And I know where this place would be in my Mandel Forest too: the tunnel of trees, where yesterday I slid and I …

‘Harby,’ I whisper. ‘I think I … I think that yesterday … yesterday I found your deertooth.’

He looks puzzled. ‘Cholliemurrum? You find my deertooth? Where you find my deertooth?’

‘Here,’ I say quietly. ‘Right where you left it.’ I look back across at Harby’s ma’s hollow. My voice fades to a murmur. ‘Where it’s always been …’ Buried deep. I thump the ground.

‘Maybe your pa was a bit right after all. Maybe your ma did send me to make you safe.’

Harby just stares at me, his brow furrowed.

I reach into my pocket.

‘Open hand,’ I say, tapping on Harby’s closed fingers. He unfurls them and I draw an invisible circle on his rough-skinned palm. Then softly I lay the deertooth there. He does a little gasp. I fold his fingers around the deertooth and hold his closed fist, tight tight tight.

I don’t know the word for goodbye in his language. Maybe there isn’t one.

‘I give thanks,’ says Harby.

‘I give thanks,’ I say. And I really mean it.

‘Make safe,’ I whisper, looking into Harby’s dark dark eyes.

‘Make safe, Cholliemurrum,’ he whispers back.

I close my eyes and let go.

NOW

I feel like I’m rising up, swimming through warm air till I reach the surface and I gasp awake.

My ears pop.

I open my eyes.

I’m standing in the cool green of the tree tunnel, not far from the clearing, at the foot of the mound. Up there through the trees, I see the outline of the Spirit Stone silhouetted against the blue blue sky.

Somewhere a dog barks and close by in the forest a wood pigeon coos.

‘Harby?’ I say, peering amongst the trees.

But Harby’s vanished. Into thin air.

I listen: I can hear the hum of traffic on the ring road. The pulse of music. The distant throb of a plane; I look up at its tiny impossible flying shape.

I’m home! I’m home!

I squeeze my eyes tight shut and open them again.

I’m home; I’m back in my Mandel Forest! The path beneath my feet is gravel and beneath that is mud and rock and deeper still is a hollow and a story so much older than I am. I crouch and lay my palms flat on the ground, remembering the deertooth that lay there long ago and yesterday all at once.

‘Chaaaaarlie!’

I freeze.

‘Chaaaaaarlie!’ Another voice calls my name.

These are voices I know, just up there by the Spirit Stone.

I cup my hands to my mouth.

‘Laaaamont! Beeeeeeaky!’ I yell.

Nero’s bark echoes around the forest.

‘Nero!’ I shout. ‘Neeeeeroooo!’

I run up the mound towards their voices. ‘Home,’ I say, high-fiving the Spirit Stone.

Nero bounds over, leaps up on me, barking, licking my hands, my arms, my face. ‘Good boy, Nero,’ I say, rubbing the soft fur behind his ears. ‘Good good boy.’