Knowing that once asleep, Moonface would stay that way, my first thought was that he’d been stolen. But perhaps I’d been mistaken about the place where he’d lain down? I called his name, looking here and there, but always came back to the spot where I’d seen his eyes slap shut, where I knew he would be until I picked him up to carry him home.

Well, he’s up to his tricks, I thought. One of his latest games was to hide from me, but up until now this had been when I was coming home from work. It was difficult to believe he’d stood from his sleeping spot without me noticing. Bracken is noisy. Birds tell. Grass whispers. And Moonface was not the most careful of four-year-olds. I went into the trees, calling him, starting to panic and swear. I ran home, calling him.

Everyone for miles took part in the search. Tin torches on long poles were set around the edge of the swamp. While some searched the bracken and flax bushes, others went up through the trees. I wanted to believe what Mum said, that he’d be asleep somewhere and wouldn’t wake until morning. Kata, though he is no kind of tracking dog, can always find Moonface or me, but on this night he stayed by us, as anxious as we all were.

‘Nothing’ll wake him once he’s gone off,’ Mum kept saying. ‘And he can’t have gone far. He never does go far.’ She was already crying.

I don’t know how many days or weeks it was before we stopped searching. ‘We’ll have to wait for him to come back to us,’ people were saying. By that they meant Moonface was dead and someday we would find what was left of him. Land or water would deliver him and then there would be answers. But how could he be dead? I hadn’t seen him dead. We hadn’t buried him, so how could he be dead? When I went to sleep, the boards of the house were cracking down on me.

I didn’t accept that we should give up our search. My mind could not be free of what had happened – the cold spring water, the silver tin, water silvered, the creaking birds, the pouring, the boy invisible, the unspeaking leaves, the trail of torches, the voices calling, the crying, the wailing of all the grandmothers in the world, the waiting, the ferny nest. Because I couldn’t sleep in my room any more, Nunu took me to stay with Paa and her. Though I couldn’t bear to get up in the mornings, my grandparents talked me from my bed. Though I found it difficult to swallow, they pushed food into me, and Paa took me out with him. ‘Work’s the best thing,’ he said.