Firestar (3 page)

“Scotland,” the TV weatherman casually
indicated
an area dotted with black clouds and bolts of lightning, “is unfortunately going to see the worst of the weather tonight. The violent storms we forecast this morning are already raging across the Highlands and will last well into tomorrow. Edinburgh and the Borders, however,” and here his hand drifted elegantly southwards, “will be calm with just a few scattered showers here and there.”

“Well,” Janet MacLean said, rising to her feet, “Neil and Clara aren’t having very good weather for the start of their holiday, are they? It was kind of the Grants to invite them for Easter.”

John MacLean nodded. “It certainly gives us a free hand to go down to the Borders and stay with Muriel for a couple of weeks … at least until David gets better. I’m really quite worried about him.” David was his elder brother and news of his illness had taken them completely by surprise as he’d always led a healthy, active lifestyle.

“Muriel will be glad of the company,” nodded his wife, picking up the remote control and aiming it at the TV screen. “It’s hard work looking after an invalid.”

“And I’ll try and do a bit of work in that huge garden of theirs … depending on the weather, that is,” her husband added, taking one last look at the forecast before the TV screen went blank.
“Scattered showers can mean anything.”

Janet put their cups and saucers on a tray and headed for the kitchen. “We’ll play it by ear,” she said, “and, anyway, a bit of rain won’t bother Neil and Clara. They’ll be too busy talking to Lewis to notice it. After all, they haven’t seen him since Christmas.”

Their mother was quite right. Neil and Clara hadn’t stopped talking since they’d met up with Lewis and his mother at Aberdeen’s busy railway station.

“Hi, Neil,” Lewis greeted them. “Hi, Clara! Gosh, it’s great to see you! I’ve been counting the days!”

“So have we,” Neil said.

“Thank you for inviting us, Mrs Grant,” Clara smiled. “We’re really pleased to be here.”

“It’s lovely to have you, Clara. Lewis has been planning lots of things for you to do while you’re here.”

“Dad’s going to the Shetlands on business,” Lewis said excitedly, naming some islands that lay to the north of the Scottish mainland, “and he thought he’d take us with him. There’s a ferry that does a sort of mini-cruise so that you live on the boat at night and tour the islands during the day.”

“That sounds great.” Neil looked at Clara in excitement. Neither of them had ever been on a cruise before.

They piled their bags onto the trolley and Margaret Grant smiled indulgently as she steered it towards the exit, listening to their excited chatter. She was pleased that Lewis got on so well with Neil and
Clara. He was an only child and, with a father in the oil business, had never been anywhere long enough to make real friends. Now that they were back in Scotland things had changed, though. He seemed to have settled well into his new school and his
friendship
with the MacLean children, whom he’d met in Edinburgh, was as strong as ever. There seemed, she thought, to be a special bond between the three of them. They were forever calling or texting one another and, she thought as she manoeuvred her trolley to the exit, at least one advantage of having them all under the same roof would, hopefully, be a much smaller telephone bill.

What Bob and Margaret Grant didn’t know,
however
, was the fantastic set of circumstances that had brought the children together in the first place. Neil and Clara’s father, the park ranger on Arthur’s Seat, had always known that magic people called the MacArthurs, lived in its depths. Neil and Clara had played with them as children and after helping them sort out their dragon who, at the time, had taken to fire-raising in earnest, they had had many adventures; for the MacArthurs had given them magic firestones so that they could merge with humans, birds and animals and fly on magic
carpets
. They were also on friendly terms with many of the Lords of the North; great magicians whose magic was strong and powerful. Indeed, it was through Prince Casimir that they had met Lewis — for Lewis had inadvertently become involved in the world of magic and, like them, wore a firestone.

It was when they were stuck in a traffic jam halfway down a busy street that Margaret Grant,
glancing idly at the shoppers crowding the
pavement
, saw a face that she recognized. Interesting, she thought, for there was no mistaking the tall young man with the strange, spiky hair who was helping to load up a 4x4 with groceries. It was after dinner, however, when the children had gone upstairs to unpack and sort themselves out, that she remembered the incident and mentioned the matter to her husband.

