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Telfer.

Chapter 6
    COLD IRON

    I’m on the phone to Fiona. I’m gibbering. “I’m not going out of the house.”
    â€œGet real,” she says.
    â€œThis is for real. If that happens again I’m finished.”
    â€œIt won’t happen again, at least not the way it did.”
    â€œHow d’you know? It just happens.”
    â€œIt doesn’t JUST happen. I know HOW it happens.”
    Yuck! I can see her smirk all the way down the telephone line.
    â€œI’ve found another book. I’ll bring it round. Dad’ll drop me off. You’ll be in, won’t you?”
    She’s taking the mickey now.
    And she’s got another lousy old book. That’s all I need.
    I jump when the door bell rings. I haven’t heard her dad’s car, so I check at the window in case it’s Gawawl.
    It’s Mark.
    I’m even glad to see him, so I let him in.
    He’s convinced I’m a complete nutter since he found me crawling around on my hands and knees in a bramble patch.
    â€œStill looking for gommies?” he laughs, showing off his latest brand of gum.
    Before I can think of what to say the bell goes again. This time it’s Fiona. Her dad’s dropped her off and before I can get to the door he’s reversing back down the drive. Doesn’t he realise what could happen to her?
    I let her in and it’s clear she’s all wound up. She’s got this book in her hand – a different book this time – and a long parcel wrapped up in brown paper.
    But she doesn’t open it – the book or the parcel.
    Instead she asks a stupid question: “Yesterday, before you met Finn and Aidan, did you eat anything?”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with it?”
    â€œWhat did you eat?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œPick any berries?”
    â€œA few rasps. Maybe some blaeberries.”
    She’s twirling her ponytail like a windmill and she’s almost dancing with excitement.
    â€œTime before?”
    â€œCan’ t remember.”
    â€œYou might have picked some blaeberries?”
    â€œCould’ve done.”
    She sits down on the settee and opens the book on her knee. I can see she’s taking her time – deliberately.
    â€œAn Account of a Journey Through the Countie of Argyll, by James McPhee Esq.” she reads. “He wrote this two hundred years ago.”
    â€œGet on with it then.”
    She turns to where she’s put in a bit of paper to mark the place. “Superstitions abound among the inhabitants. Belief in the Firbog, a malevolent kind of gnome, which – being earthbound – cannot cross running water, is almost universal.
    â€œIn the districts of Appin and Benderloch it is widely believed that, for a few days after midsummer, the unwary traveller...“
    She gets too excited to go on reading. She says, “It goes on and on, but what it really means is that people wander into the past – the Land of the Old – and sometimes they don’t come back.”
    Mark’s stopped chewing. He’s listening with his mouth open.
    â€œHow?” I ask.
    â€œIt says there’s a blaeberry... hold on a sec...”
    She finds her place in the book. “which is said to grow only in these parts and whose freshly picked fruit, in consequence of an ancient charm, is believed to confer the ability – or some say the necessity – to travel into the past.

    ****
    â€œIt may be supposed that the juice of these berries, when freshly picked, contains a property which may induce delusions in the minds of the superstitious.”
    She adds, “You picked blaeberries, didn’t you?”
    â€œMaybe.” I give her my best ‘unimpressed’ look.
    â€œBoth times?”
    â€œLook, the book says ‘delusions’.”
    Mark comes to life. “Like doing drugs.” He starts chewing again. For him the spell is broken. “Duracell’s high on