Stonebird

by Mike Revell

  My breath catches as I look up. They’re everywhere. On top of pillars and in the corners of the room, stone faces sneering with cold eyes glaring over the abandoned hall.

  Gargoyles.

  Something brushes my leg, and I stifle a scream—but it’s just Daisy. She wriggles out of my grip and rushes across the aisle. She barks again, and the noise echoes off the walls, ringing all around me.

  Then I see it. A small door on the other side of the building, half hidden by a wooden carving. She sniffs all around it, making low growling noises.

  “Daisy, be quiet,” I whisper, thinking someone will hear us, wondering what will happen if they do. I glance around quickly, but the place is deserted.

  Daisy only stops growling when I get close. I stroke her ears to calm her down.

  There’s no lock on the door. I’ve always wondered what kind of stuff gets hidden in churches. Would anything be left if the place is abandoned?

  I take a deep breath, then push on the old wood. The door opens easily.

  Inside it’s so dark I have to flick on my phone to cast a bit of light . . .

  I move farther into the room, holding the phone higher. A whimper. There’s a whimper somewhere, like a trapped mouse. My mouth hangs open, and that’s when I realize the noise came from me.

  Because it’s here.

  It’s here, right in front of me.

  Wide, glowing eyes.

  A long curved beak.

  Claws sharper than knives, sharp enough to cut through bone.

  It isn’t just head and shoulders, like the other gargoyles out there. It’s bigger than me. Bigger than Mom, even, with huge wings that brush the ceiling and powerful-looking lion’s legs.

  My stomach’s so tight I feel as if I’m going to throw up. I can hear my breath getting faster and faster, the blood rushing in my ears. The church was quiet before, but it’s so loud now.

  Because it’s the same.

  This gargoyle, this big stone bird, is the thing I saw the other night.

  It’s the thing on the front of Grandma’s diary.

  Daisy moves in front of me, growling again. Her hair stands on end, and suddenly she looks ten times bigger. Her nose wrinkles up, and her lips curl back, showing all her teeth. She’s barking and barking.

  But I can’t take my eyes off the gargoyle.

  Those eyes . . .

  They’re flickering, dancing in the darkness.

  It’s not real, I tell myself.

  It’s just stone. Just a statue.

  “Daisy, come,” I say, but it comes out too quiet. I glance around desperately for a way out, but the only door I can see is the one we just came through, and from here it looks miles away.

  “Daisy,” I say, louder this time, forcing the words out, “come!”

  I try to move, but my legs aren’t working. The gargoyle’s looking right at me, looking right through me, right into my heart.

  Come on, Liam! Run!

  Daisy turns and bolts, and it sparks me into life. I stumble back, out of the crypt, and then I turn and run, legs tingling, heart thumping, out of the door and into the safety of the morning light.

  “Where have you been?” Mom says, when I fall panting through the door. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  I glance back, but there’s nothing there. There’s nothing there.

  “Daisy got out . . . ,” I say, breathing heavily. “She—she escaped.”

  Daisy bounds in behind me and starts leaping up at Mom, trying to lick her face.

  Mom’s expression softens. “All right,” she says. “Down. Down, Daisy. But next time, you have to tell me, okay? I was getting worried.”

  “Okay.”

  She strokes my cheek and smiles. “Now, how about helping me move some things to the loft? I want to get everything done before I go to visit Grandma.”

  4

  “You don’t have to come,” Mom says.

  I look at Jess, but she doesn’t say anything.

  I can tell she doesn’t want to go. I don’t really want to go either, but it’s Grandma’s birthday, and if no one came to see me on my birthday, I wouldn’t like it very much. And, anyway, I think sometimes being the Man of the House means you’ve got to do things you don’t like doing. Mom gets upset every time she sees Grandma, and I don’t like seeing her upset, so maybe I can help.

  The retirement home is at the end of a road called Fair Blossom Drive, but the road isn’t exactly fair, and there’s definitely no blossom. We pull to a stop outside a bare gray building. It doesn’t look like a house, even though they use the word home. It’s a hospital in disguise. The air around it is thick with the smell of dust and dry flowers. There’s a keypad next to the front door, and a button that says CALL FOR HELP in bold printed letters. Mom walks up to it and jabs 2476, and the door clicks open.

