The Monster Who Wasn't

by T C Shelley

  The imp boy sat wondering how long the silence would last, when Daniel touched his head and said, ‘You gargoyles will watch out for him?’

  ‘Course we will. Won’t none of us survive if we don’t watch each other,’ Wheedle said.

  ‘Well, just take care.’

  Bladder snorted. ‘Don’t you have something to do that don’t involve pointing out the obvious?’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Daniel ruffled the imp boy’s hair.

  The imp boy felt his chest. The thing inside him that Daniel had called his heart, it felt off. The rhythm chuntered instead of tapped. ‘I don’t know. You have to go now, don’t you?’ he asked.

  Daniel nodded. ‘My apologies. That side trip cut into my break time. Back later. It’s not common practice, but maybe my assistant Yonah can bring my scrolls and we can do some office work from here this evening.’

  ‘Oh lovely, you’re going to spend even more time with us.’ Bladder glared at them both and stamped down the pinnacle. Wheedle followed.

  ‘It’s unlikely that the pixie will be back today,’ Daniel told the imp boy. ‘But stay concealed if you hear anything odd. Like Bladder said, it’ll blow over.’

  The imp boy watched the angel fade into the clouds and looked around. He grabbed the chocolate box and climbed up the pinnacle, watching for any movement of the drains and utility covers on the roads. Bright sunlight played on the chocolate box lid, and the imp boy pulled out the leftover wrappers to see their colours, letting each one escape and fly on the wind.

  The tone of the sky transformed as the sun moved, and he felt sleepy. Since his arrival, he had discovered so many things, seen real humans close-up. It tired him so much. His eyes struggled to watch the sunlight; as they fluttered open and closed he wondered what was wrong with them. He sighed and thought of the boy he looked like: Nick.

  CHAPTER 7

  He woke and thought he must have turned around. The sun was on the opposite side of him. He clambered up the ornate spire, high above the town, where the air smelt clean and sweet, and inhaled to his belly. Daniel was balanced on the very tip-top of the spire and waved. The imp boy closed his eyes as more sunlight hit his face.

  ‘Did you enjoy your nap? You must have slept for hours. We came back and you were out, all curled up into a little ball.’

  ‘Nap?’

  ‘Human bodies need to sleep. It’s likely yours needs a lot. You are basically a newborn.’

  The imp boy frowned. He thought through his basic knowledge, but could find nothing about naps.

  A gentle flap of wings disturbed the silence, and a small white bird landed on Daniel’s head. It chirped quietly in the angel’s ear.

  ‘Yes,’ said the angel. ‘They’re all fine.’

  The bird flittered across, landed on the imp boy’s shoulder, put a keen eye close to his and stared.

  ‘He’s fine too,’ Daniel said. ‘My friend, this is Yonah, my assistant. She’s a peace dove.’ The dove pushed out her chest so the imp could see a small badge decorated with a single bright leaf on a green twig. ‘She’s taken it upon herself to get some information on you and may check on you at regular intervals today.’

  Yonah rubbed her small, soft head against his cheek. The imp boy’s heart slowed. The sky looked calmer, more still.

  ‘And here.’ Daniel handed him another plastic-wrapped square. ‘It’s a sandwich. Your stomach has been roaring since we got here, even in your sleep.’

  The imp boy threw out a thank-you and ripped the plastic. He took a bite as his stomach snarled. The sweet softness outside reminded him of pie pastry. The green leaves inside sent fresh coolness into his mouth. The other part tasted salty and smooth.

  ‘Remind Yonah or me to give you something to pack for a late snack. The gargoyles aren’t intending to go back into The Hole, are they? We can’t go down there to watch over you.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘We die in a place with no hope. Humans can’t stand that awful place either. Those few who stumble their way down there rarely return. Unless they get back out quickly they die.’

  Bladder and Wheedle appeared. Wheedle took a spot close to the imp boy, shoving his bottom into the tiles. The tip of his stone wing touched the imp boy’s shoulder.

  ‘Not that that’s what we’re planning,’ Bladder said to Daniel, ‘but if we ever do decide to take him back downstairs he’ll be just fine, because he ain’t human. He was made just the same way we monsters all was, and if nothing takes it in its head to kick him, he will survive that place well enough. Stop filling his head with your stupid ideas that he’s not a monster.’

