The Magic Cottage

FLORA

IT WAS A ludicrous situation: Midge and me sprawled on the floor, the Synergists spread around the room, edging in for the kill—and now the Avon Lady was calling.

Only it wasn't someone selling perfume out there. And we hadn't heard door chimes: the "bring out your dead" sound had come from the old bell hanging outside the kitchen door. The urgency in its tone told us the caller wasn't going to go away (and all the cars out front indicated that somebody had to be home).

Mycroft gave a barely perceptible nod of his head toward Kinsella, and before I could move the American had dashed forward to slip an arm beneath Midge's throat. Her feet kicked air as he lifted.

Mycroft came closer to me. "You'll get rid of whoever's out there. I'm not concerned with how, but you'll do it. Your sweet little loved one will suffer if you fail. A sharp pull of his arm and her windpipe will be crushed instantly. He can do it, believe me he can easily do that . . ."

I looked up at Kinsella and didn't doubt for a moment that he could and would. Taking in that wide, handsome face I wondered whatever had happened to Mom's Apple Pie and the American Way.

I rose unsteadily and considered rushing him, grabbing his arm or knocking him flat before he could do any damage, but I soon dismissed the idea: the bastard was too strong and too quick and I'd be too slow and not strong enough.

"If you hurt her . . ." I said unconvincingly, and he loved the threat. He squeezed one of her breasts with his free hand just to show me how scared he was, and the craziness in his smile made me shudder.

Midge squirmed against him, unable to cry out because of the bar against her throat.

I took a step toward them and he increased the pressure on her neck so that Midge's eyes rolled upward with the pain.

"I'll finish her and then you'll be next," he warned amiably.

I backed off, hands raised. There was nothing I could do. The bell downstairs rang more insistently.

"Don't be foolish in any way," Mycroft advised.

I shrugged and brushed by him, going into the hallway. Madness, I kept telling myself as I stomped down the stairs. The whole bloody thing is total, unbelievable madness. And if these lunatics were going to get us anyway, why not make a break for it when I opened the door? At least I'd get to the police. But the car keys were still upstairs, dropped in the mêlée. The caller would have come by car, though. Grab whoever it was and run for it, drive into the village and bring back help; that was the thing to do. But leave Midge alone in the hands of these freaks? That question didn't even need a conscious answer.

A stairboard gave beneath me and I abruptly found myself sitting down, one foot sunk deep into the carpet. Movement from behind and I knew one, or maybe two, of the Synergists lurked at the bend of the stairs, waiting to pass the word back should I misbehave when I answered the door.

The bell stopped clanging.

I felt a terrible despair.

Then the door was being pounded.

I picked myself up and hurried down the last few steps, crossing the kitchen and reaching the door without further deliberation. The wood was straining against the frame as though the person outside was angry and impatient, and desperate to be let in. My fingers touched the top bolt and froze on the cold metal; I was suddenly aware of who it was out there. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. My arm slowly lowered as if of its own accord and I stared at the door.

She'd been trying to reach us for a long time now.

My fear had reached a new zenith, rising from the slushy morass of dread like a dripping creature from a swamp.

Did I really want to face that figure who'd watched us from a distance? Did I want to come face to face with that ravaged countenance, to stand within feet of her? Did I want to smell her putridness so close, the stink of corrupting death that had already fouled the air inside the cottage? Did I finally want to meet my own nightmare?

Did I have a choice?

The banging had stopped as if she knew I was on the other side and that it was only a matter of time before the door opened. I reached up for the bolt once more and slammed it back, compelled by a will other than my own.

My fingers slid down the painted wood, sinking to the metal bar at the foot of the door. I snapped the lever horizontal, then began to slide the bar open.

"No!"

Still crouched, I turned to find Mycroft at the bottom of the stairs; something had made him follow me down. The hint of panic in his command told me he knew who was out there, too.

"Don't open that door!"

My grin may have been nervous, but it was a grin. I shot the bolt all the way back, stood and twisted the key in the lock. Then I opened the door.

I stared at the figure on the step, stunned speechless.

Because, of course, I was wrong again.

She marched by me, grousey as ever. "I thought you'd never open up," Val complained, well into the kitchen before turning to face me. "I saw the cars parked outside and assumed you were entertaining, but I've been ringing that bell and thumping on that door for ages. I was just about to come around to the other side."

Big, bristling Val; tweed two-piece suit, heavy brogues and thick stockings. Gorgeous, mustachioed Val.

"Val," I croaked. I wasn't angry like last time.

The breeze from the open doorway cooled the back of my clammy neck.

"Good Lord, you'd think I was a ghost the way you're standing there. Are you all right, Mike? I drove down because I was anxious over what we discussed earlier today. You know there's something very odd—"

"Get rid of her!" shrieked Mycroft.

Val had obviously noticed him immediately she'd stepped into the cottage, but now she gave the Synergist her full attention. "I beg your pardon?" she said, and I'd withered under that tone and that glare myself a few times in the past.

"Make her leave."

Mycroft spoke in a low, even voice, but I could tell his rag was going. Me, I was glad to see her, although I realized her presence didn't help the situation any; formidable though Val was, we were up against something more than mere numbers.