  “Come on,” she says. “This way. She’s got a new room.”

  Jess and I glance at each other, then follow Mom inside.

  The last time I visited, Grandma had been shoved in a small room at the back of the building. But they’re so old, most of the people in here, and when they die I guess the ones left behind get shunted along into the bigger rooms.

  Mom leads the way. Light from the ceiling shines off the polished wooden floor and catches the pictures on the walls. They’re the kind of pictures you can stare at for an hour and still not see how they work. Trick-of-the-eye pictures. Jess doesn’t seem to notice them, though, just walks in front, blowing bubbles with her gum. Groans and mumbles drift on the air from corridors that lead off ours.

  Another moan, closer this time. It sounds like a zombie about to grab me and eat me and spit out my bones. I sneak a look into the room it’s coming from and see an old woman grinning at me. She has no teeth, and her gums are shiny-wet, like slugs clinging to her mouth, and even though I want to stare, I quickly glance away.

  Demon in Her.

  That’s what Jess calls it.

  She says there’s a demon living inside Grandma, eating her from the inside out. That’s why she forgets who we are, even though we’re family, and shouts and screams and cries when we’re talking. But looking at that zombie woman makes questions buzz in my mind, and although I try to ignore them, they keep popping up.

  Like, Does everyone in here have a demon inside them?

  Like, Does the same demon live in all of them?

  Like, Where do the demons live when they’re not inside people’s heads?

  Mom stops outside a green door. She turns to us and whispers, “She’ll be very different from the last time you saw her. The dementia is getting worse quickly. It’s hard for her to follow any kind of conversation, and her memory—well, you’ll see. Just try to remember who she used to be. She’s still in there.”

  She knocks in that friendly way you do when you go around to a friend’s house—bap-bap-bap, bap bap!—and walks in without waiting for an answer.

  The thing on the bed can’t be Grandma.

  It’s not a person. It’s just sticks and sheets and ghosts.

  “Hi,” says Mom, walking toward the bed. “It’s only us.”

  “Oh, hello, nurse,” says Grandma.

  It’s weird how some things stick and some things don’t. For ages Grandma used to offer us tea and ask if she could take our coats, even though she can’t move from her bed. Now it’s clicked that she’s not living at home anymore. The problem is she thinks everyone’s a nurse, even Mom sometimes—even me.

  I look down at my shoes, look at anything, but not at Grandma. The room has that old-lady smell, the kind you notice in Oxfam when you look for cheap presents to spend your pocket money on. There are two vases of flowers on the windowsill, one from us and one from the nurses. I can feel Jess beside me, and I glance at her, but she doesn’t notice, just stares and stares at Grandma.

  I take a deep breath, and my heart thuds louder and louder and louder. Mom was right. She’s so different from the last time I saw her. Her wrinkly skin sa
gs into the bed, and she’s small, so small. I reckon I could lift her up, probably, if I tried. Lift her up like a bag of twigs.

  “It’s us, Mommy,” Mom says again. She smiles. “It’s Sue and Jess and Liam.”

  Grandma’s eyes flick from Mom to Jess to me. Her eyebrows shoot up, and her eyes are wide and watery, and they’re locked on my face. She reminds me of Daisy when you startle her out of a nap.

  “We’re here for your birthday,” I say, and I try to smile too, making it as wide as I can and holding it until my cheeks ache.

  “Oh!” she says. Her eyes roam the room and settle on the bedside cabinet. There are four cards on it, big birthday cards with the kind of letters you could read from space without even using a telescope. “It’s my birthday . . . ,” she says.

  “I brought you this,” says Jess. She steps forward and hands Grandma a card she made. It’s got a pencil drawing of Grandma on it and a banner saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY in bright colors. I have to admit, it looks about a million times better than the other cards she has. “I drew it in art today.”

