Beside this cold and gray sea.
And these patient woods.
Dark and deep. If not lovely.
“Quite,” Oliver replied, blissfully unaware of any distress that may, or may not, have been palpable in the real estate agent’s voice, or subsequently observed in his own wife’s expression for that matter. “Only what we felt we couldn’t live without,” he said.
“I see,” Ethan allowed, though still contemplating that trailer. “Sensible that. And the cottage is furnished, more or less.
Oliver stepped toward it now.
The dark nursery rhyme of a cottage.
Scrutinizing the thatched roof.
Fascinated by the directional thatch.
The network of twisted rope securing it.
Such things always fascinated him.
“Wheat straw?” he wanted to know.
The tall and thin man shook his head.
A small glint in his muddy brown eyes.
Fascinated by Oliver’s fascination.
“Marram grass, it ‘tis,” he said.
“Hm, I would’ve thought it wheat straw or water reed, or perhaps heather,” Oliver mused. “Marram grass, is it, then?”
“Aye,” Ethan said. “Locally referred to as bent, it ‘tis. It grows thickly about the dunes to the north of here and quite reliably withstands our high gales and the sand thrown with them.”
“High gales,” Abby said.
“Aye,” Ethan agreed.
She imagined such a thing.
If not at all fascinated by it.
The howl of such horrible wind.
The noise of all that thrown sand.
Scratching and clawing and such.
She frowned. Shivered.
Ethan finally noticed her discomfort. Cleared his throat. Got himself moving again. He nodded through the curtain of gray drizzle at the back door from which he’d emerged with the yellow galoshes keeping Abby’s feet warm and dry at the moment. Or rather, dree, she morosely reminded herself. “The mud room,” he said, gesturing at the narrow wooden door equipped with a narrow wooden latch. “But we should begin properly at the main entrance.”
He led them around the stone cottage.
Guarded by small withering oaks.
Thin trunks and haggard limbs.
“So, you’ll be teaching at our school in Peel, then,” Ethan said to Oliver as they walked, making polite conversation. A polite conversation that sounded as forced as that twittery smile. “History, is it? And, tell me, how do you like our little village so far?”
Oliver shrugged. Embarrassed.
“We took a silly shortcut inland from the ferry,” he admitted. “Turned out anything but, I’m afraid. Picturesque, though.”
“Oh, well, she’s isn’t going anywhere, I’d wager,” Ethan said. “Our village. Been here just about forever like most things.”
Ben hay-re jess a-boat fah-evah.
Leek moase dings. Aye way-juh.
A narrow stone path sinking deeply into the muck rounded an overgrown garden. The overgrown garden spilled over a low crumbling stone wall rather futilely attempting to contain its furious tangle of ugly vines and creepers, nettles and crabgrass, cantankerous weeds, and dense populations of alien-looking wildflowers and perennials. The narrow stone path following this low crumbling stone wall and around this primeval forest of a garden eventually arrived at a pair of double stable doors. The stone cottage’s main entrance. Oddly, a congregation of old rusted iron horseshoes had been nailed to the double wooden doors in a pattern of rough concentric circles, and appeared like they’d been there for a very long time, indeed.
Abby blinked. Wrinkled her nose.
Disquieted by the queer arrangement.
“What does it mean” she finally said.
Ethan chuckled. A raspy hollow noise.
His twittery smile more twittery.
“It offers good luck to all those who wish to enter,” he illuminated. Then, chuckling again, offering as much as if it were only an afterthought: “Believe it also repels witches or some sort.”
Just a little amusing anecdote.
A romantic bit of local folklore.
Something to amuse the tourists.
Oliver, of course, was amused.
Abby’s husband was always amused.
Always amused by such quaint things.
In addition to being fascinated.
Abby frowned. “Who were the previous owners?” she wanted to know, moving closer. She could feel the cold again. Penetrating her too-light coat gone damp like many small steel knives.
Like she’d never be warm again.
Ethan cleared his throat.
“A couple from Leeds, I believe,” he said. “This was meant to be their summer home, but it’s been empty for years now.”
“Meant to be?” she pushed him.
“Aye, well, he fell ill, you see, and she never returned,” Ethan acknowledged reluctantly, the glint in his muddy brown eyes fading as if the simple acknowledgement might tempt an awful curse.
Abby felt herself shiver harder.
Those knives stabbing even deeper.
“The estate is selling,” he finally added.
Abby wondered if he’d fallen ill here.
This previous owner of the cottage.
In this place beside this cold gray sea.
These woods. Dark and deep. If not lovely.
“At any rate,” Ethan said, twittery smile twittering at the edges, “the cottage has been here in one form or another for as long as anyone ‘round here can remember. And you have almost five acres. Three and a half which are useable, including the paddock.”
A vague motion at the sloping pasture.
Ethan climbed the front steps. Stone.
Approaching the double stable doors.
With their rough concentric horseshoe circles.
For the briefest of moments, however--
The tall and thin man seemed to hesitate.
Seemed to hesitate before those heavy doors.
That gigantic Adam’s apple bobbing.
Bobbing up and down without speech.
Abby would remember that later.
