Reflections

Kevin, full of beer-fueled bravado, had decided they should explore the abandoned cottage he had spotted from the trail.

     “Urban exploration, that’s what they call it,” he said. “There are guys who make a living filming this kind of stuff and putting it on YouTube.”

Moira tried to talk him out of it. They had been longer in the pub for lunch than they planned, and she had no wish to be hiking in the dark. The hiking trail wound through high, brooding hills and dusk came early at this time of year. She had also noticed the dark clouds amassing on the horizon.

        “It’ll be fine. Just a quick peep,” Kevin said. “Come on.”

She followed reluctantly. The cottage was made of local stone and almost blended into the hillside. From a distance it looked quaint, but as they approached, they could see the roof was missing many slates and the paint on the window frames was peeling. They dumped their back packs on the ground outside. Kevin forged ahead through the waist high weeds, keeping an eye out for nettles. The back door opened slowly, blocked by a broken chair, a pile of flowerpots and other garden tools.

       “Wow, look at this,” he said as they advanced into the kitchen. There were still dishes in the sink and pots on the stove. A folded newspaper lay on the table next to an overturned glass.

         “This is like a time capsule. That’s Charles and Diana’s wedding, 1981,” he said, scanning the paper.

Moira shivered. The air in the cottage was heavy and damp. It felt as if something slimy was settling on her skin. A shredded net curtain flapped in the breeze through the broken kitchen window and slivers of glass crunched under her feet as she followed Kevin into the sitting room. It had been abandoned as abruptly as the kitchen. There was an old-fashioned fireplace with easy chairs on either side, stuffing poking out of the rotting fabric. A ball of yarn and knitting needles lay on one. A large Bible lay open on the other. Kevin tried to turn the page, but the paper crumbled at the touch. A couple, she in a long black dress and he in a stiff suit and waistcoat stared at them sternly from a framed photograph on the wall. A couple of yellowing pictures of a young girl lay on the mantelpiece. The wallpaper was peeling in long damp shreds.

          “Great,” muttered Moira. “Nothing like a little fungus and mold for my asthma.”

          “Happy families,” Kevin said. “Makes you wonder who they were and what happened.”

           “Or it doesn’t,” said Moira, shuddering as she brushed a cobweb out of her hair. “This place is giving me the creeps. Let’s get out of here.”

            “Just a quick peek upstairs and then we’ll go,” said Kevin, heading for the stairs. There were two small bedrooms on either side at the top of the steep staircase, with sloping ceilings and skylight windows. One had faded pink rose-patterned wallpaper and the remains of a single bed frame and wardrobe. Moira gingerly retrieved something protruding from behind the wardrobe. It was a rolled-up teen magazine, wrinkled with age and damp. A picture of a 70’s glam rock band on the cover was almost unrecognizable under a smattering of black mold.

             “You hid this,” Moira said to herself, smiling sympathetically. “If your parents were those old crows in the living room, no wonder.”

The other bedroom had only a double size brass bedstead with a sagging, ripped mattress on it. She suddenly noticed that there were holes in the wall behind the bed and dark stains on the mattress. Damp didn’t cause holes like that, did it? She wondered if homeless people ever sheltered here, though the cottage seemed too remote for that.

       “Kevin, this is weird. Come and look.”

She turned, confronting her reflection in a tarnished mirror on the wall, and leaped back in shock as a gaunt, stern male face stared at her. Rushing to get downstairs, she missed her footing and tumbled all the way to the bottom, landing with her ankle twisted under her.

         “What are you talking about? What happened?” Kevin said, clattering down behind her. “Are you okay?”

          “I thought I saw someone in the mirror up there. Must have been my imagination. I was in such a hurry that I tripped.”

 Moira tried to stand up and abruptly subsided again with a yelp as pain shot through her right ankle.

            “I can’t walk on this,” she said. “You’ll have to go for help.”

Kevin was frantically going from room to room waving his cell phone around.

           “No signal,” he finally said. “I’ll have to go back to the pub for help.”

           “Help me outside,” said Moira, shivering. “I don’t want to wait in here. Something bad happened here. I can feel it.”

           “Too active an imagination,” Kevin said, breathless, as he helped her hop towards the back door. “You’ll be telling me about your fey Irish granny next.”

Just as they got outside, a gust of wind swept down the glen, followed by a sheet of rain. Kevin hastily grabbed the backpacks and they retreated inside.

