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I hadn’t noticed how many buds there were, fat and ready to burst into flower. Or were they really there before? I wasn’t certain. I stared hard at Granny Carne’s brown fingers, which looked as if they could bring life out of a dead branch if they wanted to.
“Yes, this branch will be bending down with fruit come September,” murmured Granny Carne, and then she left the apple tree and went over to the rowan that grows near our door.
“Do you know why this tree’s here, my girl?”
“No, Granny Carne,” I answered meekly.
“Your ancestors had the good sense to plant the rowan close by their threshold, because they knew the rowan keeps away evil. The rowan’s a powerful tree, Sapphire, full of Earth magic. Never hurt the rowan, or cut it down without great cause. Let it live out its natural life in peace, and the rowan will always give you its protection.”
I stared at the rowan with new respect. It’s not a big tree. No tree grows tall up here because the winter gales blow them sideways and the salt stunts their growth.
“No evil shall pass this threshold,” muttered Granny Carne, with one hand on the trunk of the rowan.
Evil? What evil does she mean? I thought, and fear jagged through me.
“Put your hand on the bark, my girl,” Granny Carne urged me. I lifted my hand. But it felt as if a wall of solid air lay between me and the rowan. I pushed hard, but I couldn’t get through it. My hand dropped to my side.
“I can’t touch it, Granny Carne.”
Her fierce owl eyes swept over my face. I thought she was going to be angry with me, but then her expression changed.
“Is it that you don’t want to, or that you can’t?”
“My hand won’t. There’s a barrier.” I looked down at my hand nervously, and then back at Granny Carne.
“Granny Carne, it’s not… it’s not because I’m evil, is it? You said that no evil could get past the rowan tree. Is that why I can’t touch it?”
Granny Carne’s wrinkled face looked meditative. “No, my girl. Most likely it’s the Mer blood in you that won’t touch the strong Earth magic of the rowan. Not that the Mer have much love for any tree.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe because trees are rooted in the Earth. You remember this, my girl. It’s not evil that separates Earth and Ingo, it’s difference. But there are plenty who want to make evil out of difference. Be warned, Sapphire.”
Her face was set and harsh. She stared into my eyes as if she was searching for something.
“Be warned, my girl,” she repeated, and a shiver like the flood-memory shiver ran down my back. “Go careful, on Earth and in Ingo, when you meet those who seek to make their power out of the differences between us all.” Her voice had risen, as the wind rises before a storm. Suddenly it dropped again. “I’ll leave you to get on with your planting now,” she said, and turned her back on me.
“Granny Carne—”
But she was gone, striding up the lane as if she were as young as Mum, and not as old as… as old as…
The rowan tree?
The hills?
Roger’s living in our cottage, too. Well, not completely – he’s got a studio flat in St Pirans as well. But he’s spending most of his time here. He sits in Dad’s chair at our kitchen table, just as I was always afraid he would.
Roger wants us to have a boat. He says it’s crazy not to when we’ve got such a good mooring down at the cove. And Conor and I are both old enough to be sensible. The fact that our dad disappeared when he was out in the Peggy Gordon shouldn’t be allowed to stop us from ever having a boat.
I know that this is Roger’s opinion because I happened to hear him talking to Mum when I was digging in the garden and they were talking in the kitchen. Mum didn’t agree.
“Give me time, Roger,” she said. “I know you mean well, but I can’t bear the idea of them taking a boat out on their own. The weather changes so fast. I can’t risk losing them.”
Roger said, “You hold on to those kids too hard, Jennie.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? But Sapphire can be so impulsive. So wild. So like…”
“Like her dad?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t change that. Sapphire’s pretty tough. Look at the way those kids coped during the flood. God knows what they went through that night. They’re good kids. You think about it, Jennie. I know where I could get them a boat. A real little beauty.”
The trouble with Roger is that you can’t hate him for long – even though I want to hate him, for not being Dad…
“You’re thinking about that diver again,” says Faro. I jump, and nearly fall off the rock. Faro grabs my arm.
“I wish you wouldn’t break into my thoughts,” I say crossly.
“You let me,” he says.
It’s true. I can keep Faro out of my mind completely if I want to. I only have to put up a mental portcullis, like the ones that guarded the entrance to castles in the olden days.
“Roger’s not just ‘that diver’, Faro. He’s my mum’s boyfriend.”
“Is he still your enemy?”
“I don’t know. I used to hate him. I still do hate him sometimes…”
“I could deal with him for you,” says Faro, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “Next time he’s in the sea, I can be there also.” He flexes his shoulders, and the muscles ripple.
