Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror (17 page)

Then she rematerialized. Megan wavered for a moment,
and held on to the wall of the tower as if it could keep her from blowing away. Then she looked at Falcon with wide, fiery eyes.

“You're right,” she said. “What you said.”

“About what?”

“I
am
different,” she said.

“Because you're a wind elemental,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “But not only that. It's because—”

“What?”

She grew translucent and thin, almost vanishing once more.

“Megan,” said Falcon. “Don't fade out.”

“I can't say it,” she said.

“Then don't,” said Falcon. He really didn't want to hear her tell him how she'd changed ever since she'd fallen in love with Jonny Frankenstein. Even if this was the truth, there were some things, he felt, that were just better left unsaid. “You don't have to.”

“You know?” said Megan.

“Yeah,” said Falcon, annoyed. “I know.”

She solidified a little bit. “Well, you don't sound very happy about it.”

“You want me to be happy about it?”

“You're not?”

Falcon began to feel uncertain. Somehow, he and
Megan seemed to be having two completely different conversations.

Megan sighed. “Forget it,” she said. She turned around and climbed up toward a square space cut into the wooden ceiling at the top of the iron staircase.

Falcon followed her to the top of the stairs, where they stepped into a square chamber filled with enormous rotating gears and flywheels. Some of them were whirling around so quickly that Falcon could barely follow their progress. Others, giant gears with teeth the size of shoe boxes, seemed not to be moving at all. The gears meshed with each other, horizontally and vertically, and some of them led to rods that traveled through the four walls of the citadel and attached to the great black hands of the clocks outside.

High overhead were a half dozen gargantuan iron bells, hanging from the ceiling. The clappers were attached to long wires strung down into the heart of the clockworks below.

There was a small arched doorway in one wall, and Megan stepped through it and out onto a small balcony that ringed the tower. Falcon followed her. They were standing in front of one of the four enormous clocks, the hands pointing to the seventeen and the two and one hand going backward. Below them was the wide expanse of the
Academy's grounds. Beyond the wall at the Academy's perimeter was a dark forest, and beyond that, what looked like the sea, stretching toward the horizon. The light of the moon shone down on the waves.

“Before,” said Falcon, “when you were talking about how you've changed…I didn't mean to make you angry. Okay? I just didn't want to stand there and have to listen to you tell me how wonderful you think Jonny Frankenstein is.”

Megan looked confused. “What's this about Jonny?” said Megan.

“Nothing,” said Falcon. “Forget it.”

Megan opened her mouth, then shut it. “Falcon,” she said, slightly surprised. “You thought I was talking about—
Jonny Frankenstein
?”

“Well, yeah,” said Falcon, as if this was obvious, which it was. Wasn't it? “Weren't you?”

“Falcon,” said Megan, moving a little closer to him. Wind from the sea blew toward them, and Falcon could smell the salt in the air. “I wasn't talking about
Jonny
.”

The two of them stared at each other for a long moment. Falcon took a step toward Megan. Her hair blew gently in that salted breeze from the distant ocean.

“Help!” said a voice.

They blinked.

“Help!”

Quimby was bobbing against an overhang about fifty feet over their heads. The rope he was trailing hung down; it looked like they could almost reach it from a balcony that was even higher up, above the gears of the clockworks.

Megan looked back at Falcon.
“Quimby,”
she said.

M
egan and Falcon went back into the tower and worked their way around the scores of rotating and intermeshing gears. It wasn't immediately clear, though, how to get up to the high balcony, or the overhang beneath which Quimby was lodged. Then Megan found a small archway on the far side of the clockworks, and she and Falcon ducked their heads in order to squeeze into the passage. Inside there was nothing except a shaft leading directly upward, like a chimney, and some iron rungs embedded in the stone.

“Going up,” said Falcon.

Megan nodded.

This time Falcon went first. Their ears continued to ring with the loud ticking of the clockworks, along with the sound of their own panting breath. The chimney rose in a straight and ever-narrowing column for twenty feet, until at last they crawled through a hole even smaller than the one they'd entered at the shaft's base.

Falcon and Megan entered a chamber with oak-paneled
walls, high carved rafters, and a cobweb-covered chandelier dangling from the ceiling. There was a large arched window on each of the four walls, although these were hard to see at first because the room was stuffed full of junk, like the world's largest and mustiest attic. In the center of the room, amid the piles of junk, was a large poster bed, a dent in the pillow.

“Falcon,” said Megan in a whisper. “Someone
sleeps
here.”

There was a creak behind them, and they both turned swiftly to face whoever this was. But no one appeared.

“Hello?” said Falcon. “Who's there?”

The room was now silent, except for the unending ticking of the clockworks.

“I'm here,” said a voice from the opposite direction. “It's Quimby! It's Quimby!”

They turned around again and headed toward the window. Megan threw open the sash. There was the head, lodged under the overhanging roof at the very top of the Tower of Souls. “Oh, thank goodness you're here,” said Quimby. “I can't stand heights.”

