The Grimoire of Kensington Market

by Lauren B. Davis

  Jimmy picked at a fig, nibbling it and licking the bruised-looking skin. He sat with a leg tucked up underneath him and now and again he stretched, arching his back and moaning softly. He appeared more animal, otter, perhaps, than human.

  Maggie was aware of the stays and heavy material of her dress. If Wallis’s gown fondled her, Maggie’s reprimanded. Maggie imagined how liberating it would be to wear less … restrictive clothing. She understood how one might be talked out of one’s clothes here and suspected Wallis designed her guests’ outfits for precisely that reaction. She tried not to squirm.

  The waiters served consommé and paper-thin rosemary-infused crackers. It was beyond delicious – delicate as a whisper and yet so rich, like velvet. Wallis said she hoped Maggie liked it.

  “It’s very good.” Maggie cleared her throat. She would not be lulled here as with Mother Ratigan. “You’ll forgive me, Wallis. I have so many questions. I assume you know I’m looking for my brother.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m not sure how to continue. The roads here have a bad habit of only leading one way.”

  “Exactly. And so, the only course of action is to proceed.”

  “You’re saying I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to, until I find him?” Maggie put down her spoon and pushed her soup away.

  “I’m saying if it’s Kyle you seek, it’s Kyle you must follow.”

  “You do know him?” Maggie’s pulse quickened, and her chest tightened.

  “Who really knows anyone else? But yes, Kyle was my guest. And no, he is not here now. He, unlike you, wandered straight up the lane, spending not a single second worrying about Mother Ratigan.”

  “That makes him the smart one.”

  “Do you think so? One might conclude from her behaviour that no good deed goes unpunished, but if I believed that I wouldn’t be able to run this little inn and be made so happy by the pleasure of my guests, now would I? Well, no mind. Your brother didn’t linger here.”

  “Where did he go? And he was all right when you saw him?”

  The soup was replaced by smoked trout with lemon and asparagus. Wallis picked up an asparagus spear with her long delicate fingers and bit off the tender tip. “He was … how shall I put this? He was focused. Yes, that’s precisely the right word.” She looked quite pleased.

  “Focused on what?”

  “Your brother has been called. Someone has taken a fancy to him.”

  “Who?” She knew she should be paying more attention to the conversation, but this trout was sweet, as if candied, and the lemon sparkled on her taste buds. The asparagus was slightly nutty, crisp, the very essence of spring.

  “I believe you’ve a more than passing acquaintance with Srebrenka.”

  “Srebrenka?” Maggie shook her head, trying to take it in. If Srebrenka had taken a fancy, as Wallis put it, to Kyle, sending Maggie here, helping her find him made no sense. “What’s she got to do with Kyle? Other than selling him elysium?”

  “My dear, don’t be silly. Kyle is bait. You’re the one who got away. Srebrenka does not take rejection well.”

  Srebrenka was after her, not Kyle? Guilt was an arrow in her gut. If it was true. Who to believe? “But she isn’t even here. She’s back there, in the Forest.”

  “She has more back and forth than most of us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s complicated and Mr. Mustby didn’t educate you half as well as he might have. There are, you see, certain thin places in the world, certain spots where what seems normal enough turns out to be, well, normal in a different way.”

  Thin places. Mr. Strundale had called both the Grimoire and the Wort & Willow thin places.

  “Srebrenka has,” Wallis continued, “through sheer dint of desire, managed to travel quite freely between your world and this one. Generally, it’s a one-way street, as you’ve found out. It’s quite impressive really; I never could do it.”

  “So where is Kyle?”

  “That I can’t tell you, at least not in specifics. I don’t go where she is. There are certain territorial imperatives, you see. Just as in your Forest, where I understand she controls the trade in elysium.” Wallis snorted. “Her little handmade gift to you all.”

  “Srebrenka manufactures elysium?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Did you think it appeared of its own volition?” Tilden’s laugh sounded like wind chimes. “What sweet innocence.”

  Maggie blushed. She’d never really considered the source.

  “Srebrenka has her little hobbies,” said Wallis. She reached out and ran a fingernail along Jimmy’s bare chest, causing the boy to shiver and giggle. “We all have our pleasures. Mine are mutual. Srebrenka takes pleasure from the pain of others. She feeds off their hunger. She is unhappy you can fill your hunger with anything other than her potions. Your brother is a very hungry boy, a hungry little ghost, with a splinter in his eye.”

  “And what does that mean?” Maggie rubbed her fork between her thumb and forefinger so forcefully the silver was warming. She made herself stop. She didn’t want to let on how frustrating she found Wallis’s way of speaking around a subject and never quite getting to it.

  Wallis regarded her with an arched brow. And then Maggie recalled the dream she’d had. The splinter of glass impaling Kyle. The woman made of ice.

  “Srebrenka is a cold woman,” said Wallis, as if reading Maggie’s thoughts. She ate a bit of trout. “I can’t tell you much more, only that he was here, that against my advice he left and that he’s looking for her.”

  “But where did he go?”

