A late miracle.
I drag myself to my feet and limp across the street. I can't go back up to the roof of the orphanage, so I dig the claws of my left hand into the soft brick of The Boy's building and climb slowly, clutching with the smaller claws on my feet. The climb is slow because I watch over one shoulder, to see if the Selene is watching me. She hangs her head over the ledge, a melting Rapunzel who can never escape, staring intently at the place where I had fallen. Freckles stands beside her, staring too, not at the ground, but at the woman's uncovered, patchy scalp. She is oblivious.
It still seems impossible that she hasn't spotted me, scaling the opposite building. I climb past the window with the sleeping man and the girl who pinches her thighs and up past The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice. But even when she finally looks up enough to search the rest of the street and the buildings, her eyes travel right past me. I'm invisible. I wave, one set of claws sliding over the brick, but Selene’s blank stare glides right over me.
At the top of the building, I haul myself over the edge and drop down on the other side. Flat against this rooftop, I can see that this is where I should've been left from the start.
CHAPTER TEN
This roof has the same little closet to shelter the staircase, but just beyond the closet is something new. There is a wobbly lean-to, made of planks that have been tacked together with bent nails, not to make walls, but to support the slatted beams of the roof. The walls are made of only potted plants, hanging down from hooks or reaching up from plastic buckets on the ground. In the slight breeze, one pot squeaks on its hook, as it sways in a macramé sling.
I sidle closer, peering around to be sure the roof is empty of any other life. There is a sun-faded Frisbee and a wounded metal truck, tipped on its two remaining wheels and vomiting potting soil from the tailgate. I edge closer to the lean-to, where the thick, green plants look like sturdy shadow-women, shaking out their hair in the dark.
Stepping beneath the overhang, I reach with one wing, to steady the swinging pot above me. The fern brushes against me, and the sound of the wind rustling through all this greenery is so peaceful, I want to close my eyes. I let go of the pot and sway to its rhythm instead. I step in further, until I'm surrounded. Squatting down in the middle of the clustered plants, the scent of the relocated Earth smells like Heavenin the buckets, and I pretend that the fronds reaching out to tickle my skin are actually the skittering fingers of my little bean. I close my eyes and pretend the best things in my life could still happen now.
I am there so long that the sunlight eventually sifts through the slats and burns the tip of my wing. Instead of moving, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and try to pretend again. All I get this time is the smell of the soil and the sun that hardens my skin. The breeze dies.
"It gets too hot on the roof." A girl's voice comes out of nowhere and I freeze. My eyes dart beneath my mask, trying to detect the other inhabitant. A second voice, a woman, joins the first.
"Shut up, Carly. You hear me?" Her breathing, hard and fast, is what leads me to her. The woman is leaning her rear on the door that opens up from the stairs below, doubled over with her hands on her thighs, trying to catch her breath. She is the woman I saw before, from the other roof, the one with the children who were hungry. And now, the four of them slip past her quickly, shooting out onto the roof as if they are playing tag with the woman and she is It. They skitter away from her, and once they are at a safe distance, two of them switch their attention to fighting over the broken truck. One wanders off, collecting up bits of tar and stowing them in his pocket. The last one, the girl that is Carly, stands four steps away, squinting at the woman as she takes deep breaths and finally creaks herself upright.
"I want to stay downstairs. I'm old enough."
"Twelve ain't old enough. You don't know nothing yet."
"More than you." Carly juts her chin, but when the woman takes a step toward her, the girl skitters back a few steps.
"Oh yeah, Miss Smart Mouth? That's why I caught you banging on that door down the hall? You're sure old enough to know you shouldn't be knocking on a grown man's door. I can't trust you down there on your own."
Carly scratched at a scab on her arm. "There ain't nobody else to talk with. I just listen to 'im play his guitar. I asked 'im to teach me."
"He'd teach you alright,” the woman grunted. "Go on now and watch the little ones. I ain't arguing with you about things you don't understand."
