The Gargoyle Overhead (3 page)

Ambergine:
Among University Students

The little gargoyle shook her wings...

They were heavy and tired. She huddled deep into the marble wall behind the soldier from a long-ago war. She was looking out over another busy street, but far from the water now. She had looked for days in the houses and backyards and gardens around the angel but found nothing. The statues she had found to hide her this time were in the middle of a large university. It was a group of soldiers and angels, some with wings like hers, or with guns or swords. She liked the students walking below her: they all looked busy and had much to say.

Tonight she was going to search along the road called Queen Street, where she knew there was a store called the Golden Nautilus. She had already seen it from overhead, and it looked like the kind of place that had gargoyles.

She yawned. She would have to get ready to fly soon. Night was coming.

If Ambergine had peeked out from her hiding place, she might have noticed an old man standing at the foot of the soldier statue she was hiding in. But it’s just as well that she didn’t.

He was wearing thick glasses, a white straw hat, and a big baggy brown jacket. He was looking straight up, right at her hiding spot, as if he were waiting for something. The setting sun shining right into his eyes didn’t seem to bother him one bit.

The Story Begins

The candles blazed.

Katherine and Cassandra were seated on their lawn chairs, Gargoth was on his cushion looking up at the sky. “Are you ready then?” he asked.

“Yep. Are you ready for Gargoth’s story, Cassandra?” Katherine asked.

Cassandra didn’t even look up from her knitting. “Yes!”

“Here it is then, a long story, about a time long ago,” Gargoth said. And with that simple introduction, he began. “As you know Katherine, I was created in England in 1604. I was made by a master stonemason, a Frenchman. He travelled far and wide through villages and towns, using his skill to make beautiful statues, or to add elegant finishing touches to buildings of stone. His name was Tallus…”

“Oh! That’s why you’re Gargoth of Tallus!” Kath-erine exclaimed.

Gargoth shot her a dark look and said, “That’s correct. Now quiet please, Katherine. This is a long story, and we’ll never get through it if you interrupt me.

“I believe I may have been his final creation. No one ever heard of the master French stonemason Tallus after 1604.

“The little churchyard where I was created was a beautiful place. There was once a brotherhood of monks who lived in the church, and they planted an apple orchard and many beautiful flowers and bushes, but the brothers were all gone by the time I arrived. King Henry VIII didn’t like monasteries and had shut them all down years before.”

“Why?” Katherine asked.

Gargoth shot her another dark look and sighed. “Look, if I go into all the ins-and-outs of English history, we’ll never leave this rooftop. Look it up—it was called the Dissolution of the Monasteries. That ‘net’ on the box you like should be able to tell you about it.” Katherine knew that Gargoth was referring to the Internet and her computer. She made a mental note to learn more about King Henry VIII.

Gargoth took a few puffs of his pipe. “It was a lovely place, but I was completely alone. There was another statue in the churchyard, an ancient stone lion, but I hated it. It wasn’t alive like me, just a lump of cold stone. How I would rage at it! How I wished it were alive, just to have someone to talk to. It reminded me, every day, of how lonely I was.

“I was alone for years, decades. England went through a terrible civil war, and still I hid in the church tower, all alone.

“Then one day, a young boy arrived in the church-yard. He came with his father to pick the apples in the old orchard: people were starving in England at that time and had to eat whatever they could find. They came year after year. Winter would come, and I wouldn’t see him again until late the next summer. Finally, when he was almost a man, I decided I would speak to him.

“His name was Philip, and he was the first friend I ever had.”

The Empty Basket

The boy reached gingerly into the grass and picked up the half-eaten apple core. He left the basket of apples he was collecting at the bottom of the apple tree and walked toward the church.

“That’s the third time this week,” he said to himself. “Whoever is doing this is a really good shot.” As if to remind himself of this fact, he rubbed the back of his head where the apple core had just hit him.

He brushed off his breeches. He looked carefully up into the church tower, still holding the apple core. He raised his hand to shade his eyes from the glare of the setting sun.

“HULLOO,” he finally shouted. “I know you’re up there. There are plenty of apples for everyone; you don’t have to throw them at me.”

He waited and listened, but there was no answer. So he tried again.

“HELLO! Whoever you are, you’d better come out now and give yourself up. I know you’ve been throwing apples at me when I’m out here in the orchard.”

ZING! An apple core whizzed right at him. He ducked behind a tree just in time to hear it smack the other side, hard. He stuck his head out from behind the tree, and shouted, “STOP IT! What are you doing?”

At that moment, he saw the basket of apples he had just picked disappear behind a tree. He jumped up to run toward it but quickly had to take cover.

Someone was throwing the entire basket of apples at him! Each time he stuck his head out, trying to catch a glimpse of the culprit, an apple whizzed by, sending him ducking for cover.

ZING! ZING! ZING! A torrent of apples flew at him. The entire apple orchard was ringing with the sound of apples smashing against the trees.

