The Gargoyle at the Gates

by Philippa Dowding

  He brushed the leaf off the page and continued reading. He flicked a bee away from his ear and scratched his nose. A moment later, another leaf softly floated down from the tree and landed on the page with another flup.

  He brushed it off, darted a peek into the tree above, and went back to his book.

  But not for long.

  A few seconds later, four or five leaves gently fluttered down onto his book, then more and more. Finally, a steady torrent of leaves poured down upon him, covering both him and his book in a leafy green coat. He gave up trying to read and sat still as the leaves kept coming. He was slowly being buried in a mountain of green apple tree leaves. In moments, only his head was visible, peeking from the top of the mound. James shook his head to remove leaves from his hair and sighed.

  He looked up into the tree, and said patiently, “Septimus, if that’s you, you’re interrupting my reading.” A loud giggle erupted from the tree, and then silence. James tried not to smile. It was a deliciously naughty giggle.

  “Grampa Gregory, the gargoyles are restless! Septimus is dropping leaves on me!” James called from the leaf pile. An old man poked his head around the side of the garden shed and nodded. He was wearing a floppy green velvet hat that wobbled dangerously, huge leather gloves, and giant, bug-like goggles.

  “They’re easily bored, James. Do you play any instruments?” the old man called.

  “No,” James answered, surprised.

  His grandfather was holding an enormous chisel and a huge stone hammer. All afternoon James had heard the chisel occasionally hitting stone. His grandfather was working on another half-finished statue (this one looked like it was going to be a spray of wildflowers, asters perhaps).

  “Oh, well, try singing to them then,” James’s grandfather said matter-of-factly, then turned back to his sculpture.

  Singing? What would he possibly sing? Clearly his grandfather wasn’t going to help him with Septimus.

  James shook himself from head to toe and sent the leaves scattering, brushing them from his shoulders and hair. He and his friends used to play in piles of autumn leaves at home. The memory made him smile a little as he went back to his reading.

  But not for long. Another leaf fluttered down from the tree.…

  Chapter Five

  Park Serenade

  That night after dinner (which was always very noisy and interesting at the Canning house), Christopher was sitting in his bedroom at the top of the house.

  Bedrooms were important for Christopher. As the youngest of a large family that moved all the time, he never knew what his next bedroom would be like.

  Whenever they moved into a new house, bedrooms were chosen by names drawn from a hat. Christopher had never won the best bedroom in his whole life …

  … except this time! Christopher had the best room he’d ever seen. It was an octagon, an eight-sided turret at the top of the house, and it had an enormous bay window that faced the little park next door. Everyone had wanted the turret bedroom at the top of the house, but HE was the one whose name was picked. HE won it, it was HIS!

  The best part of all was that it was quiet. His many-assorted-brothers-and-slightly-older-sister all had bedrooms on the floors below.

  He jumped on his bed and stuck his elbows on the windowsill. He pushed the old windows open as wide as he could. The rain had stopped, and the air was sharp and clean. It was a beautiful autumn evening. He looked down into the park, listening to the water bubbling in the seahorse fountain. From the window he could see the entire park surrounded by the fence, with the bushes, apple tree, and benches in the middle. It wasn’t a very big park at all.

  He picked up his guitar. He was actually getting pretty good.

  He played a song called “Piece Ensemble.” It had a nice melody, but it was a bit sad-sounding. When he finished, he laid his guitar against his knee, and looked down into the park.

  It was empty.

  Then why did he hear someone down there clapping?

  Chapter Six

  Christopher Canning at the Gates

  Clapping? What the heck was going on down there?

  Christopher glanced over at his desk clock: 7:15 p.m. He could take Marbles out for a walk. The sun was just going down behind the big city buildings in the distance, so it wouldn’t be completely dark for another half an hour or so.

  He dashed downstairs. His family was finishing up the dinner dishes.

