Petrel had seen eleven winters. She was just a year younger than her cousin – but she only reached up to Tuuli’s shoulder.

  ‘You’ve grown even more!’ Petrel exclaimed as she came skipping over. ‘And who’s this?!’

  ‘This is my wolf, Lupa.’

  ‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Petrel. ‘Can I stroke her?’ She knelt down and Lupa came out from behind Tuuli’s legs to be fussed.

  ‘She likes having her ears rubbed,’ said Tuuli.

  ‘Are you keeping her?’

  ‘I think so. If she decides to stay. She ran away for a bit and only came back yesterday.’

  Petrel stayed kneeling, fussing Lupa. She looked up at Tuuli.

  ‘I’m sorry about Poz,’ said Petrel. ‘It’s so sad. And we heard about your accident too. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Tuuli. ‘It was really scary, but I got out.’

  It felt odd not to mention the strange boy and how he’d helped her home, but there was only one person she would trust with that secret.

  Tuuli and Petrel gazed out over the wide, smooth water. Just a few flat chunks of ice were still rafting on it.

  ‘It’s like a different river here,’ observed Tuuli.

  ‘It’s got a lot calmer,’ said Petrel. ‘It was rushing much more when we arrived here. My papa said the thaw was quicker than he’d ever seen it.’

  ‘Almost like it was making up for being so late,’ Tuuli half-joked.

  ‘How’s your baby brother?’ asked Petrel.

  ‘Annoying!’ said Tuuli. ‘But he’s all right really.’

  Tuuli knelt down as well.

  ‘Do you think Kussa, Leon and Skire will stay with your talo now?’ she asked, speaking more quietly.

  Petrel shrugged.

  ‘I think so,’ she said, not sounding too definite.

  ‘It’s so weird,’ said Tuuli.

  ‘Adults,’ said Petrel. ‘Unfathomable.’

  Tuuli smiled.

  They chatted a bit more then Tuuli continued her walk around the camp, looking out for Wren. She’d kept her secret to herself for five days – and now she was desperate to share her story.

  ‘I’ll burst if I don’t,’ she murmured to Lupa.

  Returning to their camp-quarter, Tuuli was overjoyed to see Wren sitting by the fire, apparently alone, skinning a hare.

  ‘You’re not limping quite so badly,’ Wren said, looking up. ‘Is it feeling a bit better?’

  ‘It’s definitely getting better every day,’ replied Tuuli. She lowered her voice. ‘Listen. Is anyone else here?’

  ‘No, they’re all out hunting or gossiping or playing down by the river,’ replied Wren. ‘Why?’

  ‘I need to talk to you. Will you come inside my tent?’

  ‘Okay,’ replied Wren, quizzically. ‘Let me wash my hands, though.’

  She tipped a little water out of a skin suspended from a simple wooden tripod and rinsed off the hare’s blood. Then they both ducked under the tent-flap of Tuuli’s tipi and disappeared inside.

  Tuuli pulled a couple of reindeer skins over for them to settle on, and they sat down, facing each other. Wren sat cross-legged; Tuuli with her knees to one side and her bad ankle uppermost, resting on the shin of her left leg. Lupa slunk in after them and sat up against Tuuli’s back.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you for days,’ began Tuuli.

  Wren looked even more curious, and her eyes sparkled in anticipation, but she didn’t interrupt.

  ‘Something happened,’ said Tuuli. ‘The day I fell in the river and twisted my ankle.’ She looked at Wren with her own eyes wide and almost pleading. She leaned forward a little and took Wren’s hands in her own, her wrists resting on her shins.

  ‘I need you to listen to me. I need you to believe me.’

  Wren’s face changed. She stopped smiling and became serious, looking worried.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Tuuli took a deep breath.

  ‘I met someone.’

  She paused, long enough for Wren to interject.

  ‘Who? Where? Are you all right?’ asked Wren, carefully and almost whispering.

  Tuuli dealt with the questions in reverse.

  ‘I’m fine. It was at the riverbank. He helped me… he bandaged my ankle.’

  ‘Who did? Was it the man we saw in the woods?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think so? He was a boy. Around our age, I suppose. I’d never seen him before.’

  ‘Where did he come from?’ asked Wren.

  ‘I… I don’t know.’

