Stone and Moss

A young woman descends a stone staircase, intent on rescuing her angel from a demonic entity. However, there is more at work than she realizes, and little does she know that her test is only beginning

**THIS STORY DEALS WITH THEMES OF SELF HARM, ABUSE AND SUICIDE. PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION**

Stone and Moss

By Christina Muldoon

 

As I descend the stairs, I keep trying to think just what the hell has compelled me to get here in the first place. My hands grasp at the cold stone walls, looking for some sort of support, but there is none to be found. I am alone, which is something I should have known all along. Despite the glimmer of light coming from the archway at the bottom of the stairs, my eyes need to strain in the dark to see the next step. They’re all uneven, mismeasured from one step to the next, making the game rigged from the beginning. Someone wants me to fall, or to turn back. They want me to leave this place and never return. Believe me, the thought is tempting. In fact, the thought is logical. And yet, here I find myself, continuing on. I have nothing and no one. No one knows I’m here and if anything happens, no one will come looking for me, at least not here. I don’t even know where this place is, but the Voice had helped me to find it.

It was the Voice that had told me to come searching in the first place. Like any person this day in age, I know that I should automatically not trust voices I hear in my head. But this voice isn’t in my head. It’s in the pit of my stomach, the hollow of my bones. It bounces and moves around in my body all day every day, ricocheting off of my sharp corners, smoothing them down. With each day, this sense of movement has turned to a feeling, then the feeling to a whisper, and the whisper into the Voice: Find him, it says. Over and over, in the quiet moments of my day, I hear it. Find him.

It is that Voice with its quiet insistence that pushes me onward, down into the gloom. I hate that I trust it, but trust it I do. I trust it because it is consistent, and speaks simply. It is the only real sense of light that is in this adverse place. It is my only companion and true guide, telling me to place each foot with caution. There is no rush. I can take my time, but I must always move. Never be still.

With only a few steps left, an odd sense of excitement comes over me. The thought that I can feel that way in such a place as this is odd indeed, but I am near the end of this seemingly endless staircase, and the promise of journey’s end entices me to listen to my own folly instead of the steadfastness of the Voice. As I begin to move faster, my focus shifts and I lose my footing. I fall quickly but feel it slowly. My heart gives a lurch and slams out of my chest, and I feel as if someone has pulled my stomach out of my body with fishing line. I grasp for something--- anything-- to break my fall, despite knowing full well that nothing is there. I feel sick rise in my throat as my body is about to hit the steps, when like a roar, my Voice yells in my head: Accept the fall.

A dull, sickening crack as my knee hits the stone. My hands fly out in front of me, reaching for a brace but they just slide off of the subterranean damp, skinning my hands and forearms. I turn my face just in time so that it’s my cheekbone that hits the lip of the steps, and not my nose. I do accept the fall, but only because the shock of pain makes me go numb.

I land at the bottom of the steps like an animal carcass dropped on a butcher’s shop floor. My fall creates a small echo wherever I am, and I vomit from the pain. Before I pass out, I only have enough time to roll onto my back and look upward. I lose consciousness with candlelight in my eyes.

 

I went to live with my grandmother when I was sixteen. Our worlds had changed overnight and we were all each other had. Before it all happened, I would visit her and it was always a reprieve. When I was small, we would bake, colour and play. Even when I turned into a dour, sullen teenager, my childlike outlook returned whenever I was at her house. She spoke to me the way other adults never did. She asked me thoughtful questions that made me feel equal and respected instead of giving me answers, advice, and guidance which I had never asked for. She was my unbreakable bedrock in my otherwise broken world. So when it all happened and I went to live with her, everything shifted. The house I once saw as my saving grace became our mutual tomb. We saw her in each other, and the everyday reminder would reopen the wound which we were both trying so desperately to heal.

Sometime in my first week at my grandmother’s, I woke up out of a dead sleep, unable to move. In my sleeping stupor, I tried to untangle myself from the blankets, believing that I had merely wrapped myself in them. But my body refused to move despite my telling it to. I tried to call for my grandmother, but found that my voice stuck firmly in my throat. I couldn’t even manage a whimper. I immediately began to panic, thrashing and screaming in my mind, but completely still and silent in my body. To anyone, I would have appeared lifeless. And then a thought occurred to me, Is this what it’s like to be dead? Is this happening to her right now?

An overwhelming pain took me, and I inwardly thrashed in it’s current. Tears streamed from my eyes and I willed myself to bash my head against the wall, against anything, to get me out of this waking nightmare.

Something caught my eye and all thoughts left me. In the corner of my room, I saw two glowing eyes staring at me from the dim. My rational brain told me that they were two lights from outside coming in from the window, perhaps from a car. But humans always seem to know when there is a set of eyes on them, and a block of ice formed around my heart as I realized that the two red points of eerie light, staring at me unblinking through the darkness like two coals in a fire, were indeed eyes.

Suddenly, beside me, there was a man. And not just any man. The most handsome man I had ever seen. A man with eyes a soft green like moss in the forest, and a kind smile that made me feel at ease. He stood over me, putting himself between me and the creature in the corner. I stared up at him like a defenceless animal in caught in a snare. My eyes screamed at him, Please help me!

