"We must get out!" Midge shouted, her hair whipped around her face. "Something even more terrible is going to happen here, I can feel it!"
Me too. I knew she was right. Forces had been revived, set free, were pounding through like an oil gusher, and I didn't have the know-how to cap the flow. Gripping each other tightly we staggered toward the stairway, leaving behind the carnage, the awful sight of Mycroft being emptied of blood, the pulped faces of those who'd been struck by stone or raked by bats, the gale that tore around the curved and breaking walls. All bathed in that eerie, electric gleam.
We were almost through the doorway when rough hands seized my throat from behind.
I was hauled backward, thrown to the roaring, erupting floor. Then a hefty weight on my chest was pinning me there, the hands at my neck now attacking from the front. Stunned at first, I opened my eyes to find our American Hero snarling at me and he didn't look so clean-cut any more. His nose and cheeks were smeared red, and there was a deep gash in his forehead, right across from corner to corner, blood soaking through in spurts. His blond hair was tangled and dusty; God knows how, but clumps of it had been torn out so that his scalp, pinky-blue in the unnatural light, showed through. The madness in his gaze confirmed he was a true disciple of Mycroft's.
I grabbed his wrists and tried to pull his hands away, but he only enjoyed my struggle, leering down at me and steadily increasing his own pressure.
Then Midge was on him, scoring his face with her fingers, catching the edge of the cut in his forehead and lifting the skin like a flap. The bone beneath was bloodied, hardly any white showing.
Kinsella smacked her aside easily with the back of his hand, ignoring his own pain and the blood flooding down to blind him. But the next bulky shape that lumbered forward wasn't so easy to dismiss.
A thick hand grasped him beneath the chin and jerked his head backward, continuing to pull as another hand chopped hard at his stretched windpipe. Spittle showered my face, but I didn't mind that in the least.
She tossed him away and, before he could raise himself from the floor, one of her heavy brogues crunched into his ring-of-confidence teeth. Val was playing for keeps.
She reached down for Midge and hauled her up, ducking as objects and bats flew over her head, then turned to help me; but I was already lurching to my feet.
The room was exploding around us, the middle section of floor completely gone, many of the remaining floorboards angled upward and waving like stiffened streamers; earth and mud was spewing from the opening, spraying the domed ceiling with their dirt. Brickwork was dropping from the walls in huge chunks too massive to be borne by the wind. Those Synergists who hadn't escaped—those not sprawled on the heaving floor—were clinging to the walls, unable to tear themselves free.
Val propeled Midge and me toward the doorway, as resolute and indomitable as ever, even though she was plainly scared out of her wits.
The back door still flapped wildly, inviting us to chance our luck, to beat the devil—you'd better be nimble, you'd better be quick.
"Through the kitchen!" commanded Val without even contemplating the challenge.
We rushed for the stairs as one, slipping on loose boards and carpet at the bend, the three of us tumbling down in a rolling avalanche of arms and legs. We came to an untidy halt near the bottom, and the walls were throbbing on either side of us.
We unraveled ourselves with much grunting and groaning and got going again, the noise from behind becoming even louder. We ran across the kitchen, Midge in the lead, the ceiling light dimming and brightening in quick succession. The floor tiles were all loose, rattling against each other like broken crockery, and it wasn't easy to keep our feet. Something caught my eye but I kept moving, pushed on from behind by Val. Midge threw open the front door and all three of us cleared the step with a jump, literally bursting from the cottage. We kept moving, racing down the path, flowers and weeds waving in the air on either side as if we were runners in the hundred meters, and we knew something catastrophic was about to happen back there, that the place was going to explode, or collapse, or be swallowed into the earth.
But I skidded to a halt halfway down the path.
Midge and Val were at the gate before they noticed I was missing.
"Mike!" Midge screamed back at me. "Keep going!" I shouted, then turned and ran back to Gramarye.
I could still hear her screaming my name as I plunged inside.
ENDING?
So THERE YOU have it, that's the story.
I warned you at the start that you'd have to suspend belief, and if you found that difficult, imagine how I felt at the time. Even today I sometimes wonder . . .
I wish I could explain more and neatly tie up any loose ends like the psychiatrist at the end of the Psycho movie, when he gave us lot sitting out there in the dark (as well as his fellow actors, who were probably equally puzzled) reasons for Norman Bates's odd behavior; but he was only dealing with human complexities: this is something else. This is Magic. Explanations can't be so pat.
What I have learned, by the way, is that there's no such thing as Good Magic or Bad Magic, White or Black. There's only Magic. It's how it's used, or by whom, that matters. It comes under our direction—if we have the power.
All along I'd assumed Midge was the one, and it turned out to be me. That was something of a shock—although once discovered, it was fairly easily and rapidly accepted, as you'll have noticed. Like riding a bike—once you knew you could do it, you did it. But it just goes to show how little we really know about ourselves, what lies hidden away, probably never to be used. It shows, too, how little we know of the rules that govern such things—like there are no rules anyway.
Midge had been important in all this: she'd been used to bring me to Gramarye; at least, some spark in her own subconscious had guided her to guide me there. She was special—but then I'd always known that—a chosen one in the Grand Design of things. Whose Grand Design? The Grand Designer's, of course, whoever He, She or It, might be.
Mycroft was in the tradition of those old-fashioned villains who want to rule the world: he desired Gramarye's power for his own ends—and I've no idea what those ends ultimately were. He vanished inside the cottage along with those followers who hadn't managed to escape before the walls came tumbling down, and that included Hub Kinsella (hard to shed a tear for him). Gramarye didn't explode or merely collapse, incidentally. Oh no. It imploded, went back into itself. Became nothing but smoldering rubble, the channel beneath it sealed, I hope forever.