  “Mom! I’m taking Marbles for a walk!” he called. Marbles did his “I’m-going-for-walk-dance” while Christopher got the leash and pocketed the orange ball (which was very brave, since it was still gooey and dripping with dog slime).

  Boy and dog slipped out the back door into the fresh air. Christopher took a moment to listen to the city noises. He could hear the fountain bubbling in the park, a streetcar rattling along the tracks nearby, and a police siren downtown. Marbles listened, too.

  Christopher walked quietly across the driveway beside the house and in a few short steps was leaning against the iron railing of the park fence. All was still except the gently bubbling fountain.

  “Let’s walk around it, boy.” Christopher wasn’t sure why, but he was whispering. He and Marbles walked around the park fence in a few moments. It was the smallest park he had ever seen. He was looking for a break in the fence or some easy way into the park, but he didn’t find one — the fence was solid all the way around. Someone was smoking a pipe nearby; he could smell strong smoke. He looked, but no one was around.

  “Hmm. That’s weird. Smell that, boy? Pipe smoke.” As if in answer, Marbles sniffed then sneezed. He always sneezed when someone was smoking.

  Christopher stopped on the sidewalk in front of the gates and peered inside. He could see the bubbling seahorse fountain. Bushes. Benches. Apple tree. All quiet. No people. Marbles was sniffing at the gateposts and getting all shivery and excited.

  “What is it, Marbles?”

  Marbles stood on his hind legs and propped his front legs halfway up the gatepost. His black nose was moving a mile a minute — he could smell something really interesting. He couldn’t take his eyes off the gargoyle sitting at the top of the gatepost.

  Marbles barked and started jumping on his back legs, staring up at the statue, just like he did when he chased a squirrel up a tree. “Calm down, crazy dog. It’s made of stone, see?” Christopher reached up as high as he could and was just able to reach the gargoyle. He knocked on its scaly feet. It sounded rock solid and hurt his knuckles.

  Marbles calmed down just a little and sat on the sidewalk looking up at the gargoyle, tense as a bowstring.

  “I’m going in, but you have to stay here.” Christopher snapped Marbles’ leash to the gate. Marbles started whining.

  “Shhh! I’ll be right back.” Christopher took a large breath and turned to face the iron railing of the gate. He sucked in his stomach. He turned his head toward the street and eased first his arm, then his leg, then his shoulder through the bars. Moving very slowly and carefully, he squeezed through the iron bars, his head the last thing through. He just made it. He was standing inside the locked park while Marbles whined and shivered outside on the sidewalk.

  “Quiet, boy. Keep a lookout for me.” Marbles licked his lips and wiggled his tail.

  It was odd, but as soon as Christopher entered the park, he felt like everything went quiet. He could see the street through all the bushes, but any sounds of streetcars or sirens were oddly muffled by them. It was very serene and he suddenly felt sleepy, since the bubbling of the fountain sounded soothing and soft. He walked over to it and looked around.

  There were no pennies or anything but water in the bowl at the bottom of the fountain. Obviously, no one ever came in here. He’d been to the Queen Elizabeth fountains in Vancouver, and they were always filled with shiny coins from tourists and visitors. He thought that even small, out-of-the-way fountains usually had money in them.

  But this fountain was completely coin-free. No visitors in here then. The gates
must be locked most of the time, or maybe all of the time?

  Christopher took a few more steps and was standing next to the little apple tree, which was not too much higher than his head. It didn’t look like it could have been there very long, and yet it was loaded with apples. It was practically glowing, and the fruit hanging on the branches was heavy and golden and smelled magnificent. They were the best apples he’d ever smelled. He took a deep breath. They smelled absolutely perfect, like apples were supposed to smell if you were going to describe them to someone who had never seen or smelled one before.

  The scent of the tree was almost overpowering.

  Christopher raised his hand and was just about to pick an apple when he heard a whispery voice say, “Forthen grem sawchen?”

  It sounded a lot like a winter wind rustling in the trees, or like a language at the very edge of his memory. But at the same time, he also heard the voice say, “Are you stealing that apple, thief?”

