Hearthstone Cottage

by Frazer Lee

  Mike turned and saw the joint, balanced at the edge of the desk and still smoldering. Lurching over to the desk to retrieve it, he saw a shadow fall across the stone floor in the mouth of the doorway. A moment later, Meggie strolled into the studio. She looked surprised to see him. Then, seeing the haze of smoke around her desk, she wrinkled her nose.

  “What the hell? You smoking in here?”

  Mike looked from Meggie to the joint between his fingers. “Hoped you wouldn’t mind,” he said. “I was smoking outside; then it started raining.”

  “I don’t like people smoking in here,” she said.

  “’Course,” Mike mumbled. “I’ll stub it out outside.” He started for the doorway, but Meggie intercepted him.

  “I’ll take a drag first,” she said, her eyes twinkling in the electric light.

  Mike felt her fingertips brush against his as she slipped the joint from between them. She put it to her lips and took a deep drag, the smoke leaking from her mouth to her nostrils. Her eyelids flickered against the smoke, and she passed it back to him, her pale face now slightly flushed.

  “I heard raised voices earlier,” Meggie said quietly. “Everything all right?”

  “I had to get out of there. Your brother winds me up sometimes.”

  Meggie nodded. “Me too.”

  “He probably thinks I’m being too fucking English about it.” Alex always gave Mike a hard time about having been born in an English hospital instead of a Scottish one. Another facet of his superiority complex over him. “But if I’m going to have to go back in there, I have to do it at least partially stoned.”

  Meggie chuckled. It was a lovely sound. “Fair enough. Don’t you think you are, though?”

  “What?”

  “Being awfully fucking English about it?”

  Mike smiled, then laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose I am.”

  She shrugged and smiled back at him.

  “It’s good to see you again,” he said, “after all this time.”

  “You too.”

  He put the joint to his lips again to fill the silence between them.

  A raindrop fell from the curl of hair crowning her forehead and splashed onto her nose. She giggled, then stopped still as Mike reached out and brushed it away with his thumb.

  “Sorry, I.…” he began.

  Seemingly on instinct, Meggie grabbed his hand as if to swat it away, but then she held on to it and stared at him. Mike felt a rush of repressed memory at her touch. He looked into her eyes and wondered if the same memory was awakening behind them.

  “We shouldn’t open old wounds,” Meggie said.

  Wounds? Mike only had happy memories of the last time he had seen Meggie. He was about to articulate a question when she turned his hand over in hers and looked closer at his skin.

  “What’s this?” she asked. “Oh my goodness. Are you bleeding? Is it your thumb again? It could be infected.…”

  Mike felt guilty in an instant. Before he could stop himself, he glanced from Meggie to the shelves. She looked back at his hand, and Mike knew then that she had realized he wasn’t bleeding at all. The blood had come from elsewhere. Her eyes widened, and she let go of his hand. Mike felt bereft at the severed connection. After the heat of his earlier anger, her touch had been a soothing warmth. She rushed to the shelf and plucked the box from it. Mike knew she must have seen the blood on the lid, and as she opened it, he expected her to scream any instant. Instead, she walked right up to him and thrust the open box under his nose.

  “Why? What, Mike? How could anyone do this to a poor wee defenseless bird?”

  “I-I didn’t.…”

  Mike’s voice faltered as Meggie thrust the little cardboard box closer to his face. The black bird inside had been crushed. Blood and feathers were an indistinguishable, dark, wet tangle. Mike couldn’t understand it. He hadn’t harmed the bird—

  It was the flies.

  —the poor thing must have been infected, riddled with maggots inside—

  Like Oscar, don’t tell her about Oscar.

  —which turned to flies and—

  Mike felt sure he was going to throw up. The heat of the moment that had passed between them had turned cold. As freezing bloody cold as the grave.

  “What the fuck did you do? Explain it to me please because I am having a really hard time understanding what the hell it is you thought you were doing in here.”

  The hurt and accusation in her voice was too much for him to bear.

