Relief floods through me. It sounds even bigger than a wolf. ‘What was that?’ I ask Harby.

‘Bear,’ says Harby, matter-of-fact.

‘Bear!’ My eyes nearly pop out of my head. ‘A real bear! Did you just scare off a bear by … singing to her?’

‘Bear not like spirit songs,’ says Harby, like it’s the sort of obvious thing that everyone should just know.

I shudder. Without Harby I’d be dead a hundred times over. ‘Thanks, Harby,’ I whisper.

He looks at me like I’m a total banana. ‘Why you give thanks? You make spirit song too, Cholliemurrum!’

I shake my head in utter astonishment. ‘I make spirit song too!’ I get a little tingle up my spine; maybe I’m learning Harby’s ways; maybe I’m learning how to survive.

‘Home!’ says Harby, urging me forward, and on we go. I walk on following Harby but I sneak a peek back over my shoulder at the place where the bear had been; although I’m so super glad we’re safe, a tiny adventuresome little part of me still wishes I could’ve seen her properly. A bear! An actual bear!

We creep forward, more cautious now, lurking in the shadows at the forest edge, peering up and down the silvery water for predators, but the coast’s clear, so we make our way to the stepping stones and we cross. I pause for a moment at the Pinnacle, looking up the hill opposite; even though this forest is so much wilder than my forest, I’m learning that really it’s kind of the same. I’m sure I’ll know the way to the Spirit Stone, path or no path. Bats flit low over the water, snapping up flies. Just like they do when Dad and me go night fishing. I hop across the rest of the stepping stones while the moon shimmers above me like a fat silver apple.

I hop off the last stepping stone on to the sand and suddenly I realise that Harby is no longer behind me – in fact, he’s nowhere to be seen.

‘Hey!’ I call softly. ‘Where are you, Harby?’ A big fish flips with a splosh in the dark water.

‘Cholliemurrum?’ Harby’s blue-bandaged head is sticking out from behind the Pinnacle, all lit up by moonlight.

‘Oh, sorry, Harby! I couldn’t see you for a minute. What’re you doing?’

He gives me a look like I’m a total nutball. ‘I need make water,’ he says, as if he’s speaking to someone very very stupid.

‘What?’ I say.

He sighs impatiently. ‘Take water …’ he says, miming drinking from his cupped hand. ‘Make water,’ and he mimes going for a wee.

I laugh. ‘OK. Fine! I get it!’ I say, and I look away, giggling my head off. He goes back behind the Pinnacle and I can hear him laughing his funny puffy laugh.

I scuff my feet along the sand; I can just about make out our old footprints. The boy’s barefoot ones and my ones in my trainers. And there are some fresher ones too: bird prints, like little letters in another language. I’m relieved there are no wolf prints, no bear prints either. ‘Retrace your steps … literally,’ I mutter to myself as I follow my backwards footprints from the stepping stones back up the river beach to the ridge.