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It’s the cold shadow passing over me that wakes me. I open my eyes at once with a feeling of panic, and stare up through the water. The surface is black. Something is directly above me, blocking out the light. A shark. Fear whips though me. No. It’s not alive. The dark shape is solid and dead-looking. Man-made. Not something of Ingo, but something of Air. How do I know that?
A boat, I think. It’s a boat, but I’m seeing it from upside down and it looks quite different. That’s why I didn’t know what it was. I’m looking straight up through the water at its hull. The boat is about the size of a fishing boat. I can see the rudder and the propeller. A small boat that wouldn’t hurt me even if it passed right over me. But the engine isn’t running. The boat is drifting silently.
And then it happens. A face looms over the side of the boat. A face and shoulders, part of a body in a blue shirt. Someone looks down, staring deep into the sea where I am. The face is distorted by Air. It wobbles. But upside down and distorted as it is, I can see it. It’s a man’s face. And if I can see him…
That’s when it happens. The eyes look down and catch sight of me. The face goes still with shock. The man stares and stares as if he can’t believe that what he sees can possibly be real.
With a shock, I know what he sees, and why he can’t believe it. He sees a girl, deep under the water, looking back at him. We meet each other’s eyes. He sees me and I see him. It’s a long moment and even through Air and water I recognise the frozen disbelief in his face. It can’t be real. A girl sunbathing way below the surface. A girl with her eyes open, who doesn’t need to breathe like Air People. Not a drowned girl but one who is alive, and looking back at him. A mermaid. I think I see the word form on his lips. And as his mouth opens to cry out and tell someone else on the boat to get a net and catch me and take me away and put me in a glass tank in a freak circus—
I dive.
I dive with hot terror pulsing through me. Down, down, down, into the deepest water, where the Mer can live but Air People can’t follow them. And in that moment for the first time I understand why Faro hates and fears divers. They are Air People who can put air on their backs and come where only the Mer should be. That man in the blue shirt can’t follow me. But a diver in a wetsuit with air on his back could have swum down after me and caught me. Faro’s right. Divers are dangerous.
I see that face again, staring down into mine. Shocked and disbelieving but something else too. Recognising. I know that I know the face, but whose is it? My memory is full of Ingo. Too much else is crowded out. I struggle to remember who that man could be… where I’ve seen him before…
No, don’t struggle, Sapphire, I tell myself. You’re safe in Ingo. The deep water rocks me gently. Yes, Faro’s right, my blood is becoming like his. I put my finger on my wrist and feel how slow the pulse beats there. Faro says—
But where’s Faro gone? Why am I alone?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#ulink_74fe2db7-544e-529e-aeba-719b29b12ce7)
“I’m here,” says Faro’s voice, soft and close. “But where were you? I was so scared, Faro! I woke up and there was a boat up above, with a man looking down at me.”
“I know. I saw him too.”
Suddenly, when I’m not even trying, the name behind that man’s face swims into my mind. Of course. It was Mum’s friend. Roger. Roger, out in his boat, exploring. Not diving yet, just mapping out the area so he can come back and dive.
But I left Roger back at home with Mum, playing cards. I must have been asleep in the sunwater for a long time. Or maybe I wasn’t asleep. Maybe it’s only the difference between human time and time in Ingo again. Why is time in Ingo so different from Air time anyway?
I think of time folding and unfolding like one of those fans you make out of a piece of paper. Time folds up tight like a closed fan, then it spreads open wide. There’s the same amount of paper in the fan whether it’s open or closed. Maybe time is the same substance, whether in Ingo or up in Air. But it’s folded differently, and so it doesn’t look or feel the same. When I’m in Ingo, Ingo time seems natural. When I’m in the Air – at home, I mean – then that’s natural too. But I can’t belong in both times, can I?
I’ve got to stop thinking like this. My thoughts are making my head hurt. If you try to have Air thoughts when you’re in Ingo, they don’t work.
“He’s a diver,” says Faro. His voice is cold and hard. Faro hates divers.
“How do you know?”
“We’ve seen his boat before.”
“I know him,” I say.
Suddenly I want to punish Roger for laughing like that with Mum, both of them so happy and relaxed as if there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world. As if Dad had never existed. Roger thinks he can go wherever he likes. He makes himself at home in our cottage, and he wants to dive into Ingo and make it his own, and take its treasures. But I’m not going to let him. None of what Roger wants is going to happen.
“He explores for wreck sites,” I go on, headlong. “He’s bringing a team of divers.”
