Thou shalt be free
As mountain winds: but then exactly do
All points of my command.
- act I, scene 2
"I hope it really is a new clan," said Angela, "If it is, they might have a good chance at making friends in this town."
Elisa swept her flashlight across the front desk of the Underhill downtown public library and touched her earpiece. "How do you figure?"
"Captain Hoffman didn't seem all that shocked when she saw us. She was very nice, for someone who's never met gargoyles before." Some rustling noises. "Maybe she can be their in with the townspeople. Hmm. Looks like the only thing going through the trash at the Italian restaurant is raccoons. Moving on to the park pavilion."
"I see claw marks on the cooler behind the repair shop," added Goliath, "but the lock looks new."
Keeping her voice low, Elisa quietly stepped behind the desk and peered into the staff offices. Their list of likely spots in town provided by Mavis was dwindling; the only reason the library was a candidate was an open window and some muddy non-human footprints. "What if it is a kid like Mavis thinks?"
There was a rushing sound as Goliath likely took to the air. "A gargoyle clan keeps close watch on our young. To find one by themselves means something has gone wrong."
"Then I hope the clan's nearby, at least." Elisa turned a corner into what appeared to be a break room. Her flashlight played over the room and she took a quick visual inventory. One circular table with chairs tucked neatly in. A coffee machine on the counter, with a rack of grounds packets organized by flavor. An immaculate sink with soap pump and a drying rack, upon which rested upturned coffee mugs in a perfect three-by-three grid. A clean microwave and refrigerator. Everything perfectly neat and tidy, except for one wide open cabinet. She bent down and caught sight of a colorful cardboard box tipped onto its side. A couple smaller bags, snack-size Cheez-Its by label, had fallen out into the cabinet space and onto the floor.
"Just got into the library and something's setting off my spidey sense. Gonna go quiet for a bit, guys."
"Spidey…?" Goliath said, just as Elisa turned her earpiece to mute. She grinned to herself, knowing she was going to have to explain that one later. For now, she turned off her flashlight and stood still to listen while her eyes adjusted. After a moment, nothing to be heard but the hum of the fridge. So she made for the door that led into the library proper. It was slightly ajar, so she carefully eased it open.
Streetlights filtering in through the blinds was the only illumination on rows of bookshelves. Keeping her footfalls silent, she moved down the aisle, carefully scanning between the shelves— and on top of them— for shadows that were out of place.
And she listened carefully. When one hung around gargoyles as much as she did, one got used to certain sounds, like the swish of a wing, the tick of claws on various surfaces, et cetera. And sure enough, she had just entered the fiction section when she heard it: a thump and the rasp of a tail dragging along the carpet.
It was coming from several sections down, further into the back of the library. Underhill's library was at least a single storey, smallish building. She'd need more than a flashlight and a keen ear if it had been anything like the main branch in Manhattan.
"Hello?" Elisa called out into the dark rows of books and went towards where the sound had come from. "If anyone's there, I'm a friend. You're not in trouble, we just want to figure out what's going on."
No response. Elisa came to a small seating area and froze as a magazine rack at the far end tipped over and something scurried hurriedly further back into the bookshelves.
Elisa tapped her earpiece and whispered. "Goliath? Angela? I think I have them in the library. Either a gargoyle or a very shy and well-read raccoon."
"We'll meet you there," Goliath responded. "Be careful, Elisa."
"You got it, big guy." Elisa turned her flashlight back on but kept the beam pointed down to the floor. She didn't want to accidentally blind someone coming around a corner. Also, she hoped, it would seem less like she was trying to sneak up on whoever was hiding in here. Getting tackled by a gargoyle who felt stalked and cornered was not a great way to start human-gargoyle relations in this small town.
She had to stop at a dead end. Strange, she thought. She could have sworn all these shelves were basic straight rows, open at both ends, but here they took a u-turn, apparently. With a shrug she turned back and tried the next aisle.
Only to come to another dead end. Again she turned back, only to be met with a ninety-degree turn of shelves, and that was not right at all. She'd just come down that path— straight ahead of her should be the side of the building with windows. Definitely not a wall of books and a corner turn of the aisle.
