Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror (2 page)

“M
orning!” said Max to the driver. “I hope you're having an excellent day!”

“No talking,” growled the man. “Sit.”

“Oh-kaaay,” said Max, taking his seat.

Falcon, Megan, and Max were at the very beginning of the bus route, which meant that they were always the first students on board in the morning and the last ones to be dropped off at night. Even though they could, technically, sit anywhere, the three of them always sat in the same places—Megan up front, Max in the back, Falcon in the middle.

Falcon got settled and looked out the window. As the bus began to move, he caught a glimpse of someone in the cemetery, next to the Crofton girls' graves. A man in a snow-flecked cloak was standing there, his face covered by a hood.

The man raised a long, thin arm and pointed at Falcon as if he recognized him, as if Falcon was someone he'd been waiting for.

“Yaahh!”
shouted Falcon.

“Hey, quit that,” said Max, from the back of the bus. “You're messin' with my beauty sleep.”

“Look out the window. In the graveyard. Someone's there.”

But the bus had pulled away now, and the graveyard was behind them.

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

“I don't know. Nothing, maybe.”

Megan looked out the window at the falling snow. “Yeah,” she said. “Nothing.”

Falcon felt his left eye—the black one—begin to ache, as if it had somehow been burned by the thing that it had seen.

Outside, the blizzard seemed to be growing worse. They passed a power line that had snapped. An electrical wire lay buzzing and sparking in the street. Falcon thought, not for the first time, what it must be like to live someplace where the first day of spring meant flowers and sunshine and robins instead of this endless winter. He thought about his mother, Vega, down in Florida. After Falcon's father died, she had slipped into such a deep depression that she gave up her son to her husband's mother, tired old Gamm, and moved to Key West. He hardly had any memories of Vega at all; about the only thing he associated with his mother was one day lying underneath the piano as his mother played it. Whether this had actually
happened, however—or whether Falcon had just imagined it—was impossible to say. As for his father, he was an even vaguer memory. All Falcon could remember was the day his dad had fallen through the ice of Carrabec Pond, the way the ambulance's red beacons had reflected off of the cold white snow.

 

The second stop on the bus was usually the Grogan house, but today the driver sailed right past the Grogans' driveway, and Joey wasn't standing there. A long time ago Joey and Falcon had been friends, but that was before Joey became a metalhead. By seventh grade it seemed as if everyone at Cold River Middle School had teamed up with their own little group—the emos and the goths, the athletes and the geeks—and none of them wanted to be friends with anyone outside their own faction. Sometimes Falcon felt like the only person in the world without a label.

He envied these other kids sometimes, these people who seemed to have already decided exactly where they fit into the world. But he pitied them too. There was something sad about defining yourself according to a single word. It diminished people, made them into something less than they might be in a world of larger possibilities.

The bus moved faster, the storm swirling all around them now. The windshield wipers slapped back and forth. Falcon wasn't sure how the driver could see anything in
the whirling cloud of ice and snow.

The train tracks for the Bangor and Aroostook freight line ran across the road about a half mile past the Grogans', but instead of slowing down and stopping at the crossing, the driver just bounced across the tracks like they were all late for something. They didn't slow down at the Moss house, either, where Jane and Peter Moss were usually waiting, with their clarinet and alto saxophone in beat-up cases. It was hard to see the end of the driveway through the snow, but Falcon could see just enough to know that Jane and Peter weren't standing there either. The bus sped even faster, screaming through the storm.

“Hey,” said Max, from the back row. “Dude.”

The crumpled driver said nothing.

Max called out to the driver, a little louder now. “Hey. What's the story?”

It was virtually impossible to see anything out the front window now. They were in a total whiteout. The bus began to vibrate and rattle.

The driver turned very slowly and looked at Max and Falcon with a strange, amused expression. For a second the bones in his skull seemed to flicker beneath his skin. “Say good-bye now,” he said, as the bus shook even more violently.

Megan inhaled sharply.

“Dude, come on,” said Max, making his way up to the
front of the bus. “You quit it. Stop trying to scare us.”

