by Amity Green
I laughed. “Two lumps, if you please.” I surprised myself by sounding equally stuffy.
“Very good.” He dropped two cubes of sugar in my mug. I added a healthy dollop of milk from a small pitcher, stirred, and sipped my tea with relish.
“This is great.”
“It’s mere garden variety Earl Grey.” He winked.
I decided it was probably a good thing Kai had left before Peter returned. They really didn’t need to know about each other. Maybe things hadn’t worked out so badly after all. I grinned.
* * *
A chance encounter with an Iranian postcard dealer made my next morning outing the most liberating of the fog-laden days I went out running. He balanced a large box between a hip and the brick exterior, and was reaching around the enormous carton trying to open the shop door. Being the polite young lady the nuns raised me to be, I stopped and pulled the door open for him, at which point a handful of scenic postcards drifted from the top of the box, landing with a smattering of light smacks onto the threshold of his front entryway. I’d passed many of those short, squatty red post boxes, and the front glass of the man’s store was strung with signs advertising postcards and other wares for tourists. One black and white placard close to the door held a lone, magical word: Postage.
Those stray postcards were given to me for free. That day’s Starbucks money was easily reallocated to the communication section of my mental budget. I bought stamps from his shop right then and ferreted the stationery away to my underwear drawer for after work, which went by a little slower since I was so excited to get some correspondence on the way, by my terms this time.
Realizing my delusion didn’t take long. True enough, I could fill out the cards and mail them all by myself, but the things I wrote skirted issues and glorified white lies. I wrote to Professor Douglas but I left out anything that would worry him, so there really wasn’t much to say. The card I’d chosen was a twilit view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the Thames side of the river. He would love that. I missed him terribly and thought of how I’d taken his council for granted. I would have given a lot to spend some time with him.
Writing to Brea reduced me to tears. I had to be untruthful to her. If she knew what had happened to me, big-sister-mode would kick in and she’d come looking for me. I couldn’t bear thinking of her going through what I had, if she got stuck in the bookstore and Ezra zapped her with his mojo. I made the note as cheery as possible, telling her I’d write more later. Not to worry.
Before work the next morning, I slowed briefly, dropped the cards in a postbox, and kept running.
July 31—What kind of a life do I live when I am virtually kidnapped, forced to live and work in a bookstore (which really is probably the best way I could be kidnapped), and I only miss two people from my pre gargoyle life? And one of those people is my English teacher?? Now that I’m settling in here, I think this requires some examination. Who else do I miss? My life was completely unsatisfying. There is a whole, shiny endless world outside of Austin, Texas. I’m here in London now, and although I’m trapped at the bookstore, a huge part of me has been freed. I’m so conflicted. I’m a free prisoner. Being kidnapped liberated me. Ugh.
I remembered old Mr. Thomlinson and the photos of the boy who’d been my brother. I continued through a film of tears.
If Robbie had become “real” to me, what then? And if I had a family? Would we all be heartbroken at missing the sound of each other’s voices? The feel of warm hugs and kisses on the forehead at bedtime? Midnight phone calls when we can’t sleep and dozens of emails from college, or basic training, in the case of the brother I never got to know? And what about Brea? I miss her more than anything—
“You all right?”
I was so engrossed in my journal I hadn’t heard Peter approach. “No.” A sob escaped. I slapped the arm of the leather chair I sat in. I sounded like an overgrown five-year-old.
He pulled me to my feet. My journal and pen thumped lightly to the floor, but I didn’t care as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Thankful for the comfort, I was determined to enjoy it, no matter how briefly it lasted.
“You’ve been doing so well lately.” His words said one thing but the gesture was lost in the delivery. The tone wasn’t giving. I wanted him to concede, to allow me a breakdown without his usual rub-some-dirt-on-it mentality. I could just hear his thoughts saying Suck it up. Gargoyles don’t cry. Judging Peter based on his actions was a tough call. He’d become hardened, as if he was preparing me for something, urging me to strengthen the walls that were already in place around my heart. As things stood, the protective barrier was a little perforated, the occasional show of emotion allowed through. Peter wanted more brick and mortar.
