“I’ve always loved going into the woods, picking mushrooms. One day, I went out looking for mushrooms and I found… her.” Kenny smiles fondly at his wife.
“Kenny and his family pretended I was a friend from America. I had to fake an American accent for a while!” she laughs. “I’ve never looked back. All our children are half-fairies. Our son lives as a human, and our daughters as fairies, in the woods behind the cottage. But a few months ago one of my daughters brought us baby Ella. The stone fairies want to kidnap her, they want her as one of their own…”
“The same way that they steal human children?” interrupts Alistair. “I see.”
“My daughter thought that maybe we could protect her. But ever since we took the wee one in, the stone fairies have given us so much trouble. We just can’t take any more.” Libby’s beautiful eyes fill with tears.
“I fear they’ll come for Ella, and we won’t be able to stop them,” says Kenny, his face full of apprehension. “They’ll bring her up wild, like one of them. Stone fairies don’t speak, they grunt. They’re always up to no good. And our poor daughter, she’s beside herself, missing Ella…”
“I get the picture. I’ll make them stop,” says Alistair.
I swallow. He sounds very confident.
“Come on, children, let’s go. We need to do some exploring before we set up camp.” He hustles us into the hallway. “Kenny, Libby, lock all the doors and windows. There’ll be fireworks tonight.”
“Wouldn’t it be safer if the children stayed in the cottage with us?” asks Kenny.
“Sorry, no, I need them. I’ll offer them in exchange for Ella.”
“WHAT?” we exclaim in unison. I feel a bit sick.
“Come on now!” Uncle Alistair’s voice is matter-of-fact.
On the doorstep, Libby hugs us all. “Take care… stay safe…”
Valentina looks resolute as she walks on. “Let’s GO GET THEM!” she mutters to herself.
I try to mould my face to imitate her expression, but I’m actually terrified. Why did I get myself into this?
We’re about to climb into the van, when…
“Oh no!” exclaims Kenny. “The stone fairies have slashed your tyres!”
“Of course!” says Uncle Alistair cheerily. “I was expecting this! We’ll walk.”
With a last wave to the McMillans, we walk on, some with a spring in their step, others (me) dragging their heels.
8. THREE THINGS I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SCOTLAND
Alistair Grant’s Scottish Paranormal Database
Entry Number 715: Stone circle
Type: Unknown
Location: Artan Mor
Date: Ongoing
Details: Strange phenomena have been recorded at Artan Mor, including fairy lights, St Elmo’s fires and ghostly sounds. People wandering inside the circle have been known to feel dizzy, confused and even ill for a long time. Two incidents have been recorded of people disappearing: in 1812 and in 1899. Some believe in the involvement of aliens, which the author of this database, from his own knowledge and experience, dismisses as nonsense. Others have looked to time travel for explanations, which the author considers a possibility. Every year, many people gather at Artan Mor for the summer solstice, but no strange phenomena have been recorded by trustworthy sources this year. It’s as if the stones are hiding.
The night is very black. There are a million stars above us. I lie using my hands as a pillow, wrapped in my sleeping bag, and I’m happy. Freaked out and terrified, but happy.
“According to this, stone fairies are allergic to walnuts.” Valentina is reading Magical Creatures of the Woods, a heavy tome bound in bright blue leather. Camilla is sitting beside her, glowing faintly in the darkness, reading the book over her shoulder.
“Some are, some aren’t. Can’t rely on that one,” Uncle Alistair says briefly.
“And they can’t stand any hair product, like you said.”
“True,” says Alistair, gesturing to the cardboard box full of hairspray and the like, some of it Aunt Shuna’s. “But that’s just a temporary measure.”
“So what are we going to do?”
Uncle Alistair raises his eyebrows. “I told you, I’ll offer the two of you in exchange for baby Ella.”
I gulp. I’d been hoping I’d misheard his earlier statement. Even Camilla looks shocked.
“You wouldn’t do that,” says Valentina defiantly.
“You sure? They’d treat you ok, and you’d be free in three hundred years,” he says, his expression deadpan.
