The Wild Way Home

by Sophie Kirtley

  The damp air presses in on me and my mind conjures nightmares out of the deep deep dark. I ruffle imagined poison spiders out of my hair and brush the breath of ghosts from my neck and shifty-stare at something that could be wolf shadow in the thick blackness ahead. I crawl faster, my stomach flipping as fear chases fear chases fear.

  Harby is breathing heavily in the tunnel ahead of me. His noises steady my heart because I know at least he’s really there. Then I realise his noises aren’t just breaths, they’re words. Words I taught him by accident. ‘Shudda. Missda. Passca,’ he chants over and over. I smile, caught for a second between so many worlds. Then I join in too. ‘Shudda. Missda. Passca. Shudda. Missda. Passca,’ we chant together, and the spell chases the fears away until the tunnel widens and lightens and out we burst into the moon-tinged splendour of Deadman’s Cave.

  We run to the cave mouth and gasp in big blue gulps of cool night air. Right above my head, a crazy laugh rings out. I nearly jump out of my skin. I peer through the branches of the fallen tree. It’s the biggest bird of prey I’ve ever seen.

  ‘Heee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee,’ she giggles.

  She’s gripping a stumpy branch with massive yellow claws.

  ‘Eeeeegill,’ says Harby’s voice from behind me.

  I stare in amazement as the eagle shakes her white-feathered head and pecks under her wing with her hooked yellow beak. I’ve only ever seen eagles in pictures, never in real life. And never in the wild! We haven’t had eagles in my Mandel Forest for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

  ‘Heee-hee-hee-hee,’ says the eagle, looking far too ancient and grumpy for such a giggly voice.

  I laugh. The eagle gives me a look. I hold her yellow gaze. She opens her huge wings, lets go of the branch and glides low over the silver-gleaming river.

  ‘Wow!’ I say as I watch her go. ‘Wow! Wow! Wow!’

  The eagle perches for a second on the Pinnacle, her white tail feathers spread like a lacy fan on the grey rock. Then she lifts into the air once more, looping back round our way and, just where the water’s deepest, she dips down, lifts her talons and snatches a fish straight out of the river.

  I gasp.

  She made it look as easy as putting fish fingers in a shopping trolley. As I watch she banks away and circles up and up and up towards the moon. ‘Heeee-hee-hee-hee-hee,’ she calls, sounding slightly smug.

  ‘Fair play,’ I say.

  I watch her until she vanishes into the night. I turn back to Harby.

  But Harby’s not watching the eagle. He’s staring sadly at those handprints, resting his palm on the one that is his own.

  I go back over to him. ‘What’re you doing, Harby?’

  He looks at me with his dark dark eyes.

  ‘My people,’ he says softly, smoothing his big hands along the cave wall.

  Is he remembering? Are all his memories flooding back?

  I look at the handprints and they jog my memory too. I smile – a silly memory. They remind me of a faded old tea towel we still have at home. It was from back when we were at nursery; everybody in the class did a handprint and the teachers must’ve got them printed up on to tea towels for the mums and dads. Tiny little handprints to remember us by – mine, Lamont’s, Beaky’s …

  ‘My people,’ I murmur.

  I look at Harby. ‘Where are your people now?’ I ask.

  ‘Gone,’ he says, flat, matter-of-fact.

  ‘Gone? Where?’

  ‘Gone,’ he says again. With a deep deep sigh he pushes back the branches and walks out of the cave.

  I shiver. I don’t understand but I do understand. Poor Harby!

  I’m just about to leave the cave after him, when I realise that I’ve forgotten something. I look back at the dim shape of the wolf we killed. ‘I give thanks,’ I whisper sadly. And a guilty weight that sits deep in my belly shifts, then lifts a little.

  Between the rustling leaves of the fallen tree I can see the river twinkling in the moonlight. I bend back the branches and hurry to catch up with Harby. He’s standing still as a statue, just ahead of me. He’s making that funny circle telescope shape with his hand again.

  I’m just about to call out to him, ask him what he’s up to. Then I notice that in his other hand his spear is raised. I freeze.

  SPIRIT SONG

  Something moves in the dark undergrowth behind the cave. A stealthy rustle. I think of the wolf, the alpha … My mouth goes dry. Do wolves seek revenge?

