The Girl, the Gypsy & the Gargoyle Page 8

  Jassy’s voice was distant, “The Troll’s Eye. Bad will be good.”

  She dropped her hands and stared at him with wide eyes, “I can’t trust my vision at all?”

  Jassy plucked a flower from the grass. “What’s this?”

  Laurel hesitated at this test of her vision, but he was right, they had to know. She took the flower and smelled it. She struggled to identify the smell. Laurel felt the shape of the flower, and then smelled it again. “A violet?”

  “Yes.” Jassy leaned forward and took in a deep breath. “I think you mostly see things right. Before you eat anything else, though, ask me.”

  Laurel knew he was right, but it aggravated her. She didn’t want to depend on him.

  Jassy’s eyebrows scrunched in concern, but he tried to be encouraging: “We’ll be okay. I’m just glad both of us didn’t look through the Troll’s Eye.”

  And I’m glad, Laurel thought, that I didn’t come to this world alone.

  For Laurel, the rest of the morning hike passed in a blur. The path still led almost straight down, easy to travel. The bird hopped awkwardly from bush to path to bush again, its long neck bobbing crazily. Yet, Jassy and Laurel were hard pressed to keep up with the clumsy bird’s pace. They passed numerous waterfalls where the stream fell toward the valley, but while the path wound up and over small inclines, it was still easy walking. Deep silent pools followed the waterfalls, where sometimes Laurel glimpsed large rainbow-colored fish swimming in the depths. And always, she looked for a vine with white star-shaped flowers.

  Once Laurel thought the path jumped, like the rock could move on its own. She was watching her feet on a steep part and suddenly, rubble and debris blocked her way. She closed her eyes and rubbed them quickly.

  Opening them again, the path was clear. She wiped her brow, thinking, I’m just tired and hungry.

  She almost asked Jassy to stop and rest again, but hated to admit her weakness. Instead, she shrugged up her pack and concentrated on watching each step.

  Within an hour, they came to a large clearing beside the stream and saw that the path crossed the shallows here and continued on into a wooded area.

  “We’ll rest here,” Jassy said.

  Laurel eagerly sat on a rock beside the stream, and stripped off her boots and stockings, and dangled her tiny feet in its cold water. Without speaking, Jassy handed her a piece of bread and cheese and they munched in companionable silence.

  After a few bites, Laurel realized her bird was perched on a bush nearby. He was a puzzle she wanted to unravel. At home, she had told the bird many secrets; would he still be a friend in this world?

  She pinched off a few crumbs and tossed to him. But he just tilted his impossibly long neck one-way, and then another, chirping merrily, until she laughed.

  “Am I making you work too hard?” She threw a crumb closer to the bush. He hopped down and ate it, and then hopped to the first crumb to peck at it.

  She threw another, even closer, and then sat still. The bird was motionless, too.

  Now she was determined: Father had given her this bird and she wanted him to come to her, to sit on her hand, to comfort her as he had over the years. She threw a breadcrumb right under his beak.

  Peck, peck.

  He was coming to her.

  Hop, peck. Hop, peck. Now the bird was beside her. Moving slowly, she held the bread chunk in her hand and waited.

  He hopped onto her leg and started pecking–gently–at the bread. She inched her other hand closer until she could reach out and stroke him, as she had when he was just a stone sculpture; his feathers were soft now and she felt his tiny heartbeat. And suddenly, she wondered how her father was doing: was he coughing again? Had he missed her yet?

  But she couldn’t think about her father now, or she would lose her courage. She focused on the bird.

  Funny, she thought, earlier his feathers were large and coarse. Now they were as soft as goose down.

  When the bread was gone, he squawked and flew back to his bush. But it was okay: he would come to her when she needed him.

  Leaning back, Laurel lifted hair off her neck and fanned herself. “What will you do with your part of the treasure?”

  Jassy’s answer was prompt: “Buy a winter house in the south and a large wagon to travel in during the summer months and two white horses to pull it.”

  Laurel laughed. “You don’t need the winter house. You couldn’t stay in one place even if you had enough money.”

