The Halloween Tree

A surge of nightmares on the south.

And a fine scuttle of unnamed vices and ill-kept virtues to the north.

"I," said Tom, proud of this night's work, "wouldn't mind living here."

The wind crooned in the mouths of the beasts. Their fangs hissed and whistled: "Much thanks."

"Jehoshophat," said Tom Skelton, on the parapet. "We whistled all the stone griffins and demons here. Now Pipkin's lost again. I was thinking, why can't we whistle him?"

Moundshroud laughed so his cape boomed on the night wind and his dry bones jangled inside his skin.

"Boys! Look around! He's still here!"

"Where?"

"Here," mourned a small faraway voice.

The boys crickled their spines looking over the parapet, cracked their necks staring up.

"Look and find, lads, hide and seek!"

And even in seeking they could not help but enjoy once more the turbulent slates of the cathedral all fringed with horrors and deliciously ugly with trapped beasts.

Where was Pipkin among all those dark sea creatures with gills gaped open like mouths for an eternal gasp and sigh? Where among all those lovely chiseled nightmares cut from the gallstones of night-lurks and monsters cracked out of old earthquakes, vomited up from mad volcanoes which cooled themselves to frights and deliriums?

"Here," wailed a far, small, familiar voice again.

And way down on a ledge, halfway to the earth, the boys, squinting, thought they saw one small round beautiful angel-devil face with a familiar eye, a familiar nose, a friendly and familiar mouth.

"Pipkin!"

Shouting, they ran down stairways along dark corridors until they reached a ledge. Far out there on the windy air, above a very narrow walkway indeed, was that small face, lovely among so much ugliness.

Tom went first, not looking down, spread-eagling himself. Ralph followed. The rest inched along in a line.

"Watch out, Tom, don't fall!"

"I'm not fallin'. Here's Pip."

And there he was.

Standing in a line directly under the out-thrust stone mask, the bust, the head of a gargoyle, they looked up at that mighty fine profile, that great nub nose, that unbearded cheek, that fuzzy cap of marbled hair.

Pipkin.

"Pip, for cri-yi, what you doin' here?" called Tom.

Pip said nothing.

His mouth was cut stone.

"Aw it's just rock," said Ralph. "Just a gargoyle carved here a long time ago, looks like Pipkin."

"No, I heard him call."

"But, how--"

And then the wind gave them the answer.