“No, Faro.” Sometimes it seems that Faro might do anything.
He frowns darkly. “Your enemies are my enemies, Sapphire.”
But just at that moment something distracts him. There’s a flurry of foam on the calm water about a hundred metres out beyond the mouth of the cove, in deep water. Mackerel maybe. Or perhaps – perhaps even a dolphin…
Faro leans forward, watching the water intently as if he’s reading it. The surface breaks into a shower of glittering drops. I think I catch the shadow of a tail under the clear water.
“It’s a dolphin, Faro.”
“No. It’s one of my people.”
My heart thuds. One of the Mer. One of Faro’s people.
“It’s not my sister,” murmurs Faro. “No, it’s a signal. I must go.”
He turns to me, his eyes glowing with excitement. “Wait here. Don’t move.”
And in a second he’s gone, pushing himself off the rock, slipping beneath the surface in one smooth, strong dive. I watch him swim deep, his tail driving him out towards the mouth of the cove, and then he disappears.
I wait. I know he’ll come back. Faro always does everything he says. I look up and see a scud of cloud coming in, covering the sun. It’s past low tide now. Soon the water will be rising. I mustn’t stay too long or I’ll get caught by the tide. Soon it’ll be time to climb the steep, familiar path over the rocks, back up the cliff to home.
Conor’s in St Pirans, helping our friends Patrick and Rainbow to clean out their cottage, which is right on the beach. The full force of the flood hit it, and they’ve lost everything, even the windows and doors. Everything inside their cottage was smashed to pieces.
Conor took Sadie with him because Rainbow was desperate to see her again. She loves Sadie. Thinking about Rainbow makes me feel guilty because I haven’t seen much of her since we moved back here. She wants to be friends, and I want to be friends, too, but it’s complicated. I keep thinking, would Rainbow still want to be my friend if she knew the truth about me? If she knew that I had Mer blood and half belonged to Ingo? If she could see me sitting on this rock, now, with Faro? I’m afraid Rainbow might blame me for what Ingo did to St Pirans that night.
It’s all too complicated. I’m not going to think about it any more. Mum and Roger are buying stuff over in Porthnance. I didn’t use to be allowed to come down to the cove without Conor, but I’m older now, and Mum hasn’t said anything about it since we’ve been back. And anyway I’m not on my own. I’m with Faro. No one could keep me safer in the sea than Faro.
At this moment, Faro’s head breaks the surface, sleek and shining. He pushes back his hair.
“Sapphire! Come quickly!”
“The water’s freezing, Faro. It’s only April. I’ve got human blood as well as Mer blood, remember? I’ll get hypothermia.”
Faro shakes his head impatiently. “Come on, Sapphire. I’m not talking about the swimming that humans do. Come to Ingo with me.”
To Ingo. I won’t feel the cold there. The water will envelop me, and feel like home. I’ll dive beneath the surface, through the skin of the sea, and my lungs will burn just as Faro’s burn when he enters the Air. But not too badly. Like Faro, I don’t feel the change so much these days. The sea change. A thrill of excitement runs through me. But I still hesitate. Time in Ingo isn’t like our time. I might be in Ingo and think only an hour had passed, while it could be a whole human day. Mum has had enough fear and worry. Conor and I haven’t been into Ingo since the night of the flood. We’ve kept close to home.
“Quickly, Sapphire! My friend is here, waiting. There’s an Assembly.”
“What’s an Assembly? Is it like a Gathering?”
My heart quickens again. When I was in Ingo with Faro last autumn I saw crowds of the Mer in the distance, their beautiful cloaks of shell and net glimmering around them, on their way to a Gathering. It sounded like a wonderful party, but Faro wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t even get close enough to speak to the Mer. But maybe this time I will. I’ll get to know Faro’s people. Maybe I’ll have a cloak, too—
“No,” says Faro, “a Gathering is for pleasure. An Assembly is more… more serious. My friend has been sent to summon you.”
“Summon me!”
I stand up on the rock, and draw myself to my full height. “Summon me, Faro? Who is he to summon me?”
Faro looks up at me, and I look down. I feel the power in him. Mer power, strong as a magnet. But I feel the power in me, too, rising to meet his. I’m his equal. We stare at each other, and neither of us looks away.
At last Faro says, “They’re asking you to come, Sapphire. They need you there.”
“That’s not what ‘summon’ means, Faro.”
“Maybe that was the wrong word. Don’t be angry.” A persuasive smile flickers on Faro’s face. “Come, Sapphire. Come.”
