The Gargoyle Next Door

Chapter 1

Maris Calder parked Doris at the end of the row outside Fairhaven Falls Elementary and told herself, for the fourth time that morning, that she wasn’t going to cry.

The old flatbed shuddered once and gave up.

In the passenger seat, Toby sat with his backpack firmly settled on his knees and both hands clenched on the straps.

He’d insisted on wearing the navy shirt his grandmother had sent up from Charleston, the one with the small anchor embroidered at the pocket.

He had also insisted on doing up the buttons himself, which meant the collar was crooked, but she’d decided not to fix it.

“You’re going to like Miss Sara,” she said. “She’s the one who brought the brownies to the Fourth of July picnic.”

“I know.”

“And if you need anything, you tell her. Anything at all. Okay?”

“I know.” He looked out through the windshield at the two-story brick building, its wide doors propped open and its front steps full of children of every kind.

Fairhaven Falls was populated mainly by Others, the creatures of myth and legend who lived alongside humans, and the school reflected that diversity. “There are a lot of kids.”

“Ms. Frostdale said it’s a hundred and fifty-two students this year. There are fifteen in your class.”

She told him the numbers because he liked knowing the numbers.

He absorbed it without comment, which was what he did with everything, and had been doing since before he could talk.

He listened, and he thought about what he’d heard, and he kept those thoughts tucked away.

Every adult who had ever met him praised her for it. He’s so well behaved.

He was, and she knew that was a good thing, but sometimes she almost wished he was a little less well-behaved and a little more carefree. But that was a worry for another day.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The playground smelled of cut grass and hot asphalt and pine from the mountains that rose up behind the town.

It was already loud. A troll girl hung upside down from the climbing frame by her knees singing loudly and badly.

Two werewolf pups argued about something with enormous passion and no apparent subject.

Near the doors, Tricia Frostdale stood with a clipboard and a smile, her serene blue face radiating the calm of a principal who had done this thirty times and expected no surprises.

Toby stopped walking about six feet from the kindergarten door.

She crouched down next to him, which put her at eye level with the crooked collar. “Hey. You don’t have to go in first. We can stand here for a minute.”

“I’m not scared,” he said, politely.

“I didn’t say you were. But I’m a little scared.”

He considered that, then gave her a tiny smile and tightened his grip on her hand for a second. Before she could give him the speech she’d rehearsed at the kitchen table three times that morning, a girl came racing out of the classroom doorway.

She couldn’t have been more than an inch taller than Toby, but she carried herself like someone who’d never hesitated in her life.

Soft, speckled-brown feathers covered her forearms, and instead of fingernails she had neat little talons painted with glittery pink polish.

A harpy. She stopped right in front of Toby and put her hands on her hips.

“You’re new.”

Toby blinked at her.

“I’m Dot. That’s short for Dorothea, but nobody calls me that except my nana, and only when I’m in trouble. What’s your name? You have to tell me because I’m in charge of new people. I told Miss Sara that was my job and Miss Sara said okay.”

“I’m Toby,” he said softly.

“Toby,” Dot repeated speculatively, then gave a firm nod.

“That’s a good name. Short. I like short names because you can yell them faster.

” She grabbed his free hand, the one not welded to Maris’s.

“You’re sitting by me. We’re right next to the fish tank and you can see the fish do their business.

It’s disgusting. You’ll love it. Come on. ”

He let go of her hand, and she firmly resisted the urge to grab it back. “Toby—”

He looked up at her, and his face was more curious than concerned.

“Dot says the fish do their business, Mama.”

“So I heard. I guess you’d better go and see.”

He let Dot tow him towards the classroom, only glancing over his shoulder once.

She did her best to smile at him and prayed he couldn’t see the smile crumbling around the edges.

Then he disappeared into a room full of children and noise, and she was standing in the hallway by herself with both hands empty.

“That’s Dot Crenshaw,” said a warm voice behind her. “She’s been here fifteen minutes and she’s already reassigned two desks.”

She looked over her shoulder and found Sara Holloway smiling at her.

