As Charlie and Hartboy could tell us, home is family. Thank you to all my Kirtley family for your love, support and encouragement, especially Sylvia and Peter. Thank you to my Logan family for a lifetime of blethering, dandering and general ligging around; Dad, Anna, Alice and Niall, this story has deep roots in you. To Amy, who has shared everything and who remembers my own memories better than I ever do. To dearest Dorrie. And of course to Mum – who has given me so so much and who is, quite simply, my hero.

Most of all I give thanks to my very own wolf pack: to my cubs, Lyla, Arlo and Flora, and to Andrew, my mate-for-life. You are everything: you inspire me; you question me; you make me laugh; you make me think. You’ve given me time and space to become an actual author, and you’ve believed in this story (and in me) from the start. I want to howl from the hilltops how very much I love you all.

This story is wrapped in pre-history; I owe a great debt to the late Professor Peter Woodman – the archaeologist who excavated the Mesolithic site at Mount Sandel in Northern Ireland. That place, where I played when I was a wee girl, is what inspired this story. As did the real Stone Age people, whose long-lost footprints we all walk upon every single day. I give thanks especially to them – our Stone Age ancestors; I’m sure they dreamed and wished and laughed and loved and wept and hoped just as much as we all still do.

And finally, dear readers, thank you; without you this story would only be pages on a shelf or whispers in the wind.

Be kind. Have adventures. Make safe.

BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS

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First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

This electronic edition published in March 2020

Text copyright © Sophie Kirtley, 2020

Map illustration copyright © Ben Mantle, 2020

Sophie Kirtley has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: PB: 978-1-5266-1628-9; eBook: 978-1-5266-1627-2

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