“He shouldn’t be here at all,” says Faro, like an echo of my own thoughts. “He should stay in his own place.”
“It’s our cove, not his.”
“Air People are like that. They want to change everything.”
I like the way Faro agrees with me about Roger. It’s comforting. It silences the little voice that says I shouldn’t have told him what Roger was doing. After all, I did promise…
No, you didn’t. You only promised not to tell your friends at home and at school, I tell myself firmly, but I still feel uneasy. It’s Roger’s fault. If he would just disappear back to where he came from, everything would be all right again. Mum wouldn’t really mind. She hasn’t known him long, so she couldn’t miss him that much.
“I heard him talking to Mum about diving near the Bawns,” I say.
“What are the Bawns?”
“You know them. Those rocks about a mile off our cove. There’s a big reef below water.”
Faro’s face goes still as a mask. “You call those rocks the Bawns?”
“Yes. What do you call them?”
“It doesn’t matter. He can’t go there.”
“But he’s going to, Faro.”
“He doesn’t understand. That place is ours. It is where we—”
“You what?”
“No, Sapphire. I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: your Roger will never go there. All of Ingo will defend it.”
Faro’s perfect teeth are bared. Ingo looks at me out of his eyes, and Faro’s a stranger to me, full of cold, furious determination. And then the tide ebbs, and he’s Faro again. My friend and my guide in Ingo. “Take my wrist, Sapphire,” he says. “We’re going back. If you reach home before he does, he will never believe that he really saw you in the sunwater. He’ll think it was all a dream.”
I remember Roger’s shocked face. I’m not convinced it’ll be that easy to make him forget, or think that it was all a dream. Roger doesn’t seem the kind of person you could fool easily. But how can he possibly tell Mum he saw me lying under the water, not breathing? She’ll think he’s crazy. She certainly won’t want him to come and have Sunday dinners and games of cards with her any more.
I put my hand around Faro’s wrist, like a bracelet.
“Where are we now, Faro? Are we far from shore?”
“Not far. It depends how we travel,” says Faro mysteriously. “There are ways that are even faster than riding the currents. You’ll see. Wait.”
We tread water, side by side. I can’t see what Faro’s looking for, and I can’t hear what he’s listening for. His face is tight with concentration. He looks like a surfer, poised, waiting for a wave.
Suddenly he turns to me, his face blazing with excitement. “They’re coming. They’re close enough now. Watch.”
His mouth opens and a stream of fluting sound pours out, mixed with clicks. It sounds like sea music, something that belongs in the heart of one of those huge curved shells that you hold up to your ear so that you can hear the sea in them. Faro pauses, looking into the depths of distant water and listening for an answer. But if there is an answer, I can’t hear it. I wish I knew that language. I wish I were less human, and more Mer.
“They’re coming!”
“Who are coming?”
“Wait. You’ll see.”
And then I hear it too. The water’s filling with sound. It’s like Faro’s music, but richer and more strange. It comes from all sides, clicking, whistling, echoing, fluting. And now they rise out of the deep water, sleek and shining and twice as long as I am. They come so fast that I flinch, thinking they’ll hurtle into us. But they stop dead, and the water churns from their suddenness. They are smiling at us.
“Dolphins!”
“They’ll let us ride them.”
The dolphins swish into place alongside us. They watch me with their small, clever eyes, and they click and whistle, waiting for me to answer.
“Tell them I can’t, Faro. I haven’t learned their language yet. Tell them I’m sorry.”
“They want you to climb on. Lay your body against her back, Sapphire. No, not like that. You’re too stiff, she won’t be able to hold you. Watch.”
I watch Faro. The dolphin dips to let him climb astride and then he lies on its back. Faro’s whole body seems to melt as he relaxes against the glistening dark skin of the dolphin. I can’t even see where Faro’s tail ends and the dolphin’s body begins. I touch the shoulder of the dolphin who is butting gently against my legs, and she dips down, ready to carry me.
“But Faro! Dolphins don’t swim underwater all the time, do they? They show their backs above the water. They’ll take you into the Air. It’ll hurt you.”
“As long as I’m with her, riding on her back, I’m still in Ingo,” says Faro, not lifting his face from the dolphin’s skin. “Dolphins are always part of Ingo. Come on, Sapphire. Hurry. We have to go as fast as we can.”
I lean gently forward on to the dolphin’s back, and as my skin touches hers I’m held firm, as if some suction is gripping me. The clicks and whistles of the dolphins seem to be pouring through my body, turning into a language I nearly understand. I almost know what the two dolphins are saying to each other.
