Mercy, A Gargoyle Story (4 page)

"How don't you?
 
Weren't you there?"

"Of course I was,” I snap again, but I am no closer to knowing the answer.
 
The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice made me beautiful and hideous.
 
I think of how The Boy's voice was so gentle as he stroked his fingers through my pixie-cut hair and said he didn't want me to look like a boy anymore.
 
I was proud when it finally curled around his fingertips.
 
I think of how thick the boy's voice was, when he said I should be a model, but it would never happen, because I wasn’t tall enough.

"So, never.
 
Never ugly,"
 
Moag groans.
 
He dips down and I feel the spray of the ocean on my open bones.
 
The pier, the same one that I died beneath, is close enough to see clearly in the moonlight.
 
Moag hovers and swirls over the ocean, out of the curious beam of the pier lights.
 
"Where?" he grumbles.
 
"Where do you go?"

"What do you mean?"
 
Panic rises like steam from my skeleton.
 
I can’t understand why I should panic now, but I do.
 
The thoughts dart through my head that the gargoyle will drop me and I will finally sink to my grave.
 
I will finally be ended.
 
Like this.
 
The voice that has never failed me wavers as I ask the gargoyle, "What are you going to do?"

"Skin you,” he says.
 
He swoops down so quickly my bones rattle against his chest.
 
The water comes up fast and we hit it like a truck, barreling through a wave, my skeleton and guts sinking.
 
There is one second, in which I see the light of the moon dance in the dust of the ocean floor, and I think I will be left here.
 
This, my final ending.
 
Then Moag's talons hook through my exposed ribs again and drag me up past the surface, breaking into the air again.

"Why are you doing this to me?”
 
I screech as he dives back down and plunges me into the water again.
 
He does it three times without answering, and the third time, he tosses me into the air with a cackling laugh before catching me.
 

"Why?"
 
I sputter, but something catches my eye.
 
It is skin.
 
A gelatinous sheath covers me like an oyster coat.
 
Moag loops through the air with me and as we go, the skin thickens, molding closer to my bones.
 
In only five loops, my innards are shrink-wrapped and my featherless wings are covered in crusty, clay-colored skin.
 
Just like the gargoyle.

"Should not have made you a talker.
 
No good came of that,"
 
Moag grumbles.
 
"Only filling my head with what if and why and but, until I can not think what I must."

"What must?”
 
I ask.
 
“What must you think?"

"I must think of change.
 
Past the temptations and still find the pretty.
 
I must get around it."

I shiver at the thought of the gargoyle thinking I am pretty.
 
I am disgusted that he may want to turn our short acquaintance into some sort of fairytale, where we are both revealed in a kiss.
 
He saved me and I suppose I owe him his wishes, but I am repulsed.
 
Moag grunts.

"Around it," he growls, as if I’m interrupting him.
 
"
Around it.
 
How do we hide the pretty and find it at once?"

He groans and goes back to mumbling a conversation so filled with pauses, I open my mouth over and over again to ask if he is speaking to me, but each time, he begins talking again, with such exasperated speech, that I never utter a word.
 
"Stupid.
 
Must understand the stupid...better to have bashed the Slip to be found sooner or later, I think...no wanderers, though, I know, I know.
 
Ugh...no wanderers.
 
We take the Slip and we
try,
even if it doesn't,
we
do...we give it ugly.
 
Silver platter the ugly, and it asks why and how and but, but, but...I disagree.
 
I do."
 

"Are you calling me an
it
?"
 
I ask through tight, heavy lips.
 
I can tell already, this new face is one that is meant to be silent.
 
The gargoyle blinks; as if I've broken whatever intense concentration, it has taken to grumble to himself.
 

"It?" he says absently.
 
"That is what I am, isn't it?"
 

I sputter.
 
"You
have
been reading my mind, haven't you!"

"Not hard to do.
 
Jabber jabber jabber.
 
Annoying.
 
Pointless.
 
Useless..."

"You just want me to
give up!
"
 
I howl.
 
I try to dig my own talon-ish fingers and toes into him, to dig myself up his body and into his face, but my skin is still too mushy beneath the crumbly surface and the gargoyle's body is as inconducive to climbing as the smooth side of a cliff.
 

