Something lands behind me, as hard as stone striking the earth. Every part of me goes cold with fear. I should turn to look, but I can’t. Can’t breathe. Scratching sounds. Like claws on stone. A low growl comes from whatever is behind me. Don’t turn, Gemma. It isn’t real if you don’t turn. Close your eyes. Count to ten. One. Two. Three. The moon is full. A shadow rises tall, much taller than my own on the path. And then the enormous wings unfold.
My head is as light as a balloon. A faint threatens. “Lass…in, in…L-L-Lincolnshire…mussels…a p-pail…”
A loud screech pierces the night. The gargoyle takes flight and lands before me on the path with a tremendous thud, cutting off any hope of escape. I sink to my knees at the sight of the enormous stone bird-beast towering above me. Its face is a hideous living mask, the mouth stretched into a gruesome smile, the fangs as long as my leg. Its claws are terrifyingly sharp. A scream dies in my throat. The beast screeches as its claws come around me, closing firmly about my waist. Blackness steals over me.
“Hold fast,” the gargoyle commands in a gravelly voice, snapping me back to fear. He tucks me in close to his body, and we take flight. I hold tightly to those frightening claws. It takes me a moment to fully realize what is happening. The gargoyle doesn’t wish me harm. He means to protect me. The sky is alive with winged beasts. They screech and growl. The sounds reverberate in my ears but I don’t dare let go to cover them. The rush of air is cool against my sodden gown and wet skin. I shiver as we pass over the tops of trees and land gently on Spence’s roof.
“Do not look,” he advises.
But I cannot look away. Below, the other gargoyles have cornered Ithal. They reach down and pluck him from the ground, flying toward the lake.
“What will they do?” I ask.
“What they must.” He does not elaborate, and I dare not question him further.
“Wh-who are you?”
“I am one of the guardians of the night,” he says, and I am reminded of Wilhelmina’s drawing. “We protected your kind for centuries when the veil between worlds had no seal. Now the seal is broken. The land is enchanted again. But I fear we cannot keep you safe from what has begun.”
The sky blackens with wings. Overhead, the gargoyles circle, casting me in shadows. They swoop low and land as lightly as angels upon the roof. A gargoyle with the nose of a dragon approaches.
“It is done,” he growls. “He has been returned to the dead.”
The gargoyle who saved me nods. “This is not the last we shall see of them. They will come again and stronger.”
A ribbon of pink shows in the eastern sky. The other gargoyles take their familiar perches on the edge of the roof. As I watch, they return to stone.
“I am dreaming,” I whisper. “This is all a dream.”
The head gargoyle spreads his wings till all his darkness surrounds me. His voice is as deep as time. “Yes, you have been sleeping. But now is the time to wake.”
I open my eyes. My ceiling takes shape. I can hear Ann’s gentle snoring. I’m in my room, as I should be. It is past dawn but barely so. I sit up, and my body aches with the effort. A great clamor rises in the woods. Hardly dressed, girls push out of their doors to see what has happened. In the early morning mist, the Gypsies gather at the lake with their lanterns. A cry of grief rises from them.
Now I see. Ithal lies in the water facedown, drowned. That was why Freya stopped beside the lake, why she seemed so upset. She knew that her master was dead, and the thing on her back was undead, a hellish messenger from the Winterlands sent to take me to them.
No. No, that did not happen. I imagined it all. Or dreamed it. A dead man did not come to spirit me away. I did not fly in a gargoyle’s grip.
I look up for confirmation. The gargoyles sit on the roof ’s edge, silent and unseeing. I turn my head this way and that, but they do not change. Of course not. They are stone, silly girl. I chuckle. This gets the attention of the crowd, for I am laughing while they pull a dead man from the lake.
Kartik is there, right as rain, not a mark on him. He looks at me with concern.
The men cover Ithal with a jacket.
“You must build the fire,” Mother Elena says. “Burn him. Burn everything.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
IT IS ASTONISHING THAT WITH A MAN DROWNED IN THE woods, my behavior at the ball should become the talk of Spence, but it has. At breakfast, girls hush as I walk past; they track me with their eyes, like vultures waiting for carrion. I sit with the older girls, and they fall silent. It’s as if I were Death himself, scythe at the ready.