When a Gargoyle Awakens (3 page)

She glanced around the room and noticed that there was a huge gargoyle shunted to one side.  Big though it was, even that was masked against everything else populating the room.  It wasn’t like either of the two by the front door, which were modeled on lions.  This one was more human looking.  Except, the statue was in disrepair and missing half its face.

“Poor guy,” muttered Kylie.

“What was that?” snapped the professor, still otherwise engrossed with the mirror.

Kylie felt the heat rushing to her cheeks.  Undoubtedly, he would think she was an idiot for thinking of statues as people rather than hunks of stone.  “Nothing… ah, just the gargoyle.  Poor guy, missing half his face.”  She laughed timidly, trying to pass it off as a joke.

Hardcastle didn’t think it was funny.  But he didn’t turn to look at her with an expression that said she was an outright loon either.  No, he continued looking at the mirror, completely unfazed.  “He’s fixable, and thankfully he’s not one of the priceless ones.”

“He looks pretty old.”  Although, her expertise on the value of ‘old things’ was pretty limited.  As far as she could tell people would pay extortionate amounts of money for hideous items that Kylie couldn’t bear to look at, never mind display them in her living room.  While people sneered at her vintage salt and pepper shakers in the shape of a moose and a bear that she considered to be irreplaceable.  She was really no judge of what anything was worth.

“Oh, he is, which is why I plan to restore him and perhaps send him to one of my other homes.  No, it’s not age that makes the gargoyles valuable.”

They lapsed into silence again, and Kylie’s mind started wandering as she looked around the cavernous room.  She avoided the many animal heads who all appeared to be staring at her with an expression that said ‘why me?’.

“Everything okay?” she asked after five minutes.  That was the polite way of saying, ‘gimme the money so I can go home and curl up in bed with some chocolate fudge cake and a racy book and pretend I’m someone else’.  Hey, no one said her life was glamorous or even interesting for that matter.

The professor let out a huff of disgust and straightened his back, as far as he could at least.  “It’s crap.”

“Oh.”  Kylie glanced around the room, nervously.  “Bea said it was worth…”

He waved his hand dismissively.  “Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure plenty of idiots would pay a large amount of money for it.  It’s just useless for my purpose.”

She frowned.  “Looking at your reflection?”  What the heck else would he want it for?

“Hmmm?”  He gave her a dazed look as if she had suggested that he put it on his head and wear it as a hat.  “Not your fault, of course,” he continued, sadly.

“Ah… no…”

“Still, you’ll want paying.”

“Ah… yes…”  This deflated professor, this quiet professor - he was something new, and very disconcerting.

Hardcastle pulled some crumpled hundred dollar bills out of his pocket and thrust them at her as lightly as if they were singles.  “You can see yourself out?” he asked, rhetorically as he wended his way back to his desk, the mirror completely forgotten.

“Sure, nice to see you again,” she mumbled as she pushed the bills into her purse and gingerly stepped over what appeared to be a – shudder – shrunken head.

“You met my nephew, didn’t you?” he called, freezing her hand on the doorknob.

Kylie turned and squinted back at him, trying to discern his face through the clutter.  “Sure, on the way in.”

“Absolute wastrel,” sneered the professor, but not in a friendly way.

“He seemed…”  She paused as she searched for an adequate term to describe him.  None was forthcoming.  If she said nice, he’d know she was lying.  Thankfully, he didn’t press her on the matter.

“Last of my family,” he lamented, almost entirely to himself she was sure.  “No one to carry on my legacy…”

“You wanna talk about it?” she offered, lamely.  It was an offer borne out of politeness, and one that she was sure would be rejected immediately.

“No… at least… not today…”  He slammed a wrinkled, brown fist down on his desk, and his face looked downright furious.

Kylie was sure he was just being melodramatic, so she fixed a bright smile on her face.  “Well, have a nice day.  Or at least, try to.”

She ducked out of the room and tried not to let out a huge sigh of relief.  Wow.  He was usually cranky, but she’d never seen him maudlin. 

