The TIDE KNOT

by

Helen Dunmore

Copyright

HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2006 First published in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2007

Copyright © Helen Dunmore 2006

Helen Dunmore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780007464111

Ebook Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780007369294

Version: 2017-03-28

Dedication

FOR ISSY CHEUNG

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Keep Reading

Beyond the Book

Spotlight on Helen Dunmore

Dolphins Whistling

Tides

Dolphins

Sperm Whales

Travelling Fish

Drowned Villages

Have you Ever Wondered?

About the Author

In this Series

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Ingo at night. It’s not completely dark, though. The moon is riding high, and there’s enough light to turn the water a rich, mysterious blue.

I am deep in Ingo, swimming through the moonlit water. Faro’s here somewhere, I’m sure he is. I can’t see him, but I’m not scared. There’s just enough light to see by. There’s a glimmer of rock – and a green and silver school of mackerel—

Imagine being lost underwater in total blackness. I’d panic. But it’s dangerous to panic in Ingo. You mustn’t think of the Air. You must forget that human beings can’t live underwater, and then you’ll find that you can.

Faro was here a moment ago, I’m sure of it. He’s keeping himself hidden, but I don’t know why. Even if it was totally dark, I expect he’d still be able to see me through the water. Faro is Mer, and he belongs here. Ingo is his home. And I’m human, and I don’t belong.

But it isn’t as simple as that. There’s something else in me: the Mer blood that came to me and my brother Conor from our ancestors. It’s my Mer blood that draws me to Ingo, beneath the surface of the water. I’d probably drown without my Mer blood – but it’s best not to think of that—

“Faro?” Nobody answers. All the same I know he is close. But I won’t call again. I’m not going to give Faro the satisfaction of thinking that I’m scared, or that I need him. I can survive in Ingo without him. I don’t need to hold on to him any more, the way I did last year when I first came to Ingo. The water is rich with oxygen. It knows how to keep me alive.

I swim on. This light is very strange. Just for a moment, that underwater reef didn’t look as if it was made from rock. It looked like the ruins of a great building, carved from stone thousands of years ago. I blink. No, it’s a reef, that’s all.

Why am I here in Ingo tonight? I can’t remember clearly. Maybe I woke up in the dead of night and heard a voice calling from the sea. Did I climb down the path, down the rocks to our cove, and then slip into the water secretly?

Don’t be so stupid, Sapphire. You don’t live in the cottage any more, remember? You’ve left Senara. You’re living in St Pirans, with Mum and Conor and Sadie. And Roger is never far away. How could you have forgotten all that?

So how did I get here? I must have come down to Polquidden Beach, and dived into Ingo from there. Yes, that was it. I remember now. I was in bed, drifting off to sleep, and then I felt Ingo calling me. That call which is so powerful that every cell of my body has to answer it. Ingo was waiting for me. I would be able to dive down and down and down, beneath the skin of the water, into Ingo. I would swim with the currents through the underwater world that is so strange and mysterious and yet also feels like home.

Yes, I remember putting on my jeans and hooded top, and creeping downstairs in the moonlight from the landing window. Stealthily unlocking the front door, and then running down to Polquidden Beach, where the water shone in the moonlight and the voice of Ingo was so strong that I couldn’t hear anything else.

And now I’m in Ingo again. Ever since we moved to St Pirans I’ve been trying to get back here, but it’s never worked before tonight. There’s too much noise in St Pirans, too many people, shops, cafés and car parks. But at night, maybe it’s different. Maybe the dark is like a key that turns the lock, and opens Ingo.

“Greetings, little sister.”

“Faro!”

I turn in a swirl of water and there he is.

“Faro! Where’ve you been? Why haven’t I seen you for so long?”

His hand grasps mine. Even in the moonlight, his teasing smile is the same as ever.

“We’re here now, aren’t we? Nothing else matters. Sapphire, I’ve got so much to show you.”

He lets go of my hand and backflips into a somersault, and then another and another until the water’s churning so fast I can’t see him at all. At last he stops in a seethe of bubbles, and grabs my hand again.

“Come on, Sapphire. Time to go. Night is the best time of all.”

“Why is it the best time of all, Faro?”

“Because at night you see things you can’t see by day.”

“What things?”

“You’ll see.”

We join hands. There’s a current racing ahead, the colour of the darkest blue velvet. We plunge forward. The current is so strong that it crushes me. I’m jolting, juddering, struggling in its grip, but I can’t break away. It’s got me, like a cat with a bird in its claws. It’s much too powerful for me, and it knows its own strength.

This is like the moment when you get on to the most terrifying ride of all at a theme park and you’re strapped in, helpless to escape. The ride begins to move and you see a mocking smile on the face of the attendants and you realise that they don’t care at all. But Ingo is no theme park where people lose their jobs if they kill the customers. Anything can happen here. If I die now, no one will ever know. They’ll only say that I drowned, like they said Dad drowned.

Don’t panic, Sapphire. Let the current take you where it wants. Wherever you go, you’ll be safe. Reassuring thoughts echo in my head and I’m not sure for a moment if they are my thoughts or Faro’s. Are we sharing our thoughts again, the way we did last summer? Relax, let the current take you. Don’t resist it, or you’ll get hurt. Jolts of force shake me. I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I can’t breathe—

Don’t ever think of breathing or not breathing. Air is another country and it means nothing here. Think of now. Think of Ingo. Here. Now.

The words beat in my head like a pulse. Here. Now. Let go of everything and see what comes to you. I’ve done it before, but it’s never been as hard as this. Ingo at night is so dark, so vast. Not a safe playground but a wild kingdom. You could so easily lose yourself here. A tingle of pure fear runs through my body. No, no, Sapphire, that’s not the way. Panic is making you deaf and blind.

I stop fighting. It feels like coming out of a cage. I am free and safe in the heart of the current. There’s Faro, a little way ahead of me. His tail gleams blue in the moonlight. I can’t see his face, or his hands, or any of him that seems human. Only the strong tail, like a seal’s tail, driving Faro through the water. We are travelling faster than I’ve ever dreamed of swimming, flying through Ingo in darkness.

By the time the current swerves away from us, throwing us off into calmer water, we must be miles and miles from land. I’m exhausted. It seems that even Faro’s tired, because he pulls my hand and we swim down and down to the sea bed. Here the sand is deeply ridged, and we sink into one of its sheltered hollows to rest. It is almost totally dark down here.

“Where are we, Faro?” My voice echoes strangely.

“Close to the Lost Islands.”

“Why are they lost?”

“They’re not all lost. Some of them still rise above the surface. There are still humans living there. But the largest islands came to us hundreds of years ago, in a single night.”

“Came to you? What do you mean? Was there a battle?”

“Yes, there was a battle, but not with guns or swords. The water rose and the islands fell to Ingo.”

“But, Faro, what happened to the people who were living there?”

“Some were lost,” says Faro with cool indifference. “Some took to their boats and made for the nearest islands that were still above water.”

“Why did the sea rise?”

“It was time for it to rise, I suppose,” says Faro. I can’t see his face clearly in the gloom, but his voice is maddeningly calm.

“Faro, please don’t talk like that. As if everything is – well – fate. We should be able to make things better. Change the future. Those islanders could have built a sea wall, couldn’t they, to keep the sea out? That’s what people do in Holland. They build dykes and ditches. They don’t drown. They’re brilliant engineers.”

“So I’ve heard,” says Faro thoughtfully. “They’re very obstinate, those people in Holland.”

“The point is, Faro, that countries don’t have to drown. Holland proves it. It’s the other way round there. They reclaim land from the sea. Did you know that?”

“For now, they take land from Ingo,” Faro reflects, “but that doesn’t make it theirs. What works today may not work tomorrow. Weren’t you saying just now that we should be able to make things better, and change the future? I agree. It would make things better for the Mer if Holland were to grow… smaller.”

“But why, Faro? Why? Isn’t Ingo strong enough already? The oceans are greater than the land. Don’t you know that?”

Dad taught me that. He took me way out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon, until I could clearly see how small the land looked, and how insignificant, compared to the hugeness of the sea.

“Why do you want more and more and more, Faro?”

“You humans are the ones who want more,” says Faro fiercely. “You want the whole world to bow to human desires.”

Faro’s argument is making me uneasy. “Can we… could we go to the Lost Islands?” I ask quickly.

“Everyone’s going to the Lost Islands tonight.”

“Why?”

“There’s a Gathering. Look over there.”

“It’s too dark.”

“Look, Sapphire. Open your eyes.”

I peer through the deep dark velvet of the water. Yes, there are shapes and shadows, shifting with the pull of the currents. There’s a group of them, close together. A shoal of fish swimming to their feeding grounds, maybe. But they’re too big for fish, surely; they’re as long as – as tall as—

“Mer, Faro! Look! They’re Mer!”

I’m seeing the Mer at last. Faro’s people. The curtain that has hidden them from me every time I’ve visited Ingo has lifted at last. They are moving fast, in a group of twenty or so. They’re a long way off, and they don’t notice us. They seem to shimmer as they swim, as if they’re covered in fish scales. But I know from Faro and his sister Elvira that the Mer aren’t really covered in scales at all. That’s for fairy stories where mermaids bask on rocks, combing their hair and singing to sailors. The real Mer are not like that. They’re more powerful, more complicated and much, much more real. I blink, and the Mer have gone.

“What were they wearing, Faro? What’s all that shiny stuff?”

“Mother-of-pearl on cloaks of net, I should think. That’s what people generally wear to a Gathering when it’s moonlight.”

“How beautiful. Have you got a cloak like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you got one? A cloak like that? In your wardrobe or whatever?”

“I’m not going to the Gathering tonight, so why would I have a cloak? I’d make one if I was going.”

“Do you mean that you make a new cloak every time there’s a party? I mean, a Gathering.”

“Of course. They take days and days to make. The patterns are complicated.”

“Then why don’t you keep them? You could have a beautiful collection of cloaks.”

“Collection!” says Faro with scorn, then he lowers his voice as if what he’s saying is dangerous and not to be overheard.“Listen, Sapphire. A long time ago, some of the Mer started to keep things. They grew so proud of what they had collected that they became rivals, then enemies. It nearly brought us to war.”

