“I’ve never felt it was really my money,” said Maggie. “More like I’m a paid guardian.”
Alvin nodded. “So, are you worried about what would happen if he started using again? If he was here and close to you?”
She nodded.
“I’m afraid I’d start again,” she whispered. She wasn’t scared she’d lose her money, or her brother, or her security, although all those things were tied up in it; she was afraid she’d lose herself. “If I did, I wouldn’t come back.” She could practically feel it, right now … the pipe between her lips, the rise out of her body, the silver shimmer of the World Beside This One … She’d never told Alvin about Srebrenka’s visits. Srebrenka hadn’t returned. Maggie had handled it.
“I wouldn’t let that happen,” said Alvin, toying with the end of her thick braid.
“Really? And how exactly would you stop it?” Save her, would he? It was so sweet of him. And so naive. Maggie knew full well that if elysium got a grip on her again no one, not even Alvin, would be able to stop her. She was the only one capable of keeping herself out of the Silver World. She was fond of Alvin. She was very fond of Alvin, in fact, and she supposed she trusted him as far as it went. He was a good man and an honest one, but he was a man who loved boats, here today and gone the next, up the St. Lawrence Seaway perhaps, to open water …
“I’m pretty good in a fight, you know. Did I ever tell you about the time I was in Tonga and got into a fight with this Samoan?”
“I thought it was a giant Scotsman in the Orkney Islands?”
“Oh, that was another time. He was big, for sure, but the guy in Tonga must have been seven feet tall and battered as a pound of cod. Can’t remember what started the fight, but I finally picked up a bottle and bashed it on the bar, but the damn thing wouldn’t break. Slammed it three times with this guy bearing down on me so I whomped him over the head with it. That broke the bottle and he went down like Liston.” He laughed. “Course, I spent the night in the lock-up. Don’t recommend that. Centipedes the size of rattlesnakes with a bite more painful, and since I’ve been bitten by both, I can say that with all honesty. But anyway, listen, you’re not going back down the drain. I’d move in here, if I had to.”
Ah, Alvin’s adventure tales. Tonga, Macau, Barbados, the Orkney Islands … “You wouldn’t like that. There’s no point glowering at me, you know it’s true. You’d be good for … oh … a week, a month, and then if you weren’t back on the boat you’d be thundering around like a bear.”
“Come on, you don’t know that. I’ve already been to every place in the world I’m interested in and several I wasn’t. I’m not saying I’d never go for a jaunt now and then. Besides, remember what Marian Engel said: ‘So this was her kingdom: an octagonal house, a roomful of books, and a bear.’”
He had grown up in the Grimoire and so, like her, he read and read. Unlike her, he was fond of quotes.
“Nice try, but no, we might as well face it: we do not play well with others, you and I, Alvin, and our lives suit us best as they are.” She stood up and took his hand. “Come upstairs and let’s forget all this. Trouble will still be here tomorrow.”
* * *
IN THE MORNING, ALVIN KISSED HER AND LEFT HER STILL in bed. He’d be gone for a while. He docked the boat for the season at the Marina Quay West by the massive Canada Malting silo, and it was time to winterize. She didn’t expect to see him for a week or more. Maggie reached for the sweater hanging from its place on the bedpost, and crossed the icy floor to the smudgy, wavy glass of the front window. Alvin sauntered down the street, his cap at a jaunty angle, his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, his step light even in his heavy boots. He walked with a boxer’s bounce, and in fact had been a Golden Gloves light heavyweight champion when he was twenty. The street was busy with people hurrying off to early morning jobs, but no one looked up toward her window. He rounded the corner without a backward glance and was gone.
As happened after every night she spent with Alvin, Maggie was in something of a muddle and she did not like being in a muddle. As a woman of solitary preferences, she should have been satisfied with things the way they were, and yet she wasn’t. Not quite. Her spirits drooped, watching him walk away. It was vexing.
