I feel like he’s talking about more than just my being a gargoyle. “What does that—”
He stops me. “Not now,” he says. “For now, close your eyes.” He waits until I do before continuing. “Take a deep breath, let it out. And reach for that part of yourself that’s hidden. The part you keep a secret from everyone else.”
When I do, I can’t help but see all the different threads inside me, each one a string that leads to a different piece of me, a different person or thing that makes me.
On the plus side, all I have to do is lay hands on the individual strings to realize what I’m dealing with. Bright orange for my love of reading. Soft blue for the ocean. Turquoise for my mother’s laugh. Hot pink for Macy. Black for Jaxon, along with a single two-toned thread that starts as a medium green and keeps getting darker and darker until it fades into black. One look and I’m nearly positive that this is our mating bond, though I don’t know how I know that. Red for my art. Brown for Saturday-morning walks with my father. There’s even a brilliant emerald-green string, almost shimmering, it’s so iridescent. I start to reach for that one, but a voice warns me to stay away from that string. Before I can really give it more thought, I get distracted by a gorgeous cerulean string, which I instinctively know is my mother. A deep russet string, my father. Even an aquamarine string for La Jolla.
The list goes on and on, and so do the colored strings, and I sort through them all—even ones I don’t recognize yet—until I finally find a shiny platinum one buried deep in the middle of all the others.
Instinctively, I know this one is it. My gargoyle.
Not going to lie, I’m a little scared of it and what it can do. But being afraid never got me anywhere, and it’s definitely not going to solve this problem, so I just reach for it, breath held and heart beating way too fast.
The moment I touch it, I feel something resonate deep inside me, kind of like I did with Hudson’s magic earlier. But this is deeper, stronger—a tidal wave where that was just a drop—and I can feel it sweeping over me. Roiling around me. Burying me in its power and its presence.
There’s a part of me that wants to pull back, that wants to protect myself more than it wants anything else. But it’s too late. Everything is crashing in on me now, and all I can do is hang on and wait to see what happens.
It doesn’t take long, maybe a second or two, though it feels like an eternity. It starts in my hands and arms, a heaviness that feels completely foreign and yet completely right all at the same time. Once it reaches my shoulders, it spreads like wildfire down my torso to my hips and legs and feet before finally sweeping up my neck to my jaw and cheeks and the top of my head.
At the same time, there’s a burning in my back, and it scares me a little until I remember—my wings. Of course.
And then it’s done and I’m standing in the middle of Katmere’s laundry room in my gargoyle form—and nothing has ever felt so weird. Really, really weird.
Now that I’ve shifted, I keep holding on to the string deep inside me, but I let go when Hudson tells me to.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as he grins down at me. And, on a side note, can I just say how goddamn unfair it is that I’m short, even as a gargoyle? I mean, I just turned to stone for God’s sake. Can’t I at least grow a few inches along with the transformation?
“You’re never going to stop complaining about that, are you?” Hudson asks.
“Never!” I answer immediately. But I’ve got bigger things than my height to worry about right now. “Why can’t I hold on to the string?” I mean, it’s no big deal—it’s not like it’s burning my stone hands or anything. I’m just curious.
“Because I’m pretty sure the longer you hold the string, the more like a statue you become. But shifting to right here, to this point, lets you move and walk and fly,” he tells me.
“Oh! So pretty important, then, huh?” I joke, right before I decide to see if Hudson is right.
Turns out, he is. I can walk. I can also dance and spin in circles and jump so hard, I shake the whole floor. And it is absolutely amazing!
There’s a part of me that wants to see if I can fly—I’ve already wiggled my wings and they work—but there are a couple of problems with that. One, we’re inside, and if I can’t stop, I really, really don’t want to explain to Uncle Finn why I’ve either knocked myself senseless or crashed through one of the castle walls.