I’m alone.
But not in the Deep alone,
I tell myself firmly in case panic sets in. The water has darkened but I can still see my own hands moving through it like ghosts. I’ve never seen such clear water. It’s as pure as crystal. I’m afraid to look far and see the emptiness. Conor left behind, Elvira vanished too. I don’t know what’s happened to Faro. Everything has failed. We haven’t kept together and now I’m alone somewhere thousands of miles from home. I will never be able to find my way back.
I can sense a huge shadow on my left side. I won’t look. I won’t give it – whatever it is – the satisfaction of knowing that I’m icy with fear. Orcas – killer whales – Faro says they sometimes forget that you are human. They’re not the only ones. I’m not sure that I’m human any more. I’m not sure where I am or who I am. I was so confident, telling Dad that my Mer blood wanted me to make the Crossing and I had no choice.
Now I don’t feel either Mer or human. I just feel … lost.
“Little sister?”
“Oh, Faro. Oh, Faro.”
He’s behind me, swimming towards me faster than I’ve ever seen him swim. I’m almost sobbing with relief as I swing round towards him. We grab hold of each other. I can hear his heart thundering and I am sure he can hear mine. “I thought I’d lost you,” he says.
“I thought
I’d
lost
you.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I should never have closed my mind to you. I thought I’d never find you again.”
“Me too.”
I realise I’m clinging to him. But he’s clinging to me too, as if we’ve found each other in a shipwreck. We let go, and smile shakily at each other.
“That was awful,” I say.
“I shouldn’t have trusted that current.”
You’re not to blame,” I say quickly. “It was the current – and maybe we didn’t hold on tight enough to each other in our minds. But, Faro,” I go on very quietly, in case whatever is making the huge shadow might hear us, “can you feel something? Over there to the right?”
“I think it is an ice mountain.”
“How do you know?”
“Look at it, Sapphire.”
I turn reluctantly towards the shadow. It has come a little closer, drifting noiselessly towards us.
“Look down,” says Faro.
He is right. Far below me there is a mountain range of ice. Spurs as sharp as daggers reach up towards us. There are dark blue valleys and long slopes that glisten in the dimming light. So this is an iceberg. It looks like a whole country made of ice.
“It’s going to pass us,” says Faro. “It’s heading south.”
We watch, hypnotised, as a great wall of ice glides closer.
“We must get out of its path,” says Faro. “Swim left.”
The vast mass of the berg is on our right, but one sheer side will pass close to us. Too close. It looks as if it’s coming straight at us. As we start to swim it drifts nearer, turning just a little. I kick out, stretching for clear water. The berg looms behind me, monstrous, spreading its shadow through the water like a stain, catching up with us—
“Hurry, Sapphire.”
I throw myself forward as Faro grabs my arm and I feel us surge through the water. His tail drives us forward with a power no human can match.
“It’s going to pass us,” gasps Faro in my ear. One more stroke and his grip on my arm loosens. “We’ve made it.”
As we turn to watch, the outer edge of the iceberg slides past us less than ten metres away. It moves silently through the water, towering hundreds of metres above us, majestic and pitiless. The mouth of an ice cave gapes at us. Half the cave is sealed with ribs of ice, like fantastic tree trunks. It is as dark as ink inside, as if it goes back for ever. High above, the iceberg soars, dizzyingly vast. Its flank is broken by cliffs and gullies, each
one ten times bigger than any I’ve seen in the human world.
“I should like to swim inside that cave,” says Faro thoughtfully.
“Faro, you can’t—”
“It would be like swimming in and out of a whale’s ribs after its spirit has gone to Limina. We could discover what’s inside the ice mountain. Think what an adventure that would be, little sister!”
“Especially when part of the berg breaks off and traps you inside. Or crushes you.” And then you’d be there for ever, imprisoned inside a mouth of ice. Would you freeze solid, and become part of the berg? Some human explorer might break our bodies out of the ice with a pickaxe. They wouldn’t believe that Faro was real, when they saw his tail—
Don’t be stupid, Sapphire,
I tell myself quickly, suppressing a shudder. Icebergs don’t stay frozen; they melt as they drift south.
