I bite my lip. ‘I think that one’s the alpha,’ I whisper.
Harby looks at me, his eyes puzzled.
‘That wolf!’ he says, pointing down.
Now the wolf is looking up at us, his eyes gleaming dully. Instinctively I duck away but he doesn’t seem worried by us or scared or angry. He just watches us watching him, like there’s nothing left for him to do.
I think of my own home, my own family, my own pack, and my whole body hurts, inside and out. I feel the searing pain of the claw cuts on my shoulder, the sharp sting of my bleeding knee, and the raw ache right in the pit of my belly. The world blurs as my eyes fill with tears.
I want my mum.
I turn my face away and stare out across the valley: we’re on a little rocky platform, so high up we’re above the treetops whose leaves glow golden in the sunshine. Steam rises from the forest in swirling wisps and the air is noisy with birdsong. Right over on the other side of the valley and higher even than us, I can just see the tip of the Spirit Stone, rising out of the trees – kind and familiar amidst all this strangeness. ‘Home,’ I murmur.
I wipe my eyes and watch some tiny bright green birds that I’ve never even seen in my world. They swoop and twist joyfully in the air before darting into their nest holes in the cliff just above us. I smile a little smile. Below us in the cavern I hear the shuffling of the wolves. How can somewhere so beautiful be so full of dangers?
As I gaze up at the nests, a cold realisation suddenly clutches my heart. The little platform we’re on is about the size of Lamont’s trampoline, it juts out from the cliff face like one of those little foldy-down tables you get on a train. I cautiously get to my feet and peer all along the cliff: there’s no path down from here; no way up from here either – the cliff is sheer and impassable.
‘Harby,’ I whisper, my breath catching in my throat.
He looks at me and I can tell from his wide eyes that he’s having the same thought.
‘Harby, we’re stuck! What are we going to do?’
STUCK
Harby does a very slow blink. Then he opens his eyes and turns his gaze to me. ‘We wait,’ he says flatly. He looks disappointed and sad.
‘What?’ I shake my head in confusion. ‘What do we wait for? Who’s going to come and rescue us?’
‘We wait, Cholliemurrum.’ He points at the sun. ‘We wait. Night come. Wolf go. We go.’ He picks up a stone and starts sharpening his spearhead with it.
He makes it all sound so very plain and simple that for a second I don’t properly get it. Then I understand: we’re trapped up here until the wolf pack leaves their den. Our only way back is the way we came. My stomach churns queasily with dread.
Scrape scrape scrape goes Harby’s sharpening stone.
I hug my knees and watch a bird of prey circle in the air above the Spirit Stone. I think back to yesterday, when I was there, right there, with Beaky and Lamont, when I threw my pebble up and over the Spirit Stone. It feels almost like I was a different me then or something. ‘Charlie Merriam,’ I murmur. My real name sounds alien in this fresh wild air.
The sun slips slowly lower. A marmalade cloud like a scribbled Z drifts behind the trees. It must be getting really late. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone, but Mum and Dad will be properly worried by now. I feel small and sorry. I sniff.
Harby sniffs.
We look at each other.
‘What’s wrong, Harby?’
He has put down his sharpening stone and is twizzling the ends of one of the string bracelets on his arm.
‘Mothga?’ I say softly.
Harby nods; his spear hand is clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. ‘Mothga,’ he says, his voice choked and strange like it’s wrapped tight in brambles. ‘I not find Mothga, Cholliemurrum. I not make safe.’ A fat tear escapes and trickles down his cheek. Then another.
I swallow. ‘It’s OK, Harby.’ My own voice is bramble-strangled too. ‘It’ll be OK. Don’t give up. We’ll find your sister. She’ll be OK.’
Harby’s teary eyes are open now and blackbird bright; he watches me curiously, his head on one side. Quick as a flash he reaches out and touches my cheek. Then licks his finger. ‘You cry, Cholliemurrum. Why you cry? Mothga not your baby sister.’ His eyebrows are low with puzzlement.
I bite my lip. ‘I have a baby brother,’ I whisper.
‘Baby brother!’ echoes Harby admiringly, and he pats me on the back, like it’s a great achievement. ‘What your baby brother name?’
‘Dara,’ I say softly, not meeting his eyes.
‘DaRA!’ declares Harby in a warrior voice. Like Dara is bold and tough and brave. Not tiny and weak and … my eyes fill with fresh tears.
