“And I for him, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.”
Wallis smiled. “Of course, we pray for only wonderful things.”
“Would you mind answering a question?” asked Maggie.
“If I can.” Wallis tucked her hands into the ermine-trimmed sleeves of her dress and looked mildly amused.
“About the view from the window in my room … it doesn’t look out on the same thing this morning that it did last night.”
“It’s so restful to sleep in the country, don’t you agree?” Tilden smiled. “Although some people do prefer the din and clatter of great seaports, or the hum of traffic, I knew you’d enjoy a little solitude.”
Maggie’s eyebrows rose. “You changed the view? How did you do that?”
“Things are generally what they are, no more and no less. Perception, however, is rather more fluid.”
“So I’m beginning to see,” said Maggie.
“It is my pleasure to make pleasure for others, happy only for the bonds of affection. You must be careful not to assume everyone is like me.”
“I can’t imagine anyone else like you.”
Wallis laughed. “No one is quite like you, either, now are they? The journey is entirely your own, and I hope you won’t mind, but I’d like to give you a little present. It’s just outside.” She turned and the doormen opened the great double doors as she approached. “To ease the journey ahead.”
Maggie stepped forward and saw what awaited her. “Oh my God!”
It was an open carriage, black as night, decorated with silver stars and an ornately drawn T and W on the doors. A gleaming dapple-grey horse stood harnessed to the traces. His breath steamed in the chilly air. Thick bearskins covered the seats and a hamper full of food was tucked in the footwell. One footman held the reins, and another the carriage door.
“It’s very kind,” said Maggie. “In fact, it’s beyond generous, and don’t think I’m not grateful, but I don’t know where I’m going and who knows if the roads will even accommodate such a thing.” She blew out her cheeks. “I might be better on foot.”
“It’s true, you won’t be able to travel all the way in a carriage, but it will do until the weather shifts and the snow lies too deep for the wheels. If it rains, as you can see, the hood can be put up and you’ll be dry. And you needn’t worry about the horse. Percival knows his way home. Simply unharness him when the time comes.”
“I don’t know.”
Badger had approached Percival and the two were sniffing each other. From the wag of Badger’s tail, he was in favour of the plan.
Wallis said, “If time is of the essence, you can travel quicker by carriage.”
“Yes, there is that, it’s true.”
“Excellent then, off you go and good luck.” She embraced Maggie and, with a twirl, turned and disappeared into the hotel.
“I guess we’re riding in style,” Maggie said to Badger.
They climbed in, and Maggie took the reins.
The footman clicked the latch on the carriage door closed and said, “Percival knows you are going north. He’s a bright one and will lead you right.”
“There’s just one problem,” said Maggie. “We didn’t see a road out of here when we arrived last night. The square’s self-contained.”
“Oh, no, Miss,” said the footman. “Just keep straight on in the direction you’re facing and you’ll find the way.”
“Really?”
“You’ll come to a fork. The choice, as always, is yours.”
“Oh, wonderful.” She clicked her tongue and jiggled the reins.
They were off. At first, she feared the footman had lied, for the road past the hotel took a sharp left, which they had no choice but to take, and Percival trotted along quite happily. Then another turn, in front of the same shops they’d passed the night before, the same bakery and candle shop and market stalls, which momentarily blocked the view of the hotel, and then another left …
“Well, I’ll be,” said Maggie as the road opened before them.
Percival paced along the road, which had not been there the first go-round, and they rolled down a modest street of brick and timber. The scene was more nineteenth century than twenty-first. Several men and women and a few children walked along and waved at the carriage.
Maggie looked at Badger. “I feel ridiculous having them wave at me like I’m some sort of royalty. On the other hand, we don’t look in the least like royalty, do we?”
