“Oh? You can hear them, too?”
“Only after the spell, but—wait, that’s not true. I heard one purr. The lion Gargoyle on the roof purred at me.”
Vibeke’s eyes lit up as she smiled. “And you awoke one, right?”
Meino nodded.
Don’t tell them who I watched over yet. I’d like to be there for that.
“Okay, Burk.”
Vibeke cocked her head.
“Burkhart spoke.” Meino pointed to his head, and the woman got that giddy expression again. Meino found her excitement quite adorable.
“Now,” Mr. Talbot said, rubbing his hands together. “While our young wizard of the night eats his breakfast, I’ll go investigate the ghost that almost put him off his food. I don’t expect you’d join me.”
“If I ever go into that kitchen again, it would be ten minutes before starving to death,” Meino declared and took a bite of his bread roll just to point out that he had no business in there.
“Uh!” Mr. Talbot pulled a face that almost made Meino choke on his bread roll from laughing. He then left with Ms. Theresa.
“No ghost hunting for you?” Meino asked Vibeke and Jenny.
“Hell no, not after what you told me,” Jenny said.
“I hate them. We have two,” Vibeke said.
“Slamming doors?” Jenny asked.
She didn’t get her answer, because Mr. Talbot and Ms. Theresa returned.
Mr. Talbot took a seat next to Vibeke. “That’s a nasty one.”
“So you can hear her, too,” Meino concluded.
“Yeah, ghosts are energy set in motion. What you’re hearing is childbirth.” Mr. Talbot smiled sympathetically at his wife and reached for her hand.
“And the fear that accompanies it?”
“You felt something?” Vibeke asked.
“Really strongly.” Meino wiped his mouth and sat back with his coffee, trying to relive it. “Yeah, fear was definitely a part of it. Panic. Detachment. But fear was predominant.”
“Well, all three are normal in childbirth, but not the level you’re describing there,” Vibeke said.
“Would you be willing to do some exercises with us to test your particular gift?” Mr. Talbot asked, sitting forward.
“Only if it doesn’t include going into the kitchen.”
Mr. Talbot held up his hands, grinning. “I promise.”
“What kind, I mean... I was kind of thrown into all this a month ago, and I have no idea what it is you want from me.”
Vibeke smiled, and the patient calm in her eyes warmed Meino to her immediately. “We want nothing from you, Meino, but we would very much like to offer you everything.”
“We live at another nexus and train our powers together,” Mr. Talbot said. “As I told you, we have a teenage son who we also train, but we would very much like to open our home to you and teach you to use your gift for the good of mankind. How we may help you is what we could experiment with over the next few weeks.”
“So we have to leave soon?” Meino asked, fearing Burkhart would again sit blind in the box.
“No, we will stay here with you until summer,” Vibeke said. “What we offer you is not something you should say yes to on a whim.”
Mr. Talbot looked at his watch. “Until sundown when... Burk?” Meino nodded. “When Burk wakes up, we can go test your gift in the castle.” Mr. Talbot held up his hands again, pulling a face of mock horror. “Sans the kitchen, of course.” The man laughed, and Meino liked his down-to-earth personality.
Meino stood. “Yeah, let’s do that.”
Jenny stayed in the salon while the wizard-couple and Ms. Theresa took Meino through the castle toward the library, but they stayed on that floor and not the overpass. They entered, and the ghost rushed over their heads.
“Ms. Theresa informed us that you’ve never been trained actively in your skills,” Mr. Talbot said, looking around in the library.
“Yeah, but I found a bundle of my dad’s letters. He wrote me one every year on my birthday, outlining what I did that year.”
“We do that with our son, too. Upon reaching the age of fourteen, we are at the tipping point where our powers will either manifest or grow dormant because of how society down-values creativity and imagination but holds rote learning to be the only ways to learn.”
Meino sighed. “Then I’m probably dormant.”
“If that was the case, then you couldn’t have awoken a Gargoyle at the age of twenty...”