              “Unless you want to get soaked, there’s no choice but to wait in here,” he said, pulling on a waterproof poncho. He helped her back to the sitting room and situated her on the floor by the window. “You’ve got some snacks and a torch. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He gave her a quick kiss and hurried off into the gloom. Moira watched through the grimy window until he was out of sight, then turned to settle as comfortably as she could, wrapping her arms around her for warmth. She dozed fitfully, waking with a start after a while. The room was gloomier than ever with the rain cascading down the windowpanes. She shone the torch around. When the beam fell on the picture of the couple on the wall, she gasped as she recognized the man from the mirror.

            “Come on,” she berated herself. “You have more common sense than that. You had just seen this picture, so that’s why you imagined you saw him in the mirror.”

She laboriously pulled herself upright and hopped over to the picture. Up close, she realized the couple’s stiff pose and old-fashioned clothing made them look older than they were. He stood behind the seated woman, one hand gripping her shoulder. His lips curved as if he was tasting something sour. His dark eyes were hawk-like. He was not handsome, but he had had charisma. The woman stared down at her clasped hands, expressionless. Moira picked up one of the photographs from the mantelpiece. The young girl had a distinct likeness to the couple. She might have been a secret rock music fan, but she was dressed in an old-fashioned skirt and jersey. No miniskirts for her. Suddenly feeling as if she was intruding, Moira put the picture down and hobbled back to the window, desperately longing for Kevin. The feeling of oppression and misery in the cottage was growing stronger by the moment. Just as she had decided to wait outside if he wasn’t back in the next ten minutes, rain or no rain, she heard a movement behind her.

*****

           Heads turned as Kevin burst into the pub, thoroughly drenched and breathless. The bartender turned with a smile which changed to concern.

          “You’re the young fellow from lunchtime that was hiking with his wife?”

Kevin gasped out his story as coherently as he could.

         “Can somebody please help me get my wife back here? She can’t walk this far with her ankle in this shape. She’s in the old cottage up there on the hillside.”

It took him a moment to notice the silence that descended.

         “What’s wrong? What did I say? We didn’t damage anything. We were just curious.”

          “I'm sure you meant no harm,” said the bartender grimly. “But it's not a place I would want to be in after dark by myself. I'll drive you up there."

He grabbed his keys and a jacket and headed outside. Bewildered, Kevin followed him to a battered Jeep and climbed into the passenger seat. The rain was still lashing down, and it was almost dark. Kevin clutched the edge of his seat, white knuckled, as the Jeep lurched and bucked over potholes, the rain glittering in the headlights. There was the occasional gleam of eyes as a sheep made a terrified dash for the verge.

            “I’m Brian, by the way,” said the bartender, his eyes on the road. “Sorry we’re meeting like this.”

             “What happened in that house?”

             “The place has been abandoned for nigh on forty years. Neill McKinley is the name of the man who lived there. He lived there all his life, alone after his parents died. He always was a bit strange, obsessed with religion, damnation, and sin, but it got worse as he got older. His wife was from elsewhere; no local girl would have him. Rumor was that he beat her. We never saw her in the village on her own and she never said a word when she was here with him. They had a little girl. She went to school in the village, and she was a bright funny wee thing at first. But she had no freedom to play with the other children, or dress as they did, and I think she was bullied. Anyway, we saw less and less of her too, till the tragedy happened.”

          “What happened?”

           “They were all found shot to death with Neill’s shotgun in the house. It was a while before they were found, because the house is so isolated, and it wasn’t unusual not to see them for days on end. Best as could be told, the young lass, who would have been about fifteen then, shot her parents in their bed and killed herself. The police ruled out intruders. There’s speculation her father had been interfering with the lassie and she snapped. No one will ever know for sure.”

            “That’s awful,” said Kevin. “But it was a long time ago. Why is the house still empty?”

Brian shrugged.

             “You can imagine the wild tales that went around. Usually when a place is abandoned like that, the local teens will break in to drink and smoke or vandalize. All I know is that a few of them returned so shaken that we couldn’t get a word of sense out of them. They hate to admit it, but they were scared witless by something. Every once in a while, someone goes to show off, but they always come haring back refusing to talk about it. There was no family, so eventually the council took it over and put it for sale. Usually property gets snapped up around here even when it's in bad condition. The estate agent that listed it showed it to a few people, but none of them returned after looking at it. And so, it sits there.”

The Jeep pulled up in front of the cottage. Kevin leaped down and ran towards the house, calling out for Moira, ignoring Brian yelling for him to wait. Suddenly, a hobbling figure loomed up in the beam of the Jeep’s headlights, crying hysterically, soaked hair plastered to her face. Kevin grabbed her, holding her to him, feeling her heart pounding, murmuring endearments. As he glanced up at the cottage over her head, a white face with dark, hollow eyes stared at him mockingly from the window and vanished before he could be sure he had seen it.