Iron Giant

Cassie Mint

Contents (21)

Cassie Mint

Iron Giant

First published by Black Cherry Publishing 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

First edition

ISBN: 978-1-914242-80-9

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One

Gwen

Picking blackberries is an art form. You can’t just grab the nearest basket and wander up and down the valley, shaking bushes and humming under your breath. You have to commit; you should end your session with purple-stained fingertips and berry juice smeared over your cheeks. It’s practically the law.

When my Mam took us blackberry picking as kids, she martialed us like a regiment of freaking soldiers. Even now, I take it seriously, and I’m grown.

My route begins on our farm. I don’t trust the low-down hedges, the ones within sheep-reach with their slobbery tongues, so I do a loop of the fields and lanes, only picking at chest height and higher. My Nan’s old wicker basket dangles from the crook of my elbow, swinging in the rough autumn breeze, and my boots snag in clumps of wet, green grass as I patrol the hedgerows.

Next it’s the riverside path. There are blackberry bushes along the roadside too, but any passing driver can wind their window down in slow traffic and steal a handful. The river, though, that’s the territory of dog-walkers and Sunday joggers, and those bushes are always groaning with berries.

I fill my basket quickly on this route, even with the two-for-one rule. Two for the basket, one for me. Two in the wicker, one in my gob. By the time I reach the mouth of the valley, my lips are stained with tart purple juice and my belly’s complaining that it’s had enough now, thank you, Gwendoline.

Just one more. And another. And another.

Wiping my fingers on my dark knee-length skirt, I wince, guilty as hell though no one can see me.

It’s shameful, but I can’t help myself. Mam always says I have no self control.

If I did, I’d turn around before I reach the last building on the riverside path: the blacksmith’s forge. It sits against the hillside, squat and serious, all gray stone and black slate with tendrils of ivy climbing the walls and smoke billowing from the chimney stack. On days like this when Rhys Evans is hammering away by the flames, I swear the air gets hotter for half a mile all around.