“Three, I’m twenty-three,” Meino finished Mr. Talbot’s sentence. “But I cast the first half at age eleven.”
“Tell me,” Vibeke said. “How often do you read or do something creative rather than watching TV or letting yourself passively entertain?”
“I don’t own a TV. I read a lot of fantasy books, and I restore cars.”
Mr. Talbot and Vibeke smiled at each other.
“Then you have secured the grounds for your gift to grow on.” Mr. Talbot said, once again looking around the library. “I would like you to try something. Open your senses, meaning you stop your analytical brain from trying to process the world around you.” Mr. Talbot pointed to everywhere in the library. “If you feel anything, tell me.”
Meino wasn’t sure it was that easy, but he remembered what Burkhart had said. While listening to audio books, Meino would just reach for what he already knew was there. According to his dad’s letters, Meino’s dad had already tried to train Meino in all that with all sorts of fun games. They’d talked about something, and his dad had asked him for something while keeping Meino’s focus on something else. It had always been like that in the workshop—look at the ridges dug into the cylinder walls while you hand me the red screwdriver, or look at how dirty that spark plug is while you hand me that wire brush. Multitasking. Maybe that’s why it had been so easy with tools? He’d always had to focus on tools.
Something tickled up Meino’s arm, and he felt an urge to reach for something. He did, not stopping himself before his arm was halfway in the air. Then he stopped, confused at his action.
“Yes?” Vibeke asked.
“I don’t know,” Meino said, looking around. “I... something.” Meino looked up, thinking the painting next to him stared.
“What do you feel?” Mr. Talbot asked.
“I don’t know, but...”
“Please, Meino, you are at a nexus, your visions or feelings are strongest here. This is the place for you to learn what magic feels like so that you may recognize the signs when they are weaker. Trust them. What did you feel?”
“The painting feels alive. It stares at me.”
Mr. Talbot looked at it. “But there are no faces. It’s a landscape.”
“I know, which is why if feels stupid.” And Meino did feel stupid and like he just wanted to go back to the common room or whatever a den was called in a castle.
“The painting holds magic,” Vibeke said, and once again smiled and nodded at Meino.
“Really?”
“It holds something,” Vibeke said, closing in to study it.
“As I only sense something moving, perhaps Ms. Theresa can shed some light on it?” Mr. Talbot asked as he went to stand next to his wife and put an arm around her.
“I can,” Ms. Theresa said. “This painting was painted by a member of the Order, someone to save our legacy in places the uninitiated can’t reach. It is coded and holds a spell.”
“What is it I feel?” Meino asked.
“Some wizards can sense intentions. Without knowing what your father found, we will have to figure it out via trial and error. But what did he indicate in the letters? Did he ever mention your gift in there?”
Meino thought about all he’d read the past week, and he’d read the many letters multiple times. Especially the last one, written on the day Meino’s mother had been killed. The sorrow seemed to have satiated the page, and just thinking about how his dad must have felt while writing
it brought tears to Meino’s eyes. Had his mother been murdered, or was it just a freak accident?
The letters had spoken about how Meino would play with his toys as if they were alive. At age three, he had insisted that his favorite car had a place at the table at dinner. Being told by his mother that dead things didn’t get seats at the table, Meino had declared that it was alive.
“Dead things have life, too,” Meino whispered.
“Soul whisperer,” Vibeke said, smiling at Mr. Talbot.
“What does that mean?” Meino asked.
“It means that you feel the soul and heart put into its creation like you feel the soul of the Angel who put its soul into the stone that is the physical aspect of Burkhart,” Vibeke said. “You can feel not just magic in something but strong feelings during creation. Some things absorb feelings very easily, like crystals, while other materials are almost impossible to impregnate.”
“Like what? How can paint hold anything then?”
“By mixing crystals into the paint.”
“That would also explain why you hear the ghost scream in the kitchen. It’s an echo of her soul.”
“And her blood is what keeps it here?” Meino asked.