“Do the Mer fight wars?” I ask in surprise. Faro has always given me the impression that Mer life is peaceful.

“We almost fought a war then. We were ready to kill each other.”

“We have wars all the time. I’ve seen them on TV.”

“Is TV real?” asks Faro curiously. “I thought it was stories humans make up for one another.”

“The news is real.”

“It’s good to know about the human world,” says Faro with decision. “Some Mer say that we should keep right away from it, but I think how you live is interesting.”

“You make me feel as if I’m in a zoo, Faro!”

“Zoos! How can you humans keep creatures trapped in cages for pleasure when they are begging to be released?”

“Humans don’t hear them. We can’t talk to animals, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Sapphire.”

Faro presses my hand in sympathy. If, like him, you can talk to whales and dolphins and sea urchins and sea eagles, then no wonder he thinks human life is a bit limited…

This seems like the most important talk I’ve ever had with Faro. It’s the first time he’s admitted that things have ever been less than perfect in Ingo. In the quiet darkness it’s easier to speak openly, and not to start arguing—

“I wish I could see those islands,” I tell him.

“We can go now if you like?”

“Really?”

“Yes. I can’t take you to the Gathering. It’s too early for that, and the Mer wouldn’t like to see you there. But we could go to one of the other islands.”

We swim out of our hollow. There are currents everywhere – not as powerful as the one we rode on, but little flickering currents that wash over our skin. The light is stronger now, and as we swim along the sea bed I realise that it’s because the water is growing shallower.

“I don’t want to go back into the Air,” I say in alarm. I don’t want to burst through the surface of the water, only to find myself marooned on some strange island miles and miles from Cornwall.

“We’re not leaving Ingo. But we’re coming to the islands, Sapphire. Look ahead.”

It’s strange – like coming inshore on a boat, except that the land where we’re about to beach is underwater, lit by moonlight falling through water. There are the rocks. There’s the beach. A long wall juts out. It must have been the harbour wall once. On the drowned shore there are the crumbled remains of buildings which must have been cottages. Their doorways are empty. I suppose the doors have rotted away. The empty window sockets make the cottages look as if they have got hungry, staring eyes. Instead of slate tiles on the roofs, there’s seaweed waving gently in the current.

It all makes me shiver. I’m afraid of what might come out of those empty doorways: a scuttling family of crabs, or a conger eel, or a jellyfish with long, searching tentacles. I’m not afraid of any of these creatures usually, but they shouldn’t be here, in human houses. There should be fire here, the smell of cooking and the sounds of human voices and laughter. I turn away.

“Don’t you like it?” Faro asks.

I shake my head, and my hair floats across my face like seaweed, hiding it. I’m glad that Faro can’t see my expression. I don’t want to look any more, but the drowned village seems to be casting a spell on me. I stare at the little cobbled road leading up behind the cottages, and the strong, square tower of what must have been the village church, long ago. A weathercock still stands there. I wonder if it still turns from side to side when the tide moves. Does the weathercock still think that the wind’s blowing it? It is all so empty, so sad and so silent. Like a graveyard.

“We come on pilgrimage here,” says Faro.

“Pilgrimage?”

“Yes. Pilgrims come from far away to see the power of what Ingo has done here. Where there was land, now there is water.”

“Great,” I say bitterly. “I hope they enjoy it.”

“You’re angry,” says Faro, “but you shouldn’t be. In Holland they force the sea back, and you say they are brilliant. Here the sea rises and the land falls, and you think it’s terrible. But it’s just what happens. Like the tide. At low tide you can walk safely in a place where six hours later you would drown.”

“But it’s not tides that did this. It’s something much more powerful. A whole island has drowned, Faro! How many villages were there?”

“I don’t know. Many, I think.”

“And how many people drowned?” I say, half to myself. I may have Mer blood in me, but no Mer blood could be strong enough to make me happy here. “It’s so desolate,” I go on, trying to make Faro understand. “This island wasn’t part of Ingo and it didn’t want to be. It isn’t really a part of Ingo now. It’s just dead.”

“You’re wrong,” says Faro passionately. “Every year it’s more alive. Look at how much is growing there now. Look how rich the water is.” I can’t bear to argue with him, and besides, I know we are never going to agree. With a part of myself I see what Faro sees: the beauty of the seaweed waving above the cottages, with thick stems and feathery branches; the schools of silvery, flickering fish; the sea-anemones and limpets that have made their home on the fallen stones. The part of me which is Mer thinks it is beautiful, but the part which is human thinks of all the human life that’s been swallowed up by salt water.

“What’s the matter, Sapphire? Why are you screwing up your face like that?”

He really doesn’t know. Faro knows a lot about the Air, but not that humans weep.

“I’m sad, that’s all. It’s called crying.”

“I’ve heard of that,” says Faro eagerly, “but I’ve never seen it.” He makes it sound as if I was performing a juggling trick. “Show me how you do this crying,” he goes on.

“No, Faro, it doesn’t work like that. I don’t want to cry any more. I’ve stopped, look. But what do the Mer do when they are sad, if they don’t cry? What do you do if someone dies?”

“We keep them in our memories.”

“I think we should go,” I say abruptly. I want to get away from this place, with its mournful atmosphere. How could this have happened? How did the sea rise so suddenly that whole islands were swallowed by it, and people didn’t even have time to get into their boats and escape?

I take a last look at the drowned village. There are the hulls of fishing boats chained to the harbour floor. They wouldn’t float now, even if you could bring them to the surface. Sea water has rotted their timber. What would the people who lived here think if they could see this?

I can’t help it. Tears are prickling and stinging behind my eyes again. It hurts more to cry in Ingo than it does in the Air. I don’t want Faro to see how upset I am, or to watch me with his bright, curious eyes as I do this strange human thing called “crying”, so I put my hands over my face. What was it called, this drowned village? It must have had a name.

Tell me what you were called, I say very softly inside my head. Tell me your name.

No one answers. The sea surges around me, lifting me. There’s no moonlight any more. I can’t see anything. Ingo is dark and full of sea voices that seem to come from everywhere. The sea lifts me again, and carries me away with it.

I wake in my bedroom in St Pirans, struggling out of a sleep that sticks to me like glue. My room is very small, only wide enough for my bed and a narrow strip of wooden floor. There’s a shining pool of water on the floor. My porthole window is open. Maybe it’s been raining and the rain has blown in. No, I don’t think so. I dip my finger in the water and taste salt. Ingo.

The house is silent. Everyone in St Pirans is fast asleep. I look at the digital alarm clock that Roger gave me after I missed the school bus for the third time. Its digits glow green. 03:03. There’s a heap of wet clothes on the floor by my bed – my jeans and hooded top – and my hair is wet. I must have changed into these pyjamas after I got back, but I don’t really remember. It’s all cloudy.

But the memory of the drowned houses is all too clear. The windows looked like empty, staring eye sockets in a skull. I don’t want to think about it. I want to push it out of my mind.

CHAPTER TWO

It’s daylight again. Safe, ordinary daylight where the things that seem huge and terrifying by night shrink like puddles in sunshine.

I’m down at the beach with Sadie. Mum’s already at work, but it’s Saturday, so no school. I’ve cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed the living room and now I’m free.

Sadie is like daylight. When I stroke her warm golden coat, all the shadows disappear. She looks up at me questioningly, wagging her tail. We’re standing on the last of the steps that lead down to Polquidden Beach. Am I going to let her run?

I am. Dogs are allowed on to the beach after the first of October, and it’s mid November now. Sadie’s got a good memory, though, and that’s why she’s hesitating. She remembers that when we first moved to St Pirans in September, dogs were still banned from the beach. Every year from April to October, when the visitors are here, dogs have to keep away. I think it’s unfair, but Mum says you couldn’t have dog dirt on the sand where people are sunbathing.

All September I had to keep on explaining to Sadie, “I’m sorry, I know you want to run on the sand, but you can’t.” The more I get to know Sadie, the more I realise how much she understands. She doesn’t have to rely on words. Sadie can tell from the way I walk into a room what kind of a mood I’m in.

Now she’s quivering with excitement, but she still waits patiently on the step.

“Go on, Sadie girl! It’s all right, you can run where you like today.” Sadie stretches her body, gives one leap of pure pleasure, and then settles to the serious business of chasing a seagull in crazy zigzags over the sand. Sadie has never caught a gull, and I’m sure this gull knows that. It’s leading her on, teasing her, skimming low over the sand to get Sadie’s hopes high, then soaring as she rushes towards it.

I want Sadie to run and run, as far as she likes. I know she’ll come back when I call. And besides, I want her to be free.

Since we moved to St Pirans I’ve been having these dreams. Not every night, not even every week, but often enough to make me scared to go to sleep sometimes. In the dream I’m caught in a cage. At first I’m not too worried because the bars are wide apart and it will be easy to slip out. But as soon as I move towards them, the bars close up. I try to move slowly and casually so that the cage won’t know what I’m planning, but every time the bars are quicker than I am. It’s as if the cage is alive and knows that I’m trying to escape.

I still can’t believe that we are really living here in St Pirans. Can it be true that we’ve left our cottage for ever? And Senara, and our cove, and all the places we love? Conor and I were born in the cottage, for heaven’s sake, in Mum and Dad’s bedroom. How can you shut the door on the place where you were born?

Mum’s promised that she’ll never, ever, sell our cottage, but she’s renting it out to strangers. The rent money pays for us to rent a house in St Pirans, where we have no memories at all.

It seems crazy to me. Completely crazy in a way that the adults all believe is completely logical.

You’ll make so many new friends when you’re living in a town!

You’ll be able to go to the cinema and the swimming pool.

They’ve got some really good shops in St Pirans, Sapphy.

Why would anyone who lives by the sea want to go to a swimming pool anyway? Swimming pools are tame and bland and fake blue and they stink of chlorine. The water is dead, because of all the chemicals they put into it. The sea is alive. Every drop in it is full of life. If you put water from a swimming pool under a microscope, there would be nothing. Or maybe some bacteria if they haven’t put enough chemicals in.