“MFFFFFF mfffff mmffff,” says Jimmy.
Yes, you read right. We found Jimmy – Kenny’s neighbour who got bitten by the stone fairies – wandering in the woods in his underpants, frozen. He can’t remember a thing. We brought him to the van to warm him up but he keeps trying to run away, so we’ve wrapped him up warm in a jumper and an extra sleeping bag, which Alistair had brought just for him, and we’ve tied him up. He half drank, half drooled the mug of tea we gave him. Now he’s lying down, mmmffffing on the ground between us.
“You wouldn’t swap us,” I protest, sitting up.
“Mum and Dad would be pretty angry if you lost us,” points out Valentina, as if she’s not that worried.
Uncle Alistair sighs deeply. “Don’t worry. You’re safe with me. I’m not going to lose anyone else, children.” His voice has a sad note, all of a sudden. His shoulders have stooped, and he seems far away.
Valentina and I look at each other.
“Of course. We know we’re safe with you,” whispers Valentina, taking his hand.
“Uncle Alistair,” I ask, “I know you don’t want to tell us what happened, but… why does Dad think it’s your fault that Papa and Granny disappeared? Aunt Shuna said it was an accident…”
He shook his head. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have done what I did. I have no excuses. But what happened… couldn’t have been predicted. So Shuna is right too, in a way. It was… a fluke. A terrible fluke…”
While he’s talking, a strange sound builds up in my ears. I shake my head. It’s like my ears are ringing, in a weird way.
“It should not have happened…”
The sound is getting stronger, more defined. It’s a melody, similar to the music I heard in my room a few nights ago. I shake my head, thumping my ears with my hands. There can’t be music here, in the woods. It must be in my head. Nobody else seems to hear it.
“…Duncan is right to blame me. But you know, I’m trying to make it right, Luca… I’ll make it up to all of you…”
That very moment, something hits Alistair’s forehead – hard, right between his eyebrows. The melody stops at once.
Alistair is stunned for a second, his eyes crossed, and then he jumps up, holding the missile. “It’s a walnut!” he cries. “So much for that book, Vally.”
We look around, unsure what to do next, but aware that something has started.
“HAIRSPRAY!” Uncle Alistair booms all of a sudden. We each take possession of a can and crouch expectantly. Camilla is floating above us, a can in each hand.
A pause.
A moment.
A lifetime.
And then they arrive: black, nasty, persistent – like flies, all around us, in horrible little clouds. We spray and spray and spray. A few lie stunned on the ground, others run away, while some hover around us, biding their time, darting this way and that every time one of us takes aim. I can see them clearly now, their little scrunched-up, malevolent faces, their wisp of black hair and their ghastly eyes, shining like pieces of night. They’re as small as my hand, but there are a lot of them. An awful lot. Awful being the key word.
“STOP!” cries Alistair. His cry is not panicked, it’s commanding.
The stone fairies actually stop too.
Valentina is on one knee, her hairspray can ready to shoot. Her blonde hair is sticking out, solid, into what looks like a cloud around her head. The fairies must have ruffled it as they buzzed her, and the hair
spray in the air has made it rigid. If I weren’t scared to death, I would laugh.
“All right. You win. I have brought two children for you. In exchange for Ella. Look.”
Oh, Mamma Mia, as Mum would say. What is he thinking?
“Look. A boy and a girl! For you! Let Ella be.”
The cloud of fairies buzzes, swerves, breaks into two battalions. In between, a single fairy emerges. It’s wearing a little copper ring around its head and carrying a metal sceptre. Wait a minute. That’s not a sceptre. It’s a teaspoon.
“Fine. We’ll take them,” the stone fairy king says, in a voice that sounds like someone sharpening knives, with a touch of soil in it. Sorry, can’t describe it any better. You’d have to hear it.
I swallow. I can feel Valentina moving imperceptibly. I’m still the fastest runner in my school, and no matter what, I’ll take Valentina with me.
But Uncle Alistair notices us getting ready to run for it. “Come here, children,” he says, and opens his arms wide, ready to put them around us.
I don’t move.