That lingering. That briefest of hesitations.
Before he finally opened the doors.
“Watch your heads,” he warned.
And ducked into the cottage.
Oliver followed. Then Abby.
She stepped over the threshold from the cold gray drizzle and into a dark main room with a stale musty air, her frown deepening. Somehow the cottage appeared even smaller inside its stone walls. Revealing functional, if simple and unremarkable furniture with a fine sheen of gray dust. A cast iron radiator sat in a corner opposite a stone fireplace with a cast iron woodstove insert. The fireplace stones rose above the insert to a low ceiling left black from generations of soot. There was an unpolished wood floor worn in highly-traveled corridors. A corner kitchen and the mud room.
It was rather like stepping back in time.
And she thought of those horse trams.
Stamping and snorting back in the capital.
Imagined arriving here in such a manner.
After journeying through those dark woods.
Wagon wheels pushing through the mud.
To this place beside this cold gray sea.
The mucky clip-clop of horse hooves.
Finally coming to rest here. Here.
Beside this small stone cottage.
At the very end of the world.
“You’ve mains electricity and water,” Ethan softly encouraged her, again seemingly appreciating her ever-deepening apprehension. “And oil-fired central heating. But we’ll go over all that.”
He looked like he wanted to take her hand.
To whisper everything would be okay.
‘Come little rabbit, come with me.
How happy we will be.’
But perhaps not wanting to mislead her.
This man who�
��d given her the galoshes.
To protect her feet from the muck.
Abby drifted into the kitchen in a daze. A Belfast sink. A cupboard with dishes and mugs and glassware. Just sitting there silently. Gathering their own fine sheen of dust. Cutlery in a drawer. All of it simply left behind along with the simple furniture.
An ice box. An electric range.
“No dishwasher,” she said.
She peeked into the mud room.
A top-load washing machine rested on thick wooden blocks. “Ah, at least we won’t be washing clothes by hand,” she said.
There was a small bathroom.
On the south side of the room.
A pedestal sink with rust stains. Tile walls and a tile floor with a small drain in the corner. The small drain also stained with rust. A toilet. A lonely towel hook and a claw-foot shower tub with a rusted shower head and discolored patches on its abutting wall, revealing a fossilized mélange of old water and mildew stains.
“This is the only bathroom?” she asked.
“Aye, ‘tis,” Ethan conceded.
The staircase to the second floor was quite narrow, the ceiling lamp weak, leading to a narrow upstairs corridor with a small linen closet and separating two small bedrooms of equal dimension. The bedroom facing to the east was empty but for a radiator and a large antique mirror with an ornate silver frame depicting angelic cherubs on fluffy white clouds. Chubby-cheeked. Dewy-eyed. Innocent. The opposite bedroom faced west. It was sparsely furnished with a twin bed, a tall wardrobe, and another ubiquitous radiator.
Abby sighed. A resigned sound.
She passed through the sparsely furnished room, approaching a double-hung window peering out at that cold gray sea.
Ethan fell in behind her.
His voice also now twittery.
“Sunsets are spectacular on this side of the isle,” he said. “And on a clear day you’ll be able to see the Mountains of Mourne.”
Ireland. Somewhere out there.
Beyond all this cold gray drizzle.
Falling from this low overcast sky.
Oliver, meanwhile, considered his wife from the hall.
How small she looked standing there.
There in all that shadowy gray light.
How insubstantial she appeared.
How very gray and tenuous, indeed.
Like it all might just swallow her.
All that shadowy grayness.
Abby was still staring out into that grayness, searching for Ireland past the cold gray drizzle, sloping paddock, and a steep cliff of black slate plummeting to a gray surf crashing against more toothy black slate, as Oliver continued the tour with Ethan. As Oliver followed the tall and thin real estate agent back down to the main level of the stone cottage and to the entrance of the cellar.
The heavy wooden cellar door was situated inconspicuously at the edge of the kitchen. Oliver initially thought it a pantry or a coat closet before being greeted by a deep and hollow blackness.
An old rickety staircase led down.
Down into that deep and hollow blackness.
Oliver found himself faltering here.
Faltering before that pitch-black.
As if it might just swallow him.
Ethan, behind him, actually seemed to take a step backward, as if comprehending a similar shudder-some fate. But, of course, that was all rather quite very silly, wasn’t it? After all, in the end, the tall and thin man was just merely fumbling for the light switch.
A naked bulb popped on.
A bulb hanging from rafters.
A slanted ceiling tilting downward.
Tilting downward above that staircase.
Buzzing. That naked hanging bulb.
Throwing off only a dim light.
Struggling to push back the inky darkness, if just managing to expose skeins of cobweb and an earthen floor waiting below.
Oliver felt himself falter again.
Not unlike a small frightened child.
A small frightened child afraid of the dark.
And of what might be inhabiting it.
Until what felt like a hand falling on his back.
A hand gently encouraging him forward.
Or what he imagined to be a hand.
With Ethan standing beside him.
His own hands stuffed in his pockets.
As if quite eager to just be done with it all.
Back in the black sedan with the advert and off.
Oliver shook his head. Grunted at himself.