Even the sea gets crowded in St Pirans. It’s quieter now because the season’s over, but everyone keeps telling us, Wait until the summer months. You’re lucky if you can find a patch of sand to put your towel down in August. There are four beaches and a harbour, and thousands and thousands of tourists who swarm all over the town like bees. Conor and I sometimes used to come to St Pirans for a day while we were still living in Senara. Just for a change. A day was always enough. You can’t swim without getting whacked by someone’s board. Sometimes there are even fights between different groups of surfers – the ones who are local and the ones who have come here in vans from upcountry. They fight over such big issues as one surfer dropping in on another surfer’s wave. Imagine thinking that the sea belongs to you, and fighting over waves. That’s another sort of St Pirans craziness. I must tell Faro about it. It would make him laugh.

“Sadie! Sadie!” Suddenly I see that Sadie is way over the other side of the beach, bounding towards a tiny little dog. It’s a Yorkshire terrier, I think, skittering about by the water’s edge. Sadie won’t hurt the Yorkie, of course she won’t. But all the same I begin to run. At the same moment, a girl of about my age sees what’s happening, and jumps up from where she’s digging a hole in the sand with a little kid.

“Sa-die!”

Is she going to listen? Does Sadie really believe that I’m her owner now? Yes! A few metres away from the terrier, Sadie slows and stops. You can see from her body how much she longs to rush right up to it. She glances back at me, asking why I’ve spoiled what could have been a wonderful adventure.

“Good girl. You are such a good girl, Sadie.”

I’m out of breath. I drop to my knees on the wet sand and clip on Sadie’s lead. The terrier girl picks up her dog, which is no bigger than a baby.

“I thought your dog was going to eat Sky,” says the girl. She has very short spiky blonde hair and her smile leaps across her face like sunshine.

“Sky. Weird name for a dog.”

“I know. She’s not mine. She belongs to my neighbour, but my neighbour’s got MS so I take her for walks. Not that she walks far. Sky, I mean, not my neighbour,” adds the girl quickly, as if she’s said something embarrassing. “Sorry,” she adds, “too much information.”

I don’t even know what MS is, so I just say, “Oh. I see.”

“Is this your dog?” asks the girl longingly.

“Yes.” It still feels like a lie when I say that. It’s such a cliché when people say that things are too good to be true, but each time I say that Sadie is my dog, that is exactly how it feels. Much too good to be true. I worried for weeks that Jack’s family would want her back, but they don’t. She’s yours, Jack’s mum said. Dogs know who they belong to, and Sadie’s chosen you for sure, Sapphire. Look at her wagging her tail there. I never get such a welcome.

“She’s beautiful.” The girl stretches out her hand confidently, as if she’s sure that Sadie will like her, and Sadie does. She sniffs the girl’s fingers approvingly. I give a very slight tug on Sadie’s lead.

“We’ve got to go,” I say.

“I must take Sky and River back, too. That’s River, over there at the bottom of the hole. He’s always digging holes. He’s my little brother.”

“River. Weird name for a boy,” I nearly say. I stop myself in time, but the girl smiles.

“Everyone thinks our names are a bit strange.” She looks at me expectantly. “Don’t you want to know what my name is? Or would you rather guess?”

I shake my head a bit stiffly. This girl is so friendly that it makes me feel awkward.

“Rainbow,” she says. “Rainbow Petersen. My mum called me Rainbow because she reckoned it had been raining in her life for a long time before I was born, and then the sun came out. My mum’s Danish, but she’s been living here since she was eighteen.”

There is a short silence. I try to imagine Mum saying anything remotely like that to me, and fail. The sun came out when you were born, Sapphire darling. No, I don’t think so.

The girl – Rainbow – looks as if she’s waiting for something. She picks up the terrier, and I say, “Well, bye then.”

But then she looks straight at me and says quite seriously, “You know my name and my little brother’s name and Sky’s name. Aren’t you going to tell me yours?”

I feel myself flush. “Um, it’s Sapphire.”

“That’s great,” says Rainbow warmly.

“Why?”

“I’m so glad you haven’t got a normal name like Millie or Jessica. Sapphire. Yes, I like it. What about your dog?”

“She’s called Sadie.”

The girl looks at me again in that expectant way, but whatever she’s expecting doesn’t happen. After a moment she says, “OK, see you around then, Sapphire. Bye, Sadie,” and she goes back to where River is digging his hole.

It’s only when she’s been gone for a while that I realise she wanted to know more about me. But there’s nothing I can do about that now, and besides, as old Alice Trewhidden always says, It’s not good to tell your business to strangers.

You’d have thought I was Rainbow’s friend already, the way she smiled at me.

Conor’s gone fishing off the rocks at Porthchapel with Mal. Mum was right: Conor has got to know loads of people in St Pirans already. I suppose it’s partly because he goes to school here, but it’s also just the way Conor is. I don’t know all his friends’ names, but they’re mostly surfers. Conor speaks surfer talk when he’s with them. He and Mum and Roger all keep telling me I should surf, but I don’t want to any more. If you’ve surfed the currents of Ingo, why would you want to surf on Polquidden Beach, or even up at Gwithian? It would be like being told that you’re only allowed one sip of water when you’re dying of thirst.

Conor doesn’t feel the same. I tried to talk to him about it once, not long after we came to St Pirans.

“Saph, you’re not giving St Pirans a chance,” he said. “There’s great surfing here. You used to like body-boarding at the cove.”

“That was before we went to Ingo,” I said. Conor looked at me uneasily.

He doesn’t talk much about Ingo now we’re in St Pirans. It’s as if he thinks we’ve left Ingo behind, along with the cottage and everything we’ve known since we were born. Or maybe there’s some other reason. I have the feeling that Conor is keeping something from me. Mum says he’s growing up, and that I can’t expect Conor to tell me everything now, the way he did when we were younger.

“Don’t you feel it’s pointless, this kind of surfing?” I asked. I wanted to probe what Conor was really thinking. “I mean, compared to surfing the currents, it’s nothing. Once you’ve been in Ingo, you can’t be satisfied with messing around on the surface of the water.”

Conor’s face was clouded. “I can’t live like that, Saph, neither properly belonging in one place or another,” he said. He sounded angry, but I don’t think he was angry with me. “I’ve got to try to belong where I am. It’s no good to keep on wanting things you can’t have—”

He broke off. I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“I know you miss Senara,” he went on.

“Home, you mean.”

“All right, home.”

“So, I miss home. That’s normal, Con!”

“But other people are living in our cottage now. We can’t go back there, so it’s no use hankering.”

“We could go back if we wanted. Mum could give the tenants notice.”

“But, Saph, Mum doesn’t want to. Can’t you see that? She was glad to get away from the cottage and the cove and everything that reminds her of Dad. Mum’s much happier here.”

I know that really. I’ve known it for weeks, but I haven’t wanted to put it into words.

“And there’s something else, too,” Conor goes on. “She wanted to get us away from Ingo.”

“Mum doesn’t know anything about Ingo! She doesn’t even know it exists.”

“We haven’t told her anything. But Mum’s not stupid. She picked up that something strange was going on down at the cove. She was frightened for us – especially for you. She even asked me if I knew why you were behaving so strangely.”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“Saph, why are you so suspicious all the time? Of course I didn’t. Mum doesn’t know about Ingo, but she senses something, and since Dad disappeared she’s not taking any chances. Maybe she’s right,” Conor adds, sounding thoughtful.

“Mum’s right? Right to take us away from everything? Adults know they can get away with doing what they want, but that doesn’t make it right! Conor, how can you say that? It’s like – it’s like betraying Ingo.”

“But if you are always on the side of Ingo, Saph, then you’re betraying something too. Granny Carne said you had Mer blood, but she didn’t tell you to forget that you’re human.”

I went up to my room. I didn’t want to talk about Ingo any more. I was afraid that Conor might say, “Forget about Ingo, Saph. Put it all behind you, and get on with real life.”

Yes, I do miss home. I only let myself think about it at night, before I go to sleep. I miss our cottage, the cove, the Downs, Jack’s farm. I miss watching the lights of the cottages shine out at night and knowing who lives in every one of them. I miss Dad even more in St Pirans, because not many people here ever knew him. They think Mum’s a single parent because she’s divorced, until we explain. Everyone in Senara knew Dad, right back to when he was a little boy, and they knew all our family. Even if Dad wasn’t there, he was still present in people’s memories.

At least I still go to the same school. Conor’s transferred to St Pirans school, but I didn’t want to. I don’t mind going on the school bus to my old school. I had to fight hard, though. Mum said that I should go to school here in St Pirans so that I’d make friends locally and “settle in”. Strangely enough it was Roger, Mum’s boyfriend, who supported me. He said, “Sapphire’s had a lot of changes. She needs some continuity in her life.” Mum listens to what Roger says, and to be honest, Roger never talks without thinking first.

That’s the trouble with Roger. It would be easier if I could just dislike him. Hate him, even. But he won’t let me. He keeps doing things which trick me into liking him, until I remember that I mustn’t like him because it is so disloyal to Dad. But it was Roger who made sure I got Sadie. And it’s Mum who talks about “settling in” all the time, not Roger. Roger says you have to give everything time, and that we’ve all got to cut each other some slack, take it easy and let things fall into place. Roger is very laid-back about most things, but he can be tough, too.

Settling in. I hate that phrase so much. Even worse are the adults who tell Mum that children are very adaptable and soon forget the past.

“Not Sapphire,” says Mum grimly when people tell her how quickly we’ll get used to our new life. “Her mind is closed.”

Is my mind closed? No. It’s wide open. I’m always waiting.

Every day I go down to the beach, to the water’s edge, and listen. When we first got here in September, there were still tourists on the beach. Naturally, Faro kept away. I didn’t really expect to see him. But if I was going to see him on any of the St Pirans beaches, it would be at Polquidden – the wildest beach. The storms crash in here from the southwest, and at low tide you can see the remains of a steam-ship wreck. I think Polquidden Beach is the closest that St Pirans comes to Ingo. The rocks at the side of the beach are black, heaped up into shapes like the head and shoulders of a man. Sometimes when I’m down there with Sadie, I catch myself scanning those rocks, looking for a shape like a boy with his wetsuit pulled down to his waist. A shape that is half-human, half-seal, but not quite like either of these.