  “Look I tried to help it. I saw it struggling to move and then—”

  That was enough for Meggie. Her eyes wet with tears, she grabbed Mike’s shirt and pulled him away from the desk. Turning him toward the door, she shoved him, hard.

  “You have the poor wee beastie’s blood on your hands. You ruin everything,” she said. “You destroy everything you touch.” She spoke in quiet fury now, her trembling voice heavy with sobs.

  Mike stumbled, dumbfounded, toward the doorway and toward a looming shadow. Helen was standing there, her unblinking eyes seemingly unable to take in what she was witnessing. How long had she been standing there? How much had she seen – and heard? Mike felt a cold coil tightening in his stomach.

  “Helen,” he said dumbly.

  She was gone before he could say any more.

  He turned back to Meggie, but she had her back to him. She was still holding the little cardboard box in her hands, her shoulders rising and falling with her sobs.

  Mike wandered outside. The dark shape of the cottage loomed across the backyard, its windows impenetrable. He glanced back at the studio and glimpsed Meggie shutting the door. He stood in the cold, empty space between the two buildings and wished that it was still raining.

  * * *

  The cold forced Mike back inside. He ambled into the dining area through the conservatory door and found Alex and Kay halfway through their meal. The roasted grouse smelled delicious.

  “Where’s Helen?” he asked.

  Alex and Kay exchanged furtive glances. Alex finished his mouthful and wiped his greasy lips on a gingham tea towel that had been left on the table next to the roasting dish.

  “Upstairs,” he said. “Said she was too tired to eat.”

  “I’m sorry. About before,” Mike said.

  “Big of you,” Alex said, teasing.

  Mike declined to answer. Hunger necessitated that he take as much mickey-taking as Alex could throw his way. If he was going to have to eat humble pie, he felt pretty sure he was acquiring a taste for it.

  “We saved you some of the roasted grouse,” Kay said, no doubt noticing he was licking his lips.

  “But we’re drinking your whisky in return,” Alex said. “Cheers!” he added with a wide grin, refilling his glass with a generous slosh of MacGregor’s Death Juice.

  “You’re welcome to it, of course,” Mike replied, though he didn’t mean it.

  “Come and sit with us,” Kay said, gesturing at one of the vacant chairs. “Let’s all be friends again.”

  “Aye, let’s,” Alex said.

  He sounded pretty drunk already. Good. Kay giggled tipsily as Alex poured another measure into her glass. Mike found a clean plate and began loading it up with food. He sat in the seat farthest from Alex and Kay, reluctant to get too close to their bubble.

  “Did you see Meg out there?”

  Mike coughed, his food going down the wrong way. Kay rose from the table and drew a glass of water from the tap.

  “Here,” she said, handing it to him, and she slapped him on the back for good measure.

  “Thanks.” He gulped down water gratefully until his coughing had subsided. “She was in her studio.”

  “I’ll ask her if she wants to join us,” Kay said. “She might want some of the side vegetables for supper?”

  “I think she wan
ts to be on her own right now,” Mike said.

  Kay shot Alex a look of concern. Alex shot Mike an accusing look.

  “The injured bird. It died,” Mike said, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t ask any more questions of him. He didn’t feel like he could go into the details of what he had seen, and the weirdness of the misunderstanding between him and Meggie.

  “Oh, no,” Kay said. “Poor little thing.”

  Mike didn’t know if she meant the bird or Meggie. For some reason unknown to him, Kay’s rising concern was making him feel uncomfortable.

  “She’ll be bloody upset,” Alex sighed. “First Oscar, and now the bird.”

  Kay looked confusedly at Alex, then Mike, who shoveled another forkful of food into his mouth as a defensive move.

  “Oscar’s not dead, though, just missing,” Kay said. Her inflection made it sound more like a question than a statement of fact.

  Alex glanced over at Mike, darkly. Mike just lowered his eyes to his plate. The game looked less appetizing when accompanied by the grim memory of what they had found up at the stone circle.