  Wheedle reached out a claw and felt the imp boy’s head, twisting it before giving it a hard rap with his stone knuckles. ‘His head’s solid as concrete. His bones are troll weight. He could fall from this cathedral and get up without a scratch.’

  ‘I wouldn’t fall,’ said the imp boy. ‘I can climb walls.’

  ‘Not exactly a human trait, is it?’ Bladder chortled.

  ‘He needs to eat,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Like an ogre.’

  ‘He sleeps.’

  ‘Like a troll.’

  ‘He’s a “he”.’

  ‘Like leprechauns and pixies and quite a few others.’

  ‘No, they only appear male or female,’ Wheedle said. ‘You know they’re not either.’

  Bladder glared at Wheedle.

  ‘He has a heart,’ Daniel said. ‘He really feels. You’ve seen him cry.’

  ‘Are you saying we don’t feel? I …’ Bladder started. ‘Wheedle feels. He’s a total sap.’

  ‘Hey!’ Wheedle said.

  ‘Wheedle’s only a century or two old,’ Daniel said. ‘And isn’t it just sentiment in the end? You feel anger, envy and resentment sure enough. But what good things do you feel?’

  ‘Gargoyle feelings don’t just go away,’ Wheedle muttered. ‘It’s …’

  ‘Yes?’ Daniel leaned forward.

  Bladder growled. ‘None of your business.’

  Wheedle shuffled back down the spire and rejoined Spigot on the pinnacle.

  ‘Go off and annoy your other victims.’ Bladder stormed after Wheedle. Below, all three gargoyles set to making faces at humans. A small schoolboy ran by squealing.

  Daniel smiled after the gargoyles, then Yonah peeped at him. ‘Sorry, we have a lot of work and can’t stay here too long,’ Daniel said. ‘There was so much to do for you this morning, my other chores have gone undone. Thank goodness it’s a long day.’

  ‘Your other chores?’

  ‘A caretaker cares for lot of things. There are other statues, anthroparians and golems that need assistance. The homunculi wanted lots of attention this morning and didn’t receive it.’

  ‘But you’ll be back?’

  Daniel smiled. ‘Yonah will split duties with me today and help me catch up. We’ll return early evening. Don’t worry, there are many hours of light ahead and we have some office work to do. It’s as easy to do it on a church roof as a desk. Be safe, my friend.’

  The angel flew into the warm, blue sky. Yonah trailed after.

  The afternoon passed with little event. When the sun slid lower in the sky, hanging over the houses at the edge of the town, Yonah appeared carrying a plastic box twice as big as she. She dropped it on to the imp boy’s shoulder and rubbed his face with her tiny head, making his skin tickle, then she nested on his backpack, her eyes drifted closed, and she cooed as she napped. The sound was a distant choir, and hinted at words the imp boy would never understand. It took him a while to realise he had to open the box. Inside he found another sandwich, some small red baubles with green leafy tops which burst sweetly in his mouth, and yellow-white salty squares.

  When he finished, Yonah woke, took the box and flew away.

  Wheedle came up for him and prodded at the rubbish on the roof. ‘You know, I’m not so fond of strawberries, but I do like a bit of cheese. I could smell it, but I don’t fancy that dove t
elling his wingship I took your food.’

  The gargoyle looked wounded and the imp boy wished he had saved some ‘cheese’ for Wheedle. He liked the word and said it a few times.

  Wheedle sat on his haunches, pushing into the stone of the roof to get comfortable. ‘Gargoyles do feel, you know. We’ve got …’ His hoof hovered over his chest for a moment. ‘Oh, it don’t matter. Forget about feelings. I’m trying to. If the ogres ever found out, they’d probably hate gargoyles even more than they do now.’

  The imp boy didn’t understand anything Wheedle said.

  ‘Oi!’ Bladder called from below. ‘Down here, you two.’

  The imp boy and Wheedle descended.

  ‘Time for another chocolate run,’ Bladder said.