Around the impossible corner, the shelves continued perpendicular to the long row where the windows should have been. One by one Elisa cautiously pointed her flashlight down each row, each one dead-ending— but at different lengths. One was perhaps thirty feet down, one was practically in arm's reach from the "main" aisle. When she glanced back behind her, she found the bookshelves now turned again, across a path Elisa knew for certain she had just walked straight through. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She briefly wondered if she'd wandered into a Twilight Zone situation wherein she'd neglected to return an overdue library book and this was her ironic comeuppance, to wander a shifting labyrinth of bookshelves until she paid the fine and vowed to never dogear the pages.
She took a deep breath. Okay, stay cool. There's an explanation. Even if it's a supernatural one, there's always an explanation.
A peek around this fresh corner revealed… the front desk, and the doors to the parking lot outside. Elisa pursed her lips and side-eyed the apparent maze in what was supposed to be a fairly straightforward basic small library layout. Someone or something was trying to shoo her out.
She approached one of the dead ends and reached for the books. Perhaps she could get a look at the other side, and crawl through if necessary.
Her hand met air and passed through the books. Before she could snatch her hand back in surprise, the whole section of bookshelf rippled and popped like a soap bubble, and her flashlight beam went unimpeded down a straight and perfectly ordinary aisle between shelves, straight on to the wall on the other side with various posters exhorting library patrons to read.
A glance around revealed that the windows were again visible and the main aisle had no creepy spontaneous right angles.
Holographic projection, maybe? … in a library in random small-town Vermont?
"Okay," she muttered to herself, and started walking. "Can't possibly be weirder than anything we've tripped over so far."
The books on the shelves became thinner and more colorful, and the seating area at the back of the library consisted of misshapen beanbag chairs and little wooden primary-color stools around a shin-height table. The kid's section— and her eye was drawn to a large plywood structure in the very back corner. It was a fairy-tale themed reading nook for kids: painted grey with black lines reminiscent of large stone blocks, with a semicircular opening at floor level, and a small "window" above, close to the ceiling, in which was perched a crocheted doll with a long yarn braid cascading down the outside. A handpainted banner hanging from the ceiling tiles declared it to be Rapunzel's Tower of Reading.
And sure enough, there was something inside. Elisa's flashlight caught the glint of two eyes in the dark hollow of the nook just before it ducked to the side, behind the plywood castle wall.
"Hey, I know you're there," she called out, keeping the flashlight pointed down, "and I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help."
Two little pointed claws came around the edge of the opening. Elisa grinned and took a step. "There we g— whoa!"
One of the lumpy beanbags suddenly uncurled and sprang out, growling and scuttling in a decidedly reptilian fashion right into Elisa's path. Instinctively she took a few hasty steps back, startled, and her flashlight snapped up to reveal a large pink… alligator… salamander… gargoyle beast.
It snarled and made a false lunge, broad froglike mouth open wide enough to see that there were more than a few teeth missing, but enough remained of the sharper ones to take very seriously. Elisa backed up even further, half-crouching to make herself less threatening.
"It's okay, it's okay," she said, slowly putting her flashlight on the closest shelf so that it pointed off to the side of Rapunzel's tower. "Easy now. See? I'm not gonna hurt your friend in there. Are we good?"
The beast rumbled but slowly backed down, turning its blunt head to pin her with one beady eye, as if to say fine, but you're on thin ice, missy!
"My name's Elisa," she said, directing this at the claws still hooked around the tower nook entrance. "I came here with some friends of mine— they're gargoyles like you."
Another pair of claws joined the first, and then a pair of eyes peeked past the edge.
"Are you a human?" asked a tiny voice.
Well now. That was definitely a child's voice. Elisa knelt and sat back on her heels, keeping half an eye on the watchful beast. "Yeah. I'm a human. Is your clan nearby? Are you lost?"
The gargoyle was quiet for several long moments. "Don't have a clan. Where's the gargoyles?"
"They're coming," Elisa said, and sure enough from the front of the building she could hear the doors opening. She quickly murmured into her earpiece. "Guys, I'm safe, but you're gonna want to come in nice and gentle. Come to the back inside the library. It's definitely a kid, and a real protective beast too."
To the gargoyle, she said "That's one of them now. Don't worry, they're going to be very happy to meet you. Do you have a name?"
"Baba said to find other gargoyles."