Faro sighs, looking after the berg with regret as the last of it glides past us. He really did want to explore those caves. I wish I could be free of the dread that creeps into my mind like a cold fog, paralysing it.
“Faro …”
He turns to me, his face still bright with longing. “What is it, little sister?”
“Nothing.”
But the spell that the iceberg has cast over him is broken. “They will see the ice mountain. They will have time to avoid it,” Faro says, as if arguing with himself.
“You mean Conor and Elvira?”
“Of course.”
The iceberg has distracted us, but now its shadow fades into the distance and the reality of our own situation sharpens. Night is coming. The others are somewhere out in the darkness. We don’t know where they are, and we have no way of finding them.
N
ight has fallen. There’s so much night here in the North, and so little day. We rise close to the surface, where blue, mysterious light filters down through the water from the moon and the stars. I gaze upwards and wish that I knew how far north the current had taken us. I force my mind back to everything I know about the Arctic.
Concentrate, Sapphire, this is important.
It was the start of half term when we left home, so late October. I remember reading that daylight disappears for months on end in winter at the North Pole. So we can’t be that far north yet because there’s still some daylight. The nights will grow longer the farther north we go, until the sun never rises at all. We’ll have to rely on the moon and stars. When I look up I can see the distinct shape of the moon through the water. It’s about three-quarters full. I hope that the moon is waxing rather than waning. We’ll need all the light we can get to find the others and then travel onward.
A sudden decision forms in my mind. “Faro, I’m going to go through the skin.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I feel as if I’ve got to. I want to look at what this world is like, above the surface.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t, it’ll hurt you.”
“You know it’s not so bad for me to pass into the Air these days, little sister,” says Faro quietly.
I wonder if Faro is going to let down his defences at last, and talk about the human blood he fights against so fiercely, but he doesn’t, and I say nothing either. Slowly we rise through the pure, glimmering water. There is the skin above me, where Ingo ends and Air begins. I point my arms above my head as if I’m diving, and kick upwards.
My head breaks the surface. I look around me at the black, moonlit, silent sea. The water is so calm that a circle of ripples spreads outward from where I came up. A long swell rolls quietly beneath the surface, looking like an oiled muscle in the moonlight. Stars glitter above me. I float on my back and watch them. They seem so close, as if I could reach out and touch them. Constellations flash and glitter. There’s no light pollution to hide them, and no smog or smoke either. I’m looking at the stars and seeing what my ancestors must have seen thousands of years ago. The moon shines so brilliantly that when I lift my hand, a moon shadow moves on the face of the water.
My body is still in Ingo. I haven’t breathed air yet, but now I must. I push back my hair and take in a long, freezing breath. Cold as it is, it burns its way down my lungs like fire. A knife jabs under my ribs. I steady myself. The first breath is always the
worst. I breathe again, treading water, and this time the air slides in more easily. I cough to clear my throat and the noise bounces, echoing across the silent sea. I scull myself round in a slow circle and survey the world of ice.
Far away, faintly lit by the moon, the iceberg that passed us is drifting into the distance. But there’s another on the horizon, and another. Wherever I look I see the hulk of a berg moving south. It looks as if the whole world of the North is drifting in slow motion. As well as the bergs there are ice floes, rough and uneven, coated in moonlight. My eyes are getting used to the light. I scan every floe, every stretch of open water. There’s no trace of life. No sign of Conor or Elvira.
Faro’s head breaks the surface beside me. I look away as he struggles for his first breath; he won’t want me to watch.
“It doesn’t hurt as much,” he says at last, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“I can’t see the others, Faro.”
“Did you think they’d be here?”
“I don’t know.”
Faro turns very slowly in the water, scanning the seascape through 360 degrees. Suddenly he’s still. “What’s that?” He points to a lump on the nearest ice floe. At first I think it’s just a rough heap of ice. But as I look more closely a familiar shape shows against the background. It looks like a seal hauled out on the ice. It looks so familiar – so
safe –
that I find myself smiling. Maybe it’s a Cornish seal who’s also decided to make the Crossing of Ingo.
“It’s a seal, Faro!”
“Yes. Come on.”
We swim towards the floe. Even though we’re breathing air, I think we must still be partly in Ingo. I can’t feel the cold of the Arctic water.
