The Gargoyle in My Yard

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by Philippa Dowding


  She felt a painful jab in her back (in a rather central spot near her spine, so as not to cause any confusion), which reminded her why she was there.

  “Oh, uh,” she stammered. Another jab helped clear her mind and find her voice.

  Slightly annoyed now, Katherine began the line she had said so often she could recite it in her sleep.

  “Um, yes, please,” she said. “I’m looking for a gargoyle. My mother is a collector, and she is looking for a very specific one. Do you have any?”

  Cassandra looked thoughtful for a moment. “Actually, we did have a gargoyle until recently.” Cassandra trailed off, looking more closely at Katherine. “Could you describe it? How big, facial expression, anything?”

  “Well, he’s about this big,” Katherine showed Cassandra Gargoth’s approximate size with her hands. “He’s got small, leathery wings and a pouch on one side. He looks kind of gloomy. Oh, and he’s sitting down.”

  “Hmm. I don’t think I have anything like that, but I’ll just go into the back and see. I’ll be right back,” the woman said and swooshed away, her long skirts making a soft sound like a summer breeze.

  Katherine jumped. Gargoth had given her a particularly hard jab. She gasped and whispered, “What are you doing that for? Stop it!”

  Before she knew it, Gargoth had clambered out of the bag and hopped onto the counter, clearly forgetting that her right side was for jabbing if the store felt “right”.

  “This is it! This is it, Katherine!” he shouted. “This is the place. It is the right woman, I know it. It smells right. It is close enough to the streetcar. I…” Gargoth froze. Cassandra had swooshed back into sight.

  He was standing, frozen, with his claws gesticulating wildly and his mouth wide open. He looked crazed. And very much alive.

  Katherine held her breath. For what seemed like hours, Cassandra stood and stared at Gargoth, who was doing his best to look like a statue.

  Katherine broke the silence uncomfortably. “Here is a version of what my mother is looking for, except like I said, the one she is looking for is sitting down.”

  Cassandra nodded slowly at Katherine, then moved closer to Gargoth. Slowly she reached out and stroked his wing, then his head, then his back. She too seemed to be holding her breath.

  “He is beautiful,” she said quietly. She spoke like someone talking about a very rare and expensive painting, or an antique. Katherine’s parents loved to watch antique shows on television, and she had overheard this reverential tone used by antique dealers speaking in the presence of an unusual and extremely rare find.

  Cassandra stood before Gargoth for a moment, then turned away. It seemed to Katherine that she had to rip her eyes from him, and although she wasn’t absolutely sure, Katherine thought she may have had tears in them. Cassandra strode toward the back room. “I’ll be right back.”

  While she was gone, neither Gargoth nor Katherine wasted any time getting Gargoth back into the backpack, and safely hidden.

  Cassandra returned, holding a picture. She didn’t seem surprised that the little gargoyle was back in the backpack. She thrust the picture at Katherine. “I did have a gargoyle amazingly like him,” she said.

  Katherine looked closely at the picture. Cassandra looked closely at Katherine. Here was an exact replica of the Christmas-day statue Gargoth had made; the female gargoyle flying over a block of ice, the one he had called “Ambergine”. She looked sweeter and softer, somehow, than Gargoth, but also very similar. She even had a pouch at her side, just like him. In the picture she was sitting with her claws tucked under her chin, looking funny and morose at the same time.

  “Where is she now?” asked Katherine softly, raising her eyes to Cassandra’s.

  Cassandra moved closer and bent down before her, so her large face was level with Katherine’s.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, “but she disappeared a few days ago.” She paused, then spoke so quietly that Katherine had to draw even closer to hear her. “I think she flew away.”

  Chapter Twenty

  If Only...

  Katherine stared at Cassandra for a long time. “Flew away?” she finally managed to ask.

  “Yes,” said Cassandra. “I put her outside on the first fine day of spring last week. She sat in the sun all afternoon long, but she was gone when I went to collect her.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t stolen?” asked Katherine. Cassandra smiled deeply.

