Free Mercy, A Gargoyle Story by Misty Provencher Page B

grasp, I cling.   I catch a windowsill with the sharp tips of my talons, digging into the brick as if it is foam.   Jerked to a halt, my grip, even though I am holding on by only the very tips of my claws, is stronger than it ever was in life.   I pull myself closer to the windowpane and peer in.
    Inside is just an empty, dark living room.   No one is home.   Splayed against the building, I feel like a hole blown open, the bottom gone.   I reach out, dig into the bricks above me, and pull myself up.   It is almost effortless.   I scale away from the window, feeling for the fissures that only the millimeter ends of my claws can detect.   I don't look down.   I keep my eyes focused on the extended, curled lip of the rooftop, far above my head.
    I pass my arm over the brick and it nearly disappears.   I pull it away from the building and see the gray stone of my limb, jutting away from the structure like an odd and misshapen waterspout.  
    But I continue climbing.   Slowly, I scuttle up the chest of the building, my wrinkled gray skin invisible against the flecked gray brick.   I don’t understand why it is so incredibly easy, but I don’t care either.   I may not be able to fly, but I can climb.
    At the roof’s ledge, I peek over the side before hauling myself up.   Selene is gone, the workman's boot missing from the door.   She thinks I am gone for good.   I waver between wanting her to continue believing it and wanting her to find me, poised and immobile once again, on my tarred canvas.   I haul myself back up onto the roof where I belong.

 
    ***

 
    It takes about ten minutes of being relieved before the rush of what just happened bolts through my veins.   I stretch my claws, curved warrior swords with razor sharp tips that make falling impossible.   The talons grew from where I once had fingers, thick as Brazil nuts, but a lighter gray than my gargoyle skin.   When I hold my arm against the concrete in the pale moonlight.   I can hardly see myself at all.   I move with the noticeability of a fleck in my own eye.   I blink trying to see it and hardly can.   When I pull my arm away, against the black backdrop of the sky, it finally appears, like imagination.
    I sidle back to the edge and put my claws on the concrete, feeling them sink in.   I heft myself onto the ledge, dizzy the moment I look down, but then I focus on how solid my talons are rooted, how very much like an anchor I am.   I look across the ledge, to the corner where Trickle is silently perched and I instantly find my goal.
    I concentrate on releasing my nail from the brick, pulling it out like it is stuck in soft gum, and then rooting it a step ahead.   The first few steps are slow and cautious, but then I challenge myself to move along a little faster and then I'm sprinting like a crazy train gone off the tracks, clinging to wherever the tips of my claws land.   I race toward Trickle's corner and when I come up on him, faster than I expected, I hook into the brick below him, throwing myself up over his edge.   My back claws swing out, away from the building, and my wings splay on their own and there's a moment where I can't breathe, right before my feet stick into the brick and I have to swallow down my dirty heart.   Face to face with the lion on his pedestal, the warm, giddy feeling I had a whole lifetime ago returns.   It feels as good as when The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice would sneak into the coffee shop and throw his hands over my eyes.   I’d giggle so hard I could hardly catch my breath to make my guess.
    The giggle that comes out of me now is a shallow wheeze, frightening instead of endearing, a gargoyle sound.
    "Did you see me?"   I ask Trickle.   His great stone eyes roll forward.   Trickle's gaze rests on me, and without any change in expression, the longer he stares, the more ominous it feels.   I look away and skitter off to sit beside him.   Trickle's eyes grind to the side to find me