The Magic Cottage (40 page)

‘They’re speaking,’ said Midge in a hushed voice.

‘I can’t hear anything.’ My own voice was a whisper.

A breeze stirred around us.

‘They’re faint, but they’re here.’ Midge opened her eyes again.

I noticed Mycroft’s were boring into hers. Then he turned his attention to me and his pupils were like tiny black holes, bottomless but not empty.

There was a shadow behind him. Grey and wispy, and moving forward. Another behind that one, appearing just beyond his left shoulder. Both taking on shimmering form.

Voices, an eternity away. So faint. From another dimension. Yet not voices at all. Thoughts that pressed into ours.

‘Father?’ said Midge.

One of the flimsy clouds at Mycroft’s shoulder shifted as if stirred by an air current. And the thought in my mind answered her.

The breeze became a gust.

‘Show Mike that you’re really here.’ It was a plea from Midge.

The nebula took on more form: a vaporous head, a line of a shoulder. It became almost liquid, rippling as features shaped themselves. Those features slowly grew familiar to me, although they remained wavery and indistinct.

A word insinuated itself into my mind:

‘. . .
Trust
. . .’

But I didn’t want to trust, because it was telling me to put my faith in Mycroft, this hazy spirit of Midge’s dead father was telling me to believe in the Synergist, and I didn’t want to because I
knew
he was a charlatan, that he had a purpose for Midge, but I didn’t know what that purpose was, and I was going to resist,
resist
, I was going . . .

My incredulous gaze was drawn to the second fluid shape hovering there by Mycroft’s other shoulder and it, too, was familiar, a face from photographs shown to me by Midge many times in the past, and she, this ghost of a woman, told me the same:

‘. . . trust . . . in . . . him . . .’

Midge was on her knees, reaching towards them, her upturned face fresh with its own glow despite the surrounding dimness, and I held her back, one arm around her shoulder, my other hand clenching her wrist; but still she shuffled forward, and it was towards Mycroft that she moved, on her knees, a cripple towards a faith healer, a follower towards her high priest.

For one fleeting moment his concealing mask fell away, his resolve failing as he indulged in the pleasure of triumph.

I caught that jubilant glint and something clicked inside my head, like a fingernail tapping on the window of my brain, warning me to accept none of this. These ghosts were just vapours, with no form and no thoughts.

‘It’s a trick!’ I yelled at Midge, dragging her down so that we both sprawled at Mycroft’s feet. ‘That isn’t your parents! He’s making us see them!’

She cried aloud, refuting my words, struggling against me.

The gust had steadily risen to a gale, ruffling our clothes, dispersing the mists so that they were spread thinly, eventually to be whipped into nothing.

Mycroft looked around as if startled, and that puzzled me. I wondered what new game he was playing. He suddenly seemed as confused as me. The Synergist half rose, but the wind tore at him so that he stumbled back. He raised the cane to beat at the storm, but then his eyes caught mine.

On another occasion I might have laughed, seeing his mouth drop open the way it did. Right then, though, the situation wasn’t conducive to humour. He was staring disbelievingly at me and I didn’t understand why.

Until I became conscious of the cloud dribbling from my mouth like cigarette smoke.

It came from my fingers too, snaking out in tendrils, curling into the air to be torn away by the wind that now howled, drawn from me into the room. It was as if my innards were burning and my mouth and fingertips were the points through which the smoke could escape; yet there was no pain, only a feathery lightness inside me.

The mist billowed into the room, more and more extracted from me so that it gathered force, revolved in the air like a miniature whirlwind, with us at its centre.

And in it, there were other voices.

They may have been as those before, sounds in our minds alone, but they
seemed
to come from around us. These had nothing to do with Mycroft, because he was cowering behind his cane as if it were a shield.

When the voices became coherent their message was different:

‘. . .
Leave this place . . . leave this house
. . .’

Two voices, two mental sounds; and they howled together with the wind.

Midge watched the storming mists and her face was sodden with tears.

Her voice was like a child’s, a five-year-old’s: ‘Mummy . . . Daddy . . .’

I was scared shitless.

‘Mum
eeee
. . . Dadd
eeee
. . .!’

Now she looked like a child.

I clambered to my feet, relieved at least that the cloudy flow had stopped trailing from me. Midge’s eyes were wide and imploring. Mycroft was still crouching on the floor, his eyes wide too, but with fear. That suited me fine.

‘Come on, Midge.’ I reached for her.

She focused on me instantly. ‘Yes,’ she cried. ‘Yes!’

As she rose, so the winds quickly died, and the vapours were soon drifting, then hanging, in the air. They began to dissolve.

I didn’t wait any longer. I dragged Midge to the door, scraping my back as we entered the squared section of the sloping wall. I yanked the door open and there were Kinsella and Bone Man waiting, a couple of other Synergists with them. They looked anxious enough.

I bunched my fist. ‘Keep away from us! Just fucking keep
away
!’

Kinsella looked uncertain, but he had the muscle. He began crowding me.

‘No!’ came Mycroft’s voice from within the pyramid room. ‘Not here! Let them go.’ Then weaker: ‘Let them go . . .’

We went. We went like bats out of hell.

Flight

That sloping field to the woods might not have seemed so steep on the descent, but going up was different: I had the feeling we were climbing a down-escalator. My thigh muscles were soon aching, the weight of Midge clinging to me making the ascent even more awkward. The first line of trees seemed a long way off.

But we’d been frightened, and there’s nothing like a good scare to get the adrenalin pumping. Our flight may have lacked style, but it wasn’t short of effort.