‘Why you cry, Cholliemurrum?’ asks Harby softly. ‘Where DaRA?’
‘He’s in hospital, having an operation. Because something’s wrong with his heart,’ I blurt out. My raw voice sounds more angry than I mean it to.
Harby draws back, not understanding, his eyes confused and frightened. He tries again. ‘You not make safe DaRA?’ he whispers.
He doesn’t mean it like an accusation, but that’s how it feels. I turn on him, shooting arrows with my eyes. ‘No, Harby, I wasn’t good and kind like you; I didn’t even try to make my brother safe; I just took one look at him and ran the other way. And now … it’s too late, because here I am … HERE …’ I wave my arms in the air, I’m yelling now and Harby’s staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. ‘… I’m stuck HERE in the STUPID STONE AGE with YOU and I don’t know how to get HOME!’
Home … home … home. My word echoes back to me from across the valley like a taunt. A cloud of ragged crows rise like witches’ handkerchiefs from a tall tree.
‘Home,’ murmurs Harby. His voice sounds little and lost.
My silly anger melts and a new lump forms in my throat. ‘Do you remember your home, Harby?’ I ask him softly.
Harby shakes his head and fiddles with his spear.
I bite my lip. Even though Harby’s in his own world, he’s just as stuck as I am. ‘Sorry,’ I whisper.
He shrugs. Maybe they don’t have a word for sorry in the Stone Age. Maybe when they make mistakes they … do something else to make it better.
‘I’ll help you, Harby.’ I joggle his arm gently. ‘When we get off this stupid ledge, we’ll do it together – we’ll find Mothga, we’ll find your home, we’ll make safe.’
Harby stares at me with those eyes that are black and forever-deep, like the unexplored parts of the sea.
‘I help you, Cholliemurrum,’ he whispers hoarsely, joggling my arm back with his pinchy fingers. ‘We find DaRA. We find your home. We make safe.’
‘OK,’ I say, smiling through my teary eyes. And I hold my hand up for a high five.
But Harby just looks at my hand for a second and then holds his own hand up. ‘OK,’ he says solemnly.
And it feels like we’ve made a promise.
‘OOOOOWEEEEEEE!’ hoots an early owl close by.
‘Ooooooowooooooooo!’ comes another owl’s answer.
Evening is coming and the light is soft. Harby bends his blue-bandaged head over his spear once more. I lie down on my side and gaze out across the wild glowing valley. We wait. Behind me I can hear the rhythmic scrape-scrape sound of Harby beginning to sharpen his spear again.
I squeeze my eyes tight shut and picture Dara in his little fish-tank bed. I wish I’d held him back there in the hospital. I wish I’d given him a big cuddle and told him that everything would be all right. ‘Sorry, Dara,’ I whisper, and I open my eyes and gaze over at where, in my Mandel Forest, the hospital would be. He could be having his operation right now. ‘Make safe, Dara,’ I say in my warrior voice, like I’m making him a promise too.
I lie and listen to the rhythmic scrape-scrape, scrape-scrape of stone sharpening stone. I’m tired … so tired … so so tired …
HOT
A gentle crackle wakes me. Warmth on my back. The soft grey smell of woodsmoke.
I o
pen my eyes. I’m by a campfire, and for a tiny flicker of a moment I think it’s my birthday camping, with Beaky and Lamont and Nero. But it’s not. I’m still here lying on the mossy stone platform, high above Harby’s wild forest. I’ve never been up here before, in my world I mean; the cliff’s too steep to climb and it’s all fenced off anyway, with ‘Danger’ signs showing pictures of landslides and giant exclamation marks. And I’ve never been at the top of the cliff before either, that’s a street called Windy Hill and it’s where all the posh houses are – you have to press a buzzer outside the entrance gates to even get on to Windy Hill. But I’m far far far from gated streets and sensible warning signs.
I blink in wonder. Spread out before me is the endless forest, the trees dim in the lack of light, like they’re unfinished somehow, drawn in pencil and not coloured in. On the horizon is a splendid rage of red and pink and gold where the sun once was and elsewhere the sky is streaked in bruise colours: eggy yellow, dark purple. The air is noisy with squawks and squeals and flusters and chirrups as all the forest creatures settle themselves for the night. Well … maybe not all …
I hear the skitter and yelp of wolves moving about down there in their cavern den. Soon the wolf pack will leave for the night to prowl and stalk and hunt in the dark. We can go down there then and escape. I shiver at the thought.
