: Lauren B. Davis
: The Grimoire of Kensington Market
: Buckrider Books
: 9781928088820
: 1
: CHF 5.50
:
: Belletristik
: English
: 328
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

The downtown core of Toronto is being consumed by elysium, a drug that allows its users to slip through the permeable edges of this world into the next before consuming them utterly. Peddled by the icy Srebrenka, few have managed to escape the drug and its dealer. But Maggie has.






Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Snow Queen,' and woven through with northern folk tales,The Grimoire of Kensington Market is the story of Maggie, proprietor of the Grimoire bookstore, the cosmic nexus of all the world's tales. Years after beating her addiction, Maggie is dismayed by the reappearance of Srebrenka in her life. Although she resists temptation, she quickly learns that her brother, Kyle, has been ensnared by Srebrenka's drug-laced beguiling.






Driven by guilt and love, Maggie sets off on a quest to rescue Kyle from the Silver World, where robbers stalk the woods, where tavern keepers weave clouds to hide mountains and where caribou race along the northern lights. There, she must discover what hidden strengths still lie within her.

CHAPTER TWO


TWO WEEKS LATER, IN THE EARLY MORNING, when Maggie let Badger out in the back garden, something looked off. The sky was clear. Still, it looked too dark. The sun had risen; she’d seen it from the bedroom window. She looked over her shoulder at the clock on the kitchen wall. Yes, just after eight. True, the sun rose late this time of year, but it was up. So why was the day so dark? Badger sniffed here and there, staring at the top of the wall as though at an invisible squirrel. The shadows were long and fell in the wrong direction. Evening shadows, not morning. She shivered. Just a funny trick of the light, surely. “Hurry up, Badger.” She hugged herself and stepped back into the kitchen.

By ten o’clock, Maggie sat at her desk, perusing a collection of folk tales from India. Just then she noticed a small red flame hovering over a book. Oh, no, she thought and rushed over to see what it was. The light was brightening, about to burn out, in a moment it would be gone, as would the book. Even now it was becoming indistinct, fading, the writing on the spine was barely visible.The Stubborn Season by … but Maggie was too late. The tiniest puff and the book was gone. Forgotten. Lost. The bookshelf contracted as though the story had never been. She preferred not to notice when a book disappeared. They disappeared all the time, of course, but if she didn’t look, if she didn’t know, then she could avoid the sharp cramp of sorrow in her stomach. Still, there was something almost holy about bearing witness to such a death even if one couldn’t help, wasn’t there? What happened to a story never told again? All she could think of was void.

The bell over the door chimed. Badger’s head came up and he rose to his feet from his bed by the fire. Someone sneezed, twice.

“Excuse me … is anyone here?” A child’s voice.

“Hello?” Another sneeze. “Look at the dust! Hello? I got a message for someone named Maggie?”

There were few people who would send her messages; she had no friends save for Mr. Strundale and Alvin. Her parents were long dead. The st