by Paul Durham
Don’t ask me why. I’m a Grotesque, not a scientist.
The woman in front of me shivers as if something just crawled up her neck. She glances over her shoulder but sees nothing.
No, it wasn’t me. Remember, as a wisp I can’t touch or be touched by the living.
That’s not to say I flit and flutter about, or magically appear like fingers of steam from a sewer grate. In wisp form I walk, or, if I was willing to demean myself like Wallace, scurry and scamper. Except when I’m running late—like now. Then I take the subway.
If you were to see me as a wisp, you might mistake me for a sullen boy dressed all in black, hiding my slouched shoulders under a puffy thrift store ski vest I wear like armor. My dark eyes are always fixed on the ground, and aside from the thin white scar through one eyebrow, my face is unremarkable and mostly obscured by the hood of a charcoal sweatshirt. Maybe my skin is darker than yours, or lighter. Maybe you think I’m homeless, or up to no good. Whatever it is, if you glimpse me at all, it sets you on edge for reasons you don’t entirely understand. You avert your eyes, and then, when you look back, I’m gone.
But most, like the woman in front of me who still hasn’t discovered the small spider creeping across her scarf, don’t even notice me at all. It’s amazing how oblivious people are to what’s really going on around them.
Except for the little ones, that is. The little ones can spot me without too much trouble.
A small boy stares at me from his mother’s lap. He’s no more than five. Instead of a tiny electronic master, in his hand he clutches a hairy blue puppet with a bulbous nose. It bears a striking resemblance to an unlucky imp I once caught in the courtyard of my Domain. The puppet, not the boy, although the kid’s no cherub either.
I give the boy a slight, chipped-tooth smile from under my hood. Then I shift among the crowd of passengers and disappear.
I get off at my stop and hurry up a stairway that smells of sausage carts and restrooms. The intersection is busy with traffic and pedestrians battling umbrellas turned inside out by the storm. A street performer plucks his guitar under the archway of a small, forgotten chapel wedged between a college bookstore and a packed cafe. The upturned hat at his feet is damp and empty. I pause and look up at the Twins’ Domain.
The Twins and I share a Maker—the same master stone carver created all three of us long ago. Winnie and Wallace are a chimera—goat’s and lion’s heads sprouted from a rodentlike body with a serpent’s tail. Winnie’s bearded chin and toothy mouth are open in a permanent wail, while Wallace is the more watchful of the two. His clawed paw rests on his billowing mane, shielding his eyes as he studies the horizon. Their shared body is a twisted knot of granite scales, fur, and hooves.
Clearly, I got the good looks of the bunch.
Of course, the Twins aren’t home right now. Even if I didn’t already know they were waiting for me at the Copper Dragon, I’d be able to tell by their cold, vacant eyes. Winnie’s sure to give me an earful for lagging, but she’ll get over it soon enough. With so few companions, we don’t have the luxury of holding grudges.
I continue past the Twins’ Domain and take a shortcut across the isolated, wooded green space called the Fens. It’s quiet out here. Funny that in a city with more than half a million residents, one filled with brick and concrete and artificial lights as far as the eye can see, it’s the empty spaces that make people the most ill at ease. There’s little foot traffic here after dark, at least not the kind you can see. Fallen leaves shuffle and take flight in the community gardens before scattering in a mini cyclone. Reeds bend and sway along a muddy stream. Just the storm’s influence, perhaps. But the Fens are surrounded by hospitals, and even the finest physicians lose patients from time to time. It’s not unusual for the newly dead to become disoriented out here before finding their way to a more permanent destination.
As I walk along the old stone bridge, it looks like a different kind of lost soul is heading in my direction. He’s not garbed in a hospital gown. He wears shades of coal and smoke, skintight pants stretched over long legs as spindly as a vulture’s. His heavy construction boots are laceless and splattered with gray clay, their tongues flapping as they clop over the stones underfoot. His dark wool sweater drapes from shoulders narrower than a wire hanger, its ill-fitting sleeves so long they cover his hands and sway against his rail-like thighs to the rhythm of his rubbery gait. The only color I see is the crimson of his scarf in the moonlight, wrapped tight around his neck and dangling like a frayed noose. A shimmering paper crown is cocked on his head and set low over his eyes, the kind the giant hamburger franchise used to give away for free with children’s meals.
