Cottage Full of Stars

Dale arrived on a beautiful summer day and looked over the outside over the neat little lakeside cottage from the car. “Well, at least this isn’t a total disaster,” he said to Scooter, his boisterous golden retriever who sat making happy sounds of excitement in the passenger seat. It had been such a disastrous month Dale would not have been at all surprised to find the cottage a wreck, or on fire, or more likely sunk in the lake. First, he had lost his job when, following some setbacks, the owners had sold to a larger competitor making him redundant. Then on learning the paycheck was gone, his wife had packed up and left as well, leaving just Scooter and him.

The cottage had already been paid for, booked months before in a happier time, so Dale had decided to take the dog and use the quiet time to decide what to do next. Scooter took to it immediately, sniffing all the new smells, running into the lake, even jumping off the little dock after his tennis balls. The cottage was three rooms and a bathroom: two bedrooms and a combination dining-kitchen-living area. There was a lovely screened in porch too, where Dale sat that evening with an exhausted Scooter dozing at his feet and watched the sun turn the lake colors as it set.

The next morning it was raining. “Well, pouring buckets would be a more accurate description”, Dale thought. He made a fire in the stone fireplace that dominated the living area and sat down with a book he had been intending to read for months. He hadn’t gotten very far when Scooter, bored as only goldens can get, brought Dale his tennis ball. Dale playfully tugged the ball for a minute, making Scooter’s tail wag, then tossed the ball in the direction of the spare bedroom.

Scooter brought the ball back, and Dale absently tossed the ball again while reading the book. Scooter could play this game for hours. On the third toss Scooter did not return for several minutes. Dale, interested in his book, did not pay any attention, assuming in the back of his mind that Scooter had likely become interested in some bright and shiny new thing. But eventually Scooter did return, dropping a soaking wet tennis ball on his master’s lap.

Startled, Dale looked up from his book. Scooter was muddy from his belly down, and soaking wet. A line of muddy paw prints led from the direction of the second bedroom. “Scooter! What did you do?” Dale admonished. Scooter looked oblivious, the dog’s default state. “How did you get outside you bad boy?” He got up and rustled the dog’s head as he headed to the bedroom to investigate. Scooter trailed behind, dripping onto the floor.

The prints led to the closet door, which stood ajar. “Perhaps that's not a closet”, thought Dale. He opened the door wider. A shelf with spare pillows and blankets in plastic, a row of empty hangars, and inexplicably, another door at the back. Dale’s mouth fell open as he squatted down to look. About three feet tall, the door was open to the outside, but what lay on beyond made no sense. A grassy meadow swept downward. A few dozen yards beyond the door a babbling brook wound its way across the field, explaining Scooter’s sodden return. A few trees lined the field, and shafts of sunlight poked down through puffy clouds, completely unlike the downpour outside. In the distance lay a castle on a hill. Not a ruin, but a whole castle. Light from torches burned in the windows, and a pennant snapped in the wind atop a battlement.

Scooter made for the door. Suddenly frightened, Dale grabbed the dog’s collar before he could slip through the opening and closed the little door. The knob was ornate brass, covered with filigree work and what seemed like runes. Dumbfounded, Dale sat back on his rump and contemplated this turn of events. Scooter came over and licked his friend’s face. Dale absently scratched the dog’s chin while he tried to puzzle it out. The ball must have bounced into closet and through the strange door. Scooter had obviously chased it, and the presence of the creek explained the physical evidence. “But that doesn’t explain what’s out there”, Dale thought.

Dale clambered forward to examine the door more closely. Scooter tried to come with him, but Dale pushed him back and tossed the tennis ball in the direction of the living room. While Scooter was distracted, Dale reached for the knob and opened the door again. The same scene was visible beyond. Cautiously, he reached through and touched the cool grass beyond. A breeze stirred through the opening carrying the scent of rain-washed countryside and damp earth. Across the meadow a figure on horseback appeared riding in the direction of the castle. Dale hastily closed the door again, then got up and closed the closet door. Then thinking about the figure on horseback, dragged the dresser firmly against the door.