Megan reached toward the head's dangling string. She could almost reach it, if she stretched her fingers out far enough. But she couldn't quite get close enough to get any purchase. “Falcon,” she said. “If you hold me around the waist, I think I can get him.”

“Okay,” said Falcon.

“Or,” she said, “I could try to blow him back, using the wind.” She thought about it for a second. “But I might just dislodge him. And I'm not sure if I have the energy….”

“Don't use the wind,” said Quimby. “I don't want to end up in outer space!”

“I got you,” said Falcon, and he put his arms around Megan's waist. She leaned out toward the rope, and her fingers brushed against it.

For just a moment they stood there, the two and a half of them: Quimby bumping against the tower's overhang; Megan, her fingers gently touching Quimby's dangling rope; and Falcon holding Megan around her waist, trying to keep her from falling.

Then Falcon heard a voice behind him. The voice spoke his name, said it with an intonation so cold and gravelly that it was like hearing someone read the inscription on his own headstone.
Falcon
, said the voice. It sounded both affectionate and heartbroken.
Ffffalcon.

He turned toward the ticking chamber full of broken, dusty things, his heart as cold as if he had been stabbed with an icicle. His glance darted from an unstrung harp to an empty birdcage; from a soft, headless mannequin to a tiny dollhouse with its windows all shuttered.

There was no one there.

“
Falcon!”
said a voice, but this time it was Megan. He had loosened his hold of her as he turned back toward the room. She slipped out of his grip and began to fall, down the long, terrible drop toward the quad of Castle Grisleigh far below. At the last moment her fingers clasped around Quimby's rope, and she swung out over the yawning abyss.

Quimby was dislodged by the sudden force of Megan's weight. With two short bumps of the head against the tower's overhanging roof, Quimby blew out into the air again, and began to rise.

Falcon watched all of these unfolding events with a mixture of horror and wonder. Behind him the voice whispered again.
Fffalcon. Ssssseek.

But he did not turn back to find the speaker this time. Instead he reached forward, just as Megan was being pulled upward by the rising Quimby, suspended on his dangling rope. Falcon got one hand around her ankle, and for a moment there was an intense tug-of-war between Quimby at one end of Megan and Falcon at the other.

Megan screamed and let go of the rope, then blew herself back into the tower. Quimby, freed of Megan's weight, rose toward the clouds. As he drifted away, he shouted, “Bring me back! Bring me back! Bring me
baaaack
!”

Megan fell onto the floor of the Tower of Souls and
collapsed on top of Falcon. He looked at her face, now so close to his again. She looked at him thoughtfully, and her lips parted.

“What's wrong with you?” she then shouted, and stood up.
“You let me go!”

Falcon got to his feet sheepishly. “Someone called my name,” he said. “There was this voice—”

“I thought I could trust you!” she yelled.

“Of course you can trust me,” said Falcon. “But I heard my name called by some kind of—”

“I was depending on you!” she shouted, her voice choking with tears.

“I'm sorry,” said Falcon.

“You're
sorry
,” she muttered, and pointed to the window. In the distance Quimby could be seen, drifting upward toward the clouds.
“We lost Quimby!”

“Megan—”

“We lost Quimby!”
she said, and stamped her foot. As her foot hit the floor, Megan vanished completely. This time she did not come back.

 

It was very quiet in the Tower of Souls.

“Uh-oh,” said Falcon.

Ssseeek,
said the cold, dead voice. Falcon looked around the room, but saw no one.
Ssseek.

“Seek what?” he said.

There was no response at first, and Falcon just stood there listening to the ticking of the clock.

Ssseeek ssoul.

His eyes fell upon a tall, rectangular painting leaning against the wall next to a broken piano. It was mounted inside an intricately carved golden frame.

Falcon felt as if he was being slowly drawn toward the painting, like water in a bathtub being sucked down a drain. He walked through the cluttered, dusty room, past the steamer trunks and the dollhouses and the old clothes in their garment bags, until he stood before the painting, and again felt the dark voice urging him, begging him,
Ssseeek ssoul.

A creature looked back at him from the canvas. It was hard to see the thing clearly, since the image appeared to be moving or fluttering, like dark light in a kaleidoscope. But Falcon could see one side of the creature's face; it had a dark, burning eye that seemed to be staring directly into Falcon's heart. He took a step backward.

Then light flickered off something above the thing's shoulders. It took Falcon a moment to figure out what this was.

There, hovering in the air above the creature, was a pair of enormous wings.

Come to me.

Now?

Of course now.

Falcon took a step forward. His fingers reached out toward the canvas, trembling softly. He saw that the surface of the painting was soft and pliable, like a dark liquid. It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to just step into the painting, to let all that soft dark surround him.

Falcon,
said a voice, and just for a moment he turned back and looked over his shoulder.

“Falcon?” said Megan again.

He blinked. “Oh,” he said. “It's you.”

“Who
else
would it be?” She looked at him closely. “Whoa. Your eye is glowing.”

