Magic Cottage, Das Haus auf dem Land

by James Herbert

  Only when the cup was safely out of my hands did I turn and look. And was instantly lost in pure, worshipful awe of her talent.

  The painting, in her favorite medium of designer's gouache, was of Gramarye itself.

  She had obviously worked from the grass shoulder outside the garden gate, using her small easel to support the artboard, because the cottage was viewed from there, the garden, with its wild patterns of colors, in the foreground. The forest behind provided a strangely brooding backdrop, albeit insignificant against the exuberance of Gramarye itself, the walls brilliantly white, yet detailed, marked where the real walls were marked, worn where the real brickwork was worn. The colors may have been exaggerated—no roof could ever be quite that shade of rusty red, the grass and nearest trees could never be that vividly green—yet they conveyed the true vibrancy of our home and its surroundings, the invigorating quality we had both felt when we first moved in, but which only Midge, with her unique and skillful, child's-view artistry could express. You know, my knees actually went weak as I took it all in.

  But that was nothing compared with what was to come.

  Outside, the sun broke through the clouds, washing the room with a sudden brilliant warmth, striking those lucid colors before me so that they dazzled and surged, yes, surged, with sparkling energy, the brightness striking into me, deep into me, and reproducing—not just duplicating— the image inside my head, as if it had solidified in there, was as real as the original.

  Remember that first day Midge and I had come to look at the cottage, when I thought I'd gone into some kind of delayed drug excursion? Well, this was it again. Either I started swaying or the artboard started moving, because the picture kept dancing in and out of focus.

  The sun behind me blazed on my shoulders and the top of my head felt so hot I wondered if it were on fire. I could feel myself going, my knees sagging, the picture captured inside my head swelling, becoming too immense to contain, threatening to expand through my brain and push against the inner walls of my skull. The pressure was almost unbearable.

  In some kind of fantastic and frightening way, I became part of Midge's picture, living and breathing in it just as surely as if I were outside standing before the garden gate; only whether I was truly inside the picture or the picture was inside me, I had no way of knowing. The smell of fresh paint was slight, but the smell of flowers, of grass, offence, of road—of sky!—was intoxicating. I was hallucinating and I was totally aware that I was doing so. But nothing, no effort of will could bring me back. I'm sure I cried out, because I was scared, Jesus, I was so scared!

  Everything was a chromatic replica, an illustration, but it was all real—the sky was real, the forest was real, and Gramarye, stylized, the colors too fresh, too synthetically manufactured—too bloody fairy-story!—was real. And the clouds moved, and there were birds lazily arcing in the sky. It was alive and it existed. But it was only paint! Moving, breathing, paint! And I was part of it!

  And there was the path, the flowers on either side dipping with the easy breeze. And of course the path led up to the cottage door. Which was open. And the cool darkness inside was inviting me in, an alluring emptiness, but an emptiness that really wasn't empty, because although I couldn't see into the darkness there was something, there was someone, there. Someone sitting at the kitchen table. Someone who was really a something. And that something was beginning to move, beginning to rise from the table on which stood a cup filled with moldering tea, undrunk and festering with all kinds of minute, crawling life.

  And the someone who was now only something was a darker shadow moving among other shadows, shuffling rather than walking, coming to the open door, coming to greet me, coming to encourage me forward, raising a hand—I could see that hand rising, see the fingers that were no more than bones with thin lumps of rotted flesh still clinging.

  And that something was nearly at the door, almost in the light. But it lingered there, because light revealed too much, light was unnatural for a thing such as this. I could see what was left of the finger curling inward, gesturing, beckoning me, telling me to come closer, wanting me.

  And I found myself opening the gate, setting foot on the path, walking forward, confused and wondering why I didn't resist, the flowers beginning to wilt now, starting to crumble, the petals' edges turning brown, dying, and the door was open to me, a darkness waiting and something waiting in the darkness.

