The Magic Cottage

VOICES

THERE'S NO closing-up time for a forest—the activity goes on all night as well as all day. But most of the action is unseen whatever the hour. In the evening, though, or nighttime, there seem to be more noises, more scurryings, leaves rustling, and sometimes twigs snapping. The later the hour, the more unfriendly and secretive the forest feels. To an outsider, that is.

I did my best to follow the path Midge and I had used on other occasions, knowing where it would roughly take me and hoping that the sun wouldn't have sunk too low before I got there. I'd grabbed a jacket as I'd left the cottage, aware of how cool it could become beneath the trees at that time of evening.

Soft mulched leaf-mold shifted beneath my feet, my footsteps sounding like short gasps as I trudged through the thick layers. A springy branch taunted rather than challenged my progress along the path, and it swished back noisily into foliage behind as I pushed by, as if venting its spite.

I'd phoned the Synergist Temple to find out if Midge was there, but the line interference had become so bad I could barely hear the answering voice, let alone conduct a sensible conversation. Yet every instinct told me that's where she was and I was angry that she'd waited for me to be out of the way before sneaking off there. I'd replaced the receiver without speaking.

Unless they'd picked her up in one of their own cars, Midge would have taken the forest route to reach the Temple and that's why I trekked along that path, too; I didn't want to miss her if she was already on the way back. This was quicker than by car, anyway, the journey by road circuitous as well as meandering.

If only she'd waited, if only I'd had the chance to tell her what I'd learned. Would she have trusted the Synergists so implicitly then? I speeded up my pace.

The book illustration was another ingredient in the brew I felt was fast coming to the boil. I now understood, at least, why Gramarye had seemed vaguely familiar to me the moment I'd stepped from the car on that very first visit. And again, why there had been a pale recognition when I'd looked upon Midge's painting weeks later. Val Harradine had made the connection, although not right away; she'd had to check through Midge's past work to be sure. The detail in the book illustration was small, but then the artist's style was meticulous and sharp, loving attention paid to every part of the composition. The cottage in the picture even had a sparkling garden leading up to its door.

And there had been a figure just inside that open doorway, a dark shape, no more than a shadow.

This is crazy, I kept telling myself. Stark-staring bloody crazy! The book was a fairy tale, nothing more. A kid's bedtime story. Yet here I was, chasing through the forest to rescue my damsel in distress, desperate to save her from the evil clutches of the wicked old wizard or warlock or mystic or whatever the fuck they called these Brothers Grimm characters whose magic was murkish, not to say Black. All I needed was a white charger.

Yeah, hilarious.

I never slackened my pace for one moment.

Because I was learning to suspend my own natural beliefs. As one day we all have to.

Once or twice I thought I'd lost my way in the woods, but then I'd spot something I recognized—a fallen, rotting tree trunk, a particularly odd-shaped oak, a rain-formed pond— and I'd know I was headed more or less in the right direction. It wasn't too long before I emerged from the forest to look down at the gray house at the bottom of the wide gradient.

The house, the Temple, visibly decayed as I approached, flaws sharpened by nearness. The reddening sun behind, becoming low in the sky, failed to tint the building with any warmth. My step was steady, resolute I suppose, yet there was an element of caution about me as I wondered if I were being observed from any of those dark windows.

Soon I'd left the grass of the meadow and was on firmer, though still uneven, ground. There were four cars parked in the turning area, one of them the familiar Citroen. I crossed the space, watching the house just as I felt it was watching me, and mounted the steps to the big double-door. I'd intended to march straight in but, of course, the entrance was locked.

I pushed the heel of my fist against the large brass bell set in concrete by the side and kept it there. For good measure, I thumped the bottom of my other fist against the paneling of the door itself, working up a good head of anger as I did so.

Presently I heard footsteps drawing near behind the barrier. A lock turned, one side of the door opened fractionally. The Bone Man stared out through the gap.

He pretended not to recognize me, but we both knew otherwise.

"Midge is here." It wasn't a question from me, so it didn't require an answer.

"Midge?" he queried, his voice as skeletal as his features.

"Don't play silly fucking games," I said, and pushed hard at the door, knocking him back.

I swiftly stepped through.

"Just a moment, you can't come in here," he informed me, bony fingers against my chest.