Midge stumbled once, about halfway up the incline, and as I hauled her to her feet again I glanced back at the house. It stood as a huge monolith, brooding grey and tomb-cold; it looked about ready to uproot and lumber after us. Although I couldn’t see into those dark window eyes, I knew the Synergists were watching from them.

Midge was already breathing hard and there was a fragility about her that was worrying.

‘What . . . what happened in there, Mike?’ she managed to gasp.

‘Mycroft,’ was all I said.

Gripping her elbow, I pulled her onwards, keeping her upright and moving, keen to be under cover, away from those eyes. Progress seemed bad-dream slow, as though mud was sucking our feet; yet the soil beneath the grass was summerdry and firm. Eventually I had to slip an arm around Midge’s waist and support her against my hip to keep her going.

The light was poor, the sun no more than a florid dome on the horizon. Night was sinking in. And the forest would soon be a dark place.

Without stopping, I twisted my head to look behind us again, and maybe I was expecting Synergists (the initiates – that’s what they really were) to be pouring from their Temple, giving chase; no figures were loping up the hill after us, though, and the house was still and grave as before. So why the hell did I feel
someone
breathing down our necks?

We made it to the trees, running as if to a Vangelis soundtrack, motion dreary slow, exertion exaggerated. But we were finally there and the relief was immediate, a burden lifted, a rubber band snapped. I told myself the reviving coolness of the forest was responsible, but I sensed there was more to it than that. We were out of sight of the house.

Midge leaned against me, arms limply going around my neck, her chest heaving as she struggled to regain her breath. I kissed the top of her head, welcoming her back, sinking a hand into her hair and keeping her close. I gave her time to recover, letting her calm herself, reassuring her with whispers. But I didn’t want to wait there too long.

The dusk was fast becoming threatening, the shadows between trees concealing. Branches above us were like contorted arms, agitated by our intrusion, some reaching down as if ready to snag us should we pass within reach; nearby foliage rippled as something slithered beneath its sprawl. There were other eyes inside this forest, and these were wary, uneasy at our presence.

‘We’d better keep moving,’ I said to Midge, stroking her cheek with the back of my finger, ‘before it gets too dark to find our way home.’

‘I need to understand, Mike. I need to know what’s happened to us, what happened there inside the Temple.’

‘We’ll talk as we go.’

She held on to me.

‘Forgive me for the way I’ve acted over the last few days,’ she said quietly. ‘I can’t explain why, or what I was thinking – why I blamed you for so much.’

‘It isn’t your fault. I think . . . I think other influences have been involved. Look, I don’t know, this is all so weird, everything that’s happened since we came to Gramarye has been crazy, and somehow we’ve accepted it – or let’s say, not questioned the craziness too much. It’s not your fault, Midge, but it is something to do with you. You and the cottage.’

I led her away, taking her by the hand as if she were an infant, and I talked as we went, telling her about the picture she’d painted for the storybook years before –
the one her own mind had not let her remember
– how Gramarye had been part of that illustration long before she’d ever set eyes on the place, that it had obviously already existed somewhere inside her, locked away in her subconscious, a precognition of something or somewhere that would eventually
be
. I reminded her that it was she who had spotted the ad for Gramarye in the newspaper – had ringed that one alone, ignoring any others. And the association, the
union
, was sealed as soon as she arrived there. It was meant to be! Flora Chaldean’s solicitor had told me of the instructions the old lady had left with him before she’d died, details of the type of person who should be allowed to buy and live in Gramarye. Someone young, someone sensitive, someone whose decency was plainly evident. Someone ‘
special
’. Those were the requirements and no wonder the aged solicitor had shown such keen interest in her.

‘The cottage was meant for someone like you, Midge.’ I pushed away branches blocking our path. ‘Don’t ask me why, I can’t give you any sensible answers. All I can guess is that there’s something inside you that’s attuned to whatever magic there is in Gramarye.’

She pulled me to a halt.

‘Magic?’

I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I’m embarrassed. But what else can I call it? Remember the bird with the broken wing? We kidded ourselves that it couldn’t have been as badly hurt as we’d thought when we found it flying around the kitchen the next day. And all those other little things. The flowers that sprang up, the animals and birds that flocked around the door. That isn’t
normal
– we just adjusted ourselves to make it seem that way. Maybe some kind of relationship with the wildlife could have been built up after a few years – but right away?’

I started walking again and she hurried to keep up.

‘The cottage itself. Look at all those things that were wrong with it – the warped doors, rotted wood, the cracked lintel! O’Malley didn’t fix those things. They fixed themselves, for Chrissake! Because of you!’

My voice reverberated around the forest. I stopped again to look at her.

‘And, yeah, my arm. We thought Mycroft had healed the burns, but now I don’t think it was him at all. Sure, he’s got some kind of power – we’ve just had a demonstration of that. But that’s from his head, it’s what he makes people believe! He convinced me my arm didn’t hurt any more – maybe that liquid he used helped somehow – and something got the better of my scepticism. Shit, who wants to hurt if they don’t have to? But my guess is that you were the one who really
healed
it. No – you
and
Gramarye. You’re a goddam team! Jesus, no wonder Mycroft was interested in you! What a great little catch for his Synergist movement. Human will and Divine Power – you’re a living example.’

She was watching me and shaking her head, but I could tell by her eyes that she believed what I was saying. A bird fluttered from a tree ahead of us and we turned to watch nervously. A section of leaves had been left swaying and we stood there until they’d steadied themselves. The forest became still once more and we noticed the gloom was weighing heavier.

‘Are we on the right path?’ I asked Midge, looking every-which-way.

For a moment she was uncertain; then she nodded. ‘There should be a branch-off soon. We take the right-hand fork.’