  And daylight was fading—the cottage walls were gray, the windows black, and the roof had become muddy dark, and there were black pits where tiles had fallen through, and as the light dimmed, the sun swallowed whole by painted ebony storm clouds, creatures fluttered out from those pits, wheeling in the heavy, murky air, screeching their welcome, circling above the cottage, occasionally diving erratically, but never approaching me, content to wait until I was inside. Only then would they return . . .

  I was near the doorway, and I was trying to hold myself back, my footsteps weighty, cumbrous, my shoulders almost leaning backward. But still I continued that sluggish journey, impelled by what I knew was just inside that door, watching me and waiting patiently.

  And my foot was on the step. And she was coming forward. And even in the gloom I could see she was almost faceless. And when both her rotted hands reached for me I opened my mouth in a silent scream . . .

  . . . And a voice called me back . . .

  ACCUSED

  FIRST HER VOICE, and then her, Midge, standing in the upstairs hallway, the door behind open wide, the greens outside muted by drizzling rain.

  She was watching me as though I were an intruder, a sneak-thief inside her beloved cottage; and in truth, that was how I felt.

  The illustrated scene that had been more in my mind than on that artboard was wrenched from me as if into a vortex, the root of which was the painting itself. Visions of reaching bones left me, in part dissolving but mostly swallowed, sucked away. I staggered back, suddenly released from the spiraling images like a jettisoned first stage from a rocket, and my shoulder hit the windowframe behind. The brief pain jolted my senses even more and my eyes rapidly focused.

  Midge's painting was there before me, a bright, daylight landscape, correct in essence to the original, yet idealized in its presentation. A pretty cottage in a pretty setting. But I had glimpsed something dark.

  "Mike? Mike, what's wrong?"

  I turned to her, and I still leaned weakly against the windowframe. I was too confused to speak.

  Midge strode into the room and her hair and face were wet with rain, the anorak she wore shiny with moisture. She came to me and I all but collapsed into her arms.

  "You look dreadful," she said. "You're so pale. And your eyes . . . oh God, your eyes!"

  "Let me . . . let me sit down."

  I hardly understood my own words they were so garbled, but she could see for herself that I was barely able to stand. She helped me to the sofa and lowered me onto it. Gratefully, I sank back against the cushions.

  I stared over at the drawing board, the picture taped to its surface no longer visible from that angle, while Midge stroked my cheek with a damp and cold hand. She left me. but quickly returned with a small tumbler of liquid.

  "Brandy," she said, holding the glass toward my lips.

  I took it from her, barely able to lift the glass. The brandy tasted awful, but the warming shock was good.

  "Oh, Midge, you've no idea . . ."

  "Your eyes are so bloodshot, Mike. How much did you drink last night?"

  "The picture . . ."

  "You may not have liked it, but isn't this an overreaction?"

  "No, Midge, no joking . . ." I drank more brandy.

  She steadied my hand as the glass trembled against my mouth. "Tell me what's wrong," she said, her voice hushed.

  "Jesus, it's this place, Midge. There's something going on here that we don't understand."

  "Oh now, Mike, how can you say that?" she chided. "It's perfect here, and you know it."

  "The picture mov
ed. I looked at it, and the picture bloody moved!"

  Reasonably enough, she looked at me as though I were crazy.

  "It's true, Midge! It came . . . it came alive! I saw things happening there, I could smell the flowers, I could feel the breeze. And there was someone inside the cottage, and I'm sure I know who it was—"

  I expected bewilderment, incomprehension. I expected concern, maybe even alarm for my state of mind. What I didn't expect was her fury.

  "Just what the hell did you and Bob get up to last night? You promised me, Mike, you promised yourself! No more of that stuff! No more junk!" Tears came with her anger.

  "No, nothing like that, Midge! I promise you, we drank, that was all. You know I wouldn't—"

  "Liar!"

  I almost dropped the glass. She had shrieked the accusation and her eyes were blazing through a moist, glittering screen.

  "We only drank—"

  "They warned you, the doctors warned you last time!

  They told you how lucky you'd been to survive! God Almighty, Mike, couldn't you learn from that? The whole point of us coming here was to move away from that crowd, that scene. One night on your own . . ."

