The Magic Cottage

THE COTTAGE

SO THERE it was before us. And on initial observation the cottage was enchanting.

I'd pulled the car over onto the grass in front of the crumbling fence and now we both sat staring at Gramarye, Mora Chaldean's roundhouse, Midge, it seemed, as if in awe, and me—well, let's say pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure what I had expected, but this wasn't quite it.

The building really was round, although the main section facing us was conventionally straight, only one end curving away (we were to understand the structure a little later), and it was on three levels if the attic was included, so maybe "cottage" was the wrong description. Yet it did look like a cottage, because it was set into a grassy bank which somehow reduced its size. The bank swept around from the sides, moss-covered stone steps eating into the lefthand slope, leveling down to the front garden. There were trees on the rise, some with branches scraping against the white brickwork, and beyond was further woodland (wouldn't you know?). The windows at the front were small and multipaned, adding even more charm to the general setting, and the roof was of discolored red tiles.

Okay, that was our first glimpse, and the overall impression was more than pleasing.

"Mike, it's wonderful," Midge said in a kind of hushed breath, her gaze roaming over the wild colors rampaging through the garden area, flowers that had got used to having their own way.

"Pretty," I had to admit. "Let's take a closer look before—" Midge was already out of the car.

She ran around to my side and stood facing the cottage, the brightness in her eyes increased. No disappointment, no disillusionment, there. She bit nervously into her lower lip, but all the while her small smile remained. I joined her and slipped an arm around her slim waist, studying her expression at first, and smiling myself. Then I turned to take in Gramarye more fully.

A tiny shock of recognition touched me, but the sensation was fleeting, too nebulous to be understood. Had I been there before? No, never in a thousand years. I couldn't remember having even visited this part of the country at any time. Yet there was something familiar about . . . I shrugged off the feeling, putting it down to some form of déjà vu, perhaps a peculiar but mild backlash of anticipation.

There was no need to ask Midge her impression so far: it was all there shining in her eyes. She left me and slowly walked toward the gate; I had to call out to remind her of my existence. She turned and my mind freeze-framed.

The shot's with me now, always will be, clear and sharp, and almost mystical: Midge, small and slender, dark hair falling without curls close around her neck, her lips slightly parted, and in those sweet blue-gray eyes that tilted a little at the corners, a gleam of wonder and joy, an expression that disturbed me yet made me happy for her at the same time; and she wore jeans, a loose short-sleeved blouse tucked into them, sandals on her small feet; and behind her loomed—no, not loomed, because the whole scene, with Midge in the foreground, blended so well, was so complete— stood Gramarye, its white walls now visibly crumbled and stained, windows lifeless yet somehow observing, the grounds sun-dazzled with colors, while beyond and around was the all-encompassing forest. You might say it was a storybook scene, and certainly one to be impressed on the mind.

Then she'd turned back, breaking the spell, and was leaning over the gate's catch. The entrance squealed open and Midge stepped inside as I moved to join her. I reached to take her arm but she was gone again, tripping down the overgrown path like an eager child, making for the cottage door.

I followed at a more leisurely pace, noticing that on closer inspection the late-May flowers were not quite as bright as they had appeared from the distance. They had, in fact, that end-of-summer look, when most flora is past its prime and wearying into decline, their petals curled and dry. Not to put too fine a point on it, they looked pretty sick. Weeds flourished everywhere, healthy enough specimens these. The path was made of flat broken stones, and long grass pushed through the cracks, almost smothering the hard surfaces in parts.

I found Midge peering through a grimy curtainless window, one hand forming a shadowed tunnel between fore-head and glass. Grubby though the panes may have been, they were of good old-fashioned thickness—I could see smooth ripples near the base where the glass had relaxed before hardening. Unfortunately, the frames were rotting and flaky.

"Not exactly House and Garden, is it?" I ventured, loaning forward to peer in with Midge.

"It's empty," she said.

"What did you expect?"

"I thought there might still be furniture inside."

"Probably auctioned off soon after the Will was settled. We'll have a better idea of how the place could look without the old lady's clutter."

Midge gave me a reproving glance as she straightened. "Let's see around the outside before we go in."

"Uh huh." I was still gazing through the window, wiping at the glass with my fingers for a better view. All I could make out was a big black range set into a chimney breast.

It'll be great cooking on that."

"The range? It'll be fun." There was no dampening her enthusiasm.

