by Melissa Marr
Frans bellowed warnings at her to show his bravery to the crowd, but Giselle only looked at the ground surrounding the cart and not at him. Feet edged closer.
“It looks almost human.”
“Can I touch it, Mama?”
“Are you daft? Those things are crawling with vermin!”
“And their bite is poisonous—especially the females.”
“Poke her with the stick and see what she does.”
Giselle felt another jab in her ribs and pulled away to the other side of the caged cart, still casting her face downward to avoid the stares of the crowd. That was when she saw him. Among the many feet crowding the ground around the cart, she saw his shoe. She would know it anywhere. She didn’t look up right away. Slowly she lifted her head and deliberately looked at Frans first, trying to brace herself before she turned to scan the crowd. The slightest slip or gasp could bring his doom. She had been careless with herself—she couldn’t be careless with his safety too. But then shame overtook her and she cast her eyes downward again. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze. How could she have done this to him? To them? Tears formed in her eyes, and trickled down her cheeks. Villagers laughed and jeered at the crying animal who had frightened them just minutes earlier.
Go away, Étienne. Forget me. Soon I will forget you. Her throat squeezed back a sob and she looked up.
His eyes were locked on hers, bright against the darkening sky. His lips pulled tight and his jaw twitched. He was as still as stone except for the breeze lifting the black hair at his shoulders. Her eyes traveled down to his fists clenched at his sides. It took what was left of her strength not to reach out to him, not to reach through the bars and touch the cheek that had caressed her own just days ago. The ache of need ripped through her. If she could speak, she would. Instead she shook her head, trying to tell him to go. It would be more than she could bear if he were found out too. He eyed the padlock on the bars. No, Étienne, no. It will do no good.
He shook his head in return and then sneered, spitting on her. His action drew a smile from Frans, who allowed him to take a step closer, so close he could have reached out and wiped the spittle from her face. Giselle feared he would. “A miserable little wretch, isn’t she?” he called to Frans.
“She’s a gargouille, boy, what would you expect? But you should have seen her a few days ago. A beauty she was. Won’t be long before the duke has her cleaned up and shining again. She’ll be a prize, this one will.”
“How much for the wings?” Étienne asked.
“Are you mad? Gargouille wings will heal anything and bring a king’s ransom. Even the duke will have to scrape his coins together for this one. Too rich for paysan blood like you.”
“What about the girl?”
“You mean the gargouille? Worth just as much. They grow back their wings, you know?”
Étienne nodded understanding. “A never-ending supply. You’re a wise and lucky man, sir, to have made such a catch.” Her wings would not grow back, and Étienne knew it. Nor did they hold magical healing powers for the landwalkers. Their powers ebbed as soon as they were cut away. They were worthless decaying flesh now. She knew Étienne only played along, pretending to intently listen to Frans spout the myths that had followed them, and then Frans embellished even those as he went, soaking in the rapt attention of the crowd that closed in around him.
His lies were nothing she hadn’t heard before. There had always been stories about their kind, fearful stories, none of them true. The gargouilles were as human as anyone else. They lived among the landwalkers and always had, only different in their own way as a redhead is from a blonde, as odd as a six-toed baby, as rare as an albino. The rarity was what grieved her and where she had let her clan down. Their numbers were dwindling. They had been hunted for their wings for centuries, becoming like anyone else once their wings were cut.
The irony was that gargouille blood ran through the landwalkers too—only a trace from some long-ago mutual ancestor, but enough to make them take flight in their dreams, to remember the lift, the wind, the freedom and exhilaration of not being bound to this world, to remember the fluttering of hair on currents, the taut stretch of wing and chest, the longing to soar again once their feet touched land, the bitterness when their eyes opened and their flight was nothing more than a trick of sleep. The landwalkers looked at the gargouilles and saw their dreams and unfulfilled desires. They looked at them and saw what they secretly wanted to be, and then despised them for it.