  “Why, north, of course. Where else do the cold things live? But you don’t have to follow. You could stay. Some do, you know. You saw my guests in the lobby. They seem happy, don’t they?” Wallis lifted a finger. The plates were cleared again and replaced with quail stuffed with grapes.

  “What is this place? ‘Thin places’? I don’t understand,” said Maggie. The quail was crisp-skinned and fragrant with morel mushrooms. The grapes lent a playful bite of acid. “I don’t know where I am. This place seems, well … different.” She realized this was a bit of an understatement. How difficult it was to keep one’s thoughts on the subject at hand when food played a symphony in one’s mouth.

  Wallis dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “It’s a contrary place, isn’t it? You might think we’re in the Forest, but we are inside the Forest in the same way the Grimoire is inside your city, your Toronto.” She chuckled, pronouncing it Toe-Ron-Toe, the way no Torontonian would. “Come, Maggie, glowering like that will only upset your digestion.” She smiled and blinked in her somnolent manner. “When you say of the Grimoire, ‘it is not that kind of place,’ what do you mean? You mean it’s both what it seems to be and more than it seems to be. It’s a bookstore, but it’s also more than that, for it has a design and an intention all its own. Those who come to the shop are meant to do so. This is its nature. Why and how is this so? And who decides? Well, these are the great questions of all creation, are they not? All the world works to fit Creation’s desires, the desires of the one you call God. What is the Plan? How can we know? The most important question is: Do we trust our experience or not? Do you think you came into Mr. Mustby’s care by a random roll of the dice, or were you meant to find your home there?”

  “How do you know so much about me?”

  “We all have our special talents, and besides, I read.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Books, my dear. Surely you noticed books have a life of their own, that they bring different things to different readers? You must have noticed the books in your shop aren’t always the same books.”

  “There are a lot of books to keep track of.”

  “More all the time, wouldn’t you say?” Wallis laughed. Waiters cleared away the quail and replaced it wit
h lamb in mint jelly. “Well, I have my own little library here, as you may have noticed. The books fit my needs, as I like to put it, perhaps a little more than they do the ordinary reader. Oh, dear, I can see by your face I’m only confusing you. What I can tell you is that the way one reads the books of the world has much to do with what one can learn. But you haven’t answered my question. Do you feel you were meant to find your home at the Grimoire?”

  “How can I deny it when only those who are meant to find the shop find it?” Lamb and mint jelly. Succulent and sweet.

  “Could I find it?” asked Jimmy, munching on a chop.

  “Probably not, my dear,” said Wallis. “But you always have a home here, don’t you?”

  “Look,” said Maggie, “I’m all for philosophical discussions but …”

  “You surprise me. Do you really want to play this ignorance game? You’ve taken Mr. Mustby’s place. The Grimoire, the stories of your world, are now your responsibility.” Wallis sipped from her wineglass. “Did Alvin never speak of these things?”

  “Alvin? What’s this got to do with him?”

  “Oh, dear. So much you’ve been left to find out on your own.” She sighed. “I find it distressing Mr. Mustby didn’t educate his nephew, although it’s true the young man was more interested in life on the water than the written word. Still, I suspect his nature will catch up with him. The ending to that story has not yet been written. But as for you, Maggie, how and when you leave here – both my hotel and the Silver World – is entirely up to you, or rather, to the story writing itself for you. For it’s your story being told now. That’s what a story is: a kind of spell we cast over our lives, and the lives of those close to us; it’s the effect we have on our world and the effect that world has on us. You came through the door at Trickster’s because you were meant to. What will happen, where you will go and who you will meet along the way is part of the Plan, that which is written in the books, and that which is being written even as we sit here. The choices you make along the way are your contribution to the writing of that story, the spells you weave within the greater spell of the Book of Life itself.”

  “I don’t get this,” said Jimmy. “And I’m very tired. Can I go to bed?”

  Wallis waved her hand. “Do as you like, silly boy, your dreams await.” And with that Jimmy pushed away from the table and said good night.

  Maggie rather wished she could follow him and toyed with her fork. “Alvin did say his uncle told him he had certain responsibilities toward the stories in the books and that Alvin was expected to assume those responsibilities. Caretaker, sort of. I didn’t think much of it, given that I’m there now, and the way the Grimoire behaves, well, it just seems like the store’s nature to behave like that.”

  “Nature is quite the right word.” Wallis ran her fingers through her hair, creating a sort of rainbow around her head. “Being a guardian of the books is a kind of quality. A characteristic. Like having green eyes or brown. It’s a family trait.”

  “But I’m not family to the Mustbys.”

  “Oh, there are families and then there are families, or haven’t you noticed?”

  Maggie remembered how, just after Mr. Mustby died, Alvin had told her of the arrangement he’d had with his uncle. If someone else came along to take over the shop, Alvin could do as he pleased, as long as Alvin, in turn, took care of the person who came along – meaning Maggie. She had felt a little miffed at the time and said she didn’t need taking care of. He’d smiled and told her that although he was quite sure she didn’t, still, he was content with the deal. She wasn’t quite so sure any longer about her ability to care for herself. What would Alvin, who had travelled to so many far-flung lands, make of all this? In the old Anglo-Saxon, his name meant wise friend. What advice would he have? He had been to South Korea once, and had been offered sea slug in soy sauce to eat, apparently a delicacy. She’d asked him what it had tasted like and he’d said, “Much as you’d expect; like an eraser dipped in mucus.” He could always make her laugh. Not only pain, but joy, surely, was part of the plan.

