Harby is breathing heavily in the tunnel ahead of me. His noises steady my heart because I know at least he’s really there. Then I realise his noises aren’t just breaths, they’re words. Words I taught him by accident. ‘Shudda. Missda. Passca,’ he chants over and over. I smile, caught for a second between so many worlds. Then I join in too. ‘Shudda. Missda. Passca. Shudda. Missda. Passca,’ we chant together, and the spell chases the fears away until the tunnel widens and lightens and out we burst into the moon-tinged splendour of Deadman’s Cave.

We run to the cave mouth and gasp in big blue gulps of cool night air. Right above my head, a crazy laugh rings out. I nearly jump out of my skin. I peer through the branches of the fallen tree. It’s the biggest bird of prey I’ve ever seen.

‘Heee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee,’ she giggles.

She’s gripping a stumpy branch with massive yellow claws.

‘Eeeeegill,’ says Harby’s voice from behind me.

I stare in amazement as the eagle shakes her white-feathered head and pecks under her wing with her hooked yellow beak. I’ve only ever seen eagles in pictures, never in real life. And never in the wild! We haven’t had eagles in my Mandel Forest for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

‘Heee-hee-hee-hee,’ says the eagle, looking far too ancient and grumpy for such a giggly voice.

I laugh. The eagle gives me a look. I hold her yellow gaze. She opens her huge wings, lets go of the branch and glides low over the silver-gleaming river.

‘Wow!’ I say as I watch her go. ‘Wow! Wow! Wow!’

The eagle perches for a second on the Pinnacle, her white tail feathers spread like a lacy fan on the grey rock. Then she lifts into the air once more, looping back round our way and, just where the water’s deepest, she dips down, lifts her talons and snatches a fish straight out of the river.

I gasp.

She made it look as easy as putting fish fingers in a shopping trolley. As I watch she banks away and circles up and up and up towards the moon. ‘Heeee-hee-hee-hee-hee,’ she calls, sounding slightly smug.

‘Fair play,’ I say.

I watch her until she vanishes into the night. I turn back to Harby.

But Harby’s not watching the eagle. He’s staring sadly at those handprints, resting his palm on the one that is his own.

I go back over to him. ‘What’re you doing, Harby?’

He looks at me with his dark dark eyes.

‘My people,’ he says softly, smoothing his big hands along the cave wall.

Is he remembering? Are all his memories flooding back?

I look at the handprints and they jog my memory too. I smile – a silly memory. They remind me of a faded old tea towel we still have at home. It was from back when we were at nursery; everybody in the class did a handprint and the teachers must’ve got them printed up on to tea towels for the mums and dads. Tiny little handprints to remember us by – mine, Lamont’s, Beaky’s …