“Bob,” she said as she stacked the dishwasher, “remember the Americans that were involved in setting up the Earth Satellite Station at Umm al Aish when we were in Kuwait?”

“Yes?” her husband looked at her speculatively. “What about them?”

“Well, I’m sure I saw one of them when I was picking up Neil and Clara; Chuck … the one with the funny, spiky haircut.”

“Chuck?” her husband’s eyebrows rose. “Chuck Easterman? I wonder what brings
him
here.”

“There were quite a few of them. Americans, I mean. Loading up a 4x4 with stuff from the
supermarket
. It looked as though they were catering for an army.”

Bob Grant frowned. “I got on quite well with Easterman,” he said, “but I hear that he’s moved on to bigger and better things. The grapevine has it that he’s involved with the space agency these days.”

“Well,” Margaret said soothingly. “I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him soon. After all, he’s bound to know you’re in Aberdeen.”

“Maybe,” her husband said idly, rising to his feet
as a strong gust of wind rattled the window panes, “maybe not.” He looked out of the window into the gathering gloom. “I think I’ll put the car in the garage. The wind’s getting up and the forecast isn’t too good.”

“Try and get the cat to come in at the same time,” his wife urged. “I don’t like leaving her out for too long — especially when the weather’s bad.”

The storm lashed Scotland all that night. Gale force winds howled through its mountains and glens with tearing ferocity while driving rain turned the thin burns that ran off the hills into raging torrents that pulled boulders from their path and sent them bouncing and tumbling into the valleys below.

As thunder rolled and lightning flashed in vicious streaks across the sky, you could be
forgiven
for thinking that no one in his right mind would ever have ventured out on such a night. Highlanders, however, have always been a law unto themselves and the crofter, striding the hills, knew the countryside like the back of his hand. Making his way confidently towards his house on the other side of the glen, he was well content with his night’s work, for the pair of rabbits in his
capacious
pockets would make an excellent stew for his supper.

Nevertheless, he paused as he topped a ridge and, visited by a sudden sense of unease, stood
perfectly
still, his eyes searching the gloom. Although he could see nothing untoward, a sixth sense told him that something strange was happening.
The towering peaks of the mountains, lit by the occasional flash, now loomed strangely menacing before him, no longer the familiar, everyday slopes that he knew. Indeed, he hardly recognized them, so unfriendly and threatening had they become. Moving towards a rocky bluff, he pressed himself against it and waited and watched apprehensively, suddenly afraid to venture further.

An enormous rumble of thunder marked the birth of the stone giant as it tore itself in a welter of rocks, stones and crumbling clods of earth from the side of the mountain and took its first tentative steps.

The crofter’s grey eyes sharpened, for his night vision was good. Something was moving on the far side of the glen. Then he saw it through a bank of swirling rain; a lumbering stone figure that stood the height of a house. Frozen with fear, he watched it walk, slowly and deliberately, with massive steps, towards the road that ran the length of the glen. Streaks of lightning illuminated the terrible figure for a brief moment before darkness fell and a
sudden
, dreadful, crashing roar of sound was masked by peals of thunder.

Ten minutes later, he was wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing. The storm had gradually eased and the pale moonlight that now bathed the glen revealed nothing out of the ordinary; even the mountains, to his critical eye, looked much the same as usual. He shook himself and calling himself all sorts of a fool, made his way down to the road. It was there that he found the
landslide
; a huge tumble of stone, rock and earth that had spilled over the tarmac and tumbled into the
burn. Not only that, it had brought down his only link with the outside world. He lifted his eyes and scanned the scene. The entire line of telephone poles that marched the length of the valley now listed at a crazy angle and several were down — uprooted and splayed across the ground in a tangle of wire, rock and earth. He sighed. There would be work for him aplenty in the morning for the rubble that dammed the burn would have to be cleared. It was a raging torrent and its waters were already spreading over the rough pasture that fringed the foot of the mountains.