What I saw next was a terrifying blur. Dark came from Dark, and the creature with coals for eyes leapt at the kind man, covering him in shadows. They struggled and fought each other, fought for me. Over whom would get me.

I heard grunts and snarls of anger and frustration as I lay helpless on my bed. As I watched them fight in the shadows, sometimes I would see a hand reaching for me, a hand that was made of charcoal and ash. With it came a whiff of acrid scent, like woodsmoke laced with burning chemicals. This hand would reach for me out of the dark, straining to sink itself into my skin, only to be pulled back into the gaping maw of the darkness.

After what seemed like hours, there was silence. No eyes of coal threatening to burn my soul, no eyes of moss promising to help cool my pain. Just silence and still. For the first time ever, I heard the Voice: Sleep now.

After that night of my all too real nightmare, I awoke the next morning to light streaming in behind my curtains, faint but insistent. It was that glorious moment in the day where everything is still sleeping except for the birds, and they take advantage of not having to compete with the noise of humans. The terror of the night before mixed with gratitude at my having survived it rushed into my once frozen body, and the sound that finally came from my throat was a grotesque sob. I pushed my face into my pillow and let everything fall out of me. As the birds sang joyfully outside, I wished for nothing more than for them to fly away, and take my sadness with them.

 

I have never told anyone that story until now. To me, it always seemed like children can talk about their hopes, their dreams, fears and doubts. If I had had that nightmare as a child, I would have been held until my fear had subsided and I felt comforted enough to sleep alone once more. But I wasn’t a child anymore. I was closer to adulthood than I was to childhood, and as such, an almost imperceptible shift had taken place and I was now expected to live like an adult, although my only experience had even been that of a child. I’ve always found that so unfair… expecting children to automatically act in a way that they have no idea, no experience, and often no desire to act.

It happens to all of us, and we are forced to give up our child’s view on the world whether we are ready to relinquish it or not. I’m sure that there are many people who survive this shift and enter adulthood with a clean break from their youth. But there are people who are taken aback by this change, feeling as if they have been cheated out of their time of innocence and wide eyed wonder. We feel as if our adult lives have snuck up on us, and rudely demand that we immediately vacate the nursery. We then cling to the ghost, stuck somewhere between what was and what is, equally unsure of how to let go and how to proceed.

After that night, my days seemed to be tainted with shadows. Shadows that refused to shift, no matter my laughing with friends, walks in the sun, and chats with my grandmother. Something had fractured that night, and over the years, the fracture had zigzagged and cracked like a continent breaking apart. I was always two steps behind, trying my hardest to repair it all with inadequate tools, like putting a band-aid over a gunshot wound. The fissure in my soul grew to a point that I felt a complete break was imminent, despite my best efforts. My grandmother saw this and tried her best to help, only for me to push her away. Not because I thought that everything was fine, but because I was so focused on fixing it so that it would be fine, and her asking me about it was a distraction I didn’t need.

So I left her behind, her voice calling my name only to fade into the distance as I tried to get the jump on the forming chasm. I eventually became so exhausted of trying to repair things myself that I needed a break, only to realize that I was alone. My grandmother saw me every day, but she didn’t ask me how I was anymore. Not because she didn’t want to know, nor because I didn’t want to tell her. It was because in trying to stop the rift from forming, it formed all the same, creating an empty space that swallowed all communication. I had shut myself from everything and everyone, including her. I was afraid to talk about it because if I did, my already precarious hold would snap. I had control because I created the illusion of control. If I admitted that the crack was real, then there would be nowhere to hide, because it would be, well… real.

So we lived our lives, silent but still talking, alone but together. I would smile, have fun, go out with friends, and have genuinely good days, but the bedrock of my life was eroding beneath me, and my mind began to look for escapes. It was only the moment that my mind turned towards cutting was when I heard the Voice yet again. It sounded like something crying up out of the depths, something that somehow escaped all of the layers of scar tissue and knots of hurt that had formed around my heart. It was the voice of my soul, wanting to continue. Not only did I hear it, but I began to listen.

After it swept through me like the wind blows through trees branches, shaking loose what is dead or dying, I was left with a feeling of restitution. If I did not act quickly, my life wouldn’t merely break, it would irreparably shatter. But I didn’t know what to do. Children ask for help; adults learn for themselves. But like so many others, I was stuck somewhere between with the fear and helplessness of a child and appearance and expectations of an adult.

*   *   *

I come to sometime later on the stone floor, pain surging through me as if trying to escape my skin, but my body is trying to contain it and keep it from spreading. My cheekbone is throbbing so bad that I think my eye might be pushed out of its socket. The blood from the gash on my cheek is dripping into my ear, but when I open my eye, I can still see the candles above me. Not blind at least. I start to move slowly, but stop when a stab of white shock comes from my leg. Instead of sitting up, I roll into the foetal position, bringing all of myself into a small, huddled ball. I gingerly feel my knee as I wiggle my toes and rotate my ankle, checking for broken bones, although I heard somewhere that this is in no way a test for such a thing. It seems that overall, I am going to be ok. Bloodied, yes. Bruised, most certainly. It hurt to move, but it wasn’t impossible. Nothing broken, nothing irreparable. I could continue on.