His heart was starting to pound. Who was doing this? Who was wasting an entire basket of apples throwing them at him, and why?

And who was such a good shot?

Suddenly the apples stopped flying, and the boy heard someone calling him. It was his father.

“Philip! Philip, where are you? The cart is loaded, we’re ready to go! Where are you hiding, boy?”

Philip stood up and peered around the side of the tree. “Here, Father! I’m over here in the orchard.” He moved away from the tree and ran toward the spot where he had left his apple basket. He and his father reached the basket at the same moment.

It was empty and lying on its side. A few trampled apples lay nearby.

“What happened here?” his father asked, concerned.

“I…I really don’t know, Father,” Philip stammered.

“Well, where are the apples?” His father crossed his arms, never a good sign.

“I...I don’t know. They’re everywhere. They’re all over the orchard, Father,” he said, confused and upset.

His father looked around. He saw apples everywhere, smashed against the trees, and many piled up and ruined at the bottom of one particular tree. He gave Philip a hard stare. “If you’re going to do target practice, Philip, please use the river stones and not food for our table. Every apple you’ve wasted here could have been saved and dried for food in the winter ahead. You will have extra chores to do tonight.”

His father never really got angry, but Philip could tell he was displeased as he marched back toward the waiting horse and cart beside the old church gate.

There would be no apples for lunch tomorrow. There would be fewer dried apples for the winter ahead.

As Philip bent down to retrieve the empty apple basket and follow his father to their old cart, he heard the most amazing sound.

It was like a creaky cartwheel groaning uphill under a great weight. Or maybe, just maybe, someone high up in the church tower was laughing.

The Lion Roars

It was getting dark. Philip wasn’t really sure he wanted to be there, but despite his complaints, his father had insisted. Since the incident the week before, when an entire basket of apples had been destroyed, Philip had been trying to avoid the churchyard altogether.

The more he thought about it, the more sure he was. Someone
had
been laughing at him from the church tower that day. The sound was odd, though, not like a laugh he’d ever heard before. It was chilling and whispery and kind of sad. It left him thinking of spirits. Philip was a very sensible and brave twelve-year-old boy, however, and he was pretty sure that spirits couldn’t pelt you with apple cores. At least, not so accurately.

Still. Someone
was
up there, hiding in the church tower, he was sure of that now, which made his current task all the more unpleasant. He had been sent to the abandoned apple orchard to pick a small sack of apples for a sick neighbour, even as the sun was setting.

He wasn’t going to tell his father that he was too afraid to go. His home wasn’t far away, though, and he was quick on his feet. He could outrun almost anyone who tried to catch him.

He kept telling himself this as he unlatched the creaky wooden churchyard gate and slowly swung it open. It made a very loud screech which Philip hadn’t noticed by day.

“Why is everything louder at dusk?” he asked himself, trying to seem casual. The sun was low in the western sky, sending a beautiful orange glow through the small churchyard. The ancient stones still held the warmth of the sun. The only sound was the little river babbling quietly. He stood beside the river for a moment and looked around.

Philip breathed out. “It’s not so bad,” he thought. He hoisted his small sack and turned toward the apple orchard. He stopped dead in his tracks and gasped.

The ancient stone lion statue was broken! The lion’s left ear was broken off and lay jagged and smashed in the grass at its feet.

Philip stared. The lion was the only statue in the village. It had stood in the middle of the churchyard for as long as anyone could remember, proud and fierce on its pedestal of stone. It wasn’t a large statue, but it was very regal.

“Who would do this?” he wondered, dragging his shirt sleeve across his stinging eyes. He was sure the lion statue had not been broken the previous week when he and his father had last been there.

He moved toward the broken piece of statue lying in the grass but stopped suddenly. Something had moved in the apple orchard just a few feet away. He stood stock still, barely breathing. His heart started knocking in his chest. He knew someone was behind him.

“Who…” he cleared his dry throat, “who’s there?” he tried to shout. He wanted to sound brave and big, but unfortunately his voice chose that very moment to break. He sounded like a frightened child, which is exactly what he was.

There was nothing but silence. Philip turned slowly, too afraid to run, and couldn’t believe his eyes.

A basket overflowing with apples waited beside the orchard. He couldn’t tell why, but somehow he knew they were for him.

He gripped his apple sack tightly and slowly app-roached the basket. He jumped across the little river, and in ten strides stood at the edge of the orchard with the overflowing apple basket at his feet. The sun was just about to dip behind the nearby hills for the night.

Philip took a deep breath. “Who is here?” he asked quietly.

Nothing moved, not a bird, not a branch, and even the tiny river seemed momentarily silent. So he took another deep breath, and asked again, slightly louder this time. “Who are you? You might as well come out. I know you’re here.”

But nothing could have prepared him for what happened next.