  “It’s every Gypsy’s dream to have enough money to travel free, to go anywhere and everywhere, but still have a home to come back to.”

  Laurel suddenly saw him as a noble wanderer, free to come and go at will, free to stay as long as he liked, or to travel as long as he liked. There are worse things in life to want, she thought.

  “What will you do with your share?” Jassy asked.

  “Buy the quarry, hire the best masons, and build the west tower in only three years instead of a dozen,” she answered just as promptly.

  Suddenly, Laurel gasped. The sky had turned dark, winds whistled and the trees were stripped bare of anything green. It was winter.

  No. It was almost summer here.

  She blinked. And the trees were green, the skies fair and warm.

  “What’s wrong, Laurel?”

  Jassy was holding her hands.

  “Things reversed again!”

  “What did you see?”

  Laurel explained that earlier the path had suddenly been impassable, but that the distortion soon passed. Now, the trees were bare, but changed quickly back to green. “What is real in this crazy place?”

  Jassy’s mouth tightened. “I’m worried. The deeper we go into this world, the more the Troll’s Eye is affecting you.”

  It was true. But there was nothing they could do except move on. With great effort, Laurel forced a smile. She reached for her stockings and boots and when she did, the gargoyle bird woke and flapped off to a nearby bush. She dried her feet with her skirt and tugged on her boots. Looking up, Jassy’s brow was still furrowed. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “You’re not fine.” But he offered her a hand up anyway and insisted: “When you see strange things, you must tell me. Every time.”

  “I will.” The words were easy, but Laurel knew she wouldn’t—couldn’t worry Jassy with her problem.

  The words satisfied Jassy, though. He shifted his pack, readjusting its weight, and then waved at the red bird, which flew across the stream. Rocks and boulders lay exposed in the shallow stream. Jassy jumped lithely from rock to rock. Laurel picked up her pack and staff, and then turned to look back up the mountain. She studied the faint red glimmer from the Troll’s Eye.

  When she turned back, Jassy was just disappearing around a bend and a whistled melody floated back to her. Was it the whistle of the wind in bare winter trees, or Jassy whistling?

  She glanced back up the cliff and heard again Master Gimpel’s words: “Two in, two out.”

  Aloud, she said, “Treasure. For my father. For the cathedral.”

  And Laurel gritted her teeth against the winter wind, shouldered her pack and followed the bird and the boy.

  SEVENTEEN

  OF SQUIRRELS AND SKUNKS

  Jassy and the red bird set a smooth, steady pace. Their way rose and fell and twisted through woods. Under the tree canopy, it was cool and dim; pine needles underfoot sent up sharp incense. Laurel managed to keep her vision steady, but it wearied her. Muscles, unused to so much hiking, ached as well.

  Suddenly Jassy stopped ahead. Looking over his shoulder, Laurel saw that the path split.

  Jassy raised an eyebrow. “Which way?’

  To Laurel, they were both just dim corridors.

  “Look,” Jassy said, “the bird is taking the left path.”

  Laurel’s vision suddenly shifted. Something wild, a beast, blinked at her from beyond the bird. It was leading them straight into the beast’s path. “Right, Jassy, go right.” Fearful, she tugged
at his sleeve.

  Jassy narrowed his eyes. “What’s wrong? Your eyes again?”

  She stared at him, fear mounting with each passing second. She couldn’t trust him; he didn’t see what she saw; he didn’t understand the dangers.

  “No,” she lied. Wicked yellow beast-eyes followed her every movement. “Just don’t trust–” She stopped, uncertain. “–don’t trust that bird.”

  “But it’s your bird, your guardian. Close your eyes, Laurel! Now! Something is very wrong.”

  The beast crept forward on its belly, straight for Laurel’s feet. She couldn’t trust Jassy; he wanted her to close her eyes, wanted the beast to attack. It wasn’t large, but when it opened its mouth, sharp rows of teeth gleamed at her.

  She turned, slapping away Jassy’s hands, and fled down the right-hand path, shoving aside branches, trampling bushes and racing, hearing the breathing of the beast right behind her, knowing that at any moment, it would leap at her.

  Jassy was yelling, but she couldn’t stop to listen to that traitor.