  He gasped and whirled around, but there was no one. Christopher wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t move. He was stuck to the spot, his heart beating like a hammer in his chest. He stared into the bushes, but there was nothing to see. Just bushes. He forgot to breathe.

  Which is why he was able to hear another, closer, sweeter voice say very clearly, “Bellatro smethen dor.”

  Which sounded a lot like, “Let the boy be.”

  ZING! Suddenly an apple flew at Christopher out of the bushes. He bolted back to the gates, trying to squeeze through the iron railing as fast as he could.

  ZING! ZING! Two more apples narrowly missed his head.

  “HEY!” he yelped, but he didn’t dare look back.

  ZING! Another apple whizzed past his ear. The apple-thrower was toying with him. Christopher could tell that the thrower was very carefully missing him with each shot.

  He contorted himself and desperately squeezed through the bars, gasping for air back on the sidewalk. Apples rang loudly against the park side of the gates.

  Christopher grabbed his dog’s leash and ran. His mother was opening the back door to call him inside just as he reached the house. She had to jump aside to avoid being knocked over by her son as he dashed through the door.

  “Christopher, what’s wrong?” she called as he ran by her. But he was already at the top of the house, slamming the door to his room.

  She looked down at Marbles, who was waiting patiently at her feet, slowly wagging his tail. His leash was still attached, wet and muddy with dank park leaves.

  Chapter Seven

  The English Garden: Theodorus

  James and his grandfather were sitting under an enormous outdoor umbrella, with a sea of newspapers spread out on the table before them. The old man had a huge leather bag stamped with gold letters and symbols at his feet, overflowing with papers, photographs, and newspaper clippings. The afternoon sun was so bright that James was getting a headache. He had his head in his hands as he turned yet another newspaper page.

  “Grampa Gregory, what am I looking for again, exactly?” he asked.

  His grandfather didn’t raise his head from the paper he was reading with the help of a giant magnifying glass. Today the old man was wearing a strange purple corduroy suit and a floppy purple hat to match. James had the sense it was a costume from several centuries ago, almost like something that a swordsman or musketeer might have worn. He wasn’t wearing the bug-like goggles though, which was a nice change.

  “I’ve told you! We’re looking for what’s lost! We need evidence, clues, any mention of anything unusual … gargoyles …” he answered, muttering and trailing off as he went back to his magnifying glass and the newspaper.

  “Well, couldn’t we just search the Internet?” James immediately regretted his question.

  His grandfather glared at him. “YOU can, if you want to, but don’t let anyone know what you’re searching for. No one is going to find ME on that thing.”

  Oh yeah. James had forgotten that. His grandfather hated computers, mail, and even distrusted the telephone. James wasn’t supposed to let anyone else know what he and his grandfather were doing all summer. No one was to know that they were looking for stories about statues, and in particular anything about gargoyles. Not even James’s parents were supposed to know. Whenever they called from Toronto to check on how his summer visit was going, James said everything was fine.

  And it was fine. James was enjoying his summer trip to England; he just wished he could see more of it before he had to go back home.

  He turned back to the newspaper and sighed. After a while he said, “Here’s an article about fountains in Florence … they’re doing something to one of them. Renovating the statues. Or re-facing the masonry or something. No mention of gargoyles, though.” He handed the paper over to his grandfather, who cleaned the magnifying glass on a rag and carefully pored over the page.

  James got up and yawned. “I’m taking a walk, I’ll be back,” he said. He wandered to the green garden pond and sat in the shade of a climbing rose bush. It was definitely cooler in the shade. He took off his sandals and leaned back, yawning again. The pond had lily pads with frogs lurking under them, doing their best to stay cool. He was dozing a little, listening to the water tumble from a fountain nearby when suddenly …

  … a splash of water from the pond hit him right in the face. James jumped to his feet, spluttering and wiping away the pond muck.

