The knifeman grabs Harby roughly by the shoulders. Still Harby doesn’t move; he just stands there, looking up at him.

Then Harby says one word that changes everything.

‘Pa!’

The knifeman wraps his arms around Harby and hugs him tight.

‘Pa!’ says Harby again. ‘You come home, Pa!’ And Harby hugs the knifeman right back with his bruised and bloody arms, his muddy hands gripping tight to the knifeman’s skins.

The knifeman says something in a strange, choked voice. He rubs his face into Harby’s hair and kisses the top of his head. All I can do is look on in amazement, because the knifeman is … because the knifeman is Harby’s dad.

I watch from a distance as Harby’s dad examines the gash on his son’s head, the bandage gone, lost in the sinkhole. And even though I can’t catch all the words, I know that Harby’s telling him what happened by the river yesterday. Harby points over at me; I smile at him and raise my hand in a half-wave.

‘Cholliemurrum,’ he says to his dad.

Harby’s dad looks over at me across the glade. He doesn’t smile.

I can’t believe it. The knifeman is Harby’s dad!

I shake my head and blow out a big puff of air. One more second and that knifeman would’ve killed me. I know it.

I hear a sad little wail. Mothga. I’d almost forgotten about her. I walk around the hollow and lift her up. She’s limp and yellowish; she doesn’t look right at all. Her little pink mouth opens, wide as a baby bird’s beak, but no sound comes out. I walk over to Harby and his dad.

They stop talking as I approach.

‘Mothga,’ I say, holding her out to Harby.

‘Mothga!’ he says, and I put the baby carefully in his filthy arms. He cuddles her close. My heart feels like it might burst with wishing that I’d cuddled Dara when I had the chance.

Harby smiles, his eyes fixed on the baby’s face. Then he seems to notice what I noticed, how limp and floppy she looks, and his smile vanishes. ‘Mothga sick?’ He looks at his dad.

‘Mothga not sick,’ says the man, shaking his head. ‘Mothga hungry.’

Harby and his dad lock eyes, as if they are communicating just by looking at each other.

‘Ma not give milk,’ whispers Harby. ‘Ma in spirit sleep, Pa.’ Harby’s face crumples, his shoulders shake.

Harby’s dad nods and repeats Harby’s words. ‘Ma in spirit sleep,’ says the huge man softly. Then he wraps Harby and Mothga in his big big arms; a tear rolls down his cheek and into Harby’s hair.

I stand in the shadows at the edge of the glade and watch while they hold each other and cry, Harby and his dad. Together they walk over to the hollow where the dead woman lies on her bed of flowers and feathers. Harby limps; his dad helps him. Harby sits on the edge of the hollow with Mothga in his arms and lets himself remember, saying nothing, just looking; looking at the woman because she’s beautiful, and because she’s gone, and because she’s his mum.