I watch him nervously. Why has he gone so quiet? Something’s not right. I look around the little camp. Maybe this is not right? Maybe I’ve taken Harby to the wrong place entirely, maybe this isn’t the place he remembered. I think of the footprints, the shadow … maybe this is somebody else’s home.

‘Harby?’ I say, biting my lip. ‘Is this actually your home?’

‘Home,’ he echoes, nodding, but his voice sounds hollow.

He hangs his head. I look at the smouldering ashes, the little hut, the meat abandoned on the fire. Why is no one here? Why did no one come running out to greet Harby? Why was no one out looking for him? I think of Dad calling Lamont and Beaky, of them promising to search for me in Mandel Forest.

Home isn’t home without people, without your family. Then I remember what Harby said in the cave, when we were looking at the handprints: My people. Gone. Has Harby’s whole tribe really been wiped out? Is he all that’s left? My heart aches, imagining how it would be to be truly alone in the world. I touch his arm.

He just stares into the embers. Remembering? Not remembering? Who knows? What can I possibly do to help him?

The animal skins, which cover the hut, flap noisily in the breeze, almost like applause. I look across at the little hut. Maybe Mothga’s in there? I try to imagine the tiny baby curled up and cosy, snug beneath a soft deerskin blanket in a little woven crib. I push away the other imagining: a shadow man, waiting in there to ambush me with his flint blade ready.

I try to swallow, but my mouth has gone dry. I pick up a big stick from a pile next to the fire. ‘Let’s have a look in there,’ I say to Harby, but he ignores me totally; he’s still staring into the embers, like he’s in a trance. Slowly, slowly I take a step towards the hut.

‘Eeeeeee-eeeeeee-kurreeeeeee!’ shrieks a night creature from the forest. My belly does a flip. I tiptoe closer to the hut.

Gripping my stick tightly, I stand for a second by the hut’s entrance and I listen. No sounds, just the hiss and crackle of the fire behind me and my own thudding heart.

I draw back the animal skins in slow motion and peer inside.

HUT

Velvet dark. I blink; the triangle of moonlight from the hut’s opening falls on to a strange lumpen shape. I clasp my mouth, take a staggery step back. It’s somebody … somebody here … somebody sleeping.

But the shape doesn’t move, and as my eyes accustom to the lack of light I peer harder and I realise it’s not a person at all, it’s just a bundle of what looks like animal skins, all dishevelled, like an unmade bed. I peer into the edges of the hut. There’s no one in here. It’s empty. Abandoned almost. Like the rest of the camp. A chilly breeze passes; I shiver. This whole place is spooking me out.