I took his hand away. "Where is she?"

"I've no idea who you mean."

"Midge Gudgeon. She's here somewhere."

"I think you'd—"

"Let me see Mycroft."

"I'm afraid he can't be disturbed."

I sighed for his benefit. "Look, you're not getting rid of me until I've seen either her or Mycroft himself."

"I've already told—"

A door had opened further down the hallway and Gillie Slade appeared, looking at us curiously, no doubt wondering what the fuss was about.

I strode purposefully toward her, Bone Man following close behind, his weedy protests like gnats in the air.

"Gillie, tell me where I can find Midge," I demanded before I even reached the girl.

"Mike, you can't—"

"Yeah, I know all that. She's here, isn't she?"

I stared hard at her and she lowered her gaze.

"Isn't she?" I repeated.

"Yes, Mike. But she's with Mycroft and they really mustn't be interrupted." Her eyes were looking up at me again, and they were blue and earnest.

"Interrupted? What the hell's going on?"

Other doors were opening, other heads emerging.

"For Chrissake, tell me!"

Her eyes avoided mine and I wanted to shake her. Instead I brushed past and peered into the room she'd just left. Blank faces goggled back at me. The only furniture in the room was stiff-backed chairs, spread randomly around, the Syngerists sitting on them with no books in their laps, nothing at all in their hands. I assumed it was their version of the Happy Hour. Meditation time.

Midge wasn't among them.

I backed out and crossed the hallway, two people in the door there parting without a murmur, allowing me to see inside. More Synergists and scarcely any furniture apart from more of those very uncomfortable-looking chairs. Several of the members were squatting on the floor, with nothing visible occupying their minds either.

She wasn't in there.

Nor the next room.

Nor the next.

Now the library. I felt lucky.

And was unlucky. The room we'd been ushered into on our first (and my one and only) visit, where my scalded arm had been dipped in the greenish liquid that could have been used for washing dishes or cleaning metal for all I knew, where Mycroft had endeavored to impress us with his special powers, was empty. Not a bloody soul.

My frustration was growing. I bypassed the broad stairway and all but burst through the double doors of a room opposite. Empty of people, but more interesting than the others. Leather armchairs, small and delicately shaped tables, a magnificent oak fire surround that virtually ran the length of one wall. Above the jutting mantel hung a long tapestry depicting a patterned cross, an emblematic rose at its center, the arms and upright post decorated with repeated symbols of some kind. On other walls, between the tall windows, were shapes I recognized as zodiac signs, and at the far end was a large mosaic mandala, within the circle a square, another small mandala within that. A wooden mask lay on a nearby table: high pointed ears and sloping, slitlike eyes above a long protruding snout—the carved face of a jackal. Even though the window drapes were half-drawn so that the room was cast into befitting dimness, the contents were incisively impressed into my mind, as though I'd taken time to study the interior. In fact, I'd stood in the doorway for no more than a few seconds. I think the impact was somehow due to expectancy, not surprise.

I turned away, unhappy with the view. The Synergists had left the other rooms to crowd the hallway, some of them muttering among themselves, while most continued to watch me silently, a kind of dumb resentment on their faces. I felt like a visitor to an asylum whose inmates thought I was the lunatic.

Gillie was near the front, and at least her expression conveyed something more than cold hostility. I went to her and rested a hand on her elbow, my touch gentle, not wanting her to react against me.

"Please help me, Gillie," I said. "I only want to talk with Midge."

Her eyes were the giveaway, even if she didn't speak. I wondered whether the glance upward was inadvertent or intentional.

I looked in the same direction, toward the top of the stairway, then let go of her, striding to the stairs and starting to climb two at a time. Halfway up Kinsella appeared, the Bone Man not far behind. The latter pointed at me unnecessarily and Kinsella's smile had a hint of reluctance to it.

"Hi, Mike, is there a problem?" he called down to me.

I didn't answer until I was on the top step. "I'm looking for Midge," I told him, "and I know she's here."

"Sure. Let's go down and I'll getcha a cup of coffee and we'll talk awhile."

He laid a friendly hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it off.

"I'd like to see her now," I said.

"Uh, well, that's just not possible right now, Mike." Jesus, I hated his mild tone. "Y'see, she's in with Mycroft and they really can't be disturbed."