It had grown warmer and she slipped out of her coat. She noticed leaves on the trees. Spring? Summer? Perhaps like space, time had its own rules here. The road was narrow, and Maggie wondered what might happen if another carriage approached from the opposite direction, but none did. There were only the people walking and waving, and then fewer and fewer of those, and the houses were spaced farther apart, and now they had little plots of garden out front, filled with morning glories and climbing peas and tomatoes and roses. And then the plots grew so that the cottages were set back from the road, with small enclosures for pigs and a meadow behind for sheep. Finally, after they had travelled for several hours, there were only fields and still just the one road, leading in the only direction it seemed there was.
Behind them the road ran for about a quarter of a mile, but beyond that was a wood, dense and dark. The road apparently came to an end at the edge of it. It looked as though the world had rolled itself up again. Maggie thought of Alvin, and how he hadn’t wanted to take over the Grimoire. Perhaps he was wiser than she. She clicked encouragement to Percival, who just kept plodding along. Badger jumped from the carriage and trotted beside the big dapple-grey, an arrangement that appeared to please them both.
She remembered a conversation she and Alvin once had while she lay in his arms, sleepy and safe, and asked him about his inheritance. “I’ve always had the feeling it was only a matter of time,” he’d said, “before I got drawn in somehow. It’s what our family’s for, if you know what I mean.” She wished she’d paid more attention, asked him more questions. She wished he was with her. Master navigator who ate the world in huge gulps of wonder, while she huddled behind a fortress built of books. She opened the basket at her feet and selected a meat pie. It was still warm and the pastry was buttery and flaky. She racked her memory, trying to remember bits and pieces of what Alvin and Mr. Mustby had said over the years. She remembered she’d once complained to Alvin that she sometimes wasn’t sure what the point was of anyone living in the Grimoire; they had a modest clientele and the books – their coming and going, their shelving and cataloguing – took care of themselves. What was her purpose?
“Nobody understands,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not still our responsibility, does it? I mean, the books are there, and they keep on coming. I suppose that’s why I love the water so much. The movement, the constant travel, it helps to turn down the volume, if you know what I mean. But it’s always there, this feeling that my life on the water is a holiday from what I’m supposed to be doing.” He’d said he found it interesting she fit in so well. More than once he’d said she seemed made for the place.
She missed the Grimoire. Her home. She munched the pie. It was comforting. If she was meant for the Grimoire, was she also meant for Alvin? She wondered if she’d ever see him again. It was difficult not to think she was being a complete fool. She watched Badger and Percival walk along companionably. The warm sun glinted off the metal on Percival’s bridle. She thought about the mirror Srebrenka had made and then shattered, about the way things look different to different people, much in the way some people found the Grimoire and others couldn’t. She thought about Kyle. Even when he was a little boy he saw things differently. So, for that matter, did Maggie. Neither of them, she mused, could be called happy children. But whatever the reason, both she and Kyle were glass-half-empty people. Always had been. They e
xpected the worst, and that’s what they got. Or at least that’s what Maggie got until Mr. Mustby took her in. He wasn’t like anyone else she’d ever met. He didn’t judge her or think she should be different than she was. Which is not to say he thought she was a perfect little joy when she first arrived. She chuckled, recalling when she overheard him telling Alvin he had “acquired a malodorous, rather damaged young person.” Well, she had been malodorous, and suspicious, and prickly, and full of self-pity. But somehow, being around him changed that. He was … is … How did you classify a man whose dead body she had found but now seemed to pop up, full of knowledge, in the dream world? Perhaps the distinction didn’t matter as much as people thought. Perhaps being dead was like being in the other room.
Such questions were out of her area of expertise, surely.
But there was no denying she had gotten a chance Kyle didn’t. If she had once been infected with the mirror, and given what Mr. Mustby had told her, she presumed she had been, then Mr. Mustby’s love had healed her. Kyle had no such love, and it should have been Maggie who gave it to him.
Hadn’t she said as much to Alvin? And what had he said? “You can’t blame yourself for everything. Frankly, you’re not that powerful, Maggie. Really. You can’t save those who insist on hurling themselves repeatedly back into storm-tossed seas. You made the choice to do whatever it took to get off elysium, and you had nobody’s help, either, did you?”
