quimby, the fortune-telling head, he had been floating on the breeze above Castle Grisleigh.

  “So did I!” said Quimby. “And yet, here we are, blown back to Monster Island.” He began to sing. “I’m just a little black rain cloud, hovering over the honey tree. I’m just a— Well. Whatever. Say, Falcon, get me! I’m Quimby the Pooh!”

  Falcon nodded dejectedly. “Hilarious.”

  “Heavens to Murgatroyd, someone’s wearing his Mr. Sad Face. What happened? Your little monster friends turned on you? Ran you out of town on a flaming pie?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Ah. And now you’re here, figuring you’ll join the Filchers.”

  “I thought the Filchers were a secret,” said Falcon. “I thought they lived outside of things.”

  “And so they do. But remember, I’m a fortune-teller, Falcon. It’s my business to know secrets. And speaking of fortunes, yours is not hard to tell, oh no, not with an expression like that. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

  “Yeah?” said Falcon. “What’s my fortune?”

  “I already gave you your fortune—remember? Falcon Quinn gets torn in half. Makes his choice, and starts to laugh.” Quimby’s head began to inflate, and as it inflated, the balloon slowly rose. “I do think that’s an impressive bit of work. Don’t you? I have to admit—it’s given me a bit of a swollen head!” Quimby laughed at his hilarious joke.

  “But I did make my choice,” said Falcon. “Last spring.”

  “This choice of yours, what was it again?” said Quimby. “Remind me. All this helium plays havoc with my short-term memory.”

  “I decided—when I was in the Black Mirror. That I didn’t have to choose between monsters or guardians. That I could choose my own path.”

  “Well, that sounds very sensible. So why . . .” Quimby stretched his face so that it was long and tubelike, the kind of balloon you’d use to make balloon animals. “Why the loooong face?”

  “I don’t know,” said Falcon. “I mean, I want to choose my own path and everything. I just don’t know what it is.”

  “Doesn’t know what it is, he says,” said Quimby, astonished. “Doesn’t know what it is!” He stretched himself back into a sphere. “My, my. Say, look at those highly fashionable wings you’ve got! I imagine those came out right after you made your big decision?” Quimby nodded thoughtfully. “It seems to me as if you’ve learned something, Falcon. Otherwise, those wings would still be in storage. It looks to me as if you’re right on track!”

  “Being chased out of school by my friends, with pitchforks and torches?” said Falcon. “That sounds like the right track to you?”

  “Did they really use pitchforks and torches?” asked Quimby, shaking his head. “How terribly cliché!”

  Falcon looked at the ground and sighed.

  “You won’t find it here,” said Quimby.

  “What?”

  “That amulet. Your friend the octopus retriever went and buried it again.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “I made it, Falcon. The crimson madstone. Which turns things to vapor. Did you read the runes? I had great fun engraving those! They translate as: To seek to know another’s pain, first spend some time inside his brain.”

  “Wait, you made the amulet, Quimby? When was this?”

  “Oh, yah yah yah sure! I made a dozen of those things. Each one created a different color mist. This is back before I got my head cut off, of course, back when I had a little fortune-telling shack, right here on the midway on Monster Island. Oh, they were a lot of fun. The umber madstone gave the gift of laughter. The emerald erased the memory of pain. The turquoise granted the gift of flight. There was a particularly lethal one called the indigo madstone that could shoot a blast of ice and snow! They used to be all the rage! Popular at parties and hootenannies and the like.”

  “When—did you get your head cut off?” said Falcon.

  “Oh, years ago. Your daddy did it, you know. He was very, very cross with me.”

  “Wait—,” said Falcon. “My father cut your head off? Put you in that jar we found you in?”

  “He certainly did. Pickled me. As punishment.”

  “Punishment for what?”

  Quimby let some air out and floated toward the ground again. “For telling his fortune.” He sighed—an irritating squeaking sound, like someone stretching the nozzle of a deflating balloon. “I must tell you, some people can’t handle the truth.”

  “What truth was this?”

  “Eoghan Quinn, while still a teen,

  Falls in love with the guardian queen.”

  “You predicted he’d fall in love with my mom?” said Falcon.

  “You know, it’s funny you should mention old Eoghan—or the Crow, as I suppose everyone calls him now. I just saw him last week. Here on Monster Island. That stopwatch thing he wears around his neck was ticking very loudly. So annoying.”


  “He was here?” For a single second, Falcon’s spirits rose. “Where is he now?”

  “Oh, he just stopped in to fix a little mistake of his, I think. Then he took off again.”