I laugh quietly to myself, though it hurt my ribs. You idiot, comes the thought, any person in their right mind would turn back immediately. But not you. 

Well, came my answer, I suppose that’s proof then that I’m not in my right mind.

I hear something above me, and with as much care for my neck as with trepidation, I slowly turn my eyes up. The stairs had lead me to some sort of an antechamber, large and rectangular, like a great hall without a roof. I can’t see how far up it goes, but there are thousands, perhaps millions, of lights above me, the candles that provided the only light here. There are so many that I see them fade into the darkness, so far that their light doesn’t reach my eye. I’m interested to know who is in charge of lighting and maintaining them all, when a flash of light happens high above me, not unlike a flicker of lightning. Its then that I see them all. They aren’t candles. They are eyes. Eyes like the creature in my bedroom that night. The eyes of gargoyles.

As I sit, looking up at millions upon millions of eyes that are transfixed upon me, I have a split second memory of being four years old and attending mass at a cathedral with my grandmother. It was the first time I had ever seen those grotesque faces and forms sitting on the high edges of that building, snarling and baring their teeth at all who look at them. Clutching my grandmother’s hand, I asked her what they were.

“They’re gargoyles, honey. They scare away evil and keep it out of the church.”

Even as a four year old, I didn’t see much sense in that explanation. Doesn’t God keep the evil out? And why, if anything, does He need gargoyles? If it was up to me, I would have covered the church in angels. Angels to keep guard. Angels with shields and armour, not held offensively, but kept defensively. Angels who stood between you and the evil of this world, guarding you with kind smiles and moss coloured eyes. 

I only ever went to church when I was at my grandmother’s, but I only ever actively disliked it on the occasions when we would go to that cathedral. The cathedral where I felt the gargoyles daring me to look up at them, ready to drag me to Hell at the slightest transgression.

It’s the four year old in me that now sits on the stone floor, looking up at what had been my greatest childhood fear and, more recently, a terrifying nightmare. I’m held not by horror, but by curiosity. Why aren’t they attacking me? In fact, beyond the occasional flutter of leathered wings or head movement for a better vantage point, why aren’t they moving? They all cling to the wall like they cling to the rooftops of cathedrals, almost as if they have grown out of the rock, watching the sinners below.

My eyes take them all in and follow up in an arch, then back down until my gaze falls to the other end of the hall, where I see light. Firelight. It’s coming from a small doorway opposite to me in the chamber.

I don’t need the Voice. I know that this is where I need to go.

I gingerly press up from the floor. I breathe hard through the searing pain in my head, the dull thud of the rapidly forming bruise on my knee. Turn back, screams my body. No, is my response.

Silently, I walk with a heavy but determined limp. In no rush, but never still. For a brief period, the only sound was the faintest echo of my uneven steps on the cobblestone floor. Then I hear a hiss, and then another, and I glance up. I could see some of them moving now, flying or crawling along the walls to keep up with me. Its only now that I get closer to the door that they begin in earnest. With the hissing comes the baring of their many rows of teeth like demonic wolves. Then come the roars. Like agitated chimpanzees, they howl and bang their fists against the stone. One sound begets another, and their noise disturbs more out of their silent observation. Before long, their cacophony fills the chamber, howling and banging, fluttering and roaring, all at me.

I can see their faces, these gargoyles. All of them different, all of them an abomination. There are lipless mouths, leaving fangs of jagged rock exposed. Some appear as if burnt or charred, the scars showing on their grey skin. A particularly gruesome one appears to have no eyes at all, but the same coal-like glow emanates from somewhere inside it’s skull, and it’s mouth is pulled from ear to ear in a perverse, eternal grin.

Get out, their violence tells me. Get out now.

I turn my gaze from them and fixate on the door. Their anger grows when I ignore them, but I don’t care. My Voice holds me steady.

Almost there. Be brave. You can do this.

I step onto the threshold of the door, and inexplicably, they’re silent again. I look over my shoulder, almost fearful that they have somehow disappeared. They are there but as silent and still as they had been when I had first arrived, and with every eye on me. This stillness is different, however. It feels as if they are… apprehensive.

Almost there. Be brave. You can do this.

Turning away from them, I step through the doorway.

 

A man is sitting on a bench with his back to me. He stares into the firelight emanating from a small nook in the wall. This room is rather empty: just the fireplace, the bench and himself. Despite the small sterility of the chamber, it seems cosy, a little place of solitude and silence just on the other side of the door from Hell. He is at such an angle that I can see the rear side of him, his strong jawline curving up to touch the bottom of his earlobe, and I can see him smile to himself.

“I knew you would come one day.”

His voice is laced with honey, calming and reassuring. And enticing. He stands up and turns to me, and I gasp although I already knew it would be him. 

The same moss green eyes. Same easy smile.

