At last we wriggle out of the tunnel into another cave, a cavern more like. I look around in amazement. Does anyone back home even know that this is here? Its walls gleam dark blue in the thin light, wet like whaleskin. I look up. It’s as tall as a house. Way up high there’s a small round hole in the roof and through it I can see a circle of sky. A shaft of thin sunshine falls like a spotlight on to Harby, who’s kneeling on the ground, looking at something. And there, in the circle of sunlight, I see … not a baby … but a huddle of puppies.

‘Oh!’ I whisper.

‘Not Mothga,’ he says glumly.

‘Not Mothga,’ I agree, kneeling down next to him. ‘Sorry, Harby.’

Harby sighs and together we look at the bundle of tiny creatures.

The pups are so young their eyes are still closed. I try to count them as they squirm over each other. I think there are six but they’re such a wriggly tangle of heads and tails and paws that it’s hard to count. One pup has clambered to the top of the pile and is scrabbling about on everyone else’s heads. Beneath her, as if in protest, another pup shifts and she slides backwards off the heap in slow motion. Harby and me both laugh at the same time. With one finger I gently stroke the pup’s fluffy head. She opens her tiny mouth towards my hand and makes little sucking noises.

A terrible realisation hits me, deep in my belly. These aren’t just pups. These are wolf pups.

‘Oh no,’ I say with dread. ‘Where’s their mum?’

Harby looks at me, his black eyes blank.

And I know straight away these are the dead wolf’s puppies. The wolf wasn’t a he; she was a she. She only attacked me because I was near her den. She attacked me to protect her little pups. It was self-defence.

Gently, gently I scoop up the tumbled wolf pup and snuggle her close. I can feel her heartbeat flickering in my hands.

‘I’m so so sorry,’ I say in her tiny soft ear.

The pup squirms in my hand, blind and deaf and helpless. Newborn. She reminds me of Dara when he was crying in the hospital, his tummy exposed and his tiny feet pushing and kicking against the air. My eyes fill with tears.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whisper. ‘We didn’t know.’

We’ve killed the wolf pups’ mum. And without her these pups will die. The tears roll down my cheeks.

My pup is asleep, all snuggled into my neck. Maybe Dara might’ve stopped crying and just cuddled up and gone to sleep in my arms … if I’d held him close like this. With my baby finger, I stroke the perfect softness at the base of the pup’s ears. I breathe her warm smell. I don’t want to leave her; I want to keep her forever and love her and look after her; I want to fix the mess we’ve made of her family.