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Mum thinks I should stop waiting and hoping for Dad to return. She says I’ve got my life to live. I know she’s only trying to help me, but it isn’t helping. I’m afraid it means that she’s stopped waiting for Dad. She doesn’t think he’s coming back, and she’s trying to make a life without him.
She can’t do that. I won’t let her. I’ve got to make Mum believe that Dad’s not dead or disappeared off to somewhere like Australia. I know that’s what some people think. They whisper things about Dad, and when Conor or I come close enough to hear they stop whispering, and give us sly little glances that say, We know something you don’t know.
I roll over in bed and thump my pillow angrily. Josie Sancreed didn’t even bother to whisper. She turned round to me in the playground and said out loud, “Everyone thinks your dad drowned, and they feel really sorry for you, but my mum says most likely he’s gone off with another woman.”
Gone off with another woman. I couldn’t believe Josie had said that. The words scraped me like gravel when you fall off your bike. Gone off. He’s gone off because he’s found someonebetter. That’s what’s happened to Mathew Trewhella. Everybody knows, it’s only his family that doesn’t believe it.
I wanted to run away, right out of the playground and all the way home, but I didn’t. No one was going to make me run away. Josie stared at me with a stupid little smile, but I could tell she was also a bit scared at what she’d done. Loads of people had heard, so she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t said it. Katie said, “Shut up, Josie,” but the rest of the girls just stared at me too. I think maybe they were embarrassed, or they didn’t know what to do, but at the time I thought they were on Josie’s side.
I couldn’t bear it. I grabbed Josie by the shoulders and shoved her as hard as I could against the playground wall. She fell, and started crying really loudly so all the girls gathered round her and helped her up. “It’s my hand, she’s hurt my hand,” Josie wailed, and suddenly everything was my fault, not Josie’s.
What was worse was that Mrs Tehidy saw me push Josie into the wall. She started clucking round Josie, and she put her arm around her and took her in to the office to have her hand seen to.
“I’ll talk to you later, Sapphire,” she said over her shoulder.
Mrs Tehidy hadn’t heard what Josie said about Dad. I didn’t ever, ever want to hear those words again, so I didn’t tell. Katie was going to, but I wouldn’t let her. So I was sent to Mr Carthew, and he said, “I’m disappointed in you, Sapphire. Violence doesn’t solve anything.”
Oh, doesn’t it? I thought. As soon as I got out of Mr Carthew’s office, I went to find Josie. Mrs Tehidy had finished washing Josie’s hand and she’d put a big plaster on it. Josie was in the girls’ toilets telling everyone what I’d done to her. I walked in, and they all stopped talking.
“If you open your mouth about my dad again,” I said, “I’ll push you into the ditch that’s full of nettles, behind the hall.”
Josie knew I meant it, and so did everyone else. Some people were on my side, because they’d heard what Josie said to me, but Esther put her arm round Josie and said, “Stop bullying Josie, Sapphire.”
“She’s the bully,” said Katie angrily.
I never get into fights normally, but it’s funny, once you start it seems easier. And when Josie looked at me in that scared way, I felt good. Maybe violence doesn’t solve anything, but Josie never said another word about Dad. I didn’t tell Conor. He’d only get into a fight with Josie’s brother Michael. And besides, I didn’t feel so good later on, once the hot angry feeling inside me had died down. I went and sat on a tree stump by the school gate. I kept thinking about what Dad would have thought if he’d seen me grabbing hold of Josie like that. And maybe Josie really did hurt her hand. It was quite a big plaster…
Don’t think about all that now. Think about something else. But the only thoughts that crowd into my head are thoughts I don’t want.
Roger. I turn around and thump the pillow again. I don’t want Roger the Diver at our table, eating our food. Maybe even sitting where Dad used to sit.
Suddenly another thought curls over in my mind like a fresh new wave, washing all the tangle of worries away. It’s all right. I don’t even have to be there when Roger comes.
It’s true. I can go off somewhere else, somewhere far away. It won’t matter how much Mum calls me, I won’t be able to hear her. And she’ll never be able to find me. The thought of it makes me smile. I’ve got somewhere to go now, a place of my own where no one can find me. Ingo.
I can hear the sea. Even though I’m lying in bed, the sound of the waves is as close as if I were lying on the beach. I can hear each one break on the beach, then the long hushhhh as it goes out again. My window’s shut, but the sea sounds as if it’s inside my room—
“Sapphire!” Conor’s voice makes me jump. He’s climbed down the ladder from his loft room without me noticing. And the strange thing is that suddenly I realise I’m not lying on my bed any more. I’m standing beside my window, which isn’t shut at all: it’s wide open. But I don’t know how I got there, or who opened the window. Was it me? My hand is on the windowsill and the noise of the sea is louder than ever. A huge wave topples over and crashes on to the sand in a rush and swirl of foam—
“What are you doing?” asks Conor sharply.