  Another rustle. From behind me somewhere. The pack?

  I look over my shoulder; in the cave, shadows shift and flicker. My heart thuds.

  I turn back to Harby. He’s just standing there, poised and ready. So still he reminds me of the painted people in the cave. The nearby creature rustles; it’s edging forward. I bend slowly and pick up a stick. I try to steady my breathing, imagining myself as Cholliemurrum; a survivor, brave and strong with a spear in my hand. The animal creeps closer still.

  Then from somewhere I hear a low humming sound. I screw up my face in confusion; I can’t place the noise; what on earth is it? Almost a growl, but no, softer, more like the sound when you’re upstairs and someone downstairs is vacuuming. The noise gets louder and I realise that there’s actually a kind of music to it; it’s … a song … or a chant even … and it’s Harby who’s singing it.

  The animal in the undergrowth stops rustling, like it’s standing still to listen. Harby sings louder. I don’t understand the words but they seem to be working. ‘Sing, Cholliemurrum!’ hisses Harby.

  So I do. I chant along with Harby, picking up his tune, making my voice low and hummy. The ridiculous thing is that the first song which pops into my head is ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ so those are the words I’m chanting … to Harby’s ominous tune.

  ‘TWINkle

  TWINkle

  LITtle

  STAR

  HOW I

  WONder

  WHAT you

  ARE …’

  I don’t even have to get to the up above the world so high bit because something surprising happens before then: the rustling creature is actually frightened by our chanting. I see the tiniest glint of its eyes amongst the dark leaves, then it turns tail and runs crashing through the bushes.

  Relief floods through me. It sounds even bigger than a wolf. ‘What was that?’ I ask Harby.

  ‘Bear,’ says Harby, matter-of-fact.

  ‘Bear!’ My eyes nearly pop out of my head. ‘A real bear! Did you just scare off a bear by … singing to her?’

  ‘Bear not like spirit songs,’ says Harby, like it’s the sort of obvious thing that everyone should just know.

  I shudder. Without Harby I’d be dead a hundred times over. ‘Thanks, Harby,’ I whisper.

  He looks at me like I’m a total banana. ‘Why you give thanks? You make spirit song too, Cholliemurrum!’

  I shake my head in utter astonishment. ‘I make spirit song too!’ I get a little tingle up my spine; maybe I’m learning Harby’s ways; maybe I’m learning how to survive.

  ‘Home!’ says Harby, urging me forward, and on we go. I walk on following Harby but I sneak a peek back over my shoulder at the place where the bear had been; although I’m so super glad we’re safe, a tiny adventuresome little part of me still wishes I could’ve seen her properly. A bear! An actual bear!

  We creep forward, more cautious now, lurking in the shadows at the forest edge, peering up and down the silvery water for predators, but the coast’s clear, so we make our way to the stepping stones and we cross. I pause for a moment at the Pinnacle, looking up the hill opposite; even though this forest is so much wilder than my forest, I’m learning that really it’s kind of the same. I’m sure I’ll know the way to the Spirit Stone, path or no path. Bats flit low over the water, snapping up flies. Just like they do when Dad and me go night fishing. I hop across the rest of the stepping stones while the moon shimmers above me like a fat silver apple.

  I hop off the last stepping stone on to the sand
and suddenly I realise that Harby is no longer behind me – in fact, he’s nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Hey!’ I call softly. ‘Where are you, Harby?’ A big fish flips with a splosh in the dark water.

  ‘Cholliemurrum?’ Harby’s blue-bandaged head is sticking out from behind the Pinnacle, all lit up by moonlight.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Harby! I couldn’t see you for a minute. What’re you doing?’

  He gives me a look like I’m a total nutball. ‘I need make water,’ he says, as if he’s speaking to someone very very stupid.

  ‘What?’ I say.

  He sighs impatiently. ‘Take water …’ he says, miming drinking from his cupped hand. ‘Make water,’ and he mimes going for a wee.

  I laugh. ‘OK. Fine! I get it!’ I say, and I look away, giggling my head off. He goes back behind the Pinnacle and I can hear him laughing his funny puffy laugh.

