The Gargoyle in My Yard

by Philippa Dowding

  She decided to continue gently. “What else did you see that scared you?” she asked.

  Gargoth looked up at her, clearly struggling with a great fear welling up inside him.

  He finally spoke and said, “There were strange beings with long black hair and ugly, frightening faces marching down the street. One carried a broom stick and the other a dead black cat.”

  Katherine laughed. “Gargoth, they were dressed up! It’s Halloween! They were dressed like witches or something. Haven’t you ever seen people dressed up for Halloween before?”

  “No,” he said simply. He was suddenly indignant with her because she had laughed at him.

  “Where have you been? Halloween happens every October 31, and it’s a festival of the dead. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen it or heard of it before?”

  Gargoth looked extremely hurt. “No, I have not seen it or heard of it before. It sounds terrifying. Why do people dress up like creatures of the dead?”

  Katherine thought for a moment. He really seemed frightened by what he had seen.

  “I’m sorry, Gargoth,” she apologized. “I guess I’d be scared too. But you don’t need to be. It’s just for fun. People dress up in funny clothes like clowns, or scary clothes like monsters and witches and things. Then they go around the neighbourhood and collect candy from everyone, or they do something bad if you don’t give them candy. Got it?”

  At this point, Gargoth’s eyes were as huge as half-moons, his face a mask of pure disbelief.

  “Surely, Katherine,” he said in his most dignified voice, “you do not expect me to believe such a childish, made-up story? In my past, when humans appeared in masks, it was usually the beginning of a terrible night of death. Almost always, someone was...” Here Gargoth stopped, apparently struggling with his memory, deciding whether or not to tell Katherine what was in his mind. He had no desire to frighten her.

  He started again, more gently, “Katherine, do not forget that I have lived more than four hundred years. There was a time in my country when women who looked like those women I saw just now...”

  “You mean the witches?” Katherine asked.

  Gargoth nodded solemnly and took a deep breath to continue. “Yes, when women looked like that, they would be hunted and,” here he dropped his voice to a whisper so Katherine had to move her head very close to his, “burned at the stake!”

  Katherine stared at Gargoth. Her smile slowly died, as it occurred to her for the first time that Gargoth’s experience of the world was very old indeed. And some of the things he must have seen were really scary and awful.

  “Do you mean you saw witches burned at the stake?” she barely whispered.

  Gargoth nodded again, his dark eyes solemn and very sad. “I saw more death than I cared to, Katherine. And the poor souls often looked like your Halloween witches...”

  Despite his best efforts not to, Gargoth was remembering a terrible night in England, during the Burning Time. Black smoke and shouts of “Witch! Witch!” filled the air as he hid behind a church parapet, looking down into the burning field below him. No, thought Gargoth. I cannot tell Katherine what I have seen.

  Gargoth took a deep breath, cleared his mind and looked up at Katherine. He managed a weak half-smile. “It was truly terrible, Katherine. An awful, sad time when people turned against their neighbours and could accuse them and have them killed as witches with no reason, no proof. If a man said a woman was a witch, she was tried and very likely killed.”

  They sat silently for some time. Katherine thought Gargoth’s world must have been very ugly, dangerous and dark for much of his life. She also realized that he didn’t know very much about her world at all.

  She finally spoke. “There’s nothing to fear, Gargoth. We don’t burn people at the stake any more. I don’t think we ever did that in Canada. Here people are put in prison if they do something really bad. They can even get out of prison later on. I’m sorry you saw something awful and frightening like that. You’re safe here. Just stay in the backyard and you’ll be fine. I’ll tell Mom to come back to talk to you, okay?” She smiled what she hoped would be a reassuring smile and turned away.

  She went back into the house to get ready for her night out with Sarah and Benjamin. For a while she couldn’t help feeling sad that Gargoth had been so frightened and upset by what he had seen. But Halloween was Halloween, and in the excitement she eventually forgot about the gargoyle and his fear. But it might have been better for everyone if she had remembered to mention to her mother that Gargoth was worried about witches and didn’t really know what Halloween was all about.