  Long white hands reach up from the bed and take the card from Jess. Grandma holds the paper right up close to her face and peers at it as if she’s trying to find Wally. She opens her mouth wide, making a big black hole, then she shoves the drawing in her mouth and chews, biting biting biting. Jess squeals and jumps back, not knowing what to do, and I laugh, even though I know it’s mean, even though it’s wrong. I laugh, and I can’t help it.

  “No!” says Mom. “You can’t eat that! It’s for your birthday.” She snatches the card away from Grandma and holds it up for her to see. The edges are soggy and gnawed. Part of the writing’s smudged and wet, so all you can read is HAPPY.

  “Oh, how lovely!” says Grandma. She reaches out a bony hand to try to grab the card again. Her mouth opens and closes, opens and closes.

  “No, you don’t want to eat that,” Mom says, more gently this time.

  And all of a sudden I see a fish, a big goldfish with Grandma’s face, flapping around out of water, and have to chew on my T-shirt to stop from laughing. Jess shoots me a look that says STOP MESSING AROUND, and it’s in capitals because she looks serious, but I know she’s just upset about her drawing.

  “Liam’s got some chocolates for you, Mommy. Do you want a chocolate?” Mom says, changing the subject.

  Grandma’s face lights up. “I’ll have two!” she says. “What good’s a birthday if you can’t have two chocolates?”

  I look down at the box in my hands. Mom said a Belgian Milk Selection would be good because none of the chocolates will have wrappers. We brought chocolates last Christmas, but they were individually wrapped, and Grandma ate everything, even the plastic.

  I loosen the tape on the wrapping paper so Grandma can easily rip it open. Then I pass the box to her, and she holds it right up to her face.

  “Here,” says Mom. “Let me help you. It’s upside down.”

  Mom opens the box. As soon as she takes off the lid, the smell of chocolate fills the room and covers up the smell of old dusty clothes and books.

  “White chocolate,” says Grandma. “My favorite!” She takes one and pops it in her mouth, and for a moment she’s having the time of her life. She chews for about a hundred minutes, then picks another one. She beams at us, and the sun shines from the wrinkles on her bone-white face.

  Mom pulls up a chair beside the bed. “How’re you doing?” she asks.

  Grandma looks at her, and just like that the sun’s gone. Her lip wobbles and her eyes rim with tears. She seems so far away, as if she’s gazing up at us out of a big cave that we can’t go into.

  “Get me out of here,” she says. “I don’t like it,” she whimpers, over and over and over. “I don’t like it here.”

  Mom grips her hand hard. Grandma’s so small, and her eyes are so big, and they lock onto Mom as she leans in closer. My eyes find Jess, and we both look away and stare straight at the floor.

  How can she change so much from one minute to the next?

  “It’s okay,” Mom says.

  Tears trickle down onto Grandma’s nightgown, mingling with the toast crumbs and jam stains. I rub my hands on my jeans to dry the sweat and move over to the window. The garden’s full of color, red and blue flowers and the yellow do-you-like-butter? buttercups in the grass.

  “It’s a nice day,” I say, trying to change the subject. I smile again even though my cheeks ache.

  “It is,” Mom says, picking up on my thought. “And look at that garden. I wish ours was half that pretty.”

  Grandma blinks. For a second I think she’s going to smile too, mention the flowers, maybe, or the sun. But she doesn’t smile. Her wrinkly face twists and pulls, and she jabs her finger like a dagger in the direction of my heart.

  “GET OUT!” she screams, high and cold and so wrong coming from someone so frail. “GET OUT! I’ll kill you! I’ve killed before!”

  “No!” says Mom, moving toward her, but Grandma’s words ring in the heavy silence, and her clawing finger does not waver.

  I’ll kill you!

  I’ve killed before!

  I jump back, trying to find any sign of Grandma in her eyes. My mouth hangs open, and I’m staring at her furious face. I try to look away, but I can’t. A hundred thoughts crash in my mind, but all I can hear is her shouting GET OUT! and every thought shatters into a hundred more.

  Mom squeezes Grandma’s hand. “It’s us,” she says, and even though she’s whispering, it’s loud—she’s trying to hammer it home. “It’s Sue!”