Faro. He came last night. If my mind had been closed I would never have heard the voice of Ingo. That’s why I can’t settle into St Pirans. I mustn’t. I’ve got too much to lose.

“Saph! Saa-aaphh!”

I spin round. Sadie bounds forward. It’s Conor, running down the beach.

“There you are, Saph. I’ve been looking all over for you. Come on.”

“What’s happened?”

“Something amazing. Come quick—”

My heart leaps. I know what Conor’s going to tell me. We’re going back to Senara. Mum’s tired of St Pirans. Maybe… maybe she’s splitting up with Roger. We’re going home!

“There’s a pod of dolphins in the bay. They’re playing off Porthchapel, close in. Mal’s dad is taking the boat out, and he says we can both come if we get there quick.”

“What about Sadie?”

“We’ll drop her at the house on the way.”

Our house is in a street close to Polquidden, tucked away behind the row of cottages and studios which faces the beach. We leave Sadie there and race through the narrow streets. Even Conor’s out of breath. He ran all the way from Porthchapel so that I could get the chance of going out in the boat too.

“Thanks, Conor!”

“What?”

“For not just going out – in the boat – without me…”

“I wouldn’t go without you.”

We cross the square, go down the Mazey and we’re nearly there. Porthchapel Beach stretches ahead. There’s a little crowd of people, and a bright orange inflatable boat in the water.

“Come on, Saph! They’re ready to go.”

Mal’s Dad gives us a lifejacket each, and we fix them on while he starts the engine. Mal splashes thigh-deep in water, pushing the boat out.

“We’ll take her out in the bay a bit, then I’ll kill the engine so we don’t scare them,” says Mal’s dad. “Mind, they like boats. I reckon there’s about twelve of them in the pod, could be more. November – it’s late in the year to see them here.”

There are a dozen or more people at the water’s edge. More are hurrying down the slope from the putting green. I shade my eyes and scan the water. Porthchapel Beach is sheltered and the sea is always calmer here than on Polquidden. Suddenly I see what I’m looking for. The water breaks, and a dark, glistening shape breaches the water. The back of a dolphin, streaming with water as it leaps and then dives back into the sea. Another dolphin breaches, and then another. They swim in a half-circle, in tight formation. Suddenly five of them leap at once, as if the same thought came to them all at the same instant.

One dolphin is much smaller than the others. A young one, probably a calf born in the spring. It’s almost a baby, even in dolphin terms.

Dad taught me about dolphins. He loved them. He took loads of photographs of them. He knew the ones that came back year after year, but he said it was wrong to give dolphins human names and human characteristics. They know what their names are, he always said. They have their own language. They’re better communicators than we are.

The dolphin calf is swimming close to its mother. She’ll be taking him south soon, to warmer waters. Wherever the dolphins are, Ingo is there too, I remember that. Even when they show their backs above the water, or leap right through the skin into the Air, they still carry Ingo with them. So Ingo must be very close…

A pod is like a family of dolphins, and here they are, playing in full view of the humans whom they ought to fear. I count them. Six – eight – eleven – yes, Mal’s dad is right, there are twelve dolphins here. They don’t seem at all afraid of us. But they should be afraid. Why should they trust a boatload of humans?

They’re coming closer and closer inshore. People on the beach are waving and clapping. Mal’s father switches off the engine and lets the boat rock. A long swell moves under the water’s surface. Little waves slap the side of our boat. I sit forward, tense, waiting. Something is about to happen. Every sound seems to die away, even the noises of the sea and the people cheering the dolphins.

One of the dolphins leaps high out of the water.

“She’s seen us. She wants to talk to us,” I say under my breath to Conor. Mal glances at me.

Conor turns casually and murmurs in my ear. “Be careful, Saph.”

Mal’s dad stands up, legs braced for balance, camera in hand. “Should be able to get some good shots from here,” he says.

I was wrong. It isn’t quiet at all. Sound floods across the water in a wave. The dolphins are talking to each other. There are more than a dozen voices, weaving together, clicking and whistling, filling the sea with a net of sound. Cautiously, so that my weight balances that of Mal’s dad, I stand up too.

“Careful, Saph,” says Conor again.

They want to come to the surface. They want to talk to us. What is it? What’s happening?

“Beautiful,” says Mal’s dad. He has got his shots. “I’m going to blow up these images into posters.”

“Hush. Listen.”

“What is it?” asks Mal.

“Don’t talk. I can’t hear what they’re saying if you talk.”

“They do say dolphins have their own language,” agrees Mal’s dad.

And now I hear it. It’s like tuning into radio stations on an old-fashioned radio. The air waves wheeze and crackle. There’s a snatch of music, then something that might be words in a foreign language. One of the dolphins leaps so close to the boat that its wake catches us, our boat rocks and Mal’s dad has to struggle to keep his balance.

“This – is – amazing,” says Mal in a low, awestruck voice. “I never seen them come in so close. Look at him there.”

It’s not a male, it’s a female. An adult female with broad, shining sides and small, dark, intelligent eyes that look at me with recognition. Of course. Of course. I know her. I know the shape of her – her powerful fluke that drives her through the water, and her dorsal fin. I know what her skin feels like when I’m riding on her back with the sea rushing past me. I know her voice, and the power of the muscles beneath her skin.

“Hello,” I say. My voice makes only the feeblest click and whistle, like a baby trying to talk dolphin. She turns, swims away from the boat fast then turns again and rushes the boat. Three metres from us, she stops dead. Water surges and her eyes gleam, catching mine.

“That is just so am-az-ing,” says Mal again. Even though he’s Cornish, Mal likes to sound American, or maybe it’s meant to be Australian. He thinks it’s cool.

“I reckon she’s having a game with us,” says his father. “They’re playful creatures, dolphins.”

She’s not playing. You can tell that from her voice. Lots of other voices are breaking in, all of them dolphin voices, some close, some far away. They weave a net of urgent sound, but her voice rises above them all.

kommolek arvor trist arvor

truedhek arvor

arvor

kommolek

lowenek moryow

Ingo lowenek

The dolphin language weaves like music. I hear some of it, and then it slides away. It rushes over my mind, teasing and tickling. I can’t grasp it.

“Please help me. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

She is very close to the boat now. Her eyes look directly into mine, powering their intelligence into me. But I can’t decode it; I can’t get there. My brain fizzes with irritation, just as it does when I’m on the point of solving a puzzle in maths.

And then the connection breaks.

“Hey, Sapphire, that was fantastic fake dolphin language you were talking!” says Mal, and the dolphin turns and dives back to the pod. I think it’s Mal’s appreciation which is fake, but I say nothing. Conor is watching me, silently willing me to shut up and not draw any more attention to myself. And I certainly don’t want everyone in St Pirans to think that I’m a crazy girl who converses with dolphins.

I haven’t conversed with the dolphin. I didn’t understand her and I don’t think she understood me. My brain and tongue couldn’t break the barrier this time, into Mer. The dolphin was so close, struggling to make me hear her, but I couldn’t. Maybe moving to St Pirans has taken me farther from Ingo altogether. I’m losing what I used to know. At this rate I will never, ever speak full Mer. A wave of despair washes over me, and I huddle down into the bottom of the boat.

Mal tags along all the way back to our house. Conor asks him in, but I say nothing. Leave us alone, go away, I think. As if he picks up my thoughts, Mal says, “All right then, I’ll be getting along. See you, Conor. Um… see you, Sapphire.”

“Bye.”

As soon as we’re inside the house, Conor says, “You might be more friendly to Mal. He likes you.”

“He doesn’t even know me.”

“OK, he only thinks he likes you. But you don’t have to be so hard on him. You don’t have to dive away when anyone comes near you.”

I hug Sadie so I can hide my face in her neck. Conor isn’t going to be deflected.

“That dolphin, Saph.”

“Which dolphin?”

“You know which dolphin. The one you were talking to.”

“I couldn’t talk to her properly. I was trying really hard, but I couldn’t. I think it might have been because I was in the Air and she was in Ingo. Even when dolphins leap out of the water, they are still in Ingo, Faro told me that. Or maybe I’m just forgetting everything.”

It’s the first time Faro’s name has passed between us for weeks. Conor frowns.

“Why did the dolphins come? Was it a message from Faro?”

“No. It wasn’t anything to do with Faro, I’m sure of that. It wasn’t exactly a message from Ingo – it was about Ingo. The dolphins were trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quick enough. I couldn’t pick it up.”

“Did you want to?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I just said. Did you want to pick up their message?”

“Of course I did. It was Ingo, Conor, trying to communicate with me. With us,” I add hastily.

“You don’t have to pretend. It was you the dolphin was talking to. But what I want to know is, do you want to listen? Do you really want all that to begin again?”

“Conor, how could I not want it? It’s Ingo.”

Conor’s eyes search my face. A strange thought strikes me. Conor is trying to decode me, in the same way as I was trying to decode the language of the dolphins. But Conor and I belong to the same species. We’re brother and sister, for heaven’s sake. After a while, Conor says very quietly, “You could if you tried. But you don’t try, Saph.”

I struggle to explain. “It’s not like that. I don’t have a choice. I feel as if I’m only half here. Only half-alive. Our life here in St Pirans is all wrong for me. I feel as if I’m watching it on TV, not living it. Oh, Conor, I wish I was away in Ingo—”

“Don’t say that!”

“It’s true.”

“I know,” says Conor slowly and heavily. “You can’t help wanting what you want. I don’t blame you, Saph. I do know how you feel. It’s so powerful, so magical. It draws you. It draws me, too… But I think that if you try as hard as you can – if you really struggle – you can stop yourself taking the next step.”

“What next step?”

Conor shrugs. “I don’t know. I was thinking aloud.” His voice changes and becomes teasing instead of deadly serious. “But there’s something you haven’t thought of, Saph. You’re so keen to talk to dolphins that you’re forgetting Sadie.”

