Wet snowflakes began to fall. Maggie pulled off her pack and in it found her black wool scarf and gloves, which she put on. The snow fell heavily enough now to make it even harder to see in the darkness. She looked right and then left and tried to decide which way to go. If she went to the right, that would, theoretically, take her back the way she’d come with Lumpy, although given the way the geography behaved in the Forest, it was just as likely to be the opposite. Assuming she was anywhere near the Forest.
She would have given a great deal, just then, to have Badger with her. Perhaps she’d been foolish to leave him behind. She wished, too, that Alvin was with her. His confidence in the wide world, of which she knew so little, his wry humour; she could use a dose of that. Maybe she should simply sit down with her back to the wall and let the snow cover her, silence her, bury her in its chilly embrace.
“Not another one,” said a voice. “You’d think this was the bloody public terminus the way people have been popping up willy-nilly of late.”
Maggie’s heart skittered. “Who’s there?”
“Just the question I should be asking you.” A flap opened in the pile of what Maggie had initially taken to be refuse. As it did, the snow slid from its sides, revealing a makeshift dwelling. From the opening stepped a small grousing woman. “Fine thing for you to be asking, when I’m the one who’s always been here.”
“I didn’t realize anyone lived here.”
“Shocked,” said the woman, flatly. “I’m shocked.”
She barely came to Maggie’s waist and wore a collection of tattered grey rags, knotted and tied and slung and wrapped in an impossible-to-follow pattern. She had a sharp, wrinkled little face, with a distinct overbite. She certainly looked poor as a tenement mouse, but she didn’t have any of the telltale signs of a Piper. Her nostrils flared as she tilted her head in Maggie’s direction, as though scenting her. In fact, it appeared this was precisely what she was doing, since after a second she sneezed and harrumphed and said, “Another from over there, then.”
“Over where?”
“Oh, well, that’s typical. Doesn’t know where she came from. Probably doesn’t know where she is. Doubt she knows who she is, but then, who does, I always say. Not that anyone listens. Oh, no, not to such as me.”
“It is a bit confusing.”
The woman pulled an already lit pipe out of her clothing and puffed on it. The nails on the end of her long, finely articulated fingers looked quite sharp. “Well, life’s like that. Don’t suppose you have any cheese on you, do you?”
Maggie thought the woman’s olfactory power considerable. “I do as it happens.” She took the package of food from her pack. “Would you like a piece?”
“She’s got decent manners, at least. Not like some I could mention.” The tiny woman plucked the cheese from the cloth in which it was wrapped, broke it in half and handed the rest back. “Mustn’t be greedy, now, must we?” she said. She nibbled the cheese and hummed contentedly. “What’s your name, then?”
“Maggie, Maggie Marchette. And you?”
“I’m called Mother Ratigan.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mother Ratigan. So tell me, this place …” Maggie said, looking up and down the laneway. “Are we in the Forest?”
“Well, only in the same way the inside of an oyster is inside the oyster’s shell, if you catch my meaning.”
“Not entirely, no, I don’t think I do.”
“Pity.”
Since the woman appeared disinclined to say more, Maggie thought for a moment and said, “The Forest shifts about, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing stays the same, nor ever will.” The woman’s dark eyes were bright as she talked with her mouth full of cheese.
“I suppose it wouldn’t be a jump to think if streets move about of their own free will, they might fold over on themselves, too.” Maggie looked at the woman for any sign she was on the right track.
“Very few things, or people for that matter, do anything of their own free will.” Mother Ratigan smacked her lips and swallowed the last morsel of cheese.
“Meaning?”
She folded her sharp-nailed hands over her belly. “You should stay here. At least the night. Come on in and have a cup of tea by the fire.”
Fitting into such a tiny dwelling, Maggie thought, would be impossible, even if she were so inclined.
As though reading her thoughts, Mother Ratigan said, “Oh, many things are bigger inside than out, you should have learned that by now.”
“It’s very kind, but I’m looking for someone,” said Maggie.
“Aren’t we all? Come and go and more gone every day without going anywhere at all.”
Maggie had no idea what that meant but knew enough to understand that trying to make sense of what someone with mental health problems babbled was futile. Still, you could ask a mentally ill person something you might not ask a sane person without fear of being thought crazy yourself. “Are we in Toronto?”
The woman laughed, sharp and brittle. “Silver, silver, silver bright, cross over from the dark to light! Pipes and smoke and tricky doings.”
Maggie simply stared at her, letting this information sink in. The Silver World. Land of the elysium dreams. She thought she might throw up.
“Look at you, all green at the gills. Bend over. Hands on knees. There you go. Don’t want you passing out or puking on my stoop.”
It took a few minutes of deep breathing for the nausea to quiet and the world to stop spinning. Maggie stood up again, slowly. If that was true … “I’m looking for my brother. His name is Kyle.” She described him and a little of how she came to be there, how she had walked through Trickster’s door. By the way the old woman nodded when she talked about Trickster, Maggie concluded she knew the man, or at least knew of him. “Do you get many people passing this way because of him?”