The woman walks toward the lean-to and Carly's eyes skitter across the tar roof to her siblings. She finds her target, sets her mouth in a severe line, and she hollers, "Scott! You get back here! Quit with them stupid tar balls, you hear me? They're gonna git all over our laundry and ruin our clothes again!"
The mother sighs wearily as she steps into the shade of the lean-to. Her eyes rove over the plants and then, she sees me.
"What the?" She grumbles, stepping closer to peer at me. Her nose wrinkles up as she whispers, "What the hell?"
She glances over her shoulder at the two kids, still arguing over the truck, and then around the roof at her angry daughter and her son with the tar pockets, and then, back to me.
"Carly,” The woman calls to her daughter. "Anybody been up here besides us?"
"I dunno."
"You hear the maintenance man say anything 'bout the plants again?"
"No."
"You hear anybody say anything 'bout up here?"
"Nope. Why? What's wrong?"
"Somebody took that old monster statue outta here and left a new one," the woman says.
"Really?" Carly says, but all the kids stop with the fighting and the wandering and the tar balls, to drift toward the lean-to, scouring it with their eyes until they find me.
"That ain't the same one as before," Tar Pockets says.
"Duh, stupido," Carly says. "That's what Mama just said."
"I heard her," Tar Pockets scowls. The two littler kids gravitate toward their mother. They hover behind her thighs without clinging to them.
"Who you think did that?" The girl asks.
"How'd I know?” The mother shrugs. She surveys the lean-to, shifting to look over one shoulder and then the other. "Somebody did. Guess I don't care, so long as they didn't take none of our plants."
"Is my bean plant still there?” One of the fighters asks.
"What about mine?" The other fighter pipes up.
"Yeah, they're over there," The mother says. "Everything's here, far as I can tell. ‘Cept that old monster statue. It’s gone."
"It was so big," Tar Pockets says. "How'd anybody move it?"
"Don't know." The mother shrugs again. "Like I said, I don't care neither, so long as nobody takes our plants."
With that, the woman goes to a corner of the lean-to and pulls out a bucket from beneath a bushy plant. She removes gloves and a trowel and gets to digging in one of the pots. The kids slowly lose interest and go back to gathering tar, fighting, and yelling at one another. I watch the woman work around in a circle, touching the green tips of each plant, turning over the leaves to inspect them as though they are pages of a book. When she finishes the plant beside me, she stops and straightens up.
"Huh,” she says, as she takes off one glove and reaches out to tap on my arm, folded over my ribbed belly. The moment her skin touches my cement veneer, a shudder unhinges and runs through me. I blink behind my mask. The woman, frowning in front of me, shocks me with her touch. I am overwhelmed and nearly let out a yelp. Her touch bursts with a guilt so heavy that I wonder how she's not doubled over with it. Regrets cry on her skin and dig deep trenches in her heart. There is an exhausting tune, singing all around her like mourning doves, my children, my children, I've failed my children.
Grief rumbles silently inside me. The ash marinates my heart, hidden behind my fingertips. Flashes of every sarcastic answer she's ever given her children flood me all at once, followed by every unnecessarily raised voice and every slap on an arm or a bottom, or a cheek. I see vi
sions of her, slumped over the sink with her back to them, as she eats the cookies they wanted, but that she craved so badly that her insides felt turned out; I see her buying a purse from a thrift shop window with the money that was supposed to buy a gallon of milk for their breakfast; I see her bringing home the last man she'd dated, because she was so desperate to be touched, and then finding him in the wee hours of the morning, rubbing the diaper of her slumbering youngest, in her toddler bed. But beneath all of them are remedies to her guilt - her reading endless books instead of sending the children to bed; her tears of remorse over the purse that she returned the next week and used the money to buy both milk and cookies; her beating the man that touched her daughter, at first with her strong fists and then with a broomstick, driving him out of their home, before returning to gather her sleepy, unaware child onto her lap and rocking her with songs and kisses until the child woke, smiling.