“I had your uncle,” she had said.
“But you’d already made your choices by the time you found your way to the Grimoire.”
Maggie heard a noise, which brought her back from her thoughts. The landscape had changed again, with more and more trees appearing along the edge of the road. Maggie looked in the direction of the sound and there perched the two ravens, bobbing and spreading their wings. Something joyful bubbled up in her. They looked so proud of themselves, so puffed up with self-importance and, quite bluntly, they looked remarkably happy. If Maggie let herself, she could easily imagine them telling her to cheer up, that she wasn’t alone, that it was all going to be all right.
Badger had also spotted them and ran up to the tree. He put his paws on the trunk and barked a greeting. The ravens cawed and chattered right back, and then fluttered to a tree up the road. Badger followed. So they went, playing a game of follow-the-leader until, some minutes later, they came to a fork.
Maggie waited for the ravens to make a choice. “Which way?”
The birds groomed, running their beaks and talons through their feathers.
“Really?” She sighed. Fine, then. She stood and tried to see down the paths, but they looked identical, each just a path through endless trees. She thought she might go down one for a while and then, if it didn’t work out, double back and try the other. The path was narrow, though, and she’d never be able to turn the carriage around. Besides, if the road rolled up behind her, there’d be no doubling back. It would be awful to lose the carriage … the birds.
“Badger, come on.” She jumped down and strode toward the right-hand fork. It had been the choice last time, why not this? She took a few steps, and went to take another, but found her feet stuck, as if in mud. She turned and saw Badger several feet back. His tail was down, and he whined. “It’s okay. Stay.” She struggled to free her foot. The back foot came free with a pop, but only because she was stepping back. She moved the other foot back. Tried to go forward again with the same result. Fine, not that way, then. She moved to the left-hand fork, but the same thing happened.
“So, neither?”
The ravens cawed. Maggie wondered if she was giving the birds too much credit. They puffed up and clacked their beaks as though insulted.
No, not neither. A path. But apparently one didn’t get a sneak preview. Choices had to be made, not researched. Perhaps it didn’t matter one way or the other. Perhaps, just in the way the road only went forward, they all led to the same place. Or maybe there was no way forward. Perhaps this was the end of the road and she’d be trapped in this forest limbo.
Well, she had to try. She hopped back in the carriage. She tugged gently on the left rein and Percival dutifully altered his trajectory. As she neared the fork, she became less and less sure. Perhaps right. That’s the way the ravens went, so perhaps that was the best way. She pulled on the reins. “Stop.” She didn’t know. But she had to do something. She jiggled the reins. “Okay, let’s try.” As Percival neared the branching-off point, he stopped and shook his head, making his bridle jangle.
“Come on, then.” Maggie clicked her tongue and lightly snapped the reins.
Percival refused to move, stamping a front hoof. The ravens set up a racket. Were they telling her to go the other way? She pulled back on the reins and tried to set the carriage on the right-hand path, but he still stalled. She climbed down and took the bridle, trying to lead him. Nothing. She stamped her foot. She looked behind her. The path was disappearing so quickly she could see it. What would happen when it overtook them? But she wasn’t sure! She wasn’t sure!
Could it be a question of confidence? If she was resolved would Percival move for her? Horses, she had read, responded to confidence and clarity. She set her shoulders, breathed deeply. She stroked Percival’s nose. “It’s all right, boy. I’ve decided. Off we go.” She stepped into the left-hand path. Percival came along. Badger ran forward. The ravens zipped over to a branch a few yards past. They moved along and as they did the forest thickened and Maggie was surprised to see how quickly the path behind them disappeared. There was no sign of the fork at all. The forest seemed darker, the roots more twisted, the vines encircling the trunks more sinuous and muscular.