His pace quickened as he neared his house for he could see that his sheep had gathered round it. Indeed, the bulk of his small flock seemed to have sought refuge inside his garden. They crowded round him, baa-ing in frantic welcome as he clambered over his flattened gate and, pushing them gently to one side, made his way up the path. What really worried him was that he had heard no sound from his dogs. He found them cowering in the far corner of their shed and his face creased anxiously as they crept towards him on their bellies, whining pitifully. He knew real fear when he saw it. “Come on, Bess,” he said, softly. “Come on, Tessa. You’re okay now.”

The sheep, he reckoned as he hefted the gate up to act as a barricade, would be safe enough penned in the confines of the garden but, conscious of the fact that the telephone lines were down and that he had no contact with the outside world, he kept the two dogs in his bedroom that night and although he was loath to admit it, it was for his own comfort as much as theirs.

“It’s very good of you to offer, Helen,” Margaret Grant said, relief colouring her voice. “I know you wouldn’t have minded having Lewis to stay for a week but to take on the three of them is absolutely wonderful.”

“Nonsense, Margaret,” Helen’s voice echoed down the telephone line. “Believe me,
you’re
doing
me
a favour! Shona’s growing up and although she loves the glen, she’s missing all her friends.” Helen’s voice sounded suddenly wistful. “I can understand it, you know. Glenmorven is lovely … but it
is
the back of beyond.” She paused then added, “I hope Neil and Clara won’t find it too quiet up here.”

“Don’t worry about them, Helen. I’m sure they’ll love it,” Margaret Grant stated positively. “They’re real outdoor types.”

“And are their mum and dad okay about it?”

“They’re really grateful and have asked me to pass on their thanks. Actually, from what they said, things sound rather serious. The children’s uncle has been admitted to hospital and is due to have an operation at the end of the week. The news doesn’t sound too promising but they’re
hoping
he’ll pull through.”

“I hope so, too. In the meantime we’ll do our best to look after Neil and Clara. Lewis told us about them the last time he was here and they sound like nice kids. Shona’s really excited about
it. It’s brightened her up a lot and she’ll have a great time showing them round the glen. I’ll pick them up tomorrow morning, shall I?”

“That would be marvellous,” Margaret sighed. “I’m so grateful to you. Bob’s trip has given me the ideal opportunity to see my aunt and I just
can’t
pass it up. She’s pretty old and although her
letters
are cheerful enough, I get the impression that she’s feeling her age these days …”

“Are you sure it’s all right?” queried Clara later. “I mean, it’s very good of her …”

“It was her husband, who suggested it,” Mrs Grant smiled. “He works for the same company as Bob and had heard that your Uncle David was seriously ill. And when they heard of the problem in Texas … well, he knew there was no way Bob could get out of going.”

“And my great-aunt lives near Houston,” Lewis added, “so he knew that mum would want to go, too.”

“We feel really bad about it, though,” Neil said, looking doubtfully at Lewis. “Wouldn’t you have liked a trip to the States as well?”

“No way!” Lewis said. “I’d
much
rather be here. And don’t feel bad about staying with the Fergusons either,” he added. “I bet they’re delighted to have us. Glenmorven’s quite isolated and now that Shona’s getting older they feel guilty at her being on her own during the holidays. There are only a couple of houses there — and the castle, of course.”

“Lewis spent a long weekend with them last month. He had a great time,” Mrs Grant assured
them, “and you’ll be able to do a fair bit of
hill-walking
.”

“Sounds fabulous,” Neil said and Clara, too,
nodded
. It had been a great holiday so far. Exploring Aberdeen and going on the cruise to the Shetlands had been fun and now there was the exciting
prospect
of a remote glen with a castle in it.

“It’s a magic place,” Lewis grinned, “and you’ll really like Shona. She’s in my class at school.”

“Isn’t it Shona who has the secret passage in her house?” Neil asked, looking suddenly interested. “You were going to take us to visit her anyway, weren’t you?”

Lewis nodded. “It’s an amazing house. Her dad told me that it was once an old hunting lodge. The Fergusons think the tunnel was built as an escape route from Morven Castle in the days when all the clans were at war with one another.”