Maybe Abby really was getting to him.
He proceeded down the old rickety staircase, finding it steeper than it first appeared from above, the open risers badly warped and creaking softly with protest and offering blind glimpses of a deeper blackness under the staircase where anything might be hiding. Oliver shook that absurd thought away, too, and paid attention to the creak of those steps, careful to have a firm grip on the railing just in case one of the steps suddenly gave way in a terrible shriek of splintering wood. Finally, he arrived at the earthen floor and found himself in a dank and windowless stone-walled room prominently featuring a huge black boiler hissing in its furthest corner.
The lone inhabitant of the cellar.
The ceiling quite flat and low here.
A step away from the old rickety staircase.
With thick dark beams pushing down.
Forcing Oliver to duck his head.
Or at least feel like he should be doing so.
The huge boiler was floor-standing.
Made of a thick black cast iron.
A monstrous medieval-looking thing.
Ethan spoke quickly now. He’d been antsy ever since entering the cottage, or so Oliver realized now. And was even more uncomfortable down here in this windowless darkness with the cold stone walls pushing-in on him despite still having one foot on the feeble staircase and a hand firmly locked on its wooden railing.
“Your oil-fired boiler,” he said.
Nodding at the massive contraption.
Slumbering in this dark dungeon.
“Heats water, providing not only your radiator central heating, but all your hot water,” he went on. “Most of the isle is natural gas now,” he then said, “but, unfortunately, you’re still just too remote. Some upgrade to liquid petroleum. Saves a few coins, that.”
He cleared his throat. Blinked.
Then nodded back up at the kitchen.
A narrow rectangle of gray light.
“Shall we?” he said. “Bit stuffy down here. Never been partial to small confined spaces myself. Bit difficult to breathe.”
Mee-self. Con-feigned. Braithe.
He offered a nervous chuckle.
And began climbing back to the kitchen.
And for a moment Oliver had the most insane thought Ethan might vanish into that waiting gray light and slam the heavy wooden cellar door closed and flick off that dim hanging bulb, trapping him inside this tomb, the heavy blackness falling over him with that large and monstrous thing preying out from the far corner.
Hissing and such.
4.
THE GRAY OLD LADY finally withdrew her gauzy veil at sundown, heralding in a dark and moonless night. A heavy darkness. A darkness quite unfamiliar to a former Londoner like Oliver who was, admittedly, quite all too accustomed to bright street lamps and blinking neon signs and endless car headlight traffic. He felt out-of-sorts and rather blind in this hinterland darkness. This overwhelming darkness save for tiny pinpricks of starlight dotting the heavens. Distant alien observers, these tiny pinpricks, incurious ones at that and quite unable to intercede regardless.
This darkness also came with silence.
A heavy and indifferent silence.
But, of course, none of this was true.
This darkness was anything but blinding. Not once he stepped away from the cottage and allowed himself to find his night-vision and the nearby barn and woods slowly began to take shape.
Along with the hor
izon to the west.
A black line dividing violet from dark blue.
And he could suddenly hear the sea pounding against all that black slate below the cliff-edge just past the sloping paddock.
Louder at night. Deafening really.
And things out in the thick woods, too.
The woods past the ramshackle barn.
Skittering and slithery things.
Rustling and such in the brush.
And a new sound. A terrible sound.
A most awful whining noise.
He was standing in the long wet grass at the edge of the sloping paddock, leaning against that tumble-down split-rail fence when he first heard it, only to discern it was coming from the stone cottage itself behind him. And, upon turning around, finding himself dazed by those cottage lights, his hard-earned night-vision immediately ruined. The somber, if overwhelming cottage lights producing fuzzy halos before him like the vestiges of exploding flares.
He stumbled in the long wet grass.
Feeling the hearty stalks grab at his legs.
Soaking the thin denim of his jeans.
The awful whining noise growing louder.
Disturbing those things in the woods.
Those skittering and slithery things.
Rustling and such in the brush.
He stumbled back to the cottage, shielding his eyes against the glare, to find his wife, his Abby, god bless her soul, prying loose the old rusted horseshoes from the double stable doors with a hammer claw. Each corroded nail protesting with a shrieking wail.
She hid a cigarette behind her back. Not because she thought herself sly or clever, but only to avoid it as a topic of conversation. Out of sight, out of mind. Offering a shrug as he surveyed the pile of already-discarded horseshoes gathering in the cold sticky malodorous muck beside her much-too-large yellow galoshes.
“You think they’re quaint, don’t you?” she said. “Well, darling, they give me the heebie-jeebies. Besides, they’re tacky.”
Oliver sighed. But said nothing.
Leaving her to her determined task.
Sensing it might be cathartic.
Later that night, amid a geography of moving boxes, and after sharing a tiny supper with his wife that had consisted of picnic basket leftovers that had only just managed to muffle the grousing of his stomach, Oliver prepared the cottage for bed. Locking the double stable doors just as he would have done his door back in good old London, though not before, after taking a final breath of fresh air, noting the faint ghostly outlines of those removed old rusted horseshoes in their rough pattern of concentric circles on the dark wood. Gone, but still ever-haunting even in their absence.
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