I roll over. Harby has made a fire in the lee of the cliff that looms above us. He’s crouched down, poking it with a long stick. He smiles a little smile and with his stick he pushes something small and black through the ashes towards me.
While I’ve been asleep Harby’s heaped a little pile of the small black things by my side. They look like rabbit droppings.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Hot!’ says Harby.
‘I get that, Harby, but what is it?’
‘Hot!’ He moves his hand towards the flames and pretends to touch them, then pulls back fast, blowing on his fingers theatrically.
‘Hot!’ he says again, like a warning to a toddler.
I can’t help laughing.
‘I know fire’s hot, Harby!’ I point at the little blackened balls by my side. ‘What are these?’
‘Hot!’
I give up.
Harby has his own little pile of hot black things. I watch him bash one on a rock, peel it, then pop it in his mouth. Even if they are rabbit droppings he seems to find them pretty tasty and I’m so hungry I could eat anything. I pick one up and quickly drop it again.
‘Ow!’ I say, sucking my finger.
‘Hot!’ says Harby, smiling smugly.
I find a less-hot burned thing and pick it up. I copy Harby’s method, tapping it on a stone until it cracks, then peeling it. The inside is pale yellow and slightly soft. It smells of Christmas. It’s a nut. A roasted, toasted hazelnut. I pop it in my mouth. I chew the hazelnut until it is just a paste, letting the smoky sweetness coat my mouth.
I smile at Harby.
‘Nut!’ I say.
‘Hot!’ says Harby, in agreement. ‘Hot good?’
‘Hot good!’ I say, unpeeling another and popping it in my mouth. We smile in the firelight, eating and chewing until there are hardly any hots left. We sit together and watch the embers glow as the sky grows dark.
Suddenly Harby tenses. He reaches for his spear. He crawls to the opening, high above the wolf den, and looks down. ‘Ttsschik!’ says Harby. I’m pretty sure he’s swearing. ‘We not go yet.’
By his side now, I peer down too. All the adult wolves have gone … except for one. The wolf with the torn ear is lying near the tunnel mouth, his head is on his paws, but he’s not sleeping; I can feel his watchful eyes on me. I swallow, rubbing my clawed shoulder.
‘OOOOOOOOOOOOWOOOOOOO?’ hoots an owl. And I jump.
‘Oooooooooooooweeeeeeeeeeeeeee!’ comes the answer.
It’s like they’re two parts of the same thing. Two cherries on the same stalk. Two numbers added together to give the right answer.
Harby sighs. ‘We wait,’ he says. I can hear the itch in his voice.
‘We wait,’ I say with a nod.
I crack open another hot, and chew while I stare across the valley. A few metres in front of us is the dark of the cliff edge. We’re so high up it feels like we’re in the actual sky and watching the whole world go to sleep. With my finger I trace the route of the river as it twists, gleaming silver in the moonlight, all the way to the far far sea. The sea is so much further away than it is in my world; here there’s actually land in places that at home would just be seabed. You could probably even walk all the way to Lathrin Island! Amazing! I can still just make out the Spirit Stone, the highest point for miles around, peeking up through the canopy, silhouetted against the rising moon. ‘If we were up there we could see even further …’ I say dreamily. ‘We could see everything …’ An idea jolts through me – maybe from up there I’d be able to see the way home.
‘Harby,’ I whisper.
He’s standing quietly beside me, leaning on his spear. He’s got that lost, listening look in his eyes again, concentrating hard, his eyebrows squeezed so close together I can see a deep furrow in the middle of his bandaged forehead.
‘What is it, Harby?’ I ask. ‘Did you hear something?’ I want so much for it to be Mothga. Did he hear her cry? I listen hard. No, just the rustling of breeze through the treetops.
Harby shakes his head, turns his face skyward. I look where he’s looking; there are more stars here than I have ever imagined, sprinkled across the sky like silvery freckles. A shooting star fizzles and vanishes … POW! Just like that!
‘I wish … I wish I could go home,’ I whisper, half under my breath.
‘… home …’ echoes Harby.
I smile sadly to myself.
Then Harby nudges me sharply in the ribs.
‘Oi!’ I yelp. ‘That hurt!’
‘Home!’ says Harby again.
I turn to him; there’s urgency in his voice.
