Evan Burl and the Falling

by Justin Blaney

  I crept closer and closer, until I stood next to the cage. I put my fingers around the bars and pushed my face through so I could see inside. Just when I thought I must have imagined seeing anything, something rushed at me. I pulled back, but it grabbed my hand and began pulling me into the cage. I screamed and whatever was inside released me. Stumbling backwards, I fell on my bottom and scooted a few more feet away.

  "Anastasia," a voice whispered from inside the cage. It was a woman. I recognized her immediately, but she sounded so different, as if she was on the very edge of death. "Anastasia, is that you?"

  "Mother?"

  I walked over slowly, and she moved into the light. I felt as if I couldn't trust what I was seeing. Why would she be down here, locked in a rusty old cage? It didn't make sense. She crouched on the floor, her face pressed up against the bars. Moaning, she looked up at me. Her eyes were filled with blood. Then I remembered the kitten waiting for me up in my father's study. This women was not my mother. My mother was waiting for me, curled on my father's leather chair.

  "Anastasia, you're alive," she said.

  "Of course I'm alive."

  "But the house, it burned down, where are we?" She looked around, pretending to not know where she was.

  "The house didn't burn down. We're sitting below father's study. There's quite a bit of trash about, but I've been cleaning it up. All the servants have abandoned us, so I've had to do it myself." I hoped she was going to have some compassion for me doing that work all by myself, but she didn't.

  "Your father, what happened, Clairȩ, are they... both... dead?"

  "Dead?" What was she talking about? I started to feel a lump in my throat. Is that why Papa was gone? I stood and stepped towards the cage, looking down at the women who thought she was my mother.

  "Anastasia, don't you remember? The fire. Clairȩ fell before I could get there and your father—"

  A terrible vision flashed before me—a memory perhaps or a nightmare.

  I was clinging to the edge of a burning wall, Papa was pulling me up when a knife pushed through his chest from behind—

  —but the vision disappeared and I was ripped back to the dungeon with this groveling women. I felt like something was fighting inside of me, trying to break out of the prison it was locked in. I reached and reached for it, but found I didn't have the energy to fight anymore. Instead I turned my energy to the woman.

  "Where are they?" I demanded. My blood pressure was rising. "What did you do to them?"

  "Nothing, I swear—"

  "In my dream, Papa was murdered. Was it a dream? Or was it real?" She was hiding something from me—whoever she was.

  "I don't know... maybe it was just a dream. I can't remember now."

  "You're lying to me." I reached down through the bars and put my small hand around her neck.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. She was whimpering like the worst sort of spoiled child and it made me even more angry.

  "I swear. I don't know what happened." She kept repeating it until I told her to shut up. I relaxed my grip as I tried to make sense of it all, but the more I thought about it, the harder it was to grasp what was real and what was a dream.

  For now at least, I had to believe that Papa was not coming home—at least not anytime soon. I had to be strong. I had to help run things while he was away.

  But what about this women. I didn't like the idea of her bossing me around without father to take my side. This woman looked like my mother. Everyone in town would do what she said and I would just be some little girl. How did she know what my mother looked like? Someone must be helping her. I tried to think of who hated me, someone who would help this women pretend to be my mother.

  Clairȩ. Clairȩ must be behind this. She always tried to make my life miserable. She was always trying to make me just like her, just a little girl. But I had Papa's power now—I wasn't just some little girl anymore.

  "What's your name," I said.

  "I'm your mother"

  "Silence. I asked you your name."

  "Mercer. You know who I am. I'm your—" I silenced her with invisible fingers.

  "You are not my mother," I said as calmly as I could with her gagging like she was. She certainly wasn't making things any easier on me. "I'm going to find out how you have made yourself look like the woman called Mercer. As you can see, I'm no longer just a little girl. I have father's magic."

  I saw fear flicker in her eyes.

  "That's right, the power you never wanted us to know about. I have it now and that is why I'm no longer little Anastasia. Anastasia was a little girl. Terisma is your Master. You will call me Terisma now." I realized she was wasn't fighting very much and I might have been holding her breath for too long. I didn't want to kill her so I allowed a little oxygen to rush into her lungs.

  "Can I trust you to help me or do I need to make sure no one ever knows about you?" I let her breath enough to speak.

  "Ani..." she said through gasps, but I squeezed again.

  "Terisma," I said, correcting her.

  "I can't let you—"

  "I can see that you are not ready to think clearly." I said quickly before she could say something she might regret later. I was trying to help her, why couldn't she see that? "Why don't I just leave you down here for a while so you have time to think it all over?"

  "But A... Terisma," she said, then suddenly her whole personality changed and she became like the sweet mother I never had. "What about your birthday party? We never got to celebrate your birthday properly."

  "My birthday...?" I was stunned she remembered. I didn't think anyone cared about my birthday. Was she just trying to distract me from something?

  "I don't think I'm in the mood," I said. The truth was it felt good to have her bring it up and I really did want to celebrate it. A girl only turns twelve once after all.

  "Of course we should celebrate. I don't have anything to give you, but would you like me to sing your birthday song?"

  "I don't know..." I said, hoping she would insist.