"Mike, I'm sorry if I've interrupted anything, but will you kindly inform this ill-mannered cretin . . ."

She'd spun toward me again and indignation trailed off with the sentence as she looked beyond me at the doorway.

The breeze wafting in was even more chilly, bringing with it a faint and peculiarly sour-sweet fragrance.

A hand touched my shoulder from behind.

Afraid to look all at once, I twisted my head and saw the shadow. Her breath touched my cheek.

I turned all the way.

She was small, much smaller than I'd expected. Tiny. And frail. And she had the oldest and sweetest face I'd ever seen.

Her eyes were pale, paler even than Midge's, and it seemed as though clouds drifted in them. Her lips were ancient-thin, the edges curled under; but all the same, it was a kind mouth, the lines at each end not spoiling her expression. And although her nose was sharp, it portrayed no arrogance, only a determination of will. Wrinkles splayed around her features in whorls and ridges, yet it was a clear, unsullied face, full of vibrancy and compassion, a Mother Teresa vision that had seen so much and felt so much, the experience etched in with those age-lines as explicitly as words in a book. Around her head she wore a shawl, many colors woven into its coarse material with no distinctive pattern formed; white hair, strands seeping over her shoulders, peeked from beneath the shawl. Her dress was long, high-necked, and dark gray in color, of a vogue in favor with Whistler's Mother.

Flora Chaldean stretched up her other hand, so that both rested on my shoulders.

I suddenly understood with that touch the extraordinary gathering of spiritual energy it had taken for her to reach this point. Her past peripherality, her gradual drawing closer to the cottage, had been no more than a visual (or visionary) representation of her struggle for materialization, the accumulating of psychic forces, the molding of her spirit existence into tangible form. Yet somehow I felt that only what was happening inside Gramarye that night had allowed the final barrier between the spiritual and the physical world to be breached.

I saw all this in her cloudy eyes, as though those vapors were her very thoughts. And I was aware that her presence was a warning, as it had been throughout our time at Gramarye, when her form had been observed only as a spectral shadow in the distance.

She drew close and her mouth opened, but again, I've no idea whether I heard the word or sensed the thought.

But what she said with her mouth or with her thoughts, was:

"You . . ."

And then she began to decay before my eyes. It was as though she had burned up all the psychic energy it had taken to bring her to this moment, the final thrust of entering Gramarye using the last of her strength; now the process was going into reverse, into decline, the advancement toward the physical sense backtracking like a video rewind. Soon I was glad I hadn't got close during those early stages, those times I had seen her out there near the forest watching Gramarye.

The wrinkles in her face and hands deepened then dropped away leaving only faint lines, as her flesh became . . . loose. Passion went from her eyes as if the clouds had joined in a blanketing fog. Her hands shook on my shoulders, tapping a soft, irregular drumbeat, and her skin became waxen, almost shiny like glazed meat. It began to stretch, become paper-thin; it began to tear.

Her decomposition was rapid, taking no more than a minute or two, yet each second was timeless in itself.

The festering of her body started.

Where flies had settled on her as she had lain slumped at the table in Gramarye's kitchen all those months ago, so their spawn reappeared, white rippling maggots that feasted and grew, forming a correlation of restlessness, a superbly drilled regiment of minute carnivores. They disappeared into holes that they, themselves, created.

The deep stench poured over me and I held my breath, afraid to take in the fumes.

Her meat began to sag, to drop away, exposing muscle and bone, uncovering those crawling things busy inside. Her eyelids were no longer firm enough to contain her eyes, which drifted out onto her ravaged face. One hand that had rested on my shoulder slowly slid down my chest, the bones of the fingers—there was little flesh left on the hand—snagging against the tattered material of my shirt.

She shrank before me, a figure that had been small in life becoming smaller as bones and muscle relaxed into each other. Her other hand—the skeleton of her other hand—fell away.

Other things wriggled in those dark, bone-ridged eye cavities, black things that scuttled over each other, things like pieces of string that curled and slimed, all glorying in their treasurehouse of sustenance. Her jaw gaped open, nothing left to control its movement, and it seemed that even her blackened, withered tongue had joined the ranks of the crawling beasts, had become one of them.

The shawl slipped from her head and her white hair hung in sparse, limp clusters, and skin was only islands of tissue layers on the gray skull.

Her body slowly collapsed and mercifully started dissolving before reaching the floor. Clothes, bone, and liquefying flesh lay in a heap on the tiles, but within moments, those too were gone. There was nothing left of Flora Childean save for the smell.

I staggered backward, jolting hard against the door frame. Val was staring at the kitchen floor in disbelief. Mycroft had all but collapsed against the stairs. I saw that his eyes were half closed as though he had been wearied, drained of strength.

Yet strangely, I felt charged, a kind of chemical energy sparking within me, sending blood pounding around my body, causing nerve endings to tingle and throb. She had touched my shoulders and her eyes and thoughts had filled me. But still I didn't understand!

Until I found Mycroft watching me warily and I sensed his fear and respect. Then I began to know . . .