Six quick hollow raps wake me. I sit up and rub my eyes. It’s the little woodpecker with its red cap looking for breakfast in the tree outside my window.

The dream is as sharp-edged as if it had been cut into my brain with a scalpel. This time it hasn’t left snakes coiling in my mind. It’s left calmness. I was a white antelope and the silver fox was my friend.

The dream felt so real that I push back the covers, almost expecting to see an antelope’s cloven feet. Mystic lifts his head and looks at me. He’s lying on my bed, in the place he always sleeps. Then he rolls on his back, waiting for me to stroke his belly.

I lean over to give him a kiss and my nose itches. I sneeze. There’s a wild and musky smell on my bedcover.

Then I see it. A fine layer of silver fur.

The silver fox was here, sleeping beside me. It wasn’t a dream.

My thoughts are in turmoil – Raffi, the silver fox, Grandpa Truegood, Miss Cubby . . .

Far away in the woods comes the sound of barking. For a moment I’m puzzled, then I realise what day it is. The day of the hunt!

The silver fox is in danger! I have to go and warn Raffi.

I get dressed, roll the silver fur into a ball, and put it into my pocket.

When I rush out to the kitchen, I’m surprised to find Momma in the armchair by the fireplace. Her head’s bent over as if she’s sleeping. It’s strange because she never sits here in the morning. She looks so small and defeated, as if the armchair is about to swallow her.

‘Momma, what’s up?’ I say, kneeling at her feet so I can see her face.

Her eyes are red and swollen from crying. She brings her handkerchief to her nose and blows it.

‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ she says.

‘Do what, Momma? What’s going on?’

‘Papa and I . . .’ She takes a deep breath and lets it out. ‘I told him when we married we wouldn’t stay in Dell Hollow forever. But I put it off and put it off until he couldn’t take this town any longer. They never accepted him. I don’t blame him for leaving.’

‘Then let’s go too, Momma.’

‘I can’t, Ziggy. Dell Hollow is still my home. I’m . . . too frightened . . .’

I sit back on my heels and stare into the empty fireplace. I can’t help feeling that there’s something more. Something I don’t know. How can everyone here be scared to leave? What has made them like that?

Momma takes out a letter from her dress pocket and lets out a long sigh. ‘Your father wants a divorce.’

‘Divorce?’ It’s such an ugly word – hard and grey and forever. I have a bird trapped in my stomach, wings beating to escape. I open my mouth to speak. The words are on my tongue but they are sharp, stabbing, hurtful words and I don’t let them out.

I snatch the letter from Momma and tear it into tiny pieces.

‘There!’ I say. ‘Our future isn’t decided by those stupid words any more. We have to make our own future. We have to be brave, Momma.’ I hold her hand. ‘I have to go, but when I come back, we need to talk.’

She looks up through watery eyes and nods.

‘Be careful, Ziggy,’ are the words I think I hear as I race out of the house.

Grey clouds hang low and heavy over the mountains as I ride to Green Lake. The leaves are showing their silvery backs, a sure sign that a big storm is on its way. I leave my bike by the side of the road and walk through the pines towards the water.

Mystic senses my wariness and stays close.

I don’t know how to approach the caravan. Should I knock on the door or creep up on it? Will Raffi see me and set his leopard to attack?

He is sitting on the top step, writing in a book, and his leopard is behind him in the open doorway, its back to me. The leopard’s spotty tail is looped around Raffi’s neck like a snake.

Raffi looks up as I approach. His eyes darken when he sees me. Without turning his head, he says a few words in his own language. The leopard sinks into the shadows of the door and Raffi’s grandfather appears. Now they’re all looking at me, three pairs of eyes, pinning me like a moth on a board. I feel like running. I hold onto Mystic’s collar instead – for comfort, but also to keep him away from the leopard.

Raffi stands and steps down towards me.

‘You dare to come here,’ he says. His voice is spiteful.

Anger flares within me. ‘This is my town, Raffi. It is you who have come here and made everything wrong. Tell me why!’

His lip curls, but I sense uncertainty. He glances quickly back at his grandfather, then he says, ‘We thought we might find help, find good people, find you. The shooting star, it led us to this place. And the eagle has never been wrong. But . . .’ His face turns red with anger. ‘But you hurt, you attack, you trap, you . . . try to kill Kalila.’

There was that word again. Was it a name? I gather my nerves and stand up tall. ‘You’ve been controlling the beast that’s been hunting me and now it’s killed all of Harry Arnold’s lambs.’

Raffi looks surprised. ‘Hunting you? And what lambs? What beast?’

‘You know what I’m talking about. Your silver fox. You did it as revenge,’ I say, still looking at him straight in the eye. But I feel my palms sweating. ‘Yes, I did set the trap. But it was because of your silver fox. I know it will try to kill me, to drown me. It chases me in my nightmares.’

Raffi’s eyes narrow. ‘Kalila does not kill,’ he says.

‘Well, maybe it was your leopard then,’ I say.

Raffi stares at me, a strange look on his face. ‘Leopard?’ he asks.

‘Yes, that one!’ I point at the animal that has emerged from the shadows.

The grandfather says something to Raffi in that lovely, lilting language. But Raffi shakes his head and turns back to me. ‘It was not me or my leopard. I can tell you this for true. But now you tell me. Why did you trap Kalila? Are you really so cruel?’

‘I had to. I had no choice.’ The voices that had convinced me to set the trap echo in my head. But now they seem even less like me. My own voice betrays my uncertainty. ‘I thought I had to, anyway. Everything in my head said kill, or be killed, Ziggy Truegood. You must trap the beast! But . . .’

I wince, remembering the horrible image of the silver fox’s pitiful hind leg.

‘These words, these thoughts, the voice, what did they . . . taste like?’

What a strange idea, that a thought could have a taste, I think. But then I remember: the feel of ashes, the taste of smoke.

I describe this to Raffi and he seems to relax. He looks up at the sky and sighs. Then he looks at me.

‘Ziggy Truegood, I can tell you that Kalila will never hurt you. She is gentle like a lamb herself. She would lie down next to you and you would be perfectly safe.’

I put my hand in my pocket and feel the ball of silver fur. I know deep down that he is right. ‘Kalila came to my bedroom last night and slept on my bed.’ I take the fur from my pocket and show him.

His face softens as he takes it and rubs it between his fingers. I can see how much he loves the silver fox, just like I love Mystic.

‘There is something evil,’ he says.

I feel a cold shivery hand between my shoulder blades.

The sound of a gunshot echoes through the woods.

‘Where is Kalila?’ I say, suddenly worried. ‘I thought she was here. The whole town is hunting her.’

Raffi’s grandfather says something in urgent tones. Raffi looks frantic.

‘What is the evil, Raffi?’ I ask.

‘I must go. Stay out of the woods until I tell you it is safe,’ he says, rushing inside.

I can go wherever I please, I’m about to reply. They are my woods, not yours. But the sound of a ricocheting bullet, and then another, silences me.

‘Go home,’ Raffi yells, strapping what looks like a dagger to his waist. He runs into the woods, his leopard loping beside him.

Raffi’s grandfather takes my hand. He has a kind, serious face. He reminds me of Grandpa Truegood. I want to talk to him, but he can’t speak English so it would be no use. He smiles and shoos me gently away.

I walk back through the trees to my bike, the wind howling. I thought the silver fox was a beast that kills and yet she lay next to me in my bed and I felt a strange connection. Raffi says she would never harm anyone. But this is from a boy who had an eagle attack me. Can I trust him?

My heart says: Yes. And Grandpa Truegood told me to trust my heart.

I ride home, my thoughts chasing each other like fireflies on a summer night.