Evan Burl and the Falling

by Justin Blaney

  It was a very strange game they were playing. I was about to go back to my reading when the second guard stepped forward. His foot landed bad and he fell towards me, but when he threw out his hands to brace his fall his spear sunk into my left ankle.

  "Owww!" I cried as I jumped up, blood gushing from my leg. I pulled out the spear by the head and, squeezing, shattered it in my hands. Shocked at what I had done, I stared at my hand for a moment. A dozen iron shards lay in my palm as blood pooled around where the metal had pierced my skin.

  At first I found it interesting. The blood was warm and sticky; it ran down my arm and began to drip from my elbow. But my fascination quickly turned to fear. I threw the shards away out of reflex, like they had become hot as coals. The guard who stabbed me was on his feet in front of me, his face stretched with fear.

  But his eyes turned to a blank stare when he looked down at his chest to find the shards I'd thrown were sunk deep in his skin. He staggered, then fell over; his ripped shirt turning red as my favorite pair of died-wool stockings.

  I looked up from the man to find dozens of white faces staring at me. The seemed unable to believe their own eyes. "Well it's your game, isn't it? We don't have to play anymore if you don't want to."

  What they were so surprised about escaped me. What exactly did they think happened when someone was pierced by a dozen shards of iron?

  "You killed him...," someone said. "Cambridge... he was... my oldest friend." The man grew furious as the shock wore off and charged at me, but I stepped easily out of the way. Two guards rushed forward to hold him back.

  "You can't just kill her," the mayor said. "She'll have to stand trial."

  "What trial do you need? Everyone just saw her murder him."

  "After he stabbed her first," someone said.

  "She was just defending herself," another called out.

  Everyone started shouting again. It seemed that half of them wanted to kill me and the others wanted a trial. I listened for a while, but it was all very dull. I walked over to a man who was red in the face from demanding my death.

  He saw me staring at him and his eyes narrowed. He lunged at me, but was held just out of reach.

  "You're gonna pay for this," he said, spit flying from his mouth with every word.

  I took a step forward, reached my hands around his head and snapped his neck. His body crumpled to the ground, the blood from my right hand stuck to his beard. But there was so much commotion it took a few seconds for anyone to notice.

  A woman screamed and all at once, everyone stopped arguing. Several people started walking backwards, as if making to disappear into the crowd—maybe run back to town.

  "He spit on me," I said. These people had proven quite unintelligent so far and I thought they might need some explanation.

  Several others turned away from me and pushed through the crowd, in the direction of the town.

  "Are you leaving?" I said. "But it's my birthday. Will you sing to me before you go?"

  They were all acting very strange. Some were starting to run, others locked their eyes on me, their mouths hanging open like they were corpses.

  "Sing to me!" I yelled.

  A wall of fire erupted from the ground in a circle around the graveyard. Several of the people who had first turned back were burned to ash in an instant. Two men and a woman seemed to lose their minds; they ran straight into the flames. Those who were left ran from one side of the courtyard to the other. I guessed they must be looking for a way to escape. Bodies lay on the ground everywhere, many had been trampled to death. I couldn't believe how they were behaving; like animals.

  "Sing to me!" I yelled again, but no one was listening. They were all too busy screaming. After a short bit, the dozen or so who remained clustered together, their backs to each other, halfway between me and the wall of flames. The mayor was with them, though he looked very different to me now. I thought of the funny way he hrumphed and giggled. He was a kind sort of man. I couldn't understand why he was acting so rude all of the sudden.

  "Why won't you sing?" I said quietly. "It's my birthday. Don't you love me?"

  They didn't even answer me.

  Why wouldn't they just sing?

  They should have been taught better manners.

  It was a sad thing, but mine were the last words any of them ever heard. Flames rushed in from all sides and engulfed us all. It only took a few moments for the screaming to stop. When it was all done, all I could hear was the sound of crackling flames and a pretty child's voice singing a birthday song.

  I wondered if she was singing to me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Evan

  Friday

  7:46 pm

  3 hours, 3 minutes until the Falling

  A tiny man made of hammered tin rolled forward on two rubber tracks out of the darkness. It was no taller than my waist.

  "Welcome back," it said again, it's voice was young, like a six or seven-year-old girl. A box shaped head was attached of the top of the creature, a face painted on sloppily, as if by the hands of a child. Whenever it spoke, a current of light shot between two rods at the edges the bright red painted lips, like little bolts of lightning flying back and forth with every word.

  I reached down and the little man rolled towards me.

  "What are you?" I asked, stooping down next to it.

  "My name's Rho, what is yours?"

  "Ev—"

  "Welcome back," It said before I could answer. I wondered if this was the extent of the creatures vocabulary, like a trained monkey that can only repeat phrases it has heard people say.

  "Would you like to play a game?" Rho said.

  "I..," I started to say, then stopped. I didn't have time to talk; I had to find a way out.

  I stood and walked under the hole in the ceiling. Looking up, I figured it was at least 30 feet above me. There were no walls to climb up and no chance I could jump that high, even with sapience.