Faro reaches the floe first. The seal is already sliding backwards off the ice, ready to flop into the water. Clearly it doesn’t think we are either familiar or safe.
“No, don’t go!” I call softly. “We won’t hurt you.”
It’s not a common seal or a grey seal, like we have at home. Its fur is thick and white with black patches. It turns a dark face towards us, opening its mouth, and I see pointed teeth. It is still afraid of us, but now it’s curious too. Faro raises his hand in greeting.
“He will know that I am Mer and that my people have never killed his people.” I hope the seal will not also know that my people have often killed his people. He raises his head and regards us.
“Greetings,” says Faro.
“Greetings,” says the seal in a gravelly voice. His eyes turn to me.
“This is not one of your people,” he says suspiciously to Faro.
“My friend is Mer enough to make the Crossing of Ingo.” The seal throws back his head and gives a bark of laughter.
“The Crossing of Ingo! I have heard of it. But you are heading in the wrong direction, my friend. You must travel south, as I am doing.”
“We must travel north,” says Faro. “There is danger for us in the south.”
“From hunters?”
“Yes, from hunters,” says Faro, and I shiver, remembering Mortarow’s spear thrust in his tail. Ervys is suddenly very real, and close.
“There is danger everywhere,” says the seal. “We have had a bad season. The char and cod do not fill our waters as they did in the time of our ancestors. This season’s pups are weak, and Nanuq is hungry.”
“Faro,” I whisper, “what is Nanuq?” But he shakes his head almost imperceptibly.
“Have you seen any of our people on your journey?” he asks the seal. “A girl, and a boy who looks human but lives freely in Ingo?”
“No.”
“If you see them,” I say eagerly, “tell them their sister and brother are safe and searching for them.”
“I must go south,” says the seal, “but I am weak and I have travelled a long way already. My brothers and sisters are far ahead of me.” We are close to him now. Faro and I grip the edge of the ice floe and look up into the seal’s face. His fine, sensitive whiskers are drooping. He is thin, and even in the moonlight we can see that his fur is rubbed away in patches. His body is slumped against the ice as if it will never rise.
“I have no strength left to swim,” continues the seal. “This
sikurluk will carry me south, and perhaps I shall catch some fish and regain my strength.”
We nod. I am flooded with pity for the seal. It’s obvious that unless a miracle happens he will never make it south to his winter feeding grounds. The rest of the seals have had to abandon him to his fate.
“Nanuq has had a bad season too. He is hungry and desperate,” warns the seal. “He may not choose to hear that you are Mer.”
“Tell me what Nanuq is like,” says Faro.
The seal laughs his barking laugh again. “You are playing with me, friend. Everybody knows Nanuq. He steals over the ice like a shadow. He is more deadly than a harpoon in the hands of the greatest hunter. His teeth and claws spill hot blood on the ice and melt it. But we Natsiq grow fewer and Nanuq grows ever hungrier.”
“He means a polar bear, Faro,” I whisper as dread coils around my heart again.
“So the ice bears are hungry,” says Faro. “We shall have to make sure that they hear we are not their prey, little sister.” The seal gives us a mournful, pitying look.
“To die in the claws of Nanuq is perhaps a better fate than to die slowly from hunger,” he observes. “Sometimes I think that if I see his shadow I will not fear it.”
I don’t share this discouraging opinion. Dying of hunger sounds vague and distant. Being torn apart by a polar bear sounds only too immediate. I glance around. Nothing moves. But would a polar bear be visible against the ice? And do they sleep at night?
Suddenly my hands, gripping the edge of the floe, begin to burn. Cold cuts into my palms. The protection of Ingo is leaving me. A long shudder runs through my body as the Arctic water seizes hold of it. Faro snatches back his hands from the ice. It’s happening to him too. The cold of the Air has caught us like fish in its net.
“Quick, we must go back through the skin.” Already Faro’s teeth are chattering. My hands are so stiff I can barely move them. “Dive, Sapphire!”
“Goodbye,” I stammer to the seal. My teeth are chattering so much I can hardly get the word out. He watches as we turn, brace our feet against the underside of the floe, and dive.