I pity this disheveled fellow, for clearly he is weak with illness. So weak, in fact, that it seems he’s already got one foot in the grave—I can barely tell if he’s dead or alive. But as I pass by unseen, I feel something else altogether. A deep gloom. Malaise. I smell the moth larvae eating the man’s sweater, but he himself emits no odor or warmth. I can’t help but pause for a second look, and when I glance back I’m shocked to see that he has stopped too.
That’s when his head pivots to face me as if there isn’t a bone in his neck, the shadows of his paper crown rendering his face featureless in the night air.
His body turns to follow his gaze, and if I didn’t know better, I might think he was making his way back toward me. What he lacks in girth he makes up for with freakish height, and he walks with the odd bobble of a willow sapling dug from the earth and learning to walk on its roots. He looms even larger the closer he gets, and I’m surprised when my wisp shoulders produce an involuntary shudder. I can hear a pulse. His body may be feeble, but whatever’s inside him oozes slow and thick with darkness. Is he really reaching out to touch me?
A sudden gale whips across the parkway and seems to take the man off guard, his stiltlike legs buckling from its blast. He stumbles as his ill-fitting clothes billow around him, and I watch in disbelief as he topples like an awkward scarecrow off the stone bridge and into the shallow stream below.
I hurry to the edge and peer over the side. His paper crown floats along the surface of the stream, but the clumsy wanderer himself is nowhere to be found. Lucky for him, the water here isn’t deep enough to drown a rat. Then again, my guess is that this drifter has already left the world of the living behind.
Touché, strange wobbly prince. It’s not often that the dead give me the chills.
If I wasn’t late already, I’d gladly find you and repay the favor.
There’s a short line outside the Copper Dragon, where a doorman checks the ages of students who’ve braved the weather to wait in front of a façade of dark wood and glass. Local legend says the Copper Dragon is the oldest tavern in the city, a place where revolutionaries once plotted and schemed against their British oppressors. The former common house may be long in the tooth by New World standards, but its pedigree is just a myth made up for the tourists. A senile old specter who lived in the tavern’s crawl space once told me so himself. I’m not in the habit of making small talk with the departed, but this isn’t my Domain—it wasn’t my job to chase him out.
I glance up at the oxidized green scales and claws of the dragon, who holds the swaying wooden placard over the door. Neither gargoyle nor Grotesque, he’s as simple as a weather vane and as silent as a signpost. He’s got no say in the matter either.
I can hear that the band inside is already well into its first set. The beat of an actual drum kit is accompanied not by electric guitars or the tones of synthesized keys, but by the haunting call of classical strings. Modern songs covered by real musicians playing instruments with origins as old as mine. The Twins call them music-worms. I think of them as my kind of people.
I bypass the line and slip into the side alley, climbing onto a dumpster, where I can just catch hold of the fire escape’s dangling ladder. I make my way along the rungs to a landing over the door the cook keeps open to air out the kitchen. The smell of grease from the grill is par
ticularly rancid as I approach the Twins’ usual meeting spot.
“I know, I know, I’m late—” I begin to say.
But no twitching rat or brooding, impatient girl awaits me. Neither Wallace nor Winnie is here.
Instead, I find two long black streaks burned into the brick wall, like the remnants of a scorching fire. There’s a lingering crackle of static in the air, but the rest of the wall and the building appear unscathed.
I reach out to examine the ominous markings but recoil at the touch. I know immediately that the scorched remains were once my friends. I sense their residue in the dark chalk of the ash, now just a simmering echo of memories.
A cymbal crashes inside the Copper Dragon and I feel an unfamiliar sensation. Alarm. My eyes dart around at the shadows. Very few things exist that could have done this. Whatever it was, it has only recently departed.