Her mistakes arc across her skin like exposed wires. I can feel her, trying to fill in the wells of sadness, dumping more and more food into the holes. I feel her expand, becoming more and more a solid warrior who drags herself up each morning and tries again. But that is not what she sees. No matter how much sacrifice or fixing she does, she sees that she has made mistakes. All mistakes, only mistakes, everything leading back to another mistake in a dizzying circuit.
She moves from plant to plant, watering and tenderizing the soil, plucking the string beans and the tomatoes, murmuring blessings on each leaf and all the while, thinking and re-thinking how she's failed the children that play around her on the rooftop.
I don't even know how she breathes.
***
The woman and her kids don’t leave the roof until each are sunburned and dehydrated. The sun sets, and the plants shoved back under the lean-to, clustered around me before they go.
I don’t move even after they’ve gone, letting the live stems of the plants brush my concrete skin, when a solid gust of wind pulls at my wings. I raise my head, hoping for another breeze to stir the leaves against me. But the air wafts over me in short bursts.
I turn to see a gargoyle, with a distorted and bulging human face, hovering close to my wings. He is maybe two feet tall, with beige crackled skin and lips stacked like fish bellies. With his wide eyes closed, nose reaching and nostrils flaring, he inhales the air around me, creating the draft that draws at my skin. His mouth is wound in a rapturous o. I back away and his massive eyes pop open.
"Hello," he says. "I didn't expect to find a Gargoyle Queen that was an actual gargoyle, but I must say, your scent is heavenly, my Queen."
I take another step back. He flutters forward, bobbing on impossibly small wings. They're smaller than mine and I don’t know how they support the round buoy of his body.
"You have the aroma of life with a sultry hint of death. Delectable. Truce must be trying to hide you away for himself. But even if Moag hadn't sent me, there is no way I would have missed that scent." He takes another deep breath, his oversized nostrils flaring even more. When he opens his eyes again, he swirls around me like a gruesome, crackling-faced cupid. "I'm sure I can overlook your appearance. Yes, certainly. We can make it work. I'd make a very flexible King, I assure you. So, choose me, my Queen. Right here. Right now."
"I'm not a Queen," I say. His circular fluttering comes to a sudden halt. I add, "And I'm not taking over the kingdom."
"That's not what I was told."
"Moag told you a lie then," I say and the grotesque man grins.
"Doubtful," he says, resuming his circular flutter around my shoulders. "Moag was urgent to have you claimed. So, take me, my...Queen...Queen - what is your name?" he asks. I stand silent. He resumes. "Queen of my world. Choose me and I will never kill you for your power. Consider it my wedding gift. I am happy to laze in your lap of luxury. I will make an excellent mate, you will see, Queen of My World...what is your name?"
Even dead, I want to vomit, although the sensation is less human. It is more a desire to expel, rather than actual sickness.
"Madeline. Not Queen, just Madeline."
"Madeline? You haven't been named? You must be named to be our Gargoyle Queen."
"I have a name. It's Madeline,” I tell him. "And I am not your Queen."
"But you must," he says and his mouth flounders under its grin. "Maybe you are to be named at the wedding? Please say it will be our wedding, my Queen. Please. I promise, you shall grow to love me. Or you could never love me at all...I don't care, whichever it is...but I need you desperately. I can't go on living like this, without change or hope of anything ever changing. Please."
"How long have you been a gargoyle?" I ask, scouring his crackled, gray face.
"Too long to remember that I once wasn't."
"What about your human recipient?"
"Gone," he says. The beat of his wings slows and he drops down onto the roof beside me. Standing, his full height does not make my knee. "My first and second recipients refused my gift."
"Can't you find another then?"