“What?”

“They don’t have dogs in Ingo, Saph.”

As if she’s heard him, Sadie pushes up close to me, nuzzling in. She always knows when things are wrong, and tries to make them better. Her brown eyes are fixed on my face. How could I have forgotten Sadie, even for a minute? They don’t have dogs in Ingo.

Maybe they do. Maybe they could. Sadie’s not like an ordinary dog. Could she come with me through the skin of the water, and dive into Ingo? I don’t know. I try to picture Sadie’s golden body swimming free, deep in Ingo, with her nostrils closed so that the water won’t enter them. But it doesn’t work: the picture I create in my mind looks like a seal swimming, not like Sadie at all.

Sadie whines. It’s a pleading, plaintive sound from deep in her throat. She puts her front paws up in my lap until her whiskers tickle my face.

“You’d never have got Sadie without Roger,” Conor goes on.” He really pressured Mum.”

I know that’s true, but I don’t feel like agreeing with Conor just now. Besides, why bring up Roger? Roger may have been the one who made sure I got Sadie, but he’s also taken Mum and split my family apart.

Sadie gazes at me reproachfully, as if begging me to admit that my version isn’t quite true. Who split your family apart, Sapphire? Was it Roger, or was it your own father, who loved you and Conor so much that he left you both without a backward look or even a note to let you know where he was going?

Your father, who has never seen you or spoken to you since.

Angry, bitter thoughts rise in my mind. I’m so used to loving Dad, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s also possible to hate him. Why did he go? What father who cared about his children would take his boat out in the middle of the night and never return? I can taste the bitterness in my mouth.

No, I’m not going to let that wave of anger drown me. I’m going to ride it. Dad disappeared for a reason. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to explain it to us yet.

Suddenly an upstairs window bangs. Our house here in St Pirans is tiny, even smaller than the cottage. Downstairs there’s one large living room, with the kitchen built into one end. Upstairs is larger because the house has something called a “flying freehold”. This sounds more exciting than it is. All it means is that part of this house is built above the house next door. We have three bedrooms and a bathroom. My room is so tiny that a single bed only just fits into it, but I don’t mind that at all because the room also has a round porthole window which hinges in the middle and swings open exactly like a real porthole on a ship.

Mine is the only window in the house from which you can see the sea. My bedroom is part of the flying freehold. I like it because it feels so separate from the rest of the house. I can’t hear Mum and Roger talking. I’m independent. When I kneel up on my bed and stare out to sea, I can imagine I’m on a ship sailing northeast out of Polquidden, out of the bay altogether, and into deep water—

The window bangs again, harder. The wind’s getting up. This is the season for storms. When storms come, salt spray will blow right over the top of the houses. I can’t wait to hear the sea roaring in the bay like a lion.

“Better shut your window, Saph.”

“Are you sure it’s my window that’s banging?”

“Yeah. No one else’s bangs like that. Your porthole’s much heavier than the other windows.”

Conor was right. The porthole has blown wide open. I kneel up on my bed and peer out. Beyond the jumble of slate roofs, there’s a gap in the row of studios and cottages through which I can glimpse the sea. The wind is whipping white foam off the tops of waves. Gulls soar on the thermals, screaming to each other. We’re very close to the water here. I’m used to living up on the cliff at Senara, and it still seems strange to live at sea level.

“I’m going down to the beach,” Conor shouts up the stairs.

“I’ll come with you.”

The wind’s really blowing up now. It pushes against us as we come round the corner of the houses and on to the steps.

“Do you think there’ll be a storm?”

Conor shakes his head. “No. The barometer’s fallen since this morning but it’s steady now. It’ll be a blow, that’s all.”

We jump down on to the sand. The cottages and studios are built in a line, right on the edge of the beach. The ground floor windows have big storm shutters that were hinged back when we first arrived, but now they are shut and barred. Some of the shutters are already half buried in sand that was swept up in the storms we had around the equinox, in late September

Sand could easily bury these houses. Imagine waking up one morning and finding the room dark because sand had blown right up to the top of your windows. Or maybe it wouldn’t be sand at all, but water. You could be looking at the inside of the waves breaking on the other side of the glass. And then the glass would break under the pressure, and the sea would rush in.

“I wonder how the sea always knows just how far to come, and no farther,” I say to Conor. “It’s so huge and powerful, and it rolls in over so many miles. But it stops at the same point every tide.”

“Not quite at the same point. Every tide’s different.”

“I know that. But the sea doesn’t ever decide to roll a mile inland. And it could if it wanted, couldn’t it? With all the power that’s in the sea, why does it stop here when it could swallow up the whole town?”

“Like Noah’s Flood.”

“What?”

“You remember. God sent a flood to drown the whole world and everything in it, because people were so evil. But Noah built his ark and he survived. And when the flood was over, God promised he’d never do it again.”

“Do you believe in God, Conor?”

“I don’t know. I tried praying once, but it didn’t work.”

“What did you pray about?” But I already know. Conor would have prayed for Dad to come back. I know, because I did the same. I prayed night after night for Dad to come back, after he disappeared. But he never did.

“You know, Saph.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Did you pray as well?”

“Yes. Every night for a long time.”

“But nothing happened.”

“No.”

“You know what the story says that the rainbow is? The Noah story, I mean.”

“No.”

“It’s a sign that there’ll never be another flood like the one that drowned the world.”

“Hey, Con, I forgot to tell you. I met a girl called Rainbow.”

But Conor isn’t listening. He’s shading his eyes and staring into the distance, out to sea. At first I think he’s looking for surfers, but then he grabs my arm. “There! Over there by the rock! Did you see her?”

“Who? Rainbow?” I ask, like an idiot.

“Elvira,” he says, as if that’s the obvious, only answer. As if the one person anyone could be looking for is Elvira.

He never talks about her. Never even says her name. But she must have been in his mind all the time, since the last time he spoke to her. That was just after Roger and his dive buddy Gray were almost killed, when they were diving at the Bawns.

I remember how Conor and Elvira talked to each other, once we’d got Roger and Gray safely into the boat. Conor was in the boat, leaning over the side, and Elvira was in the water. They looked as if there wasn’t anyone else in the world. So intent on each other. And then Elvira sank back into the water and vanished, and we took the boat back to land.

“I can’t see Elvira,” I say. “I can’t see anything.”

“There. Follow where I’m pointing. Not there – there. No, you’re too late. She’s gone.”

“Are you sure, though, Conor? Was it really Elvira?”

“It was her. I know it was her.”

“It could have been part of a rock.”

“It wasn’t a rock. It was her.”

“Or maybe a surfer—”

“Saph, believe me, it was Elvira. I couldn’t mistake her for anyone else.”

I still don’t think it was. I have no sense that the Mer are close. Neither Faro, nor his sister, nor any of the Mer. But in Conor’s mind, a glimpse of a rock or a seal or a buoy turns into a glimpse of Elvira.

“I keep nearly seeing her,” says Conor in frustration, “but then she always vanishes. I’m sure it was her this time.”

“You can’t be sure, Conor.”

“She was out in the bay earlier on, when the dolphins came.”

“Are you certain? I didn’t see anything.”

“She was there; I know she was. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned she was gone. I expect it was because Mal and his dad were there. Elvira wouldn’t risk them seeing her.”

“Do you think they could?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s only us who can see the Mer. Because of what Granny Carne said, you remember, about our blood being partly Mer. Maybe even if Faro or Elvira swam right up to the boat, Mal and his dad still wouldn’t see them.”

I remember the words Faro said to me: Open your eyes. Maybe that doesn’t just mean opening your eyelids and focusing. Maybe it’s to do with being willing to see things, even if your mind is telling you that they can’t possibly be real—

“Of course they’d see Elvira if she was there,” Conor argues. “You’re making the Mer sound like something we’ve imagined. Elvira’s as real as… as real as… Saph, why do you think she’s hiding? Why won’t she talk to me?”

“I don’t know.”

I don’t think I should say any more. Our roles seem to be reversing. Suddenly I’m the sensible, practical one, and Conor is the dreamer, longing for Ingo. No. Be honest, Sapphire. It’s not Ingo he’s longing for; it’s her. And maybe that’s what is making me so sensible and practical—

“We’d better go home, Conor. It’s starting to rain.”

“Saph, you said it!” Conor swings round to face me, smiling broadly.“You said it at last. I had a bet with myself how long it would be before you did.”

“Said what? What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you hear yourself? You said, ‘home’.”

CHAPTER THREE

“I’m just taking Sadie out, Mum!” I call up the stairs. It’s Sunday night. Mum and Roger are painting the skirting boards in Mum’s bedroom. They have stripped off the dingy cabbage-rose wallpaper, and now the bedroom walls are bare to the plaster. Our landlady says we can decorate as much as we like, and I’m not surprised. Her paint and wallpaper are not only hideous, but also old and covered in marks. When we got here, Mum wanted to paint all the rooms white.

“It’s a new start for all of us, Sapphy!”

I’ve painted my room blue and green, so that it looks like the inside of a wave. Our landlady, Mrs Eagle, has been up to see it, and she says it is ’andsome. Mrs Eagle is old. Her name doesn’t sound at all Cornish, but that’s because she married a man who came to St Pirans from upcountry during the War, she says. He died long ago. She must be about eighty, and she owns six houses in St Pirans, all of them full of cabbagey wallpaper, I expect. But the rent is low, Mum says, and that’s all that matters. Rents in St Pirans are terrible.

Mum appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s late, Sapphy. Can’t Conor take Sadie out?”

“He’s doing his maths homework.”

This is strictly true, but I haven’t asked him anyway, because I want to go out on my own. St Pirans is different when the streets are empty, and it’s dark, and there’s no one at all on the wide stretch of Polquidden Beach. I feel as if I can breathe then.

“All right, but don’t be long. Let me know when you’re back.”

Lucky it’s Mum, not Roger. Although he hasn’t known me very long, Roger is disturbingly quick to grasp when he is being told only a part of the truth, or indeed none of the truth at all.