  Kay seemed not to notice their silent exchange. “I’ll take her a drink. She could probably use one.” She shrugged.

  Mike wondered if Kay was enjoying playing the part of ‘concerned would-be sister-in-law’. It struck him that she always seemed to come to life when others spoke of illness, or death. One evening after a night out at the students’ union, he had heard Helen complaining to a friend of hers that Kay was a bit of a – how had she phrased it? – an ambulance chaser, that was it.

  Well, he thought, the patient awaits you in her studio, clutching the remnants of a dead bird she thinks that I killed. Knock yourself out, ambulance chaser.

  “Just don’t bring her in here while the grouse is still on the table,” Alex said gruffly. “We’d never hear the bloody last of it.”

  Kay looked at the roasting dish and the delicious remnants of the game bathed in its own juices. “Oh,” she said, sounding crestfallen. “You guys pop it back in the oven or something, will you?” With that, she was gone, clutching two tumblers and a bottle of supermarket own-brand vodka.

  “And then there were two,” Alex said, proffering the bottle of MacGregor’s Death Juice. “Want some of this before it’s all gone?”

  Mike nodded.

  “I know you’re just stressed about Helen – and the baby,” Alex said.

  Mike flinched hearing him put it like that, in such a matter-of-fact way.

  “I’d shite myself if it was me,” Alex continued. He shifted in his seat. “Fuck’s sake, Mike, what are you going to do? You two had your whole lives ahead of you to get pregnant. Kay says Helen’s throwing her career away. She doesn’t seem to hold much hope that Helen will have any chance at job progression if she turns up at interviews with a baby bump.”

  “And what do you think?” Mike asked after taking a welcome sip of whisky. For all their differences, Mike still valued Alex’s counsel above all others.

  “I have to agree with her. You have to admit, any employer’s going to take issue with a new recruit planning her maternity leave before she’s even passed the probationary period.” Seeing Mike’s expression, he added, “Sorry.”

  “No need to be,” Mike said. “You’re just being honest. It’s kind of what I need right now. Nobody stopped to think I might not want to even be a dad yet. And as you said, we had our whole lives to start a family.”

  Alex poured more whisky, which Mike gladly accepted.

  “Tell you what, I’ll open the single malt,” Alex said, looking disapprovingly at the empty bottle. “The vintage stuff. Proper gear. Let’s get rat-arsed.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mike awoke to a sudden noise. It had sounded like a child’s laughter. He opened his eyes to find the room still shrouded in darkness. Turning over, he saw Helen’s sleeping form next to him. The faintest glow of moonlight bled between a gap in the curtains.

  It was the middle of the night.

  He listened to the nighttime and heard nothing except for the faint creak of the timbers in the eaves against the wind outside. His forehead was beaded with sweat from all the alcohol he and Alex had put away in the kitchen. They had taken their last drink at two in the morning before calling it a night or, rather, a day. Wondering what time it was now, Mike rolled over to find his phone. In the Highlands, he’d found that cellular devices were only any good for telling the time. He felt around on the bedside table, then the floor, and located his mobile nestled next to the leg of the bed. Leaning over the side of the bed, he thumbed the sleep button and winced at the sudden brightness of the screen as it came to life in his hand.

  Four in the morning. Jesus.

  His head swam and he realized he was still very drunk. He began to slide from the sheets, losing his purchase on the bed. Allowing the phone to fall back onto the floor, he used the flat of his hand to steady himself against the floorboards. He had narrowly avoided falling out of bed and, he hoped, also avoided waking Helen in the process. He listened intently for her breathing. She was still sound asleep. Good, now he wouldn’t have to add waking her at four in the morning to his list of many crimes and misdemeanors.

  Mike pushed himself back up onto the bed and lay back against the sheets. He felt sweat trickling from his head onto the pillow. The after-burn of whisky lapped at his throat, and he wished he’d had the presence of mind to bring a glass of water up to the bedroom with him. His nausea overwhelmed his compulsion to fight it and head downstairs for a drink from the kitchen tap. He breathed slow and steady, as though willing the acid gathering at his throat to subside, then closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep once more.

