Hearthstone Cottage

by Frazer Lee

  Her mocking laughter tipped him over the edge. He pushed again and was able to detach himself from the mantelpiece for a split second. Long enough to thrash out with his right hand. He felt a dark warp of immense energy fold around his fingers as he swatted the scrying mirror from its perch, sending it toppling over and onto the hearthstone.

  Mike heard the sound of glass breaking in reverse once again, only this time much louder. Another sound – that of the world inhaling – followed before becoming a deafening crash that threatened to split Mike’s skull open.

  And then, silence.

  He looked down at the fragments of curved black glass. The mirror had been smashed to pieces on impact. Mike took a step back, relieved to find his mind and body free of the mirror’s reflection and the dreadful grip it had held over him.

  But then he felt that something was wrong before he even heard it.

  And he heard that something was very, very wrong before he even saw it.

  Meggie’s laughter became a low whisper, singing discordantly inside his head.

  Oh, imagine how many years bad luck that will be for you!

  The next sound was of glass scraping against the rough stone of the hearth. It set Mike’s teeth on edge to hear it, and he clamped his hands to his ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound. With dawning horror, Mike looked down to see the source of the sound was a fragment of broken black glass, moving as if by the direction of some invisible hand to join another piece nearby. The pieces locked together with a sickening snap, and they in turn joined to several others.

  The mirror was remaking itself before his disbelieving eyes.

  I spent so many dark, lonely hours gazing into this looking glass, Meggie’s voice intoned. Or is it more appropriate to call it a seeing glass? Maybe it is.

  Mike heard, or rather felt, her sigh.

  So many hours until I had the answer. Until I knew what to do.

  A thunder crack resounded in Mike’s fevered brain.

  Until I learned what it wanted, Meggie said. You’ll learn too.

  The broken pieces of mirror were gone, leaving behind only the bare stone surface of the hearth. Looking up at the mantelpiece in dread, he saw the mirror sitting in pride of place again, exactly where it had been before. The last few pieces were – and this seemed incredible even to Mike, after all he had witnessed – moving across the mantel to join with the mirror. It was as though some powerful magnetic field held dominion over the fragments. Mike could feel the pulse of the mirror’s dark power coursing through the fabric of the cottage, and through the rough stone. And as each mirror shard began to slot into place, Mike began to see what was reflected there. Instead of his own image, he could see the sweep of the landscape outside the cottage.

  He felt compelled to lean closer to the reflective surface.

  In the absence of his own reflection, there was only sky and a line of tall trees. Where the loch should have been, Mike was astonished to see rows of cottages and a church steeple against the skyline. This must have been how the village looked before the dam project flooded the land and drowned it. Mike understood now how his father’s pet promotion project had altered the land forever. What was it that Meggie had said to him about the sins of the father?

  He put the unfinished thought aside, seeing something new enter the circular frame of the mirror. Builders, dressed in clothes from long ago, were lashing together the timbers of the cottage. As the final shard of the mirror clicked into place so, too, did the stones that formed the structural walls of the cottage. And then Mike saw a reflection of the men carrying an enormous slab of stone into the room behind him. He guessed from the shape and size of it that it was the same hearthstone that lay beneath his bare feet. The image was so vivid he felt as though he could turn around and see the men hoisting the stone over his head and into place. But something else caught his attention, rooting him to the spot.

  The men, each grimacing from the effort of manipulating such a hefty stone, were turning the slab over. Mike saw the arcane inscriptions there before they began to lower the stone into place. He recognized them in an instant.

  The hearthstone in the fireplace was the altar stone from the Spindle Stones.

  It had been laid inscription side down, leaving the rough underside as a neutral surface for the hearth. The witch’s occult pictograms had been hidden beneath the cottage floor, but had still resonated through the centuries with whatever dark power she had conjured during her rituals. Mike thought of the little cloth bundle he had seen depicted in Meggie’s painting and felt sick to wonder how much blood had been spilled over that stone – the exact same stone he was now standing on.

