Hidden Cottage by Erica James Read Free Book Online Page A

up through the fields, and then slipped through the barbed-wire fence and entered the woods. He’d followed the slope down and kept on going, thinking about what he’d heard some of the other children in his class saying, that no one ever came out of the woods alive because there were witches who lived on the other side of it. He knew what they were saying was rubbish, but as he emerged into a sunlit clearing and found himself in front of a small lake perfectly reflecting the trees around it, he almost believed he’d stepped out of the real world and into some kind of magical place. Maybe a witch did live there, he’d thought as he walked cautiously towards the water.
    When he turned and spotted the house, complete with a twist of smoke coming out of one of the chimneys, a sense of wonder and mystery crept over him. Staring up at the windows, their frames painted green to match the door, he imagined for a moment that he could hear the house’s heartbeat, that it was a living and breathing thing and was beckoning him towards it.
    As if led by the hand, he moved forward and the heartbeat grew louder and more insistent. He held his breath and suddenly realized that the heartbeat he could hear was his own. He almost laughed aloud at his stupidity. It was then that he heard music coming from the house through the open French windows. It was piano music and unlike anything he’d ever heard before.
    He had no idea what he would say if someone came out of the house and asked what he thought he was doing there, but he was prepared to risk that. But for some reason, he didn’t think that was going to happen. He was meant to be here. He was meant to see this place for himself. And whoever lived here would understand that. What’s more it would be their secret. To his nine-year-old self, his reasoning made perfect sense, but to any parent it would have had every alarm bell ringing.
    Nobody did appear that day, nor the next time he went, nor the next. It wasn’t until he’d been there five times – and always just to sit by the water to watch the moorhens fossicking about in the bank and the dragonflies skimming the water’s surface, but mostly to hear the extraordinary music that poured out from the house – that he saw a flicker of movement at a downstairs window, and plucking up the courage, he went and knocked on the door. He did it because, if he had been seen, he thought it a matter of politeness to explain why he was there; he didn’t want the owner of the house to think badly of him.
    Also he was curious now. Who really did live here?
    He knocked on the door in what he hoped was a polite manner. Not too loudly, but loud enough.
    The first knock went unanswered.
    As did the second.
    Then determined to get an answer, if only to satisfy his curiosity, he tried again. This time the music came to an abrupt end and in the sudden and complete silence he heard the sound of a lock being turned. All at once, he began to doubt the wisdom of what he was doing, and what he’d done in coming here. What if the person who opened the door was the sort of man his mother had warned him never to speak to? The sort who kidnapped children. The sort who hid them away never to be found again. The sort who—
    The door slowly opened and with his legs trembling and his brain telling him to run, he took a wobbly step back . . .
    A rustling sound in the bushes had Owen glancing sharply to his right. A fox appeared on the lawn and bathed in the moon’s soft radiance; it looked directly at Owen as if querying his right to be there. It then trotted off towards the lake and melted away into the darkness.
    Time for me to melt away as well, thought Owen. He drank what was left in his wineglass, and went back inside the house. He wondered if it was too late to ring Nicole. He really should have called her earlier, but to be honest, he wasn’t that sure how well his call would be received. He wasn’t exactly his girlfriend’s favourite person right