Find a place where the time doesn’t fit. Well, the mounds were history. So were the old stones. Did they fit here? Well, yes, they belonged to the past, but they’d ridden on the hills for thousands of years. They’d grown old here. They were part of the landscape.
The low sun made the shadows lengthen. That was when the Chalk revealed its secrets. At some places, when the light was right, you could see the edges of old fields and tracks. The shadows showed up what brilliant noonlight couldn’t see.
Tiffany had made up noonlight.
She couldn’t even see hoof prints. She wandered around the trilithons, which looked a bit like huge stone doorways, but even when she tried walking through them both ways, nothing happened.
This wasn’t according to plan. There should have been a magic door. She was sure of that.
A bubbling feeling in her ear suggested that someone was playing the mousepipes. She looked around and saw William the gonnagle standing on a fallen stone. His cheeks were bulging, and so was the bag of the mousepipes.
She waved at him. “Can you see anything?” she called.
William took the pipe out of his mouth, and the bubbling stopped. “Oh, aye,” he said.
“The way to the Queen’s land?”
“Oh, aye.”
“Well, would you care to tell me?”
“I dinna need to tell a kelda,” said William. “A kelda would see the clear way hersel’.”
“But you could tell me!”
“Aye, and you coulda said please,” said William. “I’m ninety-six years old. I’m nae a dolly in yer dolly hoose. Yer granny was a fiiine wuman, but I’ll no’ be ordered about by a wee chit of a girl.”
Tiffany stared for a moment and then lifted the toad out of her apron pocket.
“Chit?” she said.
“It means something very small,” said the toad. “Trust me.”
“He’s calling me small!”
“I’m biggerrr on the inside!” said William. “And I daresay your da’ wouldna be happy if a big giant of a wee girl came stampin’ aroound ordering him aboout!”
“The old kelda ordered people about!”
“Aye! Because she’d earned rrrespect!” The gonnagle’s voice seemed to echo around the stones.
“Please, I don’t know what to do!” wailed Tiffany.
William stared at her. “Ach, weel, yer no’ doin’ too badly so far,” he said, in a nicer tone of voice. “Ye got Rob Anybody out of marryin’ ye wi’oout breakin’ the rules, and ye’re a game lass, I’ll gi’ ye that. Ye’ll find the way if ye tak’ yer time. Just don’t stamp yer foot and expect the world to do yer biddin’. A’ ye’re doing is shoutin’ for sweeties, ye ken. Use yer eyes. Use yer heid.”
He put the pipe back in his mouth, puffed his cheeks until the skin bag was full, and made Tiffany’s ears bubble again.
“What about you, toad?” said Tiffany.
“You’re on your own, I’m afraid,” said the toad. “Whoever I used to be, I didn’t know much about finding invisible doors. And I resent being press-ganged, too, I may say.”
“But…I don’t know what to do! Is there a magic word I should say?”
“I don’t know, is there a magic word you should say?” said the toad, and turned over.
Tiffany was aware that the Nac Mac Feegle were turning up. They had a nasty habit of being really quiet when they wanted to.
Oh, no, she thought. They think I know what to do! This isn’t fair! I haven’t got any training for this. I haven’t been to the witch school! I can’t even find that! The opening must be somewhere around here, and there must be clues, but I don’t know what they are!