Ingo (7 page)

Faro catches me looking and raises his eyebrows again. I feel myself blush.

“Do you think that we
are
speaking Mer? Really?” I ask quickly. I listen to the words as they come out of my mouth. They sound the same as always. They don’t seem to make different shapes.

“Not full Mer,” says Faro. “But you’ve got a bit of Mer in you. You must have, or you wouldn’t be here. It means we can speak to each other. But if we were speaking full Mer, you’d be able to understand what
he’s
saying.” And Faro nods at the gull that’s riding the air above us, screaming out gull abuse.

“What’s he saying?”

“Think of all the swearwords you know and then double them.”

I stare up at the gull. It tilts its wings to balance itself more comfortably on the air and stares back with its cold yellow eye. It opens its beak wide and lets out another volley.

“They don’t like people looking at them,” says Faro.

“Can you talk to it?”

“Talking’s a waste of time, the mood he’s in. He doesn’t like me talking to you.”

“Why not?”

“Gulls are like that. They think it’s safer to keep separate. Humans are bad news to most of them.”

“Oh.”

Faro watches a tiny spider crab haul itself up a strand of bladder wrack.

“Can you hear what he’s saying?” he asks.

“No.”

“You might be able to—if you weren’t in the Air.”

“But I can’t live out of the air.”

“You only think you can’t,” says Faro. “Listen to that gull. Listen. Really listen.”

I strain my ears, but all I can catch is the usual cry as the herring gull swoops low, skimming the water, then soars again.

“You were looking for Conor,” says Faro after a pause.

“Yes. Yes, I was,” I say slowly, realizing that I haven’t thought of him since I saw Faro. I can’t believe that I forgot I was searching for Conor.

“I told you, he’s with my sister. He’s quite safe.”

“But where are they?”

Faro shifts a little. Out of the water the tail is strong and smooth, but also a little clumsy. He puts his weight on his arms and moves himself forward again, so that he can look over the edge of the rock.

“They’ll be in the water,” he says. “Somewhere down there.”

I look where he points, and I see that the flat sand has gone. The tide is bubbling around our rock. Already the water is deep. How has it come in so quickly, without me noticing?

“How has it come in so quickly?” I repeat aloud.

“It’s only the tide,” says Faro easily. “It always comes in like this.”

“But it was low tide a few minutes ago.”

“Was it?”

“I’ll have to swim back to the rocks. I’ve got to go back now, before it gets too deep.”

I’ll have to be careful. The incoming tide can be dangerous. It can sweep you against the rocks and bruise you or worse.
Keep in the middle of the cove and swim straight for the shore.

“Where are you going?” asks Faro as I stand and peer over the edge of the rock to see if it’s safe to jump. Jumping’s quicker than climbing down, and the water is rising fast—

“I’ve got to get back. I’ll get caught by the tide.”

“But your brother’s still here,” says Faro casually.

My body freezes. Slowly, I turn back to him. How could I have forgotten Conor again? How could I ever think of getting myself home safe and leaving him behind?

“Where? Where is he?”

“I’ll take you to him,” says Faro. “Take my hand,
Sapphire, and I’ll take you to him.”

Faro is poised on the edge of the rock now. His strong seal tail hangs above the water, and his arms are braced as if he’s ready to push off from the rock and plunge in. He faces the mouth of the cove, where the fresh water of the new tide is pouring in. I know in every bone of my body that Faro’s not going to take me in, to the safe sand at the back of the cove, where I can climb up and find the path home. He’s going to take me out into deep water, beyond the mouth of the cove. But I’m not allowed to go there. It’s too dangerous—

“I can’t,” I say. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Without Conor?” asks Faro critically. “If I knew that my sister was in the Air, I would never leave her. I would never go home without her.”

“Do you mean that Conor’s in danger?”

Faro looks at me but says nothing. He’s testing me, I know he is. If Conor were really in any danger, how could Faro just sit here on this rock and tell me about it without doing anything to help? People don’t act like that.

People.
Humans. I glance down at Faro’s curved, powerful tail. I can hardly see the place where human flesh ends and Mer flesh begins. One part of Faro seems to melt into another. Faro catches my glance.

“It must be strange to be divided, the way you are,” he says with a tinge of pity in his voice.

“Divided?”

“
You
know,” goes on Faro, looking embarrassed, the way you do when you have to point out that someone’s got a splodge of ketchup on their chin. “You know, the way you are.
Cleft.
” He points at my legs. “Must feel strange, having two of those.”

“But it’s
you
that’s divided, not
me
. You’re half human and half—”

“Half?” snaps Faro. “There you go again, with your Air thinking. I am not
half
of anything. I am wholly Mer.” He says it proudly, as if being Mer is like being royal, and he glances down at his tail with satisfaction.

