Evan Burl and the Falling

by Justin Blaney

  I was about to turn away, when something dark moved along the top of the wall. I squinted. For a brief second, I thought I saw lights. Two of them. It was a pair of enormous eyes.

  The eyes looked at me, as if they were reading my thoughts. Then they blinked, then were gone. I couldn't be sure of what happened next, but I thought I saw a huge shadow slipping down over the wall and into our courtyard.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Evan

  Thursday

  9:30 pm

  25 hours, 19 minutes until the Falling

  I had never seen Henri so scared.

  "It's not as bad as it looks," I said.

  But that was a lie.

  It was worse.

  Furniture was burnt. All my collections were in pieces. Ashes and soot covered everything in a thick layer. Something had destroyed it all. I hoped it wasn't me, but who else could it be. Each morning I'd find new scratches on the stone walls and fresh blood under my finger nails. But I couldn't remember a thing.

  There were pictures everywhere, like the ancient cave drawings I'd seen in Natural History. The same images, repeated over and over and over. Of how four Daemanhur girls met their end. A girl hanging by her neck out the window. A body in the furnace. A lump of legs and arms in the closet. Flies buzzing around an iron cage.

  But even those images weren't what was scaring Henri.

  I doubted she had even noticed them yet. No, she was looking at the words scratched into the floorboards at her feet. It was the last thing in the world I wanted her to see, the real reason I hadn't told her the truth about my sapience.

  A list of names.

  —Little Sae—

  —Anabelle—

  —Lucy—

  —Parkrose—

  Pearl

  Henrietta

  Gertrude

  Haller

  Roxhill

  Othella

  Vashion

  Ravenna

  Twelve fallings.

  The list was repeated dozens of times. On the floor. The ceiling. What was left of the furniture. The first four, the ones who were dead, were crossed out. The fifth was about to be.

  And Henri's name was next.

  I didn't know where the order of the names came from. Until this morning, I wasn't even sure the list had anything to do with who would die next. But with Pearl being the fifth, I couldn't ignore it anymore.

  "Henri," I said as I tried to gently lift her chin up and keep her eyes off the floor, but she refused to look away.

  "Where did this come from?" she asked.

  I hesitated, trying to think of something to explain it all away, but couldn't. I was grateful the little candle lamp in her hand was so small; the light didn't carry far enough for her to see how bad everything really was. But she could see enough. She looked at my bloody fingers and I wondered if she was connecting the dots. But she couldn't be. She didn't know I was a sapient. How would I have carved all those drawings in the stone floors if I wasn't?

  "Pearl needs us," I said, trying to change the subject. "We'll have time to figure this out later."

  "But my name. It's right after hers." She pointed at the floor. I sensed that she was on the edge of losing it.

  "I know, but it could be a mistake. Or just bad luck. We don't know if you're going to be next." My conscious flared—I was lying again. Did I really want to spend my last few hours with Henri based on lies? What I did over the next day was how she would remember me.

  I poured out the contents of the leather bag into my hand. Everything was there, except the chain and the skull pendant; I had given those two items to Pearl hours before she got sick. Because of the list carved all over my elusian, I had a bad feeling she was going to be next. I asked her to wear the necklace so I would be able to discover what was causing the affliktion if she did in fact catch it.

  At first I thought the rubrics might bring good luck. I gave the star to Anabelle to keep the bad dreams away. But, if the star did bring luck, it wasn't powerful enough to save Anabelle from the affliktion. When I found her body, I took the rubric from her so Mazol wouldn't find it. That was when I discovered something special about the star. When I touched it, I could see visions. At first I thought they were a sign that I was going insane, but soon I realized that they were Anabelle's memories. I could see fragments of the last few hours of her life. But they were blurry and disjointed.

  The same night Anabelle died, the list first appeared in my elusian. If the list really was able to predict who would be next, I realized the rubrics could help me solve what was causing the affliktion. Seeing Lucy's name next, I immediately went to check on her. She was asleep when I came into her room and didn't show any signs of a rash. I didn't want to take any chances, so I slipped the star rubric on her wrist, just in case. I hoped it would protect Lucy better than it did Anabelle, but sadly, it didn't. Lucy, too, died from the affliktion.

  When I took the star from Lucy, I saw her visions as I expected. They were just as blurry as Anabelle's though. I decided to try a different rubric with Parkrose to see if the results were any different. I gave her the lotus flower, and though it too was ineffective at protecting her from the affliktion, I was surprised to find that the visions were much more clear with it. It was like the lotus was more powerful than the star. But the visions were still too disjointed to learn much. I was only getting small glimpses of her last few hours.

  With Pearl, I tried something different. Instead of the star or lotus, I decided to try the skull. I placed it on the silver chain instead of using the piece of twine around her wrist. When the skull touched her skin, it began to pulse with degrees of darkness. At times it seemed black, others it was so dark all the light in the room seemed to be sucking inside of it. Pearl grabbed at her chest.

  "It burns," she said.