The room was comfortably furnished with the four-poster bed, a bureau under the window, a Queen Anne chair beside that and a bookshelf (no room should ever be without a bookshelf). An old armoire boasted four drawers and a space for hanging clothes: more than enough space for Maggie’s limited wardrobe of jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, turtlenecks, her Doc Marten boots, a pair of running shoes, a couple of scarves and a peacoat. All black. It made things simple. On the bureau stood two photos: One of Mr. Mustby seated at the leather chair by the fireplace in the bookshop with a large volume on his lap, and on the small round table next to him was a glass of what Maggie presumed was brandy, and his pipe and ashtray. The expression on Mr. Mustby’s face was one of slight surprise, as though the photographer had come up on him unawares. Crinkled eyes, his mouth in a smile, which was just like him. He always expected the best and assumed every surprise would be a pleasant one. The other photo was of him and Alvin, standing on the deck of Alvin’s boat, The Storyteller. They both squinted into the sun and their hair was tangled in the wind. The love between them was so obvious with Alvin’s arm around the smaller, older man’s shoulders.
Badger whined and pranced at her feet. “Walk, yes.”
Downstairs, she walked out into the back garden. It looked like twilight, and there was no mistaking it, the garden was smaller. She could cross to the seat near the oak (which was shorter, she was sure it was) in ten steps, instead of the usual twenty or twenty-five. Only the stone wall seemed the same – or did it? Was the fact it encircled a smaller garden the reason it looked taller? It had always been over her head, but now? She reached up. She had to jump to touch the top. What was happening? She turned and found Badger sitting in the doorway. “Not coming out? I don’t blame you. Come on, we’ll go to the park.”
Maggie and Badger stepped out the front door. The air snapped with autumn’s nip and smelled of apples along with the usual scents of the market. Badger barked once and trotted off to the nearest tree against which to do his business.
They were passing the Wort & Willow Apothecary when Badger stopped and turned back in the direction from whence they’d come, his ears pricked. Maggie put her hand down to reassure the dog and, following his gaze, tried to see what he was fixed on, but there was nothing except the street – a few women carrying shopping bags filled with fruits and vegetables, a bearded hipster singing along to something on his headphones, two teenaged girls giggling … but wait, there, who was that? Badger danced a little, whined, looked up at her and then back again. A boy, wearing a plaid jacket and camouflage pants. A riot of black hair. Standing in the doorway of the Grimoire.
Mr. Strundale poked his long, lugubrious face from his doorway. “Maggie, did you find that book on honey mead I wanted? I was just going to bring you some cider. Dear, are you all right?”
“I’ll bring it by later today, Mr. Strundale.”
Badger ran up to the boy, who jumped and then reached out and scratched the dog under the chin. Badger stretched his neck in pleasure. “He’s a good dog, isn’t he?”
“Well, you’re practically family. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Peter.”
“Hello, Peter. Peter Pan!” Maggie ushered the boy into the shop. “I suppose you’ve got another one?”
“Yeah. Weird, though. Just found it in my pocket. Figured I’d better bring it.”
She stared at the handwriting. It was fainter than the second note, which, now she thought about it, was fainter than the writing on the first note. “Listen, any more unusual stuff out there? Streets moving and so forth?”
“Don’t you have a TV?”
“No TV.”
“Internet?” He looked as though she’d just said she didn’t breathe air.
“I’m a freak. I get it.”
He shook his head. “Big news. Like, you know the Rogers Centre and those figures of cheering fans, all gold, by the entrances? Well, they’ve disappeared. And those big cow statues down in the financial district went missing. Stolen, probably, although …” the boy grinned, “there were also reports of cows hulking around near the Necropolis by the Forest.”
Maggie handed him a twenty. “Nonsense. Besides which, the Necropolis is up by Wellesley Street, not the Forest.”
The boy shrugged. “It is now. Well,” he turned to go, “guess maybe I’ll be seeing you.”
“It’s possible.”
She very much wanted to burn the envelope without reading it. There were a number of arguments as to why this would be prudent. She twirled her braid and fidgeted with the owl charm affixed to it. Badger leaned against her leg and sighed, gazing up at her. “I agree,” she said, and opened the envelope.
I’m lost. Sister, follow me
The skin along her arms pricked and chilled. Sister. The last two words were barely legible and trailed off in a scrawl of ink.
“Oh, Kyle.” Tears burned the back of her eyes. “What have you done?”