  I noticed the chairs and tables. Dragging them to the center of the room, they clunked along and vibrated in my hands as the legs caught in the deep grooves between the stones that made up the floor. Rho followed on my heels with a whirring that got higher in pitch when she moved faster. After a few minutes, I had stacked the furniture as high as I could.

  "Would you like to play a game?"

  I climbed the teetering tower I created, balancing perilously. Reaching the point where I had nothing to hold on to, I wobbled back and forth for a moment, using my arms for balance. I stepped on top of the last chair and looked up. The hole was still at least 15 feet away, but I might be close enough to make it.

  I steadied myself, preparing to leap, but the chair beneath me slipped. I fell hard to the floor, as the tower of furniture crashed around me. Gasping for breath, I lay on my back for a moment. It felt like Ballard just socked me in the stomach.

  When I could breath again, I got up, wincing from pain. I could have counted the parts of my body that weren't hurting a lot faster than trying to figure out every part that was in pain. I surveyed the pile of chairs and tables. They were solid wood and well made, but a few were too busted up to use again.

  Moving slower from the pain, I built a new tower, using a little more care this time to make sure it was stable. This one was shorter than the first; when I stood on top, I was more than 20 feet below the hole. It was too far, I knew, but I had to try.

  I concentrated, trying to recreate the strength I had when the boiling waves of water were crashing down on me and Pearl. I had leaped from the Caldroen floor to the first level and I was carrying Pearl. It should be easy to jump 20 feet with nothing but my own weight.

  I crouched, then flexed my legs with everything I had. I felt the tower give way beneath me as I rose into the air. My fingers brushed the ceiling, but after a horrible moment of grasping for something to grip, gravity took control of my body and I tumbled to the floor. This time I hit my head on a chair on my way down.

  My ears were ringing and I co
uldn't see straight. I didn't have the strength to get up, so I lay perfectly still, thinking about gravity. I read all about it in Natural History, but it didn't seem to fit with the other subjects. Algebra. Biology. clankers. Doubleknot. Elk. Fishing. And gravity? Most of the stuff in Natural History could be explained and understood. But gravity? Seemed to me like gravity belonged more in a book about magic. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it; invisible rubber cords holding us to the earth. The book said those rubber cords could stretch on forever. It said those cords held the sun and the moon and the earth together in some kind of endless dance through a black nothingness.

  Believing in magic takes less faith than believing all that.

  It was gravity that made me really start to believe that magic could be real. And if gravity was magic, maybe magic could break those invisible rubber cords that held us to the earth. Then I could fly away, wherever I wanted; I wouldn't have fallen from the tower the night Pike died; I would've been able to save him from falling too.

  Well, I couldn't fly and there was no changing what happened 5 years ago. I had to focus on finding a way out. Pushing myself up, I stumbled over to the first row of shelves. They were bolted to the ground with 1 inch thick iron rods; I couldn't even shake them. I stepped back and tried to pull it loose with sapience, but the shelves and posts crumbled up on themselves, causing bottles and boxes and books to go crashing to the floor.

  Kicking a pile of jars out of the way, I checked the shelves bolts, but they were as solidly fixed as ever. I stared at the pile at my feet, for the first time realizing the value of what must be stored in that room. I could only see the first few shelves, but there were hundreds of books on those alone. The fallings would never have to work again. Between that chest of diamonds and the stuff in this room, they could live off the profits from selling it all for decades.

  Then reality hit. I was going to transform into a monster in 3 hours, trapped in that room. Mazol would run with the chest and I would destroy everything down here, just like I did in my elusian. I left nothing, not even my Natural History books. How much worse was I going to be after I transformed?

  I slumped down on a pile of books and stared into a mirror on the shelf across from me. There was just enough light coming through the hole that I could see my dirty, worry lined face reflecting back at me.

  Rho tried to roll up next to me, but couldn't get close because of the piles of broken things laying around.

  "Would you like to play a game?" She backed up and tried to find another way to me, but kept bumping into books and broken glass bottles and misshaped tin boxes. I shut my eyes and tried to ignore her, but the whirring of her wheels and her perky voice was making my skin crawl.

  How could I have been so wrong about Henri? How could she do those terrible things? I shuddered. It would have been impossible to believe if I didn't know that was the only possibility. She had the spider the whole time. She had the murder weapon. She must be guilty.

  "Would you like to play a game?" Rho said.

  I pushed her away, hoping she would leave me alone. But she just kept coming back.

  "Would you like to play a game?"

  "Would you like to play a game?"

  "No," I said, unable to take it anymore, "I don't want to play a game!"

  As I shouted, Rho's voice made a little zipping sound that sounded like someone gasping. Then her little tin body exploded.

  I shielded my face, then stared at where she had just been standing.

  I killed her.

  Burying my face in my hands, I began to cry.

  I felt nothing. I thought nothing. There was only emptiness. It was a strange sensation. I had been crying a lot the last few days, more than anytime I could remember, but each time I had a reason. Little Sae. Anabelle. Each of the deaths. This time there was nothing.

  I suppose that's what giving up feels like.