“Or the other way around,” Mr. Talbot said. “Her soul energy can be what keeps a blood patch in a carpet no matter how much you scrub at it. But, please, continue searching,” Mr. Talbot said, holding out his arm.
Meino appreciated the change of subject to get away from the kitchen ghost, so he closed his eyes and tried to focus, feeling absolutely nothing but the rush of Lady Gillespie, hurrying over their heads. “I think we should go somewhere Ms. Gillespie doesn’t run back and forth, because her, I feel.”
“We will follow you, then.” Mr. Talbot held out his arm, and Ms. Theresa took them through the library to a door in the corner. They exited into a corridor Meino hadn’t been in before, but he still didn’t feel anything but a growing frustration at the fact that he didn’t feel anything.
Soon the sun will set, and I will join you. Should we show them our kittens?
“Burk, it’s hard to focus when you talk about kittens...” Meino’s right arm felt numb, and he turned to stare at an old wooden box with a cast iron belt around it and an old but sturdy-looking padlock.
It was to have you focus that I interrupted your analytical mind.
“I get it. Something’s here.” Meino pointed at the box.
“What does it tell you?” Vibeke asked.
Meino felt ridiculous for doing it, but he had the mental image of his dad putting his ear to the Charger. “If we love them, they will talk to us,” he whispered to repeat what his dad had later said about the Gargoyles when he put his ear to them. Images rushed through his mind. “Dusty and cramped, but I like it here. Footsteps above me. In and out, in and out. I invite someone. A kind heart who will... balance. They come and go, come and go, but I call out to only one. Someone to free me from a bond I hate.”
Meino stood quickly and stared at the box while he felt his limbs become constricted to his sides. Like he was a statue, but not quite, because he felt warm and alive. What would feel alive but constricted? Not like stone.
“Be careful at this point not to analyze. It is the impressions, precious few seconds for those not trained in opening their senses,” Mr. Talbot said. “Listen again.”
“Feel the energy from beneath the ground fill you up. The energy of the nexus will enhance your gift here,” Vibeke said.
Meino felt like he was wasting everybody’s time, because what he’d felt didn’t make sense.
We fly, Meino, we fly to the Inner Kingdom.
Meino snapped his eyes open at the sound of Burkhart’s voice. Meino’s dad had said those words when he began the fantasy story they had played in the crypt.
Fly me on the winds of the nexus to where you want to go.
Meino closed his eyes again, imagining being held close by Burkhart and taken into the air. Birds-eye view of clouds, and then his brain conjured up images again.
“A woman buried a wooden figure under the threshold to her home.”
Ms. Theresa gasped.
“She made it and loved it, then she buried it with a wish to never be struck again. Bitterness shrouds it.” Meino had no idea what he was saying or why he’d see a cape be draped over the... wooden, that was why he felt warm, it was wood, not stone, but it was shrouded in feelings. Like in layers. First hope, a lot of hope, then bitterness.
“Is it kind?” Ms. Theresa asked.
“How do you mean?”
“We don’t know much about the figurine, but it depicts something we have come across before. But we are just not sure what it is.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
You did well.
Meino smiled at Burkhart’s praise. “Can I see inside the box?”
“If you don’t feel anything nasty, then yes.” Ms. Theresa took out a bundle of keys and unlocked the box. “But please don’t touch it.” She opened the lid, and Meino peeked inside, finding a wooden figure of a woman. Or a man. It had long hair, so maybe it was a woman. It had big scary looking eyes, which were almost the only thing that hadn’t faded in color. Another image stood clear to him, and it was like the little thing had gone back in time and become whole.
“It’s a little man,” Meino said. “The curly beard has faded. He holds a bucket in his hand, wears a robe, and has long hair.”
“Fascinating,” Mr. Talbot said. “And you say he was buried under a threshold to a home?”
“Yeah. A really long time ago.”
“How long ago?”
“She hid him in a clay pot at first, covering him with a faded cloth.”
