Evan Burl and the Falling

by Justin Blaney

  "...And that girl could cook, let me tell y'u..."

  I noticed a set of knives in a wood block on the counter and leaned my back against it.

  "My mother used to spank me when I was caught lying," I said, interrupting him. The puzzled look on his face told me he clearly did not understand why I would bring this fact up in the middle of his wonderful, never ending story. Now that I had his attention, I put the wet cloth on the counter behind me. "She would beat me until I was black and blue."

  "I'm sure she did no such thing," Baxter said as he glanced out the window again.

  "Oh, she did. It was worse than that even." I reached behind me and slide a knife from the wood block. I liked the way it felt in my hand, cool and heavy. "She even cut me sometimes, when I lied."

  He looked at me and something changed in his eyes.

  "One time my sister broke a window and blamed it on me, but mother always sided with Claire. Mother said I was a liar and liars ought to be punished. So took a knife, like this one, and cut a line down each of my arms." I showed Baxter where she cut me by tracing the knife on my arms.

  "Mother said sometimes people got evil in their blood, like a sickness. The evil had to be bled out of them before they could be cured."

  "Miss, put that down before you get yourself hurt."

  I pointed it at him and took a step in his direction. "I think you might have some evil in your blood."

  "Stop talking nonsense child."

  "I'm very good at throwing knives. Mother hated it, but Papa said we should learn. I could hit an orange from 20 feet when I was eight."

  "Anastasia, put it down now!"

  "Why do you keep calling me that? My name is Terisma."

  "You don't want to do anything foolish, not after what happened—"

  "Shut up," I said and his mouth fell open for a moment, his last word hanging in the air.

  "Grab that rope over there and make a noose." I nodded at a rope hanging on the wall.

  Baxter seemed to be thinking about whether or not to do as he was told.

  "I don't want to hurt you," I said, trying to sound sweet. "I just want to play a game. Won't you play with me?"

  He breathed heavily, like old men often did before they died, and began turning the rope into a noose.

  "Quickly, I can't play long. Supper is waiting for me at home."

  He finished the collar knot and showed it to me, his eyes pleading for me to go easy on him, but mother taught me that strict discipline is the best thing for everyone.

  "Now tie it up on that rafter."

  "But I haven't got a ladder."

  "Use the stool."

  He climbed carefully up on the stool and tied it in a quick knot.

  "No cheating now. Double tie that knot." I thought he might try to use a slip knot which would just come undone with his weight hanging on the rope.

  He obeyed, but I could see he was worrying about running out of ideas for escaping my punishment. That was good.

  "Don't be afriad," I said. "Mother taught me to face up to my wrongs."

  "I.. I—"

  "Now slip your head through."

  "Please miss, I have a family. A wife—five grand children. You don't really want to hurt me, do you?"

  "Silence. I don't want to be late for supper. Now do as you're told."

  I could hear his heart racing as he slowly put his neck through the noose. I guessed he was still wondering whether or not I was playing games with him. He was probably hoping I would start laughing, put the knife down, and let him go back to his spiced tea. Maybe he was thinking he could get the knife from me when I got close enough to kick the stool.

  "I've got my neck in the noose. See? Now why don't you put down the knife. You don't really want to hurt me, do you miss?"

  I started to lower the knife a little and I could see his hopes raise. He was starting to believe I didn't really want to punish him.

  But no one can stand a spoiled child.

  The stool burst into flames. I couldn't take my eyes from him, full of fascination. I let the knife drop to my side as he desperately kicked at the fire. But fire isn't so easy to put out; I would know. The smoke turned black as it began to feed on his clothes. He grabbed at the rope around his neck but it wrung around his neck tighter and tighter like a snake coiling around it's prey.

  His clothes were quickly burned through and he screamed in agony as the fire burned him alive. He kicked so violently that the chair he was standing on tipped over and his neck made a popping sound as the rope went taught. I watched him for a few silent moments while he dangled above the toppled chair.