But this time, in proper light, I can see his face more clearly. He’s more handsome than I had first realized. Above his moss eyes are short, loose, brown curls that turn auburn in the firelight. His skin is like peach alabaster, with a small sprinkling of dark whiskers covering the lower half of his face, starting at his cheeks, moving down his strong jawbone and onto his lean neck. I can see a soft, easy pulse in his throat. His lips are full and smooth, and look soft like rose petals. As he walks towards me, I notice that he moves the way most people should: starting at his core, the movement spreads perfectly throughout his body, allowing him to move with strength and grace, but with minimal effort. His chest is broad and his arms are strong. He is utterly resplendent and I’m struck dumb by it. He seems fashioned by God’s own hand.

He comes to stand in front of me, and I once more find myself unable to move or speak. He laughs as he regards my dumbstruck gaze.

“Is there something on my face?”

He brings his hand up and draws his thumb across his lower lip, dragging it slightly to the side. He watches me as my eyes follow that thumb as it wipes away the imaginary ‘something’ on his face. He enjoys that he has my attention.

Find him.

The Voice comes rushing into my ears and I’m brought back. Realizing that I had been staring, I look around the room frantically, though I’m unsure of what I’m looking for. I push past him, disregarding the temptation to put my hand on his broad chest. I’m finally here, and I need to stay focused. Something told me that the gargoyles outside wouldn’t allow me to leave as easily as they had allowed my arrival. I spin on my heel and speak firmly.

“I’m here to rescue you.”

“Rescue me? From what?” 

Good question. What, indeed. The Voice had failed to mention, but I could guess well enough.

“From this place, from your solitude. From those demons outside!”

Slowly, he turns and glances over his broad shoulder and out the door, as if he had no idea what demons I spoke of. He turns back to me slowly, a small, sad smile on his face, pitying my complete ignorance of the situation.

“My dear girl, you seem to have it wrong. I am not their captive. They are mine.”

I am rooted to the spot by my confusion.

“But I don’t--- I was told--- I was told to come save you.”

“Beautiful one, you can’t save me. Those things outside that door are my reason for being. They live in shadow, and thus, I hunt them in the darkest parts of night, where they thrive on human misery. I bring them here and keep them. It is my vocation, my purpose: to safeguard humanity from them.”

I don’t understand. This makes no sense. My head suddenly feels dizzy from the confusion, but I’m somehow still hold my footing.

He looks me over then, taking in my appearance. He looks at how I stand to one side, taking weight off of my injured leg. He steps closer to me, closing the gap between us, and his hand softly takes mine. With his soft fingertips, he sweetly grazes my hands and arms, skinned, bloodied and dirtied from my fall. Then his eyes come up to see the worst of it all, the violent laceration to my face, swollen and bruised, held together for the moment by congealed, sticky black blood. His hand comes up and hovers over my wound, as if he is trying to heal it merely with a look.

“What you have been through to get here,” he says, so quiet I’m not even sure I was meant to hear it. His gaze meets mine, and he looks into me.

“Close your eyes.” His voice is like a lullaby.

“What?”

“I said close your eyes. I can only show you in your mind’s eye.”

Gasping for clarity, I obey.

“So much rancour in Humanity. So much pain inflicted and internalized. Innocence snuffed out; good intention put under scrutiny. Trust is freely given, and therefore promptly broken. And the pain runs a gamut, from small, petty infractions to massive miscarriages of justice. Much of it goes unrectified, ignored and forgotten by those who haven’t directly suffered. Around and around it goes, generating and accumulating more. This is what they feed on. Those parasitic abortions I keep here so that you may live in peace, with a little less suffering, a little less pain. I know it isn’t perfect, but I do what I can.”

I feel his soft breath on my face. My breathing quickens, but my eyes remain shut.

“Think of your pain, all of your heartache. The lies you’ve been told, the offences thrown at you. All of those times you were forgotten and alone, left abandoned by people who didn’t want you and who didn’t care.”

As he speaks, I begin to feel a tightness in my chest. It often comes on with no explanation or cause. I could be going about my day and this feeling would grip me and I would be powerless against it. No good happened when this feeling came about. I often felt alone, angry, hurt and annoyed. But because I didn’t know why I felt so, I would feel shame about it and this stream of acid in my mind would become a raging river. I would shut myself off from others, and seeing this, they would shut themselves off from me, adding to the flow of rage within me. This feeling I knew well, but I never really knew where it came from or why.

“It’s because of them.”

By them, I think he means the gargoyles, but that idea is swept away by memories. Moments that I feel like I’m reliving, but seem to pass through me before even fully realized, as if Time in my brain and body are on two separate tracks. No order, no pattern. Just all of my hurtful and hurt-filled remembrances. 

I see them. I see them all:

I remember sitting behind a bookshelf in the library at school, hearing my best friend laugh at me with other girls, not realizing where I was. 

The feeling of being so angry with my grandmother as she continued, even now, to give daily thanks to her ‘loving’ god. 

I feel the embarrassment of being called on to read out loud in class, but being unaware of what the jumble of words on the page in front of me meant.

“This feeling you have? This anger in your heart? It’s what those abominations feed on, what they eat. This is what they are made of.”

The pain of my heart is growing exponentially: The fear of hearing my mother outside of my bedroom door, falling against the wall as yet another angry boyfriend punched her until he was satisfied that she understood him. 

My sleepy confusion as I was loaded into the car, making a midnight escape as she still bled from her face. 

