Chapter 5: Crags And Stanes

      "What ye upty, Da?" makes me jump, seemingly spoken by the boulder I've just leaned back into. 

"Hell," I gasp as a dreadlocked young man peeks around the rock. "Looking...for an old guy...in a golf outfit."

"Steamin and scuddered, are ye?" he laughs, scooting around to sit beside me on the shady side of the stone.

"English please?"

"A little early in the day to be drunk and tired, hey mate?"

"Just ran a mile," I explain, pulling the stolen burgundy sash from the pack strap and wiping my sweaty forehead and neck.

     I'd made it to the pub door in time to see the minstrel peddling south on a rusty English Racer. Scrambling into shoulder straps, I took off in the best trot I could muster with forty pounds jostling on my back, but soon lost sight of the old bugger. 

     Slowing to a fast walk bought me the brain space to ponder my predicament. I had no idea what Wut-Carrick was and no plan for when I got there. Still, the second half of the ancient sounding word was near enough to crag that I started looking for boulders along the scenic road following the downstream burn of the White Esk. I soon came to a small field of protruding rocks below a green hill to the east.

      "What is this place?" I ask Rasta man who's pulled a small paper bag from a pocket of his baggy harem pants.

"Loupin Stanes they call it. Fancy ye some caps to navigate this solstice portal?" 

"Come again in the Queen's English?"

"Psilocybe semilanceata will take us through the heel stone on the longest day."

"If it might show me the way to Wut-Carrick, I'm game."