The dolphins move apart. They balance themselves in the water and then spring forward with a rush that plasters my hair over my face. I can’t see anything. I don’t know where I’m going or even where Faro is. But I have never felt so safe. My dolphin speaks to me and I wish I could answer, but I think she can tell through her skin that I trust her. I’m sure I can hear her heartbeat. The closeness of her is like a cradle.
“I know you’re my friend,” I say, and I don’t know what language I’m speaking or if it’s only thoughts in my head. I peep at my arms and they’re wearing a coat of bubbles from the dolphin’s speed. The water round us churns white but our rush is effortless. All at once we are going up and before I know what’s happening we’ve flashed through the skin of the sea and we’re out in a shock of dazzling sunlight. We crash back into the dark water and I can feel my dolphin laughing. Again and again and again we rise and dive, going faster and faster, the dolphin jumping higher each time. Faro’s dolphin jumps at our side and I know the two dolphins are racing, urging each other on, laughing with us and with each other.
“Faro!” I shout, not because I want him to answer but because nothing as wonderful as this has ever happened to me before. Our speed is like time unzipping and running backwards. Hope surges in me that where the dolphin’s journey ends I’ll find everything that time has destroyed. Dad’ll be home again. Dad’ll come down to the shore to meet me, saying, “Well now, Sapphire, have you been a good girl while I’ve been away? Should we give school a miss tomorrow and go fishing instead?” There won’t be any Roger, or games of cards, or Mum looking new and different with another man sitting at our kitchen table instead of Dad. The dolphins have the magic to take away everything that’s gone wrong, and bring back everything I love.
“Faro!” I shout again, wanting to tell him how great it’s all going to be. And he yells back something I can’t hear before we plunge back into the sea and down, down, skimming along a fast rope of current. And then the white sand zooms up to meet us and I know we’re coming to the borders of Ingo, where the earth and water meet.
Our dolphins slow down. I feel my body peeling away from the dolphin’s back. She is letting go of me, and I have to let go of her. But I want to stay with her, so much.
“Can I see you again? Please?” I ask her, but she pushes against me, shoving me gently towards the shore as if she’s telling me that that is where I belong. I must leave Ingo. I’m human, not Mer.
“But I belong in Ingo too,” I whisper, and she looks at me with her small, thoughtful eyes, as if she’s considering the question.
“Don’t go,” I plead, but I already know she’s leaving, and taking her magic with her. She turns to her companion and they point their blunt noses to the deep water, and spring away from us. The clicks and whistles fade. The dolphins are gone.
“I wanted to thank them,” I say, but Faro takes no notice.
“You can swim in from here. Hurry,” he says.
He won’t come any farther inshore, because the water’s too shallow. But I’m not going to leave without asking Faro something that’s been troubling me more and more. “Faro, why is it that I only ever see you? Where are all the other Mer? I don’t even see Elvira.”
“You saw the dolphins just now.”
“Yes, but I mean people. Mer People.”
Faro throws back his head angrily. “That is so typical of Air, Sapphire! People, people, people, as if people are all that matter.”
“I didn’t mean that, I liked the dolphins…” I argue, but even to me it sounds pathetic.
“You think you can have everything, don’t you, Sapphire?” demands Faro. He sounds nearly as angry now as he was when he was talking about oil-spills and dead seabirds. “Do you think you can have a tour of Ingo, stare at us all as if we’re creatures in a zoo – yes, believe me, I know all about your zoos! – find out all our secrets and then go home? Ingo is not like that. As long as you belong to Air, you’ll only see this much of Ingo,” and he dives to the sea floor, takes up a handful of sand and pours it through his fingers until there’s one grain left. He holds out the single grain to me. “This much.”
“I’ve got some Mer in me,” I say sulkily. “You told me so yourself.”
“I know.” Faro looks at me, his eyes serious, not so angry now. “Listen, Sapphire, that’s why we can meet. You and me. It’s because you’ve got some Mer in you. But I still don’t know how much, or how strong it is. You don’t either, do you?”
“Sometimes, when I talk to you, Faro, I feel as if I don’t know anything any more. I’m so confused.”
Faro lets go of the grain of sand and it spins down through the water to join its brothers and sisters on the sea bed. “We can’t talk about it now. You must hurry. But you have got Mer in you, Sapphire. And I—” he hesitates, and looks at me intently, as if he’s deciding whether or not to trust me. “I’ve got—”
But at that moment noise hits the water like a bomb. My ears sting with pain. The sea throbs as if it’s got thunder in it.
