‘Then let me teach Mattie,’ said Nancy impulsively. Why hadn’t she thought of Mattie? Young enough to learn so the knowledge was in her bones not just in her mind. And the girl already saw and heard — like her ability to find Clancy wherever he might be or where the brown hen had decided to lay her eggs this year.

Last Christmas she’d even shown Nancy — quietly, as a secret — where the powerful owl had built her nest that year, the white splashes of droppings and smelly scraps of fur that gave away the location high up in the gully, where a not-quite ten-year-old girl should never have gone by herself.

Except one who promised never to swim without an adult, who wore boots and thick jeans, who was, in fact, as stubborn and independent as her mother and Nancy herself, and never disobeyed a rule. But who would have thought to tell a not-quite ten-year-old specifically, ‘Do not climb the cliffs by yourself to look for owl and eagle nests’?

‘You’re teaching her already,’ said Jed. She grinned. ‘She gave Sam wild honey for his birthday. It was slightly green. She showed me where she’d found it, a hive in the ground, not a tree. She said those bees don’t sting.’

‘They don’t,’ said Nancy. ‘But I’ve never told her that. Maybe Clancy did.’

‘She told me last night she could feel the heartbeat of the earth when she went to sleep. I told her it was her own heartbeat and she said, “Same thing.”’ Jed sounded both proud of and bewildered by her daughter. ‘She really is learning.’

‘Not enough. Not . . .’ Nancy struggled, because there weren’t the right words. ‘Not in the right way. She has to be out there, feeling how the air changes on her skin, seeing snakes coil and bite each other before a drought breaker. You’ve got to be outside, day after day for that, not locked in a schoolroom or with a TV set.’

‘Mattie hardly ever watches TV,’ said Jed indignantly. ‘She says it’s boring.’

‘Please,’ said Nancy, suddenly realising how desperately she needed this; how much Mattie needed it; how much knowledge would be lost if she crashed her car next time she went to Gibber’s Creek, before she could pass it on. ‘Let her come camping with us again. For longer this time. You and Sam too, if you want to. That girl needs to feel the soil below her as she sleeps. Learn how to smell changes a thousand miles away.’

‘All right.’

Nancy blinked. ‘Just like that? All right?’

‘Sorry. Thank you, Nancy, for your wonderful invitation. But let’s leave it up to Mattie — she may not want to be away from her friends and home too long.’