  A large gargoyle broke the surface of the pond, stomped through the water and clambered out. Pond water ran off the gargoyle’s dark back and pooled at its taloned feet. It shook its wings a lot like a dog would, spraying more water across the boy. The gargoyle had a heavy body, a head shaped like a ram with curly horns, and stood quite tall (for a gargoyle). The ground shook a little when it stomped across the flagstones, leaving huge, wet gargoyle footprints as it went.

  “Hey! Theodorus! You just drenched me in pond water!” James spluttered, backing away.

  “Gremice elba,” the creature said with a deep, booming laugh, which James heard as “Time to wake up!” It headed off into the apple orchard, still laughing, long arms drooping at its sides.

  But before the gargoyle disappeared, James heard it quite clearly say in its strange, whispery voice, “You looked hot.”

  The gargoyle was right, James WAS hot. It was impossible not to smile, just a little. He decided he might just go for a swim.

  Chapter Eight

  First Toronto, Now This

  Christopher spent that night far away from his window, trying not to look into the park down below. He didn’t know what happened in that park, but he did know one thing: he wasn’t going back in there.

  There was something, or maybe several somethings, hiding in the bushes. Last he checked, bushes didn’t talk, and apples didn’t just fling themselves off trees at people.

  At least not so you felt like target practice.

  It was creepy. He wasn’t sure about this new city at the best of times. When his mom and dad had gathered the family together to tell them they were leaving Vancouver and moving to Toronto, he wasn’t all that excited about it. He loved Vancouver. He had friends there, it was home.

  Everything was different in Toronto. And now he discovered that strange voices spoke in the bushes in Toronto city parks. And not just parks far away in some other part of the city. He heard them in his park, right next door to his house.

  He had a sleepless night, tossing and turning. He kept dreaming that something in the park was howling at the moon. Once he heard a whack as something small and hard — an apple? — banged into his bedroom window. He dug his head as deeply as he could under his pillow, but the howling continued all night long.

  The next morning, when he had to walk past the park gates on his way to school, he kept his eyes down and did not look inside. It was raining, and the gargoyles were spitting water onto the sidewalk, something he didn’t remember from the day before. He didn’t look up and smile at the gargoyles. He’d never look at them or the park a
gain as far as he was concerned. Claire smiled in surprise when Christopher took her hand as they walked past the gates and didn’t let go until they got to his school.

  In class that afternoon, Christopher was paired up with Katherine to write a one-page article about their neighbourhood. It was supposed to help all the kids find out who lived closest to them.

  The topic was: What I love most about my part of the city.

  Christopher scratched his nose and fiddled with his pencil as Katherine started writing. He eventually blurted out, “I don’t really know the neighbourhood very well, since I’ve only lived there for a few weeks, so it’s not really fair … to you.”

  “It’s okay,” Katherine said, scribbling furiously. “I don’t really live in that part of town either. I just visit Candles by Daye in the afternoon after school.”

  “What are you writing then?” Christopher asked.

  “I’m writing about the public library a few doors down from Candles by Daye. It’s tiny, but it has a great rooftop garden, with a miniature apple tree and a goldfish pond, and flowers.”

  “Yeah, I saw it last week. It is nice,” Christopher said half-heartedly.

  Katherine considered for a moment. “Well, there must be something you like?”

  “I like my bedroom. It’s a turret at the top of the house.”

  Katherine shook her head. “No good. It can’t be about anything inside your house. Has to be outside.”

  They both fell silent. “I don’t mind the park in the ravine, that’s nice. It’s got trees and my dog likes it. That’s okay, I guess,” he finally said.

  Katherine wrote that down. “We need a little more. Anything else you like? Think!”

  Christopher shrugged. “I can tell you what I don’t like: that creepy little park next to my house, it’s haunted or something.” Katherine jerked her head up and gasped. She dropped her pencil at the same time, too, which surprised Christopher. He jumped up, banged his knee on the bottom of the desk, and started hopping up and down. The teacher came over and asked what was going on.