She stops walking. ‘I’m a senior magician and I’m not going to let him tell me what to do!’ She gives a small smile. ‘He doesn’t need to know I’m teaching you. We’ll simply do it out of his view. We’ll be an ordinary grandmother and granddaughter getting to know each other, won’t we?’

I nod and my heart lifts. I hate lying to Dad. But lying to him is less awful than giving up on Mum.

‘Let’s go,’ says Sylvie, and she marches ahead in her long shorts and purple shirt.

I groan when she heads towards the river, but thankfully we walk past the waterhole where I failed so spectacularly last night. Tall trees arch overhead, making the air dim and cool, and around us the magpies and kookaburras warble their morning chorus.

‘Is the parallel universe the place that’s so … dark?’ I ask. ‘And is it dangerous, like Vince said?’

She gives an annoyed shake of her head. ‘Even though he’s a halfling, Vincent knows very little about magic. And your father knows even less.’

‘A halfling? What’s that?’

‘Forget it. It’s not important now. What’s important is that you shouldn’t listen to what those two say about magic and parallel universes. Vincent has never been to one. He knows next to nothing.’

‘But what’s a halfling? Half what? Half magic?’

‘Quite frankly, Tulsi, you either trust me or you don’t. Did your mother ever say I did something terrible to her? That I sent her into danger?’

‘No.’

‘Exactly.’

‘She almost never spoke about you.’

‘Is that right?’ says Sylvie with a surprised look.

‘You do think there’s a chance I can get Mum back, don’t you? I heard you tell Dad that I’m powerful.’

She smiles. ‘It’s all very well to be powerful, dear girl. But if you can’t manage that power, then it’s utterly useless. Dangerous, in fact. To be honest, I have no idea if you are up to this. Today’s test will tell.’

‘I’m up to it!’ I say, with confidence I don’t feel.

I follow her across the fallen tree trunk that’s spanned the river for as long as I’ve been coming here. On the other side, dense bush rises steeply up what Mum and I call Big Mountain. The air here is moist, and smells of dirt and living things.

‘Did you pass the river test first time?’ I ask. There’s no path up the mountain, and my thongs slip and slide about on the twigs and fallen leaves. Sylvie’s wearing new hiking boots, and charges ahead, pulling herself up with tree trunks and thick, looping vines.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘My mother taught me and Thelma and Lola in a river up north – an awful, muddy river. All of us passed first time.’

‘Oh. How old were you?’