The Gargoyle at the Gates Read online

  “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise, PROMISE, not to tell anyone else. Not Mom and Dad. Not Marc. Not anyone else. And it’s going to sound … well, crazy, I guess.”

  Claire nodded, a little worried. Her brother wasn’t usually so intense. Brother and sister walked across the street through the hidden park doorway (which Claire loved), and into the park. Christopher settled Claire on the bench at the stump of the apple tree. He paced in the snow before her and started a strange story. If Claire didn’t know her brother better, she would have said it was made up.

  But her little brother rarely made up stories, so she had no choice but to believe it.

  It was amazing, it was unbelievable, but there were the broken statues, and the ruined apple tree somehow full of fruit in the middle of the winter. Claire nodded and hemmed and hawed, and when her brother had finished his story, she knew what she had to do.

  She promised Christopher that his secret was safe with her.

  But her idea of safe was very different from his.

  No one threatened her little brother and got away with it. And in her experience of the world, most secrets were evil things that only helped protect bad people and hurt innocent ones.

  Claire Canning wasn’t one for keeping secrets, at least not the kind that frightened children.

  She grasped her brother by the mittened hand and said, “Come on, C.C.,” purposefully marching across the little park.

  “Where are we going?” he gasped, keeping up.

  “I think it’s time for you to introduce me to Cassandra Daye.”

  But Claire was thinking, And I hope she knows how to keep a secret better than you do.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In the Cage

  Ambergine woke and groaned softly. Her entire body hurt from head to taloned toe, and from wingtip to wingtip. She slowly opened her eyes and tried to focus.

  There were bars in front of her face. She was in a cage! It was cramped and uncomfortable, and she longed to stretch her wings and shake herself, but there wasn’t room. She made herself stay calm and look around. She was in an old house. Somewhere nearby, perhaps downstairs, a baby was crying. She wished she could soothe it, but she wasn’t in any shape to help another creature at the moment.

  Her cage was in a room with an indoor water pump (although she vaguely knew that it wasn’t called a water pump), an indoor cooking fire (she knew it wasn’t called that, either), and a food box (with another name she couldn’t recall). She thought it might be in the room that humans called a “kitchen.” It was sparse, without any furniture or hangings on the walls. Her cage was beside a window, looking down into a tiny, snowy backyard and the many small yards and kitchen windows of neighbouring houses.

  The yard had soil underneath the new blanket of snow. That’s all she needed.

  The sun was coming up. Ambergine didn’t know how much time she had before her captor appeared, so she had to act quickly. She was close enough to the window to push it with her claw. She reached through the bars of her cage and pushed and pushed against the window, as quietly as she could until the window opened a crack. She reached into her pouch and pulled out an apple: her last Cellini apple from the park.

  She put the apple to her gargoyle lips inhaling the familiar scent, then breathed out slowly. She had one shot, and it had better be a good one. She wished she was Gargoth, because HE never missed. Carefully she took aim then tossed the apple through the window. She watched it bounce on the balcony railing, totter, then tumble slowly over…

  … and roll into the snow of the tiny backyard, landing with a gentle “shoosh.”

  She could watch over the apple now. It was her only hope.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The East End Crier

  It was Monday morning. James pulled himself out of bed, opened his curtains, and looked into his backyard. Big snowfall yesterday. Big chemistry test today. He picked up Theodorus’s gargoyle statue and rubbed its head.

  “Hope you can watch over me today, little guy, bring me luck on my chemistry test!” He replaced the statue carefully in the window and went to get ready for school.

  When he got downstairs, his father was reading the local paper, The East End Crier, at the kitchen table. His mother had already left for work. James looked over his father’s shoulder as he reached for the milk carton on the table and stopped dead.

  “Vandals Smash Gargoyles!” the newspaper headline shouted. He grabbed the paper from his father, who complained and read the short article out loud:

  An abandoned park in the east end was vandalized on Saturday night. Two antique stone gargoyles were smashed and a rare Cellini apple tree was cut down. Local resident and shop owner, Cassandra Daye, who owns the curio store Candles by Daye, reported the crime, stating the antique statues would be impossible to replace and the Cellini apple tree is very rare. Residents are asked to contact police if they have any further information.

  The article was written by a reporter named Stern, and it went on to describe the location of the park. What really made James stare were the photographs: the park had a fountain, an apple tree, and one of the photos showed the head of a broken statue.

  It was a gargoyle!

  He looked in amazement then got his father’s magnifying glass from the writing desk and looked more closely. Suddenly, he realized he looked exactly like his grandfather examining newspapers all summer.

  But the magnifying glass really did help him see everything in the grainy images. James peered at the photographs. There were footprints in the snow all around the smashed statues.

  “I wonder …” James stood at the dining room table, scratching his head.

  His father called him from the front hall. “Come on, Jamie! If you want a ride to school, you’d better hurry!”

  James stuffed the newspaper into his backpack, grabbed an apple for breakfast, and dashed out the door to his father’s car.

  After school and his chemistry test (which he did rather well on, he thought), James jumped on the streetcar. He quickly found the little park described in the newspaper, and not long afterwards he stood on the sidewalk looking in through the park gates.