  ‘He must have had a tribe. Was he a lone wolf, then?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ replied Tuuli. ‘He was,’ she paused again, ‘different.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve waited five days to tell me this.’ Wren was shaking her head. ‘What do you mean, anyway, “different”?’

  ‘He was like us… but not like us,’ Tuuli replied.

  Wren furrowed her brows, but let Tuuli continue.

  ‘He was really pale.’ She let go of Wren’s hands for a moment and turned her own hands over, spreading her fingers, looking down at them.

  ‘His hair was pale too. And his eyes were blue.’

  Tuuli looked back up at Wren, who had a look of utter incredulity on her face.

  ‘You’ve got to believe me!’ said Tuuli. ‘His face was strange. He had a big ridge over his eyes,’ she touched her own eyebrows as she described it, then moved her fingers down to her chin, pushing it forward, ‘and his jaw stuck out.’

  ‘He sounds really ugly!’ Wren broke in.

  ‘Not really,’ said Tuuli. ‘He was just – different.’

  ‘So, this strange-looking boy, then,’ said Wren, ‘what happened to him? Where did he go?’

  ‘Well, he wrapped up my ankle, then he carried me through the woods.’

  Wren raised her eyebrows a little. Tuuli frowned and continued.

  ‘And then… he left me at the edge of the trees, and gave me my stick.’

  She placed her hand on the trusty stick that had helped her keep the weight off her bruised ankle.

  Wren bit her lip, rested her head on one side and looked at Tuuli.

  ‘Do you think he’d been following you?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I didn’t see him until I’d got out of the river. It was so weird; he was just sitting there, watching me.’

  ‘This is so strange, Tuuli,’ said Wren. ‘You’ve made my skin go bumpy – look.’

  She held out her arms and Tuuli could see the goosebumps.

  ‘Do you think he’s still around?’ Wren asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been stuck here, haven’t I? With my ankle.’

  Wren was quiet for a moment. She laid her hand gently on Tuuli’s foot. Lupa, who seemed to have been dozing obliviously up to this point, turned her head and growled.

  ‘She’s so protective of you!’ exclaimed Wren, taking her hand away. ‘How is it, anyway?’

  ‘It’s much better,’ said Tuuli. ‘I’ve been testing it today – walking around and putting weight on it. It still feels a bit fragile, but it’s not hurting so much and the swelling has gone down a lot. I don’t think I’ll need the stick for much longer.’

  ‘But you mustn’t rush it,’ said Wren. ‘You know you can make it so much worse if you don’t give yourself time to heal.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mama.’ Tuuli rolled her eyes. ‘But honestly, it’s pretty good. And I think a proper walk would help me anyway. I’m going crazy cooped up here. I mean, it’s lovely to see everyone, but I need to get out as well.’

  ‘You mean you want to go and see if you can find that boy.’

  Tuuli sighed. ‘Yes, okay, I do. So, do you want to come with me?’

  ‘Of course I do. I want to see him in the flesh. If he actually exists, of course.’

  Tuuli squashed her face with her hands. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she pleaded. ‘It really happened. He was really there. I couldn’t have made it all that way with a sprained ankle, on my own, anyway.’

  ‘I do believe you,’ Wren reassured her. ‘And I love a mystery. And,’ she added, ‘it’s getting just about unbearable here with all the young bucks sniffing around. I could do with escaping all that.’

  ‘Anyone nice, though?’ asked Tuuli.

  ‘Mmm, not really. They’re all a bit full of themselves. But I’m getting lots of gifts, so that’s nice. Loads of lovely furs. A beautiful new harpoon. A little carved ivory wren, even. As long as none of them think they can buy me that easily!’

  ‘You should get them to fight for you. To the death!’

  ‘That’s an idea. Perhaps they’d all kill each other, then I could be free to do my own thing. I might suggest it. Anyway, when do you want to go looking for this boy?’

  ‘Not today, it’s too late,’ said Tuuli, shaking her head. ‘But I think Mama and Papa might be okay about me going off tomorrow as they’ve seen me moving round the camp quite a bit today. I think they’ll trust me not to overdo it. I just need to get out. I don’t like being stuck in camp. Not in spring!’