“How long before the wings grow back?” Étienne asked Frans, his voice laced with doubt as he deliberately surveyed her back, which showed no signs of emerging wings.
Frans rubbed his bristled cheek. “Not sure exactly. A week, maybe two.”
“Perhaps with nourishment they might grow faster?” Étienne suggested.
Frans weighed this thought and turned to Giselle. “What do you eat, beast?”
Giselle lifted her gaze to meet Frans. She surveyed his protruding belly and his rotten teeth. “I drink the tears of angels and share the bread of saints.”
There were gasps and mumblings in the crowd at the sacrilege. Frans stood silently, perplexed. It was the first question he had asked her and he didn’t understand her answer. He finally laughed it off and threw her a piece of hard barley bread, and shoved a stein of water into the cart through the bars, before going back to telling his stories.
Giselle gulped the water, the overflow dribbling down her cheeks. She wiped the drips away with the back of her hand. The tears of angels give me flight, she thought. The gargouilles had their own legends too. Her grandmother had passed them on to her as all gargouilles were bound to do, stories that explained how they came to be who they were, where their kind diverged from those married to foot and ground, stories that elevated them and gave them a reason to hold their heads high. Her grandmother told her that they once flew with the angels; they were the guardians of the sky; they were the watchers who knew and made right. They were blessed with their velvet wings because they were better. They were chosen. When the angels retreated to the heavens, the gargouilles became the angels of the night. Those were the stories Giselle wanted to believe.
One thing she knew for certain: they had to preserve their heritage and their kind because they were precious few. There were of course, a few scattered rogue gargouilles who lived alone among the landwalkers, assuming their way of life, but even their identities were unknown to the clans. “As useless as a harp with no strings,” her mother said of them. Only the clans still preserved the work of the angels. They were all that mattered, and there were only fourteen left in Giselle’s clan. Étienne, he came from the north. He was to be a match for Bridet, but the minute his eyes met Giselle’s, they both knew. Bridet knew.
He came to visit Giselle often. Her mother was always spare of words, so Étienne would retell Giselle the stories of old, and he told them like no one else she had ever heard, captivating her with every sentence. They flew in the night, circling with stars and moon, diving through treetop and forest, too dark and too fast to be seen as more than a passing shadow, a whoosh of air, a flicker of starlight, and they were gone. And then one night by a sliver of orange moon, they walked. Giselle unfolded her wings, felt the paper-thin but steely strength of their flesh, Étienne’s fingers running along the velvet crest of her wings, his lips sliding down her throat. His wings snapped outward, wrapped her in their warmth. His kisses were gentle and tender, always waiting for her answer. And her answer was always yes. Yes.
The next day she knew it before he said it. She knew what was coming as they walked together in the meadow, their wings carefully hidden away in the daylight. She knew the words on the edge of his lips because some things are just known—they don’t have to be said, but he said them anyway. “I love you, Giselle. I love you. I choose you.”
“And I choose you back, Étienne.”
The match was made. It was complete except for the cele-brations with their families. He lef
t to tell his parents in the north. And Giselle danced by daylight in the meadow. Danced, and sang. And she spread her wings without a care for the world or who might be watching.
I choose you back.
“She only looks like a simple peasant girl. Are you sure she’s a gargouille?”
“Look at the wings, boy! I cut them from her myself—and she put up a hellish struggle!”
Étienne’s jaw clenched. His shoulders lurched. Giselle gasped, terrified that Étienne would reveal himself and suffer her same fate. “There are too many!” she cried. “Too many! Leave! Go!”
Étienne pulled his shoulders back, his face softening at her distress, and Giselle sobbed in relief.
“Quiet, beast!” Frans yelled. “These good people want to look, and look they will!”
