“They must have redrawn the line,” Harding said, scratching at his chin. “But it had holes in it, as if attacked. So they redrew it, then attacked it again? But why would they do that? To cover up taking the boy? Why bother? We’re obviously going to know he was kidnapped.”
None of them had an answer to that. Joel studied the defenses for a moment, then frowned, leaning closer to the broken, ripped Shoaff Defense. “Professor Fitch, you should look at this.”
“What is it?”
“A drawing,” Joel said. “On the floor—not a Rithmatic pattern. A picture.”
It was done in chalk, but it looked like a charcoal drawing someone would do in art class. It was hastily done, more a silhouette than a real drawing. It depicted a man wearing a bowler hat and holding a long, oversized cane to his side, tip down against the ground.
The man’s head seemed too big, and there was a large undrawn section on the face, like a gaping open mouth. It was smiling.
Beneath the picture were a few short, hastily written paragraphs.
I can’t see his eyes. He draws in scribbles. Nothing he does keeps its shape. The chalklings are distorted, and there seem to be hundreds of them. I destroy them, and they return to life. I block them, and they dig through. I scream for help, but nobody comes.
He just stands there, watching with those dark, unseen eyes of his. The chalklings aren’t like any I’ve seen. They writhe and contort, never keeping a single shape.
I can’t fight them.
Tell my father that I’m sorry for being such a bad son. I love him. I really do.
Joel shivered, all three of them silent as they read Charles Calloway’s final words. Fitch knelt and drew a chalkling on the ground, then used it to check the sketch, in case it was Rithmatic. The chalkling just walked over the picture, ignoring it. Fitch dismissed the chalkling.
“These paragraphs make little sense,” Fitch said. “Chalklings that return to life after they’re destroyed? Rithmatic shapes that don’t hold their forms?”
“I’ve seen such things,” Harding said. He looked up and met Fitch’s eyes. “At Nebrask.”
“But this is so far from there!” Fitch said.
“I don’t think we can deny it any longer, Professor,” Harding said, rising. “Something has escaped the Tower. It got here, somehow.”
“But it’s a man who is doing this,” Fitch said, hands shaking as he tapped the drawing Charles had done. “That’s no Forgotten shadow, Harding. It’s in the shape of a person.”
As Joel listened, he realized something: there was a whole lot more going on at Nebrask than people knew.
“What is a Forgotten?” Joel asked.
Both turned to him, then grew quiet.
“Never mind that, soldier,” Harding said. “You’re a great help here, but I’m afraid I don’t have clearance to tell you about Nebrask.”
Fitch looked uncomfortable, and suddenly Joel knew what Melody felt like, being excluded. He wasn’t surprised, though. The details of what happened at Nebrask were kept nearly as quiet as the secrets of complex Rithmatics.
Most people were actually fine with that. The battlefield was a long way away, out in the central isles. People were content to ignore Nebrask. The fighting had been pretty much constant since the days of King Gregory, and it wouldn’t ever go away. Occasionally there were deaths—but they were infrequent, and were always either Rithmatists or professional soldiers. Easily ignored by the general public.
Unless something managed to get out. Joel shivered. Something strange is happening, even by Nebrask standards, he thought, studying Harding and Fitch. Harding had spent over a decade on the battlefront, and he seemed dumbfounded by what was occurring.
Eventually, Harding returned to inspecting the room and Fitch returned to his drawing. Joel knelt, reading the paragraphs one last time.
He draws in scribbles.…
With some persuasion, Joel got Fitch to let him help do sketch replicas of the defenses. Harding went outside to organize his men to search for other information, such as signs of forced entry.
Joel drew quietly, using charcoal on the paper. Charcoal would have no Rithmatic properties, even if drawn by a Rithmatist, but it approximated chalk fairly well. The trouble was, no sketch would exactly re-create the drawings on the floor, with all of their subtle scratch marks and broken lines.
After Joel finished a few sheets, he walked over to Fitch, who was again studying the circle where Charles had made his final stand.
“Notice how he outlined the entire room in chalk to keep the chalklings from crawling around his lines by going on the walls?” Fitch said. “Very clever. Have you noticed, yet, that the format of this attack reinforces our thoughts on the previous ones?”
Joel nodded. “Lots of chalklings, attacking in mass.”
“Yes,” Fitch said. “And we have some evidence, now, that this attacker … this Scribbler … is probably a male, which lets us narrow our results. Would you mind going out and making copies of those swirling patterns on the walls so that we have several versions done by different hands? I suspect that will help us be more accurate.”
Joel nodded, grabbing a roll of paper and some charcoal, then picking his way out. Most of the officers were down below, now. Joel hesitated in the doorway, looking back into the room.
Charles had blocked himself in, just like Herman. He had even drawn Lines of Forbiddance around the window, and those lines showed signs of being attacked from the outside. Perhaps he had intended to climb out, and had found his escape route blocked. He’d been out of options.
Joel shivered, thinking of the hours Charles must have spent during the night, resisting the chalklings with defense after defense, trying desperately to survive until morning.
Joel left the doorway and walked to the first of the two wall marks. This crime scene seemed to give more questions than answers. Joel put his paper up against the wall, then eyed the swirling pattern and began to do a sketch. It was—
Something moved in the hallway.
Joel spun, catching sight of it scuttling along the floor of the room, barely visible against the white carpet. A chalkling.
“Professor!” Joel yelled, charging after the thing. “Inspector Harding!”
The chalkling moved down the steps. Joel could barely see it against the white marble, and lost sight of it once he reached the base of the stairs. He glanced about, shivering, imagining it crawling up his leg and gnawing at his skin.
“Joel?” Fitch asked, appearing at the banister above.
There! Joel thought, catching sight of a flash of white as the chalkling crossed the wooden doorway and moved down the steps outside.
“A chalkling, Professor!” he yelled. “I’m chasing it.”
“Joel! Don’t be a fool! Joel!”
Joel was out the door, running after the chalkling. Some officers saw him immediately, and they charged over. Joel pointed at the chalkling, which was much easier to see now that it moved across grass, its lines conforming to the shape and contours of the blades much as a shadow would look when it fell on an uneven surface.
The police called for more backup, and Fitch appeared at the doorway of the building, looking frazzled. Joel kept running, barely keeping pace with the chalkling. The things were very fast and completely tireless; it would outdistance him eventually. But for the moment, he and the police kept up.
The chalkling reached the fence and shot underneath; Joel and the officers charged out the gate. The chalkling moved over to a large oak tree with thick branches, then—oddly—moved up the side of the trunk.