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Naturally, I have no idea where I am, or which way to go. But given my circumstances, that seems a minor worry.
My choices are down or up. They both look like pretty tough going, so I choose down. At least it should be faster. What couldpossibly go wrong? Perhaps it’s my imagination but the rain seems to be getting heavier.
Disentangling myself, I’m glad I picked out long pants that are reasonably tough, and put on a couple of layers of clothing. Pulling myself free from the hedges and brambles is panic-making as I fret about wasting time. The warrior knows exactly where I am, or where I fell, so I need to be getting myself to somewhere else ASAP.
As I’m struggling through very thick undergrowth, I’m looking out for a stick or a pole I could use to beat it back. Nothing promising falls under my eye as I slog on. The rain is definitely getting heavier.
The jacket is soaked through and all my clothes are starting to feel heavy. Wet and weary, I get through what feels like an impossible amount of bush and through to a clearing. It slopes straight down. At the bottom, I come face to face with a hedge that’s higher than I am, with thickets of trees and shrubs on either side.
The hedge overhangs, so at least I can take shelter for a couple of minutes while I’m stuck here.
An unwanted image rises in my mind, of how I could just be enjoying breakfast about now. Along with the pictures are recollections of the smells of hot coffee and Danish pastries.
Miserable and dripping wet, I hunker down at the bottom of the hedge and hang my head between my knees.
I look, forlorn and hopeless, through the bottom of the hedge. The slope on the far side is nothing but grass as far as I can see, with a few copses and thickets, and even a little postcardperfect white cottage with a red roof about half a mile farther down.
Then I see that there is a way through the hedge. On my hands and knees, or possibly even on my belly, it looks like there are enough spaces that I could get through to reach the other side. It doesn’t look easy, but it does look possible.
I crawl, painfully slowly, inch by snapping, crackling, spiky inch. Most of the forest floor under the hedge attaches itself either to my clothing, or directly to me. It seems to take so long to get through that I start to believe I can actually see the rain thickening moment by moment.
The pants keep slipping down and I have to wriggle and haul them back up each time. The ground is rough enough with them on. If I went a yard without them on, I’d get scratched to ribbons. I feel nauseous.
What keeps me going is the fairy-tale view of the little cottage.
Finally I scramble out from under the hedge. Pulling myself up, breathless onto one knee I discover, I wasn’t imagining it. Rain is falling in thick sheets.
I make a dash for the little cottage. My legs remind me that they’re still recovering from a prolonged period of lying down, and they’re in no condition for the complexities of balance and sure-footedness needed for downhill walking.
Running, I also discover, is out of the question. Slipping and falling, however, they can do any amount of, both backward onto my ass ,and forward, pitching me straight into extra-muddy puddles that I would never have spotted in the grass, had I not been tipping to splash face-down in them.
Soaked and dripping in mud, I clump the last couple of hundred yards like a weary, sodden elephant.
The cottage could be inhabited by a hostile maniac hermit farmer armed with any number of shotguns, but I’m past caring. If that’s how it is, I’m ready to bump my ugly mood up against his and we’ll see who’s more mean.
A pretty red pitched awning shelters the bare wood door, with a little wood bench either side. The door has no handle or knocker, only a large keyhole.
Grateful for the place to sit and shelter, I take a minute to get my breath. My clothes are dropping great gobs of mud over the inside of the pretty portico but I don’t care. Mad Old Silas can use my hair to clean it up after he cleaves my head off my shoulders with his trusty, rusty old faithful ax.
The rain shows no sign of easing up. Sooner or later, I have to meet my fate, so I bang on the cottage door. Nothing happens. I could go and tap on a window or two, or scurry around to the other side of the house — I’m guessing this is the back. All of that would involve stepping back out into the rain, though and the way I feel now, I’d rather try and gnaw my way through the door.
The lock doesn’t look like it would fare well against my P226, but the lock looks like a thing from more innocent days to me. My first guess is on target. A big old iron key is under a flowerpot by the bench I’m sitting on.
Inside, I call out several times. Then I call some more. Loudly.
I don’t want to bring any more of my muddy clothes inside than I absolutely have to but, in case Mad Old Silas does happen to be soaking in a zinc tub upstairs, I don’t want to be wandering around in his house half-naked. That could give him all the wrong ideas.
Call me superstitious and sentimental but, after I take off the boots and the socks and jacket and the hat and the shirt, I decide to keep the muddy wet camo jeans with the soaked and transparent tee-shirt. And I leave Ms. Sig in the pocket too, just for good luck.
The downstairs of the cottage is mostly one room. At the back is a neat little kitchen area, and the rest of it is nicely sized for a lounge. Big enough, with three windows, two in the front and one at the back, a front door in the middle, not quite opposite the back door where I came in.
Two stuffed, brocade armchairs and a two-seat couch sit around the thick red carpet with a stone fireplace at one end.
I keep calling and talking, with one hand in my pocket as I head slowly and very audibly up the creaky wood stairs.
There are no zinc tubs, but a few cozy bedrooms and one larger master bedroom, all with the doors open. All warmly furnished in a homely style, and all unoccupied. Same with the large and the small bathrooms. I stop in one of the bathrooms to relieve the nausea.
No personal belongings are in evidence, not even toothbrushes by the sinks. It looks like a cottage people use or more likely rent for vacations, and like there’s nobody in current occupation.
