The Magic Cottage

the constant attention of birds and various animals around the place helped in this respect, bristling life banishing shadowy specters. The cottage would never be quite the same, but our peace of mind had been only slightly dented, not permanently damaged.

As you've already gathered, it had been an exceptionally glorious summer, and a small price had to be paid. The debt collector was about to rap on the windscreen as we sped down that secluded lane.

The Passat had spent weeks out under the boiling sun, used regularly and, to my discredit, rarely checked over. When I saw steam rising over the hood I tried to remember when I had last topped up the radiator. The temperature gauge was way up in the danger zone and a red light glared disgustedly at me.

'Shit!' I growled as clouds rose up in front.

Midge, who had never been machine-minded, said, 'What's wrong with it, Mike?'

I could glare just as hard as that bloody red light, and Midge turned her head to the front once again.

'Sorry I asked,' she said.

I brought the car to a halt and sat there, letting the engine and myself steam for a while.

'Can you fix it?' Midge ventured after a while, watching the billowing clouds as though they were part of the afternoon's entertainment.

Forcing myself to relax, I replied, 'Only by spitting in the radiator.' I studied the clouds too, but with less awe than Midge.

'Don't you think you should try and do something?'

I sighed. 'Yeah, you're right. Maybe only the fan belt's gone. You wearing tights today?'

She gave me a quick flash and dashed my hopes. Groaning, I pushed open the door. 'Pull that thing up, will you, Midge?' I pointed at a lever on the passenger side. She did so and the hood sprang open an inch.

I got out of the car and walked around to the front, muttering to myself as I slid my fingers through the gap and released the hood catch. Pushing the lid all the way up and turning my face away from the tumbling steam, I secured the hood with the retaining rod, then peered into the dragon's mouth. The fan belt was in good shape.

Maybe the demon drink had been enough to dull my senses, or I could have just had a mental relapse for a moment or two, because then I did something stupid, something that all motorists are warned against by those who know better: I took out my handkerchief, bunched it up over the radiator cap, and twisted.

The idea was to release the pressure, but of course once the cap was loosened, boiling water exploded upward like a thermal geyser. My left hand instinctively shot up to protect my eyes as I staggered backward and I howled—no, I screamed—when my skin was scalded by the fiery jet.

I fell, clutching at my arm and writhing with pain in the roadway. I was dimly aware of Midge kneeling beside me, trying to hold me still so that she could examine the burns. Some of my face and neck had been scalded, but the all-consuming pain was in my left hand and lower arm. My short-sleeved denim shirt was wet, but had at least provided a thin barrier against the boiling water for my chest.

I managed to sit, Midge supporting me with an arm around my back; my vision was too blurred with pain- squeezed tears for me to see the damage to my hand, but the agony was more than I'd ever felt in my life before.

Suddenly Midge was on her feet waving her arms frantically in the air. I was conscious of a red car drawing up, two figures getting out and hurrying over to me, one of them vaguely familiar. They knelt in the road and the mail—the other was a young girl—gently pulled at my injured arm.

'Oh dear, oh dear,' I heard him mutter. Then he reached behind me and hauled me to my feet. 'You'd better come along with us so we can quickly attend to that.'

I looked down at my injured limb, blinking, away the dampness from my eyes, and saw that the skin was already beginning to bubble. Gritting my teeth, I allowed them to lead me to their car.

If anything, Midge was more distressed than me so, now I was over the initial shock, I did my best to grin reassuringly at her. It must have come out as an agonized grimace, because her mouth went down at the corners like a small child's and she fought back tears.

I was guided into the back seat of the couple's car, clutching my arm before me as if it were a freshly boiled lobster, and when the girl climbed into the driver's seat I recognized the braided hair, then the face as she turned anxiously toward me: it was Sandy, the girl I had rescued from the village punks the week before.

She said, 'Mike, we're going to take you back with us to treat those burns. The Temple is less than a minute away.'

'He needs a hospital,' insisted Midge, next to me in the car.

The man had just opened the front passenger door and was leaning in. He was middle-aged, balding and very thin, his cheeks so sunken that the bones above cast shadows. 'The nearest hospital is many miles away and he needs something done about the pain immediately. You can take him on to hospital afterward—if you think that's necessary.' He sat and didn't speak again throughout the brief journey.

Sandy executed a hasty five-point turn in the narrow road and headed back in the direction from which they'd come. As Midge dabbed at the cooled dampness on my face with a tiny handkerchief, I realized I was in the same red Escort that Kinsella had arrived at the cottage in several evenings ago. She left my hand and lower arm alone, the skin there mottled a fierce scarlet and the flesh already beginning to swell.

The car stopped and Sandy jumped out. We were before tall wrought-iron gates set between staunch, gray pillars, a high wall of old brick continuing on either side. Beyond the gate we could see the huge house, the one we'd only seen from the back on our walk through the forest—Bleak House, as I'd mentally dubbed it. The girl swung open the gates while her older companion watched impassively through the window. Sandy hurriedly returned, her expression as anxious as Midge's, and set the Escort in motion again.

Although very much preoccupied with my own discomfort, I took note of the house as it loomed larger. It seemed strange that the place should be set back-to-front, the rear at the end of the long drive and facing toward the gates; even so, Croughton Hall aka The Synergist Temple was still coldly impressive from whatever view.

We passed around the side of the building, drawing up in the rectangular turning area. From there, the meadow stretched upward toward the woodland. By now I was beginning to tremble some, delayed shock I supposed. The man in front got out and opened my door; gingerly protecting my arm, I struggled from the car and looked up at the house. Don't ask me why, but even then when I could barely think of anything other than the intense burning pain, I was reluctant to go inside. Midge, however, appeared to have no such qualms.

'Come on, Mike, the sooner we immerse your arm in water, the better for you,' she said, tugging firmly at my elbow. Sandy positioned herself on my other side, while the bony man led the way up the wide stairway to the entrance. Before we'd even reached the top step, one side of the big double door opened and Kinsella was there frowning down at us.

'Mike, what the hell's happened to you?' he called out.

'A disagreement with a car radiator,' I quipped, not really feeling that humorous. In fact, I thought I was going to throw up at any moment.

His face blanched when he caught sight of my clawed hand. 'Oh God, you'd better get him in here fast.' He threw open the other side of the door to allow us all through.

By now I was really shaking, try as I might to control it. Midge clung to me as if afraid I would collapse.

We were in a large hallway, a broad staircase opposite leading up to a gallery. The pain was growing worse, so I wasn't taking too much notice of my surroundings, but still I was aware of the sudden dim coolness inside the house.

'Can we get him into the kitchen or bathroom and put his arm in cold water?' I heard Midge implore.

'We can do much more than that,' Kinsella replied. He turned to the girl and said in a voice that was barely audible, 'Tell Mycroft who's here and exactly what's happened. Hurry.'

Sandy hurried.

He spoke to the Bone Man next and only later did I wonder at Kinsella's authority. 'Let the others know,' was all he said, and the older man immediately scurried off.

'Okay, Mike, let's try and get you comfortable.' The American opened a door off the hallway and ushered us through.

We found ourselves inside a large drawing room—or it may have been a library, so crammed with books were the walls. The heavy mustiness of the atmosphere which, even in my condition, was distinct and somehow unpleasant, suggested that most of the volumes were old editions. Not that I was in the mood for browsing.