I need make safe.

I not know how make safe.

Ma own deertooth not make safe?

I give my deertooth to Ma.

My deertooth strong.

My deertooth only twelve summers old.

“Make safe, Ma,” I speak.

Ma not make breath. No breath. No Ma.

Ma in spirit sleep.

I run.

I run down hill.

I run cross river …

fast fast fast …

I fall …’

Harby opens his eyes so suddenly I jump. We stare at each other for a long moment.

‘… I wake next to river …’ He touches the gash on his head where the blue bandage used to be. ‘… I wake … I see you, Cholliemurrum …’ he whispers.

DEERTOOTH

My mind swims. I feel sick and dizzy and lost.

The mysteries, all the things I didn’t understand, all the whys and hows and maybes, they swirl about like letters in a word search and then, suddenly, they start to make a kind of sense of themselves.

‘Harby …’ I say, my voice wobbling.

But what can I say? No wonder Harby didn’t want to remember what happened to him. No wonder he wanted to forget. No wonder he tried to push it all away.

But you can’t just avoid stuff forever, can you? No matter how sad it is.

A beam of sunshine streaks down through the leaves. Two white butterflies spiral each other in its golden light.

Something strikes me – even though Harby’s mum died because Mothga was born he still doesn’t blame his sister for that. That amazes me. I look at the baby: Harby’s squirmy, wriggly, eyes-closed, fast-breath, tiny little sister. ‘Mothga,’ I say quietly. But it’s not her fault, is it – she’s too little for anything to be her fault. She just needs to be looked after. And Harby will look after her. No matter what.

‘Dara,’ I whisper, and I picture my tiny brother, squirmy and wriggly in his fish-tank bed. Things change, I suppose, things just change and change and keep on changing. And, I sigh, it’s nobody’s fault at all.

‘Harby?’ I say, facing him. ‘I need to go home.”

‘Where home, Cholliemurrum?’

‘Home? Home is far … far far …’ I stop, because in another way my home isn’t far at all; it’s right here.

‘Far far far,’ he repeats.

He looks up into the sky. He points up at the pale ghost of moon, still lingering in the blue.

‘Home?’ he asks, and I can hear the joke in his voice.

Harby does his funny puffy laugh. I elbow him in the ribs.

‘Oi, Cholliemurrum!’ he says, rubbing his side. He nudges me back.

‘Oi, yourself!’ I say.

A bird darts out of the trees above us, shrieking; it’s a jay. I see the flash of blue as he dips over the hollow where Harby’s ma lies and then he vanishes once more.

I stare around me, feeling the angle of the slope, gauging the lie of the land, and I know where I am. I’m not far from home at all: the Spirit Stone is just up there, in the clearing, at the top of the mound. I know where I am.