  It was locked, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He was definitely too big to squeeze through the bars, but he was big enough to jump over the fence at the back of the park. The snow was thick, and the bushes dumped their snow as he vaulted over the iron railing (he left the sidewalk, since he didn’t want anyone to see him). He slowly walked to the centre of the tiny place.

  He approached the fallen apple tree.

  “It’s bearing fruit,” he said to himself as he touched an apple. He noticed how beautiful the tree was — he’d never seen anything like it. The fruit was golden and sweet-smelling, and still warm to the touch, even lying in the snow.

  He walked over to the seahorse fountain, which was bubbling away quietly. “Hmm. Water.” He walked to the tree stump and started snapping photos on his cell phone. After brushing away the snow, he took several pictures of the broken gargoyle statues, and several close-ups of their faces.

  “Grampa Gregory will definitely want to see this,” he said under his breath as he snapped photo after photo.

  The snow covered many of the tracks, and people had come and gone since the statues were broken and the tree cut down.

  James kept looking. He pushed bushes aside, moving slowly along the fence, carefully looking over the snow. Finally, he let out a little gasp. There it was, he’d found it: a perfect undisturbed footprint in the snow.

  It wasn’t human. Oh no. It was just like Theodorus’s wet print on the flagstones beside the summer pond.

  It was the scaly, taloned imprint of a gargoyle.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Down on the Farm

  Katherine and Christopher were sick of looking up into city trees. They had spent days looking, straining to see up into the branches and treetops in street after street after street of tree-lined neighbourhoods. Their neck
s were sore from craning upward, their voices were hoarse from calling softly, and Katherine was developing a bad cold from standing out in the snowy sidewalks for so long. Occasionally, Claire had tagged along to help, but since she’d never met a gargoyle and didn’t know Gargoth or Ambergine, she didn’t really know what or who she was looking for.

  Katherine’s parents hadn’t had any luck in their part of town, and Cassandra hadn’t been able to help much due to the busy holiday season. She did keep the 148 mismatched candle beacon lit on the rooftop every night, though.

  Katherine and Christopher had been shooed away by people suspicious of them lurking around their houses and looking up into the trees. They’d been chased by angry dogs and hissed at by more raccoons (there were a LOT of raccoons in Toronto, as well as trees, Christopher was dismayed to discover, all about the same size and shape as a gargoyle).

  School was out for the holidays. They travelled the streetcar to a new area of the city each day, carrying the big yellow backpack in case they had any luck.

  But they didn’t.

  On the plus side, they hadn’t seen the Collector since he had threatened Christopher in the park. They had no idea where the awful old man had gone, though, which was scary too. He might pop out at them at any moment.

  It is difficult to keep looking and looking without much hope of finding what you are looking for. Christopher was having trouble keeping his spirits up: the Collector had Ambergine in a cage.

  It was a terrible secret to have to keep.

  Katherine and Christopher were walking through a very old part of the city. It was so old that it held one of the city’s oldest cemeteries AND the city’s only working farm.

  The pair walked along the snowy pathway and through the railed farm gates. The farm was a happy place for families, and lots of little children were running around in their snowsuits, making snow angels and looking through the wooden fence at the shaggy horse waiting patiently for its lunch of fresh hay. The piglets, chickens, roosters, rabbits, and other animals of the farm were inside the warm huts. There were parents and toddlers and strollers everywhere.

  Katherine loved this farm, and she and her parents had come many times when she was little. She’d been one of the children running around in her snowsuit, patting the shaggy horse. Christopher couldn’t believe that a huge city like Toronto had a farm in the middle of it.

  Katherine looked at the farm map, but couldn’t see an apple orchard marked anywhere. She thought there might be one, though, since the farm made and sold apple cider all winter long. She bought a cup from the vendor and shared the warm, spicy drink with Christopher.

  “No wonder the gargoyles like apples, this is good!” he said, a little surprised.

  A lady in a Toronto Parks employee jacket walked by, pushing an overflowing wheelbarrow filled with hay.

  “Excuse me, can you point us in the direction of the apple orchard?” Katherine asked her. The lady put down the wheelbarrow and frowned.

  “You know, we don’t really have an orchard. There’s an old apple tree behind the drive shed.” She pointed down a narrow, snowy path with a shed at the end. “And there’s another one out by the gate, but that’s it. There might be an old apple orchard over in the Necropolis, though. That’s right across the street.”

  “What about the cider?” Katherine asked.

  “Oh, we get the apples for the cider from a lot of apple trees around the city, not just here. People pick them from parks and backyards and bring them here for us to use.” Katherine thanked the lady, who picked up the wheelbarrow and trundled away, followed by squealing children who wanted to help feed the horse.

  “What should we do now?” she asked.

  Christopher shrugged. “I guess we try the Necropolis, whatever that is.”

  “It’s a cemetery, Christopher. I think it means ‘city of the dead,’ actually,” Katherine said.

