The Last Gargoyle

by Paul Durham

  I remember that fire. Over four hundred souls lost—tragically and unexpectedly. I actually took pity on them—even the ones who wandered the city for years before finally moving on to what’s Next.

  “For a while, the building’s owner would let famous musicians come down here to record their music,” Viola continues. “The hidden concert hall became a bit of a legend—whispered among visiting orchestras. But somewhere along the way, the owners stopped allowing visitors altogether.”

  Viola glances around at the rusting ironwork, crumbling pillars, and scattered debris.

  “Safety concerns,” she adds.

  I purse my lips and catch her eyes. “Do you…live down here?”

  She’s quiet for a moment. “This is where I stay. For now.”

  I drop my eyes to the debris on the floor, then look up again. “Why here? Don’t you have a family?”

  She shakes her head. Ever so slightly.

  “You’re not a music student, are you?”

  Another shake of her head.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask. “Why did you lie?” To my surprise, I find myself more hurt than angry.

  Viola’s response comes slowly. “I didn’t want you to think of me differently than everybody else.”

  With all the terrible things humans do to one another, it’s strange that they find themselves ashamed of things beyond their control.

  “I had a foster family,” she says. “They…weren’t kind.”

  She doesn’t need to explain. I’ve been around long enough to see how cruel some families—foster or otherwise—can be.

  “When I couldn’t take it anymore, I left. I had nowhere to go for a while. Then I met the owner of the shop upstairs. Samuel. He went home to his family each night but let me stay down here in exchange for sweeping floors, running errands. I don’t think he really needed the help, but he wanted to give me somewhere to stay.”

  I remember a time when no one paid much attention to runaways. Things are different now.

  “He could have gotten into a lot of trouble,” I point out. “You can’t just take in strange children off the street and keep them like lost pets.”

  She shrugs. “He was kind. And more concerned about helping me than getting into trouble.”

  “Was?” I repeat.

  Viola nods. “There was a fire—in the shop. I’m sure you noticed.” She pauses. “He was working inside at the time.” Her lip starts to tremble but she pinches it with her teeth.

  “He wasn’t able to get out?” I ask.

  Viola sags on the empty crate. “The fire came on so suddenly. It was late at night; the streets were deserted—nobody else was here at the time. Nobody who could help.”

  She hangs her head.

  I shift from foot to foot. I’m not good with this sort of thing. I don’t know what to say.

  “I wish I could have done something,” she says finally.

  I know how she feels. I’m thinking of my ward—that little boy long ago. Of Wallace and Winnie. I wasn’t there for them either. My eyes dance over the broken granite pieces on the floor.

  “It’s not your fault,” I mutter.

  I notice a chunk of granite tooth. A long, sharp canine.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” I say.

  I see the remains of a stone arm, broken off from the elbow down. The chipped hand has talons instead of fingers.

  “You couldn’t have—” I start, then stop.

  I spot a disembodied tail.

  I turn back abruptly to Viola. Suddenly, all my senses are charged. How did I not notice this right away?

  “Viola, I’m going to ask again,” I say, my tone darkening. “What is this place?”

  All around us, we are surrounded by destroyed Grotesques.

  I find a clawed foot. Then a broken wing.

  A cracked head rests on its ear, its lifeless eyes staring out at the rubble as if searching for its body.

  I’m sick to my stomach—and it’s not from last night’s dinner.

  “Did you do this?” I demand in disbelief. “Did he?”

  “Of course not,” Viola replies hotly. “Samuel created Grotesques, he didn’t destroy them.”

  I step heavily toward her. Viola tenses and recoils. I still seem to frighten her, even without trying.

  “Stop speaking in riddles, Viola.”

  “Samuel was a Bone Mason, Goyle. The last one left in the city. This was his workshop.”

  “A Bone Mason?”

  “Yes.” Viola searches for some understanding in my face but must recognize my blank expression. Her own eyes turn uncertain. “You don’t know?” she asks.

  “Know what?”