“What the hell is that?” thought Dale, leaning over the dresser. “Am I dreaming?” Dale looked over his shoulder at Scooter. The dog stood there contemplating his mater’s odd behavior with his tennis ball sticking out of one side of his mouth, and his tongue on the other. Scooter was actually muddy and wet. “I’m not dreaming that”, thought Dale, “I need to think about this.”

Dale drug Scooter into the cottage’s shower stall and hosed him down. Scooter of course didn’t mind this at all, and had a marvelous time playing grab the towel as Dale dried him off. Dale decided to leave the half-dried mud on the floor reasoning it would be easier to clean when it was fully dry. Grabbing a beer from the kitchen, he returned to his armchair and sat thinking about the impossible door.

“Let’s assume this is real,” he said aloud to Scooter. Scooter just rolled a sleepy eye up at him from his spot by the fireplace. “How do I know where it leads?” He leaned back in his chair and turned toward the window, gazing across the lake. The rain was letting up out there. His gaze returned to the room; a bookshelf occupied one corner. Two of the shelves were taken up by various lake lore books on area history, fishing, local birds, and similar arcana. The third shelf was given over to fiction. The top shelf contained a few decorative knick-knacks and several more fictional books stacked to one side, one of which stood upright between two brass bookends.

Absently, Dale read the titles on the spines, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Star Beast, Alice in Wonderland. The title of the last book in the stack was worn to the point of being obscured. A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court was the book between the bookends. “Curiouser and curiouser,” Dale said, smiling to himself at the reference. Scooter sighed in his sleep. Something clicked in his brain and Dale sat up with an “Oh shit!” He pulled the Mark Twain tome out of the bookends and replaced it with Treasure Island. Then he headed for the mystery closet. Scooter, startled awake, looked up reproachfully at Dale but slowly followed him into the bedroom.

Taking a breath, Dale opened the mystery door. The scent of sea air flooded in. There was a small space beyond. Wooden painted walls, a small bed, and a closed narrow door. Windows somewhere out of sight let sunlight into the space, but the light was rolling back and forth, as if the room was moving. “A Ship!”, Dale thought, “I’m looking at a cabin on a ship.” Just then the door of the cabin opened, and a large man walked in. The stranger was clad in dark wool and a leather boot. Just one, he had a genuine wooden peg-leg on the other side. Beneath a battered hat, his unruly and unkempt beard and hair circled a filthy face. Dale could smell the man from here. A large flintlock pistol and short sword hung from the man’s wide belt. Behind Dale, Scooter barked. The man turned, his blue eyes locking with Dale’s for a moment in total surprise, then he reached for his pistol. Dale slammed the door shut. He sprinted out to the living room and snatched the book from between the bookends.

Grabbing the fireplace poker, Dale went back into the bedroom but found only Scooter looking up at him in confusion. Dale went to the little door again, opening it cautiously and peeking around the edge. The pirate’s cabin was gone. Beyond was a tiny access area full of pipes from the adjoining bathroom and some very nasty looking cobwebs.

Inspired, Dale stuck Robinson Crusoe between the bookends. Opening the door this time brought the scent of fragrant flowers. He looked out from the edge of a tropical forest across a serene and empty beach. The sky was lurid with colorful clouds, whether from a sunrise or set Dale couldn’t tell. He repeated his experiment with the Narnia book. This time a blast of frigid air flowed in. Beyond the door Dale could make out a deep layer of snow blanketing everything. It was dark, the stark forest illuminated by the single flame of a pale lamp standing alone beside a path. Dale gingerly reached through the opening and touched the snow. It felt cold and wet. Real, no doubt. A third round with Alice In Wonderland opened onto a manicured green lawn decorated with red rosebushes.

Dale pulled the book from the bookends and sat in the chair. He regarded the book in his hands and thought. At first he considered that he was losing it mentally, that the strain of having his life upended had made him crack and the door was an illusion. But Scooter argued against that; the dog had been through the door and had barked in alarm at the pirate looking man (had that really been Long John Silver?), so whatever was going on the dog was experiencing too. “If Scooter can go through the door, then I suppose that means I can too. But what book would I want?”, he thought, “For that matter, would I really want to go?”

This gave him pause. While the thought of entering a book seemed pleasant, it was true that the characters in the stories endured some pretty dangerous adventures. Alice had nearly been beheaded as he recalled, and Twain’s character had almost been burned at the stake among other things. Not to mention the presumed Long John Silver had pulled a gun on him. This could be a really bad idea.