  ‘Do I have to go back to the same shop? I don’t know if May will like to see me after today. Is there another sweet shop around here?’

  ‘That’s your job to find out.’ Bladder turned his back, and the imp boy skulked down the side of the church. He walked the length of the road looking for another chocolate shop. He found a newsagent and smelt the sweets inside, but the woman behind the counter yelled at him and he ran back into the street.

  He found himself outside May’s store, peering both ways to see if anyone was watching him, before risking the tinkling of the door. He wondered if Nick and his mother had been back. He’d have heard, wouldn’t he? Maybe not while he was asleep.

  ‘Rumpel! You’re back.’ May smiled as he entered. Her gentle glow brightened so much, he wondered why he’d been worried. ‘Wasn’t that an odd coincidence? I’m so sorry for that. Your face, you poor thing.’

  Coincidence. She used the same word as Wheedle. He decided to start a book that listed words and their meanings.

  ‘It’s cool enough now for choc milk, don’t you think?’

  She gave him a chocolate drink with ice in it and he found he liked ice as much as marshmallows. Only one man came in, picked up a pink box, paid and rushed back to the footpath.

  May gave the imp boy something she called an apple and asked him numerous questions he could not answer. She didn’t understand where he lived and enquired if he was ‘homeless’ and did he have somewhere to sleep that night. She asked several times if he was OK.

  ‘I’m a little concerned about the ogres, but I think I’ll be all right.’

  She peered at his face and scrutinised him before saying, ‘I have about five of these damaged boxes. I’ll get you another. You can get one tomorrow, and the day after, if you like. Maybe I’ll bring some soup to work. What do you think?’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  When he returned to the church, Bladder let him have a chocolate. He sat sucking it at the top of the spire. Yonah sat there, watching him with small dark eyes. He waved, she bowed.

  ‘He don’t come himself but he’s now sending that pigeon.’ Bladder’s voice travelled up to him from a pinnacle below. ‘That’s about the fifth time I seen her today. I look up and there’s a disgusting blot of white on our nice grey building. Unwrap me a peppermint cream.’

  Wheedle was still chewing on a toffee-centred chocolate. ‘Thee’s jutht washing outh for him,’ he said.

  ‘What she think we’re gonna do to him?’

  ‘Maybe thee’s contherned with wath we’re all contherned about.’

  ‘What have you got us into, Wheedle? Ogres are lookin’ for him. Great way to keep us all safe.’

  The imp boy heard Wheedle swallow his toffee. ‘You think we should hand him over?’

  ‘Thass not what I’m suggesting, but what if they come back tonight? What’s to stop Thunderguts sendin’ up some real nasties to hunt him out once it’s dark? That pigeon knows it ’n’ all.’

  ‘We keep him bundled up here and nobody’s gonna see him,’ Wheedle reassured him. ‘We convince them we’ve never seen no human-looking imp. Besides, ogres aren’t so eager to go hunting. If Thunderguts just wants a homemade meal, it’s only the one, he’ll forget soon enough.’

  Spigot shrieked.

  ‘My question too, Spigot. What if he don’?’ Bladder asked. ‘We never seen anything like him before. I know we told the imp it’ll all blow over, but in truth, if Thunderguts wants him so he can figure out a way to make his own dinners, he might hunt him forever.’

  The gargoyles fell quiet. Above them, the imp boy shivered.

  It was early evening by the time Daniel reappeared. The sky had softened to silver, but the disc of the sun still glowed. Yonah cooed a greeting that carried over to the imp boy and he scrambled up the spire only to watch Daniel flutter to the roof of the main building below. He scurried down again, hearing Yonah’s cooing chuckle as he descended.

  ‘Daniel!’

  ‘My friend. Hello.’

  The angel had folders under one arm. He set them down on the roof and they slipped apart.

  ‘There is much work to do, but you are welcome to keep us company while we work.’

  ‘What do you do?’ the imp boy asked.

  ‘Part of my job as curator is to look after legendary swords. Yonah helps me. We make sure they are accounted for, and when they are moved or change hands our job is to make sure everything goes smoothly.’

  The imp boy found that he knew the word ‘sword’, and with it came others. Slash, slice, war. Power.