  She ran flat out, charging ahead.

  The path led up a hill and she gasped, struggling for air, struggling to run full speed, to escape the beast.

  Jassy was closer now: “Stop! Slow down!”

  She did slow down, but not because she wanted to. She wheezed, trying to catch her breath. But she forced one foot to go in front of the other. She topped the hill and stood, teetering on the edge of a hole.

  The ground dropped away twenty feet into the ground where a dark abyss disappeared into nothing. Twenty feet across, the edge of the bowl-shaped hole was overgrown with small shrubs and grasses. Laurel cried out in fear. She waved her arms wildly, trying to stop her forward movement. Then, her foot slipped and she fell–

  –almost fell. Instead, Jassy grabbed at her, catching hold of her dress, pulling, and catching her arm, her waist and pulling her away from the hole, pulling her backwards until they tumbled together down the same hill they had just climbed. They crashed into a large shrub.

  After a stunned moment, Jassy rolled to his knees and turned her over. His hands desperately shoved hair and leaves away from her face, “Laurel!”

  She groaned and blinked up at him. “What happened?”

  Struggling, she managed to sit up. She plucked a leaf from her hand and held it out to stare at it.

  “Are you all right?” Jassy’s brows were knitted in concern, and his voice was high, strained.

  She held out the leaf to Jassy and gave a slight shake of her head.

  He sighed. “You almost ran into a sink hole. There must be caves all over these hills. Sometimes a natural opening to a cave is a hole just like that one. And it’s hidden until you get right on top of it.”

  Laurel’s hand trembled, and she dropped the leaf. “You saved my life.”

  “Why did you run?”

  “There was a wild beast. The bird. He was leading us straight toward some wild thing.”

  “Are you talking about the squirrel?”

  A squirrel. Laurel buried her face in her hands, scared to open her eyes, scared of what she might—or might not—see. “What are we going to do?”

  “You must trust me.”

  “I want to.”

  “I almost didn’t catch you.”

  “The curse–” She stopped and looked up at him, at his wide eyes, at the leaves that clung to his hair, at his shaking hand. “I didn’t trust you. I wanted to, but the curse–”

  He held up his hands in frustration. “You must try.”

  “Yes. I’ll try,” she said. But they both understood now that she might not be able to trust him. Yet, what could they do? They had to continue on.

  Laurel stood up and leaned unsteadily on a small sapling. After a moment, they turned downhill and went back to the split in the path. Though they hunted, the red bird was gone.

  “He could be anywhere by now,” Jassy said.

  Laurel didn’t want to leave the gargoyle bird behind; he was their only guide in this cold, stone world. And she didn’t want him left alone in this world, either.

  Now, she had only Jassy to travel with.

  And come to think of it, why should she trust Jassy? She knew so little about him, really had only known him a few days. And besides, who can trust a Gypsy? Everyone had warned her against him, maybe they were right.

  No, that was the curse talking. She could trust Jassy. Must trust him. There was no choice but to forge onward.

  “I just hope we don’t have any more forks in the path,” she said.

  They marched for another hour without incident until the trees thinned and the sun sank to become a fiery ball sitting on the dark cliffs.

  Now the woods stopped abruptly, giving way to an alpine meadow with outcroppings of red rock set in the midst of yellow flowers. Long shadows from the cliff crept across the meadow almost to their feet.

  “At last!” Laurel hadn’t realized how the dark woods had worn away at her. She sank onto a flat red stone covered with grey lichens. Suddenly, she leaned forward and picked the leaf of a plant that grew beside the stone and rolled it in her fingers to be sure it had square stems. “Mint! Do we have time for a fire and a cup of tea?”

  Jassy dropped his pack beside her. “No. But we both need it.”

  He went back and forth to the woods, bringing firewood while Laurel picked a couple handfuls of mint. When the wood was ready, he took a tinderbox from his pack and soon had a merry fire burning. He poured water from his flask into a tiny pot and set it over two red stones at the fire’s edge. Then he stretched out on the rock beside her. “We’ve made good time.”

  This was a good time to find out more about him, Laurel decided. “How long have you been on the road?”