  “What mistake is this?” said Falcon.

  “Oh, he had to turn that mockingbird back into a—ahh—ahhh—” Quimby wrinkled his nose, as if anticipating a sneeze. “Ahhh—ahh—” He looked at Falcon, unsatisfied. “Don’t you hate that when you feel a sneeze coming on, and then it doesn’t come? So annoying.”

  “The Squonk had a bird in a cage,” said Falcon. “You’re saying my father came to—”

  “Yes, of course,” said Quimby. “But you know the Squonk, he couldn’t stand keeping anything caged up. So your friend the Squonk let his mockingbird out of the cage. Your daddy found it and turned it back into that angry boy, what’s his name—Jahh—ahhh—”

  Quimby wrinkled his nose and yelled, “Ahh-choo!” And, just like a balloon releasing all of its air, the head suddenly shot off across the sky with a hissing, blubbering squeal.

  And just like that, Falcon Quinn was completely alone. For an instant he stood still, looking in the direction Quimby had flown, listening to the sound of the ocean crash on the beach.

  “Jaah—,” said Falcon.

  “Jonny Frankenstein,” said a voice, and Falcon slowly turned.

  There, standing by the edge of the forest that led to the beach, was Jonny. He looked wan and tired, his blond hair tousled and his black clothes torn. “Jonny,” said Falcon. “What are you doing here?”

  “You heard Quimby,” said Jonny. “Your father turned me into a mockingbird last spring, as punishment. Last week he came here, turned me back. Guess he had second thoughts.”

  “Punishment,” said Falcon. “Punishment for what?”

  Jonny sighed. “Same as it ever was,” he said.

  Behind Jonny, a group of guardian warriors slowly emerged from the woods. There was a group of bowmen, their arrows threaded in their bowstrings and pointing directly at Falcon’s hearts.

  There was a sudden sound like phoo, and Falcon felt a dart prick his neck. The world around him began to spin.

  “What did I tell you, the day we met,” said Jonny Frankenstein sadly. “I’m just a piece of junk.”

  Part III

  GUARDIAN ISLAND

  Chapter 12

  Guardian Junior High

  The towers of Paragon Castle were the first structures on Guardian Island to be struck by the rays of the sun rising up over the Sea of Dragons. The castle—an enormous collection of parapets and flying buttresses and elaborately constructed ramparts—stood on the shoulders of Paragon Mountain, upon which the Hidden City was built. Bright banners and flags fluttered from wires strung from the Tower of Rectitude to the Pinnacle of Virtues.

  At the top of Paragon Mountain, above the Hidden City, was a large windmill. Its blue sails spun in the morning breeze.

  Falcon opened his eyes in a white room. He was in a large brass bed. He was not entirely sure where he was, but the crisp sheets and the sparkling sunlight gave him the sense that, for the first time in days, he might be in no immediate danger. It was an odd feeling.

  He sat up, stretched his wings, and yawned. Then he lowered his wings again and swung his feet out of the bed and placed them on the floor. Falcon walked across a thick Persian rug to a pair of balcony doors, slowly opened them, and stepped outside. Below him, in the Hidden City, he saw guardians in mail shirts and leather breastplates. There were children in the street playing a game with a bat and a ball. An older woman sold roses from a cart.

  “Oh, you’re up,” said a voice, and Falcon turned to see a man standing in the doorway to his room holding a silver platter. “Sorry to intrude, young sir, but they thought you might be wanting breakfast.” The man, who wore a bow tie and white gloves, bowed slightly. “Is it all right for me to enter?”

  “What?” said Falcon. “Where am I?”

  “The castle, of course. We’ve got strawberries and cream, Belgian waffles with maple syrup, and a rasher of bacon. Fresh orange juice. A slice of melon. Will that be all right for you? Or—?”

  “That’s fine,” said Falcon, although at that moment he was thinking about his first meal at the Academy for Monsters. Great big gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts. Mutilated monkey meat. Little dirty birdies’ feet. “Uh, thanks.”

  “No need to be thanking me, young sir,” said the man, lowering the tray. He looked at Falcon carefully, as if inspecting him for damage. “You’ve been asleep quite some time. Two days, I think.”

  “Who are you?” said Falcon. “How did I get here? All I remember is talking to Jonny Frankenstein. We were surrounded by guardians. I remember the sound of the ocean—”

  “I am Mr. Drudge,” said the man. “Your servant. As for Jonny, he himself was captured moments before you. They used him as bait, I believe. In order to give you the old dipsy-doodle, sir!”