Being made from stone wasn’t that easy for me. “I’m homesick for a home I never had,” I held my breath against his shoulder to quit crying. “I know that makes absolutely no sense.”
“You have no idea how much sense that does make.” He rested his chin on the top of my head. I thought I heard a little un-Peter-like sigh of sentimentality. It was short-lived. He felt himself slip up too because he broke the embrace.
I stepped back, wiping away evidence of emotion as if I’d been caught stealing.
Peter replaced the brief encounter with his human side, displaying practiced stoicism. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Yes.” I nodded up at him. “I’m going to be great.”
Chapter 13
The morning was cooler than normal as I ran down Charing Cross Road. I loved that road in particular because of all the flower boxes and gas lights. The tall buildings provided a shadowed safety zone. My morning route was extended to include my favorite parts of SoHo. I’d run through sleepy Covent Garden, slumbering St. Martin’s Lane to Trafalgar Square if it was cloudy. Trafalgar Square sprawled an expanse of flat, open concrete and fountains with nearly no cover, so I had to be especially careful on the days I was bold enough to run around the statues and the big ship-in-a-bottle.
I took breaks sitting on the bases of the multiple, artsy elephant statues that decorated the lanes. My heart soared on those mornings. I inhaled the liberty of open space like fresh, morning air. Gorged on freedom like manna from the universe itself.
I was running back toward Cecil Court, with the Dropkick Murpheys’ “Shipping up to Boston” driving my feet forward in a rhythmic cadence, when Kai stepped out of a cafe and into view just ahead. He vanished around the corner before I made it much closer.
“Kai!” I tugged my earbuds free. Maybe talking to him a little would get rid of the odd feeling between us. My little chunk of London needed to be free of awkwardness. I rounded the corner, intent on chatting with him for a bit before I had to open the store for the day.
Brilliant sunlight hit me like a perpetual strike of lightning when I turned onto Irving Street. Reflex and shock made my eyes slam closed. Weeks had passed since I’d been in direct sunshine. I stumbled. My skin tingled and my pulse raced. I spun in a lopsided one-eighty, hoping for one eye to open a slit to find my way into some cover. It didn’t work. I panicked, being temporarily blinded and scared that someone could see me as a monster in the sun.
Someone yanked my arm hard. I inhaled to scream, but a hand covered my mouth. My breath was coming so hard that getting enough air into my lungs through my nose was an impossibility. My body was thrown over a shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I dangled upside down well above the sidewalk, my ponytailed hair and the hood from my running jacket blocking out what little I might be able to see if my eyes would adjust to the light. Bile rose, fell rather, in my throat. Whoever had me began running, beating my guts in loping jolts with each long stride.
“Please put me down.” My voice was a mere notch above a whisper.
We stopped. I was deposited next to a wall on trembling legs. My head spun but cool air surrounded me, rather than searing sunshine. My rescuer stood so close my nose touched his thick chest, buried in the musky scent of a black hoodie. My eyes
were slits, but at least they fought to see. I peered up into Kai’s hooded face, grateful for being saved, a little angry because he didn’t answer when I called, and mortified at being helpless.
“What the hell, Kai?” I shoved at him, creating a buffer between us. He fell back a step into the glare. He’d seen me in the sun and that was far from a good thing. My heart continued to pound viciously. Vomit remained at the back of my throat, coating the root of my tongue with acidic bile.
He jerked his hood down. Tendons linked behind the thinned skin of his face, showing dark jawbone and sinew. Light shades of pale and sick grey twisted at his neck where a pulse beat inside his throat around his gold torc. A hand pushed a strand of white hair behind an ear made of blackened cartilage.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and retched.