  "Nonsense. Come here so I can hold you, maybe if you let me out of this cage I could rock you like I used to when you were younger."

  I looked at her suspiciously. Was she just trying to trick me into letting her out? She was sly, I had to give her credit for that. But I wanted to believe so badly that she really did care.

  "I don't know if I can trust you enough yet," I said. She looked hurt for a moment, but then smiled brightly at me.

  "Of course my love, I understand. Just come close enough so I can hold your hand."

  I stepped forward and she held out her hand to me, beckoning kindly through the bars. As I stepped forward cautiously and reached for her, I happened to look down at her other hand and saw something clutched in her white knuckled fist.

  "What do you have there?" I asked. I hoped she was not trying to hide something from me, but I had a sinking feeling.

  She turned to try and conceal it and my face felt suddenly numb. She had been trying to distract me, all that about the birthday was just a trick.

  I thought for a moment that maybe I should trust her, maybe she was keeping it from me for my own good. I didn't know what to think. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't let myself cry in front of her. She deceived me.

  My hands clenched into fists and she raised into the air, writhing and screaming. Her arms were stretched above her, the note of paper she tried to hide held tightly between her fingers. I reached with my mind and tried to pull it loose, but she resisted me—she was strong herself. I focused my strength and her hand burst open. I heard the sound of bones popping. She screamed in agony. I beckoned the small scrap of paper to me and it landed like a feather in my sweaty, shaking palm.

  Once I had it, I let her fall back to the ground. She sprung up and threw herself at the bars of the cage with a violence I that made me stumble backward out of reflex.

  "Give it to me," she screamed in a seething unnatural voice I didn't recognize. When I
didn't, she threw herself at the bars again, gurgling something from deep in her throat I couldn't understand and the cage nearly knocked over. She thrashed for a few more moments, before resigning herself to the strength of the bars. She stooped into a crouch, rocking and staring at me through clotted hair with wide bloody eyes.

  I turned my back to her and opened the crumpled paper, staring down at the few lines scribbled there in my father's hand writing.

  I hid the spider at Daemanhur castle with Evan Burl. If something goes wrong, the vialus will take you there.

  "Why didn't you want me to see this?" I demanded. "Who's Evan Burl? Why am I supposed to kill him?" I asked even louder. "Where is Daemanhur?" Still she ignored me.

  "Answer me!" I screamed, but Mercer didn't say a word—she wasn't going to give up the truth so easily. She had to be broken and I was willing. I decided to try one more time nicely, it was more than she deserved. I changed my tactics.

  "Tell me, please, mother." I used the term 'mother' in hope that it would make her more willing to love me. "What is the spider?"

  "You shouldn't ask such nasty questions," she said, now whining pathetically again. She rubbed her face up against the bars and her eyes were clenched shut like she was trying to block something terrible from her mind. "Burn the note. Forget it ever existed."

  Something inside told me to listen to her, but I was annoyed. I preferred the angry Mercer to this whining pathetic one.

  "Mother," I said as sweetly as I could, "I need to know the truth. Papa is gone for a while and I need to run his businesses while he's away. Won't you help me mother. Don't you love me?"

  "I won't tell you," the angry Mercer said, "not even if you killed me."

  "I will if you make me."

  "If you want to know the truth, ask him."

  "Who?"

  "Who do you think?"

  "Tell me!"

  She looked at me, her eyes filled with hatred. "Evan Burl."

  My heart beat faster. Now we were getting somewhere. "How?"

  "Use the vialus." She pointed at my bracelet. I looked down, surprised that I'd forgotten all about Papa's present to me. I fingered the trinket that was shaped like a little glass vialus, wondering how it worked. There was a smoky fog swirling around inside. I realized I must have to break it.

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because I want you to leave me alone. I want you to find him."

  "So I can finish Papa's job?"

  "No. Because Evan's the only one who can stop you."

  "You want him to kill me?"

  "I wish you were never born."

  I reached through the bars and slapped her across the face. She flew through the cage and landed in a whimpering heap in the corner,

  So she thought Evan Burl could kill me? We'd see about that.

  I ripped the vialus from the bracelet and crushed it in my hand. Broken glass cut my skin as wisps of smoke curled around my fingers mingled with blood.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Evan

  Friday

  9:52 pm

  57 minutes until the Falling

  I lifted the small oil lamp I'd taken from the Caldroen to check the time. It was almost 10:00. My stomach sank. I thought only a few minutes had passed in the room below the Caldroen, but I had wasted almost two hours.

  I tried to pick up my pace, limping along on my way to the entrance hall.

  If it was true that using sapience was playing with my mind, I couldn't be sure what had really happened over the last few days and what was my imagination. Anything was possible.

  I thought about how Henri and Mazol had changed places and it suddenly made sense. Henri walked in, but I imagined she was Mazol. All that time, it was Mazol yelling at me to kill Henri. Maybe it my imagination trying to tell me that Henri and Mazol were the same now. That they were both dangerous. Or had I imagined that too? There was no way to know.

  Maybe that's what my father meant by becoming a monster. Maybe it meant I would lose all grasp on reality. That's how I could hurt my own friends. In less than an hour, I would finally know for sure. I thought for a few moments that maybe I wouldn't have to leave, if I was able to control what I became. But that wasn't possible.