"Why not?"

"You know what she wanted."

I suppose I must have registered a fair amount of alarm.

He nodded, still smiling. Only there was the tiniest hint of malicious pleasure in the Ail-American blueness of his eyes.

"You got it, Mike. Mycroft's helpin' Midge reach her folks."

"Oh shi . . ." I pushed by, intending to search every room along that corridor until I found her. But his arm sprang up across my chest like a steel barrier. I shoved him away and carried on.

He grabbed my arm and whirled me around and, for a brief instant, it looked as though the cream had curdled on his apple-pie face. The grin quickly came back, but a piranha's greeting might have had the same warmth.

"Sorry," he began to say, "but you—"

This time I pushed harder and he took a step or two backward. I hadn't even half turned before he grabbed me again, one hand around my neck, the other beneath my armpit, and sent me crashing noisily against the wall, my legs giving way so that I slid to the floor. The hero doesn't always win the physical tussles, you know.

Gillie, who'd followed me up the stairs, knelt beside me as I tried to regain some of the puff I'd lost. Kinsella wasn't grinning any more, and that was okay by me. I started hauling myself to my feet.

"No, Mike," advised Gillie.

Kinsella seemed almost eager.

I wasn't looking forward to the next few minutes, but I sure as hell wasn't going home on my own.

I was on my feet and squaring up when we all became aware of a presence further along the corridor. Kinsella and Bone Man turned as though they had been called (I hadn't heard a word spoken). Mycroft was standing down there, a thin cane in one hand. In the doorway behind him was Midge.

She saw me and I felt her gasp. While their attention was diverted, I ducked past the two men blocking my way and hurried along the corridor toward her.

"What are you doing here?" was her welcome.

That kind of stopped me, because there was a lot of irritation in the question.

"I could ask you the same," I returned. Then, still catching my breath, I said, "I want you to leave with me right now."

She was indignant, the negative response trailing off: "No . . ."

"I think this is an inopportune moment for you to ask that."

I glanced at Mycroft, who'd spoken. He seemed about a hundred and fifty years older, all that blandness suddenly gone. There was nothing dried or cracked about his voice, though; it was as smoothly mild as ever.

"There are several matters Midge and I wish to discuss, Mike, and I've invited her to stay with us this evening. No need for you to worry—someone will drive her back to Gramarye later tonight."

I shook my head. "She's coming home with me."

Midge stepped in front of me, eyes alight, but not with affection. "Who are you to say what I can or can't do? What gives you the right?"

I kept my voice low. "He wants the cottage."

She stared wide-eyed at me, then she stared wide-eyed at him.

"Are you out of your mind?"

That was to me.

"They tried to get the cottage from Flora Chaldean," I persisted steadily. "They tried to buy the place legitimately from her, but she'd have none of it. D'you know she went to the trouble of having a clause put into her will specifically forbidding the sale of Gramarye to the Synergists or anyone connected with them? That's why we were vetted. That's why the solicitor wanted to know about our private lives. I went to see Ogborn this afternoon and he told me everything—after some persuasion, that is. She wanted them never to have Gramarye, Midge, and there had to be a good reason for that."

"It can't be true."

"Ask Ogborn yourself. Or why not get Mycroft to tell you? I doubt he'll give you an honest answer, though. She wouldn't sell and so I think they tried other methods. I think they tried to frighten her out."

Mycroft's response was a sad shake of his head.

"We were led to believe you'd never been to the cottage before," I said in his direction, "but a coupla nights ago you knew there was another entrance around the back."

"A reasonable assumption, I'd have thought, considering there were steps leading around the side. And don't most homes have a back door?"

"True enough. But it was the way you acted that set me thinking. You were so bloody uneasy, like you didn't want to go through the kitchen. Even Kinsella got the shakes sitting there once. I couldn't help wonder if you got the jitters because old Flora died in there."

Midge gave a small gasp. "Mike, you don't know what you're saying."

"You saw for yourself what happened when they came visiting. Christ, Midge, they couldn't get out fast enough in the end." I could sense Kinsella and the other man sidling up behind me. I grasped Midge's arms. "Okay, it all sounds crazy, I admit that; but there was enough going on to start me worrying. Christ, there's been enough going on since we moved in to scare the hell out of both of us! Yet you've turned a blind eye to most of it, and I can't help wondering about that, too. That's why I finally went to Ogborn for some answers."

