Stormswept (11 page)

It’s salt water, but there’s a sweetness in it which is more powerful than anything I’ve ever tasted before. It fizzes with life on my tongue. I swallow, and the water floods my throat. The power of it surges through me until every vein in my body is carrying it. It reminds me of something. Some feeling I’ve had long ago but nearly forgotten… Yes, I remember! It was when we went away upcountry to visit our cousins who live in Birmingham. Every morning I woke up and something was missing. I opened the curtains and saw brick. Roofs, chimneys, cars running in a steady stream up the street. The sky was so low it pressed down on my head. When I got home I grabbed my swimming stuff and went straight down to the shore. It was April so the sea was freezing, but I didn’t want my wetsuit. I wanted to feel the sea. I waded straight in, deeper and deeper, and then dived under a breaking wave. It was like when you’re little and you fall over and start crying, and your mum comes to see what’s wrong, and you run and run until you’re in her arms. The sea was like that. Opening its arms to me and welcoming me back. I swam out way past the Dragon Rock. Any other day I’d have known that was a stupid thing to do, but that day the sea was looking after me.

That’s what this live water is like. I gasp as memories stream through me. Malin laughs as he tips the bucket higher and another gush of water pours on to me. He looks like a different person. There’s colour in his face and his eyes are shining. I’m just about to swallow again, when the stream of water stops. Malin shakes the last few drops out of the bucket and lets go of it. It floats to the side of the pool and bumps gently against the rock.

“Oh Malin, you’re better!” Then I glance down at his tail again and see how bad the wound is, even now. The live water has begun its work but it’s going to take time for him to heal. He’ll get better, though. I know he will.

“It will take many days,” says Malin.

“You’ll have to hide here until you’re strong enough to go back into the sea.” A thought leaps into my mind. If one bucket of seawater can do so much to help Malin, then maybe the sea itself is the answer. “Unless… Would going back into the sea make you better straight away – a bit like the live water?”

He shakes his head. “Ing— It is too strong for me now. It would kill me.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it would kill me.”

“No, you said something else first.
Ing
or something.”

“It was nothing, Morveren.”

His face closes. He looks tired now.

“I could keep on bringing seawater in the bucket for you—”

“The live water only works once. I will get better now. But are you sure that we can trust your sister?”

I’m so shocked I just stare at him. Not trust
Jenna
? How can he even think such a thing? But then, somewhere deep, deep in my mind, a thought stirs. Jenna hates all this. She wants none of it to have happened. She’d prefer it if Malin’s existence were a fantasy, one of those things twins imagine together. Maybe she’d rather get rid of the reality—

No. It’s
Jenna
we’re talking about. My sister, my twin. My other self, but better than me.

“Jenna would never hurt anyone,” I tell him firmly.

Malin frowns. “But am I
anyone
? Your sister knows that I am not human.”

A shiver of fear runs through me. Malin may not be human, but he’s a
person.
I can’t believe that Jenna wouldn’t recognise that.

“You will help me, Morveren. You will return me to my own people.”

“Of course I will.”

“Swear to me that if you hear that humans are coming to capture me, and I cannot escape, you will help me to die. We Mer make knives from sharpened shell and stones, but we do not make them to harm one another. I know that humans use metal. I know that you kill with metal.” A fleeting look of disgust crosses his face. “You will bring me one of your metal knives, Morveren, if I have need of it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You must.”

“But Malin, that would be like helping you to commit suicide. It’s wrong. It’s against the law.”

His eyes glitter. “What law? Human law? I am not human. Your people would treat me like an animal.”

I wish I could deny it, but images of caged creatures rise in my mind. Dolphins in amusement parks, made to live in shallow water where they can never feel the pull of the sea, or ride a boat’s bow wave, or find their brothers and sisters. Polar bears sweltering in concrete enclosures in the middle of cities. Even if the law here decided to protect Malin, there are plenty of countries where people would pay big money to see him, and the authorities would let it happen.

“Promise me,” says Malin, his eyes fixed on mine. But I’m as stubborn as he is, and I’m not going to agree. “First I will fight whoever comes to capture me, and then I will take my own life rather than give it to humans.”

He really would do it. He’s not some teenage boy bragging about how tough he is. I can imagine the fight, with Malin cornered, holding his knife. I think quickly. He’s injured and desperate. I’m afraid of what he may do if he really believes I’ll let him be captured. What if he makes himself die some other way? “Malin, listen. I swear I will not let you be captured. I’ll protect you until you’re strong enough to go back into the sea. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it. No one knows about you except me and Jenna, and nobody’s going to know. Please trust me.”

His eyes search my face. His whole body is tense. At last, slowly, he nods. “I accept your promise, Morveren,” he says formally. “I trust you. But your sister is not like you. You look the same, but you are not the same. Her thoughts are different from yours.”

I nearly smile. “If you only knew how much nicer than me Jenna is. Everybody thinks so.”

“Nicer?
What is that?”

“Oh, you know. Kind and thoughtful and the sort of person who always does the right things. People really like her.”

“Humans,
do you mean?”

“Well of course,
humans
. Who else is she going to meet?”

“I think I like people who are not nice,” says Malin thoughtfully, and I laugh.