  The giggle came softly at first, as though in a dream. But then it built, until Mike felt sure there was a small child in the room with him.

  He snapped his eyes open and sat up. His vision tilted as blood rushed to his head. Why on earth had he succumbed to that nightcap? It was what had tipped him over the edge, he was sure of it. He raised his hand to his head, brushing back his hair and feeling the sickly, cold touch of perspiration there. Hearing the little laugh once more, he turned to Helen to see if she was still asleep.

  She wasn’t in bed.

  Was it later than he thought? Maybe she had gotten up for breakfast already. Confused, he slid his legs over the side of the bed until he was in an upright position. Now he had a clear view of the door and, in particular, the gap between it and the floorboards. Mike saw flickering light there and then two dark shadows, which moved so fast that they startled him. He swallowed in consternation, a feeling that was quickly becoming stark fear. Tension was gripping his throat, and he absentmindedly clawed at the neck of his t-shirt. But it was not his clothing that was making his throat feel tight and his chest heavy with the labor of his heart beating ten to the dozen – rather it was what he now saw, and smelled, so clearly in the room. The flickering light from beneath the door and the little shaft of moonlight from the window revealed what his senses were screaming at him to be true.

  The room was filling with smoke.

  Mike grabbed his hoodie from the chair next to the chest of drawers, tugged it on, and then crossed to the door. Yanking it open, he stumbled into the hallway. The rush of heat and smoke almost brought him to his knees. He pressed the cuff of his hoodie over his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to keep the fumes at bay. He coughed and wiped tears from his eyes with his free hand, leaving them burning against the acrid smoke. He ducked down the hallway with his arm still clamped over his mouth and nose and headed for Alex and Kay’s room. Mike wanted to cry out, to raise the alarm, but he dared not pull away his arm for fear of being overcome by the fumes. When he reached the bedroom door, he grasped for the handle. It disturbed him that it was so very hot to the touch. He turned the handle quickly and shoved the door open.

  The heat hit him full force as he
realized, too late, that the bedroom was ablaze. Flames were devouring the drapes, reflected back by the window glass. The fire had spread to the divan, and Mike saw that the corner of the mattress nearest to him had caught fire. Blinking at the searing heat, he grasped for the door so that he could pull it shut and keep the fire contained inside the room. As he wrestled with the door, he had no choice but to remove his arm from over his mouth and nose. A rush of foul smoke invaded his airways. Coughing against the onslaught of smoke, he pulled the door shut. For a moment, it struck him that Alex and Kay’s bed looked like it hadn’t been slept in. Perhaps they’d already risen and Kay had made the bed. What he knew of Kay made that seem unlikely. Maybe it was later than he’d thought.

  Typical. If that lot had gone out to leave him alone in a burning bloody cottage—

  A sudden crash put any such thoughts to the back of his mind.

  It sounded like windows breaking in Alex and Kay’s room. The heat must have been too intense for the old, weathered glass. Even in his half-awake state, Mike knew the danger. The fire would now be fed by the oxygen outside, helping it spread. He had to get out. And he had to get out right now. He opened the door.

  Fighting against the heat that he could feel pulsating through the walls, Mike placed his arm over his face again and made his way down the narrow hallway to the stairs. He could barely see them amid thick smoke. His stomach flipped at the memory of the fog on the Highlands, and the dark shapes that had hunted him there.

  He steeled himself and began his descent. He could not see where the last step ended and where the next began. The last few steps were the worst, and he had to reach out his foot gingerly, searching with the tips of his toes through the smoke for solid ground.

  Mike coughed his way through the smoke and heat into the living room and past the furniture. He could see the dim light of day through the conservatory windows, which seemed impossibly far away, a trick of the smoke. As he dodged the looming shape of an armchair, he realized too late that his trajectory had brought him closer to the fireplace.