The Crossing of Ingo (28 page)

My body tenses. I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. Mum thought she could breathe underwater! Mum was so at home in the sea that she played in the waves, laughing! It seems incredible. I can’t connect it with the mother that I know.

“Could you, Mum? Could you breathe when you tried?”

Mum laughs harshly. “I nearly drowned. I went down and down and the water was so rough that no one could see me. Your grandad had to dive in and feel around until he caught hold of me by my hair and dragged me out. I fought him, he said, and he told me that people who are drowning always fight their rescuers. He said I cried for days afterwards. I kept saying that the sea wanted me. Wanted to drown you, more like, he said, because he wanted to frighten me in case I did it again. That’s when the fear started. I wouldn’t go near the water any more.”

“Do you remember what it was like, Mum, when you went down under the waves and they couldn’t see you?”

“No. Only what they told me. I do remember one thing which I think was real, not just remembering what they told me. There was a pain like fire in my chest, and then just as it was getting better, that was when I was pulled out. That’s why I was so afraid for you, Sapphy. As soon as you were born you loved the sea. Before you could even walk you’d stretch out your arms and cry to go in it. Mathew said you used to wriggle to get free when he took you in the water. I always thought the same thing might happen to you as happened to me when I was little, and maybe this time we wouldn’t be in time to pull you out. You were always wild for the water. I was more afraid for you than for Conor.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Mum.” Mum laughs. Her hands drop to my shoulders.

“Look how tall you’re getting,” she says. “Nearly as tall as me.
It’s right you ask questions now you’re getting to the age when you can handle the answers. You ought to ask more questions at school, Sapphy, then they wouldn’t say you’re such a mazeyhead.” Mum lets go of my shoulders with a final loving little shake. “Do you know this is the longest dream I’ve ever had that makes sense.”

“I’ve got to go now, Mum.”

“I know. I’ve got the feeling I’m going to wake up in a minute. Let’s say goodbye before I do.”

“Goodbye, Mum.” I try to keep my voice calm. Mum doesn’t know I’ve got half the world to cross before I’m home again, or that Ervys would spill my blood without a qualm, just as Mortarow spilled Faro’s. Mum believes I’m back in our cottage, sleeping.

“Goodbye, lovely girl. Go on then.”

She watches me go down the path. I turn to wave goodbye and she looks like a ghost in her white dressing gown, standing in the moonlight until I disappear from sight. I step behind a big spiky plant, so that she’ll think I’ve gone. Mum waits a little longer, then she turns and goes back up the steps. It’s so still that I hear her bare feet patter on the wood. She opens the door, goes inside and closes it again.

Mum doesn’t think I’m really here,
I remind myself. She would never close the door on me if she thought I was real. I know that, but I still feel empty as I stare at the closed door. I could always go and hammer on it with my fists until Mum and Roger both come out and then Mum will know that it can’t be a
dream because Roger sees me too, and I’m solid flesh and blood …

For a few seconds I contemplate the scene that would follow. Mum’s disbelief, Roger’s logic homing in on me. Once they knew it was really me, they’d never let me go. I’d never complete the Crossing. I’d have to go home on a plane with Mum and Roger. The others would face the spears without me, and Ingo would never be healed.

The door glistens faintly in the moonlight.
Leave it,
I tell myself.
It’s much better like this.

The dolphin is still there. I wade out into the warm water of the lagoon, and as soon as it’s deep enough to swim I plunge in, dip down, and take a deep breath of Ingo. I am home again. The little building with the tin roof and the rustling, rattling scrub around it was alien. I’d have been scared to be trapped there.

I swim up to the dolphin, but I don’t greet him because I remember my promise to Seiliko. I touch him gently on his flank instead, and he turns to me. He dips down for me to climb on to his back, and waits for me to settle against him. I keep my promise and don’t say a word, but I can’t help stroking his side gratefully. I can’t imagine what I’d have done if he hadn’t waited for me.

Slowly the dolphin eases forward towards the gap in the
reef. Soon we’ll be out of the lagoon and back in the wild Pacific. I shut my eyes, feeling exhausted. The noise of water thundering on the reef grows louder and louder until it’s on all sides of us, and then we are through. I open my eyes again to moonlight on the free-surging ocean.

This time the dolphin leaps higher than ever when he breaches. His whole body soars, makes a perfect arc high in the air and then plunges down and down into Ingo, beyond the moonlight. Phosphorescence pours off us as we rise through the skin of the water, and we dive back into an ocean of silver-green light.

At last the dolphin slows. Our beautiful, strange journey is almost over. There, logging on the surface, are the other three dolphins and their riders, still sleeping. Seiliko is a little way apart, and awake.

The dolphin dips down in the water so I can float away from him. I kick backwards a few strokes, and then he rises again. He is very close to me now, but somehow he looks less solid. Phosphorescence still clings to him, outlining his body. And what are those marks on his flanks? I didn’t notice them before, but now I see a pattern picked out in light. A criss-cross pattern, cut into the skin, as if …

… as if he’s tried to fight free of a net, struggling while the mesh cut deep into his flesh. Phosphorescence burns around him more and more brightly. The shape of the dolphin shows brilliantly, and then, as if a light has been switched off, it vanishes.