  Around dinner time, Katherine’s mother walked her down to Sarah’s house and went over the rules with her.

  “I know, Mom! No going into a house, no splitting up from Sarah and Benjamin, no eating anything until I bring it back and you check it out. I’ll be careful! ’Bye!” And with that, she sprinted up to Sarah’s door, waved to her mother, and vanished inside Sarah’s house.

  Katherine’s mom walked slowly back down the street. As she glanced toward her own home, she thought she caught something out of the corner of her eye, vanishing around the side of her house.

  “Must be Milly,” she thought and forgot about it. But she probably shouldn’t have.

  Katherine and Sarah had decided to dress like rock stars, and Benjamin was going as a ghost. Around seven o’clock, Sarah’s mom couldn’t hold them back any longer and released the three kids to the street. They rushed down to the sidewalk, barely waving goodbye over their shoulders.

  Their neighbourhood, being downtown with lots of houses and people, was the place to be! Almost every house had a pumpkin, and the candy was the best you could get. Chocolate bars, twizzlers, fat lollipops, chip bags, gum. No creepy caramels or cheap rockets in this neighbourhood!

  The threesome set off down the street, jostling among the crowds of happy trick-or-treaters, grabbing their soon-to-be-bulging sacks at their sides.

  Everything was ready to go at Katherine’s house. Her mom and dad always set up lawn chairs on the front porch, turned on creepy music inside the house, and opened the front window so it would lure trick-or-treaters up their street.

  You should probably know that her parents also dressed up and sat perfectly still in the lawn chairs until kids came up the porch stairs. They usually waited until someone was reaching into the candy bowl on the table in front of them before they spoke, which of course usually got a scream or at the very least, a jump.

  In fact, most kids in the neighbourhood grew up knowing that the Newberrys were sitting together behind the candy bowl and that the scarecrows or witches, or whatever was sitting there, were really them ready to pounce. Indeed, for most kids, it just wouldn’t be Halloween without the Newberrys giving them a good scare.

  This year her parents had dressed as witches. They were pretty convincing, too. And they were also very good at sitting completely still, looking like statues.

  The first children were beginning to come up the street, and the littlest ones, the bunnies and bees and adorable three-year-old clowns, were always first. Katherine’s parents stood up to welcome the first of the youngest kids (not wanting to scare anyone so young). A young dad, mom and baby angel were just starting up their walkway with happy, expectant looks when the baby screamed. The parents looked horrified and rushed past their house, shooting angry backward glances at Katherine’s parents.

  “What did we do, Hank?” her mother asked her dad.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’re just too scary this year?” he answered. “Let’s tone it down a little.”

  So they decided that for the littlest kids, they would take off their scary witch masks. They sat without their ghoulish faces, smiling and waving at their neighbours, encouraging everyone to come and take some candy.

  But it made no difference. Even with them sitting there, plainly not witches or scary people, not one single child would come to their door. In fact, quite the opposite. People would begin walk
ing up their path then suddenly screech to a halt and bolt back on to the sidewalk, to disappear back up the street.

  Katherine’s parents were at a loss.

  “I don’t get it. What’s wrong Marie?” Hank Newberry finally asked his wife.

  “I don’t know. We turned off the scary music. We got rid of the scary costumes. We look normal enough, don’t we?” his wife answered.

  With that, Katherine’s dad walked off the porch and headed down to the street to look at his house from the sidewalk. “Maybe it’s the skeleton,” he was saying as he turned to look at his house from the street. But then he stopped dead in his tracks.

  It wasn’t the skeleton. It was Gargoth.

  He was perched on the roof of the porch like a small eagle, squatting right above the lawn chairs where Katherine’s parents were sitting, and out of their sight, but he was plain enough to those on the sidewalk. When he saw Katherine’s dad, he spread his wings and flapped them lightly like a large, black bird might to straighten its feathers.