But Valentina does. She stands up and actually goes to him.
I can’t believe it! I have no choice now. I’ve got to go too. I can’t abandon Valentina.
I walk over, and my legs are like lead.
I look into Uncle Alistair’s face. Unreadable.
His arms are around our shoulders now. He squeezes them slightly. Just once.
“At my three, take a step back. Just one step. No more, no less. Clear?” he murmurs.
We nod.
“One, two, three.” The three of us take a single step back in unison.
I feel strange. A sort of… electric current has gone up my back and into my arms, as if I’d stepped on a plug with wet feet.
My head spins for a second, and I can’t see.
“Come and get them!” I hear my uncle shout.
The cloud of fairies swoops towards us at once. I shut my eyes as Uncle Alistair grabs our hands and with all his might throws himself, and us, sideways.
***
One instant the stone fairies are there. One instant they’re gone.
Gone completely.
Except one, one solitary single fairy, buzzing around in amazement. Then he flies away, into the darkness of the woods, and we’re alone.
There’s silence all around, nothing more than the peaceful night. All I can hear is our panting, and my beating heart.
And an owl.
“You’re safe!” exclaims Camilla, and jumps over to throw her arms around Valentina’s neck.
“What happened? Where did they go?” asks Valentina.
“Somewhere far away,” says Uncle Alistair flippantly. “Best get going. Let’s bring Jimmy back and hopefully they’ll give us a reward. The van won’t pay for itself, you know,” he mutters.
“Wait a minute!” I shout. I actually stamp my foot. “Tell us what happened! Where have they gone? We were standing there…” I take a step towards where we stood “…then we took a step back, and—”
“NO!” cries Uncle Alistair and grabs me by the sleeve, pulling me back. “Don’t go there, you’ll disappear too.”
“I know what it was! A fold in time! Like in Time Travel: A new direction!” Valentina claps her hands with delight. “I read about it at your place.”
“Exactly!” says Alistair.
I smile. And then I laugh, a bit maniacally. “A time fold! So the fairies have gone… somewhere else! Another time! But where? When?”
“No idea. It’s not like a time machine. You can’t program it. It sends you where it sends you. And once you’re there… chances are, you won’t come back.” He looks into the distance.
“How did you know it was here?”
“It wasn’t here. Not before I arrived. I put it there.”
“You can create time folds?” Valentina says incredulously.
“No, I didn’t create it, I just carried it here. Some time folds are fixed, and they can’t be moved. Some are portable.”
“Portable? Do you mean you’ve got one with you and you can use it whenever you like?”
“Exactly. I placed it there earlier on. I need to take it back now.” He pulls out a small crystal from his pocket, a very plain-looking one, opaque, greyish. It barely shines. You would never guess its immense power.
Uncle Alistair passes the crystal over the time fold, over and over again, careful not to step in it. The air blurs a little, it sort of shifts. And then it’s over.
“Feel it.” He hands the crystal first to Valentina and then to me. It feels ice cold. “Ready for next time,” he says, putting it back into his pocket. Then he gives us a broad smile. “I’m starving. Time for breakfast.”
“Mmmmmfffffffffffff!”
We’ve forgotten all about Jimmy.
“Come on, pal,” says Uncle Alistair, untying him.
Jimmy looks around, as if he’s woken up from a long deep sleep. “The fairies! They bit me!” he says, his voice panicky and frightened. “Don’t let them… Where are my clothes?” Now he looked bewildered, and a bit embarrassed.
“It’s ok now, they’ve gone,” I say, putting my arm around his waist and helping him onto his feet. “Come on, let’s get you home.” He takes a while to calm down, but he relaxes when we promise him food.
Dawn is breaking now, and the sky is all pink and yellow, with the black pines silhouetted against it. My island is so beautiful.
The McMillans are already awake, and they greet us with pale anxious faces as we make our way up the path. Then they see our smiles, and Jimmy, and they relax.
“The stone fairies won’t be troubling you again,” booms Alistair.
“Thank goodness!”