He reached for the man's shoulder, but his fingers went right through.

Max pulled his finger out and looked at it. Then he looked at Falcon. Max poked the driver with his finger again, and watched as his finger vanished into his back, as if the bus driver was a kind of thick cloud.

“Hey,” said Max. “Hey!”

Max stuck his fingers into the man again, and then his whole arm. He waved his hand through him. Then the driver made a sound like water rushing over stones in the woods, and rose like an evaporating mist.

A moment later there was no sign of him at all.

Megan moved next to Falcon and yelled. “Falcon, do something!”

Falcon had just enough time to think
Me?
before a pair of gates emerged out of the storm and swung open. They were made of black wrought iron, with spikes at the top. The bus hurtled through them and they slammed closed.

And then the bus stopped.

“Oh,” said Megan. She was clutching Falcon's upper arm. It took her a moment to realize she still had hold of him. Then she let go.

Sunshine slanted through the windows of the bus. Birds sang.

Max and Falcon and Megan looked up.

They were in a large, green park. It appeared to be a summer day outside; the weather was decidedly tropical. In front of the bus was a tall building, like a castle, with five crooked towers. It had a kind of rotting porch out front with some wicker chairs on it. There were several nasty-looking wings with high windows covered by decaying shutters. On the highest tower was an enormous clock. It had three hands, one of which was going backward.

To one side was a cinder-block building marked
WELLNESS CENTER
.

In the distance was a high stone wall, and in the middle of this was a pair of thick iron gates, bordered on either side by marble columns. At the top of one column was a stone gargoyle that looked like a young man screaming.

The door to the bus opened. Falcon, Megan, and Max looked at each other.

“Are we dead?” said Megan.

At this moment the bell in the clock tower struck thirteen. Seconds later a flock of bats flew out of the tower and circled around it twice.

“I don't—think so,” said Falcon.

“What are we if we're not dead?” said Megan.

“I don't know,” said Falcon. “Crazy, maybe?”

Max thought about this. “Crazy,” he said. “Okay! That could work!”

Megan looked angry. “What are you all happy about?”

Max smiled. “You gotta admit, crazy's way better than dead.”

The front door of the castle flew open, and the fattest woman Falcon had ever seen came out onto the porch. She walked over to the bus and peered in.

“Welcome to Castle Grisleigh,” she said. “Mr. Quinn? Mr. Parsons? And Miss Crofton. Right on schedule. I trust your trip to the Triangle was uneventful? Good.” She was wearing a big purple dress, which clashed shockingly with her head of thick red hair. An oversized satchel hung from one shoulder.

“Well?” she said. “Are we going to stay on the bus all day, or are we going to proceed?”

Falcon, Megan, and Max looked at each other again, then stepped timidly off the bus. The warm sun shone on Falcon's face.

The woman looked at her clipboard, then up at Max. “Sasquatch,” she said, writing something down. “That much is clear.” Then she looked over at Megan. “Miss Crofton? Would you show me your teeth, dear?”

“My teeth?”

“Come now,” said the large woman. “Big smile.”

Megan grimaced, exposing her teeth.

“Hmm,” she said. “Curious.” She thought things over for a moment, and then wrote some more notes down on her clipboard. “And you, Mr. Quinn. I wonder. Zombie,
perhaps? Hmm. Puzzling.”

“Who are you, lady?” said Max. “Where are we?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You will address the faculty as ‘ma'am' or ‘sir.'”

The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and the sky darkened.

“I'll do what?” he said.

“I said you will address the faculty as ‘ma'am' or ‘sir.'” She cleared her throat. “I am Mrs. Redflint. The dean of students.” She looked confused. “Where are your things?” she said.

“Things?” said Max. He looked perplexed. “You mean our backpacks? I got my triangle!”

“Your belongings, yes,” she said. “Here.” She handed them each a set of keys. “Mr. Parsons, you're in the catacombs. You two are up in the Tower of Aberrations, rooms ninety-nine A and B, respectively. I think you'll like your roommates.”