  “Because I know she could fly. I caught her flying one night, when she thought I wasn’t here. I was in the back, counting the dragons, when I heard a crash out front. I quietly put my head through the curtains, and there she was, flying from the counter top to the book shelf and back. She really wasn’t very good at it, though,” she added thoughtfully. “She kept crashing into things.”

  Katherine didn’t know what to say.

  Cassandra went on. “Even before I knew she could fly, I knew that she was different from the other gargoyles I’ve had here. I mean, she looked real, for one thing. And she was light, and her eyes were alive. There was another one like her in the box, but he was sent to The Golden Nautilus. As soon as I saw your gargoyle, I knew it was him. He’s quite loud, isn’t he? I saw him through the curtains jumping around on the countertop. Believe me, I would have kept them if only...”

  “If you’d known they were alive?” Katherine finished.

  “Yes. I would have kept them happy and together. I never would have separated them. I’m sorry.” Cassandra looked sadly at Katherine. “I think your gargoyle is lovely. Let him know I’ll keep my eyes open for her. Keep in touch with me, I’ll let you know if I see her.” Cassandra handed Katherine a Candles By Daye business card with her number and her name, Cassandra Daye, printed on it.

  Katherine thanked Cassandra and walked sadly out of the store. Cassandra watched her go.

  The day was dark and drizzly. A streetcar came by and splashed Katherine, but she hardly noticed.

  As she walked slowly along Queen Street, not caring if she was late for piano, she could barely bring herself to talk to Gargoth. The backpack was very still.

  Finally, as she wandered onto the Broadview bus to take her up to Danforth and the Castle Frank station, she said, “Gargoth, I’m really, really sorry. If she flew away, maybe we can still find her?”

  Gargoth said nothing. What was there to say? He sniffled and stayed quiet, digging his way further down into the backpack. Katherine didn’t try to speak to him again.

  Her piano lesson was a disaster. Luckily, it was the final lesson for the term.

  Unlike other Wednesday nights, Katherine kept her backpack on her knee on the drive home and hugged it gently all the way.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Night Flight

  Finally, spring arrived in the city. Slush disappeared, and lost mittens were found. Children were liberated from suffocating scarves and down coats and were released to the freedom of spring jackets and caps.

  Gargoth hadn’t been himself since their visit to Candles by Daye. He was grumpy, sad and humourless, so that even Milly kept her distance from him.

  But there were still miracles to be had. As the sun returned the Newberry backyard to life, an amazing transformation had taken place over the winter. And it seemed that Gargoth had a large part to play in the new landscape of the yard.

  For there, in the old aster patch, which no one could bring themselves to talk about or look at, there were sprouting the very beginnings of a new patch of flowers. And if her parents knew anything about asters, these were going to be spectacular!

  But there was more. In the very centre of the yard, nestled between the unicorn fountain and the dwarf patch, was an astonishingly beautiful tree. It was an apple tree, grown from the seeds of the rare Italian Cellini apples Katherine’s mother had given to Gargoth as a Christmas gift.

  The young tree looked glorious, with golden boughs and sweet-smelling bark. Katherine and her parents couldn’t believe it. It was a real miracle that
this tree, coddled and coached to good health in the warmth of the Italian sunshine, could be made to grow in the cold, dark Canadian winter in downtown Toronto.

  “How, Gargoth? How did you do it?” her mother asked the morning the tree was discovered pushing up through the turf at an amazing, even magical, pace.

  Gargoth smiled a wise, gentle smile. “It will grow quickly, Mother Newberry. And hopefully you will no longer need to feed me so many buckets of apples. I will have my own supply.”

  “And the asters, Gargoth. How?” Katherine’s mother allowed the words to die on her lips.

  Gargoth just looked down and said quietly, “I hope you will forgive me, Mother Newberry. I hope the new patch will grow and bring you awards once again.”

  Katherine’s mother bent forward and kissed Gargoth on his leathery head. He looked surprised, then smiled.

  “They are not much, perhaps, but they are my gifts to you in the coming of the new season.”

  Spring was truly beautiful that year. Gargoth, though a sadder and perhaps gentler gargoyle, remained with them in their backyard. His life with them took on a regular, day-to-day rhythm. The Newberrys even managed a summer barbecue to celebrate Katherine’s thirteenth birthday, and Gargoth stayed quietly out of sight in the bushes by the back fence. No one even suspected he was there.