“Mrs Ferguson says she’ll pick you up this
afternoon
,” interrupted his mother. “She’s coming into town with somebody called Clarissa.”

Lewis grinned. “Clarissa isn’t a person, Mum. She’s a car.”

“A car?” echoed Mrs Grant. “The way she talked about it, I thought …”

“I know,” Lewis nodded, “everyone talks about her as though she’s a person.” He turned to Neil. “It’s a fab car,” he said, “an old, red Rolls Royce. The Fergusons say it’s so old that it knows its way everywhere and can take you into Aberdeen
without
you even having to touch the steering wheel!”

Mrs Grant smiled indulgently and looked at her watch. “Well, if you’re going to stay with Shona
for a week, then you’d better start thinking about packing. I’ve ironed all the washing you brought back from the Shetlands. Remember to take your anoraks with you as well, though,” she warned. “The storms that have been hitting the west coast seem to be on their way here. The weather forecast is awful.”

Lewis made a face. “That’s all we need,” he said.

“Things in the glen have changed a bit since you last stayed with us, Lewis,” Helen Ferguson remarked as they bowled westwards along the country road in considerable style. Clarissa might have been old and a bit temperamental at times, but she was a beautiful car and could still turn heads. Her red paintwork gleamed and her leather seats, although frayed in places, were soft and
supple
. She was well-known in the area, too, and many passing motorists waved and smiled as she purred comfortably along a road that showed tantalizing glimpses of the brown, swollen, flood-waters of the River Dee.

“Things have changed
more
than a bit, Mum,” Shona said, somewhat indignantly as she sat up straight in her seat. “The glen’s not the same at all!” She was sitting between Neil and Clara in the back and now leant forwards to talk to Lewis. “Do you remember meeting my godfather, Uncle Jamie, when we took you to Morven Castle, Lewis?” she asked.

Lewis turned and nodded.

“Well,” she said, dramatically, “he’s left!”

Neil and Clara looked at her curiously. Shona was a pretty girl with red hair and sparkling green eyes. They’d liked her at once and she, too, had immediately decided that Lewis’s friends looked like fun people to know.

“Lord Robertson’s gone to Canada,” Mrs Ferguson interrupted. “He left at the end of last month to stay with his son and daughter-in-law.”

“I suppose it’ll be nice for him to see his
grandchildren
,” admitted Shona grudgingly, “but we really miss him. You can say what you like, Mum, but the glen’s not the same without him!”

“I don’t think he would have gone at all if the Americans hadn’t offered him such a fantastic rent,” Mrs Ferguson conceded. “Apparently, they wanted to buy the estate outright but he refused point blank.”

“It’s such a shame,” Shona added. “He’s quite old, you know, and he’s hoping that one day his son will come back and run it. For the shooting and the fishing,” she explained.

“Do the Americans have any children?” Clara asked.

Shona shook her head but it was her mother who answered. “No, it isn’t a family who’ve taken the estate. They’re a weird lot, actually. Hughie thinks they’re some kind of sect. They’re all men, you see.”

“Hughie lives in the glen,” Shona grinned at Clara. “Clarissa is his car. Mum uses it while Dad’s at work.”

“The trouble is that Hughie could well be right about the Americans,” her mother said
thoughtfully
,
following her own train of thought. “And if he is, then I find it quite worrying! After all, it’s normal to want to get to know your neighbours, isn’t it?”

“Mum’s peeved,” Shona giggled, “because she hasn’t been able to show them any Highland
hospitality
.”

“It’s not just that,” her mother said. “When Jamie Robertson’s there, the estate is always open to everyone in the glen and seeing the gates shut …” she frowned, “is unfriendly to say the least.”

“Just face it, Mum. They’re not interested in us at all,” Shona said with a grin. “They’re all fitness freaks from what I’ve seen of them. If they’re not jogging round the glen, they’re climbing Morven.”

“Morven?” asked Clara.

“Morven,” Shona explained, “is our mountain. It’s the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up and the last thing I see at night. I
love
Morven.”