Maggie climbed back into the carriage and pulled her scarf around her neck. It was getting colder. The scent of snow drifted on the wind. The light began to fade, and the long yellowish rays slanted through the tree trunks. The road seemed narrower and Maggie, who had never until now suffered from claustrophobia, found herself thinking of closets, coal cupboards and coffins. Badger jumped into the carriage and leaned against her, panting. The ravens hopped from branch to branch, keeping abreast of the carriage rather than leading the way as they had done. Even Percival shook his head and chewed his bit. The wind whistled through the trees as through a hollow bone. Soon, flakes of snow began to fall, fat white flakes of the sort that made Maggie dizzy when she looked up into the sky, and she was uncertain for a moment if the snow was falling down or if she was falling up.
They would camp at the first likely spot. The snow worried her, and she was exhausted. She wouldn’t have thought simply sitting in a carriage all day would have made her so weary, but in some ways, sitting was more tiring than walking. At least walking kept the blood pumping. In the carriage, it was easy to drift off, to be lulled by the clip-clop of Percival’s hooves and the jingle of the harness.
Having made the decision to stop at the first opportunity, the woods appeared to respond, for it wasn’t more than twenty feet before the ravens squawked and sure enough, there, just ahead, the path veered onto a clearing of evergreens. The ground was covered in a thin blanket of snow, but the area beneath the fir boughs was sheltered enough and looked not too hillocky or stone strewn. The moon shined through a circle of clouds, tinted yellow and grey and foretelling of harder weather to come.
She broke a few pine boughs and fashioned a makeshift lean-to and firebreak and before long she was wrapped in the bearskins before a small fire, thanking God for all the books in the shop about surviving in the wild. She ate sausages warmed over the flames, and bread and dried apples. There had even been a meaty bone for Badger, which he now happily gnawed while lying across her feet. She heated tea in the iron kettle Wallis Tilden had included in her basket. The ravens perched on a low branch, their feathers puffed up and their heads drawn into their necks. Maggie had released Percival from the traces and fixed a nosebag, filled with feed stored in a tin trunk on the back of
the carriage, to his bridle. He stood, tethered to a nearby tree, his eyes half closed, his tail flicking with pleasure.
Maggie snuggled up with Badger, and as she watched Percival she remembered another horse.
* * *
EVERY SUMMER SHE AND KYLE HAD GONE TO THE Canadian National Exhibition. The only thing he wanted was to go on the pony rides. There was this pony – same one every year – a fat little dapple-grey thing called Derwin; the most mean-tempered pony Maggie ever saw. He regularly tried to bite any child who came near him, and if the old man who owned the ponies didn’t keep a firm hand on the lead he’d try to buck the children off and then stomp on them. Maggie could never figure out why the old man used him, since he clearly hated children. Maybe the old man did as well, but, to be fair, he only used the petulant pony when all the other ponies were busy. She sometimes suspected if he didn’t like a child he gave him or her Derwin. But Derwin was the only horse Kyle ever wanted to ride.
The first time Kyle went near him the horse nipped his shoulder, but Kyle didn’t even flinch. He was seven and he turned to Maggie and said, “He’s just frightened. He has to know I won’t hurt him.” It was as if he identified with the pony. It was like the pony was his pony. And he rode it, too. Around and around the little track. Then the time was up and Kyle would have to get off and he wouldn’t. Maggie tried to bribe him with the Ferris wheel or the shooting games, or even cotton candy, but he would not have it. Just him and that malevolent pony. For hours. The old man liked Kyle and so he should have, for the pony cost Maggie every penny she had, every year, and when the money ran out Kyle did chores, just so he could stay. But he never did get bitten again, and the pony never kicked him, either, not like it tried to do to everyone else. Kyle cried and cried when the fair moved on.
It was the fourth year, when the fair came back and Derwin was gone. The old man said he’d sold him to a nice little girl on a farm, but he was lying. Maggie saw it in his eyes and so did Kyle. It broke his heart and he screamed and cried and picked up a handful of dirt and threw it at the man. Maggie had to drag him away. He cried so much he threw up. Made himself sick as anything. Took him weeks to get over it. Little Brother of the Sparrow.
The Grimoire of Kensington Market Page 15