That was kind of difficult to explain to the police and fire services when they were later sent out to investigate. We owned up, told them we had no idea what had hit the place. They, eventually, figured a pocket of natural gas had been trapped beneath the cottage, expanding for some time and finally blasting off the way a pressure cooker with a faulty lid might. That didn't make a lot of sense to me—and probably didn't to them either—but you know how the authorities like to pigeonhole things, keep them nice and tidy, neat and reasonable. Fortunately for us, Gillie Slade came forward (yeah, she was one of the lucky who'd been both nimble and quick) while inquiries were going on and dispelled any notions that something funny might have been happening between us and the Synergists. What was left of the Synergists, in fact, disbanded soon after, and scattered for parts unknown—and I hoped they'd stay there.
So why didn't we tell the truth about what had happened? Would you have? D'you think anyone in their right mind would have believed us? Damn right they wouldn't.
We three stuck to a story of complete ignorance. The Synergists had paid us a social visit and while they were there, disaster had struck. What more could we say?
Midge and I are back in the city once again, with Val keeping a motherly eye on us both. I have to admit, I've grown pretty fond of Big Val. After some wrangling with the insurance company—just what does constitute an Act of God?—we received a handsome check to compensate for loss of the cottage, which enabled us to set up house (o
r in our case, apartment) again. Things are going pretty well for us now: I finished my rock musical—the final version included lots of wizards, pixies and Magic—and Midge designed some quite breathtakingly beautiful sets (I think they had a lot to do with the show's overall success). It's playing up in Manchester at the moment, and Bob's looking for a suitable venue in London so that we can bring it down. I've written a couple of chart-reaching numbers (mainly thanks to the big names who recorded them) and am about to embark on my second kiddies' storybook which Midge will illustrate. And her? She just goes from strength to strength, with more work than she can handle (although she's reached the stage where she can really pick and choose), and Val's even arranged a couple of one-woman art exhibitions for her. She's had Sunday Color Supp features on herself and her work, and even appeared on Breakfast TV. She's as pretty as ever and modest with it, too. And I love her more than ever (the good thing is, it's mutual).
So far, I guess you could say, we're living happy ever after.
Me and Magic? Well, whatever power I derived from Gramarye isn't with me now. Occasionally I'll do something that will amaze both of us, but the ability comes in rare flashes. Very rare. I'm still struggling with the three-card trick.
I suppose I need to be somewhere near the power supply, the source itself, wherever it channels up into the atmosphere, but I'm not too bothered. Out of curiosity, Midge and I took a trip back to the New Forest recently, and all that was left of Gramarye was a perfectly round patch of black earth on top of the embankment where the round room once stood. It's weird and it made us smile. We drove on to the local pub where the landlord told us that the council has to keep a close watch on the site: apparently those so-called magic mushrooms, the kind mescaline is taken from, used to grow there in abundance, making the area a great focal point for traveling hippies. The council had the ground sprayed, churned over, impregnated with all sorts of poisons, but it took a long time for those mushrooms to stop growing.
Oh yeah. You might be wondering why I dashed back inside the cottage just before it fell apart that night. Remember I said something had caught my eye when we ran like hell through the kitchen? Well, I'd glimpsed that little furry bundle we'd left for dead on the kitchen table stirring,
Rumbo poking his head in the air and looking around wondering what all the racket was about.
What I'd seen hadn't registered until I was halfway down that path, and that's why I turned and ran back inside.
I managed to scoop him up and get out moments before Gramarye disintegrated.
I think he appreciated the gesture, or maybe he was happy to be alive again, because he licked my face and hands like a puppy dog. He'd never again be the handsome squirrel he once was—those scars on his neck and throat might eventually fade, but fur would never grow over them— but I don't think he gave a hoot about that.
I let him go once we were on the other side of the gate and, after Midge had made a huge fuss of him, he scampered off into the darkness, jaunty as ever, heading for the forest and whatever secret sweetheart he kept in there. That was the last we saw of Rumbo.
So, it's all behind us now, and life's pretty good for Midge and me.
And yet. . .and yet we both get kind of restless now and then. Midge ringed an ad in the newspaper today and left it on the breakfast table for me to see. The ad was in the Properties for Sale section. A small but pretty house, situated in a secluded spot. Somewhere up in the Cotswolds.
Maybe I'll give the agent a call tomorrow.
Maybe.
"Magic has power to experience and fathom things which are inaccessible to human reason. For magic is a great secret wisdom, just as reason is a great public folly."
PARACELSUS
"The question of magic is a question of discovering and employing hitherto unknown forces in Nature."
CROWLEY
"Magic is believing what you shouldn't— and enjoying the believing."
STRINGER
About the Author
James Herbert was born in London's East End on April 8, 1943, the son of Petticoat Lane street traders. A former art director of a leading London advertising agency, Herbert is now a full-time writer. He is the author of THE FOG, THE SURVIVOR, THE DARK, DOMAIN and MOON, all available in Signet editions.
Table of Contents
MAGIC
LOOKING
GRAMARYE
THE COTTAGE
THE ROUND ROOM
THREE SCORES
OGBORN
MOVING
IN
NOISES
THE GRAY HOUSE
A VISITOR
RETURN VISIT
WATCHER
PROGRESS
ROUGH STUFF
SYNERGISTS
SIXSMYTHE
MYCROFT
HEALED
MOTION PICTURE
ACCUSED
CLOSER
NOBODY THERE
COMPANY
BAD TRIP
CRACK
SPOILED ART
ENTICEMENT
GHOSTS
BIRTH DAY
PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN
VOICES
THE PYRAMID ROOM
FLIGHT
HOME AGAIN
BREAK IN
THE POWER
FLORA
THINGS UNLEASHED
ENDING?
About the Author
James Herbert, Magic Cottage, Das Haus auf dem Land
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