“You were just a boy, Lumpy. Boys do stupid things.”
“Well, I’m paying for them now.”
That was the way of elysium; it demanded a price for the beautiful visions. It burrowed into your darkest crannies – your memories, your heart – and found the things you regretted most, the things you feared, the things of which you were ashamed, and dragged them out into the world, first in dreams, and then in hallucinations. “You thought about cutting back?”
“Tried. Even went clean for a few weeks. Don’t help.”
Maggie’s heart sank. He was too far gone then. It happened. Pipers got to a point where the visions leaked into the real world. No road but madness or death then. They forgot to eat. Even if they wandered out of the Forest and to hospital, it was no good. They forgot to breathe, eventually. Her face must have showed her sorrow, for he managed a smile and chucked her under the chin with his anvil hand, carefully, so as not to knock her head off.
“I’ll be alright a good while yet. Weasels are pretty manageable. Good thing they ain’t lions, or dragons.” His expression became serious. “Right, you. What are you doing back here?”
“What’s anyone here for?”
He shrugged. “Well, I’m no one to give advice. Still, it’s a shame. You looking for Srebrenka?”
There was no other way, of course, but still, it made her sick to think of it, and it must have shown on her face.
“I better walk you over there. Wouldn’t want you getting lost.”
“I’d be grateful. I thought I knew the way.”
“Things shift. It’s that sort of place, isn’t it? Always has been, but lately, lots more. Whole place seems larger than it was, larger every week. Hard to keep up. Come on.”
Night fell fast now. Lumpy picked up a flashlight. He led her through one fetid lane after another, edging around makeshift shacks and giving wide berth to pitch-black doorways. Every once in a while, from the corner of her eye, Maggie glimpsed something small streak past, but could never catch sight of what, or who, it was. Badger’s ears lay flat and his fur bristled, but he didn’t bolt. Maggie was quickly disoriented, wanting to turn left when Lumpy turned right, feeling they’d gone too far, or were circling round and round. The very streets and buildings had moved since her last time here, re-formed in new, baffling configurations. It was as if the Forest was larger on the inside than the outside. It felt like some insect world, some ant colony or wasp hive – intricate, claustrophobic. She looked up, eager to see some patch of star-blown sky beyond the dangerously leaning walls and rooftops. For several minutes scrabbling shadows danced in the flashlight’s beam, rustlings, murmurs, the sensation that Pipers surrounded her in the dark, watching, coming closer. She reached out now and then to touch the slightly oily fabric of Lumpy’s coat. She only realized how shallow her breathing was when at last she caught a glimpse of moonlight, a sliver of white above the roofs. She almost laughed; it was foolish, but for a moment she’d been afraid they’d been buried.
When Lumpy stopped suddenly, Maggie and Badger nearly collided with him.
A bulb burned over a door Maggie recognized – the blue wood, the silver knocker in the shape of a bear’s head, shining so brightly in the dismal neglect surrounding it. She scanned the dark laneway. She recognized nothing. “Did Srebrenka move?”
Lumpy’s laugh was like grinding gravel. “Nothing stays where it’s supposed to here, Mags.”
“Will you wait for me? I don’t think I could find my way back.”
“You couldn’t,” he said, his voice serious. “Not without me.”
Ah, so that was it. Everything in the Forest was a transaction, even among so-called friends. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
He nodded and lifted the knocker and let it fall in a quick pattern. A new code. The sound of silver against silver was musical. Maggie had always wondered why none of the Pipers stole that valuable little bear head, but then again … The door opened and there stood Goran. His shoulders were massive, and his head oddly small for his size, perched on the top of his neck like a spare part. His scalp was shaved, save for a topknot of white hair that fell midway down his back. He wore a black leather vest laced over his gargantuan chest, a pair of brass wrist clasps, jeans and steel-toed boots. No matter the weather, this was Goran’s uniform. Maggie fancied his head was so small there simply wasn’t room for the part that registered sensations like hot and cold. He towered over even Lumpy and fixed his eyes on her – those strange eyes, nearly all-black iris.
CHAPTER SIX
“MAGGIE. I SAID YOU’D BE BACK.” GORAN SMILED, revealing worn, yellowed teeth and gaps where teeth had once been.
“You going to let us in?”
Goran gestured, with exaggerated courtesy, that they should enter the hall. Maggie went first. Badger tried to sniff at Goran’s boots, and then yipped when Goran kicked him.
“Hey! Leave the dog alone,” said Maggie, petting Badger. “He won’t bite.”
“But I might.” Goran laughed.
Maggie ignored him. If he’d wanted to hurt Badger he would have broken his ribs, or worse. “Come on, boy.”
Maggie and Badger climbed the stairs with Lumpy behind them. They stepped into a cavernous space, the ceiling barely visible. She stopped, startled. She’d been here, or somewhere very much like here, hundreds of times, but it had never looked like this. It seemed older, as though it had been built centuries ago, rather than decades. It had always been a large room, but this was impossible. The entire building could fit inside this room. Pale blue velvet curtains hid the windows, which appeared large enough to drive a streetcar through, and murals of clouds, starry skies and snow-capped mountains covered the walls. The floor was painted black and shone in the light of hundreds of candles. Harp music played from an unseen source, a gentle, repetitious, drowsy air. Smoke, heavy with cloves and sandalwood, drifted in an amber cloud.