The wind has died down over the weekend. It’s a cold, still night and the air smells of salt and seaweed. The moon is almost full, and it is riding clear of a thick shoal of clouds. I decide to take Sadie away from the streetlights on to the beach, where she can chase moon shadows.

I head down to Polquidden. The bay is full. It’s high tide. An exceptionally high tide. It’s not due to turn until eleven tonight, but look how far it’s come up the beach already. It reminds me of the autumn equinox, when the water came up right over the slipway and the harbour road.

There is still a strip of white sand left, but the water is rising quickly, like a cat putting out one paw and the next. Something else that surprises me is how quickly the sea has calmed. Surely the water should be much rougher than this after all the wind yesterday and today? The stillness is eerie.

Sadie doesn’t want to go down the steps. She puts her head down, with her legs braced apart.

“It’s all right, Sadie, you’re allowed on the beach now, remember?” I give a gentle tug on her lead, but she won’t budge.

“Sadie, you’re being very annoying…”

I am longing to be down on the sand. I pull a little harder, but she digs in her claws. I don’t want to force her.

“All right, then, Sadie. Wait here a minute.”

I loop her leash around a metal post. Sadie whines. There’s enough moonlight for me to see her face. She is pleading with me to stay, but I’m going to harden my heart this time. I’ve got to go down to the beach. The urge is so powerful that I ignore Sadie’s voice, give her a quick hug and say, “Stay, Sadie!” and then hurry down the steps.

There’s a sound of running water on my right. It’s the stream that tumbles down the rocks on to the beach. Children play in it and make dams in summer. The water glints in the moonlight as it pours over the inky-black rock. The sea is still rising. Why does it look so powerful tonight, even though there are no wild waves, no foam, no pounding of surf?

There’s not much beach left. I walk to my right, towards a spine of rocks that juts from the glistening sand. A wave flows forward, and I leap up on to the rocks to keep my trainers dry. But I’m still not quite high enough, because now the water is swirling at my heels. I scramble up again on to dry rock, and look back. The bay is full of moonlight and water. The sea is lapping around my rock already.

Sapphire, you idiot, you’re cut off! But it’s not very deep yet. Even in the dark I’ll be able to wade back easily before the tide comes in any farther. I’ll just take my trainers off. But I’d better be quick; look how the water’s rising—

“You’ll have to swim,” says a voice behind me. I start so violently that I almost fall off the rock. A strong hand grasps my wrist.

“It’s me, Sapphire.”

“Faro.”

“Yes.”

Suddenly I’m angry with him. “Why don’t you and Elvira come and see us in daylight, like you used to?” I ask sharply. “Conor keeps looking for Elvira. Where is she?”

“Here and there,” he says, with a gleam of laughter in his voice. “Around and about. Just like me.”

“Don’t laugh at me!” I say angrily. “I hate it when people are here one moment and then they just—”

I swallow the words I was going to say.

“I didn’t disappear,” says Faro seriously. “I won’t ever disappear. I promise you. But in St Pirans it’s more difficult for you to see us. Even at night it’s not easy. There are so many people. And besides, St Pirans is not our place.”

“I know that,” I say gloomily. “It’s not mine, either.”

“But you’re human. That’s what humans do, isn’t it? They crowd together in towns and cities. They love it when everything is covered over with concrete and Tarmac.”

Faro brings out the word Tarmac with pride. He loves to impress me with his knowledge of the human world.

“You’ve been talking to the gulls again. Do you even know what Tarmac is, Faro? Or concrete?”

“Of course I do. It’s stuff that humans pour on the earth to stop it breathing.”

The moonlight is strong enough for me to see his face clearly. “Faro, have you grown older?”

I know that their time runs differently from ours. Is it possible that Faro has grown a year, when I’ve only grown a few months? Or maybe he only looks older because of the expression on his face.

“You can enter Ingo in darkness, even from here, Sapphire. You already know that.”

A tremor of fear and anticipation runs through me. “But I can’t come to Ingo now, Faro. Mum’s expecting me back with Sadie. If I’m away more than half an hour at most, she’ll go crazy.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Time is hardly moving at all tonight.” He says it casually, as if saying that a boat is hardly moving across the water.

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. It’s a fortunate night, Sapphire. Come to Ingo now, and you’ll be back almost before you’ve gone. Look up at the moon.”

I stare up at the moon. The clouds look as if they are flying away from its bright surface. Moonlight bathes my face with silver.

“You’re already in Ingo, Sapphire,” says Faro.

He is right. Deep in my heart, I’ve already left the Air. The powerful, silent swell of the tide is covering my feet, my knees, my waist. The next pulse of water lifts me from the rock, and swallows me into the sea.

Into Ingo. I let out my breath, and it hardly hurts at all. I am breathing without breathing, my body absorbing oxygen from the rich water. My hair flows upward, then swirls down around my face. I push it aside. Ingo. I am in Ingo again, just as I was two nights ago. There’s a path of moonlight striking down deep into the water. I plunge forward and follow it.

How strongly I can swim in Ingo. My strokes are far more powerful than anything I can do in the Air. Below me, moonlight catches the glisten of the white sand on the sea bed. The water doesn’t feel cold. It feels like – it feels like…

Like home. Like the place where I am meant to be. I open my eyes wide and turn my head, and there is Faro swimming alongside me. The underwater moonlight shines on his tail.

“Look!” He points down. There’s a shadowy hulk, half buried in the sea bed. It’s not a reef, or a dead whale, or anything that belongs to Ingo. It’s something that belongs to Air. Metal. Yes, that’s what it is. A metal ship, half rotted away with rust, sailing to nowhere.

“I know what that is,” I say. “It’s the wreck of the Ballantine. You can see her funnels from the beach at low tide.”

“The wind drove her onshore and she was broken up,” says Faro. “We called and called to warn the sailors, but they couldn’t hear us.”

“Faro, the wreck happened seventy years ago. Why do you always talk about history as if you were there?”

“Open your mind, Sapphire. Let’s talk to each other like we did last summer.” He saw my memories, and I saw his. That’s what the Mer can do, because Mer minds are not quite separate from one another, as human minds are.

“Do you want to see what happened?” asks Faro. He floats close to me. “Look at the Ballantine, Sapphire.”

I gaze into the shadowy depths. We could swim down with a few strong strokes, and touch the jagged metal sides of the drowned ship.

I don’t want to. The wreck scares me. It must be terrifying to be driven ashore, helpless, caught by storm and tide. To know that your ship is going to smash on the rocks and break up, and that the water is too deep and wild to swim for shore.

The wind is beginning to whistle. I hear voices, crying out in terror. The Ballantine surges forward on a huge wave, and crashes on to the hidden reef. The entire ship judders with the shock. Metal shrieks and rips and grinds as the side of the Ballantine is torn open and the sea pours into her belly. Then the jumble of sound is pierced by human screams.

“No, Faro! No! I don’t want to hear any more!”

Immediately, the window of memory closes. I’m back in the calm moonlit water, with Faro.

“You saw it, little sister,” he says with satisfaction.“I wasn’t sure if you would have lost your power, living in the town.”

I shudder. “How could that wreck be in your memory, Faro? You’re not old enough to remember it.”

“The memory was passed to me by my ancestors, and so I can pass it on to you.”

“I wish you hadn’t. I don’t want those memories in my mind. Let’s get away from the wreck.”

“We can go right away if you want. Will you come deeper into Ingo with me, Sapphire? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who?” My heart leaps. Perhaps – perhaps – could Faro possibly know someone who knows where Dad is?

“My teacher.”

“Oh.” I try hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but Faro picks it up at once.

“He is a great teacher,” he says, his voice proud, ready to take offence.

“I’m sure he is. Um… What’s his name?”

“Saldowr.”

“I can’t imagine going to school under the sea. What’s it like?”

Faro laughs. “We don’t go to school. We learn things when we need to learn them.”

“I see…” Faro sounds so sure that his way is the right way “…but wouldn’t it be easier just to go to school and learn everything in one place?”

“I’ve heard about ‘schools’. Thirty of you young humans together, with only one old human to teach you. All day long in one room.”

“We move to different classrooms for different lessons,” I point out.

“Hmm,” says Faro.

“We go outside at break and dinner time.”

“Human life is very strange,” says Faro slowly and meditatively. “All the young ones together, out of sight in these ‘schools’. Do you like it, Sapphire?”

“We have to do it. It’s the law.”

Faro nods thoughtfully. “I would like to see it. I expect the rooms are very beautiful, or none of you would stay. But, Sapphire, come with me to visit my teacher. He wants to meet you.”

“How far is it?”

“Not far,” says Faro carelessly. “A little beyond the Lost Islands, that’s all. We can be there and back by morning.”

“Morning!” All of a sudden the image of Sadie floods into my mind. Sadie, tied to an iron pole. She thinks I’m coming back in a few minutes. She’ll be worried already, pointing her nose towards the beach and rising tide, whining anxiously. I see her as clearly as I saw the inside of Faro’s memory. Usually the human world is cloudy when you‘re in Ingo, but Sadie’s image is bright and sharp. “I’ve got to get back, Faro.”

“Don’t worry about the time, Sapphire. Ingo is strong tonight. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You felt it. You slipped into Ingo almost before you knew it, and it didn’t hurt at all. Your Mer blood knows that Ingo is strong. Not only strong but happy. Listen, listen, Sapphire. You can hear that Ingo is lowenek.”

The word beats in my memory. Who said that to me? Of course, it was the dolphins. But they didn’t sound as if they were talking about happiness. It sounded urgent, dangerous. Like a warning.

“I have to go,” I say. “I must get back to Sadie. I left her tied to a pole by her leash.”

Faro somersaults through the moonlit water. His body spins in a pattern of light and shadow. When he’s the right way up again he says, “It seems to me that the one who is tied by a leash is you.”

“Me!”

“Yes. You’ve always got to go home. You stay in the shallows. You want to come to Ingo, but as soon as you’re here you want to go back again. Saldowr needs to speak to you. He has something to tell you.”