I wait for the slap of his wake against my body. Nothing. No sound of farewell. But then he never spoke to me, and I didn’t speak to him. Seiliko made me promise …

“Seiliko!”

“What is it, Sapphire?”

“The dolphin! Where is he? Where’s he gone?”

“Which dolphin?”

“You know which one! The one you whistled for.”

“He is gone.”

“Could you whistle again? Would he come back? I never thanked him.”

“No,” says Seiliko. She seems to be smiling, but then dolphins often look as if they’re smiling.

F
aro is worried. “We are travelling too slowly. Taking the northern route has cost us too much time. We must travel fast and surprise Ervys.”

“I’ve got to find the whale’s daughter first.” I’m afraid Faro will argue, but he doesn’t. “Yes, we owe it to her mother,” he says thoughtfully. It’s good to have a chance to talk to Faro on our own. The dolphins have been off hunting for fish, and now they’re taking one of the short rests that seem enough to fuel them for hours of travelling. Conor is playing sea snap with Elvira. They’re both laughing and they don’t seem to care that sea snap is way too young for them.

“Elvira’s a bit better, isn’t she?” I say cautiously.

Faro glances at his sister and his expression clouds. “She will go to the North, all the same,” he says. “We won’t be able to stop her.”

“But look at her with Conor.”

Faro raises his eyebrows. “You think so? I thought so once, but no, they are friends and that is all. She will go away.”

“Faro, don’t be so – so fatalistic.”

“We Mer see things as they are.”

“Now you’re being pompous too.”

“Am I?” He smiles at me with a touch of uncertainty.

“Yes, you are. But I don’t mind; I’m used to it.”

“We are used to each other, little sister.”

“I’m really sorry about Elvira, Faro.” She’s his only sister. Faro hardly ever talks about his parents, but I know they’re both dead. Saldowr’s his guardian, of course, and you can see that he loves Faro like a son, but Elvira is Faro’s own blood. I can’t imagine what it would be like if Conor suddenly told me that he was going away, into a strange frozen world, because he felt more at home there than he did with me.

Faro will never beg Elvira to stay. He’s much too proud for that. Perhaps something will happen to stop her going. Saldowr might be able to persuade her …

“I don’t think so,” says Faro.

“Get out of my thoughts, Faro!” I swipe at him and he ducks away, laughing.

“Why? They were nice thoughts, Sapphire. I liked them.”

“The dolphins are stirring. We’d better go.”

It’s Seiliko who spots the pod of whales. Her echolocation picks up their vast shapes. “Whales are close now,” she tells me. “They are logging on the surface.” I strain my eyes, but can’t see anything.

“Soon you will see them,” promises Seiliko, and she swims
faster, skimming beneath the surface and then leaping high so I can see far away over the calm dark blue water. “There they are!” calls Conor.

I’d have thought the glistening dark bumps on the horizon were rocks if Seiliko hadn’t been so sure they were whales. Seiliko reaches into the distance with clicks and whistles.

“They are your friends; they are sperm whales,” she announces.

All the dolphins stop. After the rush of our passage the water feels eerily silent, but then we get used to it and far in the distance we can all hear the whales. I recognise their voices: Seiliko’s right. They sound just like my dear friend.

“Why are we waiting?” asks Conor.

“I think your sister would like to talk to the whales alone,” says Elvira in her silvery voice. I don’t know how she guessed, but I’m grateful to her.

“Would you, Saph?”

“Yes, I – I think so. If that’s OK.”

“You should not go alone, little sister. I’ll come with you,” says Faro.

“She wants to go alone,” repeats Elvira.

I do. I feel as if there’s already a relationship between me and the whale’s daughter, although we’ve never met. It’s almost as if we’re sisters. If I go on my own, I’ll be able to talk to her properly. I am sure she is there in the pod.

“I can’t let you go alone,” Faro says to me.

“No, Faro, I want you to dive with me,” insists Elvira. “There are
pearls in the Southern Ocean, and ground pearls are precious for healing. I’ll need your help to find them. Besides, Seiliko will be with Sapphire. She won’t be alone.”

Faro hesitates, glancing from me to Elvira. I know how much he wants to come with me. I close my mind so that he won’t see my longing to go alone and be hurt by it.

“Come, brother,” says Elvira. Faro shakes back his hair. It’s the word “brother” that convinces him he should go, I’m sure of it. He won’t risk refusing Elvira when he’s so afraid of losing her.

“Be careful, little sister,” Faro says to me, and dives after Elvira. As I swim away with Seiliko I turn and see Conor shading his eyes, following me into the distance.

Whales look very strange from beneath when they are logging. The top of their heads and parts of their backs are above the surface, while the rest of their bodies are submerged. As Seiliko and I approach them we see their vast tails hanging down. Seiliko swerves and makes a wide circle to bring us round to the front of the pod.