Then, just as suddenly, I am left with a dull hollow, filled only by the bass tones of a cello wafting from the tavern.
The Twins were the closest thing to family I’ve ever had.
Now I’m all alone, the last Grotesque in all of Boston. And I’m afraid this is just the beginning of the storm.
My stone shell has been heavy lately. I hunker deep inside it, sleeping well past sunset. When I finally stir awake, I brighten at the prospect of evening adventures with my friends.
Then I remember. And sleep some more.
It’s been several days since I discovered Wallace and Winnie outside the Copper Dragon. What was left of them, that is. Since then, I’ve considered venturing out to scatter some unsuspecting pigeons, or stealthily plug the mouths of the gargoyles who live in the Public Garden’s fountain. But those games seem less amusing without the Twins’ encouragement. Instead, I’ve just spent my nights here on the roof of my Domain, my mood as gloomy as the sky.
It’s not that I’m afraid, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve thought long and hard about finding whatever it was that harmed my friends, but I simply don’t know where to begin. It would be helpful to have another Grotesque to talk with. Sure, there are others in places like Philadelphia and Chicago, but it wouldn’t be right to leave my Domain long enough to make such a trip. The New Yorkers are a bit closer, but there’s no way I’m going to ask them for help. They already look down their stony noses at the rest of us here in the New World. Never mind the fact that I’m older than most of them, or that we’ve always had more formidable wickedness to deal with in my neck of the woods. The Puritans’ public hangings in the Common, the misguided witch trials—that sort of ugliness leaves a stain that doesn’t fade quickly.
My New York neighbors will never admit it, but they have it easy—there are literally hundreds of them. With all those eyes to watch your tail, it’s easy to find time to buff your claws, preen your wings atop skyscrapers, and indulge in other vanities. The only snootier bunch are the French—but at least they’ve earned it.
So, for the time being, I stay here rooted on my perch, as lifeless as an August chimney. No, I’m not procrastinating—I’m just…biding my time. My Domain’s a decent place to sit and think. There used to be storefronts on the first floor—a florist, a cigar shop, a busy little bodega. They flourished under my watchful eye and were never once robbed or vandalized, but they’ve all since been converted into apartments. My other wards—the building’s residents—come and go over the years, and some are more tolerable than others.
A young Indian couple keeps to themselves, and you’d hardly know they were here except when Mrs. Pandey cooks and the aroma of Eastern spices fill the halls. There’s the elderly woman who lives alone and speaks only Korean to her cats. The cats don’t care for me much and have been known to bristle when I’m near. Once, the woman took a fall and lost her false teeth. After watching her gum dry toast for days, I convinced her ill-mannered pets to bat the dentures out from under the couch. The cats weren’t necessarily pleased with my means of encouragement, but they wouldn’t have lifted a paw to help on their own.
Several young people live together in another apartment and practice being adults. They go to one of the local universities, supposedly to acquire a variety of facts and worldly knowledge. I’m not sure how useful their learnings are; I doubt any of them could so much as lay a brick or mend a fence. Even a dripping faucet sends them clamoring for help. They often come out on the roof to celebrate occasions of dubious importance, swilling drinks from plastic cups and raising their voices so loudly they drown out their own music. Once, one of them put a red cup atop my head like a party hat.
Mortifying. It’s a good thing none of the New Yorkers could see me.
Sadly, we don’t get to pick our wards.
Then there’s the new family on the fourth floor. They’ve been settling in. The girl’s name is Hetty, the mother’s Mamita—or that’s what Hetty calls her, anyway. Hetty usually refers to her little brother as Captain Poopy-Pants or Thunder-Bottom, but I’ve gathered that his given name is Tomás. Turns out Hetty’s father expired last summer. She’s had a hard time accepting that he’s moved on to what’s Next. I know this because Mamita put a framed family photo of them all up in the new apartment—four joyful, smiling faces, even Captain Poopy-Pants. Hetty stared at it for a long while, then, when her mother wasn’t looking, hid it away in a drawer.