“What?”
“Saph, shut that window. Now. I’ve got to talk to you.”
Slowly, reluctantly, I push the window shut. But the air pushes back, hard. The window wants to be open, wide open, so the noise of the sea can come in—
“Shut it, can’t you?”
The snap in Conor’s voice makes me push hard enough to close the window and fasten the catch.
“Mum’s cooking sausages,” says Conor. “She’s making a late breakfast for you, Saph. Listen, this is what I told Mum about what happened, so you’d better say the same thing. I said you woke up in the night. You had a nightmare and you couldn’t get back to sleep for ages, so that’s why you’re still in bed now. Mum’s really worried about you, Saph. She thinks you’re ill. She kept creeping up to look at you while you were asleep, and she says you don’t look right.”
“I feel fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Look in the mirror.”
I go over to the dressing table Mum bought for me at an auction in Penzance. On top of the dressing table there’s a mirror on a wooden stand. Mum bought it for me after Dad left. She bought some stencils and we painted the stand white and then stencilled shells over it, and painted them sea blue. I painted tiny shells around the frame of the mirror, too.
You have to bend down to peer into the mirror, because of the way the ceiling slopes at the side of my room.
I bend down and stare into the mirror. The glass is old, and when you look into it, it’s like looking into another world. The mirror is spotted and tarnished and its light is green, like underwater. My face in the mirror is pale, and my hair hangs over my shoulders like seaweed. The colour of my eyes is swallowed up in huge black pupils. Do I really look like that?
“Mum says you look washed out,” says Conor.
But I don’t take any notice. His voice sounds distant, as if he’s not really in the room with me. I’m watching watery ripples of light pass over my reflection, like waves rippling over sand. They move across the glass in their dream-like rhythm, and I count them as they go. One, two, three, four, five… and now there’s the sound of the sea again, soft and sweet this time, like a breath in my ear… closer and closer…
Full fathom five
Thy father lies,
Of his bones
Are coral made,
These are pearls
That were his eyes,
These are pearls
That were his eyes.
But who’s singing? Why are their voices so clear and strong? I’ve got to see them. I lean closer, closer—
“Sapphire, stop it! Don’t look in the mirror!”
But I can’t look away. The singing of the sea is so sweet that I want to go on listening to it for ever. It’s pulling me into the mirror, farther in, farther in, into the green underwater depths—
There’s a crash. I jump back, and the singing stops. The enchantment shatters. My mirror is just an old second-hand mirror again, lying on the floor, smashed, face down. What happened? And why’s my duvet on the floor?
It was Conor. He threw my duvet over the mirror to stop me looking at it. But the weight of the duvet knocked the mirror to the floor. The glass has broken.
“What’s going on up there?” shouts Mum from downstairs.
“Nothing!”
“Nothing!”
“What was that crash?”
“Saph fell off the bed.”
“Stop messing about, the pair of you. These sausages’ll be done in five minutes.”
I kneel down, gently lift my mirror and turn it over. The glass has cracked all over into the shape of a starfish.
“Why did you do that?” I hiss furiously at Conor. “You’ve broken my mirror and you’ve broken the—”
“Broken the what?”
“The – the song. They were singing to me.”
“Saph, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s dangerous. It’s too powerful. It’s stronger than we are.”
“You were in Ingo too, Con! You’re such a hypocrite. You just don’t want me to share it. You want to keep it all for yourself, so you’ll be the only one who knows about Ingo. You and Elvira.”
But to my surprise, Conor refuses to get angry. He kneels down beside me, and starts carefully picking up the shards of glass. He’s bending over, and his face is hidden as he says, “It’s not like that, Saph.”
“Well, what is it like then? What am I going to tell Mum about my mirror? She’ll kill me.”
“I’ll tell her I was mucking about and I broke it. Listen, Saph. I’m scared.”
He lifts his face and I stare at him. Conor, scared? But Conor is never frightened. I’m the one who gets spooked on wild nights when the wind howls around our cottage walls. I’m the one who lies straining her ears for the sound of Mum’s car coming home, because I’m convinced she’s had an accident on her way back from work. Conor is the sensible one, who knows what can happen in real life, and what can’t.
He’s only pretending to be scared. But when I look at him, and I know that’s not true. His face is pale and tense.
“You were gone too long,” says Conor, fumbling for the right words. “The first time I was there – in Ingo – their time was almost the same as our time. Maybe, when I got home, it was a little bit later than I thought it would be. You wouldn’t really notice it. But each time I go there, time in Ingo eats up more of our time. It’s like – it’s like Ingo time is more powerful than our human time.
