Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror (23 page)

“
Señor
,” said Pearl, “it is beyond our powers.”

“It's
not,
” Falcon yelled, in a voice that did not quite sound like his own.
“Nothing is beyond my powers!”
And as he yelled this, orange fireballs shot out of his black eye and into the waters of the river, where they exploded and sank. Falcon lifted one hand to his face and fell to his knees. “What's—happening to me?” he said. “What's—”

They drifted toward the archway. “Megan!” shouted Jonny. “Get us out of here!”

Falcon, his left eye burning, looked back at the barred windows of the dungeon, at the faces of Sparkbolt and
Lincoln Pugh growing smaller and smaller. Just as they approached the end of the chamber, Falcon saw three more faces appear at the windows of the dungeon, looking at him with desperation and despair. They were the faces of Destynee and Weems and Turpin. Destynee had a bluish bruise on one side of her face. She stared out the window blankly, as if she was a doll filled with sawdust.

“We're…,” said Turpin.

“Brain,” Destynee's voice said emptily. “Sucked.”

Five sets of arms now reached out to him beseechingly from behind the bars of the dungeon.

“…trapped,” said Turpin.

“Friend?” said Sparkbolt, as if it was only now occurring to him that Falcon and the others were sailing away and would not be coming back for them. “Friend?”

T
he tunnel twisted through the dark caverns. There were no torches here, and the young monsters soon found themselves surrounded by a thick, damp blackness. There was the sound of the sludgelike water slapping against the sides of the ship, as well as the distant roar of the ocean. The monsters stood in the bow, gazing into the impenetrable dark.

“Falcon,” said Max. “Can't you do that flashlight thing with your blue eye again? We could use a little light.”

“I don't know how,” said Falcon.

“You were doing it before,” Max pointed out.

Falcon tried, but he couldn't pull off this trick again. “I think I'm too angry,” he said. “It only works when I'm feeling—hopeful, or something.”

“You think you could do it if we cheered you up?” said Max. “I know some jokes.”

“It's the memory of that place,” said Falcon, “the dungeon, and our friends trapped. It's kind of hard to forget.”

“Man,” said Max, “I wish we had some puddin'.”

They drifted on in the darkness for a while. Then Jonny said, “I think I can generate a little light. If you want.”

This statement was followed by a brief silence. Then Max said, “You can do what?”

“I said I think I can generate a little light,” said Jonny. “Hang on.”

He raised his hands over his head and spread his fingers. Jonny's eyes rolled back in their sockets. Then a soft, flickering light burst from his hands, illuminating the caverns.

The others stared, first at Jonny, then at the jagged stalactites dangling from the ceiling overhead. The walls of the cave glittered in the soft light; they seemed to contain tiny jewels or crystals that caught and flickered in the radiance of the teenage Frankenstein.

“Dude,” said Max to Jonny. “You are, like, one all-purpose electrical, like, appliance. Guy.”

“Heat lightning,” said Jonny, putting his hands down for a moment. “It's easy.”

“You are truly a master of electrical energy!” said Pearl respectfully.

“It's just this thing I can do,” said Jonny, shrugging.

“How long do you think this tunnel thing goes for?” said Woody.

“I'm hungry,” said Peeler.

“Hey,” said Max. “We've got pizza!”

“Dude!” said Woody. “We DO have pizza! We snagged some boxes from the pizza genie before we left!”

“Party!” said Peeler, moving to the pile of pizza boxes stacked up at the bottom of the mainmast.

“Pizza's cold,” said Woody, as he bit into a slice of bacon, pepperoni, and sausage. “Hey, Jonny. Can you heat pizza?”

Jonny looked annoyed. “I'm not your microwave,” he said.

“Yeah, I know,” said Woody. “But can't you just use some of the lightning thing to heat up the pizza?”

“I said I'm not doing that,” said Jonny. “Okay?”

“Hey, don't get sore, man,” said Max. “We were just asking. You want some pizza?”

“I'm not hungry,” said Jonny, and he walked to the stern of the boat, staring back in the direction from which they'd come. He sat on the railing, picked up his guitar, and plugged the cord into his neck. Then he started playing a loud, distorted tune.

“Boy, somebody's touchy about his special powers,” said Max. “It's like, one minute he's Mr. Lightning Rod, the next he's all—
not
.”

“Pizza's good cold, though,” said Woody, and sat down next to Peeler to have a few slices.

