Rumbo was gone, though, and surprisingly (or maybe not—when it really comes down to it, women are always ! more realistic than men) it was Midge who first accepted the fact. She took my hands in hers.
"Poor little chump," I said, unable to shift my gaze from the still bundle.
"What are those creatures outside, Mike? They can't be the same bats that were in the loft. Their size . . . Why did they attack the animals?"
I shrugged, maybe the only answer to insanity. My eyes had blurred over and I didn't want to speak right away in case my voice broke up. So instead I looked around the kitchen, turning my head away from Midge before blinking. It wasn't grief that I was hiding from her—we'd shared enough of that in our time together and tears had never been an embarrassment: what I didn't want her to see was my fear.
Gramarye's personality had altered. The disease that had been gnawing at its innards since Flora's death had been halted by our arrival, like a cancer checked by a new drug. Decay had stopped, regeneration had begun. Its magic had been renewed.
I was aware of that now, even though a side of me said, Listen, you're crazy, you're talking about stone and timber, not a living person, not even a mindless organism. An inanimate, insensible pile of bricks, for Chrissake! But I knew different. Something on the sidelines of all this had my ear, was whispering to me like it had before, instilling the notions, maybe chuckling while it did so. Or maybe this something was in dead earnest, afraid I wouldn't hear. Or understand.
And in truth, the thoughts were so insubstantial, so tenuous, I didn't know myself whether I heard or I imagined. Who was I to judge my own state of mind?
But the idea persisted. It wasn't the structure of Gramarye that was alive, but the anima of those who had existed within its fold, absorbed by walls, ceilings, floors, locked in like energy into a battery, so that with time the building took on the semblance of a living thing. Until that life had been corrupted, had been cancered, by other less pure influences. I believed that the degeneration had begun when the Synergists had first visited the cottage.
With Flora's death, so had the power inside Gramarye withered, started to rot. Only our—or, more accurately, Midge's—presence had held the rot, even initiated a rejuvenation. That's what the silent voice told me, that's what I believed. And in part, I was right.
I cleared my throat, then said in a rush: "Where the hell did I leave the keys?"
"Keys" came out somewhat strangulated and Midge clasped my hands more tightly.
"Perhaps upstairs. God, it's so cold in here."
As if for effect, she gave a small shiver. Yet I was clammy hot. The thought occurred that we were experiencing Gramarye's fever.
A rending crash from next door brought Midge into my arms and I barely heard her cry above the follow-up tumble of masonry. A dust cloud drifted through into our part of the kitchen. We guessed what had happened but, in the way you sniff milk you know has gone off, we edged toward the opening to see for ourselves. We loitered in the doorway, swiping away unsettled dust before us.
The lintel had finally thrown in its hand and crashed down onto the range, a serious section of brickwork falling after the halved stone. The reverberations hung in the air with the powdery dirt, and the sooty wound in the chimney breast, gaping and jagged, gave a glimpse of Gramarye's dark core, a rent in stone flesh that revealed its black inner substance.
"No, it isn't true, it isn't like that!" wailed Midge, and I understood the image had been the same for her. The misery and rejection on her face was the same as if she'd discovered her favorite uncle was a child molester.
I pulled her away, anxious to be out of there, as far away from the cottage as possible and in the fastest time. We'd fled the Synergist Temple only to find there was no refuge for us here; the cottage had become allied to the gray house, a collaborator in whatever ill cause was possessing that maleficent place. Confused or crazed, I didn't know which I was at that point; all I was sure of was that it was the open road for me.
We could hear the boards creaking beneath the carpet as we hurried upstairs, one cracking clear and loud so that I thought my foot would sink right through; the carpet itself prevented that and we kept going, with Midge careful to avoid the particular step. I flicked on switches as we went and the lights seemed to stutter before gaining their full glow. Into the round room, where the malodor was almost gangrenous and the walls were dribbling wet. I didn't even bother to stop and think about it.
The car keys were lying on the coffee table and I made a grab for them. "Get anything you need from the bedroom, Midge, and be quick about it. I don't want to stay a minute longer than necessary."
She didn't reply, just took to her heels and disappeared into the bedroom, leaving me a moment to look around. I wasn't too happy about the black mold that had formed between the top of the walls and the ceiling, the fungus spreading downward in thick spotty patches as if Midge had splattered the walls with her thickest paint brush. Even more peculiar was the bumpiness of the carpet: the floorboards underneath had warped, the ends risen in places, giving the effect of moles trying to break through but thwarted by the thick surface layer.
"Mike!'
It took me no time at all to reach the bedroom.
"Oh no—"
Where there had once been a hairline split in the wall, there was now a one-inch furrow running from floor to ceiling. I imagined I could see the night peering through from the other side.
"Forget about packing," I told Midge. "We're getting out right now before this place falls apart."
She was hesitant. There was a turmoil going on inside her that was almost visible. I could appreciate her dismay, her bewilderment; my only wonder was that she wasn't totally traumatized. Midge's dream had become a nightmare, everything that had happened here illogical and disconcerting (to say the least). An idyll had been corrupted by forces that neither of us understood—and frankly, as far as I was concerned, didn't want to understand. It was worse for her, because she was aware that she had a role in this disorder of things, but she had no idea what that role was. I'd had a glimmer, and I'd tried to convey that to her, but when it came down to it, what did I know about anything? The only thing that was obvious was that Gramarye was no longer a safe place to hang around in.
I was about to go to Midge and drag her out of the bedroom—drag her from her own introspection—when her eyes widened and she pointed toward the window.
Headlight beams were gliding to a stop on the other side of the garden fence. More headlights from behind lit up the yellow Citroen.
"Bastards," I muttered.
Grabbing Midge by the wrist, I stomped out into the hallway.
"What are you going to do?" She clung to me as I snatched up the telephone receiver, and her trembling ran through me as though I were touching a tuning fork.
"It's about time the police got involved in all this. I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna tell 'em, but I'll think of something. Holding you against your will might do for a starter."
"But that's not true."
"So I'll lie a little. We just need the police here."
Static leapt out of the earpiece like a gremlin up to mischief.
I cursed and held the receiver away as I dialed. More terrible static, and then a whining screech, the kind of sound we might all hear one day when the Bomb has dropped and line meltdown has started as we ring to check on loved ones.
"Shit!" I said again (times of pressure, my language gets pretty poor). I jiggled the cradle contacts until the less strident interference returned, then redialed. Same sound, ear-piercing sharp.