The Magic Cottage

'Just a moment, you can't come in here,' he informed me, bony fingers against my chest.

I took his hand away. 'Where is she?'

'I've no idea who you mean.'

'Midge Gudgeon. She's here somewhere.'

'I think you'd—'

'Let me see Mycroft.'

'I'm afraid he can't be disturbed.'

I sighed for his benefit. 'Look, you're not getting rid of me until I've seen either her or Mycroft himself.'

'I've already told—'

A door had opened further down the hallway and Gillie Slade appeared, looking at us curiously, no doubt wondering what the fuss was about.

I strode purposefully toward her, Bone Man following close behind, his weedy protests like gnats in the air.

'Gillie, tell me where I can find Midge,' I demanded before I even reached the girl.

'Mike, you can't—'

'Yeah, I know all that. She's here, isn't she?'

I stared hard at her and she lowered her gaze.

'Isn't she?' I repeated.

'Yes, Mike. But she's with Mycroft and they really mustn't be interrupted.' Her eyes were looking up at me again, and they were blue and earnest.

'Interrupted? What the hell's going on?'

Other doors were opening, other heads emerging.

'For Chrissake, tell me!'

Her eyes avoided mine and I wanted to shake her. Instead I brushed past and peered into the room she'd just left. Blank faces goggled back at me. The only furniture in the room was stiff-backed chairs, spread randomly around, the Syngerists sitting on them with no books in their laps, nothing at all in their hands. I assumed it was their version of the Happy Hour. Meditation time.

Midge wasn't among them.

I backed out and crossed the hallway, two people in the door there parting without a murmur, allowing me to see inside. More Synergists and scarcely any furniture apart from more of those very uncomfortable-looking chairs. Several of the members were squatting on the floor, with nothing visible occupying their minds either.

She wasn't in there.

Nor the next room.

Nor the next.

Now the library. I felt lucky.

And was unlucky. The room we'd been ushered into on our first (and my one and only) visit, where my scalded arm had been dipped in the greenish liquid that could have been used for washing dishes or cleaning metal for all I knew, where Mycroft had endeavored to impress us with his special powers, was empty. Not a bloody soul.

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 center, the arms and upright post 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, slitlike 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 upward was inadvertent or intentional.

I looked in the same direction, toward 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 Ail-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 backward. 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 toward 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