"If Flora was under some kind of threat, why didn't she inform the police?" Midge demanded.

"And tell them what? You've seen how they work, how they've wormed their way into our lives. Nothing too forward or obvious—they're much too subtle for that. And certainly no apparent physical violence as far as the old lady was concerned. A weird cult organization can't afford to step out of line; that would give the law too good a chance to come down on them. Yeah, the people around here would have loved that, if Sixsmythe is anything to go by. But there's nothing stupid about Mycroft and his crew, they don't take any risks. What I can't figure is why Gramarye is so important to them."

Kinsella and Bone Man were breathing down my neck.

"You have a remarkable imagination, Mike," said Mycroft without a trace of irritation. "Of course I can appreciate your curiosity about our sect, although not why you've jumped to such painfully wrong conclusions about us."

"You can't deny you harassed Flora Chaldean."

"That's an incorrect term to use. Yes, we persisted, but our intentions were misunderstood. Flora was a lonely and somewhat helpless old lady, living a very uncomfortable existence. We merely offered our care and attention."

"You wanted the cottage!"

He smiled benignly. "A legal way of making a proud woman accept our charity. She would have continued to live there under our administrations, while having a considerable financial gain that would have allowed her to feel independent."

I smacked my forehead in a cartoon gesture. "Oh God, you're good. You're so bloody devious."

"I wish for nothing more than to help Midge come to terms with a personal grief that's been with her for far too long."

"And maybe she'll become one of your so-called Adoptives along the way?"

"She has that choice. But I'd also like to help you, Mike, and perhaps convince you of our sincerity. You're a troubled young man, full of misconceptions, filled with cynicism. I could help you find your way.

"I hadn't realized I'd lost it."

"But you've never known the right path. Do you believe in Magic?"

The sudden shift startled me. "Magic?" I asked stupidly.

"The discovery and application of the unknown forces of Nature through the human will. An alliance between both powers. You might describe it as a synergism."

"What's that got—?"

"The most important objective of Magic is the discovery of one's true and ultimate self. With my guidance and my will, I can help you attain just that."

"Midge, we're leaving." I tugged at her arm.

"A short while to explain," said Mycroft, "that's all I ask."

"Please, Mike." Midge was resisting my pull.

"He's a crank, can't you see that?"

"Mike, I've just spoken with my parents."

First startled, now stunned.

"He helped me reach them." She was almost weeping, but she was smiling too. "I spoke with them only moments ago, but the noise out here disturbed us, upset the thought patterns Mycroft had created."

"You saw your mother and father?"

"No, but I heard them, I heard their voices." The first tear began to slide, soon trickling into the crease of her smile. "They've forgiven me, Mike."

"There's nothing to forgive, for Chrissake!"

"Listen to me. They're happy for me, but they told me there was a path to follow—"

"Let me guess—"

"Listen, damn you!" she screamed.

Mycroft touched her shoulder. "Calm yourself. Anger has no purpose inside this Temple."

I rolled my eyes.

"Perhaps only by showing him will he be convinced. Would you be prepared to open your mind and heart to us, Mike, to lay aside that shield of distrust?"

"Will it improve the dialog?"

Midge slapped at my chest, stinging me. "For once will you hear somebody else? Can't you . . . can't you accept there's more around us than we can just see and hear?"

"If my answer's no, would you leave with me now?" Something heavy was dredging across my very core and I knew I was losing her.

She knew it too. "I can't go with you," Midge replied, and she was so small and defenseless. "I need this, Mike, don't you understand?"

Idiot that I was I turned to Mycroft and said, "So let's talk."

The satisfaction was somewhere at the back of his eyes, only room for affable benevolence at the front. I could almost feel the sighs of relief from Kinsella and his buddy warming my neck: they figured he had me now.

Mycroft stood aside and with a short gesture of his cane indicated the room he and Midge had left a few minutes ago. (This new affectation with the thin stick puzzled me, and it was only later that I discovered its significance.) "I think it's best that we talk in here," he said as an invitation.

Midge didn't hesitate. She seemed eager to be back inside.

I followed less keenly.

To step into the weirdest room I'd ever seen.