The Magic Cottage

reason that what we'd actually seen was a shriveled cobweb matted against the side of the dark stone, and it had only looked like a crack to us in what was, after all, an area of dim light.

Partially satisfied with my theory, I started unpacking what was left inside the cardboard boxes and was pleased when I came across the transistor radio. I switched it on and jumped when the static roared out at me. Quickly turning down the volume, I tried tuning in to a clear station and when I hit music I extended, then swiveled the aerial. The reception was still crackly. Thinking the batteries might be running down, I reached back inside the box and found the electric cord which I attached to the radio and plugged into a wall socket. The heavy static persisted.

Muttering to myself, I switched off the set, turning as footsteps sounded on the stairs.

'Problems?' asked Midge as she entered the room.

'We must be in a bad reception area,' I told her, 'although I'm surprised it's this bad. We may need an outside aerial, maybe on the roof.'

She didn't seem concerned. 'All right, I'm just off,' she said. 'Anything you need from the village?'

'Uh, I'll probably remember when you get back. Watch yourself with the locals, 'specially those with bug-eyes and high foreheads.'

She gave me a reproving glare, then blew a kiss and was gone. I sauntered to the door and watched her hurry down the path, stooping to sniff at flowers here and there as she went. She waved back at me from the gate, then climbed into the car and started the engine. Pulling hard left to swing the Passat off the grass shoulder, Midge gave me a final wave good-bye. The car disappeared around the bend and I was alone in the cottage.

I loitered in the doorway for a short while, enjoying the bright freshness of the day, a little light-headed from the champagne and orange juice.

So far, so good, I told myself.

The rest of the morning was spent unpacking, moving furniture, reassembling units, fitting plugs, looking for items that had gone astray—the usual run of things when you move house and begin to wonder if your life will ever be organized again. Fortunately, having lived in an apartment for so long, albeit a large one, we didn't have that much furniture to bring with us; even so, what we had was easily adequate for Gramarye.

Eventually I found myself upstairs in one of the attic rooms which, I have to admit, was the place I'd been itching to get to all morning. That's where my musical equipment had been put, you see, and was the intended location for my own simple recording studio. I squatted on one of my amps and considered the problems.

Noise was one. I don't mean noise going out—who the hell could it bother?—but the sounds coming in might prove a nuisance. I didn't want every tape I made during the day to have a bird chorus. Fiberglass panels alternated with equal amounts of battening for bounce-back should overcome that particular problem, and two layers of plasterboard would also be needed for the ceiling. The room's two small windows would either have to be double-glazed or blocked in.

I mentally positioned a mixing desk, mastering machine and patch bay, forgetting for the moment the high cost of such equipment, content to enjoy the dream. Racks would be awkward because of the sloping roof, but the nineteen-inch assembling units could be spread outward instead of up if necessary.

What pleased me was that the atmosphere in the attic room felt so good. Certainly there was a mustiness about the place, but that could soon be cleared by leaving the windows open for a few days and installing heating for the colder times. I wondered what the acoustics were like and immediately reached for the pride of my guitars, a Martin 28.

When I took the instrument from its case I was surprised to find it needed barely any retuning after the move down. I chorded an E and the sound was rich and beautifully full, mellow but with that touch of hardness which could be softened or exaggerated depending on how the strings were struck. I did a few progressions, a few intricate runs, a few licks; I tried subtle augmentives and melancholy diminisheds and minor sevenths, loving the sounds, touching bass notes, taking lightning fingers up to the highest frets, filling the room and my ears and my mind with music, relishing one of those rare and exhilarating occasions when I felt total master of the ax.

Only the noises from the loft brought my playing to an abrupt halt and my head back to the attic.

I stared upward and I'm sure my mouth was agape.

No sounds now. Had I imagined them? I scanned the ceiling, my search coming to rest on the small square hatch that led into the loft. Rising slowly and wishing I hadn't watched so many horror movies in my misspent youth, I stepped forward so that I was directly below the hatch. My head tilted back and I examined the trapdoor that was only a couple of feet or so above.

My heart boogied when the sounds came again. I shuffled backward, almost knocking over the Martin balanced against an amplifier. I grabbed the neck to save the guitar from toppling and its strings vibrated metallically. My grip tightened across them to kill the noise.

I had no such control over the other noises, though. They came again, a kind of scratching scurrying. Maybe not quite that, but it was difficult to define.

Ahh come on! I said to myself, going into one of my self-conversation modes, away of goading myself on when I was uneasy about a situation. You're acting like a maiden aunt! The first time you're on your own in your new home and a couple of unexpected noises make you piss-scared. So there are mice up there. What can they do? Nibble you to death? It's an old house and bound to have lots of little creatures skulking around. Hell, this is the countryside and full of non-rent-paying lodgers! Birds, mice, spiders— But the cottage was empty before.

No, you just didn't find anything on that particular day. Now get up there and take a look.

Dragging over the room's one and only chair, I placed it beneath the hatch. The noises had died off, but that was no encouragement.

I didn't know why I felt so nervous—something to do with 'fear of the unknown,' I imagined—but my knees were less than firm when I climbed up onto that chair.

Now my face was only a few inches away from the trapdoor and I listened intently. Nothing there. Huh! No manacled, gray-haired, claw-fingernailed, dressed-in-tatters loony whom old Ma Chaldean had kept locked away for the past half-century because he, she—IT!—was the unfortunate product of family inbreeding. Oh no. No clinking of chains up there, no demented howls, just. . .

. . . Oh Christ, just that scurrying scratching sound. There it goes again, on the other side of the wood.

I stretched up a hand that wasn't very steady. The fingers flattened against the surface. I pushed.

The trapdoor resisted for about half a second, then lifted. Only an inch, that's all I opened it. Blackness inside hung on to its secret. I slowly began to straighten my arm and the gap widened like a dark and toothless mouth . . .

'Mike!'

I nearly toppled from the chair as the trapdoor banged shut (I thought I heard more scurrying noises up there). I hesitated, hand poised to try again, but Midge's voice called from the stairs once more.

'Mike, I'm back! Where are you? Come on, I've got something hot—well, it was hot—for your lunch! I raced back from the village so it wouldn't get too cold! Mike, can you hear me?'

'Yup!' I called down.

I glanced back at the closed hatch and shrugged. I was in no hurry to find out what was up there. Probably only mice in the rafters. Plenty of time to look later. Besides, I'd had hardly any breakfast and I was famished.

That was my excuse, anyway.

I jumped off the chair and went down to lunch.

THE GRAY HOUSE

THE 'HOT' PASTIES Midge had bought in the village may have been lukewarm by the time we got to eat them, but they were delicious and filling. I wolfed down two to her one, and reached into the bag of apples she'd also brought home.

'I'll cook a proper meal tonight,' she said.

'This is great,' I told her between bites. 'How was Cantrip?'