  "It wasn't like that. What's got into you?"

  "Into me? You're the one who's freaking-out, who's seeing perfectly ordinary pictures move! What did you take last night? Coke again? Smack? Don't you remember how I hated seeing you on even the soft stuff years ago? Doesn't it mean anything to you?"

  Right then, of course, I didn't realize that her vehemence was more of a defense against something she didn't want to acknowledge herself, rather than anger directed at me. It was only later that I found out Midge had begun to understand a lot sooner than me, but she hadn't wanted the unreality questioned, hadn't wanted logic to destroy what was growing inside her and reawakening inside Gramarye. For that moment, though, neither of us understood anything that was going on.

  "Midge, you can ask Bob. I've invited him down this weekend—"

  "Oh, terrific! He's just the person I want to see here!"

  "You're being unreasonable. Why don't you hear me out first?"

  "Listen to you describe your hallucinations? You think I'd enjoy that?"

  "The animals here, the bird with the broken wing, the way those flowers we thought were dying in the garden picked up—none of it's natural."

  "How would you know? What do you know about anything that's beyond city walls, anything that's beyond the gutter?"

  I stared at her aghast and she avoided my eyes.

  Midge was kneeling before me and her chest was rising in exaggerated movement as though her anger could barely be contained. She gained control, then said in a low, almost resentful voice, "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry—"

  She broke off and pushed herself away, her tears finally breaking through to join with the rain-dampness already on her cheeks. She ran from me, slamming the bedroom door behind her. I could hear her muffled sobs.

  I sat there stunned. Confused, too. Totally. What the hell had happened? To me. To her. What the hell had happened?

  I slugged back the rest of the brandy, nearly choking on its raw heat, then put the glass on the floor. I wiped my eyes and cheeks with my hands and wasn't sure which was damper, face or palms. Beginning to rise, knowing I couldn't let matters rest there, couldn't leave Midge in such mistaken misery, I was stopped by a remote scrabbling sound. It came from behind the sofa.

  I stood, afraid because I was still disorientated and vulnerable; there wasn't much more I could take that afternoon. The noise persisted. Stepping to the end of the sofa, I peered into the shadowy abyss between the back of the chair and the curved wall. And was relieved to discover what was hidden down there.

  I pulled the sofa away from the wall, exposing the tiny, shivering figure of Rumbo, his tail fluffed up, his paws digging at the carpet in nervous agitation.

  With a quick, startled look at me, he shot from his hiding place, across the room and out through the door that was still open, quickly vanishing into the foliage beyond.

  I wondered why I had the feeling a sinking ship had just been deserted.

  CLOSER

  ON SECOND thoughts, I decided not to go in to Midge straight away: she would be easier to deal with when her anger had cooled. Besides, there was something of a storm going on inside my own head which another brandy might help ease. Picking up the glass again, I went downstairs to the kitchen. All our liquor (of which there wasn't much) was stored away in the bottom of the larder (as good a drinks cabinet as any), but the brandy bottle was still on the table where Midge had left it.

  I scraped the chair against the tiles and was already reaching for the bottle before I sat. The brandy really didn't help much, but at least I had something to do while my nerves settled.

  You may consider I'd been a bit slow in realizing things weren't quite normal down here in the country, but none of what I've previously mentioned seemed so unnatural—apart from this last incident—at the time. Unusual, yeah, but not spectacular. It's worth repeating: the mind has a way of naturalizing the unnatural. Even the moving painting could be explained away as an hallucination (and at the time I was convinced that had to be the case, although not because of drugs indulged in the night before, as Midge had suggested). There was an abundance of nature here, is all. And the atmosphere of the place created its own magic, keened our senses so that Midge's artistic skill was heightened, my musicianship enhanced. I believe certain environments can bring out the best or worst in someone, and Gramarye had done just that with me and Midge. Maybe the dull weather of late had changed the mood, and now something bad had surfaced from inside us; I hadn't often seen Midge act like this, that's for sure.