  “Who made you.”

  “My Maker made me,” I say quickly.

  She blinks, and confusion washes over her. “I always just assumed you knew….”

  Suddenly I feel defensive, put on the spot. “I don’t know exactly who he was,” I say. “I never met him or anything like that.”

  Viola steadies her expression and fixes her gaze on me. “Your Maker was a Mason,” she says quietly. “Just like the one who worked here.”

  I’m stunned by the insult. Then angry. I glance around at this place, remembering the granite slabs and broken tools in the burned-out shop above us.

  “I’m not some tombstone, Viola,” I say bitterly. “Do I look like an ornament to you? Can a hitching post do the things I do?”

  “Of course not,” she says, jumping to her feet. “Yes, Samuel engraved headstones and carved fountains when he needed to pay the rent, but this was his real craft.” She waves her arms at the broken bodies around us. “He was a Bone Mason. He learned those skills from his father. And his father’s father before him. In fact, go back one more father…” Viola looks at the floor, then back at me. “And that was your very own Maker.”

  I study Viola carefully. She’s lied to me once already, but there’s nothing in her face that leads me to believe she’s doing so again. Still, I don’t like this feeling that she knows more about me than I know myself. Not one bit. It’s like stumbling alone through a dark room, then turning on a light and realizing someone’s been next to you watching the whole time.

  I eye her suspiciously. “Tell me more about Bone Masons.”

  “I wish I could. They’ve been around for hundreds—maybe thousands—of years, but the practice of Bone Masonry is a mystery. Its secrets are only revealed to other Masons after decades of apprenticeship.”

  “Then it sounds to me like you don’t know much of anything at all,” I say gruffly.

  “You’re right,” Viola says, and for a moment I’m relieved. Then, to my surprise, slightly disappointed.

  “But there are two things I do know,” she continues, pacing through the rubble as she talks. “First, every Grotesque is sculpted with a human bone embedded in its shell. It’s a bone taken from someone recently deceased—usually a child. They’re the souls most likely to be pure of heart. It’s called the Root. The Root brings you life.” Viola stops her pacing. “Or at least your version of it.”

  “So my Maker was a grave robber?” I say in disgust and disbelief. “Bone Masons go around digging up children’s bodies and stealing their bones? They sound worse than Netherkin.”

  Viola shakes her head. “No, it’s not like that. That’s where the second part comes in. With each Root, there’s also a Remnant—some important artifact from that person’s life. It’s given voluntarily by the donor’s loved ones, then preserved by the Bone Mason himself. Passed down to his successors. The Remnant is what binds you here. It’s what keeps you from moving on.”

  My jaw tightens. “It keeps us prisoner?”

  “Don’t think of it that way,” she says. “Think of all the good you do. All the wards you protect. Now imagine a grieving family that’s lost a child. It’s an opportunity for them to give new purpose to a life cut far too short.”

  This all sounds outlandish. Impossible to believe. Then again, if you
told me a week ago that I’d be spending my days gabbing with a homeless girl who plays an imaginary violin, I’d have said you had mortar between your ears. I look down at my wisp form. Clearly no bone resides in me at the moment, but…back on the roof…deep within my stone body? Can I be so certain? What Root lies within the very shell I’ve called home for so long? What Remnant binds me to this place? If what Viola says is true, what exactly am I?

  “You’re telling me I’m just some child?” I say.

  Viola offers a tight smile. “Part of you was a child.” She holds her thumb and forefinger apart. “Just a tiny bit. Now you’re a Grotesque. And what that means, well, I think only you get to say.”

  I cast my arms at the fragments of broken Grotesques strewn around our feet. “And these,” I say. “They were all once children too?”

  “No, these were just the shells. Works in progress. They have no Roots or Remnants. Samuel was just preparing them, in case”—her eyes drift away—“they were ever needed.”

  “So if Samuel didn’t destroy them, and you didn’t, then who?”

  Viola’s eyes darken.

  “Netherkin,” she says coldly. “Sent by the Boneless King.”