  More souls were needed, Mikey.

  He felt warmth at his feet and smelled an unpleasant metallic tang. Mike looked down to see a slick of blood seeping upward through the stone, coating his bare skin. Hearing a muffled, dragging sound, he glanced across to the edge of the hearthstone and started at the sight of the little cloth bundle, twitching and shuffling toward him.

  She really does like you, the wee bairn.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  Feeling the hideous touch of cloth at his right foot, Mike kicked out at the little bundle. Bones rattled horribly as it skidded across the hearth. He recoiled, leaving bloody footprints on the hearthstone.

  “Jesus bloody Christ! Is this a nightmare? Or is it real?”

  We have a winner! And a runner-up, actually. It’s both, you poor boy. Don’t you see? You’ve made the world from your own Id, all the lust and paranoid fantasies from your fragile male psyche. It’s been a thing of beauty, Mikey, really it has, to watch your fears and desires unfold. Never knew you had the half of it in you. But the cottage did. The cottage gave you the power to project it all, to make it real. All it wanted was to show you. Show you who you really are. And now the cottage wants something in return. Word to the wise from someone who knows about these things. It’s best not to refuse it.

  Mike felt a cold wave of panic wash over him. He tore his gaze away from the mirror and turned to face the empty room. The walls were shifting and then reassembling around him, a constant loop of making and unmaking that made it seem as though the cottage was breathing – a living thing.

  Perhaps it is, Mike thought darkly.

  He turned back to the mirror and saw a woman reflected there, lying on the floor, her legs parted in readiness to give birth. Dark figures stood around her, the shadows of their cowls concealing their faces. But Mike knew that he was seeing the spectral villagers again – and echoes of what had once happened here at the heart and hearth of the cottage.

  One of the figures was stooped over the pregnant woman’s prone body, holding her hand tightly and whispering incantations over and over, her voice cracking from the continued effort. It was the witch. Mike thought of the cloth bundle and a thought – too hideous to contemplate – began to form in his mind.

  “She lived here, didn’t she? And children died here. She cursed them and stored their bones in the walls of this place.”

  But why would she do that, Mikey?

  “For whatever her dark magic gave to her. The book that Kay was reading said she wanted revenge on the villagers.…”

  Meggie chuckled and then sighed. He could almost feel her breath inside his head. It made him feel queasy.

  She only ever wanted to help her community. If there was a difficult birth, the villagers called upon her. If a child was sick, they called on her then, too. Women always pay the price, don’t they, Mikey?

  “You make her sound like a victim, or a saint even,” Mike said.

  Oh, you’re not listening. Not properly.

  Meggie’s voice took on a harder edge, making him wince as she spoke.

  Her name was Elsa. And for all the times she helped them, the villagers loved her. But when her magic failed, they began to blame her – not jus
t for the death of an already stillborn child but for all sorts of things. Failed crops, tainted water. The good Christian men of the village ordered that she be put to death. A scapegoat for all their barely hidden sins. Imagine how that feels, Mikey? To make protecting your community your life’s work and then to have it turn on you like that. Tell me, would that not make you vengeful?

  Mike remained silent, but he heard the truth in Meggie’s words.

  On that fateful day, she cursed the world of men. She’s interested in you, Mikey, because your father was offered her cottage as a prize from his paymasters, in return for flooding the village she once called home and displacing its people to a pathetic shadow of the community she helped to build and protect.

  Mike saw the dark shapes again in the mirror and felt their confusion and despair at being so lost. He thought of the sunken village in the loch, where the bodies still lay. Because his father’s company had wanted to avoid the cost of relocating them. The cemetery where he had seen the headstones bearing his name was a sham, set dressing for a soulless collection of buildings that could never replace the real village. That place had been drowned under the supervision of his father. And for what? Money and a promotion.

  “But he didn’t take the cottage,” Mike said. “Didn’t even get his promotion. Your dad took that from him, Meggie Buchanan.”