Maggie’s temperature rose, her heartbeat accelerated. Her heart was a coal of longing, of hunger … for the blending, the melding, the melting of herself into the elysium.
A transparent tent, made from some glimmering, diaphanous material, stood in the centre of the hall. Maggie walked toward it, her footsteps echoing. The tent vibrated like a mammoth hive of bees. Despite her longing, she willed herself to stop. Inside the tent a dozen low couches ringed a central space. There, on an ebony table, a lamp with a silver shade, cut and pierced so the light from the candle within shone through, turned in the hot-air draft of the flame, scattering stars and crescent moons along the walls.
She couldn’t blink, couldn’t turn away. On each couch lay a Piper. Seven men and five women – all but two with glistening silver swirls on their faces – dreamed deep, their eyes closed, their mouths slightly parted and their brows placid. Now and then a hand moved languidly in the air as though touching a face, perhaps, or inviting a wren to land on a finger. Sighs and soft whispers rose and fell.
As Maggie watched, one of the dreamers’ eyes fluttered and the skeletal man’s arms and legs paddled like a dog dreaming of chasing squirrels. He was ice pale, silver tinged, his hair matted, his clothes stained and rough. The man blinked, raised his hands before his eyes and regarded them as if not quite sure to whom they belonged. Then he sat up and his eyes met Maggie’s. The expression in them was of inconsolable loss. Tears welled, and he wiped them away angrily with the back of his hand.
“I see there’s a couch opening up, my dear. Your timing is impeccable.”
Maggie turned to face the voice. Bobbed, glistening silver hair with kiss-curls on her unlined forehead and cheeks. Kohl-rimmed blue eyes. Alabaster skin. Eggplant-coloured lips. A perfectly tailored man’s suit.
Srebrenka smiled, ever so slightly.
“Hello, Srebrenka.” Her heart thumped, thumped, thumped, but was slowing.
“Well, well. What a surprise
.” Srebrenka’s intonation meant it was anything but. She ran the back of her fingers along Maggie’s cheek. Maggie shivered under her icy touch. Badger stretched his neck to sniff. Srebrenka patted the dog’s head, but Badger pulled back as if slapped and growled. “Such a pretty beast.”
Goran appeared in the doorway and pushed through the tent flaps to the Piper who had just woken. “Time to go.”
The man looked for a moment as though he’d appeal to Srebrenka, but instead wiped his face with his sleeve and stood, a little unsteadily. “I’m thirsty,” he said.
Goran shoved him forward. Badger barked, and Maggie hushed him. The doorkeeper half carried the man to the doorway before shoving him so he stumbled down the steps. “Please,” said Goran, “come again soon.”
“Lumpy, I didn’t see you,” said Srebrenka. “It seems as though you just left. Pickings must be good. Maggie, does it not amaze you what a deft hand our rather – what is the word – conspicuous friend has? They tell me he can slip gold out of politicians’ teeth without getting caught. Such a talent, no? But you will have to wait your turn. Pretty Maggie claims the couch before you.”
“Thanks, but I’m only here for information,” Maggie said.
Srebrenka pulled a lighter and a long black cigarette from her inside jacket pocket. She put the cigarette between her lips slowly, circling the filter with her tongue, her eyes on Maggie. It took everything Maggie had not to break her gaze, and the hot blush rising up her neck infuriated her. Srebrenka chuckled. “I am not in the information business. I am in the dream business. And after the way you treated me the last time we met, I am not inclined to be helpful.”
“I apologize for my behaviour. I was rude.” The words left a sour taste on her lips.
“You hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sorry.”
Srebrenka blinked slowly. “Yes. I’m sure you are.”
“I’m looking for my brother.”
“Ah. He is also a pretty one. Although perhaps not so pretty now. So impetuous. An adventurer.”
The flush of a moment before turned to frost. “Where is he?”
Srebrenka shrugged. “The last time I saw you, sweet girl, you were very clear. Very, how shall I say it, precise in your desire to be done with me. Why should I help you when you refuse my hospitality?”
“I’m not going back on the pipe, Srebrenka, not even for my brother, so if that’s the price you want, you can forget it.” She turned to go.
Srebrenka put her hand on Maggie’s sleeve. “You think I’m heartless? That I want to separate such loving siblings?”
“Tell me or don’t.”
Srebrenka sighed heavily and put her hand to her heart. “Such a headstrong boy, always wanting to go his own way. Each of us has our own path, our own destiny, and the road is longer for some than others.” She blew three smoke rings, one dancing after the other, then two dashing through the enlarging ring of the first, before all three raced for the ceiling. “And you, Maggie, are you planning an unusually long journey? Do you need a pocket full of white stones to find your way back?”
The air was heavy and filled with an ever-increasing amount of smoke. Maggie’s head swam. “White stones?”
