Susan in Paris 7

Ella's grandmother was the archetypal witch from the story book, small tidy, grey hair in  a bun, jars and a big pot in the kitchen of a cozy house. Even down to the checkered apron and hooked nose. She was very kind, and heard the Lion dancers story with almost no interruptions. She bade Susan unpack the Gargoyle and clicked her tongue appreciatively as she saw it. "What a fine specimen! We'll have her back to life in a jiffy," she said.
"Her?" Susan and Ella said as one. "Oh yes, gargoyles can be female as well. How do you imagine small gargoyles are made?"
"Ohh" Susan said, getting a bit red in the face.
"Well, I spy many young helpers, Ella's grandmother said. What I need to do is rather time-consuming, and time is what we do not have." She took the book, handed out strange roots, fruits, gems, and pieces of wood with as many different tools and instructions. Susan peeled and grated a ginormous purple root, while Teiko and Kensuke chopped something looking like  cross between beans and sparrows' eggs. Ella stirred the big pot with a wooden spoon, watching over the wasters with an ease, that told the others that she might not herself be a witch, but she was sure used to helping granny in her magic workings. Cooper grated a black square of wood, very slowly. "Take good care now, drummer boy, you do not want your fingers grated along with the wood. It's old, seasoned Ironwood from our local Black forest!" Granny said. 
Liam finely pounded a bowl of blue and yellow crystals.

While they all worked, each as concentrated as could be, they once again heard the werewolves howling. The distant howl, was answered by yet another from down by the river, and then a shiver ran down their spines, for the next howl cam from close up, on the other side of the hut.
Granny assured them, that the werewolf was farther off, than is sounded, and that they had time for their job, if they worked diligently. And work they did.
When all was ready. Granny added the ingredients one by one to the boiling cauldron, all the time chanting and stirring the pot in complicated patterns. The steam rising from the pot changed colour with each ingredient, in the end looking like a twisted rainbow hanging over the pot. She carefully took the Gargoyle from the kitchen table, and dunked it into the bubbling, multicoloured brew.
As she pulled it up again, the figuring was dripping coloured drops. Granny put it back on the velvet square on the table. The gargoyle shook itself ever so slightly, and the colours shimmered and shifted. Fascinated, Susan and the Lion dancers watched as all the green, blue white, golden and brown colours went to the wings, the eyes, claws and beak, and in the end a perfect living gargoyle sat on the table in front of them.
"Good evening little one," Granny said.
The gargoyle flapped her perfect, green wings, opened and closed the shiny beak and ... answered: "Good evening. I'm  Cerina, the last of my kind. And I'm happy to be here tonight. I can smell the werewolves in the air. This is not a night for people to be out in."
"Not even ..." Susan said.
"No, gentle girl, not even witches and wizards. You all stay here, and prepare a cauldron full of the recipe on the next page. Leave the werewolves to me." The little gargoyle flew to the rim of the cauldron, drank down the contents, and then walked to the door. On the way out she nudged Susan's hand. Susan ran her hand over her eye ridges, down the perfectly curved horns, and caressed the pointy ears. "Oh, you're so pretty, Cerina. Take good care of yourself." They went together to the door, Susan's hand resting on the horns of the Gargoyle. When Susan reached the door, her hand were further away from the floor, than it had been.
"You're growing!" Susan exclaimed.
"Yes, you brewed a very potent potion for me tonight. Stay inside and brew me another one."
Cerina neared her face to Susan's and put her snout to her face, in something reminding of a kiss.
Susan opened the door, and once outside the quickly growing gargoyle shook herself and alighted in a whirl of dust and colours. She circled once over the house and took off in the direction of the river, where the savage howling of the werewolves could be heard coming ever closer. 

Susan stood looking after the flying shape until Granny came and pulled her inside.
"Our work is not yet done," she said. "You heard her just as well as I did.
"She was such a wonderful, wonderful sight," Susan said. I'm afraid what the werewolves are going to do to her.
"You'd be better off worrying what she will do to the werewolves." Granny said sharply. "Those horns, claws and beak was not made for decorative purposes. And the werewolves were human once. Never forget that."
Granny closed the door and with a sharp word of command she closed the shutters on all windows and doors.

... to be continued.