Out of the corner of my eye I see a movement. I spin around, my breath frozen in fear. Then I laugh at myself; it’s just a rag snagged on a tree branch, flapping in the breeze like a cartoon ghost in a sheet. Silly. Then I realise it’s not just a rag; I walk around the massive tree and untangle Dad’s old tartan shirt from the low branch. I stroke it to my cheek: soft as a cuddle after a nightmare.

But … I’m confused … I remember covering Harby up with Dad’s shirt when he was lying, unconscious, down on the beach, so … then … how did it get all the way up here?

I hold the shirt out in front of me, as if it could tell me the answer itself. But it’s just a shirt – slightly more bloody and muddy than previously – but, ultimately, just a shirt. Could the storm wind have whirled it right up into the forest? I shake my head. Again I think of the shadow I saw. The huge footsteps on the beach. Something shrieks deep in the forest behind me and my heart leaps. I spin around, but there’s no one there. Of course there’s no one there. Only Harby.

I bite my lip. How did Harby end up where I found him in the first place? All bashed up and drowning in the river? I know he can’t remember what happened, but something … something awful must’ve happened for him to end up that way … I stare at Harby thoughtfully as I bundle the shirt into my backpack.

‘Harby,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m just wondering … Do you have any … any enemies?’

CAMP

Harby looks at me but I can tell he doesn’t understand. ‘Mothga quiet,’ he says, his voice heavy with disappointment. He does a long sigh. ‘We find my home?’

I push the scary thoughts and questions away. Accidents happen. That’s what Mum always says. Maybe that’s all it was, Harby’s fall – just an accident.

‘Home!’ I say purposefully. Trying to force brightness into my voice. ‘Let’s go!’

But I need to work out where we are first: I feel the angle of the slope, I gauge where the river lies, I look at the position of the moon in the sky; in my world this would be somewhere around the Druid’s Well, just down from our rope swing. I totally know my way to the Spirit Stone from here, even in the dark.

‘Come on then!’ I say to Harby. And I tap the pale tree for luck. ‘Make safe,’ I whisper under my breath – more of a wish than a promise. With Harby lolloping by my side, I part the bracken and start to run gently up the hill.

We scramble up the little ridge where normally there’s our rope swing. In Harby’s forest there are vines dangling here instead. I grab one and launch myself out into the moon-dappled dark and back again. I point up the slope. ‘This way!’