But I stop dead in my tracks; the path is gone.

THE PINNACLE

I stare at the place where the path should be. This can’t be right. I scan left and right along the forest edge, but there are only trees.

‘What?’ I say. ‘Where … ?’

With a shaky hand I use the spear to lift the hanging fronds of fern and ivy where the path used to be. I take a sharp breath. There’s no sign that anyone has ever passed this way before. But … I ran down here myself only twenty minutes ago … didn’t I?

I peer into the forest shadows, breathing fast; it all looks different somehow: darker, greener, thick with briars and tangleweed. Even the air is strange; it has a heavy, flowery stink, too sickly sweet, like mouldy rottenness. I try to breathe through my mouth as I stare into the twisting undergrowth, searching desperately. It’s as if the path has been swallowed up by the forest.

‘Haaaa! Haaaaa! Haaaaaaa!’ taunts a bird from high in the canopy.

The forest squawks and buzzes and hums with noises like I’ve never heard before, even in midsummer. An animal shriek rises from somewhere ahead of me, like something in pain. I freeze. What even was that? Mandel Forest is like my home but suddenly nothing is familiar and I’m afraid.

I look back over my shoulder at the boy, still lying where he fell. I glance down at the pale spear in my hand. I listen to the harsh chakka-chakka chatter of a bird I don’t recognise. A strange thought strikes me then: maybe that boy’s not the one who’s lost; maybe I am. Panic presses down on me like a cold weight as I walk to the river’s edge, my head spinning.

I know this place, but I don’t know it. How can that be? The river looks more or less the same, but … there’s no bridge. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before! How can a whole bridge just disappear? I gaze upstream, and my heart leaps: there is something I recognise.

I race along the beach to the stepping stones, where the river runs shallowest, and I rock hop until I’m at the highest boulder, the one that’s right in the middle of the river. We call it the Pinnacle, Beaky, Lamont and me. The Pinnacle’s almost as tall as the Spirit Stone but less smooth and more craggy; easier to climb, and as I scramble up, it feels just as it should – the footholds and handholds are all in their same normal places. I stand on the flat bit at the top of the Pinnacle staring around me.

What is going on?

All I see is endless green; too much green. Not even a bench or a signpost, or a glimpse of rooftops above the treeline. Nothing is right.

But then my heart soars: high up on the hill behind the beach I see the Spirit Stone, right where it always is, like an old friend. I turn and face the other way, across the river from where the boy lies … hoping … hoping as I peer through the rippling thickness of trees … and … yes! There it is! Half hidden in the undergrowth, I can just make out the open black mouth of Deadman’s Cave.