Chapter 24– Elmbridge Old Gate, a New Door(4)

The woman took the little girl by the hand and began to present the glamour of that magic place. In that huge courtyard of that school, of that charming palace, for Elmbridge School looked like that, at one point they came in front of a fountain. Elizabeth had never seen such a wonderful fountain before, and not because the only fountain she knew was the one made of stones laid on top of one another, from which she would draw water with Dorothy whenever their turn was to fill heavy buckets with water, but because it was a fountain as many ... have not seen.
'Miss Harmony ... were my parents at this school too?"
'No, dear, neither as students when they were your age, nor as professors. Nor did they meet Knudlac too often when they were alive. You came here because it looks like Eaden Knudlac ... is your only relative ... you know."
Miss Harmony's gaze let her know that the truth was too delicate for the girl to tell her. So Miss Harmony claimed she didn't know much about the Edwards' life and changed the subject.
'I'm amazed whenever I see these fountains."
The well by which they stood was adorned with a few moving statues.
You could hardly accept that what happened was real, but those statues were indeed lively.
What Elizabeth saw was not a common artesian fountain, in which everything was static and water flowed, but statues of all kinds, shapes and sizes, winged horses, angels, sea creatures you could not even imagine if you did not see personally, and many other human or less human creatures made up the fountain, moved freely playing with water making it run continuously in various ways.
Furthermore, those statues moved their body, as if they were not built of stone, but had joints and were made of flesh and bones. However ... they were petrified.
'Gargoyle", said Mrs. Harmony. 'Magic statues came to life. You will meet them everywhere. In various forms ... Human, or mermaid, or fantastic creatures like chimeras, dragons or griffinigri."
'What are grifinigri?"
'They have half eagle and half ... leopard body."
The girl had a hard time imagining exactly what those creatures looked like.
"You will certainly meet them and see what they look like," Harmony answered her question obviously bugging her. All these statues make these places look as they are ... magic. They make them more beautiful for us, and instead we provide them with the buildings to stay on. Their house is actually ... outside. You see, they like to live outside their homes. The exterior of the buildings they stick to is for them the most welcoming place they could wish for.
As the story goes, Miss Harmony showed the girl how many of these gargoyles decorated the walls and the towers of Elmbridge School. Only the living statues did not move like those in the majestic fountain, but remained motionless.
'Statues on buildings move very rarely. Only once in a while ... If you sit and stare at them for several days, you can see how sometimes a gargoyle shakes dust off top. But ... only once a few days, after which it is again still for other days. This is how a group of students from this school told me they watched day and night over these ... fantastic creatures.
The girls took part in a small show started by one of the statues, a small winged child, who took a mouthful of water from the fountain and flew to a giant, a warrior armed as if he were to face an entire army. Reaching him, the water he drank was eliminated through the bottom, annoying the giant. Even though it was water, because it could not be anything else, the giant was so furious that he tried with all might to catch with the free hand the naughty angel. The latter managed not to turn into dust, because the huge warrior had to keep the fountains on which the other statues stood with the other hand.
The girls started laughing loudly at such revelation.
"Maybe statues on the buildings are quiet because they are not touched by water," Elizabeth said, trying to understand the difference between the statues in the fountain and the others.
"I never thought of that," Miss Harmony replied, smiling. 'Interesting statement. Maybe, who knows? Anyway, they are all very beautiful ..."
And the two continued their journey through the magnificent courtyard of the Elmbridge school of magic.
'Miss Harmony, can you tell me where we are and what this place actually is?"
Miss Harmony cleared her throat and began to say:
'Of course. I'll start with ... How to explain to you, my dear? Until today you could only notice what you wanted to see. You spent your life in a real world, as those people who want to ... ignore magic. We call them ‘sceptic'. And this world is different from theirs."
'I was sceptic too?"
Miss Harmony smiled so warmly that anyone would say her picture should be added to the word kindness in the dictionary.
'Have you noticed anything strange with you so far?"
'I saw I could make bright ponies ... out of nothing and other stuff like that."
'Then you aren't sceptic. You couldn't be sceptic ... Your parents were some of the best and most powerful wizards that mankind has ever had. Like Professor Eadan Knudlac. As for you, some people think you'll ... the most powerful witch of your generation."
'I think ... it's hard to believe anything," the girl tried to contradict her, looking back because she saw someone as small as a child younger than 4.
Nothing strange for a witch but to any sceptic person this would have seemed abnormal, because that child seemed to be at least a hundred years old, considering his appearance. His beard almost reached the ground, as if all the hair on his head moved there, because he was bald, and his face looked like he was made of ... stone.
"He is a stone elf," clarified Miss Harmony. 'Elves are just like ... like some people. Still, they are different."
'Who is that Vlad they talk about?"
'You know, dear. In the real world there are evil people ... in the magic world there are evil wizards. They want to control the world of magic, and everything actually. To control both wizards and sceptic people. Kind, compassionate ones are used to drinking from the fountain of love ... but evil ones are fed with hatred and violence."
The woman, seeing Elizabeth was thoughtful, cupped her chin in her delicate palm.