A young woman is burdened with the responsibility of her father’s legacy. After discovering a mysterious portal, she gains gargoyles as friends, while earth gains enemies.

SYNOPSIS:

From the age of thirteen Shay Cleary has held a secret. On the night of her parents’ break-up a meteor had hit the acres of fields that spanned her back yard. On the outskirts of university town Oxford, there was no other household near this ground-shaking disturbance in the English countryside. While her parents were arguing Shay went out to the meteor’s impact zone to discover what had fallen out: an opening, no bigger than an i-pad. She put her hand into it and pulled out golden sand. She never told her dad about the THE PORTAL that had opened in their back yard. She made a camp of the space, using all her knowledge from camping with her father as a child. She was determined to protect her discovery as she grew older. Her dad always thought that the hole created by the meteor was her private place. A place from when Shay’s mother left them. A place where Shay seemed to have a sense of peace and joy. Little did he know that it was anything but. Shay looked after the portal because she felt it was her responsibility. It opened sporadically, approximately once a month, at sunset, then closed at dawn. It kept growing bigger over the years. Bugs came through. Giant birds came through. There were creatures that came through that Shay didn’t even recognise, but she caught them using her evolving survival skills and she sent them back through the portal to wherever they came from. It seemed like the portal opened to a new place every time and Shay’s accepted responsibility to protect earth from everything that comes through it. Having kept the secret for so long, Shay was embracing the fact that this portal may never go away. Plus, it may become a bigger problem given how big it was getting. She wanted to finally tell her dad about it, but then he passes away. Now Shay is alone. On the night of her father’s funeral all she wants to do is lay down and cry. But then the portal opens.

Things happen for a reason, or so the saying goes. Shay lays across a lounger that’s by the portal and she drifts in and out of sleep as tears run down her face. A few shadows come out of the portal and they’re certainly not birds or bugs this time. They approach Shay and startle her. She’s scared as she discovers that she is surrounded by five giant rock-formed figures. “Gargoyles?” she whispers and then one of them talks back. Shay concludes that she must be dreaming, but as she converses with them she gets to know them, talking all night. The next morning Shay wakes to see the gargoyles all in their stone form and the portal shut. She returns there that night and the gargoyles are awake. She wasn’t dreaming after all.

As the story develops Shay befriends the gargoyles and they explain that they came through the portal by accident. They say that they want to get back to their planet, but there’s no way of knowing if or when the portal will ever take them there. Shay reads up on gargoyles and talks to their leader, Adonis. They conclude that there is no way of telling whether the gargoyles’ planet is a part of earth’s solar system, or a part of another galaxy or dimension entirely. Adonis promises Shay that the gargoyles would help her protect earth in return for her kindness and refuge. The gargoyles also go through the portal to the other side, testing what’s out there while ultimately looking for home. Eventually Shay enters the portal too. With other planets supposedly at play however, she’s careful to take precautions, making sure that a gargoyle goes through first just in case there isn’t air to breathe wherever the portal may take them.

Shay’s father had left her his entire estate, meaning that at nineteen years old Shay is in control of a chain of coffee shops. She’s all set financially, but reminds herself that she’s fortunate to have the gargoyles. If another species came through, violent and alien, she wouldn’t know what to do. She decides to take combat classes and learn how to fight. We watch as she develops as a reluctant defender of earth. Each adventure breeds anything from danger to discovery.