  “Five summers.”

  “Antonio isn’t your father. Why do you travel with him?”

  “He’s my mother’s brother. He had no children until he took in Ana-Maria when she was orphaned. It’s hard to travel, though, with just one child for help. We have eight children–a large family with many mouths to feed. When Antonio asked me to travel with him, I was glad to go, to see new places.”

  “All I’ve seen are rock quarries,” she sighed. “Lots of them. But somehow, I don’t like traveling far from the cathedral. It’s my home.”

  Jassy shook his head, “I am more comfortable traveling than staying at home.”

  So strange to wander so far from home, Laurel thought. And to enjoy it. Although, in an odd way, she supposed, she was still inside the red stone, inside Master Gimpel’s workshop, inside the cathedral. The water was boiling now, so she dropped in mint leaves and let them steep, and then poured tea into tin mugs for each of them.

  “You remind me of my youngest sister,” Jassy said. “She knows herbs, too.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  Jassy shrugged. “She’s eight and already as tall as you. And she loves to tease.”

  “What does she tease you about?” Laurel closed her eyes and sipped her tea, enjoying the familiar warmth.

  “Loyalty.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m very loyal,” he protested. “Once I decide to commit to something or someone, I will never waver.”

  But just then, he did waver; he was a short, squat gargoyle who was drinking tea. No, it was just Jassy, with his curly hair, his serious blue eyes.

  No. He was a gargoyle with shiny eyes. “I never waver,” repeated the gargoyle.

  Laurel stared at Jassy’s pointy ears and wanted to cry. It was bad enough when the landscape shifted and squirrels became monsters. But for Jassy to change, it was almost unbearable.

  Was this trip worth the misery? She swirled the tea in her cup. “Will we find the treasure?”

  Jassy stretched and then set down his tea mug. “You stay here and rest. I’ll scout around.”

  “No!” A fear gripped her, fear that the entire world would shift again while he was out of sight. “No, two in and two out. We stay together.”<
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  “You’re right.”

  She flinched when his gargoyle-like claws reached for her, grasped her and pulled her up. But then his hands—not his claws—turned her loose.

  Trying to stay calm, Laurel brushed twigs and grasses from her yellow skirt, and then turned toward the cliff. Dusk was rapidly approaching. “The path peters out here, but it was heading that way,” she said. “We could head straight across the meadow. Also, I’ve been forgetting to watch for the white-flowered vine.”

  “I’ve been watching, but haven’t seen anything yet.”

  The meadow was in a valley, and they had decided to follow the cliff, but which direction? Right or left?

  “We’ll try one direction for ten minutes, and then backtrack and try the other direction,” said Jassy-the-human-boy.

  “Shhh!”

  “What?”

  “Shhh!” Laurel nodded toward a clump of wild rosemary that shook slightly. “Just barely saw something. Went in there.”

  Jassy waved at her to go around the left of the bush, while he went around the right.

  Again, the rosemary rustled. Maybe it was just another squirrel. But Laurel hoped it was the red bird, come back to help them.

  Without warning, Jassy lunged toward the rosemary bushes yelling.

  She yelled, too, but stood still, content to let Jassy, chase whatever it was.

  Then, Jassy turned and ran toward the trees, calling over his shoulder. “Laurel! Run!”

  She fled with him toward the tree line, but suddenly stopped. She was overcome with a sweet odor, like a flower garden or a scented herb garden on a sunny day; no, even better, like the cinnamon the merchants had brought to market last year. “Jassy! What’s happening?”

  Jassy turned and saw that she had stopped. He stumbled back toward her, coughing and gagging. “Oh! The smell!” He rubbed his nose vigorously and waved his hand. His face was twisted in a look of agony.

  “The flowers, the cinnamon?” Confusion swept over her. “Jassy?”

  “You don’t smell the skunk?”

  Laurel could do nothing but stare. Then, she sniggered. No, she couldn’t stop it, great belly laughs poured out of her until she had to sit, gasping for air, yet still giggling. “The Troll’s Eye,” she gasped. “Bad will be good. Skunks smell like cinnamon.”