  After a while, I don't know how long, I stopped suddenly and wiped my face dry. It felt like there was nothing left inside me; like I was just a hollow shell. But maybe it was just my stomach.

  Looking up, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I winced, half expecting to see a monster staring back at me. It wouldn't be long now, the transformation was almost done.

  Everyone would look for me, but the Caldroen doors were locked shut. I realized the blast doors weren't to keep the castle safe from an explosion. They were to keep people from finding this room. No one would be able to break them down. I would live down in this hole forever, until I died of hunger or insanity.

  Soon Mazol would have the spider and the skull pendent—everything he needed to kill off the rest of the fallings and make his escape. He'd have to go without me—I hadn't a clue why he wanted me with him—but he wouldn't think twice about leaving me behind.

  Watching myself in the mirror, I turned my head to the left a little, wondering what I would look like when the change was over. Would Little Sae recognize me if she was still alive?

  As I studied my face, I realized something was wrong. I suppressed a shiver as hairs began to stand up on my arms. I looked past my shoulder through the mirror into the black fog behind me, wondering for the first time whether it really had only been me and Rho in that room alone. The unlit room could stretch on forever. There was no way to know what else was down there without spending hours, or even days, searching.

  Turning my head slowly, I squinted my eyes over my left shoulder, hoping to pierce the veil of suffocating darkness that seemed to be cinching around my neck. Nothing was there.

  I turned back to the mirror, trying to get a grip on myself. How could anything survive down here for all these years and no one know about it? It was impossible.

  Something flashed in the reflection.

  Jumping to my feet, I spun around, my fists in front of me. But nothing was there. My lungs began to burn as a terrible feeling grew inside me. I felt eyes glued to the back of my head; something was watching me through the mirror.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see as I turned slowly back. But I had to look. I felt for the mirror and held it up to my face. When I snapped my eyes open, a face flashed in the mirror over my shoulder.

  "Little Sae?" I said.

  She stared at me blankly, her face sunken and pale. I looked behind me again, just to be sure, but no one was there. I could only see Little Sae when I looked in the mirror. When I turned back, my face was gone from the mirror and only her reflection was looking back at me.

  "Can you hear me?" I said, glancing sideways out of reflex, as if embarrassed to be caught talking to myself.

  "Of course," she said and her voice made me jump.

  "What are you?"

  She giggled. The sound echoed eerily through the stone walled room. "I'm Little Sae."

  "But you died. I.., I saw your body."

  "Yes," she said, frowning as if realizing the evidence of her dead body might make it difficult for us to be having this conversation. "You did."

  "What are you doing here? How is this working?"

  "I don't really know." She seemed to get distracted, like she was watching a butterfly hover over my head.

  "Little Sae...," I paused. "Do you know who killed you?"

  "Yes..., but I don't want to say."

  My heart sank. She was right. I didn't want to hear it either, but I had to face the truth.

  "It's all right. You can tell me."

  She paused, then blurted out, "It was you." She started laughing like she had just told a really good joke.

  "Very funny," I said. "Never mind. I know who did it."

  "Oh," she said, suddenly very sad. "I'm sorry."

  "How do I know you're real. How do I know I'm not just loosing my mind."

  "Of course you're loosing your mind. That's what sapience does."

  "So you're not real?"

  "I'm not sure; I think you can choose. You could believe I'm real. Or you could just ignore me."

  "That's not very helpful."

  She loo
ked at me seriously and suddenly seemed much older. "Do you want my advice?"

  Sitting on a pile of books, I could feel the intensity of my stare in my stretched face. "Yes. Please. Tell me what to do."

  "I would ignore me."

  My face sank, disappointed. "Your advice is to not take your advice?"

  "It's not a good idea to talk to dead people."

  I felt like I needed a good slap in the face. "But you're the one who started talking to me. I didn't ask you to come here."

  "That's not true. You said my name. You asked if I could hear you."

  "Only because you were staring at me. I should just ignore when someone who's supposed to be dead appears in my mirror?"

  She thought about it for a moment, then said, "Yep." She seemed happy I finally understood, though I was more confused than ever. "Talking with dead people doesn't seem like something sane people do."

  "I see your point," I said sarcastically.

  "I better go." She turned away from me.

  "Wait!" I said, pushing my face up to the mirror as if to make sure she could hear me.

  She turned back. "Yes?"

  "This doesn't make any sense. How can you not be real? I'm talking to you."

  "It's the sapience. It makes everything get all blurry. It's like your dreams and the real world mix together. That's how you can do things by just thinking them. But it's not safe. You could forget what's real and what's not."

  "So how do I sort it out?"

  "You have to be strong. Try to forget that you can see me."

  "But—"

  "That's all I know, I hope it helps." She turned to go again.

  "Please, just one more question."

  "You know," she said, "you could just ask yourself."

  I thought for a moment, not sure I wanted to believe what I thought she was trying to say. Was she really just inside my head? Was I talking with myself?

  "It's easier talking to you," I said finally.

  "If you say so."

  "Does it work with more than sapience? I mean, if I'm supposed to choose my own reality with sapience, can I really choose my own reality in other things too?"