"Give up?
 
No.
 
I want you to be what you should, Slip."

"What are you talking about?"

"Resignation.
 
That is where I shall take you."
 

***

I expect sewers filled with rats.
 
Fresh graves with rotting corpses.
 

I don't expect a rooftop in the middle of the city.
 
With its bent vent pipes poking up across the flat top, I may as well be landing on a tarred side of the moon.
 
If it were possible to land at all.
 

Moag swirls around the roof top, feet above the actual roof but hidden by the ledge.
 
I assume it is necessary, so as not to attract onlookers to the enormous, buzzardous monster that is clutching yet another monster to it.
 
He shuffles me, as if to drop me, and I cling to him and protest.

"Don't throw me down again!"
 
I shout, but the change in my voice draws me up short.
 
My vocal cords plunge my usual sound even deeper, with a vulnerable crumble at the edges of the sentence.
 
Moag grunts.

"Oh so pretty,"
 
He gurgles as he tosses me the ten or so feet to the rooftop.
 
As I fall, I try to stretch my new wings, but they are still sticky.
 
Instead, I land on my feet with more ease and silence than expected, digging my talons into the tar to steady myself.
 
I step aside and wait for Moag to land, but he doesn't.
 
He drifts in the air above me, his wings as wide and long as those of a dragon.

"What am I supposed to do now?
 
I can't go anywhere looking like this,” I say.
 
Moag's face is more fitting than ever.
 
It is like stone.
 

"You don't be seen, or maybe I return to tear you to pieces myself,” he says.
 
The edges of his mouth dip a little, showing even more of his horrible teeth, but he manages to look almost remorseful at the prospect.
 
"Here, you learn to fly."

I peer out at the edge of the rooftop.
 
The fat curled lip of it is made of solid, white concrete.
 
I can't bring myself to move any closer, to see how far up I am.
 
I'm certainly not going to jump off it.
 

"I can't fly with these wings," I bend the tip of one of my wings inward and rub the thick jelly that covers the useless spines.
 
"That doesn't even make sense."

"Oh,” Moag says with a contorted grin.
 
"But it does, Slip."

CHAPTER FIVE

I hate the gargoyle.
 
Both the one that left me here, and the one I am now.

There is no flying.
 
The suggestion is nothing more than a taunt.
 
My wings are still nothing but soft mush inside.

Moag recedes into the night like a shadow, leaving me again, like he always does.
 
Always stranded.
 
The anger takes a long time to ebb away and when it does, what roots in its place is self-pity.
 
I spend my first night listening to my foreign voice growl complaints through the thin reed of my throat.

The roof is like most, tarred and barren.
 
The pipes burp inconsistently.
 
There is a closet, which encloses a stairwell leading down into the apartment house.
 
The door to the closet is locked.
 

A line of air conditioners hum and grizzle on the opposite side of the closet.
 
A single, brown leather workman's boot has been kicked off near the door, faded three shades lighter than the tar, and just as crackled as my skin.
 
The boot has no laces and the tongue lolls.

When I notice the floodlight in a silver hood beside the door, I break out its eye.
 
It will not disturb me by opening up its light.

Beyond the stairway door, there is a bucket, overturned and oozy-black around the edges, as if it is no longer used for tarring.

A truck rumbles across the street below and blows its horn.
 
I look up from my inspection of the bucket and notice a dark spot, sitting upon one corner of the concrete-block lip, at the opposite end of the roof.
 
The thing is hunkered down, but there are hard wisps of unruly hair rising all around it like the horizon of a Medusa hairline.
 
The thing must be looking out over the city, because it does not seem to notice when I scuttle toward it.

I am guarded and suspicious, knowing now that I am not the only gargoyle to have been deposited upon this rooftop.
 
I am unsure if the thing will see me and spring to attack.
 
But, as I near it, I see that it is rooted to the building's edge, the base of its body a stone that is part of the lip itself.
 
The statue is sitting, at full attention, it's tail dangling and frozen in one tense twitch above the rooftop.
 
Closer yet, the thing has the sloped back of a waiting cat and the mane of a lion.
 
There are gashes speckling its mane and chips broken from its back.
 
