Gabriel's Clock (5 page)

Grimm placed a huge, reassuring hand on Jonathan's shoulder and let him cry. With tears filling his eyes, Jonathan was unable to see the look of anguish on Grimm's face—the big man was distraught as a result of lying to the new arrival.

“Look, Jonathan,” he said at last, “we're going to help you, it's what we do here. Hobbes End is a safe place, and I guess your mother must have known that—it must be why she brought you here. You mentioned something about a cottage and your dad?”

Jonathan nodded, and Grimm handed him a tissue to wipe his eyes and nose.

“Well,” said Grimm. “I can help with that. You aren't going anywhere farther than the bathroom for another week, so how about you give me the address you were living at, and I'll go and take a look for you?”

Jonathan gave Grimm a sad smile. “Thank you,” he said, relieved that someone seemed to believe him and was going to help.

“Right,” said Grimm. “I'm going to get you a mug of tea first. Ignatius will be back from Sunday service in a bit, so you can sit and have a chat with him.”

“Who's Ignatius?” asked Jonathan.

“He's the vicar of Hobbes End,” said Grimm. “You'll like him. Now just relax and try not to wave your head about. I'll be back in a bit.”

Jonathan nodded and watched Grimm leave the room, then turned his head to look at the open window. Sunlight poured in, and a gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. He could hear the sounds of people from outside: murmurs, the odd car engine, and a girl's laughter. Suddenly feeling horribly alone, he decided to disobey Grimm and take a look at the world outside. He sat up, swung his legs out of bed, waited for the room to stop spinning, and tottered to the window.

Shielding his eyes against the sun, he could see gardens surrounded by a high stone wall, and a long gravel drive leading to some open gates—it looked familiar somehow. Beyond the gates lay a village green flanked by thatched cottages, a huge pond, and a forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. People were walking to and fro, and over on the far side of the green, beyond a row of beech trees, was a village shop with a bench of fresh fruit and vegetables propped up outside.

He heard another shriek of laughter, and Jonathan saw that it came from a girl being chased around the green by a large black cat. The cat kept catching her, jumping up onto her back, and looking as though he was trying to be sick. He'd then jump off and they'd start all over again.

Jonathan pressed his hand against the glass. It had been such a long time since he'd had any proper friends—he'd moved house so often that he'd never had time really to get to know anyone. He doubted he'd be here long enough to make friends with the girl, whoever she was.

He was about to climb back into bed when he saw the two gargoyles on the gates turn round and wave at him. Jonathan reached out and shut the curtains before gingerly touching the gauze pad that was taped to the back of his head.

I
'
m going nuts,
he thought to himself.
I
'
ve got brain damage.

But he had to look again. He opened the curtains a crack. The gargoyles were still there, smiling and waving. He stifled a hysterical giggle and shuffled backwards to sit on the bed, his mind in a whirl. Just then, he heard footsteps on the stairs, and a tall, thin man in a tweed suit, blue shirt, clerical collar, and wire-rimmed glasses strode into the room, bearing a mug of tea.

“Hello, Jonathan,” said the man. “I'm Ignatius Crumb, vicar of Hobbes End. Are you all right? You look a bit pale. Did Grimm say it was okay for you to be up and about?”

Jonathan just stared at Ignatius and pointed toward the window. “Gargoyles” was all he could say.

“Oh dear,” sighed Ignatius. “I thought we might have more time.” He seemed unsure as to what to do next.

“Is that tea for me?” asked Jonathan.

“Oh, yes,” said Ignatius. “Have a sip; it'll make you feel much better.”

Jonathan nodded, took the tea, and proceeded to do just that.

As Ignatius sat down next to him on the bed, Jonathan noticed that he had a streak of white in his hair, running back from his temple like a scar. The vicar took an unlit pipe from his shirt pocket and toyed with it nervously.

“It's like this,” he said, turning to face Jonathan. “Hobbes End is not an ordinary village; in fact, it's far from ordinary.”

Jonathan just stared at him.

“Oh dear,” Ignatius said again. “I'm not very good at this, am I?” He paused. “Tell you what—wait there a minute.”

Jonathan watched as Ignatius bolted from the room and thundered down the stairs. There was the noise of a door banging open, footsteps on gravel, and a cry of
“Cay!”
from outside in the garden. There followed some semiaudible mutterings, and then a much lighter set of footsteps came back up the stairs. Jonathan gripped his mug tightly and waited to see who it was going to be.

A mass of auburn hair peeped round the doorway; beneath it was a pretty, freckled face with hazel eyes and a quirky grin. It was the girl Jonathan had seen being chased by the cat.

“Hello, strange boy,” she said, her smile making Jonathan beam at her in return. “I'm Cay, and I gather you may have broken your brain.”

 

“They've been nattering for ages,” said Grimm. “I suppose that's a good thing?”

Ignatius nodded. “Cay's doing a better job than me. I can stand in front of a congregation and relay something topical yet interesting for a sermon, and yet the second I'm asked a question about Monty and Stubbs, I dry up. Why is that?”

Grimm chuckled to himself. “He caught you on the hop, that's all. What bothers me is having to lie to him and everyone else about how he came here. He was so upset when he thought his mother had just abandoned him. He told me what he remembered, and I managed to reassure him by saying I'd go and take a look at the cottage and make sure his dad isn't trapped in the rubble.”

“That was the right thing to do,” said Ignatius. “If only we could have told Jonathan that you'd already been out there and found nothing. It might have been of some comfort to him.”

“Hmm,” said Grimm. “I hope his parents turn up sooner rather than later. It's their choice to tell him the truth or not, but we can't keep it from him indefinitely. I can't watch the lad suffer in ignorance.”