“Thanks,” he said dryly. “You’re not looking so hot yourself.”
What little I’d eaten so far that day, mainly water, splattered the concrete. I’d never been an easy puker. Lots of elements combined and attacked me and seeing Kai was a morbid cherry on top. The kicker had to be the sun. If it could make my skin see-through, it could probably make me vomit. Kai sure didn’t seem to have a problem standing in it, however.
“Get back.” I leaned back on the wall, wiping my mouth with the sleeve of my hoodie.
“I rescued you from the light.” His eyes narrowed on me. “Why did you follow me?”
Good point, I guess. “I just wanted to say hi,” I said around a thick tongue. “Maybe chat for a sec before I have to go to work. And that’s not a good reason to snatch me up and take off running like that!” I glowered at him. “I feel like crap.”
“That’s more likely from the sun, than from me carrying you. And you’re welcome. You looked like you were going to fall to the ground. Would have been great to vomit from that position.” He crossed his arms matter-of-factly.
Somehow I didn’t feel like thanking him for the rescue. “You’re a gargoyle!”
“Shhhhh!”
His hand was over my mouth again. I pried at his fingers and blew clear snot over his hand. It served him right.
“Yes. Thanks to that old idiot at your store and his tendency to play with magic he doesn’t fully understand,” he whispered. He dropped his hand.
“Ezra changed you, too?” I panted, stomach reloaded and at the ready with a fresh batch of vomit. I doubled over, bottom firmly against the brick and hands on my knees.
“Ezra is a fool. He knows he can’t control it.” He stepped away from me and looked in the direction of Cecil Court. “Some things are locked away for a damn good reason.”
“I have to get to the store.” I peeled myself from the wall, woozy and staggering a little, trying to stay in the thin rail of shade that remained beside the building.
“Why?” He asked.
“Why what?” I hoped I sounded as irritated as I felt. My face flushed and my chest started to burn inside. Finding and talking with Kai had not accomplished what I’d been after. Instead my temper was barely held in check and I was more uncomfortable with him than before. A healthy dislike had developed in me and he did nothing to stop it, but so much to foster it along.
“Ever ask yourself if you truly have to stay in that store? You’ve been fairly adventurous lately. Looks like you didn’t ‘have to get back’ to the States at all.”
Insinuating I’d lied to him pushed the button. “I’m fine, thank you. I have a job there.” Between him and me, since he’d made me feel helpless, the job was a big deal. Employment was a form of independence.
He laughed when I said that.
I felt myself growing more ticked off by the second. I pulled my hood up and traced a path in the narrow line of shade toward Cecil Court. Our conversation was over. I’d chalk it up to a learning experience.
He pulled me around to face him again. He’d replaced his hood. “Don’t you question the things you feel inside? That heat inside you,” he shook his head slowly, eyeing me. “I’ll take care of you, Tessa. Out here,” he gestured wide to the freedom of downtown London. “You could go where you please when you feel like it. Within reason, of course. We are bound to our forms. But that would be all. You’d be free with me.”
I jerked my arm loose. “Stop acting like you know me. And don’t you ever touch me again.” The offer for freedom was squashed by the way Kai insisted on manhandling me. I locked eyes with him to punctuate my statement. “Leave me alone. I mean it.” There was no need to wait for his response. I made it back to the bookstore by sprinting down Charing Cross Road in the shadows, in the sunlight, I didn’t care. By the time I made it through a shower and downstairs to open up the store at nine, I knocked the bard’s bells off their hook above the door when I jerked it open.
It was going to be a long, long day.
Chapter 14
Peter crossed his arms, leaning back against a metal folding table in the laundry room. His leathery wings stuck out to the sides centering his stony form inside a dark arch against a yellowed wall. The table creaked, straining back with his weight. The scent of herby, lavender detergent hung on the air, which was a little muggy from the driers. The machines hummed, doing their duty without argument as we hung out, waiting for our work clothes to finish.