It does not move.

But I do not believe in statues anymore.
 
I nearly look to be one myself, and am convinced that if I sit very still, I could look as harmless as this lion.
 
Keeping a little distance, I hover at the edge of the building to get a better look at the gargoyle’s face.

It is a lion, I suppose.
 
A grotesque lion, with a great, smooth hole, arcing through the center of its head, from a broad opening at its crown to its wide and snarling teeth that line its open jaw.
 
If I were a girl again, I could pass my arm through it’s mouth and out the top of it’s head, crooking at the elbow.
 
As a gargoyle, my claws would get stuck.
 

The snout of the immobile beast is as wide and flat as Moag's, but sculpted to be more lionesque.
 
The eyes are fierce with fat rectangles at the edges, narrowing like an Egyptian queen's eyeliner toward the ears.
 
The mane could be made of snakes, tangling and reaching out its undisciplined fingers on all sides.
 
It’s body is that of a muscular and half-starved king of beasts, but with magnified feet and claws that are as long and sharply arced as a collection of machetes.

To stare at the thing, I must tip my face up and peer out the holes of my bone mask.

I stare at the thing for a long time but it's own gaze never falters from its focus over the city.

I stare a long time more and begin to itch, although I never dare, to touch it.

I stare until the moon has begun its decent and then I finally say, "Hello."

The lion does not move, but its enormous eyes slide, like gravel stones, rolls to the side of it’s head. It looks at me.

But still, it does not give me one word.

We stay rooted, me too terrified to move from its gaze, and it, just gazing.
 
I read nothing in its eyes that are only dark rock with holes bore for irises.
 
I wonder if the thing is more alive than I am, or possibly less, as I can speak and move.
 
We do not find out, as the thing does not speak and does not move a muscle.

Neither do I.

At least, not until the sun becomes more prominent of a player on the sky's canvas and my skin grows hot and tight.
 
When my skin begins to strangle my insides, I move.
 
The eyes of the beast grind back to their original focus over the city and I thump over the roof and hide in the box of shade, cast by the door.
 
I wonder, easing down into the bowl of my haunches, how long the shade will last and if I will die at noon, cooked in an encore of death, by the light of day.

***

I sit in the shade of the door, but the sun hides away behind a chalky sky.
 
The clouds move in like angry saviors, clogging up the humidity but keeping the day darker and therefore, tolerable.
 
By noon, there is the spittle of rain on my forehead and I creep about the rooftop with no place to hide from it.

Finally, I spread my wings out over my head and huddle beneath.
 
In the cup of my own wings, the rumble of traffic splashing down below is magnified and so is a faint, gritting whine.

Triiiiiiiig...gul...

It is a rusty sound, like the tin man squeaking about without an oil can.
 
It could be a weather vane, if there was one.
 
I peer out at the antennae, the electrical lines, and the pipes.
 
All is motionless.
 
I shift beneath the spines of my wings, scooping the amplifying cup in different directions to locate the sound.
 
As I scan past the lion statue, the sound bellows deeply into my wings,
TRIIIIICK...gul!

I fold down my wings and scoot closer, listening.
 
The rain drools down in a relentless sprinkle, instead of the previous spitting, and as I scuttle even closer, the squeaking turns to a whine,
triiiiiick gul!
 
Triiiiick gul!

I creep to the ledge and lean around, as I did the night before, not looking down but keeping my eyes glued to the lion that is still immobile as it was the night before.
 
The rain is dribbling through the hole at the top of its head and running down into the mouth and dripping off the ferocious teeth.

The stone eyes of the lion grate to the side to see me, and the thing, in a rough, roaring whisper, booms
TRICKLE!

It scares me back a step and then, when nothing else of the statue moves, I step forward again.

"Did you speak?"
 
I ask.

There is a short huff from the mouth of the lion as it growls a whisper,
TRICKLE!

The thing is absolutely right; the water is trickling through it, and I wonder if it is tickled, if it wishes me to stop the flow.
 
I spread out one wing and inch closer, until it hovers over the reaching stone wisps of the mane, and shield the hole in the top of the lion's head.

I stand there, petrified I suppose, waiting for the thing to leap to life and gobble me down.
 
