The Magic Cottage

'Look hard and you'll see what I mean . . .'

I yanked the phone away as static all but exploded in my ear. It sounded like a direct hit at the other end.

'Mike . . . can you hear me?'

'Only just.'

'Can you hear . . .'

'Look, Val,' I shouted, 'I'll call you back later!'

'. . . at the illustration . . .'

'Okay, okay!' I don't know if she caught my hurried good-bye, but clunking the receiver down was a relief.

I didn't stay a moment longer in the hallway musing over what Val had asked me to do. I went straight into the round room and headed for the bookcase there. I searched the titles and couldn't find the one I was looking for. But then we had many books and Midge made no special display of those illustrated by her. The spare room, where we kept the major part of our collection, was the next place I tried. I scanned the loaded shelves and soon came across Sorcerer's Kingdom.

It was a modest-sized edition, a tale of fairies and witches and sorcerers and dragons, aimed at five-to- eight-year-olds but, as we understood from the publisher, bought by many adults for the cult pleasure of its illustrations. This particular children's story did a lot for coffee tables.

I tugged at the top binding with one finger, then pulled the book free. Although it wasn't dark in the room, I carried my find over to the window.

Outside, the forest looked very still and very dense.

I flicked through the pages, looking for twenty-seven, the rich colors of the illustrations no more than kaleidoscopic patterns as they skimmed by.

Twenty-seven.

My hand pressed the leaf flat.

The focal point of the picture was a white, multiturreted castle. I vaguely remembered how the storyline ran: this was an enchanted castle inhabited by a magician, the top gun in all the land, but who was aged and failing, and seeking a worthy successor before the darker forces which prowled the woodlands and underworld subjugated his territories.

I frowned, unable to make the connection with Midge's recent painting. Not until I looked closer, that is.

There was a pixie village in the foreground of the illustration, red-capped toadstools for houses, packed bright-colored stones for a road. The pixies themselves were a jolly enough bunch. Further on, the forest began, lush and gouache green. But like the real forest outside the window, very still and very dense.

Beyond were lighter shades of the hills, the road reemerging from the woodland, and rising up from one hill was the enchanted castle itself, the ancient sorcerer diminutive but clearly seen on the highest turret.

In the forest was a small glade, and in that glade stood a tiny yet finely detailed cottage. Part of it was rounded.

There was no mistake. That cottage was Gramarye.

VOICES

THERE'S NO closing-up time for a forest—the activity goes on all night as well as all day. But most of the action is unseen whatever the hour. In the evening, though, or nighttime, there seem to be more noises, more scurryings, leaves rustling, and sometimes twigs snapping. The later the hour, the more unfriendly and secretive the forest feels. To an outsider, that is.

I did my best to follow the path Midge and I had used on other occasions, knowing where it would roughly take me and hoping that the sun wouldn't have sunk too low before I got there. I'd grabbed a jacket as I'd left the cottage, aware of how cool it could become beneath the trees at that time of evening.

Soft mulched leaf-mold shifted beneath my feet, my footsteps sounding like short gasps as I trudged through the thick layers. A springy branch taunted rather than challenged my progress along the path, and it swished back noisily into foliage behind as I pushed by, as if venting its spite.

I'd phoned the Synergist Temple to find out if Midge was there, but the line interference had become so bad I could barely hear the answering voice, let alone conduct a sensible conversation. Yet every instinct told me that's where she was and I was angry that she'd waited for me to be out of the way before sneaking off there. I'd replaced the receiver without speaking.

Unless they'd picked her up in one of their own cars, Midge would have taken the forest route to reach the Temple and that's why I trekked along that path, too; I didn't want to miss her if she was already on the way back. This was quicker than by car, anyway, the journey by road circuitous as well as meandering.

If only she'd waited, if only I'd had the chance to tell her what I'd learned. Would she have trusted the Synergists so implicitly then? I speeded up my pace.

The book illustration was another ingredient in the brew I felt was fast coming to the boil. I now understood, at least, why Gramarye had seemed vaguely familiar to me the moment I'd stepped from the car on that very first visit. And again, why there had been a pale recognition when I'd looked upon Midge's painting weeks later. Val Harradine had made the connection, although not right away; she'd had to check through Midge's past work to be sure. The detail in the book illustration was small, but then the artist's style was meticulous and sharp, loving attention paid to every part of the composition. The cottage in the picture even had a sparkling garden leading up to its door.

And there had been a figure just inside that open doorway, a dark shape, no more than a shadow.

This is crazy, I kept telling myself. Stark-staring bloody crazy! The book was a fairy tale, nothing more. A kid's bedtime story. Yet here I was, chasing through the forest to rescue my damsel in distress, desperate to save her from the evil clutches of the wicked old wizard or warlock or mystic or whatever the fuck they called these Brothers Grimm characters whose magic was murkish, not to say Black. All I needed was a white charger.

Yeah, hilarious.

I never slackened my pace for one moment.

Because I was learning to suspend my own natural beliefs. As one day we all have to.

Once or twice I thought I'd lost my way in the woods, but then I'd spot something I recognized—a fallen, rotting tree trunk, a particularly odd-shaped oak, a rain-formed pond— and I'd know I was headed more or less in the right direction. It wasn't too long before I emerged from the forest to look down at the gray house at the bottom of the wide gradient.

The house, the Temple, visibly decayed as I approached, flaws sharpened by nearness. The reddening sun behind, becoming low in the sky, failed to tint the building with any warmth. My step was steady, resolute I suppose, yet there was an element of caution about me as I wondered if I were being observed from any of those dark windows.

Soon I'd left the grass of the meadow and was on firmer, though still uneven, ground. There were four cars parked in the turning area, one of them the familiar Citroen. I crossed the space, watching the house just as I felt it was watching me, and mounted the steps to the big double-door. I'd intended to march straight in but, of course, the entrance was locked.

I pushed the heel of my fist against the large brass bell set in concrete by the side and kept it there. For good measure, I thumped the bottom of my other fist against the paneling of the door itself, working up a good head of anger as I did so.

Presently I heard footsteps drawing near behind the barrier. A lock turned, one side of the door opened fractionally. The Bone Man stared out through the gap.

He pretended not to recognize me, but we both knew otherwise.

'Midge is here.' It wasn't a question from me, so it didn't require an answer.

'Midge?' he queried, his voice as skeletal as his features.

'Don't play silly fucking games,' I said, and pushed hard at the door, knocking him back.

I swiftly stepped through.