  If I had blood, it would run cold.

  “Two strange men came knocking after hours, just before the fire,” she continues. “Samuel mistook them for men, anyway. Somehow they convinced him to let them inside, and they caught Samuel by surprise.”

  My lips curl with contempt. Shadow Men—the most devious of all Netherkin. And masters of disguise.

  “They killed the last Bone Mason in the city, Goyle.” Viola crosses her arms tightly as if battling a chill, glancing over the crumbled stones around us. “And made sure there could be no more Grotesques.”

  So Viola had heard of the Boneless King even before I did. Again, I have the sickening feeling that I’ve been stumbling through the dark. It’s not my fault. It’s not like our Makers hand us a guidebook—or even bother to introduce themselves. You just sort of open your eyes one day and there you are on the roof. The rest you’re left to make sense of on your own.

  But something tells me Viola knows even more. I fight my urge to be angry at her and push forward with questions, determined to find out exactly what.

  “And what kind of monster is the Boneless King, Viola?” I ask. “He’s not like any Netherkin I’ve ever known.”

  “His name is—well, it was—Hannibal Craven the Younger. He was a Bone Mason of modest ability. Not to be confused with his father, Hannibal Craven the Elder, a Mason of much greater skill and notoriety.”

  “You’re not painting a very rosy picture of these people,” I grumble.

  “It gets worse,” Viola says. “Craven the Younger went mad. He became obsessed with making a name for himself outside of his father’s shadow. He wanted to ensure his own immortality—literally. Craven was convinced that if he could bring stone to life using the bones of the dead, he should be able to use those same techniques to give himself eternal life.”

  “He wanted to make himself into a Grotesque?”

  Viola nods.

  I roll my eyes. “I suppose the grass is always greener….”

  I wonder for a moment what it must be like to be human; to have a family, or to dream, or to sit and simply touch the hand of someone like Viola. But if there is the Root of a child somewhere inside me, does that mean I’ve already had all those things? I quickly come to my senses and shake off the inconvenient notion before I miss any more of Viola’s story.

  “Craven couldn’t wait until he was dead to try it, of course,” Viola is saying. “And he couldn’t find another Bone Mason to help him—it goes against every code of their order. So he performed the procedure himself. He summoned his longtime apprentice to help him—a failed stage performer called the Magician. Together, they removed Craven’s tibia from his leg.”

  Viola runs a finger from her knee to her ankle. “That’s the shinbone right here.”

  “He let some huckster magician do that? He was mad.”

  “The Magician was also the local butcher—which I suppose gave him some experience in…deboning.” She shudders at the thought. “Craven decided that being hobbled was a fair trade for everlasting life.”

  “I’m going to guess things didn’t go as planned.”

  “No. In fact, it went horribly wrong. Exactly what happened next is unknown, but it’s been said that when they finished setting the stone and reciting the final incantations, Craven’s Grotesque exploded on its pedestal in a rain of granite—along with every other bone in the insane Bone Mason’s body. The pain was so excruciating it killed him on the spot. Terrified that he’d be charged with murder, the Magician hid Craven’s body, burying him in a shallow grave.”

  “So that’s what friends are for,” I say.

  “But Craven wasn’t dead. Not exactly. Several weeks later he dug himself from the earth, emerging as a disoriented, boneless mass of skin neither living nor dead. The first thing he did was track down his old friend the Magician. The Bone Masons know this because the local constable found the Magician in his butcher’s shop dressed in his stage tailcoat, his black top hat resting on the counter. The Magician himself was hanging upside down next to a rack of lamb.”

  “And that’s how the Boneless King was born,” I say.

  Viola nods. “He’s wandered the earth ever since in a state of limbo. Neither man nor Grotesque, he uses his influence on the dead to try to lay claim on the world of the living—a world he lost the right to be part of long ago.”

  It explains why I struggled to recognize the Boneless King for what he was the first night we met. He’s no Netherkin, nor is he any mortal man. But part Grotesque? It seems impossible. And yet, could that be why he can’t enter Hetty’s apartment? Could he be bound by the same unwritten rules as me?