  Lupa made a curious groaning noise, as if she was quite sure that Tuuli would overdo it, at the first opportunity that presented itself.

  THE HUNT

  Tuuli woke early the next morning. The sky was only just starting to lighten. The warblers that built their nests in the thickets of willow and alder near the water were pouring out their songs to the rising sun. She could pick out the notes of bunting, too. And over the rushing sound of the river, she could also hear the pip-pipping of the snipe and the chirruping of sandpipers – both newly arrived from their own winter camps beyond the mountains. It all merged together in a riotous welcome to the dawn.

  The rest of the family were all still fast asleep, furs pulled up snugly around their faces. Remi was snoring gently. She couldn’t see Ketki at all – he would be deep inside the pile of furs, nestled into Jutsa, where he could wake for a sleepy feed whenever he felt like it.

  Tuuli quietly and carefully extricated herself from her own pile of fur blankets. She had been wearing her leggings in bed; now she pulled on the stripy tunic Wren had given her, then laced the soft moccasins onto her feet. She took up her light darts, tied together with a new harpoon that she’d spent the last few evenings crafting, and slung them over her shoulder. She picked up one of Remi’s old spears to take with her. Pulling a fur cape around her – it was still chilly at this time of the morning – she stepped around the sleepers and crawled out through the double flap of the tipi. Lupa followed her.

  There was Wren, waiting for her, sitting on a log by the white ashes of the fire. She stood up.

  ‘Ready?’ she whispered, smiling.

  ‘Ready,’ hissed Tuuli back at her. ‘Let’s go!’

  They crept away from the tipis, away from the camp. They were the first up and out, so no one saw them go. Turning their backs on the river, they made their way to the edge of the woods. The sun was just appearing and colours were starting to glow. In just the last week, the larches had come fully out of hibernation and every branch was studded with bright green tufts. So much green, it was almost dazzling. Tuuli stroked a low branch, enjoying the soft texture of the little clusters of needles. She smiled at Wren.

  ‘We shed our winter furs in spring, while the trees cover themselves in green fur.’

  ‘You are funny,’ said Wren. ‘You say such strange things!’

  They walked further into the woods, feet sinking into deep moss, with the lightest crackle of ice at each footstep – it was still cold enough for frost to form every night. And there was still plenty of snow in the woods, sculpted into strange shapes by the thaw and freeze. Where it lay in drifts under trees, the snow was pitted with holes formed by water dripping off the branches above. Birdsong rippled and flowed around them. A short-eared owl flapped by, late to bed.

  On they went, their breath steaming in the shafts of early-morning sunlight now striking through the trees. They startled a young roe deer, which crashed away from them, clumsy in its panic, flashing its white tail. Tuuli grabbed Lupa before she could give chase, which she clearly wanted to. ‘Stay,’ she said firmly to the wolf, holding her until she could feel Lupa’s taut form relaxing.

  The girls hadn’t even raised their spears. Instead, they were intent on looking for signs of human presence. As they crested a hill and found a natural path to follow down a steep descent, they came across scuffed prints pressed into the snow and mud. They bent down to examine them, touching the edges of the impressions. Human. Wearing boots or shoes, they were sure.

  ‘More than one here,’ said Tuuli, biting her lip in concentration.

  ‘Yes. Maybe three or four.’ Wren nodded.

  ‘A hunting party from our camp?’

  ‘Most likely. A day or two ago, by the look of it.’

  Faint bird tracks crossed the human prints.

  The pair stood up and continued down the steep bank, feet slipping in the footprints of those others. They reached the bottom and then turned away from the trail of the other hunters, trekking up the narrow valley in the opposite direction instead.

  A large elk stood its ground, puffing out steamy clouds of annoyance as they passed near it. Lupa was eye-stalking it but stayed close to Tuuli.

  ‘We could have had him,’ whispered Wren, under her breath, after they’d passed the massive deer.

  ‘He thinks we’re tall lions,’ replied Tuuli. ‘He thinks he can easily outrun us in this terrain. He doesn’t understand spears or darts. It’s almost unfair.’

  ‘Well, he gets to live another day.’

  The valley became progressively rockier and steep-sided, and the three of them clambered up among boulders, and back into larch taiga at the top. Lupa pushed past to get to the top first and stood waiting for them. Tuuli was now almost too warm under her fur cape.

