The Gargoyle at the Gates by Philippa Dowding Page A

holiday season. She did keep the 148 mismatched candle beacon lit on the rooftop every night, though.
    Katherine and Christopher had been shooed away by people suspicious of them lurking around their houses and looking up into the trees. They’d been chased by angry dogs and hissed at by more raccoons (there were a LOT of raccoons in Toronto, as well as trees, Christopher was dismayed to discover, all about the same size and shape as a gargoyle).
    School was out for the holidays. They travelled the streetcar to a new area of the city each day, carrying the big yellow backpack in case they had any luck.
    But they didn’t.
    On the plus side, they hadn’t seen the Collector since he had threatened Christopher in the park. They had no idea where the awful old man had gone, though, which was scary too. He might pop out at them at any moment.
    It is difficult to keep looking and looking without much hope of finding what you are looking for. Christopher was having trouble keeping his spirits up: the Collector had Ambergine in a cage.
    It was a terrible secret to have to keep.
    Katherine and Christopher were walking through a very old part of the city. It was so old that it held one of the city’s oldest cemeteries AND the city’s only working farm.
    The pair walked along the snowy pathway and through the railed farm gates. The farm was a happy place for families, and lots of little children were running around in their snowsuits, making snow angels and looking through the wooden fence at the shaggy horse waiting patiently for its lunch of fresh hay. The piglets, chickens, roosters, rabbits, and other animals of the farm were inside the warm huts. There were parents and toddlers and strollers everywhere.
    Katherine loved this farm, and she and her parents had come many times when she was little. She’d been one of the children running around in her snowsuit, patting the shaggy horse. Christopher couldn’t believe that a huge city like Toronto had a farm in the middle of it.
    Katherine looked at the farm map, but couldn’t see an apple orchard marked anywhere. She thought there might be one, though, since the farm made and sold apple cider all winter long. She bought a cup from the vendor and shared the warm, spicy drink with Christopher.
    â€œNo wonder the gargoyles like apples, this is good! ” he said, a little surprised.
    A lady in a Toronto Parks employee jacket walked by, pushing an overflowing wheelbarrow filled with hay.
    â€œExcuse me, can you point us in the direction of the apple orchard?” Katherine asked her. The lady put down the wheelbarrow and frowned.
    â€œYou know, we don’t really have an orchard. There’s an old apple tree behind the drive shed.” She pointed down a narrow, snowy path with a shed at the end. “And there’s another one out by the gate, but that’s it. There might be an old apple orchard over in the Necropolis, though. That’s right across the street.”
    â€œWhat about the cider?” Katherine asked.
    â€œOh, we get the apples for the cider from a lot of apple trees around the city, not just here. People pick them from parks and backyards and bring them here for us to use.” Katherine thanked the lady, who picked up the wheelbarrow and trundled away, followed by squealing children who wanted to help feed the horse.
    â€œWhat should we do now?” she asked.
    Christopher shrugged. “I guess we try the Necropolis, whatever that is.”
    â€œIt’s a cemetery, Christopher. I think it means ‘city of the dead,’ actually,” Katherine said.
    They left the happy farm behind and crossed the street into a completely different world. The Necropolis was one of the oldest cemeteries in the city. It was an odd sensation, leaving the happy sounds of children feeding the horse, to the quiet dark of the waiting graveyard.
    The cemetery wasn’t very big and had once bordered on a farm, back in the