A small, squat creature with leathery wings stepped out from behind the tree at his feet and looked up into Philip’s face. Philip wasn’t absolutely sure, but there might have been tears in the creature’s eyes.

“Hamithin sorken behem. Sorth belamont,” was what the creature said.

But Philip heard it say in its strange whispery voice, “Do not be afraid. I am alone.”

Smoke Rings in the Orchard

Philip stood completely still, barely daring to breathe. The sack for collecting apples had fallen, forgotten, from his hand into the grass. His face held a strange look of bewilderment and dawning comprehension.

The creature was hunched at his feet, looking at the ground. Eventually Philip was sure the creature was crying, since he heard the
plunk plunk
of its tears hitting the earth and saw small columns of steam rise from where they fell.

Philip clenched and unclenched his fists, under-standing now that he was in no immediate danger. He cleared his throat. “What is that language you speak? It is strange and whispery and not my tongue, I think, and yet I understand you.”

The creature shrugged. “Vox a voxi. Toth audi. Horsa?” it said. Philip heard it say, “I speak as I speak. You hear as you hear. What does it matter?”

They looked at each other, silent. Philip realized he would have to be content with that answer, such as it was.

“Well, where did you learn to throw apples like that?” he asked. It was all he could think of. He wasn’t sure what else to say. What
do
you say to a bizarre creature like this, anyway? Philip wasn’t even entirely sure what the creature was. He didn’t want to appear foolish—perhaps this was a new kind of farm animal recently imported to England? One he’d never heard of, an odd one to be sure. A creature crossed between a small dog and a large bird? Perhaps in the New World, animals spoke like this one? Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t going to hurt him, not at the moment anyway.

The creature looked up at him, then used a claw (it looked
very
sharp) to wipe away the tears coursing down its cheeks.

“Belo grathen memimi,” it said miserably, but Philip heard it say, “I practice a lot.”

Philip considered this. “Did you break the ancient stone lion in the churchyard?” he asked gruffly. Now that he was no longer so afraid, he felt he could ask a pointed question.

He was surprised by the angry answer from the creature (but I’m just going to translate it here, or we’ll be here all day): “Yes! I broke it! It has tormented me for too long! I hate it!” With this the creature snapped and growled and turned to look at the broken lion statue across the small river. “It deserved to be broken!” As if to make the point again, the creature picked up a stone at its feet and threw it at the lion. It glanced off the lion’s tail, falling harmlessly into the grass.

Philip took a step back, wary of the creature’s sudden burst of anger. It seemed quite capable of hurting him now; its teeth and claws were very sharp, regardless of its small size.

“Why?” Philip demanded, angry himself now. “Stupid creature! You know that the villagers are going to think that I did it. My father already thinks that I wasted an entire basket of apples in target practice last week when it was really you…” He stopped. “Why
have
you been throwing apples at me, anyway?”

The creature sighed. It stayed silent as it stuck a claw into a pouch at its side and pulled out a briarwood pipe and some cured tobacco. With a tinder-pistol (a very old kind of lighter), it struck a spark onto the pipe and lit it. Strong smoke curled up about its head and caught in Philip’s nose. He sneezed.

“Well?” Philip said, squinting as his eyes watered, determined to get an answer. “Why?”

The little pipe-smoker leaned against a tree and blew smoke rings up about its head, eyeing the boy. Philip had never seen anyone (or anything) smoke before, although his father had told him about the new phenomenon. His father had seen a merchant smoking in a nearby village when delivering a carthorse for auction. The wealthy nobles and the people from the great town of London were known to particularly like the curious native plant from across the ocean. But no one in his little village smoked, at least none he knew of. Now that he was so close to it for the first time, he decided it was a strange custom. It smelled awful and burned his eyes and nose. And it made him cough.

The creature spoke again. “Why did I throw apples at you? Because I wanted you to know I was here. And the river stones would have hurt you—see what they did to the lion.”

Philip, who was suddenly very thankful that he hadn’t been collecting river stones in the basket the week before, wanted to ask many questions. He wanted to know exactly what the creature was, and how it had come to be in the churchyard. Why did it hate the stone lion?

And most of all, why did it want Philip to know it was there? As far as Philip was concerned, he would have been just as happy if he’d remained ignorant of that fact.

Just as he was going to ask one of the many questions on the tip of his tongue, a voice rang out from the church gate.

“Philip? Philip? Where are you?” It was his father. Philip suddenly realized that it was quite dark. The sun had gone down completely. In his conversation with the creature, he hadn’t noticed.

“I have to go!” Philip said urgently.

But the creature was already filling Philip’s forgotten sack with apples from the surrounding trees. “Here, take these, and the basket. Be quick,” it said. Then it vanished into the apple orchard, right before Philip’s eyes.

But not before Philip heard the whispery voice say, “My name is Gargoth of Tallus. Come again soon, and I will answer all your questions.”