“Conor is with my sister,” says Faro. “Now, are you coming?”

I have no choice. No matter how deep the shelf that drops away at the mouth of the cove, no matter how fast the tide pours in, it’s only Faro who can take me to Conor. And how can I go back home without Conor?

“I’ll come with you,” I say.

“Good,” says Faro. “But you have to leave your Air thinking here on this rock. We don’t swim as you do, half up in the Air.” He mimics someone dog-paddling along with his face stuck up out of the water.

“I can’t breathe underwater!”

“Don’t even think about breathing. Breathing is what you do in the Air. We Mer do things differently. Hold my wrist, just here. Clasp your fingers around me. Tighter than that. When I dive, you dive. Don’t try to hold your
breath. Don’t even think about breathing. You must let it all out, all your breath. Hold my wrist. You won’t drown while you’re with me.”

Faro’s wrist feels warm and strong. It feels like that word he says so mockingly: “human.” But I look down at his powerful, smooth tail. It twitches, as if it already feels the water and wants to be in it.

“When I dive,” says Faro again, “you dive.”

I hold his wrist tight. I look down at the water, which has risen so fast that it’s slapping at the rock less than a meter below us. I look at Faro and see that he has shut his eyes. His nostrils are narrowing, closing up like the nostrils of a seal before it dives deep.

I clasp Faro’s wrist. I shut my eyes, lean forward, take the deepest breath I can, and push off from the rock. We dive.

W
E DIVE
. I
CLING TO
Faro’s wrist because there’s nothing else, but it doesn’t feel like a human wrist anymore. It feels cold and smooth, like a thick stem of oarweed. My hands slip, and I dig my fingers into the flesh. I’m too frightened to care if it hurts him.

I open my eyes. We’re moving faster than I’ve ever swum before, rushing down and down in a race of bubbles. Faro’s tail is driving us both. There’s salt in my nose, and I want to cough, but I can’t cough underwater. Water presses in on me, crushing my chest and making it burn. There’s a tight band around my ribs, squeezing in, like iron hands squashing my lungs.

I can’t breathe. The water won’t let me breathe. It’s choking me. The iron band around my chest is red-hot
now. My fingers tingle, and sparks of light shoot across my eyes. The water’s rushing up past me and I don’t even know whether we’re right side up or upside down. It’s like being wiped out by a wave when you’re surfing, but this time there’s no way up into the air. No way to cough and gasp and spit the salt away. The weight of the water won’t let me.

Terror rushes over me, closes my eyes, and wipes me out.

“Conor! Conor!” I scream inside my head. I can’t make the words into sound because there’s no air to make them with. My eyes are full of darkness. The band around my ribs is a circle of fire. It hurts so much that I think I’m going to die.

Thoughts fly through my head like frightened birds.
I’m going to die. Not sometime far away in the future, but now. Here.
I see Mum’s face, turning to the door, waiting for me. I hear her voice calling me:
Sapphy, Sapphy, where are you? It’s time to come home!
I try to call back, to say I’m sorry I broke my promise, to beg Mum to come and save me, but my mouth is full of salt, and no words come out.

“Hold on to me,”
someone says, close to my ear. “Don’t let go. As long as you hold on to me, you’re safe. You’re safe with me, Sapphire.”

I remember Faro. I open my eyes, and he’s there, beside me. We’re deep, deep under the water, and I’m still gripping his wrist as if it’s the only thing that holds me to life.

I can’t hold my breath anymore. I’ve got to let go. The last of my human breath streams away in bubbles. Little bright pictures rush with the bubbles. Mum ironing in our cottage, the memorial service for Dad with the choir singing, the Midsummer bonfire flaring up into the sky—

No bubbles of air come from Faro’s mouth. He turns to me with his hair streaming upward. His nostrils are still closed.

“Let go,” he says urgently. “You’re safe with me.”

He’s talking! Faro’s talking underwater, and I can hear him.

“Let go,” says Faro again. “Let go, Sapphire. Leave the Air. Let go, or you’ll drown.”

His words boom in my ears.
Leave the Air, leave the Air.
Can I do it, like Faro? How can I leave the Air? I’m not Mer; I’m human. My ears are bursting; my chest flares with fire that is licking up my throat now and into my brain. I’ve got to breathe in. I’ve got to. But I’m so far down underwater that I’ll never get back to the surface in time to breathe.

“Leave the Air,” says Faro imperatively.
“Now.”

I have no choice. Water thrums in my ears.
Let go or die, let go or die.