“Pizza's
better
cold,” said Peeler. Pearl buzzed affectionately over Max's shoulder.

Falcon walked toward the stern. “Hey,” he said to Jonny.
The boy glanced at Falcon through his rumpled blond hair.

“Hey,” he said.

They didn't speak for a while. Jonny played his guitar, and Falcon listened. As he played, though, the volume of the Stratocaster slowly faded, until at last it died out completely. Jonny reached up and flicked one of the bolts on his neck, then shrugged.

“Great,” said Jonny, “I'm outta power.”

“Did you drain it with all that lightning you made?”

“Yeah,” said Jonny. “I guess.”

He looked out into the darkness of the tunnel, listening to the sound of the water sloshing against the ship.

“You aren't going to be able to recharge, are you?” asked Falcon.

Jonny strummed the unamplified strings of the Strat, then shrugged. “I don't know.”

“Who's Cygnus, Jonny?” asked Falcon.

“What?” said Jonny. “Who?”

“When you came out of that—trance. When I healed you. You called me Cygnus.”

Jonny looked out into the darkness of the Tunnel of Dusk and didn't say anything for a long time. Then he said, “Somebody I used to know. Before I came here.”

Again they fell silent for a while. They heard the sound of water lapping against the ship's hull.

“Now I got one for you, Falcon,” said Jonny.

“What?”

“When you were yelling—what was it?—
‘Nothing is beyond my powers!'
And those fireballs were shooting out of your eyes? What was up with that?”

“I—I don't know,” said Falcon.

Jonny fixed Falcon with his cold, blue Frankenstein eyes. “It's growing, isn't it?”

“What?”

Jonny shook his head. “Your other heart. It's growing.”

Falcon was about to deny this, but before he spoke, he paused and put one hand on his chest. As he sat there on the deck, he could feel the two different pulses beating two different rhythms, each out of sync with the other.

Jonny looked at Falcon with a curious expression, a mixture of hatred and hurt. Then he shook his head.

“Falcon,” he said. “Whatever happens, will you remember one thing?”

“What?”

“I really was your friend,” he said.

“What?” said Falcon. “What's up with you? Are you all right?”

“Just don't forget that, okay?” said Jonny.

“Okay,” said Falcon. “Fine.”

“Don't,” said Jonny, and he put his guitar down. Then he walked away from Falcon, across the main deck, past where the Sasquatches were eating pizza, and to the bow of the boat, where once more he stood alone and stared out at the dark waters.

Falcon looked back at the caverns behind them and thought of Destynee and Weems, of Turpin and Lincoln Pugh and Sparkbolt behind the bars of the dungeon. He heard Sparkbolt's voice echoing in his mind.
Falcon Quinn—friend! Sparkbolt! Friend!
As he thought, his left eye began to burn. For a moment it felt as if fire was going to burst from it again.

“Light,” said someone, and Falcon looked toward the bow of the boat, where flickering light was playing off of the cavern walls before them.

Falcon walked to the bow, where the others were now all gathered together. The boat followed a curve of the river to the right, and suddenly a great eye-shaped hole in the rock was visible before them. Beyond the exit was a vast blue sea, sunlight twinkling off of the waves.

“We're free!” shouted Max as they sailed through the arch of the Cave of the Eye and out into the wide ocean. “We're free!”

“And now that we have escaped from this place of darkness,” asked Pearl, “what is our next destination?”

Jonny stared at the churning ocean before them, this Sea of Dragons. He pointed toward the horizon. “Out there,” he said.

 

By afternoon the Sasquatches were lying on their backs, asleep, on the main deck, empty pizza boxes surrounding them. Pearl had flown to the top of the mast and was sitting on the crosspiece from which the mainsail was suspended. Jonny was sitting on the bow, playing his unamplified guitar.

And Falcon was in the stern, holding a composition notebook that had, on its cover, “Poetry Book of Rhyming Poems.”

He opened the book and read once more the poem on the first page:

Falcon smiled. It was a very Frankensteiny poem. He was surprised, though, to see that the book was in fact full of poems, all written in Sparkbolt's jagged hand. There were a few pages on which he had written just a few fragmentary thoughts. At the bottom of one page, he had scribbled:

“Land ho!” shouted Pearl from the mast. She flew up in the air. “Before us are the green shores of an unknown realm!”