  When she pulled her shirt collar down, I saw what was causing the pain. Light seeped from her skin, like drops of blood. They clung to the skull then slipped inside it. I ripped the skull from around her neck and immediately discovered what those globs of light were. They were her memories. I could see myself, but through Pearl's eyes. The vision was of me, only a few moments ago; it was clear as if it was real. I knew at once I had finally found what I needed to solve the mystery of what was causing the affliktion.

  Then I discovered the skull's second talent. I heard a beating heart. I looked around for the source of the sound and saw the rubric that looked like a clanker was pulsing with light in time with the beating. When I picked it up, the pulsing sound pushed through my whole body. I realized, while I was holding the skull, my heart beat was transmitting to the clanker. The rubrics were connected.

  I held the skull to my chest and felt a stabbing pain as light seeped from my skin into the pendent. It was extracting my memories. I watched it for a moment, mesmerized by the idea that what I was seeing was somehow passing into the rubric. The pain faded after a few seconds and I pulled the skull away, breaking the bond it had formed with my skin.

  Pearl said she would wear it again—I promised the pain only lasted a moment—because she knew it was important to try and help the others. I didn't tell her why it was important, that she might soon be dying from the affliktion. I was still holding out hope that this rubric would be powerful enough to protect her. As with the others, it turned out I was wrong, but I knew the rubric wasn't powerless. Perhaps it had kept her alive, even just a little. If I could find her, I could use the lotus to discover how she had been infected with the affliktion and there still might be time to bring her back.

  I picked up clanker rubric and showed it to Henri. Above the word rubric it read:

  The Blood Pumpery

  I held it carefully, afraid that it might not beat.

  After 10 seconds passed, my stomach grew thick with fear. There was no beat. I began to face that I had been wrong about Pearl still being alive.

  My eyes fell to the floor, afraid to look at Henri. My hand drooped down, but then, there was a single p
ulse.

  I squeezed the rubric tighter and it began to throb like a smashed toe. At first I could only feel the sensation, but soon the sound of a faint heart-beat ebbed through the echoing room. The rubric began to glow and light saturated my fingers, revealing the red blood that pumped beneath my skin and casting strange shadows on Henri's face. Tiny sparkles escaped from the rubric and floated into the air like dust.

  "What is that?" Henri asked as the pulsing grew louder.

  "That," I paused, "is the sound of Pearl's heart." I was beaming.

  It was weak, but fast. Like a dying fawn fighting for her life.

  "Pearl is alive." I spoke softly, barely able to believe it myself, and she leaned closer. But she shook her head, breaking the trance the rubric had set on her. A new look appeared on her face that told me she wasn't going to just accept what I was saying without at least some explanation.

  "I was afraid for her—"

  "Because she was next on the list."

  I'd pinned myself in a corner. There was no way to explain why I was afraid for Pearl, but then try and convince Henri not to worry about being next herself.

  "Just because the list was right about Pearl, doesn't mean it will be with you."

  She stared at me, her eyes alone strong enough to topple my flimsy logic. Unable to think of anything else to say in my defense, I tried to explain how the rubrics worked, leaving out the part about how they had only started working after I discovered I was a sapient.

  "That's impossible," she said when I was done. "You've let your imagination get away from you."

  I didn't know how to convince her without telling her the truth about who I had become so I held my tongue, but Henri persisted.

  "Where is she then?"

  Another question I couldn't just come out and answer. "I'm not sure." Another lie. "But the heartbeat will get stronger when we get close. We'll find her, I promise." I hoped she would figure out where Pearl was on her own, it didn't take that much imagination to guess where they would put her. Maybe by the time she had figured it out, she would be more willing to go through with what we were going to have to do.

  Yet I knew I was going to have to give her something. She would be a fool if she hadn't guessed some of it already. Problem was, I didn't even know how to begin.

  "Do you remember that time in the closet, when you said you believed in me." The words were coming out stilted and awkward. I realized my hands were sweating.

  "Yeah," she said slowly.

  "You were right."

  "Right about what?"

  "About... you know. Sapience."

  She was silent, as if putting it all together in her mind.

  Finally she said, "How long have you known."

  After lying to Henri so many times in the last half-hour without even flinching, I was surprised to find I couldn't bear the thought of hiding the truth from her this time.

  "Almost three days."

  She stared into my eyes. Her eyes glistened.

  "I wanted to tell you," I said, "but I didn't know how." I left out the real reason I couldn't tell her, I didn't want her to know what I was becoming. Somehow I had to hide that from her until I was gone. I didn't want her to see me that way. I wanted her to remember me as the boy that she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

  "That's what happened this morning," she said, putting it together. "That was how you could lift that barrel of oil."

  As she was speaking, I had a fleeting memory of her hovering over me, right after Yesler stuck me with the needle. I thought she said, 'you're not who you think you are,' but couldn't be sure. It was like she knew something I didn't, but I wasn't even sure it really happened. It wasn't the right time to ask her about it anyway so I pushed the thought into the back of my mind.

  "And your elusian? You did all that too, didn't you? You were the one who made that list.

  "No. I mean, I don't know. I don't remember. But I will tell you everything." I was back to the lying, but what choice did I have. She was asking too many questions. "For now, we need to focus on saving Pearl."

  "What's the plan then?"