The pretty kindergarten teacher was wearing a yellow cardigan with a cat’s face across the front of it that had been embroidered with a great deal more enthusiasm than skill.

She smelled like vanilla and sugar, the way she always did, and she was watching the classroom over Maris’s shoulder.

“Will she keep that up?” Maris asked.

“All year, probably. Are you worried about it?”

“No… No,” she repeated, forcing her hands to relax. “He isn’t shy, exactly, just… quiet. And he’s more used to being around adults than other children.”

“Mm.” Sara nodded slowly. “Dot is kind of a crash course into the world of other kids, but she’s got a good heart. I’m pretty sure she’s already adopted Toby.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“That’s a good thing.” Sara looked away from the classroom long enough to smile at her. “Don’t worry, Maris. I’ll keep an eye on him and I promise I’ll call you if I see any reason for concern. And if you pick up on anything at home, you can always call me. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Then go and find something to do. Keeping busy is better than worrying.”

“I’ve got forty flats of asters to pot.”

“I’d say that counts. Now go,” Sara ordered. “Pick him up at three. I’ll give you a full report.”

She hesitated, looking through the open door. Dot was delivering what appeared to be a lecture beside the fish tank, and Toby was listening with the grave attention of a scientist. But his fists weren’t clenched and he wasn’t looking for her. A lump appeared in her throat.

Go, she told herself. Before he sees me crying in the doorway and I ruin it.

She went.

On her way back to the truck, she passed two women waiting by the gate, one of them a pixie in an orange safety vest, and caught the end of something.

“—development on the ridge above Miller’s Creek.”

“They’re always saying that. There was going to be a golf course out there when I was a girl.”

“This one’s got a name, though. Palisade something. The fella’s from New Jersey.”

Miller’s Creek rang a bell for some reason, but she couldn’t place it, and she was more focused on not crying than remembering geography. She climbed into a truck that smelled of potting soil and animal crackers, and forced herself to take several long, deep breaths.

He’s going to be fine.

She repeated it to herself until she almost believed it, which was important, because Cornelia would undoubtedly call to ask.

She needed to be able to tell Toby’s grandmother that everything was fine convincingly enough to avoid another vaguely disparaging remark about small town schools.

I’ll tell her he wore the shirt, she decided.

Hopefully that would please Cornelia enough to redirect the conversation, even if it would also mean another unnecessary package from Charleston within the week.

She took the longer route home—down past the Moonlight Tavern, past the town square and the River Café with its wide windows and a chalkboard sign promising elderflower scones, get them before the pixies do.

Two streets past the café, the houses grew older and grander, and then Stonehaven Manor appeared.

It never failed to catch her breath, and not entirely in a good way.

The huge Victorian mansion sat behind its high stone wall like a dowager who’d stopped answering the door decades ago—three turrets covered with ivy, a slate roof recently patched in a slightly lighter color, and a roofline bristling with carved stone creatures that leered down at the street with weathered, patient faces.

The grounds took up most of the block, wild and overgrown and still beautiful enough that her fingers itched to work on them.

She drove on to the next street and turned into her much more modest property.

Hardy Stock occupied a portion of the long slope behind Stonehaven, the mansion rising above the trees like something from a gothic novel.

The small cottage that had come with the property nestled against the stone wall like a duckling that had wandered too close to a swan and decided to stay.

Past the cottage, four greenhouses stood with their vents cranked open, and beyond them, the rows of native stock were already showing signs of the upcoming fall.

The sign at the entrance to her small shop was the one she’d painted herself on a February afternoon with Toby sitting on an upturned crate telling her the S was crooked.

Those growing beds were the main reason she’d bought the place, the reason she’d used most of the savings she’d accumulated since Jeff’s death and signed a note in the lawyer’s office.

Native stock, hardy stock, like the name she’d chosen for her nursery.

Stock that had put down roots, just like she and Toby were putting down roots in this small mountain town where what you did was more important than what your family had done.

She parked the truck, pulled on her work boots, and headed for the potting shed. Her brain was still occupied with the image of Toby’s small, straight back disappearing into the classroom, but forty flats of asters would distract her.

She was only on the second flat when Sylvie popped her head in.