  “Oh, Sue,” Grandma whimpers, blinking, finally turning away from me. I edge away from the bed, behind Jess, trying to make it look as though I’m not hiding. I wonder why Jess is shaking, but then I realize it’s me who’s shaking. “My dear Sue . . .”

  A nurse pokes her head into the room and smiles around at us. “Is everything okay?”

  No. Nothing’s okay. There’s a demon inside my grandma and nothing’s okay.

  I saw it. I saw it in her eyes, the demon, burning inside her, turning her into that thing on the bed that’s nothing like the Grandma on Jess’s card.

  “Yes,” says Mom. “We’re fine, thank you.”

  But later, when she turns and takes my hand to leave, I can see tears in her eyes. She swipes at them with her sleeve, smudging her makeup. She sniffs and doesn’t say another word as we march out of the retirement home, not even when an old man on a walker walks up to us and says, “Have you seen the elephant?”

  5

  With a loud grumble, the engine comes alive.

  Mom’s eyes in the mirror do not smile. They’re don’t-talk-to-me eyes. Jess looks out of the window all the way home and doesn’t speak. Once I lost her hamster for four days, and no one talked to me until I caught it by making a peanut-butter trap for it to fall into. This feels the same as that. Which is annoying because I can’t stop thinking about Grandma, and I’ve got fifty billion questions that need answering.

  Has she really killed before?

  Or was it the demon talking through her?

  Here’s everything I can remember about Grandma:

  • She had a sheepdog when she was younger.

  • When Jess and I used to stay around, she always made us wash our hands before dinner.

  • She used to cut flowers from her garden to make displays.

  That’s everything, and it’s not very much at all. There must be more, but I can’t remember. It feels as though everything we ever did with Grandma was on a vacation a long time ago, and it’s getting blurrier and blurrier and blurrier around the edges until all that’s left is a big smudge. And the sheepdog isn’t even a memory, not really, just a story Mom once told me when we were going through old photos.

  I don’t think Grandma is a murderer. She couldn’t have killed Granddad, because she was in the retirement home when he died. And she wouldn’t have killed a sheepdog, because no one would kill a sheepdog, not even a demon.

  “Liam!”<
br />
  Jess is staring at me through the car window. We’re home.

  “Get out of the car!” she snaps.

  “All right, all right. Where’s Mom?”

  “Inside. She said it’s wine o’clock.”

  The time on the car clock says 5:53. Sometimes different times have nicknames, like bedtime and lunchtime and home time. But I haven’t heard of wine o’clock before. I count on my fingers from twelve until I get to seventeen. “It’s ten to six,” I say.

  Jess never cries, but I swear her eyes are watering.

  Then she blinks and says, “I know. Are you coming or not?” She storms off, shouting over her shoulder, “Mom says you’ve got to get ready for school tomorrow!”

  School. It’s getting so close.

  “I’m just going to get a bit of fresh air,” I say.

  I climb out of the car and walk around to the garden. It’s so overgrown that it’s more like a jungle. The low sun pokes through the trees, making stickman shadows on the grass.

  You know when you go to have some cereal in the morning and you see your favorite one in there, Frosties or Coco Pops or something, and you can’t wait to eat it, but then you find there’s nothing there because your sister has eaten it all and left the empty box in the cupboard?

  That’s me right now. Not sad, exactly. Just empty.

  The sky’s growing purple, with red-and-orange smears on the horizon. Through the bushes at the edge of the garden, the streetlights flicker on. I can’t go into the house. Not yet. It’ll make school feel even closer.

  So I stand there listening to the rustling wind, listening to the echo of Grandma in my mind. And that’s when I realize—

  If she did kill someone, maybe there’s a chance she wrote about it.

  What if there’s something in the diary?

  Music’s already blaring from Jess’s room when I get to the front door. I creep through the hall and dash upstairs to my room. The diary’s there under my bed. I grab it, then run back downstairs and out of the door.

  Before I know it, my feet are carrying me through the gate.

  Onto the quiet road.