“Who in the Order would know what it is if these details are disclosed?” Vibeke asked.
“Mr. Henry might make the connections,” Ms. Theresa said. “Meino, if I take pictures of this little man, can you color it in so we can see what was lost to time?”
“Sure.” Meino looked around at them. “You have this little thing, but none of you knows what it is?”
Mr. Talbot chuckled. “We collect many things, if not to keep them safe, then to occupy our minds. Puzzles. Ms. Theresa is one of the archive holders of the Order.”
“I hold what is potentially magical, found along with magic, and then I look in every book I have to see if I can come closer to what it is. That is also why I live on a nexus. It allows for more magic to be sensed, even by regular mortals who have been trained.”
“It could be a haunted object,” Vibeke said, looking into the box.
Oh, no, not what Meino had wanted to know existed, too.
“What could make an object haunted?” he asked.
“Well, just like the ghosts here are echoes tied to emotions, then emotions can be linked to an object.” Ms. Theresa locked the box again, and they continued down the corridor, while Mr. Talbot continued the explanation.
“You see, Meino, everything in the universe moves. It is movement itself that makes up all matter. It’s how atoms are held together as molecules. Some are more sensitive to the different vibrations of matter, and even a ghost is matter.”
“But we can go through them, right?”
“Yes, and you can put your hand through water, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s an intricate collection of energy. I can sense when energy moves. That means I see far more ghosts than anyone else. But I can’t sense energy in something that doesn’t move. Like Gargoyles or wooden figurines.”
“You just said that everything moves,” Meino said, stopping.
Mr. Talbot stopped, nodding. “I did, but just because we know that molecules move doesn’t mean we can see it or sense it. The movement I can sense is on a much larger scale. I’m very much looking forward to when Burkhart awakes. I’m eager to see if I can feel life in his stone, then.”
“And you?” Meino looked at Vibeke.
“Come,” she said, po
inting Meino toward a wooden staff, hanging on the wall. “Do you sense anything here?”
Meino stared at the wood, wondering how to tap into it again. He closed his eyes and... nothing. After what felt like five minutes of silence, Meino became frustrated again. “I don’t know how to make it do it.”
Fly, Meino.
Meino scoffed. It had worked before, so once again, he closed his eyes and thought about Burkhart. But he was back in the crypt along with his dad. We have to find the twins, young mage. Fly out in the Inner Kingdom and look for them! Meino smiled at the somber tone as his dad, wearing a cape and a paper crown, stood on a rock and pointed Meino into the air. He was the young mage being sent out by the King of the Outer Kingdom to find the missing twins. Meino had climbed onto Burkhart’s back, leaned in, and whispered in his ear. You, brave Gargoyle, have been chosen to go on this quest with me. Help me find the twins.
Stave, a voice whispered, but it wasn’t Burkhart’s. It was a woman’s voice, and Meino saw her standing in a wooden clearing, holding the staff. The sun was rising in front of her over a lush meadow full of life, but behind her it was setting into a thick blanket of snow. To her right, spring was budding, and to her left, the trees glowed in rich autumn colors.
“Staves of bog. She sees all seasons at the same time.”
“Good, Meino, very good,” Ms. Theresa said, smiling.
“What is it?” Meino stepped closer to look at the staff.
“The inscriptions in this stave are runes,” Vibeke explained. “Rune magic. The bog you mentioned is actually a tree sort used for this kind of white magic. To this day, the Nordic languages call a letter, as in the alphabet, for a bogstave. This stave, made of bog, and adorned with runes, belonged to a Vølv who had the gift of tapping into people’s life energy, and from that, she could see across their timeline into their past and thus glimpse their possible futures.”
“Can her magic be used?”
“No, only by another Vølv. Like us, they are a class of their own.”
“Oh, wow.”
I think we found your way into the magic, Meino. Burkhart chuckled, and the deep and rich voice warmed Meino’s heart.
Gargoyle Rising Page 23