"More like a forge," I added. "I suppose we could have both—an electric cooker as well as that monster. Still, no shortage of wood to fuel the thing."

Midge pulled at my arm. "Could be very avant-garde in a 'back-to-our-roots' sort of way. Come on, let's take a look around the back."

I pushed away from the window and she stabbed at my lace with her lips, then was off again. I trailed behind, examining the front door as I went. The wood looked sturdy enough, although there were one or two thin cracks running the length of its lower panels. Above, set in the frame, were two narrow windows no more than four inches deep, and a bell pull hung to one side of the door, mounted against the brickwork. The entrance was sheltered by an open-sided storm porch, which looked thoroughly useless to me. A coach lamp hung on the opposite side to the bell, its interior smeared with cobwebs. I tugged at the bell's handle as I passed and its chime was dull and disinterested, but the clunk gave Midge cause to look back. I hunched over and did Quasimodo for her, mad-eyed and tongue filling one cheek.

"Be careful the wind doesn't change," she called as she mounted the steps running around the building's curve.

I lumbered after her, catching up on the fourth moss-layered step. Arm in arm we rounded the curve and began to appreciate better the cottage's structure. The main portion certainly was circular, with the kitchen area (where the range was located) and the rooms above branching off as an extension. All very small scale, you understand. The shape certainly gave Gramarye character, and undoubtedly added an odd charm. Unfortunately, its general condition was as poor as the unhealthy flowers in the garden.

The brickwork, originally washed white but now graying and considerably stained, was crumbling in parts, the pointing virtually absent in several sections. Tiles littered the ground beneath our feet, so I imagined the roof to be pitted with holes. The steps had led us to another door, once painted a dismal olive green and now blistered and peeling, revealing rotted wood beneath. The door faced south and the woods that were no more than a hundred or so yards away across an expanse of tall grass and bramble, a few individual trees dotted here and there like members of a cautious advance party; a clearer area, obviously trampled down over the years, spread out ten or twelve yards from the building, with smaller trees—plum and crab-apple I thought, though I was no expert at the time—standing fruitless (and somewhat dejected, I also thought) closer to the cottage. On this side, because Gramarye was built into the embankment (or rise) the cottage appeared to have only two stories, and was as round as an silo. The apparent "ground"-floor windows were arched at the top and Midge had already left me to press her nose against one.

"Mike, come and look," she called, "it's fabulous inside."

I joined her and was as impressed as she—although "fabulous" was stretching it a bit—for the curved walls accommodated three longish windows which must have enabled the room to capture the sun's rays throughout the day.

Opposite, and through an open doorway, I could make out a hallway with stairs leading up and down; presumably another door led off into the squared section of the building from the hall. Sunlight fairly glowed from the walls, no shadowed corners to be found, even the dirt on the windows unable to suppress the radiance from outside. It looked warm and happy in there, despite the bareness. And oh yeah, it looked inviting.

"Let's sit for a moment." I'd noticed a weather-beaten bench tucked in the corner where the straight wall of the cottage peeled away from the circle; the wooden seat looked as if it had either taken root or had grown from the very earth itself.

"I want to go inside," Midge replied impatiently.

"Sure, in a minute. Let's just take stock of what we've got so far."

She was reluctant, but moved with me to the bench, where we sat and gazed out at the nearby woods. They seemed thick and impenetrable, but at that time not the least bit sinister.

"It's wonderful," Midge sighed needlessly. "So much better than I expected."

"Oh really? Between you and me, I thought you expected quite a lot."

A frown marked her face, but didn't make her any less pretty. "I—I just knew instinctively it was going to be right."

I held up a hand. "Wait. We haven't been in there yet."

"We don't need to."

"Oh yes we do. Let's not get carried away here. The ad said in need of renovation, right? That might just be enough to push it over our price. The outside alone's gonna need a lot of repair, and God knows what the inside's like."

"We can take that into account when we make our offer."

"I think that's already been done by the agent. He told you over the phone the kind of price they're looking for, but unless we go under that we could have trouble finding the cash to make the place liveable."

I was saying all the wrong things to Midge, but I had to make her face up to the reality of the situation. She studied the ground as though an answer might lie in the soil. When she looked up again I could see stubbornness had set in—no, not exactly stubbornness, Midge wasn't that kind of person; let's call it a quiet determination. She was generally pretty soft, pliable even (a facet that often annoyed me when her agent pressured her into accepting commissions she didn't really want either because of timing or subject matter), but underneath that lay a resoluteness which surfaced only when she knew she was absolutely right about something, or needed that particular trait to carry her through a difficult time. I suspected, in fact, that her quiet determination had been born out of bad passages in her life, and believe me, Midge had had some.