“My eye,” said Falcon. Now he felt it throbbing. It had never ached like this before.

“Are you all right?”

“I'm okay,” said Falcon. “It's just this picture.”

“Picture?” said Megan. “What are you talking about?”

He pointed toward the golden frame. “This one,” he said.

Megan raised an eyebrow. “Falcon,” she said, worried. “That's not a picture. That's a
mirror.
”

She walked over to where he was standing. Falcon looked in the mirror, but the creature was gone now. The
smooth, black surface was completely blank. “You're telling me this is a mirror?” he said.

“I thought it was,” said Megan. “I mean, I can see you. But I'm not there.” She looked at Falcon with alarm, then back at the mirror.
“I'm not there!”

The cold voice came again, filling the room like mist.
Leave this place,
it hissed.

Megan looked at Falcon, and it was clear from her expression that she heard the voice too. “Falcon,” she said.

Leave this place!

Falcon and Megan turned from the dark attic and rushed out of the Tower of Souls as quickly as they could. The sound of their footsteps echoed long after they were gone, there in the dark room with its vast inventory of forgotten and broken things.

It took a long time before the last echoing footstep disappeared down the tunnels and hallways below and the heavy door marked
TEMPUS FUGIT
slammed closed.

Then the figure stepped out of the shadows and moved furtively toward the window. It stood there, framed in the window, its wings softly pulsing.

Ffalcon,
it said.

 

Mr. Shale was not at his desk in the front hallway as Falcon and Megan crept back toward the Tower of Aberrations.
Whether this was because the man had gone back to his gingerbread-house residence or because he was lurking somewhere else in the castle was not immediately clear. They crept up the stairs, fingers trailing against the banister. The stairs groaned underneath Falcon's feet.

“Ssshhh,” said Megan.

“It's not my fault,” whispered Falcon. He couldn't understand why the steps only groaned under his feet and not Megan's. He was doing all he could to be careful.

Megan turned to face him. “I'm still mad at you, Falcon,” she said. “You let go of me!”

“I told you. I heard someone call my name.”

“I know. You said. Someone who was speaking to you from a mirror. Which you thought was a painting.” Megan thought this over. “What did it say, this voice?”

“It said,
Seek soul.
”

“Seek soul? That's what it said?”

“It said,
Seek soul,
and said my name, and then I kind of got drawn toward that painting.”

“Mirror.”

“Yeah.”

“Falcon,” said Megan. “What did you see?”

Falcon shuddered. Already it was hard to remember what the figure had looked like. All he could remember was the blackness of the eye and the hovering wings above its head.
“I don't know,” he said. “Something I'd never seen before.”

“Was it something—bad?” asked Megan.

“I don't know,” said Falcon. “It seemed very powerful, and—secret. It scared me.”

“Maybe…,” said Megan, “maybe the thing you saw is what you're turning into.”

For a moment, Falcon pictured it once more—the huge wings, the burning eye.

“That's not what I'm turning into,” said Falcon. “I'm turning into—”

Megan looked at him flickeringly. “What?” she said, and then she said it again, more softly. “What?”

“Megan,” said Falcon. “I've got two hearts.”

She wavered slightly, then turned her head a bit to the side. “What does that mean?”

“I don't know,” said Falcon. “The one heart is a monster heart, they think. But the other—”

Megan put her hand on his shoulder. “What's the other heart, Falcon?”

Falcon's voice fell to a whisper.
“Guardian,”
he said. Megan stood motionless, looking at him intently.

“Well?” said Falcon. “Aren't you going to disappear?”

“I ought to.”

“I wouldn't blame you.”

“Falcon,” said Megan, irritated, “you don't understand.
You really think I'd vanish on you—because of the thing you are?”

“Megan, guardians are here for one reason—to destroy us.”

“Do you want to destroy me, Falcon?”

“Megan…,” said Falcon. He stepped close to her again, so close that he could feel her breeze. “What I really want is to—”

There was a sudden scream from the top of the stairs. Megan blew into a squall. “Is that Pearl?” she said. “They're in trouble!”

She turned away from him and began to run up the stairs toward the third floor and the Tower of Science. Falcon followed after her once more.

The door to the Tower of Science flew open, and Destynee and Jonny and Pearl came tumbling out. Quickly the three of them shut the door, and leaned against it. There was a moment's silence, then they turned to face Falcon and Megan.

“Are you all right?” said Megan. Her lower half was twisting like a cyclone. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” said the three of them in unison.

“Nothing?” said Falcon. “It doesn't
look
like nothing.”

“It is nothing,” said Destynee. “Really.”

“Where's Lincoln?” asked Megan. “Did you find him?”

“He's not up there,” said Jonny, his face red.

“What happened to you?” said Falcon.

“We shall not speak of this!” said Pearl. “It does not matter!”

“It looks like it
does
matter,” said Megan.

“We shall not speak of it!” said Pearl again, and buzzed back up the stairs toward the Tower of Aberrations, muttering to herself in Spanish.