I’m about to snap back, when I realise that Faro is sharp because he is hurt. He offered to take me to his teacher and I refused. The offer must have been important to him. Faro has never spoken to me about his father or his mother. Perhaps he has no parents, and this teacher means a great deal to him.

“I’m sorry, Faro. I’d like to meet your teacher very much,” I say, “but I can’t tonight, not when I’ve left Sadie tied up.”

“Hm,” says Faro, sounding a little mollified by my apology. “We’ll see. Saldowr is not like a tame dog, Sapphire. You can’t leave him tied up and return when you feel like it.”

I stumble out of the water, dripping wet, into the chill of the night. The sea is slapping up to the very top step. As I watch, another wave pounces and the steps are completely submerged.

I shiver again, uncontrollably. Quick, quick, I must get home. My fingers shake violently as I untie Sadie. She presses against me, her body warm against mine, and her rough tongue licks my hands. But Sadie is trembling too. She’s afraid. Cold makes my voice stammer as I try to reassure her.

“I’m ssssorry I left you sssuch a long time… I didn’t mean to ssscare you, Sadie… Please, Sadie darling, stop shaking like that.”

I slide my key into the front door lock, creep up the stairs and dive into the bathroom. I strip off my wet clothes, jump into the shower and turn it on full. The hot water prickles like needles on my cold skin. I stand there, eyes shut, soaking up the steamy heat. In Ingo I’m never cold. I’ll put my clothes in the washing machine, stuff my trainers with newspaper and leave them by the boiler so that they’re dry by morning—

“Sapphy! Sapphire! Is that you in there?”

“Yes, Mum!”

“You were quick. I hope Sadie got a proper walk. Don’t use all the hot water, now.”

I was quick, was I? So Faro was right. Time is hardly moving at all in Ingo tonight.

“Out in a minute, Mum!” I call.

The next morning I come down to find Sadie lying full-length on the living room rug. Mum’s making coffee at the kitchen end of the room. She looks up quickly as I come in.

“Sapphy, I don’t want you to worry, but Sadie doesn’t look too good.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. She’s not herself.”

I kneel beside Sadie, and she thumps her tail languidly against the floor. Her eyes are dull. Even her coat seems to have lost its shine. But she was fine last night. I’m sure she was…

A cold feeling of dread steals into my heart, mixed with responsibility and guilt. I left Sadie tied up to a post. I went into Ingo without thinking about her. I might have been gone hours. But I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I was back almost before she had time to miss me.

Time. Is dog time the same as human time? Maybe my absence seemed endless to Sadie. Maybe she was afraid I’d drowned. Could Sadie possibly have guessed where I was? If she sensed that I’d left her behind, along with everything in the Air, to plunge into a strange world where Sadie couldn’t survive for more than a minute, how frightened she must have been. She must have thought I’d abandoned her.

“Shall we go for a walk, Sadie?” I say, testing her. But she doesn’t rise to the challenge. There’s no joyous leap to her feet, no skittering of paws on the wooden floor, no gleam of delight in her eyes. Sadie stares at me sadly, as if to say, “Why do you ask me now, when you know I can’t come?”

“She’s ill, Mum. She’s really ill.” I can’t help panic breaking into my voice, even though I don’t want to alarm Sadie.

Mum leaves the stove, comes over and stares down at Sadie, frowning. “No, she’s not right, is she?” she says at last. “I wish Roger was here. He’d know what to do. But he’s up at Newquay today.”

“I’ll take her to the vet.”

“The vet? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s that bad, Sapphy. She’s only just become ill. We’ll let it wait a day or so, and see how she gets on.”

“You’re only saying that because the vet is expensive!” I burst out. “I’ll pay for it. I’ve still got most of my birthday money. That’ll be enough.”

“Sapphy, do you really think I’m the sort of mother who’d make you spend your birthday money on taking the dog to the vet? Do you?”

Mum sounds really upset.

“I don’t care. There’s nothing else I want to spend it on.” But I know I’m being unfair. Mum doesn’t see the danger, because she doesn’t know what Sadie experienced last night.

“Listen,” says Mum soothingly, “stop worrying, Sapphy. If Sadie needs a vet, then she’ll go to a vet. But we’ll wait and see until tomorrow.”

“But she’s ill, Mum. Look at her. She looks as if all her life’s gone out of her.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” says Mum briskly. “You do exaggerate, Sapphire. There’s Conor coming down now. Maybe he’ll be able to convince you.”

But Conor is in no mood for long discussions about Sadie’s welfare. He is giving an IT presentation at school today, and mentally he is already there, standing in front of the class. He barely glances at Sadie. “Calm down, Saph. Sadie’s tired, that’s all.”

“Tired!”

“Got to go, Mum. Later, Saph.”

“Is that the time?” Mum exclaims. “Oh, no! Why do I keep getting these breakfast shifts?”

Conor grabs his bag, guitar, IT folder, bottle of water and is out of the door.

“The bus, Sapphire! You’re going to miss the school bus!”

“It’s OK, Mum, you go to work. I’ve still got to make my packed lunch. The bus doesn’t leave for ten minutes.”

The door slams, and Mum’s gone.

Ten minutes. I open the fridge door and look inside. Milk, eggs, yoghurt… I stare at them. What did I open the fridge for?

Wake up, Sapphire, you’re supposed to be making your packed lunch. But just then Sadie whines, very quietly and pitifully. I slam the fridge door and hurry to her side. In a second, the decision is made. I’m not going to school. I am taking Sadie to the vet. I know where his surgery is – on Geevor Hill. My birthday money is in the chest under my bed. Forty pounds. If the vet sees that Sadie’s sick, surely he can do something for forty pounds?

“Come on, Sadie. Come on, now, good girl. We’re going to see someone who’ll make you feel better.”

I clip on Sadie’s collar and tug gently. She clambers awkwardly to her feet, and pads slowly across the floor to the front door.

I look up and down the street. No one’s about. “Come on, Sadie.” We make our way very slowly along the beach road and then up to the corner by the graveyard, where Geevor Hill begins. The vet’s surgery is halfway up. Sadie pants like a dog ten times her age. Her head droops to her chest.

“Why ent you at school, my girl?”

Oh, no, it’s Mrs Eagle. She’ll tell Mum.

“Inset day,” I say quickly.

“Never had they in my day,” says Mrs Eagle critically. “You belong to be at school on a working day.”

I smile brightly, and slip past her. “Just taking Sadie for a walk, Mrs Eagle.”

“Don’t look to me like she wants to walk up Geevor; looks to me like she wants to go back downlong,” grumbles Mrs Eagle. I escape as fast as I can, almost dragging Sadie.

The vet’s surgery is the one with the blue door. But on the blue door there is a laminated notice: SURGERY HOURS, ST PIRANS: TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS ONLY. 10 A.M. – 5 P.M.

It is Monday. No surgery. Sadie looks up at me in mournful exhaustion. All at once I know in every fibre of my body that Mum and Conor are wrong. Sadie’s condition is serious. There isn’t time to wait for tomorrow’s surgery. Sadie needs help now, and there’s only one person who might be able to give it. Granny Carne. Everyone round Senara goes to Granny Carne when they have a trouble they can’t solve. I think of Granny Carne’s amber, piercing eyes, and the power in her. She’ll know what’s wrong with Sadie. She’ll help her, if anyone can.

At the same moment I hear the growl of a bus engine, changing gear at the bottom of the hill. I look back and there is a shabby blue bus with SENARA CHURCHTOWN on the destination board. Home. I stick out my hand.

The bus lumbers past without stopping. The driver turns to me and yells something I can’t hear, then as he gets towards the top of the hill I see he’s indicating left, pulling in at the bus stop to wait for me.

“Can’t stop on the hill, see,” he explains as I climb up the steps, pushing Sadie ahead of me. “Lucky for you I’m ahead of myself this morning.”

“Thanks for waiting.”

“I could see that poor old dog couldn’t hardly get up Geevor.”

I find my fare, and go to the back of the bus. He thought Sadie was old. That must be because she looks so weak.

I flop down on the back seat, with Sadie at my feet. The driver pulls out on to the road again, and picks up speed. On we go past the grey stone houses, past the rugby ground and the caravan site, past the farm at the edge of town and to the crossroads where the school bus turns left. But this bus turns right, on to the open road that leads across the moors to Senara. A streak of pale, wintry sun lights up the hills. The landscape opens wide and beautiful around us. I take a deep breath of freedom. No crowds, no busy streets. Just a narrow grey road rising over the wild country towards home.

CHAPTER FOUR

When the old blue bus drives off into the distance, leaving me at the roadside with Sadie, the reality of what I’ve done hits me. This is the stop before Senara Churchtown, and the nearest stop to Granny Carne’s cottage. There are no houses here, only the road and the hills covered in bracken, furze and heather. There’s a wide black scar across the hills, from a gorse fire.

No one is about. The road is grey and empty. But that’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. If I walk along the road a little way, there’s a footpath that leads up to Granny Carne’s cottage.

“Come on, Sadie,” I say encouragingly. “It’s not far now.” But this time Sadie doesn’t respond to my voice. She slumps on the rough grass between the road and the ditch, drops her head on to her paws and closes her eyes.

“Sadie!”

Very slowly, with what looks like a great effort, Sadie opens her eyes. They stare at me dully, without recognition. After a few blank moments, her lids close again.

Terror runs through me like an electric shock. I think she’s dead. I throw myself down on the grass beside her and press my ear to her side. I can’t hear anything. She’s gone. It is so terrible that I can’t move or speak. And then, very slowly, her ribs move under her skin. There’s a rusty, tearing sound in her throat, as if she’s trying to breathe through barbed wire. But she’s breathing. She’s alive.

It’s all my fault. I should never have forced her up Geevor Hill. Now she can’t even walk. She can hardly breathe. What am I going to do? I look wildly up and down the road. No one’s in sight. A sparrow hops out of a furze bush, cocks its head at me, then hops away again. “Sadie!” I try to lift her into my lap. She’s heavy, limp and hard to move. But she’s warm. She’s alive. “Hold on, Sadie. I’ll get help for you. I promise. Please, please don’t die.”