KYLE IS WRAPPED IN FURS IN THE BACK OF A LOW-SLUNG white convertible. The driver in the front seat, a silent man with ice-blue eyes and a fur hat, steers the car along the dark road. They move quickly. The evergreens on either side of them blur. He wonders where they might be going, but only mildly. It doesn’t really matter where, or when, or how. He understands that now. So very little matters. The car skids and rocks on a turn, a patch of frozen blackness, and Kyle thinks that in another life he might be alarmed by such a thing, and smiles. How foolish. What a waste it is to be concerned. Why had he ever bothered? Why did anyone? The car settles down again and on they speed. The stars in the indigo sky above glitter, chilly and distant. The air smells of winter – the metal-sweet scent of ice and snow. He leans against the woman beside him and sighs. She holds a silver pipe to his lips and he sucks. The woman chuckles and calls him a greedy boy. She rakes her fingers through his hair and he shivers with pleasure. The fur envelops them both. Silver fur. Silver night.
“Everything is freezing fast,” she murmurs in his ear.
“I am warm.”
“Yes, sweet boy, I will see to it you are never cold again.”
The pipe is at his lips. Deep, deep goes the smoke into the lungs, and through the tissues and into the bloodstream and look, up there, those stars are actually shining people, twirling, dancing, and animals, too, bears and great whales and an owl with the wingspan of all heaven, and their movements are music, one moment sweet and trilling, the next deep and thrumming into his soul.
The woman’s skin is alabaster, cool as marble, but somehow her touch warms him, a golden trace along his neck, his chest … wherever her fingers trail. The furs are soft. His head lolls back to gaze upon the dancing diamond creatures of the sky and he lets her fingers wander where they wish.
“More, please.” His voice is a wisp of fog.
The woman holds the pipe and tilts his chin toward it.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LAST TIME MAGGIE HAD SEEN HER BROTHER, a few weeks ago, he’d been off the elysium. He was staying at a flop on Jarvis and had sent a message one night, arriving with a slightly baffled street kid, asking her to meet him by the greenhouses in Allan Gardens. She’d been loath to go, sure he only wanted more money, but then again, you never knew.
The traffic was light on Gerrard, even for a Monday night. As she walked, Maggie caught sight of Kyle rounding the corner from Jarvis. She called out to him twice, but he kept going, stepping through the pools of light from the street lamps as though he couldn’t get back into the darkness quickly enough. He passed the Baptist church, eyes resolutely on the sidewalk. Maggie cursed, and started to run.
“Kyle, wait!” She reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
“Hey, didn’t hear you.”
A strange greeting, she thought, after not having seen each other in more than a year. He was thin as an alley cat, his shoulders sharp under the jacket. His skin was oysterish.
As though reading her mind he said, “Don’t worry, I’m not looking for it.”
She wanted to put her arms around him, her broken little brother. “I brought you a book.” Kyle looked at it but made no effort to take it. “Poems. The Song of Simplicity.” She stepped closer, practically touching him with the outstretched book. “I thought, maybe … it might help you find, I don’t know, a little beauty.”
How could she explain that although nothing would ever compare to the elysium visions, his only chance was to try and find beauty anyway.
He took the book and stuffed it under his jacket. The air was cold and damp. Maggie buttoned her peacoat.
“I didn’t know if you’d come,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“Would have come to see you, but of course I can never find the damned bookstore. Kid said he went back the next day and even he couldn’t find it again.” He snorted.
“That kind of place. So,” she asked, “where are you going?”
He half smiled. “To meet you.” He looked a little like his old self then, like the beautiful fawn-like boy he’d been, his dark eyes twinkling.
She remembered how jittery and irritable she’d been when she was newly clean. They walked along silently. Their breath formed little clouds. Then he said, “If I have to stay where I’m at, I don’t think I can make it, not without killing somebody. They’re hollow, useless, whining …”
“Try not to kill anyone. It only complicates things.” She affected a cartoonishly sincere expression, hoping to get a laugh, even a bitter one. He merely glanced at her, his eyes snapping. “I know it’s hard,” she said. “But it won’t be forever. Just a little while. You’ll get back on your feet. You’ll get a place of your own.”
“I need a job.”
