I need to make myself invisible. Slowly, slowly, keeping low as I can, I creep over until I’m level with the boat. I peer upriver at the man: he must have more than one fish because he’s still busy, scooping and flicking.

I peep over the rim of the boat. Mothga! Her shrill cries go right through me like a siren. I try to breathe quietly, not to frighten her. She’s so tiny, a newborn, like Dara. But she’s a hundred times louder; her arms and legs are jerking with crying. I raise my head carefully to check the knifeman; his back’s still turned but I’ve got to be quick.

Tucking the spear into my belt hook, I reach down and pick her up. Crouched behind the canoe I cradle her in my arms, how I wish I’d held Dara. ‘Mothga,’ I whisper, and she stops crying. She looks up into my face with dark dark eyes, like Harby’s, like Dara’s, like mine. She moves her lips as though she’s taking little sucks of milk from the air.

I take a deep breath. It’s now or never.

Holding Mothga close, I stand. Just as the knifeman looks up from his gutting. His eyes meet mine. He roars, dropping the fish, and charges through the water towards me.

I clutch Mothga to my chest, scramble across the stepping stones and charge up the beach.

GLADE

I leap up the bank into the cover of the forest. I’ve got a good lead but the knifeman’s powerful and fast, and I’m carrying a baby. I crash through the undergrowth, stumbling, tripping over the brambles but staying on my feet. The knifeman bellows and I know he can’t be far behind me. I start to scramble up towards the Spirit Stone but it’s too steep with a baby in my arms. I veer right, round the side of the hill, where the slope is gentler and the undergrowth less thick. Behind me I hear the knifeman thrashing through the trees.

Breathing hard, I dart beneath a low branch, leap over a rock and burst through a clump of ferns on to a sort of path, where the undergrowth is flattened. I race along the half-made path, my arms burning with the effort of holding Mothga to my chest. But she doesn’t seem at all bothered by my running; she’s not even crying.

I run into a patch of sunlight; a little glade. And even though I know the knifeman’s catching up, I have to stop, just for a second, catch my breath. I step back into the shadow of the trees. Standing still for a moment, heart thundering in my chest, I strain my ears to listen. And I can’t quite believe it but the sound of running feet seems to be further off, like it’s going away from me. As I listen, the noise fades and fades. I must have lost him by the Spirit Stone.

‘I think he’s gone the wrong way,’ I whisper to Mothga.