Belatedly, she realized she was actually in the middle of the maze-like house and had no idea how she ended up there.  She hissed Gustave’s name a couple of times before giving that up as a lost cause.  She did consider asking the professor for help, but upon hearing him barking ‘useless thing’, and given the sound of breaking glass which swiftly followed, she decided against it and set out to find her own way back to the front door.

It was just a house.  How hard could it be?

Chapter Four

How freaking hard could it be?!  She could kick herself sometimes.  What was all that guff earlier about making better life choices?  Naturally, she’d be found eventually, probably in three weeks time, half starved and with a severe vitamin D deficiency from not having seen sunlight in a really long time.  But how embarrassing would it be to admit that she got lost in someone’s house and needed rescuing?

She tried another door and found herself facing another linen closet.  How much linen did one house need?  She considered standing stock-still and just screaming for help.  Gustave would probably find her after a couple of hours.

Kylie wasn’t unfamiliar with embarrassment.  Growing up she’d been the chubby, weird girl.  The fact that she didn’t have parents, moved around a lot and was generally always the new girl at school made her a target for universal bullies.  Yeah, kids, in general, were little shits.  Pranks had been played on her, mostly involving her walking straight into them due to her wide-eyed naiveté.  Hint – if the school bully happens to give you a chocolate pudding - it isn’t out of the kindness of her heart - it has laxatives in it. 

Most recently, of course, there was the incident with her best friend and her fiancé.  On reflection, she could see that they had been running around behind her back for months.  Yeah, there was no way they had been spending time planning her birthday party together as they had claimed at the time.  It’s just that Kylie was too naïve and too trusting to think otherwise.  Sure, she made snarky comments now and again, and yes, she could be downright nosy, but really she was a trusting person and – sigh – kind of sweet.  The girl next door, she thought, gloomily.  That’s what one of her high school boyfriends called her, as he was dumping her.  Shame he wanted a sex siren then.

A wave of anger overtook her; anger at all the people who had laughed at her, anger at her so-called best friend and fiancé who had probably laughed themselves stupid about her behind her back.  Kylie shook her head.  No, no more.  She had spent far too much of her life feeling embarrassed and silly.  She wasn’t going to be the butt of anyone’s joke anymore.  She would find her way out of this damn house even if it killed her!

With renewed determination, Kylie strode down corridor after corridor.  She snickered almost hysterically as she thought about what a shame it was that she didn’t have any bread to drop crumbs.

Kylie almost cried out in relief as she found a door – a door to the outside!  You could tell that’s what it was by the light streaming through its glass panels.  She twisted the handle and yes!  It was unlocked.  She made her way out into the glorious sunlight and gulped down the clean air.  It was at that point that she realized she’d only actually been in the house for ten minutes.  And also that she had her phone with her.  If push came to shove, she could have called for help.  She waved a hand to disperse the logical thoughts.  The point was that she was free.  Free to… ah… explore the gardens.  Huh.

She knew the house had gardens – extensive ones that could happily be home to about three herds of cows and room for so much more - it was just that she’d never been near them.  A high wall separated them from the driveway and extended around the entire property.  There was speculation about what happened within those walls.  Kylie’s favorite was that the professor had lots of erotic displays of topiary animals having sex with one another.  Well, it was a more interesting suggestion than simply the fact that he liked his privacy and didn’t want any of the town children getting in.

The gardens were much like the house – unruly.  She considered returning to the house but found the outdoors was infinitely preferable.  Less chance of suffocation.

Gingerly, she set forth.  Only giggling lightly as the wild grass tickled her ankles.  Although she was a little concerned about snakes.  They didn’t have snakes in Maine did they?  She’d heard that something called a Wendigo was a native – and to watch out for that – but she’d never heard anyone mention anything about snakes. 

Kylie smiled as various bees and butterflies buzzed and fluttered, flitting from flower to flower.  It was unkempt, sure, but it was beautiful in its own way.  It looked like it had been designed for a winsome heroine to flit through while lamenting the fact that her mean, old uncle won’t let her marry the stable boy.