“Not many people would describe me as
‘that nice girl, Morveren’.
”

“What would they say?”

I shrug. “Who cares, really? You can’t spend your life worrying about what people say.”

Suddenly the atmosphere darkens again. “If your sister betrays me, I will curse her before I die,” says Malin fiercely.

Betray
…
curse
… I’ve never heard anyone use those words in real life, but they’re obviously as real to Malin as the rocks and water.

“Jenna won’t betray you.”

Suddenly, a wave of shock runs through me. I’ve been in the pool, treading water, talking to Malin, with only our faces above the surface. I don’t even know how long I’ve been in the pool, but I’m not cold any more. I feel as comfortable as if I were wearing my wetsuit on a summer day. I stopped feeling cold when—

When Malin poured the live water over me. I open my mouth to question him, but he says, “I must go down now. I must rest.” He looks so bad I think he might faint, if Mer people do faint.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Come with me, Morveren.” He holds out his hand, and takes mine. It’s a strong grasp, and although he’s been in the water for hours – almost a day – his hand doesn’t feel cold either.

“All right.”

I’ll go to the bottom of the pool with him and straight back up again. The fastest way to sink is to let all the air out of your lungs. I breathe out, and, still holding on to Malin, I flip over and swim down.

We find the place where Malin rests against the underwater rock ledge. By the time he has settled himself, my lungs are already aching for air. I point upwards, to show him I have to go.

“Stay with me, Morveren,” he says. How am I hearing his voice like this? It must be sound-waves travelling through the pool or something. I shake my head harder, jabbing my finger upwards.

“There is live water in this pool to protect you. You have live water in you now, Morveren. You are safe here.”

He won’t let go of my hand. I fight free, using both hands to prise his fingers off me, terrified that he’s going to drown me just because he doesn’t understand about humans needing air. Suddenly he seems to realise how scared I am, and he lets go at once.

“Look, I am not holding you now. But stay with me.”

His eyes are fixed on mine as they were when he asked me to promise.

“You belong here,” he says urgently, “because the live water is already in you. Open your mind, Morveren. You can breathe here if you want to.”

Breathe in, and you’ll drown. Breathe in, and you’ll drown.
That’s what I’ve known all my life. It beats a drumbeat in my ears.
You only have to make one mistake. The sea never makes any.
There is fire in my lungs, and I can’t see. I’ve been down here too long.

“Breathe,” says Malin. “It’s easy for you now, Morveren. Just breathe.”

Suddenly the same feeling sweeps over me that once drove me to swim way out beyond the Dragon Rock. The sea opened its arms to me. The sea looked after me, because I was part of it. This pool isn’t the sea but it has the sea in it. Live water. My thoughts flash and spark. I close my eyes, open my mouth, and let the water rush into me.

Salt fills every cell of my body, inside, outside. Water gushes down my throat and fans out into my lungs. I don’t know if I’m drowning or breathing. Suddenly everything stops. No more water rushes into my lungs. They are full. I am as full of salt water as the pool. We are equal and balanced. We belong to each other.

“There!” says Malin smugly. “I was right.”

My eyes snap open. “You think that was easy? You should try it!”

“It was the same for me, when I first went up into the Air. I thought I was going to drown.”

“Nobody drowns in air.”

He raises his eyebrows. “So what happens to all the creatures that you humans take from Ingo?”

“What is Ingo, Malin?”

He sighs. “I must sleep now. Stay with me a little while.”

I’m not sure if he’s really that tired, suddenly, or if he wants to avoid my question. But almost instantly, he drops into sleep. He’s not faking it, I can always tell. His eyelids are sealed shut. His face takes on the distant, gone-away expression that people have in their dreams.

I look up. There is the skin of the water, and the light above it. I put out my hand, and graze the rocky side of the pool. Under the ledge there are velvety sea-anemones, purple and blue and deep orange. I watch their fronds feeling at the water, swaying. Jenna and I have dived down to the bottom of this pool hundreds of times, but this is completely different. It’s like being inside a film instead of watching one. My hair floats upwards, tangly as seaweed. Instead of drowning, I’m alive a hundred times more than I’ve ever felt before. My heart thuds with excitement. If this is what it’s like in a pool, what will it be like in the sea?

I watch Malin for a long time. In the quiet darkness at the bottom of the pool he looks more Mer than ever. He must trust me, to fall asleep like this.

How am I going to explain all this to Jenna, so that she believes me?

don’t need to go home to find Jenna. I’ve only just dried myself and pulled on the dry clothes from my bag when I see two figures running down the beach towards me. Jenna, and a long way behind her, Digory. I jump down off the rocks and run to meet them. For some reason I have an instinct not to bring them too close to Malin.

“
Where have you been?” s
houts Jenna furiously, as soon as I’m close enough to hear her.

“Jen, you idiot, what’ve you brought Digory here for?”

“I’ve been waiting for you for
six hours.
”

“Six?
Six
hours
?”

“What do you care?” Jenna’s face is pale and her eyes flash. I am usually the one who loses my temper, but when Jenna does it’s like a volcano erupting after hundreds of years.

“You’ve been in that pool again, with
him
. Look at your hair.”

“Yes, but—”