  I scuff my feet along the sand; I can just about make out our old footprints. The boy’s barefoot ones and my ones in my trainers. And there are some fresher ones too: bird prints, like little letters in another language. I’m relieved there are no wolf prints, no bear prints either. ‘Retrace your steps … literally,’ I mutter to myself as I follow my backwards footprints from the stepping stones back up the river beach to the ridge.

  My breath catches.

  Another set of human footprints joins up with ours. They’re coming from the tangle of reeds and bulrushes, just upstream. Barefoot footprints, but much much bigger than the boy’s. I fit my trainer inside one. These footprints are massive.

  And they’re fresh.

  FOOTPRINTS

  My blood runs cold.

  Ahead of me I can see the footprints running alongside what’s left of mine and Harby’s, right up the beach to the ridge and the forest beyond.

  I suddenly remember the shadow I saw when we were sheltering from the storm in Deadman’s Cave. I picture the shadow person in my mind once more; whoever it was ran fast and strong across this beach. There’s someone else in this forest. Maybe it’s someone who could help us? I look at my trainer sinking slowly into the huge deep footprint. Or maybe it’s not.

  My mouth is suddenly dry. I schlupp my trainer out of the footprint, staring nervously into the dark trees. Whoever made those huge footprints might still be up there now, in the darkness, out of sight, watching me from the forest fringe.

  Harby comes out from behind the Pinnacle. I watch him in the bright moonlight as he hobbles towards me over the stepping stones, still limping a little from where he hurt his ankle when he fell.

  ‘Come over here, Harby?’ I say quietly. I want to show him the footprints, see what he makes of them.

  But he’s stopped still in his tracks. Wide-eyed and alert, he looks at me; putting his finger to his lips, then to his ear, he points into the trees.

  ‘What is it?’ I whisper. ‘What can you hear, Harby?’ Weirdly, now I’m almost hoping it is a wolf or a bear he’s heard.

  Harby’s eyes widen even more.

  Then from somewhere in the dim I hear it too, faint but unmistakeably there, it’s that eerie call I heard before: the bird that sounds like a baby; the baby that sounds like a bird.

  ‘Mothga!’ we say together. We scramble up the ridge and plunge together into the forest, tearing through the vines and creepers as fast as we can in the direction of the cries.

  Thorns rip at my clothes and scratch my skin but I charge on through the knotted green, following the sound of the baby’s cry. I clamber over a fallen log and into a little patch of dappled silver moonshine.

  ‘Stop!’ commands Harby, by my side. I breathe hard; the air is heady with an almost familiar sweetness. Looking around I see where the smell is coming from: there’s a weird kind of flower growing here, a bit like the wild honeysuckle that swathes through our forest, but these flowers are all massive and speckled and wrong, like tongue-out faces with wavering tentacles. I lean forward, panting softly in the too-sweet air, listening for Mothga’s cry.

  Nothing.

  ‘Mothga?’ I breathe.

  Harby doesn’t answer; he’s concentrating hard.

  I listen too. We’re at the foot of a huge pale-trunked tree, I stare up through the net of its branches. This tree’s taller than any I’ve ever seen before in the forest, so much taller than even Gabriel’s Oak. My heart pounds. I peer nervously all around us. I imagine faces in the darkness, eyes watching, unseen: wolves, shadow people, bears, babies.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see a movement. I spin around, my breath frozen in fear. Then I laugh at myself; it’s just a rag snagged on a tree branch, flapping in the breeze like a cartoon ghost in a sheet. Silly. Then I realise it’s not just a rag; I walk around the massive tree and untangle Dad’s old tartan shirt from the low branch. I stroke it to my cheek: soft as a cuddle after a nightmare.

  But … I’m confused … I remember covering Harby up with Dad’s shirt when he was lying, unconscious, down on the beach, so … then … how did it get all the way up here?

  I hold the shirt out in front of me, as if it could tell me the answer itself. But it’s just a shirt – slightly more bloody and muddy than previously – but, ultimately, just a shirt. Could the storm wind have whirled it right up into the forest? I shake my head. Again I think of the shadow I saw. The huge footsteps on the beach. Something shrieks deep in the forest behind me and my heart leaps. I spin around, but there’s no one there. Of course there’s no one there. Only Harby.

