The Grimoire of Kensington Market

by Lauren B. Davis

  Badger hunkered down and Maggie wrapped the long white fur around her fingers as the bear began to canter. She asked Kyle if his grip was tight. He nodded, and it must have been for he didn’t fall off when the bear began to run. The beast’s muscles moved with the power of a locomotive. There was nothing behind them except snow and sky merged together into a featureless nothing. The motion of the bear was like that of a huge, gentle rocking horse, but his back was so wide that sitting astraddle became uncomfortable after a while. She cocked a leg up. Badger nestled in her lap, and Kyle stretched first one leg, and then another, and then sat cross-legged, his hands buried to the wrists in the bear’s coat. The ravens, on the other hand, hunkered down one behind each ear, using them as a kind of windbreak. The less ragged of the two tucked his head beneath his wing.

  They were silent. So much had happened, and so much was yet unsure, it felt as though there were no words ready, not yet. And so they travelled, as the stars slowly revolved in the black dome above them.

  * * *

  AT LAST, AS THE DAY FADED THE STARS AND TURNED THE sky nearly the same white as the snow, far away but approaching fast, Maggie noticed a black smudge on the horizon, and she thought it might be a rock. As they closed in on it, however, she saw that although it was made of rock, it was not a single rock, but a marker, perhaps, like the stone figure at the entrance to Srebrenka’s country. Because the bleak landscape contained nothing with which to compare the structure, she miscalculated its size. It wasn’t until they were quite close she saw it was a sort of doorway, built from large black stones. It stood high up from the snow on a slab of rock on which was carved spirals and hares. Steps led up to it. Maggie looked through the doorway but could see only blue-white light.

  The bear slowed to a walk. The ravens had woken up and clung to the bear’s ears, their wings spread as if in greeting, or respect. But of what? The bear stopped a few yards from the doorway. He lay down and they hopped off his back. The bear and Kyle stood face to face, and it seemed they communicated in some way Maggie didn’t understand. How long had they been together in that ice castle? Kyle moaned, then reached up and embraced the great bear’s head, his forehead on the space between the bear’s eyes. The bear seemed to droop, and then reached up with one of its paws and drew Kyle close. Kyle nearly disappeared in the bear’s embrace. They stayed like that for some moments and then Kyle pushed back and the bear let go. He made that low rumble in his throat, waggled his head and then turned and loped across the plain …

  Kyle’s gaze was pinned to his disappearing friend. “He feels awful that he kept me there so long. It was long, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Maggie.

  “I told him he wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for her and her tricks.” He turned to Maggie, and tears ran from his good eye. “Why didn’t I see her for what she was?”

  “That’s a long story and I don’t think this is the time.”

  “I suppose not.” He touched his face. “Funny, but my eye doesn’t hurt anymore.” He dropped his hand. “What do you think this thing is? We don’t know what’s on the other side. Should we go through, even so?”

  “Even so.”

  Badger paced back and forth in front of the doorway. He turned to them and barked, his tail wagging.

  The ravens, who had been circling high above, cawed and spiralled down over Maggie and Kyle’s heads, and then, with a great flutter of wings, they dove into the centre of the doorway and instantly disappeared, as if they’d never been there at all.

  “I’m scared to death,” Kyle said.

  “Me, too,” she said, and held out her hand.

  Together, they climbed the stone steps. Maggie took a deep breath. She looked at her brother and smiled. “We’re in this together,” she said. “Come on, Badger.”

  They stepped over the threshold. She expected the old vertigo, but there was none. She stood on solid ground, alone. Fog was all there was. Grey. Thick. A mass of nothingness. Her heart raced and she spun around. “Kyle! Badger!”

  “It’s all right, my dear. Quite all right,” said a familiar voice.

  Mr. Mustby walked out of the fog. He wore a black, rather rumpled coat, with a half cape around his shoulders. Behind him walked Mr. Strundale, wearing the same kind of coat, although not quite so rumpled looking.

  “You’ve done very well, Maggie. Very well, indeed.”