The kids at my school, laughing at my shabby clothes. 

Yet another tuna sandwich in front of me for dinner because we couldn’t afford anything else. 

I felt the cold on my toes from not having winter boots. 

The boys’ soccer coach from school who refused to take ‘no’ for an answer as he offered me a ride home, only to stop asking and calmly but quickly leave as he saw other adults approaching.

The pain was becoming hot in my chest. It whirled round and round, as if it were a generator. I had no control over it. Somewhere in the back of my head, I thought I heard a sound, but my mind was pulled back to the white-hot anger I felt.

“Show me. Show me your greatest pain.”

The kind, funny boy from when I was in college, the first boy I loved, who fell in love with some other girl and left abruptly, never giving me an explanation.

The heat in my chest is making me lose my breath.

The man who didn’t want to be my father walking out the door as my mother cried, never to come back.

The sound in my head came closer, but I still couldn’t understand it.

Police coming to my school, sitting me down in the staff room to tell me that she was found hanging in the shower.

White heat in my heart.

I am alone, and I am weak. It’s been shown to me time and time again that I am not wanted. I should be utterly ashamed to even think that I deserve love, that I deserve to try, that I deserve to even take up space on this Earth. No one would notice if I was gone. No one would care. It would make room for those who mattered. It would be my final kindness to the world.

I should stop fighting it and just accept it…

The sound in my head is the sound of someone screaming. A scream of one who sees their death approaching. Alongside the scream, I can hear the collective cry of the gargoyles outside, their demonic racket shaking the very air, but the noise in my head is not them. My concentration of pain is taking all of my energy, but I’m curious to see who could be making such a horrific noise. Rallying my last reserves of strength, I crack open my eyelids to see the man with moss coloured eyes still in front of me.

But I don’t meet his comforting gaze. His head is contorted backwards, the beautiful nature of his eyes rolled into the back of his head as if inescapable ecstasy has taken him. There is white foam burbling up from the small part in those lips that were a beautiful pink not so long ago. Now, they’re pulled tight across his teeth and are now a blanched grey, like the rest of his skin.

I look down and see his fingers reaching into my chest, wrist deep. His cauterizing grip is around my heart, killing it with his suffocating fist.

With a strength I don’t recognize, I reach up and wrench his hand from my chest. He falls back, eyes still rolling up into his head, still lost in the exquisite passion he’s created for himself.

I make for the door, but when I try to run, it feels like I’m in open water. I catch myself on the wall and sink to the floor. I look at my assailant, still strewn behind me, and he begins to move as if he were coming to. I crawl along the wall towards the door. Even my crawling is laboured.

Get up!

The Voice screams at me, and some instinct buried deep in my body obeyed. My legs push hard and catapult me forward, through the small room, stumbling on my own feet. My foot catches a loose stone, and I go flying through the air, out into the dark antechamber. The entire front of my body lands hard on the cobbles, and the instinct that had gotten me running has left me. I’m completely spent.

I look up at the hellish menagerie and meet a pair of eyes. I continue to stare as it swoops low, lower than any of them have done yet. It circles me, like a vulture, then lands directly in front of me, blocking the door.

It’s wings outstretched, it doesn’t stand tall like a man, but hunched like any beast that walks on four legs. It’s arms are disproportionately larger than the rest of its body, making it appear more like a winged gorilla. It has a wild look as it screams at me. Every sound that emanates from it is made bigger by the fact that the gargoyle seems to have no hinge in its jaw, so the giant maw opens wider than any I have ever seen, a long black tongue unfurling like a poisoned stream from an ancient cave.

As I lay there, staring at this beast that moves with agitation, I realize that I had seen the hunched figure before. Another time, when I was laying similarly prone and incapacitated. This was the figure that caused my misery.

Just as I’m trying to muster my voice to scream it away, a shadow moves within the small room, and the Man with Moss Coloured Eyes comes to the door with a slight stumble. Panting as if carrying the weight of Atlas, he props himself against the lintel. Though drained, he still moves with determination.

The gargoyle turns to him and slams its fists into the stone of the floor, leaving craters of dust and pebbles under its fists. The Man looks as spent as I feel, but still somehow has more strength than me. A charged hush falls over the aviary, all of them watching what will happen next. I wait for the command that will be given to this creature, the command that will see him turn and slam me into oblivion with his granite fists.

The Man with Moss Coloured Eyes takes a ragged breath.

“Get out of the way.”

The command is met with stillness.

“She is mine. Give her to me.”

The Man points at me with the hand that was in my chest just minutes ago, the hand that melded my heart with the despair he made me remember. But instead of his slender, strong hands, I see a nothing but charcoal and ash. It’s as if a fire has burned away the pretence, showing what is lurking beneath. His charred hand points directly at me, and I smell woodsmoke and burned chemicals.

The gargoyle roars but doesn’t turn to me. It’s staying firmly rooted, challenging the Man to come closer.

“She came of her own free will to my domain! She is mine by right!”