  I bite my lip. How did Harby end up where I found him in the first place? All bashed up and drowning in the river? I know he can’t remember what happened, but something … something awful must’ve happened for him to end up that way … I stare at Harby thoughtfully as I bundle the shirt into my backpack.

  ‘Harby,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m just wondering … Do you have any … any enemies?’

  CAMP

  Harby looks at me but I can tell he doesn’t understand. ‘Mothga quiet,’ he says, his voice heavy with disappointment. He does a long sigh. ‘We find my home?’

  I push the scary thoughts and questions away. Accidents happen. That’s what Mum always says. Maybe that’s all it was, Harby’s fall – just an accident.

  ‘Home!’ I say purposefully. Trying to force brightness into my voice. ‘Let’s go!’

  But I need to work out where we are first: I feel the angle of the slope, I gauge where the river lies, I look at the position of the moon in the sky; in my world this would be somewhere around the Druid’s Well, just down from our rope swing. I totally know my way to the Spirit Stone from here, even in the dark.

  ‘Come on then!’ I say to Harby. And I tap the pale tree for luck. ‘Make safe,’ I whisper under my breath – more of a wish than a promise. With Harby lolloping by my side, I part the bracken and start to run gently up the hill.

  We scramble up the little ridge where normally there’s our rope swing. In Harby’s forest there are vines dangling here instead. I grab one and launch myself out into the moon-dappled dark and back again. I point up the slope. ‘This way!’

  As I swerve tree trunks and nip under branches and hop over logs, I get a feeling I’ve had a million times before when I’ve been playing in my Mandel Forest, with Lamont and Beaky. I know exactly where I am and where I’m going; I’m going home. We plough through a patch of mint and the fresh chewing gum smell fills the night air; I laugh as I run through the soft leaves – it’s the mint that Nero likes to chew on; the mint that must’ve always grown here, its roots buried deep.

  ‘Tooth-leaf,’ mumbles Harby, putting some in his mouth as he runs.

  ‘Tooth-leaf!’ I say, and I chew some too – it’s peach-fuzz soft and tastes all green and tingly.

  The ground gets steeper as we reach the mound that surrounds the Spirit Stone. The Spirit Stone that is ‘home’ in all our games. Panting, we reach the top.

  We stand, still hidden amongst the trees, and stare into the little clearing. We’re here.

  Harby wasn’t kidd
ing – the Spirit Stone actually is home in his world too: a real home. There’s a camp up here, all lit by moonlight: a kind of igloo-shaped tent, and the dull embers of a fire whose smoke mingles with the cloud-wisped, star-speckled sky.

  Nothing moves. There’s no human sound. Only the breath of the wind in the leaves.

  ‘Home?’ I whisper to Harby.

  Harby doesn’t answer, but he stares at the camp, his face full of searching.

  I swallow. ‘Come on then, let’s have a proper look; I’m sure you’ll remember it all in a minute.’

  Harby just stares, transfixed, but he follows me as I creep cautiously closer. We keep low to the ground, like invaders, as we edge round the clearing until we reach the Spirit Stone and crouch down behind it. ‘Home,’ I whisper, laying my palm low on the cool grey rock. A warm breeze rises. I lean into the Spirit Stone and peer out across the endless moonlit forest that is not my home at all.

  ‘Harby? Home?’ I whisper, giving him a little nudge.

  No answer. No cries from Mothga either. Nothing. The camp is ominously still.

  The fire crackles and pops, sending a shimmer of sparks into the air. My heart leaps, then I gesture to Harby and we move closer towards the heat and light.

  Above the fire is a tall trestle; thin strips of dark meat dangle off it, swaying gently as they cook in the smoke. My empty tummy rumbles. Apart from the tooth-leaf, we haven’t eaten for ages; not since Harby’s hots. I check over my shoulder, then I lean across, snatch a piece of smoky meat, sniff it and stuff it in my mouth. It’s so tender I hardly have to chew and it’s delicious, like ham would be if ham was less pink and more wild. I grab another strip of meat and give it to Harby – he eats it silently. Closing his eyes to chew.