  “Mr. Strundale! What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Mr. Mustby and I have gone on many journeys together, haven’t we?”

  “Indeed,” said Mr. Mustby. “I did say you wouldn’t be alone.”

  It was so obvious. “The ravens.”

  The two old men bowed. “At your service, my dear.”

  “Mr. Mustby I sort of understand, but Mr. Strundale?” She’d left Badger in his care, but he was here, and Badger had been, and Kyle … her head swam. “Where am I? Where’s Kyle? I can’t lose him now … And where’s Badger?”

  “All is well,” said Mr. Strundale. “Kyle’s waiting a moment for you and won’t notice this little wrinkle in time. We wanted to have a chat with you.”

  “But where am I?”

  “You’re in between,” said Mr. Mustby.

  “But homeward, tell me we’re homeward.”

  “You are homeward,” said Mr. Strundale. “Rest assured.”

  She went to throw her arms around him, but he stepped back and held up his hands. “No, my dear, I’m afraid that’s not allowed. We must keep a certain distance. It’s only proper.”

  Mr. Mustby gazed at her sternly, his eyebrows bristling. “I wasn’t in favour of this quest of yours, my girl. I admit it, wasn’t sure you were up to it. Not quite sure we wouldn’t lose you to Srebrenka, and I couldn’t have borne that.”

  “She sent the messages.”

  “Oh, yes. Drove her mad to think you’d escaped elysium. She used Kyle as a lure. Besides, Kyle was easy prey, and you promised greater … entertainment.”

  “Did you know that? Before, I mean?”

  “I’m not God, child. I don’t know everything. Although I did deduce it along the way, only slightly ahead of you.”

  “Well, she’s dead now,” said Maggie.

  “Death is a less final state than most people imagine, wouldn’t you say?”

  Looking at him standing there, she had to admit the truth of it and her face must have showed her fear of the implications.

  “Not to worry. Her influence has been returned to quite insignificant proportions. The flow of elysium has been stopped and the Forest is stable again, although,” he shook his head, “there’s still much sadness. But without Srebrenka the mirror shards are merely bits of glass.” He tipped his head to the side. “Apologies. I was utterly wrong. You’ve done more than anyone could have hoped, but that doesn’t mean that everything is sorted, I’m afraid.”

  Maggie’s heart fell to her knees. “You’re joking.”

  “One thing you learn, my dear, is that things do not finish. Every door leads to a room within a room, each one larger than the one before. You have noticed?”

  She considered. Yes, it did seem the world got larger, the deeper into it one got. At least this one did. “Are all worlds like this?”

  “What does it matter?”

  Maggie blinked. Mr. Mustby looked at little frayed around the edges, as though the fog surrounding them was thickening. Mr. Strundale, too, appeared less definite. She had things she must say. “Will I see you again?” she asked Mr. Mustby.

  “I’m never far away.” His voice sounded as though he spoke through a wad of wool. “Just as close … You always …” and she couldn’t make out what he was saying then.

  She had wanted to thank Mr. Strundale for the gifts, but she could do that later, if and when she got home.

  She w
as enclosed in mist for a second, and then Kyle’s hand was in hers and Badger was next to her and the furs she’d worn over her clothes were gone. Kyle wore regular old clothes as well – jeans and boots and a sweatshirt. They stood in Trickster’s room, where the door of the great tree had been. The room was vacant, littered and silent. Neither Trickster nor Colin nor anyone else appeared to have been there for a long time. The air held no trace of elysium, although three pipes lay among litter on the floor. The black curtain’s tattered remains hung from broken rods and the loveseat on which Trickster had sat was overturned and broken. Profane graffiti defaced the walls. There was no sign of the great tree and the door; behind them was just an ordinary chipped-plaster wall.

  “What on earth is going on?” she said.

  She turned to her brother. His damaged eye no longer looked painful, swollen and bloody. It was just a smooth sunken space where once his eye had been. Healed, if you could call it that. Her fingertips, too, which had blistered when she touched Kyle, were once again healthy flesh. “Your eye looks better.”