  Salad sat in front of them now. Crisp and clean, sharp with dill.

  “None of us escape our destiny,” said Wallis. “When Mr. Mustby took you in, he and Alvin became your family. And the Grimoire is your family’s obligation.”

  “But there must be others –”

  “There are no others. Alvin is the last of the line.”

  It began to dawn on Maggie just how little she really knew about Alvin, or his family. She put her fork down. “Look, all this talk of stories and one-way doors and so forth aside, I’m still determined to find Kyle and it seems, according to what you’re telling me, Wallis, that I am intended to do so –”

  “After our conversation here, I believe you are intended to try.”

  “Fine, which means I have to go north.”

  “But not tonight. Tonight, you must sleep and dream and prepare yourself.” Wallis licked a bit of sugar from a candied plum off the ends of her fingers. “Tonight, rest. See what dreams will find you.”

  With that she stood, and servants appeared again from the shadows. Dinner was apparently over.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MAGGIE WAS ESCORTED BACK TO HER ROOM BY one of the servants, a tall man with an alarming amount of hair in his ears. She thought the escort unnecessary, as she was next door, for heaven’s sake, but he was all gallantry, holding open doors and bowing. As she stepped into her room he said, “’Scuse me, Miss, but I met your brother when he was here.”

  “You did? Did you talk to him? How did he look?”

  “A bit worn out, Miss. And a bit tugged on, if you know what I mean, like he was a fish with a hook in his mouth, being reeled in. But more than that I don’t know, except for one thing.” He paused and looked a bit bashful. “He’s lucky to have you. Takes some knack to get here, and you handled yourself well with Miss Wallis. She telling you things the way she did, well, she doesn’t do that with everyone.” He touched his cap. “You sleep well, Miss. Sleep well.”

  And with that he closed the door. Maggie’s head was reeling. Kyle as bait. Bait!

  Badger raised his head, and thumped his tail, but didn’t rush to greet her as he usually did. Maggie wondered if he was feeling the narcotic effects of all this luxury. She removed her dress and rubbed the itchy red imprints left by the stays. A linen nightgown lay on the bed and she picked it up. Her bones thrummed with fatigue. Oh, that bed, that beautiful bed …

  * * *

  Maggie dreams …

  The air around the bed takes on a silver tinge. The bedposts turn mother-of-pearl and the wardrobe shines like moonstone. The windows appear glazed with mercury. Whispers scurry about the room like mice, singsong and slightly mocking. She grips the sides of the bed as the world tilts, and then settles.

  But this is strange … she is in her own room, on the second floor of the Grimoire. The air has the argent glow of the Silver World, but it’s her normal world, isn’t it? She sits up and places her feet on the floor. Her boots, her legs in her black jeans, no changes there. She’s sure she’s been somewhere else. She wonders where Alvin is.

  The air shimmers as if moonlit. Where’s Badger? She looks around; the room isn’t really hers. The bed is made from birch, not oak; the rag rug has turned into a silken pattern of orchids; the wardrobe is deepest indigo, adorned with scattered stars. She goes to the window, which is a most peculiar opalescence. It’s impossible to see through the panes. She opens the window, sticks her head out and gasps. It might be twilight, or it might be dawn. A large white moon hangs in the grey sky, but she can’t tell if it’s rising or setting. All around her are gently rolling hills, covered with a metallic frost that turns the grass into white lace. In the distance lurks a black line of trees where a forest begins.

  Surely this is an elysium dream.

  Scritch, scr
atch, step, tap.

  What?

  A cough, or someone clearing his throat.

  Maggie jumps up and dashes for the door, but it’s not her door. Her bedroom door is black. This one is purple, the colour of an eggplant. And the handle isn’t her simple glass handle. This handle is green and carved in the shape of a leaf.

  Knock, knock.

  There seems nothing else to do. “Come in.”

  The door opens, and there stands Mr. Mustby, wearing the same brown corduroy suit he’d always worn, but how warm the brown looks. “So, it is you,” he says in a voice thick with disapproval. “I was told to expect you, but I hoped the message was wrong. You always were a proud and stubborn girl, but to do this … Maggie, I am incandescent with anger.”

  Maggie’s hand flies to her open mouth. She makes a mental note to ask who had told him to expect her. But not now; now she only wants to hug him. Before she realizes she’s going to do it, she throws her arms around him. “I don’t care that you’re angry with me. I’ve never been happier to see anyone.”

  He smells of leather and open fields and fresh bracing sea-drenched air, a scent quite unlike the old paper, candle wax and pipe smoke scent he used to carry.

  He pats her back in a fatherly way. “All right, what’s done is done.” He gives her a squeeze and then removes her to arm’s length. “Despite this idiocy, you look well.”

  “As do you.” In fact, for a dead man he looks brilliant. “Do you know where Kyle is? How I can find him?”