  Suddenly a loud crack sounded somewhere ahead. Wren and Tuuli looked at each other, stopped dead, and then sank slowly down to crouch low, hands ready on their spears. Tuuli grabbed the scruff of Lupa’s neck with her left hand, pushing the wolf down. She felt her heart thumping again. Could it be the lone boy? Holding her breath, she tightened her grip on her spear, and put her hand on the stone knife tucked under the strap around her waist.

  She let out her breath silently, creating a small cloud of mist in the chill air. Then the silence was broken as a doe came crashing through the trees just ahead of them. It had sensed them already – smelt them or heard them – but it clearly wasn’t sure exactly where they were. Then when it saw them, it stopped dead in its tracks. Lupa pulled but Tuuli gripped her fur even tighter. The deer stared right at them, its beautiful shell-like ears backlit by the morning sun. The doe’s breath puffed out in a misty cloud too. It felt as though they were all frozen in this moment.

  Then the deer leaped into action and vanished into the taiga. Tuuli had clasped her hands over her mouth and she glanced at Wren and raised her eyebrows. Wren laughed and fell back into a sitting position.

  ‘Not a boy, then. Just a deer! And we could totally have had that one! You were just too slow with your spear…’

  Tuuli laughed too. She let go of Lupa, who immediately raced off after the deer.

  ‘Lupa!’ yelled Tuuli. ‘COME BACK! LUPA!’

  There was a pause.

  ‘LUUU-PA!!!’

  ‘You might have lost her this time,’ said Wren.

  Tuuli blew out through puffed cheeks.

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s not fast enough to catch the deer, and she’ll lose interest pretty quickly. She’ll come back to me.’

  ‘You seem very sure,’ said Wren.

  ‘She’s my wolf,’ said Tuuli, simply.

  A few moments later, Lupa came hurtling back, and lovingly crashed into Tuuli’s legs.

  ‘You’re a good wolf, aren’t you?’ she said, crouching down and putting her arms around Lupa’s neck. ‘You’ll always come back to me, won’t you?’

  ‘Right, no more distractions!’ said Wren.

  ‘Okay,’ said Tuuli, standing up and pushing down Lupa, who was excitedly trying to jump up and lick her face.

  ‘And that is the secret of the hunt, isn’t it? Papa always says, remember what you’re hunting. Don’t get diverted.’ Wren was mock-solemn. ‘You keep the prey in your mind. You focus on it. Make sure you can see it. Him. Then,’ she hissed, ‘we’ll catch him!’

  ‘I can see him,’ said Tuuli, closing her eyes for a moment. She stared into the greenwood. ‘He’s in there, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Wren, rising to her feet.

  As they made their way up into the hills, the forest changed around them, becoming denser. Alongside the larches there were spruces, with their harder, prickly needles, which they hung on to through all the long, hard winter. There were birches, too, still stubbornly refusing to show any signs of new leaves. And the occasional pine tree, reaching far up above the others before bothering to send out any branches. They glimpsed the hills above them, beyond the spruces and the larches, covered in red alder scrub, then above them, patches of brownish grassland and moorland poking through the snow.

  Climbing up onto a rocky outcrop, they got an even better view of the hills, and they watched a herd of wild horses galloping along the flank of one hill, then disappearing around the shoulder of another. Tuuli drank some water from a skin.

  ‘Did you bring anything to eat?’ she asked Wren. ‘I’m starving!’

  ‘Well, we’re meant to be out getting food, and I didn’t want to arouse suspicion, but I did grab this.’ Wren reached inside her coat and pulled out a parcel of dried reindeer meat.

  ‘Wow, that looks a few years old!’ exclaimed Tuuli, making a face.

  ‘Hey, it’s just from midwinter,’ said Wren. ‘It’s tough, but still edible. Do you want some or not?’

  Tuuli took a piece and chewed it with the grinding teeth on one side of her mouth.

  ‘It is quite good,’ she admitted. ‘And, you know, I’d been getting a bit tired of salmon.’

  ‘Ha!’ Wren laughed. ‘Not so long ago, you were sick of dried reindeer.’

  ‘Well, you can have too much of a good thing,’ retorted Tuuli.

 

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