  I couldn't chance the safety of everyone in the castle. I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I would have to leave, the risk was too great to stay. But it wasn't just me that was leaving. I would force Henri and Mazol and the other warts out into the jungle. Perhaps I would watch over them. They didn't deserve my protection, and I would never trust Henri again, but I didn't want her to die.

  I touched the 18 inch staff tucked in my belt. It had taken it's gnarled wooden form again. I wondered what it could be used for. Maybe it was a weapon. Not a very good one I figured, it was too short to be of much help in a fight. Maybe it was just another kind of rubric. It could come in handy in the jungles if I figured out how to use it.

  I turned into a long hallway that grew steadily taller until it formed a great archway which led into the castle's entrance hall. As I limped along, I wished the staff in my belt was long enough to use as a crutch.

  I stopped to ease the pain in my leg for a moment and hoping to hear talking in the distance, but there was only silence. With how sensitive my ears had become, I should have heard voices long before I reached this hall.

  I slowed down as I passed under the arch into the towering room.

  It was empty.

  "Pearl? Ravenna?" My echo was the only response.

  I scanned the room as I walked to the center. My eyes passed over the sheet covered furniture, wondering if the girls might be hiding, afraid of me. I took a step towards the closest table, but stopped short. Something bright orange flashed by, disappearing through a small door behind a stack of chairs.

  Claire. She was wearing a bright orange dress. I really did not want to run into her at the moment. She was, after all, here to kill me. But she might know where the others were hiding.

  "Claire?"

  I stepped around the stack of chairs and peered through the dark doorway, holding my lamp up high to extend it's reach. It was no good. I couldn't see more than ten feet into the narrow hallway, a sort of servants passage that lead to the pantries. I had only used it a few times, but knew the hall curved slightly to the right so you could never see more than a few feet in front of you. There were ten small rooms on the left before a corner at the end which opened into the kitchen. In all, the passage was perhaps 50 feet long.

  The girls could be hiding in any of those rooms. They might have heard Mazol was going to trap them.

  Then I had a terrible thought. I had been in the room under the Caldroen for more than an hour. That was enough time to use the spider on the girls and run away with Henri and Yesler. Ballard could have been leaving the castle when I bumped into him. What if Mazol and Henri killed the rest of the fallings and hid their bodies in this hallway?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Stooping down because the ceiling was so low, I took a few steps down the corridor. When I reached the first door, I found it was locked. I'd never actually been in the room behind that door. It had always been locked, as long as I could remember. I almost went on, but thought twice. Mazol could have the key to that room—I'd never seen him open it, but he still could have locked the girls in there.

  I paused for a moment before clicking the lock open. I pushed the door open slowly, making a long creaking sound. There was no way to check inside without exposing my back to the danger of someone attacking me from behind, but I couldn't avoid it. I darted inside and pushed my back against the cold wall; my chest was thumping.

  Swinging the lamp left and right by it's thin wire handle, I was relieved to find the room empty. Then I noticed the walls; they were covered in shelves with hundreds of chests stacked to the ceiling. These were the same iron chests the fallings came in, but there should have only been twelve. Where had they all come from?

  I picked one up and f
ound it wasn't locked. It was empty. I checked a few more and they were all the same. It didn't make any sense, but I didn't have time to think about it. I had to search the rest of the rooms. As I started to leave, I looked at the door. I hadn't pushed it all the way open; someone could be hiding behind it. Placing my fingers on the handle, I held my breath and pulled it towards me. I peaked around, then breathed out deeply.

  Nothing was there.

  The first room was empty. Now I had to repeat the process nine more times.

  As I took a step, I tripped. Looking down, there was one chest in the middle of the room I hadn't noticed before. I lifted it up, and the lid slowly raised. This chest was not empty like the others. There was a wood shelf with holes drilled in it. Inside the holes were five tiny glass bottles with metal stoppers; three of them were filled with some black liquid. I thought of the stuff Henri stabbed me in the neck with, in the black syringe. If this was the same stuff, I had no use for it. But I didn't want Mazol to have it either.

  Slipping the bottles into my pocket, I set the chest down. I stepped through the threshold into the hall, but forgot how low the header was and slammed my forehead against it. Stooping in pain, I pressed my hand to my throbbing skull. Glancing to the left, I saw a flash of orange dashing into the next room down.

  "Claire?"

  No answer.

  "It's me Evan. Can we talk?"

  If I come in, are you going to try to kill me?

  Then I heard singing. It was a soft child's voice.

  12 months there are, but once a year

  Comes the happiest of days

  Long life and peace to you my dear

  And the merriest birthday

  The melody was sad, or perhaps it was just the way Claire was singing. I stood behind the partially closed door and listened as she sang it again, but she stopped before the end.

  "Have you come to sing to me?" Claire said. At first I didn't know who she was talking to, she couldn't have seen me yet. But I realized it must be me. I stepped through the door, careful to lower my head this time, and found her crouching in the corner with her head resting on her knees. There was a faint glow coming from a small lantern on the wall. I could tell she had been crying.