  Hank’s jaw fell open. He looked quickly up and down the street. Luckily it was empty for the moment.

  “Gargoth! What are you doing up there? Get down!” he yelled.

  Marie rushed off the porch to stand on the sidewalk beside her husband. She covered her gasp with her hand. Then she said as calmly as she could, “Gargoth, you are supposed to stay in the backyard, remember? It’s really not okay for you to be frightening our neighbours like this. Please come down.”

  Sulkily, Gargoth looked at Marie and said, “No. I must protect your home from the creatures which besiege it. This is what gargoyles do.”

  “Please, Gargoth. You can’t stay up there,” her father continued. Just at that moment, some trick-or-treaters swung into sight around the corner of the street, happily laughing and swinging their candy bags. When they saw Katherine’s parents out on the sidewalk, they ran towards them.

  “Hey, Mr. Newberry!” said one of Katherine’s school friends. Katherine’s parents were frozen to the spot. They didn’t know what to say. Katherine’s mother shot a quick glance up at Gargoth, who was glowering down at the children standing around her.

  “Uh, we just ran out of candy kids, sorry,” said her father, thinking quickly. The children moaned and headed off down the street. While they were talking, Gargoth stood up as high as he could, and flapped his wings hard, in a threatening gesture, like an angry goose. Luckily, the children didn’t notice him.

  “Gargoth, please come down,” Marie started again. “We won’t hand out any more candy, or anything. We’ll all go into the backyard where we’ll be safe, okay?”

  Slowly, Gargoth nodded. “Yes, I will come down, if I do not need to protect your house any longer.” He waddled to the side of the porch and climbed carefully down the ivy to the ground, where he waited quietly. Katherine’s parents were quickly closing up the front of the house so it wouldn’t attract any more trick-or-treaters. They took down the skeleton and picked up the leg-in-a-bag, removed the pumpkin and candy, and untied as much of the spider web thread as they could. Then they all traipsed into the backyard, the garden gate clicking behind them.

  That was why her house was dark and empty-looking when Katherine arrived home with Sarah’s mother an hour later. Usually her house was the last one to run out of candy, and the last pumpkin to go out for another year.

  As she walked in the door, Katherine heard her mother saying, “He was protecting us, Hank. That’s what gargoyles do. They ward off evil and danger. He was doing what he thought he was supposed to do.”

  “We could do that with a dog, Marie,” her father answered sourly.

  Katherine let the door click shut behind her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What Gargoth Remembers

  After his Halloween mishap, Gargoth became even more quiet and sullen. He thought he had been protecting this family from the ghosts and goblins of Halloween night, when instead he was just making them angry with him.

  For several weeks he moped and did nothing but eat apples and lob the cores at the tree. It grew colder.

  He didn’t understand this place very well at all. It was confusing and strange. He didn’t want to make his kind hosts angry with him again, so he pledged to himself that he wouldn’t move from the backyard, no matter what he saw in the street.

  Even rooted to the backyard, he did help them when he could. One day he was able to do them a very kind service. A terrible dog had chased Milly off the street and into the yard. Instead of stopping at the gate, the dog jumped the gate in hot pursuit of Milly and chased her right to the back fence. Milly, who as you know is a very smart cat, skidded to a halt behind Gargoth and stood to face the dog, arching her back and spitting. The dog growled and was ready to attack when he got the surprise of his life.

  Gargoth, who had been still and watching, suddenly leaped to his feet and spread his wings wide, shrieking as loudly as he could in the dog’s very surprised face.

  That was the last they saw of that dog.

  After that, Milly and Gargoth were fast friends. If her family was looking for her, they knew she was probably sitting under his pedestal, or occasionally sitting in his lap, allowing herself to be stroked by his cool, leathery claw.

  There was also one night when Katherine could swear she heard men’s voices in the backyard yelling, “Let’s get out of here!” She smiled to herself and rolled over in her bed, secure knowing that Gargoth wouldn’t let anyone near their house, especially if they were trying to climb over the back fence into the yard. He was better than a dog that way.