Srebrenka’s laugh sounded like tin wind chimes. “Just an old tale of two children lost in the wood at night, following stones made white in the moonlight, one stone after another, until they are home again. Of course, the nasty stepmother, she takes them back into the woods again, yes? With pockets only of bread crumbs this time, and then things are not so happy. What kind of mother would do such a thing, Maggie, what kind of mother?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Lumpy stepped into a corner and swatted at something. He cursed under his breath. Weasels again, Maggie suspected.
“I ain’t got time for stories,” he said, stomping at the floor.
“So wise, dear Lumpy. My time is also limited. I am all about enterprise,” said Srebrenka.
“How do I find Kyle?”
“You can’t. Even if you went where he did, you’d never be able to return, and if you returned …” Srebrenka pointed her index fingers to her temples and formed circles. She reached out and grabbed Maggie’s hands in both of hers. “Forget your brother. It’s hard, I know, but you have no choice. He wanders, timeless, from one tale to the next. Stay here with me, where you are safe and where pleasure is only a silver pipe away. Nothing bad will happen to you when Srebrenka stands guard. Your guardian is dead, Kyle has forgotten you and you are hurt, come to gather peace …” Her lips were almost black against her white teeth. Her tongue glistened pinkly.
The air was thick and warm. Maggie breathed through her mouth, for it was difficult to get enough oxygen. She tasted something like molasses and ginger. It was soothing, comforting … She blinked and pulled her hands away. “Kyle hasn’t forgotten me. He’s sent me a message.”
“He did what?” Srebrenka’s mouth formed a little moue. “How inventive. He must need you very badly. How he must need you.”
“I’ve come to find him. Any information …”
“He is a greedy boy. Wanting so much, never satisfied, always saying how no one loved him and he was all alone.”
That stung, and Maggie saw Srebrenka knew it. It would feel quite good to slap her, but the chances of getting information then, no matter how slim they were now, would reduce to nothing. And besides, Goran would pummel her to ground meat.
“Do you know where he is?”
“I know where he’s gone.”
“And where is that?”
“Someplace you do not want to go.”
“Try me.”
Lumpy said, “She’s talking about the door.”
Srebrenka massaged her temples as though the conversation gave her a headache. “How is it you manage to get so much information out of me, and without making even a token purchase, my little Maggie?”
“What door?” It was odd how, even as she spoke the word, something familiar ran through her, as though this door they spoke of was some memory she’d forgotten.
Srebrenka tapped the end of her cigarette in a marble bowl. “Yes, Lumpy, will you tell your friend?”
“I might.”
“Then you are not the friend she thinks you are.”
What did they mean? Maggie felt dizzy.
“She’s a grown woman. Makes up her own mind. Why do you care?”
“It amuses me to see what lengths lovely Maggie is willing to go to for her brother. It amuses me to see how hungry she may be.”
Maggie said, “And of course we all live to amuse you, don’t we?”
Srebrenka’s eyes flashed darkly. “You came to me.”
“Will you help me or not?”
“I have helped you. You want to know where your brother has gone. He has gone through the door.”
“And what is that? Where is that?” How warm the air was. How good it would feel to lie down.
Srebrenka put her palms together and rested her chin on her middle fingers. “This much I will tell you: when the dreamer comes so very close to their heart’s desire they come to a door and through that door … well, so many more things are possible. You must remember, pretty girl.”
She remembered. At the end of elysium dreams … a door … always beckoning. Every Piper swapped such tales. “You’re telling me the door is a real, physical thing?”
“What is real and what isn’t, when one talks of the elysium?” Srebrenka shrugged. “Surely such silly distinctions are beneath you now, having walked in the Silver World.”
“And how do you know what’s on the other side?”
“A reasonable question. Let us say simply that the door is in my trust, just as the elysium has made me its special friend.”
Maggie felt as if the floor was
giving way beneath her. “There has to be another way.”
“No, there doesn’t,” said Srebrenka. “You cannot swim in the ocean without getting wet. You cannot go where Kyle has gone without going through the door. Of course, you could always forget your brother. You wouldn’t be the first to wipe their hands of difficult relatives. Why, I bet you’d hardly give it another thought. Your life is so good now. So safe. What do you care about a little brother, a little lost sparrow?”
“Sparrow? Why did you say that?”
“No reason.” She shrugged. “It just popped into my mind.”
Maggie looked down at Badger. He cocked his head and whined. “I have to think about this.”
“Don’t take too much time, Maggie. The door is here for the moment, who knows when it will disappear again. Goran, see our guests out, will you?” Srebrenka chuckled and sat in a nearby black velvet chair. Her smile made Maggie think of cats and canaries.
The diaphanous walls of the tent seemed more water than cloth, as though Maggie looked at creatures swimming. How soft the couches looked – the cloth the colour of a full-moon midnight sky reflected on the sea. The pillows fluffy as foam. The pull of the elysium was tidal, full of undertow. Another moment and her feet would move against her will. Maggie shook her head. She turned away. She must keep her eyes on the floor, away from the tent. Her legs felt as if they were tangled in seaweed, yet although she practically dragged them, they did her bidding.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 6