Max and Woody and Peeler sat up. “What?”

Jonny stood at the bow, staring toward the horizon. There before them was the outline of another island, with a green volcanic mountain range in its center, surrounded by green forests and long, white-sand beaches.

“Oh, man,” said Max. “I bet
they
got bananas.”

Pearl buzzed down to the deck. “I see no signs of human habitation.”

“Excellent,” said Woody.

“We'll be, like, the first settlers,” said Peeler. “We'll start our own civilization!”

“Sasquatch Island!” said Woody.

“I, for one, feel this island should be named after
la Chupakabra
,” said Pearl. “The famous goatsucker of Peru!”

“It can be, like—Whatever Island,” said Max. “It's, like, did you ever have an everything sandwich? It's like the island equivalent of an everything sandwich!”

“What is this everything sandwich?” said Pearl.

“You never made an everything sandwich?” said Max. “It's got, like, ham, cheese, turkey, cole slaw…”

“Nectar, perhaps?” said Pearl.

“Yeah, exactly, nectar if you want. You want liverwurst? You pile it on there! Baloney? Hey, it's an everything sandwich!” Max thought about it. “I could eat one right now, actually…”

“We're coming in fast,” said Falcon, and it was true. The boat seemed to be drawing toward the shore at break-neck speed, as if the island was moving toward them, instead of the other way around.

“Okay, Megan,” shouted Max up to the sails. “Slow down a little?”

“I don't know if she's even still up there,” said Woody. “How do we know if the wind is Megan, or if it's just, you know—wind wind?”

“She's there,” said Jonny, looking carefully at the sails. Even at that moment the wind died out of them, and the boat drifted toward the shore of the island.

“What, she talks to you?” said Max.

“I can tell where she is,” said Jonny.

“How?” said Falcon.

Jonny said, “It's just this thing I can do.”

“How do we get to the island?” said Woody. “We don't have a dinghy or anything.”

“I know how I'm getting there, man,” said Max. He climbed onto the gunwale of the boat and dove off the edge with a joyful whoop. A moment later there was a loud splash, followed by Max's laughing voice. “C'mon in! The water's fine.”

Woody and Peeler looked at each other. “Dude says the water's fine,” said Woody, and then he and Peeler dove overboard.

Jonny lowered an anchor that Weems had fashioned from a group of skulls all roped together. The skulls made a soft splash as Jonny threw them overboard.

“My friends,” said Pearl. “I would be glad to carry you both to the shore, uplifted by my wings! Does this appeal to you gentlemen?”

“Okay,” said Falcon. “That'd be good.”

“We're in your hands, Pearl,” said Jonny.

“So shall it be done,” said Pearl, and she flew over to the boys, lifted them by the back of their collars, and flew them over the boat's gunwale and above the blue ocean. A moment later Falcon and Jonny felt their feet touching the sand. The
Sasquatches, wet from the ocean, stepped onto the beach right behind them. Max and Peeler and Woody shook themselves like golden retrievers. Water flew in every direction.

“I claim this land,” shouted Max, “in the name of all Sasquatches! Who shall, like, use it as a land of peace and of brotherhood and of—stuff!”

“Peace and brotherhood!” shouted Woody and Peeler. “And stuff!”

“And sisterhood,” said a girl's voice, and they turned to their left. And there stood Megan, or the trace of her. She was a thin, flickering presence, like a ghost. She raised one hand to her head as if she was about to pass out.

“Megan!” said Falcon. “You're back.”

“I'm so tired,” she said. “I have to—lie down.” She lowered herself onto the beach, exhausted. A moment later, she blinked out again entirely.

“Señorita Megan,” said Pearl, “has been nearly consumed from the efforts of propelling us with her bluster!”

Megan slowly became visible again, but she still seemed wavery and frail.

“Megan,” said Falcon, “are you okay?”

“Yo!” shouted Max. “You saved us, man! You filled our sails and got us here! That was awesome!” He ran toward her and hugged her, but Megan dissipated in his arms as he squeezed her.

“Whups,” said Max. “Sorry, dude.”

“It's fine,” said Megan, condensing again. “I just have to…put myself together….”

“Hey,” said Jonny, looking at her with his piercing blue eyes.

“Hey,” said Megan.

“You're a good wind,” said Jonny.

“My friends,” said Pearl. “We should explore this place to which we have come. We do not know what lies beyond those hills!”