  I sipped and brooded down there in the kitchen (where

  Flora Chaldean had withered away), and I hoped I hadn't scared off poor Rumbo for good. God knows how I'd appeared to him, tripping-out in front of the picture, and no wonder he'd dug in behind the sofa. The look he'd given me before bolting past my legs was as though I were about to introduce him to squirrel pie—from the inside looking out.

  The glass was soon empty and I resisted pouring another. I was still bewildered by my freak-out and still upset by Midge's remarks, but sulking down there in the gloom wasn't going to help matters. Time to talk to her, time to be friends again. I climbed the stairs, closing the hallway door to stop rain drizzling in. The doormat there was wretched and soggy and I knew just how it felt.

  Midge's anorak was lying in a heap on the bedroom floor and she was lying in a heap on the bed, legs curled up, shoulders hunched over, fetal and looking very lonely. The dampness in the air had made the room smell musty. I stood in the doorway, almost hesitant to go in further; I felt guilty and didn't know why.

  "Midge . . . ?" I ventured.

  No response at first. Then she rested on one elbow so she could look across at me. Her hand stretched out toward me and I hurried over to lie beside her. My arms went around her waist and back and I hugged her close; she lay against me, trembling and sniffling.

  My cheek nuzzled against her forehead and the scent of rain and fresh air was still in her hair. "Midge, I want you to believe me—I stuck strictly to booze yesterday. I admit I had a lot, but I didn't touch anything else, no pills, no drugs—nothing like that."

  She stiffened against me, the trembling abated for a moment. Then I felt her body slump.

  "So what happened in there, Mike?" she whispered. "Why did you look that way, why did you say my painting came alive?"

  "I wish I understood, myself," I sighed. "It seemed so real to me, as if I were inside the picture itself, walking up the path, smelling the flowers, feeling everything around me." I had to smile. "Remember that old film where Gene Kelly danced with the cartoon mouse? Well it was almost like that, as if real life and animation had come together, but with no black lines around the painted parts. So much more real, nothing to do with fantasy. And scary. Jesus, I've never been so frightened." I pulled back my head to look at her face
and her eyes were mournfully wide. "You've gotta believe me, Midge," I all but pleaded.

  "I guess I do," she responded, and a familiar softness returned to her expression. "They said there might be long-lasting aftereffects, that nobody knew precisely how long certain drug traces might remain in the system. But all these years . . . ?"

  "Doesn't seem possible, does it? That has to be the answer, though. Unless I'm going crazy."

  "You mean you used to be sane?" Feeble, and spoken in a doleful voice, but at least it was a stab at humor. My fingers tucked into her hair at the back of her head.

  "You must have a check-up, Mike. It could be dangerous for you."

  "No real harm done, just a fright for both of us."

  "More than that. What if it happens again only with worse consequences?"

  I didn't inquire what they might be. "I'm tired, I've been up most of the night talking old times and drinking with Bob. And we'd worked hard at the session yesterday. Maybe I'm more exhausted than I realized. The combination of weariness and alcohol may have sparked off something that's still sneaking around inside me." I wanted to say: But it could be the cottage itself, Midge. Maybe there's something going on here that's way beyond our comprehension, something that creates illusions (hadn't I seen a hundred bats at least inside the loft when there weren't half as many? Didn't I keep seeing someone watching us from the edge of the woods? Hadn't I been absorbed into a painting so that I'd become a part of it, a human element walking in living paint?), some kind of Magic that cures sick animals, and even people if the stories about Flora Chaldean were to be believed (and what about my own arm? Had the Synergists healed the burns, or had Gramarye worked its powers during the night while I slept? Their green liquid might have stopped the pain, but had it really soothed away the burns?) That's what I wanted to say, but it sounded ridiculous enough in my own mind. Midge would have thought I'd really flipped, and my fear was that she'd be right. So I kept quiet when I should have brought everything out into the open there and then. At least that way Midge might have been given cause to acknowledge some of her own feelings concerning Gramarye, intuitions that she was unable to accept consciously. It wasn't to be, though, not just then.