  He touched the socket. “Feels better. Odd.”

  “This is Trickster’s place, part of Srebrenka’s den, isn’t it? We are back, aren’t we?”

  “Looks like it, but where is everyone?”

  They picked their way through the broken furniture and scraps of paper and bits of dried bread and a left shoe and a torn jacket and so forth, into the hallway. The entire building seemed deserted, which Maggie supposed made sense. Without elysium, the Pipers would hardly come round for tea. They descended the stairs. Watery light spilled onto the floor; the door to the street had been torn off its hinges. These signs of violence. Who knows what she’d find at the Grimoire? Alvin. Mr. Strundale. What if they were all gone?

  Outside the air was warm. So much so Maggie had to take off her coat. Weeds grew in the cracks in the asphalt. The street had changed, no longer the bizarre conglomeration of twisted, spatially conflicted laneways it had been. Now it was merely a rundown assortment of apartment blocks and empty lots, overgrown and scattered with plastic bags and cardboard cups and lost socks, the sort of debris one found in any poor neighbourhood. Gone were the dead ends and monkey-puzzle mazes. The only odd thing was the absence of people. Now and again, as they wandered in what Maggie hoped was the right direction, they heard voices from somewhere far off, but no more. There were no shacks, no fires burning, no shadowy half-seen figures and no Lumpy. Their footsteps echoed, bouncing against the buildings and fleeing into alleys. For the first time in her life she wished she had a cellphone. She longed to hear Alvin’s voice, to hear he was all right.

  “You think this is all because of what happened?” asked Kyle, with something like awe.

  “I think it is.”

  The way the worlds were stitched together, the way things happened without one seeing them and being able to prepare was frankly terrifying, but, then again, she remembered how the dreams, the path itself, everything seemed to work in harmony. A complicated web. Too complicated. Best to focus on the small patch before her. One foot in front of the other. Each one, she hoped, leading home. She looked back and, to her enormous relief, the road was just a road, solid and inanimate. “When we get out of here, what are you going to do?”

  Kyle didn’t look at her. “I’ve no idea.”

  “Assuming it’s still there, you can come to the Grimoire if you’d like. I’d like you to.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes. I’d like that. Thanks.” His voice was thick. “I promise –”

  “Don’t,” she said. “There isn’t any need. None. We’ll just take it one day after the other.”

  Badger suddenly stopped and whined. Then barked. From a doorway stepped a little girl with very pale lashes and brows, and hair, cut in a choppy bowl cut, the colour of wheat. She wore a pair of ragged leggings and a holey shirt several sizes too big, the sleeves cut off and fraying. It was Mindy, the little rabbit girl.

  “Puppy!” She called and ran to Badger. The dog winced, but sat quietly as the little girl threw herself on him. “I knew you’d be back,” she said, turning her grubby face toward Maggie. “I told Peter!” Mindy pointed at Kyle. “Who’s that? And what happened to his eye?”

  “This is my brother, Kyle. And he got a piece of glass in his eye.”

  “That’s awful. Must have hurt.”

  Kyle said, “It did. So much so I forgot what it was like not to hurt.”

  The little girl considered this. “I’ve been waiting for you ever since the stuff went missing. I knew you’d be back.” She stood, wiped her nose with the back of her hand and looked pleased with herself. “Don’t go,” she said and disappeared.

  “Who’s that?” asked Kyle.

  “One of the lost children.”

  Kyle arched his brow. It looked horrible over his empty eye socket. “Sounds like members of our tribe,” he said.

  Mindy reappeared in the doorway, pulling on Peter’s arm.

  “Thought she was kidding,” he said. He scratched his head. “Suppose you had something to do with it all?”

  “With what all?”

  “With elysium going missing. All there one minute, all gone the next. People going crazy for a while, tearing everything up, beating each other up,” he glanced at Mindy, “and worse.”

  “Elysium’s gone then? For how long?”

  “Couple of months or more.”

  It seemed like only hours, or a day at most, since that terrible time in the ice castle. “Peter, when did you see me last?”