He’d shown me the way down to the maintenance area after the day I failed at finding the facilities on my own. We chatted comfortably, keeping it light, and attempting to entertain one another by seeing who could line up more M&Ms on our forked tongues without dropping them, choking on them or eating them. He was winning. I gobbled mine up. He seemed to be in a good mood, so I figured I’d try picking his brain for some information.
“Can I ask you a question? It’s going to sound odd so try not to look at me like I’ve lost my mind.”
“Of course you can ask a question. But I’m not going to make any promises about the looks you receive,” he said, and began placing candy on his tongue to continue the game.
Here goes. “Do you know if there are any other gargoyles running around London?”
He crunched through the candy he’d begun to line up. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I’ve seen one. In addition to the girl who took off from the store the night she changed.”
He gazed at me silently for a long moment. I squirmed.
“I wondered if you might run into one.” He pulled away from the table, tail twitching briefly, but coming to a quick stop.
It was my turn to be silent. I looked at him for a moment, mentally shrugging. He knew I’d left the store. It was what it was. I had to have some room in my life.
“How many are there?” I asked.
“It’s hard to be certain,” he said. “Did you get a name?”
“Kai.”
His eyes widened. “You met a gargoyle named Kai?” His voice was elevated enough to shake me up.
“Yeah.” I nearly groaned out loud. Peter knew Kai. Perfect.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Kai earlier?”
Because I didn’t want him to know I’d dated someone in London. It was so clear and easy in my mind, but complicated to talk to him about. And since that someone wasn’t just any-old-body, it was uber-complicated. “I met him weeks ago. He sort of freaked out a little when it was time for me to go back to Austin after the program was over. We parted on awkward terms and I didn’t want to feel bad each time I saw him.”
Peter raised his brows.
I chewed my lip. “I just found out he’d been turned into a gargoyle. I wish Ezra would never have made him. He gives me the creeps.”
“Ezra didn’t make Kai into anything. Did Kai tell you that?”
“No, but he didn’t exactly deny it. He’s a gargoyle. I saw him in the sunlight yesterday.”
“You were in the sun? With Kai? What the bloody hell were you thinking, Tessa?” He tossed the bag of M&Ms on the table, scattering wayward, colored chocolates with a loud clatter.
“Well it wasn’t my idea. I went out for a
run and saw him so I thought I’d say hi and talk to him to try to get over this weird feeling I get when I see him. I followed him into the sun by accident.” I decided to omit the part where Kai had thrown me over his shoulder and ran into the alleyway.
“You’ll likely never get past feeling odd around him, friendship aside.”
I ignored his jab about my admitted “friendship” with Kai. Technically it wasn’t his beeswax. “Well I feel worse about him now than I ever did before. I never want to see him again.”
“That’s good because Kai is not a good … man, Tessa.” He paused, shaking his head. “And this thing with him being a gargoyle ….”
“I saw it.”
“I’m not arguing that.”
“Good idea.”
“Don’t push it.”
I rolled my eyes.
“He is a monster, ancient as the world is old. He’s angry at Ezra, because Ezra was given the Book of the Ancients. It happened in Scotland centuries ago, but I don’t have each detail. That’s how Ezra was able to make me. Then you.”
That was a lot to wrap my head around. “Aren’t you angry with Ezra?” I’d be thrilled never to see him again. And it had been a while. Maybe he’d moved to Guam.
“When he made you, he was probably just trying to make up for something that happened years ago.” Once again, Peter had neatly avoided talking about how he felt, putting the spotlight on me. He was good at that.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you heard some of our conversation that night in his study. Ezra has regarded me as a “son” of sorts. He’s carried guilt because I’ve been here alone for so long. We’d talked about him finding another to work with me here. Maybe someone who was on a bad road in life, like I’d been. I was thinking about a friend. Ezra apparently looked a little deeper, and made you.”