The crowd rumbled approval. A few patted him on the back, eager to show their own bravery by stepping closer to the beast. Still others offered to buy him a meal and brew at the tavern. Frans rubbed his chin wistfully. It had been a long ride. His barley bread was brick-hard and dry, and his small wedge of cheese was nearly gone. A hot meal would be welcome, maybe even a bit of meat or smoked eel with some porridge, and then he could feed the beast the remainder of his barley bread. A few moments ago was the first time he had fed her since he caught her, and she was looking weak, with no sign of new wings yet. A dead, wingless gargouille would not be worth nearly as much to the duke as a live, healthy one. But he eyed his treasure on top of the cart. Going into the tavern was too big a risk to take. “I’ll have my meal out here.”
Several villagers rushed to the tavern to bring their honored guest some food, and the rest of the crowd dwindled, eager to get home to their own suppers and their twilight chores, possibly more mindful than usual of the darkening sky and the creatures that might inhabit it.
Frans turned to Étienne, who was brave enough to step close to the cart and was broad-shouldered and a head taller than most in the crowd. Frans flipped him a coin, which Étienne easily caught. “I’m going over there to rest and eat. Two more of those coins for you if you wait here and see that no one touches the cart—or beast.” In this village three coins was easily a day’s wages. Étienne properly smiled and nodded. “And mind you,” Frans added, wagging his finger, “I’ll still be watching! I expect diligence for those coins!”
“Of course,” Étienne answered.
Frans walked some distance away and settled against the stone wall of the tavern to view the cart from a more comfortable position and await the meal the villagers were bringing him. A half dozen lingered with him, eager to hear more stories about distant lands, since by now Frans had expanded how far he had traveled and the adventures he had seen.
Étienne stood guard, periodically circling the wagon so that he could speak to Giselle without his lips being seen by the watchful Frans.
“When he sleeps and the others go, I’ll slit his throat and get the key to the lock.”
“No!” Giselle cried through clenched teeth. “It’s wrong to take a life!”
“But look what he’s done to you!”
Giselle hung her head, ashamed for being so careless. Her clan had often retold the story of a long-ago uncle who had flaunted his wings and brought on not only his own death but also those of three more of the clan. His carelessness had been unforgivable. Tears fell from her eyes to the splintered floor of the cart. “What has been done to me can’t be undone,” she whispered.
“There must be something—”
Giselle jerked her head up. “There is nothing, Étienne! You must face it. In a matter of hours I will barely be a gargouille. I will be as one of them. I will forget our clans and their stories. I will forget who I am. . . . I will forget you.”
Étienne shook his head, his eyes glistening. “You won’t forget me, Giselle!” he whispered. “I won’t let you. And if you do, I’ll find a way to make you remember. We will be together again. Do you hear me? I’ll find a way. Say my name so you won’t forget. Étienne. Say it! Now!”
“Étienne,” Giselle sobbed.
“Again!”
“Étienne.” Her voice was barely a whisper, weak with sorrow.
“You love me, Giselle. You always will. A gargouille match is forever. Remember that. Forever. Look into my eyes. Memorize them. You’ll see them again and you’ll remember. You’ll remember me.”
Giselle stared into his eyes, memorizing his pale gray irises surrounded by a rich ring of black, the eyes of the north, but still uniquely Étienne’s. He deserved more than she could give him now. More than a landwalker’s life. He was still a watcher of the night. Soon she would be fearful of the dark like most landwalkers were. She would cross herself at shadows flitting past the moon. She would recoil at the hideous creatures that adorned the corners of the cathedral and mocked the gargouilles. She would wonder at a stonemaster who could carve such monsters. “Forget me. Bridet was your intended anyway.”
Étienne shook away her comment. “When you reach the duke’s—”
“He’s coming!” Giselle whispered, and looked down at her lap.
Étienne continued his walk around the cart until he was facing Frans, who was reaching into his purse. He flipped two coins to Étienne. “Was the beast a trouble? I saw her talking.”
“She muttered the sounds of an animal. Nothing I could understand.”
Giselle looked up at the voices and for the briefest moment wondered who these two were who imprisoned her in a cage. In the next instant Étienne’s name came to her lips, and it made her gasp. It was happening already—she was forgetting. She moaned, unable to bear for him to see her that way, only a shell of who she once was.