  Only because your father fucked up. But he set it all in motion, with his wheeling and dealing and dubious cost-cutting measures. Bodies left to swell and rot in the loch. Heart ripped from out of the community. Cold, empty streets abandoned by a cold and empty man. Left behind and forgotten by your father, Michael Carter.

  Mike felt ashamed to hear his surname alongside a roster of accomplishments such as those. As this feeling took seed inside him, the images in the mirror began to distort, then grow clearer. The woman on the living room floor looked different somehow – younger, and her hair had become distinctly reddish in hue. He thought it might be the glow of the fire that was creating these impressions, but then he saw her face clearly for the first time.

  It was Meggie.

  You would do well to feel ashamed, Mikey.

  In the mirror image, Meggie was weeping and holding on to the little, blood-smeared body of her dead child. The infant corpse was so tiny Mike knew it couldn’t have nearly reached full-term.

  That night when you and Alex argued, remember that?

  Mike saw a flicker of it in the mirror. He and Alex had drunk a fair bit that night, the last time they had stayed at the cottage. Mike couldn’t even remember what the fight had been about. That they were picking up where their respective fathers had left off – well, he knew that much at least. He saw himself at the kitchen table, hurling abuse at his best friend, accusing Alex’s father of being the source of all Mike’s misery. If only Alex’s father hadn’t shopped him to his bosses at the company for his dodgy dealings with the contracts, then Mike’s father wouldn’t be so unhappy. He wouldn’t hate Mike so much. If—

  If?

  If only—

  If you’re honest with yourself, you wanted rid of my brother that night, didn’t you?

  Mike saw, in the mirror, an image of Alex storming out of the cottage, slamming the door and climbing into a cab. Just as Helen and the others had abandoned him in the Land Rover that morning.

  Events do seem to be replaying themselves here, don’t they?

  Mike swallowed against a bitter, dry taste in the back of his throat.

  You wanted Alex gone so you could be alone. With me, Meggie said. I know because I wanted it too. The cottage helped me see that. All those pretty things you said to me—

  “I don’t remember,” Mike said quietly. “I’d had quite a lot to drink and—”

  And so you fucked me and forgot me.

  “That’s not what I.… That’s not how it.…”

  That is exactly how it happened, Meggie reminded him.

  Mike saw a reflection of the two of them standing over the hearth, deep in the throes of their combined passion, their bodies lit by fire. Just as he had walked in on Alex and Kay with the two old-timers from the village.

  You left early the next morning, didn’t you? Didn’t even say goodbye. I thought you might have gone to get us some food. Stupid teenage girl. I waited all day, until the sky went black, Mikey. Imagine how that feels? Can you, even?

  “Meggie, I’m sorry, I-I had to clear my head. I felt so bad about Helen; I had to get back to her and—”

  I was less than nothing to you. I was your revenge. You used me up and then didn’t have the guts to even acknowledge me. Don’t worry, I didn’t pine for you for too long. It was easy to forget you, and I guess you know all about that, about forgetting, until I started throwing up in the mornings.

  Mike swallowed. “Bloody hell, Meggie, why didn’t you contact me?”

  Oh, I tried, Mikey. Meggie sounded wounded now. But you blocked me. Shut me out. Deleted my messages, even changed your address. I thought of confronting you, really I did. Just rocking up at your door, or one of your happy-clappy nights out with Helen. But I couldn’t.

  “Why not?”

  She laughed – a hollow, bitter sound that rang inside his head.

  Get this. I didn’t want to hurt you. I suppose that’s what makes us so different. Opposites attract, so they say.

  “But I didn’t know. I would have tried to help.…”

  We’ll see, Meggie said in a cryptic whisper.

  Mike closed his eyes. He desperately wanted not to look, so afraid of what he might see. But her whisper coiled in his brain like a command, and his eyes opened. He saw her, reflected in the mirror. She was at his shoulder, still clutching her tiny, dead child—

  Our tiny, dead child.