“Thanks to him or with him to blame, take your choice. There’s been a few.”
“And was Kyle one of them?”
Mother Ratigan tapped the ends of her fingers together and turned her head in what might be said to be a coquettish manner were she fifty years younger. “Is an old woman expected to give up everything she knows, the only thing she has to trade, standing outside in the cold? You’ll be old yourself one day, and all alone if you’re unlucky. All the children gone and left me, more than I can count, and I loved them all, each one, and fed them sweet cherry pie, although the recipe’s so much better now. Come in, girl. Pity the lonely.”
Who knew what rules of hospitality applied here? “I’d be happy to visit a while, if you’ll help me.”
“And if I won’t help you?” The woman raised a faint eyebrow.
How hard life must be for an old woman alone in an alleyway. Maggie shrugged. “I’ll do it anyway.”
“You are a good girl, aren’t you?” It didn’t sound like a compliment.
Mother Ratigan smiled. “The pie’s awaiting and a cup of tea as well.” The old lady held back the flap of hide that served as a door. “Come on, step lively, you’re letting all the heat out.”
Although Maggie saw no way she and Mother Ratigan would fit inside the structure (if such a tumbledown collection of odds and sods could be called a structure), she took a deep breath and placed her foot across the threshold.
No sooner had her foot touched the inside of the dwelling than she felt another vertiginous shift such as she felt at Trickster’s door. She ducked, hoping not to hit the lintel and cause the hovel to collapse, but to her surprise, there was lots of space. In fact, she found herself stepping into a room, quite a proper room. High windows with different coloured panes of glass – red, blue and yellow – shone with light, although the source of this light was puzzling, since it was night outside. Jewel-tone patches of that light covered the wooden floor like a rich carpet and, for that mat
ter, the floor was covered in a thick carpet so that Maggie sank a little in the plush. Instinctively, she stepped off it onto the wood, not wishing to mar it with her dirty boots.
“Don’t worry about that, lamb. Just slip your boots off and make yourself at home. This is a place of comfort and safety. Just like the home you dreamed of when you were a little girl, am I right?”
A stove stood against the far wall, all bright tile and brass. Next to it were two comfy-looking reading chairs, covered in pink-and-yellow chintz. Each had its own footstool, on which blankets were neatly folded. In the middle of the room stood a round table and two woven-cane chairs.
“How is this possible? It’s crazy.”
“I like to keep a low profile on the street. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to oneself in a neighbourhood like this, now would it? Go on, put the kindling in the stove and let’s get a good blaze going, shall we? Take the chill off.”
A fragrant cherry pie sat in the centre of a white-lace cloth on a round table. The sweet plump cherries rose through the latticework pastry and the smell of it filled the air. Saliva filled Maggie’s mouth. The table was set for two, with a pot of tea and cups and saucers and forks and plates.
“Poor girl,” said Mother Ratigan, “why, you’re quite famished, aren’t you?”
She was ravenous. Her belly pressed up against her spine. She’d never been so hungry. “Perhaps just one piece.”
“As soon as the fire’s going, lamb. First things first.”
Maggie built a fire in the stove, but all the while her mind was on the pie. When the fire crackled and the warmth began to radiate, she turned to her hostess. “Now, could I please have a little bit of pie?” There was something else Maggie had meant to ask Mother Ratigan, but to save her life she couldn’t think of it.
Mother Ratigan pulled out a chair for her guest. The old woman had changed her clothes. She wore a kimono, made of shimmering pink silk. Her grey hair looked clean and shiny now, braided and coiled on the top of her head. Her face was still wrinkled, although not quite so wrinkled perhaps, but her overbite was just as pronounced.
“I’ve been so lonely here all by myself, but now you’re here I do feel all shall be well. You may have quite as much pie as you like; there’s always more where that came from, and will you have a little tea as well?”
Maggie sat at the table and waited, feeling quite dizzy, while the old woman, who was nearly the same height as Maggie now, cut a spectacularly generous piece of pie and set it on a plate. The pastry flaked beneath Maggie’s fork, and the cherries were the colour of rubies. The scent was of every good thing, full of promise and delight. The taste, oh the taste was an explosion of sweetness, thick and smooth, like cherry honey, with a little spark of sharpness. It rushed to her head, it made her immediately want more, and so she ate more, another piece and then another and finally almost all the pie was gone and she was suddenly so very tired it felt as though her bones were made of heavy wet sandbags.
“Poor dear, you’re quite exhausted, aren’t you, and why not, after all you’ve been through.”
What had she been through? It was so difficult to remember.
“Why not tuck up in bed for the night and I’m sure everything will look well in the morning.”
With that she led Maggie to a room with a great soft bed and a mountain of eiderdown comforters. She helped Maggie out of her clothes and slipped a soft cotton nightgown over her head. It smelled of lavender, as did the covers on the bed and the feather mattress itself. Maggie sank down as though into a cloud, a lovely white warm cloud where she floated off to sleep.