  "I'll explain as we go." I took a step, but she didn't follow.

  "Shouldn't we wait till later? After everyone is asleep? I have to get back to the Caldroen or Mazol will know we're up to something."

  "Pearl could be dying—who cares what Mazol thinks." And I barely had a day left until I had to leave. Every minute counted.

  "I don't know..."

  I suddenly wondered again what Mazol had been telling her when I found her in the Caldroen. She wasn't acting like the Henri I knew.

  "It's now or never," I said. The thought of her and Mazol together stabbed me again and anger filled my face with blood. I swallowed and managed to push it away. I had to trust Henri if I was going to have any chance of helping the fallings survive.

  "All right," she said quietly, "I'll do it."

  I reached out my hand to her and we ran, as fast as my beat up body would take me. I noticed it wasn't just me in pain. Henri was holding her lower back and limping bad, though she was trying pretty hard to hide it.

  "What did you work today?"

  "The finisher."

  I cringed. That was my job; the hardest in the castle. No wonder she was hurting. But there was something else about her—beyond the back and the limp and the bags under her eyes, something else that was wrong.

  I watched her out of the corner of my eye, some sense or intuition deep inside screaming, trying to tell me what was wrong, but I was too deaf to hear. Just as I thought I had it, it was gone. Absentmindedly, I buried my free hand into my pants pocket as we slowed to a walk. Finding the bag of rubrics, I took one out and fumbled it between my fingers.

  Suddenly, a fragment of the nightmare that had been playing through my restless sleep rushed back in perfect clarity.

  Marcus was driving his old rickety cart out of the castle gates. In the cart's bed lay a splintered wooden crate with clumps of mud and dirt still clinging to its side. It was a gravebox, freshly dug from the ground.

  I stopped walking and pulled my hand from my pocket. "Did anyone come to the castle today?"

  "I don't know...," Henri said between breaths. "I guess so. I heard Marcus came for the weekly delivery, but it wasn't ready."

  "He wasn't supposed to come for two more days."

  "You think Marcus is involved? I thought you loved Marcus."

  I was lost in thought and didn't answer.

  "Evan," she said, shaking me by the shoulders.

  I didn't know how Marcus fit into it, but the gravebox definitely confirmed my suspicions.

  "I don't know. Maybe Mazol is using him. Marcus could be involved and not realize it."

  I felt for the Clanker rubric in my pocket and pulled it out. After a few seconds it began to glow and pulse with Pearl's heart-beat.

  "Is it getting any stronger?"

  "Yeah, I think so" I said.

  "So we're getting close."

  "Must be. You rested?" I hoped she would figure out where we were going soon. I really didn't want to have to tell her.

  She gave a single nod, reluctantly, and we started limping on again.

  I kept glancing sideways. Even in the flickering torchlight I could see she looked worse than when I first saw her that night. She needed sleep, not an all night excursion.

  We arrived at a small door at the end of a dead end hallway. Henri got there first and rattled the handle.

  "You gonna break it down?" she said, almost like she would have really liked to see me do it.

  I walked up to the door.

  "I already tried it," she said. "It's locked."

  I hesitated as I moved my hand towards the handle. Henri knew about me now, but she didn't know everything. I knew it was smarter to keep as much of the truth from her as possible by not using sapience in front of her. But, we couldn't risk the noise of breaking down the door, not that I could have likely done that without sapience anyway
. I felt inside the lock with my mind and flipped the bolt. The lock made a slight clicking noise and I coughed to try and cover up the noise. Maybe she wouldn't notice.

  I hadn't even realized the pressure had been building in me so much, but immediately I felt the relief of using sapience. I turned the handle and the door creaked open.

  Henri's jaw hung open.

  "But I just..." Henri said and stopped.

  "Must have not turned it the right way," I offered.

  She shook her head and I thought I almost caught a glimpse of admiration on her face. But she didn't know about the dark side of sapience. She wouldn't be smiling at me if she knew everything. Like how much I had been lying to her, or how I wanted to make Mazol and Yesler hurt or how I was afraid my nightmares were becoming my reality.

  I stood there staring at her back for a moment until she turned around and looked at me.

  "Are you coming?" she said.

  "Yeah. Sorry." I said. I was so confused. Images of her with Mazol flashed in my mind; part of me wanted to shake her until she confessed to whatever she was conspiring with him. But another part of me wanted to take her in my arms and feel her lips on mine. We had never shared a word about our plans, but I knew she was planning to spend the rest of her life with me. At least, I knew she used to feel that way. I wasn't so sure anymore.

  We had never officially crossed the line between friends and whatever you call it when two people become more than friends. It hurt so bad to know that I would never get to live the life I always wanted with Henri. She would find someone else and he would make her happy. I, on the other hand, would always be alone. I didn't want anyone else but Henri and I never would. Besides, who would ever love a monster.

  I found myself staring at her eyes when I realized how long we had been standing like that. She was smiling and I felt blood rush to my face. I started to walk past her, but she stopped me by putting her hand on my chest. I wondered if she could feel the pounding inside me. I wanted to get past her before she saw me blushing, but she turned my face towards hers with her other hand and I was forced to stop.