The Magic Cottage

HOME AGAIN

FOR A WHILE we stood and gawked, our flesh creeping and our senses not quite together. How could there be so many? They couldn't all have been from our loft, many of them had to have come from other places. Maybe it was a bat convention. And how could they have grown to monster size? Most serious of all: what was their intent? These were questions we asked ourselves, not each other—we didn't want our voices to disturb their rest period.

The inclination, you'll understand, was to make for the road, jump in the car, and get away from that bat-coated place as fast as possible. The only problem was that the car keys were inside the cottage where I'd left them earlier, and when I mentioned that to Midge (in a very low voice) her body kind of sagged.

"You go sit in the car," I told her in a whisper.

Even as I spoke, though, two bats detached themselves from the wall and fluttered around to the other side of the building. The moon was up, unclouded but showing only a profile, and in that clean, eerie light the size of the bats' wingspans froze me. We found ourselves crouching, ready to head back into the forest.

"Get going, Midge," I urged again.

"No, Mike," she whispered. "I'm staying with you; we'll get the keys together."

"That's stupid."

"I won't let you go in alone!"

Her voice was so forceful, although hushed, that my shoulders jerked upward and my neck sank in.

I drew in a breath and squeezed her hand. "Okay, okay. But if they get busy I want you to head straight for the car without waiting for me."

"What will you do?"

"I'll be ahead of you."

She returned the squeeze, but couldn't manage a smile.

"Let's skirt around and try the kitchen door," I suggested. "Maybe there won't be so many down there."

Her breathing was fast and shallow as she summoned the nerve to follow me and it wasn't just the moonlight that gave her face such an unnatural pallor. My own skin tones probably matched hers pretty well at that moment.

We slunk away slowly, bodies bent, not wanting to draw the slightest attention to ourselves. It seemed to me that a whole section of wall rippled, the movement black, a wave in an oil slick. We kept going, retreating, then moving toward the embankment. Everything was still and somehow unearthly around us, the dark mass of brooding forest behind, while in front was the bizarre spectacle of the smothered cottage, wearing bats like a tattered hood. Half-moonlight revealed more bodies prone in the grass, the sickening aftermath of the rabbits' before-bed gambol.

We reached the short but steep slope and I quietly slid down, reaching back to help Midge once I was on the flat again. She fell into my arms and stayed there for a few moments, reluctant to leave them. The gray strip that was the garden path leading to the gate beckoned invitingly, the road beyond representing manmade normalcy, a concrete reality, and the temptation to hoof it was strong; but the village was a long way off and the road ran through miles of woodland. Better to take the car.

I'd been right about the bats on this side: they clung mostly to the upper reaches, a dark thatch that twitched and bristled with life. Cautiously, eyes ever upward, I led Midge toward the kitchen door.

A bat fluttered away from the wall above us. Then another followed. Another.

The urge to rush for the door was almost overwhelming, but the thought of alarming them all into flight held us in check.

Take it easy, I kept telling myself. They're only flying mammals, not a vampire among them.

Tell that to the bunnies, came my own wicked reply.

The door was on the latch and my hand was trembling when I stretched to press the catch. I thumbed it down as smoothly as I could, but the click still made me grit my teeth; I expected fangs to puncture my neck at any second.

I pushed the door and the smell of must and rot wafted out as a forewarning that things weren't quite so well inside Gramarye, either; as I widened the gap, the waiting blackness was as welcoming as the stench. If shadows could grin, then they'd have been beaming their darkest right then.

The interior was menacing, and yet . . . and yet it was somehow alluring. I felt as I had as a kid, standing there at the first door of the funfair ghost house; scared, but I'd paid my money and I was sure as shit going in.

I almost tripped over something on the doorstep. Committed to stepping in, I didn't stop to investigate. I went through, pulling Midge with me, and immediately turned to scrabble for the light switch. I brushed it down and, momentarily blinded, reached back to slam the door shut. Midge caught my arm before I did so.

I blinked questioningly at her, anxious to set the barricade between them and us; she was staring at the doorstep.

Rumbo was lying there, his furry little body discolored with blood, his jaws locked open in shock. His eyes were corpse's slits.