“Our roommates?” said Falcon. “We have—”

“Oh, all the students have roommates. You can apply for a single when you're a senior. Assuming you make it that far, and aren't bitten or fried, or any of that. Well, then. Are you ready to jump right in? Good.”

She waddled back up the stairs. Falcon and Megan and Max stayed in the driveway, looking up at the castle. “Come along, then,” she said. “We need to get you settled.”

“So—we have to stay here?” said Megan.

Mrs. Redflint turned to her. “Don't be sad,” she said. “It's not a punishment. It's an opportunity!”

“I don't feel crazy,” said Falcon. “I feel fine.”

She looked at him with a slightly bewildered expression. “You aren't crazy, dear,” she said.

“I'm not crazy?” he said.

“Dear boy,” said Mrs. Redflint. “Didn't your grandmother tell you anything?”

“My grandmother?” he said.

“Oh, for heaven's sakes,” said Mrs. Redflint. “This is what the culture is like now. Parents leave it all to the school system. They abdicate completely!”

“Okay, lady,” Max said. “I think you need to—like, explain what's going on here? Because this is messed up. Seriously.”

“And your parents didn't tell you either?” said Mrs. Redflint. She looked at Megan, who shook her head. “Dear, dear,” said Mrs. Redflint. “This is awkward.” She rubbed her chin. “Let's see, how to put this. I—oh, it's been so long since I've had to give the speech, I don't even remember what the best—” She looked at them kindly. “My dear young people,” she said. “You're monsters.”

“Monsters?” said Max.

“Yes, exactly!” She smiled. “Well, that's wasn't so hard at all! Come along, then. I'll show you your quarters.”
She took Megan's hand and they stepped up to the porch. Max and Falcon followed. “I don't know why I thought it would be so difficult. It's simple!”

“You're saying—we're
monsters
?” said Max.

“Yes, Mr. Parsons. You're a monster. All the children here are monsters. This is the
Academy
for Monsters. Right, then—well, now that's all straightened out. Come along, now.”

Megan, Max, and Falcon looked at each other, then back at Mrs. Redflint.

“We're monsters?” said Max. “What—
kind
of monsters?”

“Well, that's what we're here to find out, isn't it? In your case, Mr. Parsons, I don't think there's much suspense. You have Sasquatch written all over you, poor thing. Your friends pose something more of a mystery. But we'll get to the bottom of it—oh, yes indeedy. That's job number one. Because we can't take the preventative steps until we know what you're up against.”

“Preventative steps?” said Falcon. “Ma'am?”

“Please,” said Mrs. Redflint, looking at her watch, “let's get you all settled, and then we'll send you to orientation, and then we'll begin finding out what kind of hideous thing you are. After that we'll have a pretty good sense of it, so you can learn how to suppress your unpleasantness
and rejoin the land of nicely behaving grown-up men and women. It's really rather simple.”

“I'm not a monster,” Falcon said. “Ma'am.”

“Oh, but of course you are,” said Mrs. Redflint. “You're here, aren't you? You wouldn't be here if you weren't one. So. That's that. You're certainly a monster. I'm not sure what kind, but we'll figure that out. Oh, yes indeedy.” She squinted at him. “Hmm,” she said. “I'd say—zombie, offhand. Or vampire. Oh, but I do hope it isn't
vampire
, for your sake. All that endless biting, and the twilight longing, and the self-denial. Soooo boring.”

“You're a patient,” Falcon said, “aren't you? At this place. I get it now. You're not a doctor. You're a patient.”

Mrs. Redflint stamped her foot. “You're not going to make this difficult, are you?” she said. “You're not going to make me have the whole tired conversation, right here on the steps? The one where you say,
Oh, but there aren't any monsters,
and I have to say,
Oh, but that's where you're wrong,
and you say,
Oh, this can't possibly be
, and I say,
Oh yes, it possibly can,
and you cry and say,
I'm not a monster!
And I say,
I'm afraid you are
, and you say,
I want my mother,
and I have to say,
Yes, well, lots of people want things they can't have.
Tell me we're not going to have to have that conversation, please. Tell me that now.”