Kyle turned onto a path leading to the greenhouses. Under the trees, small groups of homeless people camped, using old picnic tables and tarps. Two empty wheelchairs. Three backpacks. A wire garbage can with a scatter of paper plates, plastic forks and empty bottles nearby. They were a little dishevelled, but they didn’t look like Pipers. Not yet, anyway. It wasn’t much of a slide from here to the Forest. A van pulled up and four young men got out, carrying Thermoses and sleeping bags. Maybe from the nearby Anishnawbe Health Toronto or St. Stephen’s Community House. The men walked over to the group of homeless people. It lifted Maggie’s spirits to see such kindness.
She considered the glass-and-brick building in front of her. It was astonishing that the palm house hadn’t been vandalized over the years. Maggie tried to imagine how grand the park must have been in 1882 when Oscar Wilde gave a lecture there. Kyle tried the door. It opened, and without saying another word he walked through.
“Come on,” she called to him. “We can’t go in. The place should be locked this time of night.”
She looked around. No cops, just the homeless guys and the men from the van. She blew out her cheeks and stepped through, closing the door behind her.
There were no lights on inside and she had to wait for her eyes to adjust. Somewhere off to her right gravel crunched as Kyle walked into the shadows. Shapes formed in the gauzy moonlight and weak puddles of emergency lighting. Inky, sinewy tree trunks solidified. A low rock wall. Shrubs. Fleshy tropical plants. It was humid and warm.
Where was Kyle? If he was playing some sort of joke on her, she’d smack him. “Kyle? Where are you?”
She walked to the next room and found him sitting on a wrought iron bench beneath a banana tree. She couldn’t make out his features. He rested his elbows on his knees, but his head was up.
“Wh
at are we doing in here?” She sat next to him. His body vibrated like a violin string, tightened to its limit, about to snap.
He bumped her shoulder with his. “Why don’t I come and stay with you?”
“In the shop?”
“Yeah, the shop.” He muttered something she didn’t catch.
“Pardon me?”
He glared, all defiance and shame. “You’re so goddamn selfish.”
And there it was: the little toad on the ground between them. Maggie admitted he had a point. But have him live in the shop? Her theory was that if he were meant to find it he would. But should she invite him? Mr. Mustby had told her to take care whom she brought to the shop, that the shop would bring to it those who were meant to come, and if she were to interfere, inviting someone of her own, she must ensure the person was of impeccable character. By definition any Piper was disqualified. Her stomach cramped just thinking about having Kyle live with her.
Kyle had been clean when Alvin had given him a berth on his boat and a crew job – cleaning and so forth. It lasted a little over a month and then Alvin woke to find Kyle vanished, along with Alvin’s cash box. Alvin had come to her, rubbing his hand through his hair, and asked for a loan, just to get him through until he collected the money owed him for a corporate charter. She’d had to pry the truth out of him. He denied Kyle’s involvement at first. Said he’d lost his money playing poker, but she knew him better. Because of his father he never gambled.
She shouldn’t have been surprised Kyle had let them down. That’s what Pipers did. But still. She’d thought he wouldn’t do that to her, and by extension, Alvin. As children, she and Kyle had clung to each other in the chill of their parents’ lackadaisical neglect. It wasn’t that their parents abused them; it was more as though the drama of their own lives and their own self-regard made them forget they had children. They’d died when scaffolding from the thirteenth floor of a construction site of a new condo building going up near Harbourfront snapped in half, sending four workers crashing to the sidewalk below, right on top of the Marchettes, who were on their way to the sales office to inquire about a lakeview unit. Maggie was fourteen and Kyle nine. They’d gone to stay with Horace Gallagher, a distant cousin with four children of his own all squashed together in his cramped rented house on Winchester Street. Horace seemed to spend much of the time with a woman in another part of town, and his wife, Phyllis, left Kyle and Maggie to their own devices, apart from the odd meal here and there. Their children, however, Ben, Brian, Carol and Karen, did not take well to the new members of the family and spent most of their free time thinking up new ways to torture them. Lit matches tossed into one’s hair, dead mice in the bed, spit in the soup, shoves into mud puddles and walls, pinches and slaps and all manner of name-calling. And then, when Maggie was seventeen, she ran away in the mad illusion she had at last found protection and care elsewhere, abandoning Kyle. It had been a selfish act. Utterly selfish, although at the time it had felt imperative. Of course, Kyle had been lost. Of course, he’d been enraged. He’d been as terrified as a duckling left behind on a fast-freezing lake.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 4