His voice echoes up into the stone tower. He will be heard not just by my gargoyle, but by all of them. He is the master of this place, the governor and jailer. He will do what he wants and when he wants to. No matter how big the gargoyles are, nor however many of them clinging to the stone walls of indecipherable height, they will never overpower him. Ever. His voice bounces off of the walls and skins of rock. Like freezing water in the dead of winter, his voice will find the smallest crack within them, within me, and split our resolve in two.

A small pocket of silent stillness follows his proclamation, but then… oh, but then…

It started at the top of the chamber, barely the sound of a whisper, like the rustle of leaves before a storm hits. As the sound descends down to us, I feel the air pressure change. It becomes heavy on me, as if we were in the belly of a beast that had taken a massive, slurping gulp that will crash down to us. It is the sound of countless howls of anger, screams of indignation, and cries of protest. The sound of rebellion.

The sound comes down and with it, my gargoyle’s fists mere inches from the toes of the Man with Moss Coloured Eyes. Whether the sound or the threat of violence, I don’t know, but the Man is knocked back off of his feet.

With tears of understanding in my eyes, I stand warily. The resounding blare persists, but has changed from one of anger to one of celebration. They see me rise of my own accord, and cry out their encouragement.

The Man sees this too and quickly finds his feet again. My gargoyle has turned to face me, but hasn’t completely turned from the Man. Like any good protector, it knows where the threat is, but makes sure it’s charge is safe.

My mind spins from realization, and I’m still winded from having the Man’s hand tied like ropes around my heart. But I can stand by myself, and I know what I know. That is all that I need.

The Man looks at my face, exhausted and bewildered. He snorts with derision, as if despite the scenario, he is entertained by this mortal girl.

“Something to say?”, he spits sarcastically.

I look into his handsome face--- despite all of it, he is still so handsome, which is something that terrifies me--- and I take a few steadying breaths before I speak.

“Yes. Yes, I do.” I breathe unsteadily. “We are leaving. I am not yours, but he is mine. And there is nothing saying that we need to stay. Nothing.”

I take a breath that fills my whole person.

“I am not afraid of you.”

We both stand there, staring each other down. My gargoyle looks back and forth between us and rocks nervously, like an animal aware of tension but not knowing what it was. The Man with Moss Coloured Eyes seems to stare into my soul, but he is welcome to look. I may be terrified, but I know that I am right. I can leave when I want.

“Alright. Go then.”

What did he just say?

This is unexpected, and I feel myself waver as I consider asking him to repeat what he just said. The tiniest hint of a smile flits across his face. He sees the small crack that he has created. I breathe deeper and rally myself for what he will do next. But he does nothing. He just stands and stares at me.

“Do you need me to lead you by the hand?” As a sick joke, he extends his charred grasp towards me, daring me to test my courage.

My gargoyle stares at me, confused. I look to him, then back at the Man. What is happening? I wait a few seconds more, waiting for the Man to pounce, to rechain my gargoyle, to command the stone floor to open and swallow me whole. But no. He just stands and stares at me from the shadows with those glowing green eyes.

Slowly, I turn, and my gargoyle follows. Its bulking size shields me completely from the acid gaze of the Man, but I feel his eyes nonetheless, staring through my stone protector. Slowly we walk towards the staircase, and I look up at the multitude of gargoyles we are leaving behind. They all have a tint of sadness on their stone grimaces, an air of longing as they watch their brother leave for the surface. I can’t help but feel that they all are wishing, praying, hoping that their human will make the descent and come for their guardian angel. What a feeling that must be, waiting and watching the door for all of your life, hoping that the next person through it will be the one to love you for the rest of your days.

I rip my gaze away from them, bringing hot tears to my eyes. My gargoyle comes closer then, bringing me to essentially walk underneath him. I realize that he is protecting me as much as he is protecting himself. I reach my hand out and touch his stone arm. Thinking I would feel cold dampness, I instead feel a soothing warmth. It reminds me of being small and going outside in the summer, long after the sun had set, and feeling the concrete radiating the heat it had accumulated during the day. Such a beautiful thing to realize: despite being away so long from the sun, my gargoyle had retained his warmth. I smile as I place my entire hand squarely on his skin. The heat of him begins to spread from my hand into my arm.

“Or you can leave him here.”

I feel the hot, sultry breath tickle my earlobe and rustle the small hairs on my neck. But when I spin round, my gargoyle turning with me, the Man is standing exactly where we had left him, apparently having not moved a muscle. He continues to stare at me the way a tiger stares at a lone doe through the underbrush.

“Do you think you’re the first person to come here? To make the descent and face me, challenge me and try to take what you wilfully made forfeit?”

I hear his words inches from my ear, as if he’s right beside me, spitting them at me. But he continues to stand stock still where he has been all this time, staring at me. With those green eyes glowing in the dark.

“I take your gargoyles because none of you want them. You don’t want to look at your ugliness, your shame, your hurt. You don’t even want to acknowledge it. So while you sleep, I come and do you the service of taking it from you so that you all can live your lives in sterile happiness. I take them so that you don’t have to look in the mirror and see your parasite feeding off of your hard earned joy. So many of you make the descent, come down here for… I don’t know what. To face something or to prove something to yourselves. But all you prove is that your gargoyles belong here, in the damp darkness, with me to stand guard, with me to keep them from growing bigger, to keep them from becoming known to the world.”

