Page 61 of Guarded by My Gargoyle

Maris had to put a hand over her mouth. When she looked up Rona had gone and Garrick was cutting the ham as though his antisocial ways had not just been publicly forgiven in front of thirty people.

“What?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Little thorn.”

“I said nothing.”

The bell over the door chimed, and a small orc in a lime-green velour tracksuit came in on a gust of cold air, YOU WERE MINT TO BE written across her chest in gold cursive.

“Well.” Flora arrived at the booth without appearing to have crossed the floor and put both hands on the edge of the table. “Would you look at this? A gargoyle, a gardener, and a young man of excellent taste, all in one booth on a fine Sunday morning, exactly as the good Lord and I intended.”

“Good morning, Flora,” she said, in a voice that was only a little strangled.

“Don’t you Good morning, Flora me, dear. I could roast a chicken by the heat coming off the pair of you.” She pointed a gnarled finger from Garrick to her, clearly delighted. “Two months I’ve been telling this town. Sylvie owes me twenty dollars and there’s a male at the hardware store about to have a very poor Sunday.”

“You bet on us?”

“I bet on everyone, dear. That’s the business model.” She patted Maris’s cheek with a papery hand, and under all the outrage of it there was something so pleased and so fond that Maris couldn’t work up the will to be embarrassed. “Isn’t that right, Garrick Stonehaven?”

Garrick looked at her over his coffee. “I plead the fifth.”

“You made a joke,” Flora informed him, enchanted. “That’s her doing. You were a stone wall in a nice shirt when you came back to this town.” She rapped the table. “Anyway. Have you people heard about the festival?”

“What festival?” she asked, grateful for any subject that was not the heat coming off her.

“Halloween, keep up. Fairhaven does it properly. Pumpkins the size of tractor tires, and Sam comes up out of the river to judge the costumes, which is a treat, because he takes it very seriously.” She fixed her bright black eyes on Toby. “You’ll want a costume, young man. Big field this year. What are you going to be?”

Toby put down his upside-down menu with a decisive nod.

“A gargoyle.”

The booth went quiet. She didn’t look at Garrick, but she heard him put his cup down very carefully. When she risked a look, his jaw had gone tight and the gold had come up through the grey as he looked at the top of Toby’s head.

Flora, who missed nothing in this life and probably the next, beamed like the sunrise.

“Excellent choice. Ambitious. You’ll need wings, and I know a woman.” She straightened, gave the table one last approving thump, and sailed off towards the counter to ruin a man’s Sunday.

Rona dropped back by with blueberry pancakes for Toby and avocado toast for her. Perfect as always.

“I can be a gargoyle, can’t I?” Toby asked, suddenly uncertain, looking between them. “For the costume. Is that all right?”

“Yes.” Garrick’s voice dropped, lower and rougher than usual.

“You could help. You know what they look like.”

“I do.” Something worked in his throat. “I’ll help.”

She took a sip of her coffee so she’d have something to do with her face. The warning hum had stopped altogether. It was very hard to hold anything lightly when her five-year-old had just announced in a café that he wanted to look like the male across the table, and that male had taken it like a blessing.

Doomed, Robin had said, and Robin had been right.

Flora had finished at the counter and stopped to talk to Gladys.

“Maris will do the wreaths,” she told her friend cheerfully, looking over at Maris.

“I will not do the wreaths.”