"And be refused again? No thank you. I've resisted the urge. It would be far better for me to take you as my Queen. I would never threaten your power and I would dedicate myself to preserving our Kingdom by never allowing another Slip to occur. That would be my job. You could reign indefinitely and I would live in a manner suitable to my tastes. A perfect arrangement."
"I don't think you understand," I tell him again. "I'm not claiming the kingdom."
Every feature of his overly protruding face opens in a sudden fury and the gargoyle jets up my leg. His wings go at hummingbird speed, propelling his ugly face toward me first, until he is nose-to-nose with me. The rage in his bulging eyes makes me cower.
"I am Kervus," he spouts. "I present myself as your suitor. I have endured your image, your prodding questions, and your rudeness, because I wish for you to see that I am a worthy choice. I need your luxuries and you need my eternal loyalty. All you have to do is give me your acceptance, my Queen. It is not so much to ask. Now, I shall excuse myself and I will return at the time of the choosing for your answer."
With that, he flutters away and I watch him bumble across the rooftops, until he is completely out of sight.
***
The miniature second suitor gone, the plants around me are suddenly less comforting than before. No one gets what they want in this death, not the suitors, not the humans, not me.
I scale down the side of The Boy’s apartment building, pausing at the edge of his windowsill when I hear a knock at his door. I creep as close as I can, but don’t dare look in, in case I am visible against the night sky. I hear the door swing open.
"What do you want?" I hear The Boy say. His voice is deep, more tired than sexy, like when he sings. His words aren’t playful and I wonder if it is Ayla outside his door.
"You said it's okay...if I come listen...” It’s Carly, the girl from the roof. I can tell by her voice. One of them twists the doorknob. I hear the bolt stick out its tongue and retract it again, back and forth, back and forth.
Then, there is one good twist and the Boy says, "Yeah. Sure. You can come in."
"My ma might git mad."
"Well, don't come in then,” he says. "Go home."
I dig my claws into the brick and the grit crumbles, raining concrete down the side of the building. I hate him. The sound of the bolt sticking out its tongue is slower this time, more hesitant even when it retracts.
"No." Her voice is small. "I'll come in."
"Whatever you want, Carly."
The door latches softly.
"So what're you doing?" she asks.
"Sitting around."
"Could you play your guitar a little? I wanted to hear some, if you felt like playin’ it."
"I could, I guess." The guitar makes a hollow sound when he picks it up. I hear them shuffling around, two bodies finding the right spots on the furniture. He clears his throat. "What do you want to hear?"
"A love song.” Her voice spins on tiptoes.<
br />
"Mmmh," he grunts. "I've got something even better."
There is a moment of more rustling and then he strikes the first chords and all the other sounds in the room are paralyzed. The music pours, thick and strong. I imagine his fingertips on the wire strings; drawing up the sound and then gently smothering it out so another sound can take up where the last left off. His hum weaves in and out and then the words come, so genuine, it's like he's never told a lie in his life.
I left a long dark mark
Across your heart
And let your light be dim
So no one but I,
With such eager eyes
Would come to look within...
The song cascades from the open window and twists into a beautiful, jealous tune of worship, about a lover who realized that the thing they treasured wasn’t such a treasure at all. It is a horrible love song, but it’s still a love song.
The girl's sigh comes at the end, just like mine does. And I hate her for everything she has, from her pink flesh and her birth-knit bones, to her ability to sit on his furniture and stare at him while he sings. Worst of all, she will have his gaze, no matter how bland, on her.
"What do you think of it?" he asks.
"I love it." She sighs again.
"I wrote it for a girl I used to know." My ears prick up on my head, swiveling in the direction of the open window. I want to lean in two more inches and peek around the sill, but I can't risk being seen.
"Not Ayla?” Carly asks flatly.
“No, not that song.”
"Whud you like about her anyways?"
"Ayla?" he asks. I hear the grin he puts into her name. "Lots of things. I like how she says my name."
Mercy, A Gargoyle Story Page 9