Elisa glanced behind her. Angela was coming down the aisle. Apparently she hadn't had to run a book maze. "Well," whoever 'baba' was, "you did exactly that. This is my friend Angela. Why don't you come out and meet her?"
As Angela crouched next to Elisa, the beast slid a step backwards on its belly and growled lowly. The little gargoyle emerged from the plywood tower and, staring wide-eyed at Angela, hunkered down behind the bulk of the beast. Angela grinned ear-to-ear and held out a hand, claws loosely curled so as to not show any aggression.
"Hello, little sister," she said, as the beast stretched its head out for a suspicious sniff. "I'm Angela. What's your name?"
"Mira." The little gargoyle straightened and pointed at the pink beast. "He's Caliban."
"Hello, Mira," said Goliath. Mira hadn't seen him come out of the relative darkness behind Elisa and Angela, and she let out a little gasp and ducked back down behind Caliban; the pink beast, for his part, huffed and glowered at the three strangers like an old man about to shake his cane and demand that the damn kids get off his lawn.
"We're surprised to see you, little one." Goliath kept a respectful distance at Elisa's side. "Are you lost? Where is your clan?"
"I don't have a clan," Mira repeated, half-muffled into Caliban's side, peering at Goliath over the beast's ridged spine. "Baba said I had to find one."
Goliath and Elisa exchanged a look. "Who is this… Baba?" he asked.
Mira, her little brow furrowed, stood back up but remained leaning on her beast as if for moral support. "My baba. He's— he's my baba."
It clicked. Elisa scooted carefully toward the child, who she suspected was much younger than she'd first thought. "Mira, is baba your… father?"
Mira gave them a single solemn nod. By the dim scattered flashlight glow Elisa could catch her lower lip beginning to quiver.
"Where is he?" Goliath asked. "Why are you out here alone?"
"…'m not alone," Mira protested meekly, "… Caliban came with me, baba told us t-to— look out for each other, and—" a sniff.
"Mira, sweetie, it's all right, you're not in trouble." Elisa knew that look. Detective work too often crossed her path with scared kids caught in unfortunate situations not of their own making, and it was tragic in some terrible new way every time. She hoped Mira's story wasn't as awful as any of those, but it could wait until they had her someplace where she felt safer.
Goliath, bless him, caught on to Elisa's train of thought. Now was certainly not the time or place for twenty questions. "Yes, we want to help you. Will you come with us?"
Mira still clung to her beast friend. "Can Caliban come too?"
"Of course!" Angela said, smiling warmly, and reached out to give the beast's broad flat head a scratch. "He's done such a good job keeping you safe, hasn't he? He must love you very much."
Caliban's grumble was less grouchy, perhaps, and that he accepted Angela's affection seemed to put Mira at ease. The child actually clambered over Caliban's long body as if it were a fallen log across a nature trail, and the beast ignored her in favor of pushing his head into Angela's hand for more pets.
Mira quickly claimed Angela's other hand. Angela stood and Mira immediately tucked herself into the folds of Angela's wing. From that hiding spot she again peered out at Goliath.
"Are you the leader?" she asked, free hand digging into a little satchel slung across her chest.
"Yes, I am," Goliath replied.
She pulled out a short metal tube and held it up towards him. "Baba said to give you this."
Fox was waiting back at the private jet, which looked hilariously out of place at a local air strip, parked among a half-dozen crop dusters and a few other small planes. It was the only reason they'd been able to get up here to respond to Mavis Hoffman's tip so quickly and efficiently. Elisa supposed there were some pretty substantial advantages to having the gratitude of a billionaire. A discreet overnight jaunt to Vermont on short notice? No problem, enjoy the flight, the wet bar is gratis, those with claws please be mindful of the leather.
From the cabin as Fox made preflight checks, Elisa made one phone call to Mavis with the news that their mysterious vending machine vandal had been apprehended.
"And your hunch was on the money. She's pretty young. Too young to be on her own. Thank you for calling it in."
"I'll be damned." Captain Hoffman chuckled. "Thank you, detective. I got so worried for the little thing. What I saw couldn't have been bigger than my five-year-old grandson."
"I'd have offered to let you stop by and say goodbye, but she's really shy and I suspect she's been through something traumatic. Right now we just need to get her back home."
"So there's no… whatchacall, clans nearby she just wandered off from?"