“Quick, Sapphire, swim for the shore! It’s the boat coming!”
As soon as Faro says it I recognise the sound of an engine. Faro grabs my wrist, grips tight for a second and then launches me towards the shore. I ride on the wave he’s made for me, and it hurls me up, swooshes me in, and throws me flat on the sand. I struggle to my feet, coughing and choking, my eyes blind with salt. My ears are full of sand. I can’t see and I can’t hear. I’m back in the Air, where I belong.
Faro has disappeared. The boat is chugging round the other side of the rocks, towards its mooring. The noise of its engine thuds around the cove like a warning of danger.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#ulink_fcf87ff5-ac5f-5bee-b8cd-f416b526f9ca)
“Please don’t go off like that again, without telling me where you’re going, Sapphire,” says Mum. “If Conor hadn’t said you were taking Sadie for a walk, I’d have been worried.”
“Sorry, Mum. It was so hot that I took Sadie to play in the stream.”
“I can see that. You’re soaked through. You’ve been gone hours.”
Only hours, I think. So Mer time and human time haven’t been so different from each other this time. If time is a fan, then for once it hasn’t opened wide enough to separate Mum’s time from mine. Clever Conor, to think of saying that I’d taken Sadie out. Mum wouldn’t doubt what he said, because Conor doesn’t lie.
But Conor’s just told a lie for my sake. Or maybe it was for Mum’s sake? Conor wouldn’t want Mum to be frightened.
I don’t always tell the truth, I must admit. When I was little I used to scream and yell if people didn’t believe what I told them about fairies living in a cave I’d made for them under the rosemary bush. And I had an imaginary kitten which had to have milk every morning and only ate Whiskas, just like the cats I’d seen on TV. Dad bought a can of Whiskas for the kitten, but Mum got really annoyed and wouldn’t let me open it.
“Sapphy has a vivid imagination,” Dad said.
“Stop humouring her, Mathew. She’s got to learn the difference between what’s real and what’s not,” said Mum.
But sometimes real and not-real are hard to tell apart, and life is easier if you bend the truth, just a little…
“Where’s Conor now, Mum?” I ask casually.
“He’s gone out in Roger’s boat. They were planning to take it right out, to test the new engine, and then Roger’s going to come in to take soundings by the Bawns. You know, he needs to prepare for diving there. Now, Sapphy, why don’t you go up and change, and tidy your room while I finish this ironing. And then maybe you’d sort the washing for me. I need to put another load in the machine before the boys get back. The trouble with Sundays is that there’s always so much to do.”
The boys, I think angrily. As if Roger is part of our family. I go slowly upstairs, thinking hard. I know what soundings are. Roger’s trying to find out how deep the water is in different places, and how difficult it will be to dive there. The Bawns are part of a reef about a mile offshore. Most of the reef is underwater, but the Bawn Rocks show above the surface. The part of the rocks that you can see is black and jagged, but what you can’t see is the line of the Bawns that runs beneath the surface, like teeth. These hidden rocks are the most dangerous. In the old days, when shipping routes ran closer inshore than they do now, ships would lose their way in storms. The wind and tide would drive them on to the rocks. Sometimes, at night or in fog, a ship would break her back on the Bawns.
When the weather’s bad the Bawns are lost in a white thunder of waves. Spray breaks and tosses high, as if the rocks themselves are spouting water, like whales. It makes me shiver to think of having to swim in those seas. Dad told me that a boy was found in our cove one morning after a wreck. He was thrown up on to the sand, still clinging to a piece of slimy wood. The people who climbed down to rescue him couldn’t get the wood out of his grasp at first.
The miracle was that the boy was still alive. They wrapped him in blankets and carried him up the cliff path, and put him in front of a fire and poured brandy down him. He couldn’t speak a word that anybody understood. They never found where he came from, or what language he was speaking. They named him Paul, because St Paul in the Bible was rescued after a shipwreck too. The Treveals took the boy in, and he grew up with their children. His grave is in the churchyard.
Shipwrecked Paul was my age. He was the only person who survived that wreck. No one ever knew where his ship came from, or what cargo it was carrying. Even when he learned to speak English, he never talked about the wreck, or what his life was like before he was found in the cove. On his gravestone it says that he died in 1852. He married Miriam Treveal and they had eight children. And then maybe all of those eight children had eight children, and then those eight children had eight children, Dad said. So no doubt all of us around here have got a drop of that shipwrecked boy’s blood in us somewhere.
Dad won’t go near the Bawns, even on a calm day.