  —and the sight of it made his eyes swim with tears. It looked so frail, so vulnerable and cold. He wished he could warm it by the fire. He knew that Meggie had felt that too, knew that she had swaddled the lost little form in its cloth wrappings, trying to will it back to life as she placed it on the warmth of the hearthstone.

  I tried to have an abortion, Mikey. Only they called it a ‘termination procedure’, which didn’t really make it any easier. I went to the clinic and everything. Drove myself there in my crappy old brown car and sat in the driver’s seat until it got dark. Didn’t even unfasten my seat belt. Then I drove back here. I had told my folks I was off traveling. I’d already dropped out of art school. I was too worried that I might start showing. What would people think? What would people say about me?

  She fell away from him, then.

  And, as Mike felt the cold distance between them, he wondered if that was what she had felt too, all that time she had tried to get in touch with him. He wanted to tell her he was sorry but knew any such words would be meaningless given what she had been through.

  What he had put her through.

  I felt so tired after the drive; I just put it down to all the stress. But as I got out of the car, I saw the blood on the seat—

  In the mirror, Mike saw a bloody handprint on the door of Meggie’s car.

  I made it back here, crawled inside the living room. And I lost her. Really lost her. I had a miscarriage, Mikey, right here in this room. I felt the little life leave me, and it was the emptiest feeling I’ve ever experienced. I felt so alone. In the hours I spent trying to justify getting rid of the child, I had realized I wanted to keep her—

  Mike heard something shuffle and twitch on the hearthstone. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, he told himself, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the mirror.

  She came to me then. Elsa did. Told me she could make all the pain go away, but that there would be a price to pay. I agreed to pay it, gladly. Our daughter’s soul would be hers, increasing her power, and I would remain with them—

  “Oh, no, Meggie.”

  Mike saw in the mirror an image of
Meggie staggering out of the door that led down to the lochside, her body weakened from the loss of so much blood. Her shoulders were bent forward from the strain of carrying the fishing net filled with weights. Mike’s fingers brushed the mirror’s surface – a futile gesture – as she walked on and into the water, the blackness of the loch closing around her until she was gone.

  I’ve been here ever since, Mikey. Living, but not living. Waiting, but not waiting. Replaying the blissful days and dark nightmares that only Hearthstone Cottage can bring. As my body lay at the bottom of the loch, my soul has been in limbo inside this place. I am tethered to its power. Anchored by the hearthstone that is the source of all things. In a way, Mikey, I became another sacrifice to the stone circle. And just as dear Elsa offered up souls to the stone circle, now so too must I.

  As Meggie’s words chilled him to the marrow of his bones, a sudden spike of freezing, sharp pain shot through the core of Mike’s being. The force of it made him double up and almost rocked him from his feet. The dark intrusion spread out and coursed through him like a tsunami of ice, and, unable to stand it any longer, he fell to his knees, trembling and convulsing.

  “My god, Meggie, make it stop, make it st—”

  What came next shook the words from his mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Loch water spewed in cold torrents from Mike’s mouth and onto the hearthstone, which hissed, hotly.

  You are tasting the same deep water that I tasted.

  Meggie’s voice was ever musical above the torrent.

  The same crushing fathoms that stilled my beating heart and made tributaries of my lungs.

  Mike gagged as the fronds of something slimy trailed across his throat with the unceasing flow of the dark loch water. He thought of the graves and the rotting bodies, still lying there on the lochbed. Death, drenched forever beneath the waves.

  Bitter, isn’t it? Meggie said.

  Coughing and heaving from the hideous evacuation of so much water, Mike pulled himself erect, holding on to the mantelpiece for fear that another wave might pass through him. As he fought for breath, spitting silt from his mouth, an image in the black mirror began to take shape. He could see a Highland sky over the peaks of the mountains and something else in the foreground. He thought it might be the reflected furniture in the room, but then he realized he was looking at the backs of Alex’s and Kay’s heads. And, noticing the headrests, he saw they were sitting in car seats.