I let go. Mum’s face fades away as the Air leaves me. All the bright pictures in my head fade and disappear as the sea rushes into me. Into my mouth, my nose, my ears, even my eyes. And suddenly it doesn’t matter. The sea is
in me, and I am in the sea. The tight band around my chest loosens. The burning eases. The darkness dissolves into light. I am breathing. I am in the water, but I am breathing. I’m cool and light and free. Why was I so terrified? I’m breathing, deep under the water, and all the pain has gone.

The sea combs out my hair, and it flows behind me in the rush of our speed. We dive down, down, like swallows diving in summer sky. My hand is on Faro’s wrist, but I don’t cling to him anymore. My feet are close together, like fins, and my free arm pulls strongly through the water. How fast we’re swimming! The seafloor rushes past as if we’re freewheeling downhill.

“I’m breathing!” I say in wonder. “I can do it, Faro!”

Faro laughs.

“You’re not Mer yet, Sapphire. But I let you in, so you’ll be safe here. I’ll look after you. You can let go of my wrist if you want.”

“I don’t want to…not just yet.”

“Don’t worry. It’s all right. I let you in, so you’re safe as long as I’m with you.”

I lift my hand from his arm, just for a second; then I grab hold of him again. I’m not ready to swim alone down here, in this strange place where the whole world is water.

We rush onward, side by side. Sunlight strikes down through the water, and we swim in and out of pillars of light and shadow. Below us is white sand, gleaming and
glittering. The pull of the tide has made deep ridges in it, so it looks like plowed land.

“Look up,” says Faro. I look where he’s pointing, and there’s a brilliant skin of light way up above us, wobbling and shimmering.

“That’s the surface,” says Faro. “Air.”

“Oh.” It looks so far away. “Can I get back to it if I want?”

“Yes, of course,” says Faro. But there’s something in his face—doubt, or maybe fear.

“What’s the matter? I can get back, can’t I, Faro?”

“If—when you want to go back, you can. But it hurts. You get a pain—here….” Faro puts his free hand on hisribs, exactly where I felt the burning circle of pain when I dived. I feel a shiver run through his body and into the wrist I’m holding.

“But it hurt exactly like that when I dived down with you. And I was going
into
the water, not leaving it.”

“That’s the way it is for humans. Some of them drown of it.”

“
Some
of them?”

“Well—most of them. Nearly all of them. We call and call to them, but they can’t listen. They can’t let go of the Air, and that’s why they drown. It’s the other way round for us Mer.
You
drown in water.
We
can drown in the Air.”

“But you were in the air when I met you. You were all right; you weren’t choking or anything.”

Faro frowns. “Yes, some of us can go there. There are reasons—” He breaks off.

“What reasons?”

“Never mind. But it hurts when you go through the skin. It’s dangerous.”

“What skin?”

“Look up there.” Faro points at the bright, distant surface. “That’s the skin. You have to go through it. That’s what hurts. The change is bad every time.”

“So when I go back, it’ll hurt—”

“No, not for you. You’re human, aren’t you? You’ll be all right, going back to the Air. Anyway, you’re here now. Safe with Faro.” Faro smiles and very gently peels my hand off his wrist. “There. Try again. You really don’t need me now. You only think you do, because of your Air thinking.”

We’re not moving anymore. I’m floating free, in deep, deep water. My hair drifts across my face, then drifts away. The sea holds me like a baby. I’m not scared of it anymore. I’m rocking, rocking in the hammock of the sea. Faro is right—the sea will look after me. Gently my hand floats away from his wrist. I cup my hands and scull the water. Faro’s right. I am safe.

Suddenly, with a strong flick of the tail, Faro turns a perfect somersault. And again, and again, faster and faster, until he’s a whirling circle of human body and seal tail.

“You try it, Sapphire!”

“I couldn’t do that. I’ll just float.”

I spread out my arms to the water as if I have never touched the sea before. And I haven’t, not like this. I’m not bouncing about on top of the water doing breaststroke or backstroke or what humans call floating. The skin of the sea has parted and let me in. I’m living in the sea. I’m part of it.

“Let’s surf a current,” says Faro. “Come on, we’ll find a strong one.”

All my life I’ve been trying
not
to find currents. I know there’s a rip beyond the headland. That’s why we never swim out there, because it’s too dangerous. If the rip catches you, it can pull you a mile out to sea. Even if you’re a good swimmer, you won’t be able to swim against it. You’ll be swept out, and you’ll drown fighting it.

“There’s a good current this way,” says Faro. “Come on.”

“But—”

“This way, Sapphire!”

I see the current before I feel it. There’s movement in the water ahead of us, like a twisting, glassy rope. Or like a powerful sea snake coiling itself in and out. The current looks thicker and much more solid than the calm water around it. Once it gets hold of me, I’ll never escape. It’ll coil itself around me, pull me tight, and take me wherever it wants.

Never, never swim out beyond those rocks, Sapphire. That’s where the rip runs.