It’s late Friday evening and tonight Hetty has some friends sleeping over. From my perch, I can see that they’ve laid out colorful sleeping bags on the floor. They eat ice cream from huge bowls as they whisper and laugh. It’s nice to see Hetty smile. She doesn’t do it often enough.
I’m really not a busybody. Although my hearing is keener than a bat’s, I only gather what I need to know in order to keep my wards safe. You’ve heard people say they’d like to be a fly on the wall? Take it from a Grotesque on the roof, the vast majority of conversations are terribly dull. Even if I wanted to eavesdrop on Hetty and her friends, most of their words are currently drowned out by the incessant chatter around me. A break in the drizzle has lured a few of the practice-adults out onto the rooftop again, hands thrust into the pockets of their jeans while they plot their evening adventures. They completely ignore me, as usual, which is at least better than being used as a hat rack.
When Hetty and her friends finish their dessert, her mother pokes her head in to collect their bowls and say good night. With a wink, she tells them not to stay up too late, knowing full well that staying up too late is the entire point.
After she shuts the door, the girls gather in a circle. The one with makeup around her eyes and lips, the one with bad energy that engulfs her like a winter coat, is taking out an old Ouija board from her backpack. The flat wooden slab looks aged and authentic, imprinted with the numbers 0 through 9 and the words yes, no, and good bye in an ominous black scrawl. She lays it out on the floor in the center of their little ring. Just what I need—a coven of clueless, pint-sized mediums in pajamas and slippers.
There’s a shuffling of heels on the asphalt roof around me as the practice-adults make their way back inside.
Hetty and her friends place their fingers on the heart-shaped planchette and I see their lips begin to move.
That’s a bad idea, Hetty. Don’t open the door for them. Don’t invite them inside. The dead make terrible houseguests and linger like rotten fish.
Of course, she can’t hear me. And probably wouldn’t listen if she could. I cringe as the planchette begins to glide along the surface of the spirit board.
Then a voice startles me.
“Hello, Goyle.”
There’s a girl up here. She wears knee-high leather boots, striped leggings, and a weathered pea coat. She looks several years younger than the practice-adults, but she should still be far too old to spot me for what I really am. I’m stunned that she’s speaking to me.
“Please don’t call me that” is the best response I can muster. “I’m not a gargoyle.”
She frowns, sets what looks to be a black violin case on the roof, and settles herself nex
t to it, boots dangling over the edge.
“Sorry, you look like a gargoyle,” she says, blinking large almond eyes at me. Loose pigtails drape over each ear from under the gray cap on her head—the kind newsboys used to wear a century ago. Her hair is inky black, except for a dyed crimson streak running through one of the pigtails.
I’m not at all comfortable with this trespasser’s casual tone, and yet I feel compelled to set the record straight.
“I’m a Grotesque,” I clarify.
“What’s the difference?” she asks.
“The difference?” I repeat, aghast. “Where do I begin? Wait—you can see me? Hear me?”
My lips don’t move like some stone puppet’s—most of my “talking” takes place inside my head. Sadly, I’m usually the only one listening.
“Of course,” she says, scrunching up her face. It reminds me of a cracked porcelain teacup. Shiny and smooth but sharp around the edges. To be handled with caution.
“You seem a bit old for that,” I say, studying her suspiciously.
Over the years, I’ve come across the occasional adult or older child who can look past our shells and converse with Grotesques. The Twins and I call them squids. Odd creatures, every last one of them. Like squids out of water, they don’t really fit in with their own kind.
They’ve always given me the creeps.
“What exactly do you see?” I ask.
The girl chuckles and glances up and down my stone features. “Well, you’re gray and rain-worn, so I can tell you’ve been here for a long time. Your face is all squashed—like a pug or a bulldog. Maybe a monkey. You’ve got some sharp claws and your wings seem sleek and powerful, though.”
Not that impressive, I think. Anyone can describe my physical form—if they bother to look.
“But what happened to your eye?” she asks, gesturing with a hand in a fingerless wool glove. Her knuckles are thick and swollen, her nails ragged and short.