I look up as he speaks. So many of them, left unclaimed.

“Exactly.”

I look back at him, and though so far apart, I know he has yet again reached into my chest and gripped my heart.

“Some of you come down here and face me, thinking I took something from you, something precious, when really, I just took away your blight. I did you a kindness. Some of you leave with your gargoyles after you’ve convinced yourselves that you can handle living with its burden, but I always get it back in the end. And do you know why?”

Again, I look up, into the chiselled stone and coal eyes. All of them looking at me. All of them unique and yet the same.

“I get them back because no one wants to see an abortion. No one wishes to see the pain and anguish of a soul, whether their own or someone else’s. Humanity is so concerned with all things beautiful and flawless that it will cut out anything disgusting to look at. And so, I always get them back. You will realize that you can’t stand to be around him, at one point or another. You will realize that you cannot carry the weight of his stone, and you will send him back here, where you know he belongs.”

I look back at him, my gargoyle, my rock that was my protection with the heat of the sun within him. But I see that slowly he is rising off of the ground, away from me, being summoned again to take his place amongst his brothers and sisters. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t fight or struggle. He just looks at me, inert and pathetic, unable to move or fight back, and suddenly I see what he must have seen in me that night in my bedroom.

The loneliness I suddenly feel at that moment is like having a brick being thrown into my sternum. It was the type of loneliness that inflicts itself upon you whether you are in a room with one thousand people or by yourself. It’s the loneliness that freezes you from the inside, soaking into your bones, and your body responds by telling you to sit down, to lay down, to go to sleep. The type of loneliness that tells you that you will be alone forever, and to just accept it. It’s the loneliness that not only convinces you to accept Death, but to welcome it.

I stare at these creatures, all looking at me with nothing but resolve and non-judgemental acceptance. I am just one more human who has tried and failed. Such is life.

“Now you can go.”

His voice is no longer beside me, but comes from where he stands, and echoes up so that all may hear it. He no longer looks like a predator about to strike, but as a man who you may very well see across the street, whose eye you just happened to catch. A very handsome man whose attention you would feel flattered to have. Not even waiting to watch me leave, he turns his back to me and begins to walk back to his small chamber. That is how much I don’t matter to him.

I look up again to bid sorrowful farewell to my gargoyle, but he has re-joined the group and is lost to my gaze, once again just another stony observer with glowing eyes. The knowledge that he is gone again stirs something within me, and my mind goes back to those painful memories that are carved onto my soul. But now, without the Man with Moss Coloured Eyes wrenching at my heart and steering my emotions, I see them for what they are: just memories. Things that have happened. Yes, some of them are sad. Some are confusing, some infuriating. Many traumatic. But the thing they all had in common, I suddenly realize for the first time, is not that they are painful, but that they are memory. They have happened, and I have survived. I am still here. I am still alive. Bruised and bloodied, but nothing broken, nothing irreparable. I can--- I will--- continue on.

There are so many who don’t realize this, however. So many who fall prey to their own inner turmoil, unaware that if they just stretch out their hand with the intention of living in hope instead of living in memory, that someone will grab it and pull with all of their might to get them out.

Suddenly, just as it had happened when we were in his small chamber, I think of all of the pain in my life. Every memory comes to me crystalline and precise as if I am reliving it, and yet passes through my mind in a split second. Everyone who has wronged me, who has been cruel, abusive, murderous to my spirit. But this time, I am not of the pain, but now I am apart from it, as if I am a fly on the wall to observe the scene. And in every instance, over the shoulder of those who have hurt me, I can just barely make out a pair of glowing moss-coloured eyes with a handsome smile, like some sort of hellish Cheshire cat, a formless ghost haunting them all. He was there every time, silently stealing what he wanted, that most precious thing that belongs to every human by right.

Are their gargoyles here too? As they all look upon me from so high above, can they see who I am to them, who their human was to me?

Is her gargoyle still here, I wonder? Do they stay here forever, or do they find release at life’s end? I search above me, hoping to see it somewhere in this mêlée. As much as I hope it is here, I also wish that it isn’t. I’m hoping that God and His Heaven do really exist, and that He is indeed merciful, and that when my mother came to the abrupt and terrible end of her life, that she did in fact find Paradise with her stone angel by her side. I hope that it wasn’t just my mother who found peace when she died, but that the broken, ugly part of her soul was allowed in too and not just left at the Gate like a sack of useless waste. I hope that it was accepted, loved and empathized with in a way that seems to elude Humanity.

So many of us believe that the soul is the absolute best part of us. As we live our lives, it is tarnished or polished as a whole; the good begets good, and bad begets bad, as if there were some sort of tally marking us forever, and the final count is what determines where we will end up in the Afterlife, if it does indeed exist. But as I look upon these faces, I don’t see our demons, at least not how tradition dictates how we see a demon. I see a small part of our souls, our Highest Self, taking on the pain and suffering that we have endured in our lives, allowing itself to morph and contort in horrific ways. This allowance gives the rest of our soul a chance to hope, dream, love and create. But because humans are flawed, we don’t see the beauty of sacrifice, we see merely the mutilation, the horrific monster in front of us and we reject it, not realizing that we are rejecting a part of our precious souls, rejecting a part of ourselves.