  “If his shinbone’s his Root, what’s his Remnant?” I ask.

  “No one knows. And no one knows where it’s hidden. Otherwise the Bone Masons would have retrieved it and cut his ties to this world once and for all. Instead, all they can do is weaken him each time he emerges, beating him back into the ground.”

  I recall that battle with the army of Netherkin so long ago. The unseasonable snowstorm and oppressive energy in the skies overhead. The deafening hum of static. It’s been a hundred years, but it’s all repeating itself. The Boneless King’s war has already started again—I’ve just been too dense to accept it.

  “After he’s been weakened and beaten into the ground—what happens then?” I say.

  “He lies dormant. Sometimes for decades. But the Boneless King is like a weed. Cutting him down just seems to make him grow back even stronger. When he’s ready, he creeps to the surface to choke the life out of all he touches.”

  “Why here? And why now?”

  Viola shrugs. “Hannibal Craven lived here for some time during his youth. That might have something to do with it. But again, think of a weed. As the Boneless King, he now finds a weak spot—a crack in the sidewalk—to push through while he’s still frail.”

  “For a long time, it was just me and the Twins here,” I say, blinking slowly. “And now…it’s even weaker still.”

  Viola’s voice grows more desperate. “The Boneless King may start small, but with no Grotesques or Bone Masons to resist him, his army will grow quickly, until eventually there’ll be no way to stop him.”

  I drop myself down onto a tarped crate. I’ve always thought of myself as a clever Grotesque. There’s not much I can’t get my mind around with enough time to sit and ponder. But at the moment, my head is spinning. I feel like I’ve toppled from my roof and landed tail up.

  I narrow a suspicious eye under my hood.

  “Viola, if you only swept floors and ran errands, how can you possibly know all this?”

  “I thought you might ask that,” she says. “I’ll show you. Can you please move?”

  “What?”

  She gestures to my wobbly seat. “I’ll show you
how I know, but you’re sitting on my answer.”

  I rise to my feet and she takes hold of the tarp that covers the old storage crate. But when she flings the canvas off with a flutter of dust, I discover that it’s not a crate at all. Instead, I see a stack of leather-bound workbooks. Hundreds of them.

  “I found these tucked under the stage in some boxes,” Viola says. “Samuel’s journals. They must not have meant anything to the Boneless King. That, or he never found them.”

  Viola keeps talking, but I’m intently studying the well-worn covers.

  “I wanted you to follow me here, Goyle,” she is saying. “If I’d told you all this on your roof you’d never have believed me. But here, where you can see it all with your own eyes, I hope you realize I’m telling the truth.”

  I carefully run my fingers over the covers. Most are in shades of brown and black, but some are dyed different colors. Dark green. Scarlet. Purple. I’ve seen a journal like these before.

  Locked away in Hetty’s drawer.

  “Goyle,” Viola says, then hesitates. “There’s another part of this I need to tell you.”

  But she doesn’t have to. I’m not some vacant-eyed water fountain.

  Hetty wants to believe that the Boneless King is her father—back from the dead to reunite with her while she sleeps. She has no way of knowing who or what her nighttime visitor really is. But the Boneless King, I’m now certain, knows exactly who Hetty’s father was. He murdered him in this very spot.

  “Samuel was Hetty’s father,” I declare between gritted teeth.

  Whatever was churning in my gut is now burning.

  “Yes,” Viola confirms. “And there’s one more thing—” she whispers hesitantly, but I cut her off.

  “I’ve heard enough for now, Viola.”

  She can’t see the fury building under my hood, which is probably for the best.

  “Come with me,” I say. “I have something I need to show you.”

  We sit on the curb across from the abandoned chapel, puddles from the morning’s scattered rain pooling at our feet. The spray from passing traffic keeps showering the street performer on the chapel steps, until he finally packs up his guitar and empty hat and sulks away.