Warm arms wrapped themselves around me and lifted me down into softness. Suddenly I was wide-awake, remembering the way the gargoyle had whispered to me a few nights ago.
“Dad?” I said.
“Yes, Roe?”
“I’m scared.”
“Oh? What of?”
“The other night, the gargoyle in the moat spoke to me.”
“Oh really? And what did he have to say?”
“I don’t know. It was in another language.”
It was funny how Dad’s features sometimes looked a little gargoyle-like. I reached up and touched his cheek, trying to turn him human again. He got up and went over to the window, unlatching it and leaning out, just as I had done. When he came back, his eyes were hidden beneath his brows. “Our minds perceive things differently at night,” he said. “Even grown-ups get scared sometimes.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Oh yes.”
I yawned, sleepy again. “Dad?” I said. “Where did we live, before Braër?”
“We travelled around for a while, don’t you remember? Lots of B and Bs and camping. A bit of sofa surfing. But before that, when your mum lived with us, we lived in London—you know that.”
“But why? Didn’t we have a home?”
“No, I suppose not. I think I was trying to work out where I wanted us to be. Trying to find us just the right place, and I think I managed it, didn’t I?” He looked round at the walls of my bedroom, nodding to himself.
I nodded back, not yet sure if I liked Braër as much as Dad did. “What was it like?” I said, picking up the feather and stifling a yawn. “Our house in London with Mum?”
“It was a small flat. No room for thinking, or painting. Too many people, not enough space.”
“Why can’t I remember it?”
“You were only four when we left. That’s half of your life ago.”
“Oh.” But sometimes I thought I did remember it. Sometimes, just as I was drifting off into sleep, I started awake, an image hanging in my mind as clear as if it were suspended in the air in front of my face: a little toy hare, silvery and staring, perched on a shelf high above me. Sometimes when this image came to me, I would feel a hand reaching out from my dreams, patting me affectionately on the arm.
I was suddenly nervous about falling asleep. I grabbed Dad’s hand, rough and hairy. “Dad?”
“Yes, Romilly?” He looked down at his watch, clicking his tongue impatiently.
“Have I been to the circus before?” Memories of the flat were mixing with other memories now. A caravan like the ones I spotted behind the circus tent, a small brown dog, a lady covered in bells...
“Well, yes. When we were traveling we followed the circus around for a while. I quite liked their nomadic life. But it’s not the right life for a child. Your education suffered.” He got up and stretched, going to the window again to check the latch.
“Dad?”
“Yes, Romilly?” He was exasperated now. I could tell from the rasp of his voice.
“Is that lady at the circus my mum?”
There was silence as Dad padded back to the bed and fiddled with the chain on the bedside lamp. The light went out, and the sky appeared in a rectangle of window, the strawberry moon huge and red.
“No, Romilly,” he said at last.
Stars in their millions fizzed in the blackness of the window, and Monty curled himself around my hands.
“Who is she?” I asked, tracing the soft edge of the feather over my cheek, and wondering if it felt like a mother’s loving fingers, but there was no answer. I opened my eyes, searching for his huge shadowy bulk in the dark room, but he was already gone.
Chapter Four
I awoke the next morning to the screech of metal on metal, and for an instant I thought it was the gargoyle, cut loose from its fountain, climbing the guttering to rap at my window.
It was a light, bright morning, and I climbed out of bed and peeped outside. I had been half-right: Dad was standing submerged in the moat below, a pair of pliers in his hands, attempting to unscrew the bolts that held the fountain in place. The sound it made set my teeth on edge, and I watched his red face, the thick cords of muscle bunching in his neck as he worked.
As the last bolt loosened, he lifted the pliers high above his head and I winced as he brought them down on the gargoyle. The sound rang out across the garden. The fountain began to tilt, swinging down toward the water.
I opened the window, scrambling onto the sill to lean out. “What are you doing?” I shouted.
Dad looked up, and his eyes widened. “Get back, Romilly. You might fall!”
I leaned back, still looking out.
“It was giving me nightmares too,” he said more quietly, wiping a slick of mud from his brow. He climbed awkwardly out of the moat, the dented remains of the pliers hanging from his hand, as the fountain slowly sank beneath silt and swirling mud.
* * *
I spent the morning reenacting the circus, trying to tame Monty with a whip I had fashioned out of a long strip of willow, but he just looked at me warily and skittered off, chasing the seed heads from a dandelion clock. I shot occasional glances at the place where the gargoyle had been, imagining him rising up out of the moat to haunt me, but there was only calm, still water there now.
In the afternoon, Dad announced that we couldn’t run a circus without making toffee apples, and so we shut ourselves in the kitchen, the room filled with the most glorious smell of caramel. In the saucepan, the boiling liquid was hypnotic, popping gloopily like lava in a volcano.
“I think it’s ready,” Dad said, peering into the pan. “Grab an apple.”
Obediently, I picked up one of the many apples sitting ready on the counter, a lollipop stick implanted vertically into its heart.
“Dip it, girl! Dip like you’ve never dipped before!”
I lowered the apple into the saucepan, aware of the sugary steam coating the little hairs on my hand, and skimmed it in the golden liquid before pulling it out, round and fat and coated in a layer of glossy mahogany.
We repeated the process with the remainder of the apples, setting them to cool on the side, the molten toffee pooling at their bases. Dad helped me down off the stool, his palms just as sticky as mine.
“Can we eat them now?”
“No, they need to cool first. I tell you what, I have something to show you while we wait.”
I followed him to his study. I hadn’t been in there since I had gone looking for evidence of my mum weeks ago. It was always locked now. Dad magicked the key from a trouser pocket, and I waited in the hall while he unlocked the door with a fumble and a click.