But I can’t see anything, Dad.

It’s there, believe me. Now promise.

All right, Dad. I promise.

“Let’s go!” calls Faro, springing forward eagerly like a surfer trying to catch the perfect wave. His body twists and vanishes into the snake of the current. But I can’t follow. I promised Dad. I can’t—

But I can’t stay here alone either. What did Faro say?
As long as you’re with me, you’re safe.

I dive, and the current swallows me. Just for a second I feel the terrible python pull of it, and I’m scared it’s going to crush me like a snake would crush me in its coils. And then I’m part of it. No, once you’re inside it, the current is nothing like a python. I feel as if I’m in a plane racing down the runway at full power. There’s no choice anymore. The plane has got to fly, and I’ve got to fly with it.

And there’s Faro, right in the middle of the current.

“Come farther in, Sapphire!” he calls.

Now I see what you have to do. You have to swim until you’re where the current’s fastest, where you can feel the muscle of it all around you. And then lie there inside it like an arrow, as Faro’s lying. The pull is so strong that it doesn’t feel like pull at all. I only know how fast I’m going when I look down and see the ridged floor of the sand fall away as we rush into the deep.

“Yeee–hiiiii!”
It’s Faro yelling, and then it’s me too, riding the back of the current as if it’s a wild horse, letting it twist me and turn me and spin me until I don’t know where we are or where we’re going. And I don’t care. All that matters is the ride. Faro’s standing upright on the current, balanced on the curve of his tail. I try to copy him, but my legs won’t do what his tail does. I’ll try again—

“Rocks coming up!
Hold on
,” shouts Faro, and he swipes us sideways with his tail and out of the current just before it rushes onto the underwater rocks and splits into a million threads of white.

“You didn’t look ahead,” Faro points out as we hang suspended in the calm, gasping.

“Can’t look—not when going so fast—”

“Hmm. Slow human reactions. Better not get into any currents without me for the time being. They like to play rough.”

“I think I’ll keep out of currents altogether.”

“Don’t be stupid, Sapphire. How’re you going to travel without surfing currents? You need to know them, that’s all. They follow their own patterns, but you can learn them. Every current has its own path, but sometimes they come close, and you can hop from one to another. That’s how you make the longest journeys. Once you’ve learned to current hop, we can really travel. Elvira’s taking Conor to the Lost Islands next—”

He breaks off, as if he’s said something he didn’t mean to say.

“Who’s Elvira?”

“I told you. My sister. She’s around here somewhere.”

“Can I see her?”

“Maybe. She’s talking to the sunfish with Conor. We keep telling the sunfish they can go farther north now that the water’s grown warmer, but they won’t believe it. They think this isn’t their territory. Sunfish are stubborn, and they have long memories. They still remember when it was the Age of Ice here.”

“You mean the Ice Age? Faro, they can’t possibly remember that. The Ice Age was thousands and thousands of years ago,” I say confidently. It’s good to know something that Faro doesn’t, for once.

“Fish don’t keep their memories in their heads like you do.”

“Where do they keep them?”

“In the school. Obviously the school keeps changing as the sunfish get born and die, but the memory stays in the school, and every sunfish can access it.”

Then I catch up with something else that Faro’s just said.

“Did you say that
Conor
was talking to the sunfish? It wasn’t just Elvira talking to them? You mean that Conor’s learned their language?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s exactly
speaking
it yet. Elvira’s trying to teach him.”

“Faro, how many times has my brother been here? With—with Elvira?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Faro carelessly. “A few. You do ask a lot of questions, Sapphire. Conor’s just the same. It must be a human thing. Come on, let’s find another current to surf.”

And we do. Current after current after current. Riding and rising and skimming and swooping and falling and starting again. Little playful currents that whisk you in circles. Powerful ones that pull you for miles. And far, far out, way beyond where we are, there are the Great Currents. Faro says he’ll take me there one day. But not yet. I need a lot more practice before I can surf the Great Currents. They are too strong and wild for me yet.

“Has Conor surfed them?”

“No.”

The strange thing is that I’m no longer anxious about Conor. I’ve nearly forgotten that the whole reason I’m here is that I had to find him and bring him home. I haven’t
quite
forgotten; it’s there somewhere in the back of my mind, like the daytime world when you’re in the middle of a dream. But it doesn’t seem to matter that much. Conor’s fine. He’s safe with Elvira, talking to the sunfish. All that really matters is the rush of the currents, the tingle of flying water—again, again, again. I don’t want it ever to stop.

But just as we slide off a tricky little current that Faro says goes too near the Great Currents for safety, I look up. Between me and the skin of the surface a huge shape
hangs. A shape that I’ve known my whole life, although this is the first time I’ve ever seen one.