* * *
MAGGIE DREAMS …
Alvin tells her there is a castle behind a great wild hedge, in which a boy has been asleep for a hundred years. Many have tried to rescue him, but all have died, lost and bloodied in the hedge.
Maggie stands in front of the hedge full of thorns and presses her way through, her skin tearing, the blood flowing. She goes on.
At last she comes into a courtyard. A horse sleeps near a trough, and a cat sleeps by the well, and mice sleep near the cat, and flies sleep on the walls. She walks farther and passes two ravens asleep on a perch. She walks still farther and sees a bed carved from oak. In the middle of the bed, under a blanket of dried leaves, lies Kyle. She calls out, bends and kisses him, but as she does he crumbles, his body turning into nothing but dried leaves that blow away in a sudden gust of wind.
* * *
KYLE WEARS FINE LEATHER BOOTS, AND A TWEED travelling suit the colour of oak leaves in autumn. He speaks with an old man, huge and shaggy-haired, with enormous hands and feet. The old man tells him of a great, impenetrable thorn hedge.
“There is a castle back behind,” he says, “and a beautiful woman asleep on a bed of stone. Many have tried to rescue her, but all have had their flesh shredded from their bones on the thorns, for they are made from shards of broken glass. She’s worth the effort that one, though. And if you make it through the hedge, she’ll be yours, to do with what you will, for all the hours of eternity.”
And Kyle says, “I’m not afraid. I’ll have her.”
He stands before the hedge made of glass-splinter thorns. He puts his hand against the first thorn, which trembles at his touch and then turns to dust. Forward he goes, as the thorns shiver and fall.
At last he comes into a courtyard. A horse sleeps near a trough, and a cat sleeps by the well, and mice sleep near the cat, and flies sleep on the walls. He opens the tower door, on which is painted a great tree. Inside is a bed carved from stone. In the middle of the bed, under a coverlet embroidered with blue swirls, lies a woman, her hair as pale as clouds, her breast alabaster. He bends over and kisses her … runs his hands along her form. How can she be so cold and so hot at once? She opens her eyes, blue as the ice at the centre of a glacier, smiles, her teeth like pearls, and wraps her arms around his neck in an unbreakable embrace.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“WAKEY-WAKEY, little lamb,” said Mother Ratigan. “Here you are sleeping the day away when I’ve made cherry pies aplenty. Get dressed. Your clothes are on the chair, all fresh and clean.”
Maggie was starving. Wasn’t there something she was meant to be doing? She put on the pale blue dress with the puffy sleeves. She slipped into pale yellow slippers, made from the softest leather. She looked in the long oval mirror on the wall near the bed. Her hair was curled and fell softly around her shoulders. Her lips were tinted with cherry juice. The sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows scattered garnets and sapphires and emeralds all along the floor and the walls.
Maggie ate her fill of pie, and Mother Ratigan poured her tea sweetened with lavender honey. When she was finished eating and drinking Maggie felt sleepy again and the old woman helped her to a chaise where she reclined in the bejewelled sunlight. She dozed as Mother Ratigan brushed her hair with a silver brush. “You must call me, Mother, little lamb.”
And Maggie replied, “Yes, Mother. You are very good to me.”
“Think nothing of it, little lamb,” said Mother Ratigan. “I live for you and you for me and so now always we shall be.”
And so the day passed until it was time to eat again and rest by the warm stove and have a little smackerel of something before dinner and that night, when she fell into the soft warm bed, Maggie didn’t dream at all, but woke to another pretty dress and pretty shoes and a day of sweetness and dozing in the prismatic light.
Maggie was doing just that, dozing on the lavender-scented chaise, with Mother Ratigan brushing her hair, when the old lady jumped. The brush clattered to the floor.
“What was that?” Her eyes snapped to the doorway. “I heard something.”
Maggie kept her eyes closed, for opening them took a great effort.
But then she did hear something. It sounded like … yes, it sounded just like a bark. Was
there a dog nearby? Had Mother bought her a dog? Such a lovely mother.
“I don’t like this,” said Mother Ratigan. “Stay here. It isn’t safe.”
“I’m sure nothing’s wrong. Whatever could be wrong here?” Maggie turned her face to the pillows. Mother’s voice sounded so harsh.
The barking became sharp, urgent. Although it took a great deal of effort, Maggie opened her eyes. That barking. How familiar it sounded. It occurred to her she loved dogs. She remembered she loved one dog. A black-and-white dog. Badger. The dog’s name was Badger. Her eyes flew wide. Badger! It couldn’t be. Badger couldn’t be here. But where was here? Why was she wearing this ridiculous dress? There were yellow bows on her shoes, for the love of God. Where were her boots? Her jeans?
A whirlwind in the form of a black-and-white dog exploded through the room, stopped, shook itself, spotted Maggie and ran to her, his head down and his lips pulled in a grin. He leaped at her, knocking her off her feet, which, she thought as she landed on her rump in a flounce of blue silk, would never have happened if she’d been in her boots.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 10