  They left the happy farm behind and crossed the street into a completely different world. The Necropolis was one of the oldest cemeteries in the city. It was an odd sensation, leaving the happy sounds of children feeding the horse, to the quiet dark of the waiting graveyard.

  The cemetery wasn’t very big and had once bordered on a farm, back in the 1850s. At the far eastern edge of the Necropolis they found a few old, gnarled apple trees, but it was hardly an orchard.

  They wandered through the headstones, kicking the snow away along the path and looking up into the trees, gently calling. Christopher ran ahead and was looking at an interesting grave: Ned Hanlan, 1855−1908. As he finished reading about Ned Hanlan (a great oarsman and Canada’s first world champion in any sport), he noticed a shiny headstone with an odd-looking angel on it. He walked over to it then realized it wasn’t a headstone: it was a beautiful snow sculpture.

  And it wasn’t an angel, it was a gargoyle, and it looked like Ambergine!

  “Katherine! C’mere!” he shouted.

  “I’ve found a headstone!” he called. “I mean, a snow statue! A gargoyle!”

  Katherine ran up and clasped him by the arm. “They must be here!” she cried.

  The two plowed through the deep snow and called up into the trees. No gargoyle called back, though.

  Then Katherine smelled familiar pipe smoke and ran down a small bushy path toward a large marble headstone …

  … where a little gargoyle was smoking a pipe, curled up next to a flying angel.

  The gravelly voice said, “Bella grathen tador Ambe.” There was no “hello” just the words, “Tell me you have found Ambergine?”

  Chapter Thirty

  The Hidden Turret

  Gargoth was growling and complaining.

  Katherine and Christopher were on a crowded streetcar and Gargoth was inside the yellow canvas backpack, being bumped and jostled on Katherine’s back. He was cramped and his sore wing was being crushed. He didn’t seem to care if it was uncomfortable for Katherine, though, as he rolled and complained and jabbed her mercilessly with his pointed, taloned feet.

  Gargoth growled. Gargoth sneezed. He grumbled in his strange, gravelly voice, “Behim mamot,” which Katherine and Christopher both heard as, “Let me out!”

  A small boy standing beside his mother looked up in shocked surprise, searching their faces. They both stared at him, until Katherine frowned and shook her head at him. The boy looked away quickly, but Christopher saw his eyes stray again and again to the yellow canvas backpack. They were both very relieved when the boy and his mother got off the streetcar.

  “Shh! Gargoth, please,” Katherine whispered over her shoulder. She really didn’t want people to hear her backpack groaning and complaining. But Gargoth wasn’t going to be quiet. The only thing he WAS quiet about was what happened in the park with the Collector. He wasn’t very forthcoming about that night, or how he ended up in the Necropolis.

  When Katherine had asked Gargoth about Ambergine, he went completely mute. He absolutely refused to mention her name or discuss her in any way.

  Christopher started fidgeting.

  Whatever Gargoth knew about Ambergine, he wasn’t saying. Christopher could feel himself start to sweat.

  It seemed like forever before he and Katherine and Gargoth finally got off the streetcar and stood in front of Cassandra’s store. They both realized at the same time that they had a problem.

  What, exactly, were they going to do with Gargoth?

  Candles by Daye was swarming with people buying holiday gifts. Even if they wanted to push their way through the crowd buying dragon statues and skull candles, where would they take the gargoyle? Not to the rooftop, since the Collector might be watching from the library.

  So Candles by Daye was out.

  Katherine and Christopher looked over at the ruined park. After years of neglect, the park gates were open and it was suddenly swarming with people. City workers in colorful vests and hard hats were shovelling broken statue bits into the back of a city truck. Another worker was smoothing out the snow hills that were once sn
ow statues.

  A far worse thing was happening, though.

  Two workmen were chain-sawing the branches off the destroyed apple tree. They were tossing the pieces into a wood chipper, which was spewing out apple tree bits into a bag at the back with a deafening roar.

  It was horrifying. Katherine and Christopher both looked away. The park was overrun with people and everything was being shovelled or flattened or chipped. Clearly they couldn’t leave Gargoth there, either.

  “What are we going to do?” Katherine whispered.

  “What about your house?” Christopher asked quietly. He pushed his glasses up his nose. He was getting nervous. He felt like the park workers were looking over at them.

  “We could go to my house for now, but the Collector knows where I live,” Katherine answered. She sounded nervous, too. A loud, gravelly voice from the backpack said, “I am NOT going back on that locomotion machine!”

  Christopher was looking over at his house. The car wasn’t in the garage, and there were no brothers or sister on the porch or playing hockey in the snowy driveway.

  “Okay, we don’t have any choice. Come on,” he said.

  They crossed the street and walked up to Christopher’s front door. He listened carefully then put the key into the lock. He opened the door quietly and put his fingers to his lips.

  “Shhh.” He didn’t know what Marbles would do if he found a New Friend entering the house AND smelled a Wondrous Creature in her backpack. He didn’t want to find out either. They creaked up the stairs, past all the bedrooms, then quietly up to his turret.

  Halfway up the stairs to his bedroom, Claire’s door opened. She popped her head out, with Marbles at her knees.