  In time, the glorious Italian apple tree did win awards for the Newberrys, as did the amazing new patch of New England Asters. Their neighbours, the McDonalds, were once again regular dinner guests.

  Life returned to normal, or as normal as it was going to be with a gargoyle living in their yard, even a good-as-gold gargoyle like Gargoth.

  But that is not the end of the story.

  One fine summer night after the family had enjoyed a barbecue with friends in the Newberry’s backyard, Gargoth sat on his pedestal and smoked his pipe with Milly curled up on his lap. Gargoth looked up to the heavens then down at the cat.

  The stars shone brightly. The moon was just beginning to rise behind the CN Tower, bathing the city in a cool, silver glow.

  “Well, Milly my friend,” Gargoth said to the cat as he scratched her gently between the ears, “I guess that’s the end to another fine day.” He thought about the party the Newberrys had had that night, and the happy sound of friends and neighbours chatting nearby as he hid quietly in the bushes by the fence. As he thought of these things, he nodded off to sleep, snuffling and dropping his head slowly onto his chest.

  As Milly looked up into his face purring, something in the night sky caught her attention, right at the edge of her sharp vision.

  She stiffened and sat up. She wagged her tail and growled softly, staring all the while straight up into the sky above the city. She jumped down from Gargoth’s lap and up onto the fence.

  Milly stared and stared, like a statue-cat transfixed on the top of the fence.

  There, up in the heavens, silvery in the moonlight caught against the clouds, was the tiny outline of a gargoyle, flying over the city, circling, circling, and looking carefully for the one she had lost.

  She knows Gargoth is there, waiting for her, somewhere in the vast city below. It will take much time and effort, and another story you may read one day, but she won’t give up: she knows she will find him. And you and I know he will be there for her, waiting among friends.

  Epiloque

  It is many years from now.

  One summer day, a young boy is walking in an old English churchyard. It is a very pretty place, surrounded by rolling green hills and chestnut trees. A small, sweet river runs beside the church courtyard. An ancient stone lion looks to the west, his stone mane blazing in the sun. His left ear is broken off and lies in the grass at his feet.

  The boy and his family are visiting the ruins of an old church, long abandoned now. The boy is wandering quietly by himself in the apple orchard, looking back up at the church and thinking about what it would have been like to live there, so long ago.

  Suddenly, a small scurrying catches his eye. He looks more closely, steadying himself against a tree, and for a moment he is sure he sees two little figures disappear behind the church parapet. He sees the outline of a wing, a leathery head, and maybe a claw.

  Stranger still, just as he is sure he imagined it, an apple core lands in the grass near him, followed by a trill of laughter.

  It is an unusual but happy sound, like a language he is just beginning to forget. Or like the wind rustling in the winter leaves.

  He turns to go and finds himself smiling in the warm sunshine.

  A Note on Gargoyles

  Gargoyles are everywhere. You’ll find them looking down on you in big cities and small towns. They may be funny animals, unusual people, or frightening, mystical creatures.

  First created in Europe in the middle ages, true gargoyles were water downspouts on medieval buildings. The word “gargoyle” comes from the French “gargouille” which means “to gargle”—it’s the sound you’ll hear when water spouts through a gargoyle’s mouth. Look up—you never know where you’ll find a gargoyle!

  Philippa Dowding wrote her first novel when she was nine and has worked at the craft of writing ever since. As a copywriter, her work has won several industry awards for magazines as varied as Maclean’s, Chatelaine, Today’s Parent and The Beaver.

  The Gargoyle In My Yard was inspired by an experience in a strange little antique store. She looked up an ancient stairway and saw a small gargoyle statue on each step. When she turned away and looked back, each statue seemed to have moved. What began as a bedtime story for her children turned into this book.

  Philippa lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. She can be contacted at pdowding.com.

  Text © 2009 Philippa Dowding

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Cover art and design by Emma Dolan

  Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

  Cataloguing Information Available from Library and Archives Canada

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  www.dundurn.com

 

 

 


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