‘Home!’ He shakes my arm in excitement. ‘I member home!’
I MEMBER
‘Brilliant!’ I say, breathless too. ‘Maybe that’s where she is, Mothga. At your home! That’d make sense, total sense. Well done, Harby!’ I leap to my feet. ‘That’s where we can go! Where is it?’ I sweep my arm over the vast moonlit forest. ‘Where’s home?’
He screws up his face, like he’s trying so hard to think, to remember. His big hands open and close, reaching for something that’s almost within his grasp. Then he shakes his head crossly. ‘No … I member home … I not member where home …’ He bangs his spear on the ground in frustration.
‘OK,’ I say slowly. ‘Well … maybe I can help … can you describe it to me … I might … you might …’ Hope seeps away again.
Harby stares at me blankly with those ever-dark eyes. ‘Home?’ he mumbles. Then he suddenly stands taller, like an idea has just struck him. He starts to draw on the rock with his spear, a pale grey line.
I peer over his shoulder as he draws one large dome, with a medium-sized dome balanced on top and then a small dome on top of that. ‘Home!’ he declares, standing back proudly.
‘Home?’ I say doubtfully. It looks kind of like a jelly.
Then I look at his picture again, and suddenly I get it. I can see exactly what he’s drawn: it’s the Spirit Stone, on the top of the mound, at the top of the hill. ‘Home!’ I say, tapping his picture with my finger and laughing out loud. ‘I know exactly where your home is! We call it “home” in my forest too! Look, Harby!’ I point across the valley; the massive moon has risen so that it looks like it’s balanced right on the topmost tip of the Spirit Stone, like a ball on a circus seal’s nose. ‘It’s the Spirit Stone! Home!’
‘Home?’ says Harby, squinting into the darkness, not seeing it because he’s forgotten it’s there.
An idea strikes me then; I think about what Mum always says to Dad when he loses his keys: retrace your steps.
Maybe that’s what I need to do too: I lost my way ove
r there, on the Spirit Stone side of the valley, somewhere between Gabriel’s Oak and the river … That’s where it must be … the portal … or the magic gateway … or whatever manner of craziness took me from my Mandel Forest to this Stone Age one.
A half-formed plan hatches itself in my mind: once we find Harby’s home and find Mothga and make safe, then I can retrace my steps and find my home too. I smile to myself; it’s all going to be fine.
‘This is brilliant, Harby, I’ve got a plan! Listen: we get back out of Deadman’s Cave and I’ll know the way to the Spirit Stone from there, no problem. Let’s go home!’
‘Lego home!’ says Harby, as fired up as I am. He grabs his spear and we peer back down into the wolf cavern. The wolf with the torn ear is nowhere to be seen; there’s only the grey bundle of tiny wolf pups. We grin at each other: it’s time.
Carefully we lower ourselves down over the rim of the cavern. Heart thumping, I scramble with my feet to find a ridge, gripping my fingers so tight they hurt. I get steady then I lower myself again. Harby goes down faster, ahead of me, spear in teeth. I squeeze my toes on to a little ledge and rest my weight and I’m just about to let go of my handhold when the ledge at my feet gives way, crumbling to pebbles which scatter down into the dark cavern below. My toes fumble and flail aimlessly for a foothold on the impossible rock. Then I feel Harby’s tight grip on my ankle; he silently guides my foot to where it should be. And he keeps his hold, leading me foot by foot, from ledge to ledge. Until we get low enough for him to let go and leap; I hear him land with a kerrfump on the cavern floor. I’m nearly down too! But suddenly I miss my footing and my feet slip so that I slither down the last of the drop with my bare legs and arms catching painfully on sharp rocks. I land with a thud on the rocky floor. ‘Cholliemurrum?’ says Harby’s concerned voice from the dark.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, getting dizzily to my feet. My right shoulder throbs and my arms and legs are skinned and bleeding. But we’re on level ground now and we’re going to find Harby’s sister.
We stumble hastily towards the entrance to the tunnel. I know there’s no time to stop and stroke the wolf pups, but it’s so quiet I can hear their gentle breathing, soft and purr-ish. As I clamber into the tunnel behind Harby, I peek back over my shoulder: I know those pups will be OK. Wolves live in packs. They look after each other; that’s how they survive. ‘Make safe,’ I whisper to the pups. Then I scramble after Harby into the tunnel.
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