Mercy, A Gargoyle Story Read Online Free PDF

stroke of his wings seems meant to shake me loose.
    "Do you see me ugly?"   he asks.   The intonation of the question doesn't fall squarely on one word, so I'm not sure how to answer.   He is hideous, but I am equal, or worse.   The bone plate of my eyes is so far down on my face, I have to tip my head to see above me in a way I never had to before.   And whatever I answer, whether it is wrong or right, to his liking or not, he is still holding me at a height where he could hurl me down and smash me to pieces.   Again.   I'm not sure why I am even bothering to cling to him or to this... life ?
    I have no idea where in the world he is taking me, or what miseries lie ahead, but something within won't allow me to let go of the gargoyle.   There is no answer I can give him that will satisfy both of us, so I stay quiet.   When he recognizes that my silence is my answer, he grunts again.  
    "Were you ever ugly?" he asks in his whiskey-battered voice.   I am shocked to hear the hint of curiosity mixed in.
    "Isn't this ugly enough?"   I snap.
    "This is not ugly, Slip.   This is removed .   Answer the question.   Ugly before?"
    "I don't know."   
    "How don't you?   Weren't you there?"
    "Of course I was,” I snap again, but I am no closer to knowing the answer.   The Boy with the Golden Rod Voice made me beautiful and hideous.   I think of how The Boy's voice was so gentle as he stroked his fingers through my pixie-cut hair and said he didn't want me to look like a boy anymore.   I was proud when it finally curled around his fingertips.   I think of how thick the boy's voice was, when he said I should be a model, but it would never happen, because I wasn’t tall enough.
    "So, never.   Never ugly,"   Moag groans.   He dips down and I feel the spray of the ocean on my open bones.   The pier, the same one that I died beneath, is close enough to see clearly in the moonlight.   Moag hovers and swirls over the ocean, out of the curious beam of the pier lights.   "Where?" he grumbles.   "Where do you go?"
    "What do you mean?"   Panic rises like steam from my skeleton.   I can’t understand why I should panic now, but I do.   The thoughts dart through my head that the gargoyle will drop me and I will finally sink to my grave.   I will finally be ended.   Like this.   The voice that has never failed me wavers as I ask the gargoyle, "What are you going to do?"
    "Skin you,” he says.   He swoops down so quickly my bones rattle against his chest.   The water comes up fast and we hit it like a truck, barreling through a wave, my skeleton and guts sinking.   There is one second, in which I see the light of the moon dance in the dust of the ocean floor, and I think I will be left here.   This, my final ending.   Then Moag's talons hook through my exposed ribs again and drag me up past the surface, breaking into the air again.
    "Why are you doing this to me?”   I screech as he dives back down and plunges me into the water again.   He does it three times without answering, and the third time, he tosses me into the air with a cackling laugh before catching me.  
    "Why?"   I sputter, but something catches my eye.   It is skin.   A gelatinous sheath covers me like an oyster coat.   Moag loops through the air with me and as we go, the skin thickens, molding closer to my bones.   In only five loops, my innards are shrink-wrapped and my featherless wings are covered in crusty, clay-colored skin.   Just like the gargoyle.
    "Should not have made you a talker.   No good came of that,"   Moag grumbles.   "Only filling my head with what if and why and but, until I can not think what I must."
    "What must?”   I ask.   “What must you think?"
    "I must think of change.   Past the temptations and still find the pretty.   I must get around it."
    I shiver at the thought of the gargoyle thinking I am pretty.   I am disgusted that he may want to turn our short acquaintance into some sort of fairytale, where