The Gargoyle Overhead by Philippa Dowding

city’s largest cathedral. She stayed here from time to time, since it was a peaceful green place in the huge city, and because it reminded her of her home in Paris, so long ago.
    She was perched between two statues of a small dog and a donkey, both a warm golden colour as the sun set in the west. It was almost time for her to begin her night-time search.
    As long as she had lived among the stone gargoyles of New York, she had never really liked them. They were odd and difficult, nothing like the graceful stone statues of her days in Paris with Gargoth. They were strangely dressed people, or dogs (too many dogs, she thought, rolling her eyes), or fat, comical-looking animals from distant parts of the world.
    But like every other place she had ever been, none of the gargoyles of New York was alive, like her.
    Or Gargoth, wherever he was.
    She drummed her claws against the stone turret and looked out over the city. In the distance, she could see busy people rushing home in cars, taxis, buses and trains. Millions of cars. Millions of people. She was glad she was too far from the city to hear much of the noise from it. She’d been there too long to really notice much of the goings-on in it, anyway.
    Ambergine had been there long enough to see horse-drawn carriages give way to cars, gas street lamps turn into electric lights, and the streets fill with more than eight million people from all over the world.
    She waddled to the edge of the turret and leaned against the pedestal of an enormous angel. She had lived among many angels, but none had answered her prayer, at least not yet. She ate an apple to give her some energy for the long night ahead then lifted her weary wings to the skies.
    As she flew, night after night, searching and search-ing, she would let her mind wander.
    This night she was thinking about the last time she had seen Gargoth on that terrible night in Paris. She had carefully followed the thieves and discovered they were going to somewhere called “New York” on something called a “ship” across something else called an “ocean”. She smiled despite herself. That took some courage, finding out that a “ship” was a tiny piece of wood crossing an “ocean”, which turned out to be an impossible amount of water. She didn’t even want to think about how wretched she was as she hid away on that terrible ship so long ago, drenched with salty water which stung her poor wings, and no sunlight or apples to eat or water to drink.
    And no Gargoth.
    New York she understood. It was a great city, much like Paris, only angrier and louder somehow, with more huge buildings and people moving by quickly on the dirty streets below.
    As she was thinking of this, she adjusted her flight to climb a dark road, through a large forest which wound up a hillside. New York City was falling behind her. She was going to search a new neighbourhood with huge homes, with statues and fountains in the rolling gardens behind them.
    Ambergine found it odd that humans were so interested in statues and gargoyles. During her many years of searching, she’d had no problem finding yards filled with angels and cherubs and statues of all kinds.
    But of course, it hadn’t made any difference where she looked. Not so far, anyway.
    She was flying just above the treetops. It was quiet, and very still. She decided it must be about two o’clock in the morning. Suddenly a huge mansion loomed out of the dark ahead of her, with a gigantic garden full of statues. She could see them glowing and pale in the moonlight.
    It was too dark to see anything very clearly, so she took a moment to land on the wall near the garden and rest before going further. She took an apple from her pouch and ate it slowly as she looked over the huge garden. Her eyes slowly passed over the statues near her, when two things happened.
    The first thing was she realized that the statue in front of her was an exact replica of Gargoth, carrying a fishing rod. Another figure of