Chapter Four #3
“This isn’t going to work,” Marin said. “Our gardener’s not the greet-visitors type, and I don’t want to freeze solid.
Then he’ll have two statues to contend with.
” She ducked into the cabin, located a coat, and pulled it on.
She slid the letter from the head librarian into one of her many pockets, and then she hauled the wood statue up the steps onto the dock.
It was awkward and required a lot of huffing and grunting, but she managed. “I’ll be back,” she told Perri.
She hefted the statue off the boat and waddled it up the dock, then she bent her knees and lifted it up, leaning the statue against her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and plowed forward, up the snow-covered steps.
Birds sang as they flew between the pine branches, cheerful because they weren’t carrying a human-size statue.
Marin huffed as she walked up the path. She lowered the statue near the first structure, a two-story tower that looked like a lighthouse without a light.
Leaving the statue, she climbed up to the door and knocked.
No answer.
She wasn’t particularly surprised. She doubted the gardener lived so close to the dock.
Just to be sure, she peered in through the grimy window and saw what looked like an abandoned workroom of some sort: dust, cobwebs, stacks of books, lots of glass jars and empty pots.
It absolutely looked like it belonged to some kind of ancient and unsanitary sorcerer, and it absolutely wasn’t her business.
She returned to the statue, lifted it up, and continued on.
The snow-covered road wound through the pine trees, past other cottages that looked even more abandoned: broken windows, damaged roofs, one open and snow-clogged door.
She checked a blue cottage that looked mostly intact.
No sign that it had been lived in for years.
It occurred to her to wonder whether the solo gardener was still here.
Perhaps he’d left too, and there was no gardener of Belde.
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. What was she supposed to do with the statue if he were gone?
No, he has to be here. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d done a supply run to deliver flour and a few other items. He’d given no indication in the order he’d left at the flagpole that it would be her last delivery.
At a cottage that looked like a toadstool—it had a bulbous roof and round windows and door, red paint and white trim, very mushroomlike—she again lowered the statue to the ground and tried the door.
From inside, she heard a low growl.
Her eyes adjusted to the light, and she saw a gryphon stalk toward her out of the shadows. Its wings were flattened on its leonine back, and its eagle eyes were fixed on her. Quickly, she slammed the door shut and hurried to the statue.
That’s it. If I don’t find him in five more minutes, I’m out of here.
She glanced back over her shoulder.
There was movement between the trees, and she spotted two gryphons, wings outstretched, gliding not as far away from her as she would have liked.
Both were deer-size, but compact as, well, a lion, with the muscles of a predator.
On the plus side, they weren’t grand gryphons, like the species she’d encountered on the lighthouse keeper’s island a few years ago—those had been the size of a house.
On the minus side, despite being smaller, they did not look sweet and cuddly.
“Well, this is fun.” Raising her voice, she called, “Just so you know, I’m friends with a sea serpent, and he has a vindictive streak. You don’t want to mess with me.”
He didn’t have any kind of vindictive streak.
He was as sweet as a puppy. But she didn’t think the gryphons could understand her anyway.
Hopefully they’d just hear a loud, unafraid voice and decide not to pursue her.
They’re just curious. Or territorial. Now that she was moving away from their territory, they’d lose interest. Maybe.
She was losing interest in this whole endeavor. She was paid for delivery and discretion, not a quest through the woods with feral gryphons and freezing temperatures.
Just as she’d nearly decided to turn back, Marin saw a cottage with smoke rising from the chimney. It was nestled between the pine trees, quaintly framed in snow. Even better, it had fresh boot prints leading to and from the front door.
Aha! Found you!
She wrestled the statue through the trees to the door. Shaking her arms out, she tried not to wince at how sore they were. She was going to ache in the morning.
Marin knocked on the door.
No answer. Of course. She sighed heavily.
Well, this was clearly where the gardener lived.
There was no question about that. She debated whether she should search any further, but leaving a parcel on the doorstep was a time-honored way to deliver a package, and it wasn’t as if there were any thieves on the island liable to make off with a full-size wood statue.
She doubted the gryphons would be interested.
Maybe a beaver? Or termites? Anyway, she’d delivered it.
Marin slid the letter underneath the door and knocked one more time for good measure. She then turned to the statue. “I wish you all the best of luck. I truly do.”
And then she hurried back through the woods toward the sea and her friend, and away from the snow, the feral gryphons, and any potential lawbreaking that she intended to adamantly deny any knowledge of.
Not my problem.