I look behind me. The white sand of the beach, and then rocks and boulders rising almost to the lip of the cliff. The way home. I look back at Faro’s face, and then beyond him to where I think I see a shadow waiting, deep in the water. One of Faro’s friends. The Mer want me to go to an Assembly.
Maybe this means that the Mer are letting me deeper into Ingo now. An Assembly… If it’s for something serious, as Faro says, maybe Saldowr will be there. Surely they’d need him there, because Faro says Saldowr is the wisest of the Mer. I want to see him again. I hope the wound in his shoulder has healed. He was so badly hurt in the struggle to seal the Tide Knot again that I was afraid he would die.
So far, even though I’ve been to Ingo many times, I’ve only met Faro and his sister Elvira and Saldowr, and seen the shadows of other Mer swimming in the distance. There are bound to be a lot of them at the Assembly. Hundreds, maybe. And I’ll meet them face to face.
Excitement pulses in me like a rising tide. Senara, Mum, Conor, Sadie are already shrinking in my mind. They’re just as clear, but small and distant, like images at the wrong end of a telescope. Ingo is holding out its arms to me.
“I’ll come,” I say, and I swing my arms forward, and dive from the rock.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_97b94e53-af30-5c40-a4e2-d356569bd5f8)
As soon as we’re out of the cove, the sea bed plunges away beneath us. We dive deep, through the turquoise surface water and into the rich blue-purple that lies beneath. Faro’s friend swims ahead. I watch the swish of his tail from side to side as it drives him through the water. Sometimes I think he glances back to see if we’re following, but I’m not sure.
The power of Ingo sweeps through my body and I race after him. I could never swim this strongly in the human world, up on the surface. My body cuts through the water. I feel as sleek and fast as a seal, and I’m not tired at all, even though we must be more than a mile out from land already.
Now there’s the first tug of a current. It seizes us in its strong arms, and drags us southward. Slowly at first and then faster, faster, until the water flies past us and the sea bed below us is a blur.
But no matter how fast we go, Faro’s friend is still ahead of us. There he is, just visible, riding the current’s crest. He’s not going to let me catch up with him. Faro could, easily, but I’m not fast enough.
“Why won’t he wait for us, Faro?”
Faro’s white teeth show in a teasing smile. “He’s shy of you, Sapphire.”
“He can’t be!”
“You’re human, don’t forget. Morlader’s not like me. He’s never spoken to a human, or even seen one up close. Most of the Mer are like that. You don’t realise how unusual I am,” he adds with self-satisfaction.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you different from the others?”
Faro frowns. “You wouldn’t understand, Sapphire. It’s a Mer thing.” Streams of bubbles play over his face, half-hiding it. He’s close, but he looks far away. A Mer thing. His words hurt, but the water of Ingo surges around me, and my own Mer blood tingles with excitement. How fast is this current taking us? How far? We must be miles and miles from land now. It’s like flying underwater. I’ve never travelled so fast in Ingo, but I’m not afraid. I’m elated. How can Faro think I won’t understand?
“I’m not all human, Faro,” I say. “You know that.”
Faro turns to me. His hair flows past his shoulders, plastered to his skin by the force of the current. His eyes scan my face, intent, anxious – and maybe even a little fearful. He isn’t hiding from me now. Suddenly I remember the first time we met.
“You weren’t ever shy of me, Faro.”
“No.”
“Why weren’t you? You’re Mer too.”
A strange expression crosses Faro’s face. “Yes,” he says, more hesitant than I’ve ever heard him, “yes, of course I’m Mer. But Sapphire, there’s something—Look out!”
He grabs my hand and hurls us sideways out of the grip of the current, just missing a jagged spear of rock. In the calm water, he lets go of me. There are white marks on my hand where his fingers dug into the flesh. I could never have got out of that current on my own. Faro’s strength is almost frightening sometimes – but he did it to save me.
Faro looks shocked. “It nearly got us. I must have been dreaming. I can’t believe I let that happen.”
“Scary,” I say weakly as I try to calm the pumping of my heart. Usually Faro is as quick as a fish. He senses danger at the first shadow of it. That rock would have killed us, and we only missed it by a few centimetres. If Faro hadn’t dragged me sideways, I’d be drifting down to the sea bed now, my body broken and bleeding. For the first time, I really understand that only a second separates life from death, and it’s very easy to die. My heart thuds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Faro rubs his hands over his face, as if he’s wiping away a nightmare. He takes hold of my hand, lifts it, and examines it. There are the marks of his nails, too, in my skin. My hand is bleeding.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, little sister,” he says.
“I’m all right. We could have died, couldn’t we? I think you saved my life.”