But it does not speak again.

"Is this what you wanted?"
 
I ask and the lion's eye closest to me droops, exhausted or sad or dissatisfied, it is hard to tell.
 
The rain increases and it beats hard on my wing, poking the underside against the sharp points of the lion's mane.
 
After a moment, the drooping at the corner of its eye gets droopier and I worry that this was not at all what the lion wanted.

Cautiously, I pull back my wing, letting them stay open and ready to fly, in case I must suddenly learn how, by being thrown from the rooftop.
 
The drops of rain gather and flow through the lion's head and out its mouth, and I see the throat undulate like a snake forcing its food out rather than in.

"
Triiiii...ckle,"
 
the lion's voice says.
 
"
Myyyyyyggg naaaaahhhmmmm...
"

I squint; I roll the sounds he made over my own tongue.
 
Myyyyggg naaahhhhmmm.
 
The rain continues down, beating on my head as if the drops are trying to nail in the name itself.
 
Myyyyyyggg naaaahhhhmm.

The teeth begin to drizzle the rain and the throat quivers.
 
The lion's jaw moves.
 
It closes, the spears of teeth still exposed over its lip, and then open up again, allowing a gush of water to flow out over the thick mane beneath its chin.
 
I take a step backward, spreading out my wings further, and trying to remember just how Moag pushed them down to rise straight up.

The lion smacks its lips and says in quite a lovely voice, "Trickle.
 
My name, dear sister, is Trickle."

All I can do is stare.
 
I can't absorb that this magnificent stone beast is named something so small and meaningless as Trickle.
 
Or that it is speaking to me instead of jumping off its base to rip me to pieces.

The lion closes its jaws again to allow the rain to pool inside it’s mouth.
 
It sloshes the water around and opens up, letting the rain drop over the edge of the building and plummet to the street below.

"I hope for a long rain."
 
The lion says.
 
"So that we may get acquainted."

I fold down my wings slowly and the lion pays my suspicion no mind, busying itself with filling its mouth, sloshing and then letting the water flow out.
 

"Are you a gargoyle?"
 
I finally ask.

"Certainly.
 
Truer a gargoyle than you, in fact.
 
Driven by water, animated and controlled by it, unfortunately."
 
Trickle finishes the last sentence with a sigh.

"Can you move?"

"Not off my pedestal."
 
The lion shakes its head, which is another sudden and unexpected movement that makes me wonder if it is indeed telling me the truth or simply keeping me here as it waits for its faculties to become flexible enough to attack.

"Why not?"

The lion chuckles, a soft gruntish sound.
 
"Why?"

"You don't want to move?"

"I have no need."
 
Without shaking his mane, the water sprays off as if he has.
 
"A better conversation: tell me how you came to be."

Came to be.
 
What a jarring thing it is not to be able to answer the question.
 
I came to be an imperfect girl, a lover with too much to add, a conspiratorial murderer, a dead body, a deader body, a resurrected huddle of bones, and now, this.
 
I am something that I still do not believe I can be—a thing of frightening stories, and yet more real now than the angels that were preached to me for years.

Which thing should I answer to?
 
None of who I have been is fascinating and all of it ends the same.
 
Killed in one way or another, until there is nothing.
 
There is no story of me.

"I died.
 
Almost,"
 
I finally say.

"Didn't we all,"
 
the lion harumphs.

"Are you a Slip too?"
 

"A Slip?
 
No.
 
But I was slipped away from, I suppose you could say."

I have no idea what he means, but he quivers and the heavy rain sprites from his mane and it seems to be all the answer I should expect.
 
He waits a moment for the water to accumulate in his mouth again.
 
He spits it out over the city before he speaks.

I don't want to ask about his life because I worry that it will lead to his asking about mine.
 
At the very least, I assume I'll start thinking of The Boy with The Golden Rod Voice.
 
Worse, I could think of my Bean, captured inside me, and then, buried with a nameless marker inside my heart.

I search desperately for a different question that will avoid the most dangerous ones.

"What are you doing here?"
 
I settle upon.
 
It's not a safe question, but the best I can do.

"I am here to improve my sight," the lion says,
 
"among other things."