She spat at the ground. “This one, he torments me. Send him away!” She glared at Étienne, trying to convince him she wanted nothing to do with him. She saw the wounded squint of his eyes. She forced another sneer. “Leave!”
“You heard the beast,” Frans said. “Be on your way now. You’ve been paid. We have a long journey ahead, and I don’t want to listen to her howls the whole way.”
Étienne stared for a long while at Giselle, waiting for something, any hint of tenderness, but she only returned his gaze with a steady glare. He finally nodded and walked away.
Giselle followed him with her eyes as Frans readied the horse. She watched Étienne’s back as he walked down the road, his figure growing fainter with each step. Étienne, Giselle said over and over again in her head. Étienne. Étienne. “I won’t forget you,” she whispered. But by the time he reached the forest, she already had.
The journey took another two days. When they reached the duke’s château, Giselle was weak, her lips cracked with thirst and the wound on her leg festering with ooze. She curled in the corner of the cart, too listless to care anymore about the cruel man who imprisoned her, too frail to wonder why she could remember her name and nothing more.
Frans only got a pittance for the wings.
“Imbecile!” the duke shouted at him for believing such tales. “They’re probably nothing more than the plucked wings of water fowl! Only good for soup stock!”
Frans sputtered. “I cut them from her myself—”
The duke drew up close. “I’ll give you a fair price for the girl. If she lives, she may make a decent servant.”
Frans began to argue but then saw the servants of the duke’s estate closing in. Two field-workers gripped their hoes and stepped closer. Frans unlocked the padlock on the cart, and the duke’s servants lifted Giselle out and whisked her away. The duke counted out payment into Frans’s greasy palm. “Never pass this way again.”
Frans clutched his money in his fist and looked into the icy gray eyes of the duke. “She’s only a beast. You’ll find out.”
The duke’s shoulders lurched forward as if he might strike Frans, but then he carefully pulled them back. It was all that was needed, though, to send Frans scrambling onto his cart and whipping his mare into a frenzy down the road.
By the next day Pauline, the ho
usemaid who helped bathe Giselle and tended the wound on her leg, reported there was no sign on the girl’s back of where wings had been cut away. “Her back is completely healed,” she told the duke.
“Of course it is,” the duke said, rising from his chair. “There never were any wings. She was only the victim of a greedy peddler. Do you understand, Pauline? That will be the story if there is to be one.”
Pauline nodded and curtsied. “Of course, sir.”
Under Pauline’s care, Giselle recovered quickly. When she was well enough, the duke gave her duties in the vegetable garden since there was no life that Giselle could remember to go back to. She settled into life at the château, thankful for the kindness of the many servants who watched over her, and grateful to the duke, who gave her a warm, comfortable room off the kitchen. But every day as she worked, she searched for memories, something from her past life, a trigger that would bring it all back. I’ll find a way, but even that thought seemed to have no root within her, just words rattling in her head like they belonged to someone else. An overwhelming longing grew inside her, and she tried to will a familiar face into her mind’s eye. But there was none. The garden became her solace.
She found that she loved her work, the sweet peas and the soil, the squash and the sun, and wished for the days to last longer than they did. At the end of the day she would stare out at the horizon long after the sun was gone, searching for something that never materialized, searching for something that had no name even in her own mind, but she watched with a bewildering anticipation until the last ray of light had vanished. She dreaded the nights the most because of the dreams that accompanied them. When she closed her eyes she saw twinkling stars, felt the rush of crisp air across her cheeks, felt the exhilaration of speed as she glided over the world, the tickle of forest tops on her fingertips, a soaring freedom that filled every breath with indescribable joy, but with the joy of the dreams came the inconsolable loss she felt on waking. Too many times she woke to tears already on her cheeks. And sometimes mixed with the tears was a name on the edge of her lips, and she would suck in a breath, trying to take hold of it again, but it always evaded her no matter how hard she tried to get it back.