  ‘If a legendary sword falls into the wrong hands, it can have catastrophic consequences. The Arthurian swords are keeping us particularly busy at the moment.’

  Yonah tapped a beak on the top folder. It read ‘Excalibur, Caliburn, Clarent’.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ the imp boy asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Daniel said. He flicked through the folders and put a few down behind him. Then his face softened. ‘Why don’t you rest some more, keep your strength up.’ Then he turned back to look at the page Yonah was pecking.

  The imp boy sighed. He’d waited for Daniel to return, and now he was being as dismissive as the gargoyles. Together they’d taught him so much in his first day of life, but he couldn’t help feeling there were more things not being said. Thunderguts’s face came into his mind.

  He slumped on the roof and blew air from cheek to cheek. When he realised the pair weren’t going to be distracted, he went to the spire top and looked out at the world again. The view satisfied his heart somehow, filling it the way a sandwich filled his belly. He went back down wanting to tell them about it, but Yonah was still cooing and although he could see the beautiful photographs of swords over the bird’s head, he couldn’t read the words. He’d love to learn the words that explained swords.

  He sat down again and looked at a stack of folders Daniel had pushed to one side. Daniel didn’t seem interested in them. He reached out to feel the texture of the top folder’s cover. The surface moved with suppleness under his fingers, and it had words on it. He liked words. He decided you could get hungry for words as well as food. Hunger was an interesting thing.

  ‘Can I look at these?’ the imp boy asked.

  Daniel didn’t turn. ‘Whatever keeps you busy,’ he replied, and carried on talking to Yonah.

  But he couldn’t read the word on the top cover, which was . Maybe he’d try another.

  The next folders weren’t any more promising. The second one was titled , and the third was .

  He blinked and wondered if his eyes were working. Or maybe he couldn’t read anything other than street things. He sighed; if that were true it would be very disappointing.

  He picked up the next folder, entitled Hrunting and Nægling. The letters seemed familiar, but when he flicked the pages inside he didn’t recognise the words. The folder held some beautiful pictures of swords, but even the labels didn’t make any sense to him. He went to put it down, but his eye was caught by the final folder. The Vorpal Sword, it read.

  One more try. He opened the cover and lifted out the first loose sheet. It was illustrated and the letters, crushed together in a beautiful hand, glowed green and gold. Sad faces created a border.
Some poked their tongues at him. The paper was thick and yellow and covered with words written in the same long, elegant hand as the cover and he found them easy to read.

  It started mid-sentence.

  … and thus we endured this Dark Age; full many years of blighted crops and failing children. Murd’ring monsters walked among us with their endless appetites, and no soul travelled abroad at night, or under o’ercast skies. They were a plague on those of us left living.

  No one knoweth who commissioned the forging of the blade. Mages and sorcerers were summon’d to protect us from the vile beasts. One magician, knowing the strongest fabric ist the human soul, did bid the rest to build these into a metal. He stole a hundred thousand souls from a hundred thousand bodies, his conjuring draining them out and pulling them into the design.

  It honoureth me not, to admit I, a freeman, halted not this most Vorpal of all magicks. We have sacrificed the eternity of the few, for the lives of the many.

  I sleep no more, for conscience is as persistent as Furies.

  The imp boy leaned in. He found reading more exciting than he expected and it was becoming easier, and here was a history of his kind. He wanted to know more. The next page was printed, although the letters were blurred and smudged. It too was entitled The Vorpal Sword.

  Before the sword was wielded, everywhere humans lived in a world populated by beasts and brutes. Humans themselves were no less brutish than the ogres and goblins they feared.

  The King of Ogres, the Great Jabberwock, centuries old and bloated with arrogance, believed himself unkillable, for no blade wrought of earthly metal could pierce him.

  Howev’r, Sword of Souls, this very Vorpal blade, is made of human souls, and the soul is the strongest matter in all the universe.

  A young knight, innocent of heart and pure of intent, carried the sword. The boy went out to face the ogre alone and with the blade he bested the Jabberwock. After killing the beast, he took its head, then did report he saw a blaze of lights issue from the blade and about him all dark creatures turned to ash.