  "What? No more stories?" I said, then I remembered Evan Burl. Now I could finally get on with finding him. I was very excited about my new friend Evan. I wondered what kinds of games he liked to play.

  Turning to go, I skipped out of the guard's office into the night, as the flames burned on behind me. I was careful to close the door behind me. I always remembered to shut doors properly; mother taught me to keep the bugs out of the house.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Evan

  Friday

  6:44 pm

  4 hours, 5 minutes until the Falling

  Clare was exactly what had been missing from my life—one more person that wanted me dead. Well, if she was going to kill me, she was going to have to wait. I had things to do.

  Checking the clock and doing some math, I figured I had about 4 hours. Not much time, but it could be enough.

  I still had six of my rubrics, not including the skull pendant Mazol stole. And the bracelet I took from the girl. If I could find the skull I would finally know what happened to Pearl. And if I could find the spider... well, I didn't know exactly why I should find the spider, but if I had it, at least it couldn't be used against any more of the fallings.

  I pulled the girl's bracelet and felt the sharp, stabbing pain again. Out of reflex, I dropped it to the floor. I stared down at it for a moment, like I was glaring at a pet rat that had just bit me. Pulling the sleeve of my shirt down so it was over my hand, I picked up the bracelet, careful to not let it touch my skin. There was no pain this time.

  I inspected each rubric slowly. There were nine. Some were the same as mine. A six pointed star. An elephant. A glass vialus with black smoke inside. But some were different too. She had two bright blue gems, three painted beads and a locket. I turned the locket over and found a name engraved.

  Claire Amadeus.

  "It must be her name," Henri said, adjusting her glasses as she read over my shoulder.

  "Well we can't leave her here." I shuddered. "I don't want to have to worry about her waking up and creeping through the castle hunting me down."

  "She's just a child," Pearl said. I didn't know how to point out that Pearl was a child too and she had almost killed me. I caught Henri's eye and knew she was thinking the same thing.

  Pearl watched us both, then said, "That was different. I had the affliktion."

  "Yes, but there are worse things than the affliktion." Like sapience.

  "How are you feeling?" Henri said.

  "I don't know. I can walk I think."

  Henri and Pearl kept talking, but I wasn't listening. I was thinking about how sapience was worse than the affliktion. Sapience was turning me into something terrible, what if that was like the affliktion? The two were so different, but there were some similarities. If sapience was involved in the affliktion somehow, it might be possible that one of my rubrics could stop it.

  I looked up at Mazol, the look on his face told me I wasn't likely to get any answers from him at the moment. Maybe if I found the skull, I wouldn't need him anyways. Between Claire's nine rubrics and mine, we have to have something that will help with the affliktion. The spider could help too. Maybe with sapience, the power that causes the affliktion could be reversed.

  I realized Henri and Pearl were staring at me.

  Pearl said, "I can see the wheels turning in your head like a clanker."


  "I have a plan."

  "It's about time," Henri said with a smile. She was teasing me, but it felt awkward; like joking at a funeral. It's very odd—pretending that she hadn't just stabbed me in the neck and I hadn't almost killed her.

  I looked up at Mazol again, figuring he was too far away to hear us. But I spoke a little quieter anyway. "We need to be able to trust each other."

  I was asking her to trust me when I wasn't telling her the truth about me leaving. But she stabbed me, so I didn't feel all that bad about it.

  "I told you, I can explain—"

  "There's no time. I have to find the skull pendent Mazol stole from me and if I can, the spider too. Do you have any idea where they are?"

  "No," she said loudly, "I already said I don't know." She glanced up nervously at Mazol as I watched her face for a moment, feeling like it was hard to trust her when she acted so defensively whenever I asked her about the skull.

  "I'm going up to Mazol's bedchambers then. It's the most likely place he would hide them."

  I stooped down and pulled Claire into my arms. She was light as a bird.

  "I'll come with you," Henri said.