  Gargoth tried his best to be good. He wanted to help the Newberry family, and in return, he hoped that Katherine would help him with the request he had made.

  He wanted, more than anything, a chance to find a certain store. A store he had seen from the inside of a box as the lid was pried off. He had been lying in the box, hiding, when the lid was opened.

  And she was taken away.

  He could hardly bear to think of that moment and pushed it from his mind whenever it came to him.

  Instead, Gargoth tried hard to remember what he could about the store. He knew it was quite small and dark and had a heavy scent of cinnamon candles. He also knew it was close to a busy road, and a great thundering machine went by frequently, which made the entire shop and all its contents quake as it passed. It was a large red machine with doors that opened and shut, letting people enter and leave as they pleased. He also knew that the person who owned the store was a tall woman with long curly red hair tied up in several scarves with beads. She wore long skirts and bangles, and she jangled and swished when she walked by the box he was hiding in.

  Gargoth waited for his opportunity to talk to Katherine again about helping him find the store, but it was a long while before it came. And it was Katherine who brought it up.

  During the weeks after Halloween, she had seen a change in her parents. A change in their entire lives. She had been thinking that she wanted to help her parents somehow. She saw how it upset them, not knowing how to help Gargoth on his way. She knew that they wanted to have a dinner party at Christmas time, but were afraid to invite people over in case Gargoth decided to defend their home again.

  They were losing touch with their friends. The McDonalds were asking questions. And Katherine hadn’t had any of her own friends over for a sleepover in ages.

  It wasn’t that they didn’t like the little gargoyle. In fact, just the opposite: they really liked him. Which made the situation worse.

  How do you get rid of a houseguest you don’t really mind?

  A very odd houseguest to be sure, but not an obnoxious one. Not a mean or unfriendly one, particularly, but rather an interesting one with lots of stories to tell. In fact, she and her mother were beginning to really appreciate some of the finer points of having a gargoyle around. He never strayed from the yard, never asked to be let into the house, but if you bundled up and spent time with him in the yard under the cover of darkness, you woul
d be richly rewarded with fabulous stories from the past.

  Katherine came to understand that a rich, personal knowledge of history could come in very handy. One week, when Gargoth had overheard that Katherine was studying the great composer Mozart in history class, he grew very excited.

  “Katherine! I didn’t know that people still know about Mozart! Here, sit, I can tell you all that you need to know about Wolfgang Amadeus—I was one of his greatest admirers!”

  Gargoth really was an expert. Katherine learned that he had first heard Mozart in Paris in the summer of 1778, when Mozart created a beautiful masterpiece called “Paris Symphony”. (It’s a long and interesting story, which you may read about some day, but you’ll have to be satisfied with just a taste here). Gargoth sat entranced one hot July night on a nearby balcony as the beautiful music filled the air. Over that summer, Gargoth often perched himself near wherever the great composer was playing and listened blissfully. He had never heard anything like it, such pain and beauty combined together to create haunting musical perfection. Gargoth had been a very knowledgeable music fanatic ever since.

  Gargoth and Katherine spent hours together in the backyard, discussing Mozart’s life and musical practice. Katherine learned more than she ever wanted or needed to know about Mozart.

  She got an “A” on that history project. Even Mrs. Glean was pleased!

  Katherine learned that Gargoth had lived at one time or another in several towns in 17th and 18th century Europe, both in England and France. He told Katherine about the restoration of the great Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, at that time the greatest church ever built. He had lived through the terrible French Revolution and once again, saw more terror and bloodshed than he cared to remember (which he mostly glossed over for Katherine’s sake). He told her about the great plague that swept the European continent in 1665; so many people died that entire villages and towns were simply abandoned. He talked for hours about life in southern France in the 1700s (they kept a lot of bees, apparently). Katherine got the impression that life during those times was nearly unbearable, since it seemed from Gargoth’s descriptions that people were really hungry and sick most of the time.