The Magic Cottage (38 page)

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 centre, the arms and upright posts 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, slit-like 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 upwards was inadvertent or intentional.

I looked in the same direction, towards 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 All-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 backwards. 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 towards 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 dialogue?’

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 defenceless. ‘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.

The Pyramid Room

It was in the shape of a pyramid, the tapering walls steep and high, apexed so that there was no ceiling.

And black.

Even the floor was black.

Above us – ten feet above, at least – shone small recessed lights, one on each angled wall, their thin beams picked out by dust motes, striking downwards like straight translucent bars, creating four soft-edged moons on the smooth floor. Their glow became substantial only when the door was closed behind us.