There was evidence that it had been well tended at one point in its life – but that was long over.  Bea told her that the professor bought the house ten years ago.   It had been in the previous owner’s family since it was built over a hundred years ago, but the line had ended with him.  Following his sudden death, the house came up for auction and the professor snapped it up.

Apparently, Hardcastle didn’t have quite the same passion for gardening as the previous owner.  It was doubtful that anything had been done to the gardens since he became the owner.  Although, surprisingly, in spite of its overgrown state of being, there was a well-worn path to follow, as if someone came out to the gardens and took a specific route on a regular basis.  Well, in for a penny…

Kylie followed it, almost screaming as a frog jumped on her foot.  She gave it a small flick, and it jumped away again.  Huh, you didn’t get this in New York.  Well, there were rats, but they were really no different from the human occupants of the city.  Some of them were even better behaved.

She found herself at the opening of a slightly unkempt hedge maze.  In spite of its obvious neglect, it was still fairly intact.  Clearly, someone had been using the maze.  The worn path led directly inside.  She wondered what on earth for; Professor Hardcastle hardly seemed like the whimsical sort, and hedge mazes were surely the epitome of whimsy and spoke of someone who had lots of money, lots of spare garden and lots of time on their hands.  The average gardener stuck to bordering plants, perhaps the odd tomato plant and at most an ornamental water feature.  Hedge mazes were the type of thing you were more likely to see in the Red Queen’s garden in Wonderland.

She was intrigued.  Since she was kind of, ever so slightly, already trespassing, she decided she might as well find out what the point was of the damn maze.  Uneasy worries of finding some kind of graveyard – perhaps of the professor’s deceased wives (all of which he killed) – oozed through her stomach.  Although, that seemed unlikely.  It wasn’t an unkind thought, but he was the least likely Don Juan since Mr. Magoo.

Carefully, she made her way through.  Annoyance and fear of becoming lost were overruled by downright nosiness.  It was fairly easy to navigate; it was probably more difficult when it was well kept and every route looked the same, but now the overgrown parts of the hedge had grown into interesting and distinctive shapes such as the sheep, the deformed sheep, the two-headed sheep and the sheep with no ears.

When she finally found the center of the maze, it was a relief, and Kylie let out a groan of relief.  Combined with her adventure in the house, she had walked more in one day than she normally did in a whole week, and her calves were not happy bunnies.  Perhaps it wasn’t a bad thing.  She had been a little lax when it came to exercise since… ever.  In New York, the most effort she made was in walking to the subway or raising her arm to hail a cab.  And here in Devil’s Hang, well, she lived over the shop where she worked and the grocery store was just down the road.  Perhaps she could…

Her thoughts trailed away as she took in the sight before her.  The clearing was shaded, hidden by the overgrown hedges, but the few peeks of sunlight shone through and danced on a stone statue displayed in the middle on a short ledge.  The earth around it looked a little muddier than the rest.  She assumed this had once been some kind of pond - stepping stones dotted the ground.  It had long since dried up, though.

Curiosity propelled her toward it. She circled around it.  It was massive, and a lot like the decaying statue that the professor had in his study.  But he was even bigger and his features even sharper, more realistic.  There was no doubt it was a he.  He was kneeling, one knee raised, and an arm slung over it while his other rested on the ground and his large hand curled into a ball.  His wings curled tightly against his body, but still they loomed over his head almost menacingly. 

He was a gargoyle; that was for sure.  But Kylie wondered why he was kept all the way out here instead of displayed somewhere on the house, terrifying potential visitors with his hard stare.  She leaned in for a closer look and even rested her hand on his enormous shoulder.  The carved detail was amazing.  Gently, she traced a finger over his chest; the muscles had been rendered with so much precision that they looked more real than a human’s.  Of course, she couldn’t imagine a human male with such a perfect physique.  Only someone’s imagination could create a man like this.