  "I need you to get the girls together in the entrance hall. After what happened in the Caldroen, I bet most of them are hiding in their rooms."

  She seemed reluctant to agree until Pearl said, "I'll go with you."

  Henri and Pearl worked together to open the thick iron door. I wanted to ask Henri how she had gotten back into the Caldroen. How had I gotten her and Mazol mixed up? Was it really her the whole time with me on the platform? Did she see the dead fallings appear? But I kept all the questions inside. Part of me didn't want to know the truth.

  I looked up one last time as I stepped through the door. Mazol and Yesler looked defiant, but Ballard had a funny sort of grin on his face. I didn't know what it meant, but logged it away in my mind. He was such a mystery to me, sometimes I wasn't sure who's side he was on; Mazol's or his own.

  We walked without talking for what seemed like a long time. We had to move slowly. I was limping bad as the pain in my leg, which I hadn't noticed at all in the Caldroen, had come back worse than ever. Pearl looked like slow was as fast as she could go and Henri wasn't in much better shape than me and Pearl.

  At least Claire was a stick. I realized how odd it was that I was carrying a girl through the castle who said she had come to kill me. But that was what my life was like. Everything was so strange, I think if anything normal ever happened to me I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

  I watched Henri out of the corner of my eye. Partially because I was afraid she might turn on me at any moment, but also because she was still showing signs of having the affliktion. The sun had set a while ago, but there was still enough light in the sky to see with the large castle windows. I noticed Henri scratch her neck every twenty steps or so, but she never seemed to think about it. I opened my mouth to ask her how she was doing, but thought better of it.

  It didn't seem like the right time to bring up her having the affliktion. We had to focus on getting the skull and the spider. Once we had them, I would be able to heal Henri. I thought again about how she reacted when I told her she had the affliktion. She wasn't upset. She didn't seem surprised. What could that mean? I wondered if she would even believe me if I told her she had been scratching.

  We passed through a towering arch into the entrance hall. I limped over to a long bench covered in a white sheet. Pearl ripped the sheet off with a whip-like crack and a cloud of dust clogged the air.

  I laid Claire down so there was room for Pearl to sit at the end. I gestured for Pearl to sit, but she didn't move.

  "I thought I was going with Henri."

  "I need you to keep an eye on my patient."

  "What do I do?" Pearl asked.

  "If she wakes up, call for me."

  I watched Henri pull three lanterns from the storage chest by the double entrance doors, sat on the floor and pumped the strikers one a time until three small flames lit a 10 foot circle. Using the oil lamps was forbidden without Mazol's permission. She handed one each to me and Pearl.

  "What if you don't hear me?" Pearl said.

  "Yell as loud as you can until I come back. I'll check on you in a half hour."

  "Leave the lamp trimmed down," Henri said, "we need to save the oil."

  Pearl was shaking a little as she sat down. She scooted to the far edge of the bench, as far away from Claire as she could get without falling off. I stooped down next to her. "Henri will be sending other girls here so you won't be alone long. Tell everyone to stay here until I get back."

  She nodded her head, glancing sideways at Claire.

  I looked over my shoulder at Pearl one more time as Henri and I left her with Claire. She looked so small and scared with the dim flame flickering on her face. I wondered if it was the right thing to leave them alone together. Claire said she had come to kill me, but would she hurt Pearl too? What if Pearl tried to stop Claire from leaving? I didn't have a choice; I couldn't keep carrying Claire with my bad leg and I didn't have time to wait for Henri to find all the others first, but that didn't make it any easier.

  Henri and I walked together for a while until we came to a split in the hall. Mazol's bedchambers were to the left and the girl's beds were to the right.

  "Who's next on the list?" Henri said. Her voice sounded erie, breaking the silent tension that had been building between us ever since we left Pearl.

  "What list?"

  "What do you think? The one in your elusian." I had hoped she would forget, but who could forget something like that? I didn't have to think about it; I had the list memorized, but I acted like I was thinking anyway.

