The Magic Cottage

I looked from face to face and they impassively returned my gaze. Even Gillie, who was among them, displayed no feelings, and I expected at least a leer from my old chum Kinsella but he, too, was stony cold.

'Some—' My voice cracked and I had to start again. 'Something we can do for you, Mycroft?'

I didn't think that was bad under the circumstances, but it didn't seem to cheer up anyone, least of all myself.

'Not any more,' he replied, and the idea that we were no longer of any use to him chilled me further. He pointed his cane at Midge. 'She could have helped me, but chose not to. For that, I blame you.' The cane singled me out.

I shook my head in protest. 'We still don't know what's going on. We don't want to fight you, Mycroft, we don't mean to get in the way of your Grand Plan, whatever the hell it is. So how about just leaving us out of this?'

'Unfortunately it's too late for that. You've become an integral part of Gramarye.'

'That's crazy. You want the place? So take it. Make me a reasonable offer. I don't give a shit.' And I meant it; I really didn't.

'No!'

That was Midge crying out as she sprang away from me.

'Don't you know why he wants Gramarye, why Flora fought so hard to keep it from him?' she said to me. 'He told us back there in the Temple, don't you remember?'

Again I shook my head, this time blankly.

'Gramarye, or at least the ground it stands on, is a channel for the power he uses, a supply source of some kind. Don't you see that? Whoever occupies this cottage is the guardian of that power. Like Flora, like the person who lived here before her, and before even her. The line is probably endless.'

A month before—no, a week before—I'd have laughed at such a suggestion; now I wasn't so sure. It was hard to swallow, but then so was everything else that had happened there. And hadn't I had my own 'insights' about the place recently?

Mycroft seemed amused. 'Finally you're beginning to understand. You can feel the magic that gives life to this earth, makes air so that we may breathe, creates springs that become rivers so that we may drink, provides food to sustain us. Could you really imagine that ail we live among is one vast accident, that Nature has no design, no driving force? Don't you see there are sources contained within this planet that can never be understood? Sources sought after only by the enlightened through the centuries? Are you foolish enough to think all those legends of old, stories of wizards, of witches, of magic kingdoms, are no more than children's fairy tales?' He laughed aloud, Karloff at his finest, and there was appreciative murmuring from his henchmen around the room.

'That foolish hag,' Mycroft went on, really getting his teeth into the part, 'prevented me from striding the chasm, from absorbing its potency into my being, stopped me from using the ethereal vitality that leaks from this point in the earth's crust. But she was old and feeble, and soon cast aside.'

I started to giggle then. I couldn't help it. Maybe it was the onset of hysteria, a combination of exhaustion and fear, but I couldn't help thinking that the situation had got out of hand. God knows why, but I kept wondering what good old down-to-earth Bob's reaction to Mycroft's diatribe would have been. Christ, he'd have been high for a week! The more I thought of that, the more I laughed. I fell back, one arm resting against the sofa for support.

But Mycroft didn't like me laughing. He didn't like it one bit. He pointed the cane in my direction again and I suddenly realized he was using it as a wand. Mycroft the Wizard and his Magic fucking Wand! Tears rolled from the corners of my eyes I was laughing so much.

Midge stared at me as though I'd finally flipped (I probably had at that point). I wanted her to see the joke but I was guffawing so much I couldn't speak. Bob's face, listening to the bullshit Mycroft had just come out with. Too much, too much!

The Synergists gathered around the room were glaring at me. Christ, they'd never see the joke!

I buried my face into the soft material of the sofa, my shoulders jerking with the effort of laughing, wanting to ask Mycroft where he kept his long pointed hat and black kaftan, but too choked up to manage the words. I felt the sofa begin to undulate beneath me. Still giggling, I raised my hand in surprise. My outstretched arm was waving up and down with the material's motion.

A pinpoint in the surface frayed, became a hole. Something black wriggled through. Another multilegged creature followed, popping through and scurrying off. Another and another, becoming a stream of black-shelled bugs.

More holes appeared. More bugs crawled out. More holes. More bugs.

I leapt away and watched in horror as hundreds more— thousands more—gnawed their way through the material, the sofa soon turning into a seething mass of shiny black fermentation. They broke off in well-ordered lines, hurrying down the side of the sofa to drop onto the floor and advance toward my outstretched leg.

Then I remembered that ultimately Bob hadn't been so cheerful in this room (his wit had been scared out of him) and my own manic humor drained away. I pulled in my foot as the first bug climbed aboard.

'Stop it, stop it!'

Midge was on her feet screaming at Mycroft. He merely smiled back at her.

'You can't use Gramarye this way! It's meant for good, not for your perversions!' Her eyes were blazing, her face screwed up in anger.

'The power contained within this place can be controlled in any way its receiver chooses,' Mycroft replied. 'The old woman could no longer direct its force, she was too weak, made too infirm by her years.'

'You killed her!'

Now he grinned, apparently keen on the idea. 'Yes, yes, I believe I did. I tempted her with the other side, you see, what you and your like might call the dark side of Magic. Her ending was very sudden—' he seemed surprised, then snapped his fingers '—like that One moment alive, the next, dead. She couldn't cope with the revelation, you see, she couldn't accept the blackness inside her own soul. How else could I have revealed such darkness to her if it didn't lurk within herself. Strange how her body corrupted so fast, as if that badness inside swept through her physical being, shriveled her up like an old prune.' He chuckled at that, unconcerned at the disgust on Midge's face.

The light faded and rose as though somebody had just been electrocuted next door, and Mycroft's poise momentarily wavered. He peered around at the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Then his grin returned.

'Can you feel the surge of kinetic force?' he asked his followers. 'Be receptive, blend your thoughts and absorb its strength. Fill yourself with its vitality!'

Most of them closed their eyes, faces strained in concentration. I saw Gillie, standing close to the wall, sway and almost fall backward. Another woman on the other side of the room moaned aloud. Kinsella continued to watch Midge and me.

Strangely, such was the power of suggestion as Mycroft encouraged the Synergists further, that I also felt a tingling starting in my own spread fingers. The sensation emanated from the floor itself, passing up into my arms and across my shoulders and chest. I suddenly remembered the bugs that had been set to crawl up my leg, yet when I checked, they'd gone, disappeared completely. The sofa contained nothing more than a couple of cushions. The bugs had been another of Mycroft's illusory games.

'I can stop this!' shouted Midge. 'That's why I'm here, why I was chosen!'

'Ah yes, you,' said the Magician slyly. He pointed the cane and Midge toppled backward. She didn't go down though. She regained her balance and glowered at Mycroft, shoulders bunched forward and fists clenched.

'I can!' she yelled, and I loved her for her defiance. I scrambled to my feet.

She stood with her legs apart, rooting herself to the carpet, and slowly raised her hands to her face, unwinding her fingers and bringing them together almost in a praying gesture. Then she twisted her wrists so that her fingers were leveled at Mycroft, and his expression turned anxious. That, at least, was heartening.

Midge was shivering and it looked as if every muscle in her body was tensed, every ounce of strength she possessed directed at Mycroft. I wanted to cry out, to goad her on. She could do it, I knew she could do it! But my