My arm went around her shoulders and I hugged her to me. "Just don't want you to build your hopes too high, Pixie," I said softly, using the nickname saved for tender moments. "So far, I like the place myself, even though the location scares me a little."

"It'll be good for your work, Mike," she replied, and there was an endearing earnestness in her voice. "It's what you need, away from all those distractions, those . . ."

She had paused and I said the word for her. "Friends."

"So-called 'friends.' And Gramarye will be so right for me, too. I just know I can work here."

"You don't figure we'll get lonely?"

She shook her head emphatically. "No chance. Not together, Mike, you know that. And have you already forgotten all those times we've talked of being away from everybody, somewhere out of reach, with no agents or musicians dropping in or sacking down for the night? Being lonely would be bliss. Anyway, I bet there's a lively community hereabouts. We'll soon make new friends, friends of a different kind though, and ones we can keep at a safe distance."

"They might be too different for our liking."

"We're in Hampshire, not Outer Mongolia. A couple of hours away from the city. They speak the same language here."

"Maybe not quite the same."

Midge rolled her eyes heavenward. "You city slickers are full of it. You'll learn soon enough."

"All right, but don't forget that today the sun is shining, the sky is blue—"

"There's not a cloud to spoil the view," she rhymed.

"But when it is raining, when winter comes and it's freezing, or when we're cut off completely because of snow—"

"Mmm," she murmured, snuggling up, "that'll be lovely. We probably won't be able to leave the cottage for weeks and we'll have to have a roaring fire going to keep ourselves warm, or cuddle under bedclothes for days on end. lust imagine the things we can get up to to keep ourselves amused."

Midge had a knack of hitting below the belt, my weakest point. "Be sensible," I complained.

"I am. I'll make things so cozy you'll become a hermit."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"And I'll have to force you out into the harsh cold wind to bring back bread for the table."

"You're not helping."

She became serious again, but still smiled when she said, "Feel this place, Mike. Close your eyes and really feel it. Gramarye is so good and so perfect for us."

I didn't actually close my eyes, but a peculiar sense of well-being definitely rose inside, an intoxication that was very mild yet filling. No, not the kind that comes from a good toke, but something else, something more real, somehow more permanent. Say it was the warmth of the sun's rays, the very pleasantness of the day itself and my surroundings. Call it, even, the strength of Midge's own conviction flowing into me, a sensing natural enough to true lovers. At one time I'd have concluded it was only those influences. Not now, though. Oh no, not now that I know so much more.

"Let's look inside," I said to avoid the final commitment, and Midge's smile only became more knowing. She stood and drew out the three labeled keys from her jeans' pocket. Dutifully she handed them to me, a gesture that seemed to say, "Okay, fate is in your own hands and inside is where you'll find it."

I took them and moved toward the back door with Midge close on my heels. Stopping before the marked and tired-looking old door, I held up the long keys and pondered on which one to try first. Two were cut the same, so I decided they would probably be for the front door. I pushed the odd one home and it fitted easily. But it wouldn't turn.

Neither would the next key. Nor the next, the second's twin.

I groaned. "Looks like Bickleshift gave us the wrong set."

"Let's try the front," Midge suggested.

"Okay, but one of these has to be for this door if they're the right keys."

We descended the curving steps carefully because of the moss and were soon under the open porch. I chose number one and inserted it into the lock to find it still wouldn't turn. Growing more frustrated I tried two and three again with no luck. The door wouldn't budge, even when I twisted the handle and used shoulder pressure. The wood creaked, but didn't move a fraction.

"Let me," said Midge, pushing between me and the door.

"It's no good. The lock's either rusted solid, or Bickleshift made a mistake with the keys." I examined the label and GRAMARYE was clearly typed.

She took them from me without a word and held one of the "twins" up to her face for a second before decisively pushing it home into the lock. Her wrist twisted and I thought I saw her give a little gasp, almost as if the key had turned of its own accord. I may have been mistaken.

The door opened easily and smoothly, without even the hint of a horror-movie creak; the air that rushed out was musty and damp, and seemed glad to be free.