  "Gertrude," I said after a moment. I looked down the hall to the right. Though I couldn't see it for the darkness, the door to Gertrude's room was down there somewhere. I shuddered. Now that Henri had the afflication, I realized Gertrude could catch it anytime. If the list was still right, she could have it already. Images of how we found Little Sae and Anabelle and the other flashed through my mind.

  "What if she's..." Henri started to say.

  "Dead?"

  "Like Pearl. What if she tries to kill us?"

  I breathed in short. I didn't have time to waste, but I had to know if Gertrude was all right. "Stay here. I'll go in alone."

  Henri grabbed my hand. "I don't want to be left out here by myself." I wanted to suggest that she could keep herself safe with one of those syringes she jabbed into my neck, but kept my mouth shut.

  I let her follow along behind me as we waded through the darkness, feeling oddly uncomfortable with her at my back. A few shafts of moonlight and our tiny oil lamps were all we had to keep from walking into the walls. I put my hand out in front of me, waiting to feel the smooth carved door in front of me at any moment. I knew the door was at the end of the short hall, but the longer we walked, the more I began to worry that we had already passed into the room.

  What if the door was already open? Gertrude could be watching us, like we were rats crawling into a steel trap. Or worse, her mangled body could be waiting for us. I tried again to block the images from my head.

  Something creaked to our left and Henri nearly squeezed my hand off. I waved my lamp in the direction of the noise. Stepping backwards, I tripped and fell hard to the floor. It was the foot of Gertrude's bed. Henri was standing over me staring down at the bed, lines of fear creased on her face. I got up slowly, until I could see what it was that Henri was so scared about.

  The bed was empty.

  I reached down to the covers to pull them back, but as I closed my fingers on the thin white fabric I felt an icy hand on my shoulder. I froze and Henri's eyes grew wide. She screamed and I spun around, putting myself between Henri and whatever was in the room with us.

  "What are you doing in here?" Gertrude said as she stepped forward into the lamp light.

  I breathed out.

  "You scared us," Henri said as she wrapped her arms aro
und Gertrude.

  "What's going on?" Gertrude said.

  "We thought you..." I started to say, but then thought better of it. "Well, never mind."

  "We need to find everyone," Henri said. "Where's Ravenna?"

  "I was just looking for her. Where's Mazol. How did you get away?"

  "No time for questions now," I said, "Wake the others and meet me as soon as you can in the entrance hall."

  "I don't have a lamp."

  "Take mine," I said, pushing it into her hands. She took it and disappeared into the hall. I watched her go, then followed Henri back to the hall. Henri started to say something, but I shushed her. I held my breath, listening.

  "Someone is screaming."

  "I don't hear anything," Henri said.

  "It's Pearl." I ran, limping, back to the entrance room. When Pearl saw me, she stopped in the middle of yelling my name.

  "Ev—"

  "I'm here, what is it." But I knew the answer before I finished the sentence.

  Claire was missing.

  "I tried to stop her, but she pushed me down. I hit my head."

  "Which direction did she go?"

  She pointed in the direction of the Caldroen.

  "Well, she's gone now."

  "What are you going to do?" Henri said.

  "I'll just have to watch my back. I don't have time to find her."

  Henri took a step back.

  "All right. I.., I've got to go now. Find the others." She took another step back, tripped over her feet, then turned and left without another word.

  I glanced at Pearl, wondering if she thought something was strange about how Henri had left. But Pearl hadn't seemed to notice. She was rubbing her head and staring at the floor.

  "Gertrude is helping now too. They'll all be here soon."

  Pearl looked up at me and nodded.

  "I'll be right back," I said then turned and left in the direction Henri had gone. I saw the glow of her light in the distance, but she was moving fast. I had to run to keep up, which felt like someone was jabbing me with knives ever time I took a step. When we got the to hall that split off to the girl's rooms, Henri didn't turn to the right like she would have if she was going to find them.