“I think you’ll find it rather interesting,” Lewis said, turning in his seat to look at them, “I know I did.” Neil missed the knowing smile that crossed his face but Clara didn’t. What, she wondered
suspiciously
, was so special about Morven?

Clarissa’s engine grumbled a bit as she reached the top of a rise and turned into the narrow road that led into the wilds of Glenmorven. Lying between the comfortable sweep of high mountains, it was a beautiful glen, Neil thought. He could understand why Shona loved it so much. A brown stream ran along a valley floor that was dappled in sunlight. “There it is,” Shona said, pointing
upwards, “the big, high mountain with the steep sides and round top.
That’s
Morven! Isn’t it
fantastic
?”

Neil lifted his eyes to the hills and gasped. It
was
incredible but not in the sense she meant. The steep, narrow sides of the towering mountain and its gently rounded summit certainly made it stand out against the other sprawling peaks in the area but it wasn’t this that made Neil and Clara look at one another in amazement. Shona, seeing the look of complete surprise on their faces, was pleased at the impact the first sight of Morven had made on them. Lewis, too, grinned as both Neil and Clara looked at him questioningly.

“Thought you’d find it interesting,” he said blandly.

They did. Before they’d left Edinburgh, Lewis had phoned them and asked them to wear their firestones. Now they knew why — for the minute Morven had appeared before them they’d felt their firestones turn suddenly heavy round their necks and a sense of magic tingle through them. Neil’s face lit up. Morven, it would seem, wasn’t just any old mountain. Morven was, very definitely, a magic mountain. Clara smiled and they looked at one another in excitement. All of a sudden this holiday was turning into something else!

It was later in the day, when Mr Ferguson was taking Clarissa back to old Hughie that Shona
suggested
that they all go with him.

Hughie’s cottage was further down the glen, set in a hollow surrounded by trees. It looked a secret place, its tiny windows almost covered by brown
thread-like strands of creeper that covered the
cottage
. Green buds were pushing up here and there, however, with the promise of spring.

“It doesn’t look much just now,” Shona said as they pushed open the garden gate, “but in summer the whole cottage is covered in greenery.”

Banks of snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils swept between the trees towards the side of the house while the back, Shona told them, gave onto the lower slopes of the mountain itself. The front door had a tiny porch and a brass knocker. Hughie, however, had heard the car and opened the door as they walked up the path.

He was quite a short man and looked, thought Clara, like a benevolent gnome. Lewis shook his hand, wondering what the MacLeans would make of Hughie. The cottage certainly seemed to have a magic of its own and, from the penetrating look that Hughie had given him on his first visit with Shona, he’d sensed that the small, bright-eyed man had somehow felt the magic in him. Mind you, he thought, he
had
been wearing the magic ring that Prince Casimir had given him. Not only that, he’d also had a firestone round his neck; a gift from the MacArthurs. And since Hughie’s
cottage
was at the foot of Morven, he reasoned that perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising that Hughie recognized magic when he met it.

The cottage was plainly furnished but the kitchen was a comfortable, homely room that ran the length of the back of the house and was
obviously
his living quarters. It was long and low with a beamed ceiling, loads of armchairs and settees, a
vast kitchen table and an enormous open fireplace where huge logs crackled and spat. A delicious smell permeated the room for Hughie had been baking.

“You’re just in time for tea,” he said with a smile, indicating the tray of little cakes, fresh from the oven.

They sat round the old wooden table and although the orange juice was fresh and the cakes delicious, it was the view from the long, low stretch of the kitchen windows that took their breath away. Hughie’s back garden had no wall and his land merged with the slopes of Morven itself. Neil and Clara barely heard the conversation between Hughie and Ian Ferguson, so absorbed were they in the view. Clara peered upwards at the mountain; towering high and mysterious over the charming little cottage that nestled snuggly in its gentle hollow. Her eyes sparkled. The cottage, like the mountain, was magic. She was sure of that. Her eyes met those of Neil and Lewis and she knew they felt the same. There was magic here.