"Looks that way. The only evidence of gargoyles we found around town were all her, just… scrounging for food. No idea where she came from."
"Well, I'm glad she's with her own now. You keep her safe."
Elisa thanked her again and hung up, turning back to watch Mira as she and Angela sat on the floor of the cabin together. Now that she was out of the darkness of the library and the shelter of Angela's wing, Elisa could get a good look at the kid. And she didn't know why she was surprised— she'd met gargoyles all over the world, in all their wonderful, dizzying variety, gargoyles that looked like winged serpents, unicorns, and more; horns and wings of every shape and color— and there sat Mira, who resembled nothing so much as a bug.
Okay, maybe that was a little reductive. Mira looked like a moth, with skin a pastel yellow-green and small rounded wings with pale yellow undersides. Two thin horns rose from directly above her eyes, tipped in little frills like antennae, over a puffball of maroon hair, mirrored by an equally fluffy tuft at the end of her tail. There were folds or ridges of skin at her joints that gave her arms, legs, three-fingered hands and two-toed feet a decidedly segmented appearance. Even her face was as if someone had run a cute cartoon insect through a gargoyle filter, her eyes just a bit too big and wide-set over the mere suggestion of a nose.
As weirdly adorable as she was, Elisa was more intrigued by her personal effects. At first glance her attire was pretty basic: a simple halter top and knee-length pants, similar to any that could be found in your garden variety Gap Kids summer collection. On closer inspection, the top appeared to be golden silk, with extensive embroidery in a pattern of swirling clouds. It was harder to tell what fabric her dark green pants were, but of interest was the fact that the garment was customized— there wasn't just a tail-hole but a little tail-sleeve, hemmed and everything. And Elisa didn't want to spook the still-shy kid any more by asking to see the contents of the shoulder-bag, but it, too, was of some high-quality-looking silver-blue material and also embroidered with an intricate geometric design.
"Mystery upon mystery," Elisa mused, half to herself. "There's basically no wear and tear on her clothes. Someone was taking good care of her before she wound up in Vermont."
"And she's in good health," Goliath added, prying at the metal tube Mira had given him. It looked to be brass, embossed with a floral pattern and was sealed on both ends. Something rattled softly inside, so Goliath was trying to get it open without doing too much damage. "She hasn't been on her own for long, either. If her father sent her away to find other gargoyles, why was he not nearby? Where is he?"
"Maybe something happened to him," Elisa said, keeping her voice low. "Like, it's awful to imagine, but maybe he's… dead."
"He's not dead," Mira piped up, and Elisa winced, having forgotten how sharp gargoyle ears were. "Baba's in Fortuna."
Elisa immediately wracked her brain for anyplace she knew of called Fortuna, and came up empty. She crouched next to Angela. "Where's Fortuna? Maybe we can get you back to your dad."
Mira frowned and shook her head. "No! He told me to go. He couldn't get out yet but I could, so he told me to go."
"So he's trapped somewhere?" Angela asked, as Caliban shuffled underneath the nearby seats, lurking like a crocodile.
"It would seem so," said Goliath. He'd managed to pry off one end of the brass tube. Elisa stood to look at what he'd pulled out: a rolled-up piece of paper, which he had unrolled to scrutinize. He proffered it to her and she straightened it out fully. It was narrower and longer than a usual sheet of paper, and covered in neat lines of black inked script in several sections. It took Elisa a second to realize that it wasn't one long essay but a single paragraph repeated in eight different languages.
Chinese. English. Spanish. French. Japanese. Greek. Arabic. Russian.
"Holy cow," Elisa muttered, scanning back to the English bit.
It is my hope that my daughter has reached a safe haven with other gargoyles. I have done as much as I can to instruct her in what time I have had, but she is still so young. I fear she is not truly ready but I could not risk keeping her here overlong. I have little choice but to have faith in you, if indeed she has entrusted this message to the leader of a gargoyle clan. My plea is this: that you accept my daughter as one of your own clan, and allow Caliban to remain her companion. They do not deserve to languish here, in this, the Fortuna. My prison. I may at some future time see opportunity for my own egress, but I know not when, or where. At such time I shall explain myself more fully. Until and unless I can rejoin her, I entreat you, watch over my beloved Miranda.
With trust in your compassion, kind stranger— Prospero.