“Come on in, everybody! Jimmy! It’s great to see you back safely! Come in and eat.” Libby sits her old friend down in front of the range. Then she turns to Camilla. “You won’t be wanting any food I suppose, but come and sit with us.” Camilla looks overjoyed; I’m quite moved to see how happy she is to be counted in. She’s so used to being invisible.
Twenty minutes later, we all sit down to a cooked breakfast. After wandering in the woods naked for over a week, Jimmy has quite an appetite. “No acorns for Jimmy. Acorns YUK! Acorns BLEURGH!” he explains as he attacks his fourth sausage. He’s still a bit confused.
“Alistair, how on earth did you do it? What happened?” asks Kenny.
“Long story.” Clearly, Uncle Alistair wants to keep his methods under his hat.
“A lot of hairspray,” says Valentina. She’s sitting with Ella on her knee.
Libby smiles and shakes her head.
Kenny is silent for a moment. “You wouldn’t have wiped them out, Alistair. You wouldn’t have done that,” he says.
“Who says?” asks Alistair.
“Your eyes,” Kenny replies simply.
“The RWR is not about killing,” says Libby quietly. Her eyes are shining very green, very lovely. “Or we wouldn’t have called you.”
“No, we never kill anyone. Not even the dangerous ones like Rupert Cleaver,” chirps Camilla.
“You must have sent them somewhere else,” says Kenny firmly.
“Sometime else,” corrects Alistair, and a look of understanding passes between them, across the pile of pancakes on Alistair’s plate. Nothing more need be said.
***
Kenny and Libby’s half-fairy son happens to be a mechanic, and he changes our tyres while we stand in the chilly morning air. It’s quite surreal to see Ross McMillan’s translucent wings, dark blue as opposed to Ella’s tiny silver ones.
“I can see his wings. How come I never saw people with wings before? Are they the only ones on the island?” I ask my uncle.
“No, they’re not the only ones. It’s that your Sight is getting stronger.” He looks at me fondly. It’s a great feeling. My dad never looks at me that way. “Can you see them, Vally?”
“Yes, I can see them too.” Valentina beams.
“Your gift is s
trengthening. Evolving. You’re doing amazingly well, children…”
We bask in his words like a cat basks in sunlight.
As we’re getting ready to go, Kenny takes Valentina and me aside for a minute. “Remember this.” He’s looking very solemn. We look into his clear blue eyes, and listen carefully. “Here are three things you need to know about Scotland. One: there are places in this country that can take you to another time. Like the one Alistair used with the stone fairies, only some of them are a lot more powerful. Put one step wrong – or right, depending on the point of view – and you’ll find yourself deep in the great Caledonian forest, or looking a dinosaur in the eye, or hiding with a bunch of desperate Jacobites. So be careful where you walk.
Two: there are… things all over Scotland that nobody knows about. At the bottom of the lochs, on the moors, in the sea waters, there’s more than anybody could ever imagine. Keep your eyes open and I promise you, you’ll See.
Three: only a few chosen people can See all this, and they come from all over the world. But only if you belong here, only if you are really and truly part of Scotland, only if this is truly your home, will you be able to See what hides beneath Artan Mor.”
As we drive across the moors I mull over his words and wonder what he meant. I could ask Alistair, but I won’t. For now, what he said is just for Valentina and me to know.
We stop for petrol at the outskirts of Eilean, and I smile as I notice a little girl standing in front of the wee shop, a packet of crisps in her hands and a pair of translucent green wings on her back, moving gently in the breeze.
9. WHERE A BULLY GETS WHAT HE DESERVES
Alistair Grant’s Scottish Paranormal Database
Entry number 616: The white lady of Glen Avich
Type: Ghostly apparition
Location: Glen Avich
Date: August 1781
Details: In August 1781, the manifestation of a white lady in her bedroom caused Lady Ramsay of Glen Avich to die of fright. Similar sightings of a lady in a white dress have been recorded at different places across western and central Scotland; sometimes the lady is threatening, sometimes silent and forlorn. It is the author’s opinion that there’s more than one white lady, as such apparitions have also been recorded elsewhere in the world.
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