  “The dipsy-doodle—?”

  “Poison dart,” said Mr. Drudge. “Blowgun.”

  “So—you knocked me out,” said Falcon. “And hauled me back here.”

  “Well, not me personally, sir. But yes, I’m afraid that’s the general outline.”

  “You people never give up, do you?” said Falcon. “It’s just all blowguns and crossbows with you.”

  “Well, sir,” said Mr. Drudge. “We are trying to keep the peace. The price of liberty, you know, is sometimes measured in blowguns and poison darts!”

  “I want to see my mother,” said Falcon. “I want to talk to her right away!”

  “Well, there’s time for all that, young sir,” said Mr. Drudge. “For now, let’s have you enjoy your meal. Then you can change into the uniform I’ve left for you in the closet here and we’ll begin your training. I’m afraid it’s rather a full day, but then just because you are the prince is no reason to expect special treatment. No, no reason at all!”

  “Training?” said Falcon. “What training?”

  “Well, the school day starts at nine.”

  “School?” said Falcon. “What school is this?”

  “Well, what do you think?” said Mr. Drudge. “Guardian Junior High.”

  Falcon’s mother watched her son from a high window in the queen’s chamber as he and Mr. Drudge walked down the cobblestone path toward Guardian Junior High. She smiled. “He’s giving Mr. Drudge an earful, from the looks of it,” said Vega.

  Tippy, her tiny dog, stared down at the street below and watched as Falcon disappeared around a far curve. The dog had ratty, oily hair and a pink bow on his head.

  “I don’t like him,” said Tippy.

  “Who? Mr. Drudge? Or my son?”

  “Anybody,” muttered the dog.

  Vega sighed. “You’ll stop the complaining now, or I’ll put you in the crate.”

  The dog growled, then lay down on the floor.

  Vega sipped her tea. “I hope this was the right thing to do,” she said. “Bringing him back.”

  “I thought you said he would come of his own free will,” said the dog. “To rescue the girl in the windmill. The wind elemental! Wasn’t that the plan?”

  “It was,” said Vega. “But Megan Crofton is so young, and much weaker than I thought. There won’t be much of her to rescue, even if he does figure out she’s up there.”

  “What about the father?” asked Tippy. “Cygnus says the father’s left the Academy.”

  “He has,” said Vega. “He’s at large in the world again.”

  “What’s he doing? Where’s he going?”

  “He’s coming here, I believe.”

  “Here? Why?”

  “Why else?” said Vega. “To win me back, of course.”

  “To win you—” The dog looked nauseated. “Why would he do that?”

  “Because he thinks that Falcon’s coming-of-age has changed—the nature of our history. And our future.”

  Tippy scratched one ear with his hind leg. “Cygnus has never forgiven you for taking
up with Eoghan Quinn, has he?”

  There was a long pause before the queen replied. She watched her son walk down a cobblestone street in the city below her, on his way to Guardian Junior High. For just an instant, Falcon stopped in his tracks and looked back up at Paragon Castle.

  “He has not,” she said.

  First she swirled up and then over and then down again. She tried to think how it was she had come to be in the sails of the turning windmill, but there was so little of her left now it was hard to think, and when she could think, all she could think about was how she was going over and then up and then down again. Sometimes she dreamed, but sleeping was different, invisible. She dreamed of rushing through piles of dead leaves, of rotating in a tiny cyclone on a city street, of shaking the windows in an abandoned house, of extinguishing a candle in a dark room.

  Pieces of Megan Crofton’s past life came to her now and again, but it was hard with this constant spinning to know what things had happened and in what order. She was fairly sure that some of the things she remembered from her past were things that had never occurred. Other things she felt to be true in her heart, but since she had lost her form it was impossible to say, with any certainty, where her heart was.

  Once, though, she had been a young girl, living in Cold River, Maine, with her older sisters, Maeve and Dahlia. Maeve, the oldest, had red hair and a hot temper. Dahlia, the middle, was drawn to lakes and rivers, adored the rain. Then her sisters had died, and Megan was alone with her crazy mother. It should have been you, her mom had said. I wish it had been you!

  She whirled around and around. Oh, Mother, Megan thought. I wish it had been me too.

  She wanted to call out the name of her friend—that boy with a name like some kind of bird, or color. . . . What was his name? In the dark and endless swirling, words too were fading. It was hard now to remember his face, or even the reason why he would care about her fate.

  First she swirled up and then over and then down and over and then up again. Then she went down.