  “I dunno.” The boy pulled into himself, as though he’d learned long ago not to respond directly to any question unless he knew why someone wanted the answer and knew the reason wouldn’t put him in jeopardy.

  Maggie stepped toward him and, when he took a step back, reached out her open hands. “I only want to know because we’ve been on a very strange journey. I’ve lost track of time. I may have been away longer than I think.”

  He looked unconvinced, by Mindy piped up. “We saw you a long time ago. Months and months.”

  There was movement at the doorway and three boys stepped out. They whispered and nudged each other and looked pointedly at Mindy. Maggie had the impression the little girl had been talking about her quite a bit.

  “And what about Lumpy? Do you remember him?”

  “Yeah,” said Peter, “poor old Lumps.”

  “What about him?”

  “Cracked up. Managed a couple of days without the stuff, but then went loony, yelling about weasels. Just kind of curled up, from what I heard. Dead. That happened to a lot of them. Most maybe. Police were all over the place for a while.”

  Maggie looked at Kyle. He looked ill, but she suspected the time-shifts had healed more than just the wound to his eye. Given how much elysium he’d been doing at the end, he should by rights be as dead as poor Lumpy. But he wasn’t. There was no explaining it. Then again, it was hard to explain many of the things she’d seen the past … how long? Never mind.

  “I’m sorry about Lumpy,” she said. “He was a good friend once.”

  The children shuffled round her, as though waiting for her to make some sort of decision.

  “Where are your parents, then, if there’s no more elysium?”

  “Few came back. A couple took their kids with ’em.” Peter glanced at the children behind him. “Most didn’t. Didn’t come back or, well … we’re still here.” He looked exhausted and tight with fury.

  “But how are you surviving?”

  He looked at her as if she was an idiot. And perhaps she was. Mr. Mustby had said not everything was sorted. He hadn’t been joking. She sighed. “Right, then. You’re coming with us.”

  “They are?” asked Kyle. Then, seeing her expression, “Yes, of course they are.”

  “I dunno,” said Peter, puffing hims
elf out and hiking up his too-big trousers on his narrow hips. “Dunno about that. What you got in mind?”

  “What I have in mind is a hot bath and a hot meal and a safe place to sleep.”

  Mindy jumped up and down and shrieked, but Peter held a finger up and she went quiet. “Yeah,” he said, “and what do we have to do in return?”

  “You’ve been to the bookstore. There are always things to do. Dusting and such.”

  “Dusting?” He snorted.

  “You can read the books, too, which will come in handy when you go to school.”

  “We haven’t been to school, some of us, like, ever.”

  “Well then, we’ll have some work to do together, won’t we?”

  “I’m going.” Mindy ran and threw her arms around Maggie. It stabbed her, that did. The little girl smelled like a bouquet of sour milk and stinky hair and the vinegary scent of long-unwashed skin. Bath first, thought Maggie, and then thought she, too, probably smelled like an old boot.

  “Coming?” Maggie asked Peter.

  He grinned. “Coming.”

  Peter led them out of the Forest, through one quiet street after another, and within minutes they were on Gerrard Street, heading west. A huge billboard showed an artist’s rendition of townhouses, green space and modern low-rises, all glass and steel. The wording said, Regent Park Renovation Project, reconstruction to begin March 2018.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EVENING WAS SETTLING OVER KENSINGTON Market as they neared the Grimoire. The walk had taken just the time it ought to have. The scent of coffee, spicy Caribbean and Middle Eastern food, and incense, which wafted from the vintage clothing shops, smelled familiar and comforting. Even the graffiti sprayed on the brick walls looked like marks of celebration. People carried bouquets of flowers and mesh shopping bags full of vegetables. The smell of fish from the Coral Sea Fish Market made Maggie think of Alvin and her heart cramped. The children held each other’s hands and Maggie herded them along like a gaggle of geese. They approached Mr. Strundale’s apothecary. Maggie didn’t know what she was going to say to Mr. Strundale, other than thank you, but she simply wouldn’t be able to go home until she’d seen him.