“When you came down to the cove to find me the other day, and you said that I’d been away for seven hours, and it was already evening, I didn’t believe you at first. I thought you were making it up to scare me. But then I saw the sun going down in the west.
“And then the very first time you went into Ingo, you were gone for nearly a day and a night. That’s how strong Ingo time was for you. But how long did you think you were away, Saph? I mean, while you were down there? What did it feel like?”
I try to remember, but it’s not easy. What did I do in Ingo? Faro and I talked. We dived and swam. We surfed some currents, we saw a shark and jellyfish and spider crabs…
But we didn’t eat, or drink, or sleep. And I’ve never in my life got through more than two or three waking hours without eating or drinking.
“I don’t know. When I was there, time seemed to slip away.”
“That’s what’s so scary,” says Conor. “If you go to Ingo again, how long do you think you’ll be there? How much of our human time will it eat up? It could be days. Weeks. Or even longer.”
“That’s stupid, Conor. It can’t be like that. You’re making it sound like that story about Rip Van Winkle. You know, when Rip Van Winkle comes back and a hundred years have passed or something, and all his family and friends are dead. That’s not going to happen. I won’t ever stay away that long. I’ll come back when I want to.”
“But you won’t know how long it is! That’s the point. You’ll forget about our human time again, once you’re in Ingo. You’ll want to forget. Look how strongly Ingo’s calling you now. You think I don’t know? You should have seen your face when you were looking into the mirror. But I couldn’t hear anything. You’re already much deeper into Ingo than I am, Saph. After only one visit. You’re changing – you don’t understand what Ingo’s doing to you—”
“That’s not true! You’re the one that’s in deep, Conor. You’ve been there lots of times and Elvira takes you everywhere. Faro told me.”
But Conor shakes his head. “No. We don’t go deep. Elvira gets angry with me, because she says I can’t get the Air out of my head, even when I’m in Ingo. She keeps saying I’m too human. Getting in deep means living in Ingo time, not ours. But you slipped into it straight away. Why? And it’s you they’re calling for, not me. What if next time you’re away for weeks – or months? You’ve got to think about it, Saph. That’s why I’m scared.”
Weeks – or months. The words chime deep inside me, like a bell. Gone for months without a trace, and no one would know where—
“Like Dad,” whispers Conor.
“You mean, you think that’s what happened to Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you ask Elvira?”
“No. I couldn’t ask her that.”
“Why not?”
“She’d get angry. Would you ask Faro? When you were deep in Ingo and you didn’t know the way back? Would you want to make him angry? I mean, down there, we depend on them. They’re powerful. We can’t survive on our own.”
I think about it for a while. A shiver goes over my mind.
“Would you ask Faro?” Conor repeats.
“Maybe not.”
“They’re not human,” whispers Conor, as if someone might hear us, even inside my room with the window shut. “You’ve got to remember that. I keep thinking that Elvira’s – well, you know, that she’s just a girl – but then suddenly something happens – she does something, or says something – and then I remember.”
“What sort of thing do you mean?”
“Well – once Elvira talked about someone drowning. A surfer, up at Gwithian. And I remembered it happening, because everyone talked about it at school. But Elvira heard about it from one of her friends, who’d seen it happen. One of the Mer, I mean. The way Elvira described it made me feel strange. It was a bit the way we’d talk about a horse dying. We’d be sorry, we wouldn’t like it, but we wouldn’t care in the way we care about – about people. And then I thought, no, of course she doesn’t care about the surfer the way we do. When that surfer drowned, it was important, even though we didn’t know him. We’ve all been surfing up there – it could have happened to any of us. But it couldn’t happen to Elvira and so she’s not – she’s not connected to it the way we are.”
“Faro said they try to help people when they’re drowning. They call and call to them.”
“Yes, but what do they call? Are they calling to save them, or to—”
“To what?”
“You know. To pull them in deeper. You’ve got to remember they’re not human. It’s so easy to forget.
“And they don’t want us to take too much knowledge of Ingo back into the Air. We might be a danger to them. Or they’d think we might be. And if they thought we were a danger, I’m not sure what they’d do.”
“But Con, they’re our friends! Faro and Elvira are our friends, I know they are—”
“But all their calling doesn’t save people, does it? They drown.”
“That’s not their fault—”
“These sausages won’t be fit to eat by the time you two get down the stairs!” yells Mum.
I love sausages, but these don’t taste too good. Maybe they’re overcooked. I cut them up and push the bits under my knife and fork to make it look as if I’ve eaten more than I have. Mum hates it when we don’t eat our food. But she doesn’t seem angry this time. She looks worried.
“Have some bread then, Sapphy, if you don’t want the sausages. It’s not like you not to be hungry.”