“I know,” said Ignatius. “But we'll have to let Gabriel decide that.”

“How is he?” asked Grimm.

“I've barely seen him,” said Ignatius. “Since he left Jonathan with us, he's just kept to his cottage—he didn't even come to the service this morning. I guess he's trying not to fret about Darriel and Savantha and that he's heard nothing from either of them for a week now.”

“Nothing at all?” asked Grimm.

Ignatius shook his head. “They've just disappeared. I hope it's because they're hiding somewhere until they think it's safe enough to come and get Jonathan. Or they may be trying to petition Lucifer for help. I guess Gabriel's worried about what Belial will do if he captures one or both of them.”

“Do you think they'd tell Belial where Jonathan is hidden?”

“He's an archdemon, Grimm. I don't want to think about what he'd do to get the information.”

“What did you tell the rest of the villagers?”

“The same story we told Jonathan. That we found him in the graveyard and that we don't know where he's from.”

“More lies,” said Grimm, shaking his head.

“I know,” said Ignatius. “But it's necessary. At least I can trust everyone in the village not to mention Jonathan's arrival to anyone outside Hobbes End. If there's one thing we're good at, it's keeping secrets.”

 

“So, let me get this straight,” said Jonathan. “Hobbes End is this ancient little village in the middle of a forest, and it has a
soul.
”

Cay nodded. “Well, that's how Gabriel describes it. It's like it has a personality.”

“And how did this happen?”

“Well, when Gabriel got exiled from Heaven, this is where he landed, right in the middle of the pond. All the power from his wings soaked into the earth, and over the years Hobbes End developed a mind of its own.”

“So Gabriel is an angel? And he's living here, in Hobbes End?”

“Was,” said Cay. “He's retired. He builds clocks now, and he's very good at it too. He's been here since . . . 1666, I think.”

“Right,” said Jonathan.

“Oh,” said Cay, waving a finger for emphasis, “and the village calls out to people who need help, who need somewhere to be safe. That's who all the villagers are. They're people who have come here because they need to hide from something or someone. I think there are about eighty people here at the moment—well, eighty-one if we count you.” She grinned.

Jonathan rubbed his face; the painkillers Grimm had given him were beginning to wear off, and he could feel the onset of another terrific headache.

“What's to stop anyone from just walking into Hobbes End to find them when they feel like it? What's the village going to do about that?” he asked, his tone betraying that he didn't believe a word Cay was saying.

“Oh, if the village didn't want someone to wander in, it would just turn them round and send them back out. They'd never get anywhere near the place. Like I said, the village is very protective of the people who live in it. Anything evil that tried to get in would catch fire. Well, that's the theory—never seen it happen myself. For example, when you tried to walk out the other night—”

“I what?” said Jonathan. And then the memories began to flicker back—his bare feet on the gravel, the green, Grimm picking him up . . .

“You were delirious and had a fever,” said Cay. “You wandered out of the house in the middle of the night, and the village thought you were trying to leave. It knew you were hurt and that it wasn't safe for you to be wandering around in the dark, so it turned you round and sent you straight back.”

Jonathan shook his head. “Funny, that's really funny,” he said.

“But I—”

“No, really,” said Jonathan, his tone frosty. “I get a fractured skull when my house collapses on me, I somehow end up here, my mom and dad have disappeared, and I'm having hallucinations of waving gargoyles because I really have broken my brain! Then you come up with this fairy tale of angels and magical villages, and I'm supposed to believe it. I've got a head injury, I'm not mental!”

“Oh,” said Cay, looking crestfallen. “I was just trying to help.”

Jonathan knew he shouldn't snap at Cay, but he just couldn't stop himself. He really liked her, but what she was saying made him feel like he was the target of some huge joke.

“If you want to help me, then stop making up stories,” he said.

“I see,” said Cay, sounding quite composed, as if she'd expected Jonathan to react the way he had. “Then I guess if I'm going to make you understand, I'll have to bring out the big guns.” She got up and put her head round the bedroom door. “Elgar!” she called out. “Some help in here, please.”

Jonathan watched as a thundering on the stairs turned into the large black cat with white front paws. Elgar jumped onto the bed and stalked up to the bemused boy until his face was barely inches away, his whiskers twitching, his yellow eyes boring into Jonathan's. The cat held the pose for a good twenty seconds before biting Jonathan gently on the nose.

“Ow!” cried Jonathan, clapping his hands to his face.

“Hallucinate that!” said Elgar.

Jonathan stared at the cat in horrified curiosity. “It . . . it . . .”

“Yes,
it
talks,” said Elgar. “And I have a name, you know.”

Jonathan looked wide-eyed at Cay. She just shrugged and smiled.

“What you have to ask yourself, Sonny Jim,” Elgar said to Jonathan, “is the following. Have I actually gone stark, raving hat stand? Or has everything Cay said to me so far been incredible but true?”

Jonathan just stared at the cat, his mouth open.

“Oh,” said Elgar. “The gargoyles, Monty and Stubbs, are quite hurt that you didn't wave back to them earlier on. They're simple souls, but that's no reason to take advantage of their good nature. Now shuffle over to the window and wave at them, or else!”

Too astonished to argue, Jonathan slowly got out of bed and walked to the window. Opening the curtains, he saw the two gargoyles looking up at him expectantly. Feeling slightly ridiculous, he raised a hand and waved at them. Obviously overjoyed, the two gargoyles not only waved back but did a synchronized jig on their respective gateposts.

“Pop yourself back into bed, then,” said Elgar, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “It's time we began your Hobbes End education.”

Chapter 6