Then a new thought occurred, “If I can go into the book, can the book’s characters come here?” Following this train of thought, Dale realized that could be even more dangerous. While the thought of tea with Sherlock Holmes sounded like fun, turning a man of his intellect loose where he could access the internet seemed like a very bad idea. Not to mention, what if Moriarty escaped? No, entering the book seemed safer, at least only he was at risk.

Realizing it was lunch time he went to the kitchen and returned with a bag of tortilla chips. Sitting in the chair he munched a few while continuing his train of thought. Scooter came over in hopes of scoring a handout, sitting at Dale’s foot, the better to catch any dropped crumbs.

Dale tossed him a chip, “Scooter, what do you think? What book should we visit?” Scooter just gulped his chip and made the happy panting sound he always made when Dale paid attention to him. He contemplated the line of books on the shelf. He eliminated the stories he hadn’t read, and then one by one he considered each of the stories he had read.

At length he landed on the book with the worn spine. He picked it up and looked at the cover. “Of course Scooter, this one! It’s perfect! It starts in our world, and I’m no Astronaut so there’s no danger of me getting in trouble!” He placed the book between the bookends and hurried to the closet.

Kneeling, he opened the door. He expected to find early twenty-first century America on the other side, but that wasn’t what he found. Directly in front of Dale was a huge black rectangle, floating motionless, its surface completely unreflective. He could only discern its outline by the contrast of the illumination from the nearby planet. Jupiter, Dale realized. This wasn’t what he expected or wanted. Dale tried to close the door but found he couldn’t. He had a strange and overwhelming compulsion to touch the black monolith floating in front of him. He reached through the door toward it, and as if he had punctured some membrane a great rush of air pushed him through the portal, hurtling him toward the monolith. Dale had just a moment to process that he had been expelled into the vacuum of space before he collided with the monolith. Its surface wasn’t hard, it was open, pulling him into it. Dale’s last thought before he vanished was, “My god, it IS full of stars.”

Back in the cabin, the sudden rush of wind startled Scooter. The wind pushed the portal door shut with a bang, and the book fell onto the floor. Scooter sniffed at the cover, then snorted before noticing that the bag of chips had fallen by the chair. He abandoned the book in favor of this prize, leaving the copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey laying there.

The fire had burned out and the rain dimmed sunlight was fading before Scooter became concerned about his friend. Late that night Scooter embarrassed himself by the door to the porch, but he couldn’t help it. The next morning when Dale hadn’t returned Scooter became frightened. His kibbles were locked away in a plastic bin. Scooter supposed he could get it open if he had too, but he’d get in trouble. Not yet, he decided and lay down on the rug again, feeling miserable.

About midmorning, Scooter sensed something. He looked up from the floor in the direction of the bedroom. Suddenly there was a loud bang and crash. Scooter jumped up and made for the bedroom. His friend lay on the floor, naked and curled up in a ball shivering. Overjoyed as only dogs can get, Scooter ran over to him and started kissing his face.

Dale slowly reached out and touched the dog, “It’s ok buddy,” he said over and over. Eventually, Dale stopped shaking. Other than stroking Scooter, he might have been asleep. Then Dale opened his eyes and sat up. Scooter licked his face some more. Dale scratched the dog’s head, “I’m back, they wanted to change me, but I escaped buddy. I told them no.” Scooter noticed that Dale’s normally dark hair had turned white, but of course was too polite to remark about it.

“I thought I was gone for years, Scooter, I was so worried about you,” he hugged the dog, “but here you are, and I’m still me.” He climbed to his feet, “Who’s hungry?” Scooter wagged his tail and huffed at the mention of food. “’Come on, buddy, let’s eat.”

When Dale had chosen the book, he failed to consider the driver of the story’s events was an alien intelligence whose secret agenda was directing human evolution toward the creation of a new species unbound by the constraints of matter, space and time. As they walked to the kitchen Dale thought, “You bastards thought you could change me, but here I am. I’m me, not some Starchild. I beat you!” Dale looked down and noticed the dried mud, and thought, “I need to clean that up.” He didn’t notice as he passed a soft glow enveloped the mud and it vanished.