We then run from all pain, hide from it, dodging it in crowds, jumping fences and skipping town, afraid of the violence it will bring and how it will tear our tender hearts to ribbons. But it always does catch up to us, despite our best efforts, that pain with moss coloured eyes. It pummels us mercilessly, beating us to a bloody, depressed pulp as punishment for having the gall to run from it in the first place, and then as we lay prone, it takes even more of our happiness and joy. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.

As I reflect on this, the voice I hear isn’t the Voice that was more of a feeling, a feeling that kept my soul warm against the cold of despair. It was something more. It was my voice: Don’t run from pain, but don’t run headlong into it either. Just let it be what it is.

Accept the fall. 

Accept it, feel it, let it live, then let it go. But don’t hide your pain from the world. Share it with those you trust, those who have experienced their own pain, shame, broken trust and guilt. Accept the fall and fall into each other. Find comfort and healing, and when you are ready, rise with renewed strength.

This crystal thought burns a new pathway in my mind, washing clear all of the debris and old ways of thinking, and I see a vision in its wake: my grandmother, standing opposite to me. But for the first time ever, I don’t see my grandmother, or at least, I don’t see her as only my grandmother. I see a woman who had the same hole blown into her life as I have. I see her standing there trying to be brave for the both of us, praying endlessly for me, for mum, for everyone including herself, but needing someone to pray for her too. I see a woman, a person who has been scourged by the worst that life can give but continues to have hope, despite still needing help herself. Like me, she didn’t know how to ask for it, so she would ask her god. 

But God doesn’t need to answer, because I will. I volunteer to be the answer to her prayer. As the song says, I will learn to breathe the ugliness she sees, and in our honesty, together we will rise.

 

I come to this realization, and the pit of my stomach where I first heard the Voice begins to feel warm, as if there is a small sun within me, beginning to dawn on a new day. The warmth and light that emanates from me begins to grow, and I find myself feeling filled with its light. With my light.

Above me, every gargoyle suddenly comes away from the walls, if only by mere inches, moved by the light of the soul that they have all so desperately missed and craved.

Take it, I think to myself. This light is eternal, if I let it. It is my gift to you. Take what you can.

Somewhere, I hear a thumping of feet. Someone or something in a run, a run that seems both predatory and panicked. I turn to see two glowing green eyes in the dark coming at me. But where my light had drawn the gargoyles closer, it repels the Man. Blasted off of his feet as if by an explosion, he is violently thrown backward and hits the stone with a sickening thud. I stand still for a moment, watching him writhe, dazed on the floor. I walk slowly toward him, and I feel a presence behind me: my gargoyle has once again been freed, but this time he isn’t protecting me, he is following in awe. I come to stand over the Man as he shields himself from my Light, breathing heavily as if holding extreme pain at bay. 

“I’m going to leave now,” I say to him. But it isn’t only me who says this. It is the light inside of me, the Voice that urged me down here, and it is something behind me. It is the voice of my otherwise silent gargoyle. All three of us melded together into something immense, and we speak to this Man, this thing that lives in the darkness.

“We are going to leave now. Leave you in your dark little hole. And we are going to let you continue to believe that you are the captor of parasites, because we all know what the truth is. We all know who the true parasite is. Don’t we?”

The light within me has dimmed, but the coals still burn brilliantly. I turn to walk out, not even waiting to see if he will stand up. That’s how much he doesn’t matter to me.

At the bottom step, I turn around and see him there on all fours, all of his facade of dignity burned away, revealing something that is basic and feral. A mere beast.

“Before I leave, I need you to know something, and that is that I’m not naïve. I am only mortal, whereas you… you are something else. I know that I will continue to live my life, and the reality of this moment will become memory. And that memory may fade a bit and I will forget in the day to day what has happened here. I will get distracted with inconsequential things, as we human beings seem to do. And perhaps I will lose sight of what is important and I will lose my gargoyle to you yet again.”

A look of panic comes to the face of my gargoyle.

“However--- are you listening, because I will only warn you once--- I need you to know that I will descend again. I will face you again and I will fight for what is rightfully mine. Again, and again and again. This is my vow and may you all be witness to it. Because now I know that I have a will that burns like coals, a soul of unbreakable stone, and a love that binds it all together. What do you have?”

He stares at me from the moss-covered darkness, silent and alone.

“Exactly.”

I look up one last time into the infinite space above me, and with one final blessing, I wish that every human that belongs to these blessed creatures will one day find their own resolve and brave their own journey into the darkness.

With a sigh of completion, I turn to my gargoyle and I smile. Together, we begin our ascent to the surface, to my grandmother, to the light.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

You are a master storyteller dear Chrissie. I love myth and tale. You create interesting characters and captive storyline. I liked how you use the description. You made every situation come alive. I would buy your book. Thank you for sharing the outstanding story.
Coyote

[Chrissie Muldoon]

Awww, Coyote, this is so very kind of you to say! This is such a personal story to me, so the fact that you see such beauty in it, then have the kindness to say so, brings warmth to my heart :) I can't thank you enough.

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed your work. I hope to read more.