But how can I get help? If only I had a mobile. But even if I had, it would be no good here. Everyone in Senara complains that they can’t get a signal. Phone box. There’s a phone box down by the church. How long would it take me to run there? Ten minutes maybe, and then I’d have to make the call, and then another ten minutes back. That’s too long.

If I leave her now, she’ll think I’ve abandoned her again, and she’ll give up.

“Oh, Sadie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” I hug her tight, trying to pour life into her. She can’t die like this – for nothing. She wasn’t even ill yesterday. She was so full of life.

I put my hand gently on her head, and stroke her as reassuringly as I can. “Hold on. You’re going to be all right.” But for the first time ever, Sadie twists her head away from my hand. Feebly, she struggles to heave herself off my lap.

“Get up, Sapphire. Stand back from her. Give her air,” says a voice behind me.

“Granny Carne!” My words spill over each other in a rush of relief. Granny Carne will know what to do, better even than a vet. “Help me, please help me, I was coming to find you. Sadie’s so ill, I think she’s dying—”

“Don’t say that word in her hearing. You’ll frighten the spirit out of her. Stand back and let me see her.”

Reluctantly, I unwind my arms and settle Sadie gently back on the cold grass. Granny Carne stands very still, looking down at Sadie. She looks more like a tall tree than ever, with Sadie in her shelter. Her fierce eyes gleam. I can’t bear to see Sadie lying like that, so sick and so alone. I start to move—

“No, Sapphire, stand right back. You can’t help her.”

“I can’t stand here and let her die!”

“No one’s letting anyone die, my girl. But what Sadie needs now is Earth power. See the way she lies there, so close to the earth? You ever seen a mother put her baby against her skin when it’s sick, my girl?”

“No.”

“These days everyone learns so much at school that they end up knowing nothing. But Sadie knows.”

“I was going to bring her up to your cottage, but it was too far. She couldn’t walk any more.”

“Give her time. She’ll come round.”

For a long while it looks as if Granny Carne isn’t doing anything. She stands there, not moving, not taking her eyes off Sadie, watching every breath Sadie takes. Suddenly there’s a small, chirruping whistle. One of the sparrows in the furze, maybe. But the whistle comes again, more strongly and sweetly, and I know it’s not a sparrow. It’s Granny Carne. The sound is coming from her lips, and she’s whistling to Sadie. The whistling grows louder, louder. A shiver passes over Sadie’s supine body. And another. Big shivers that shake her whole body, as if she’s suddenly realised that she is freezing to death. Granny Carne’s whistling grows until my ears ring with it. Sadie shivers once more, from her nose to the tip of her tail. Her body looks different. She’s not slumped so much. One of her ears comes forward, as if she’s listening. Her tail thumps feebly against the grass. Slowly, with great difficulty, she opens her eyes again, and this time her eyes meet Granny Carne’s. They shine with recognition for a second before they close.

“Sadie!”

“She’ll do now,” says Granny Carne. “Give her time.”

“Is she better?”

“Not by a long way,” says Granny Carne gravely. “Her spirit went a long way from us, on a cold journey.”

“Where did she go?”

“Ingo put her in fear. The spirit in her shrank away from it. It was like putting water on a fire. This is no ordinary illness, Sapphire. I believe you know that. Ingo came too close to her. A creature of the Earth like Sadie can’t survive there.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m not blaming you, my girl. But look at yourself. You’ve got Ingo written all over you today. Don’t tell me you haven’t been there. Don’t tell me you haven’t got Ingo’s music in your ears again. And where you go, that dog’s bound to follow, since she’s yours.”

“But I didn’t take her with me, Granny Carne. I left her up at the top of the steps.”

“That’s no protection for a dog like Sadie. She followed you in her heart. She went in your footsteps until she could go no more. She near burst her heart with fear for you.”

Sadie is struggling to her feet. I rush to support her.

“No, let her stand. She’s best alone for now. Give her a few minutes and we’ll be able to walk her up to mine.”

I don’t ask any more questions. To tell the truth, I’m a little afraid of Granny Carne today. She knows too much. She makes me have thoughts I don’t want to have. I know everyone comes to her with their troubles, but maybe they don’t always like the answers they get from her. She won’t let me touch Sadie. Surely Granny Carne can’t believe I’d ever hurt Sadie?

“Yes, she’s been on a long journey,” repeats Granny Carne. “You ever seen a man near frozen after he comes out of the sea half drowned, when he’s been clinging to a piece of wreckage for hours? You don’t sit him by the fire. You let him warm gently, so his body can bear it. Sadie will find her way back to life, but she needs time. She needs the Earth around her, Sapphire. The breath of Ingo is too strong for her, in her present state.”

“How’s your Conor?” Granny Carne goes on as we set off walking slowly up the footpath. Sadie pads along cautiously, as if she’s not sure yet that her paws will hold her up.

“He’s fine.”

“Happy in St Pirans?”

“I don’t know. I think so. He wants to be happy there, anyway.”

“And you don’t?”

“It’s not so much that I don’t. It’s that I can’t. Granny Carne, I didn’t mean to hurt Sadie.”

“I know that. But it’s hard to see a way clear in all this. I don’t see it myself yet. Only that there’s a reason why you and Conor are as you are. It’s for a purpose. Could be that a time’s coming when there’ll be a purpose in the two of you having this double blood. There’ve been others. The first Mathew Trewhella was one – he that left the human world and went away with the Mer. Your own father was another. But I never knew any with the Mer blood and the human divided so equal as it is in you. Half and half, you are. It must be the way the inheritance has come down to you. It weakens in one generation, and grows strong in the next.”

“Do you mean that Conor and I are exactly half Mer and half human?”

“Only you, my girl. Only you. The Mer blood is not near as strong in Conor, and it never will be, for he fights it down every day.”

“I know.” Now I understand better what Conor meant when he said, If you really struggle, you can stop yourself taking the next step.

“Conor doesn’t want to be half and half, does he?” I ask. “He wants not to be Mer at all.”

“Maybe he does.”

Except for Elvira, I think.

“He fights it,” says Granny Carne. “Your father didn’t fight so hard. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“No.”

“You’re old enough to know now, my girl, that things don’t just happen to us. Somewhere in us we agree to them. We let things happen, though even those closest to us might think we’re still fighting.”

I feel cold and tired. I know what she’s saying. She’s telling me that my father wasn’t snatched away against his will. And I do know that, really, after all these months. It is seventeen months since he left us now, and his boat was found empty and upturned, wedged in the rocks. Everyone else thinks he drowned. Only Conor and I keep the faith.

For a long time I could convince myself that some mysterious force was preventing Dad from communicating with us, but I can’t make myself believe this any more. If Dad wanted to speak to me, he would.

“Nearly there,” says Granny Carne. “She did well.”

“Brave girl,” I say. “Brave girl, Sadie,” and I make my voice warm and full of praise, because she deserves it, even if my heart is cold and tired. Granny Carne has been walking between Sadie and me, but now she steps aside. Sadie presses up to me, the way she always does. I stroke her warm golden back. Minute by minute, Sadie’s coming back to herself. Already her fur feels sleek and her eyes are brighter. She turns her head and looks at me as if to say, “It’s all right, I’m not going to leave you.” Why are dogs so forgiving? My eyes are prickly, but I‘m not going to cry. Sadie hates it when I cry.

Here’s the grey stone cottage that looks like part of the granite hill. Granny Carne pushes open the door and we go inside. There’s just one large room downstairs, painted white, with a stove to heat it and a few splashes of brilliant colour from the tablecloth and cushions. The room is very simple, but not bare. Everything looks worn smooth by years and years of use. I remember the last time I came here, with Conor, that hot summer day when Granny Carne first told us about our Mer inheritance. It was the day when Conor talked to the bees. That seems a long time ago.

“I’ll bring down an old blanket for Sadie,” says Granny Carne. “She’ll need to sleep the night here, to get her strength back.”

Granny Carne disappears upstairs before I can protest. Sadie can’t stay here overnight. We’ve got to get back before Mum realises I didn’t go to school today.

“You’ll be staying over too, Sapphire,” says Granny Carne, returning with a folded blanket. It doesn’t look like an old blanket. It’s made of thick, creamy wool and it looks as if it came off Granny Carne’s own bed. She lays it down by the stove for Sadie.

“I can‘t stay, Granny Carne. I’ve got to get back before it’s dark. Mum thinks I’m at school—”

“Sadie needs you here.”

“But Mum—”

“I’ll get a message to her. Soon as you’re settled, I’ll walk down to the churchtown and speak to Mary Thomas. She’s got a telephone.” Granny Carne says this as if telephones are something rare and undesirable. “Your mother will know you’re safe enough with me.”

Granny Carne has two bedrooms upstairs: a large one, and a smaller room which she calls the slip room. That’s where I’m going to sleep. I’m resigned to it now: I can’t leave Sadie. There’s a china washstand with a jug of water that Granny Carne has brought in from the trough where the spring rises. There’s no bathroom. When Granny Carne wants a bath, she heats water on the stove and fills an enamel bathtub, which hangs from a hook on the wall. It’s quite small with a shelf inside to sit on. Granny Carne calls it a hip bath. Try it yourself, my girl, she says, but I say that a wash will do me fine. There’s no toilet in the house either. The outside toilet, which Granny Carne calls the privy, is so cold that I hope I don’t have to go at night. She hasn’t even got any toilet paper, only cut-up squares of the Cornishman stuck on a nail.

It gets dark early. Sadie doesn’t want to eat, but she drinks some water. Granny Carne has gone down to the churchtown, so Sadie and I are alone in the cottage. I wonder what Mary Thomas will think when Granny Carne tells her we are staying here? As far as I know, nobody has ever stayed overnight at Granny Carne’s cottage. People respect Granny Carne, but they’re also afraid of her because of all that she knows. There are a lot of stories about the way she can see into the future, and heal wounds that ordinary medicine can’t cure. I don’t mean sicknesses like cancer; I mean sicknesses that are inside people’s minds. Granny Carne has a power with those.

I still don’t know whether or not I really believe that Granny Carne can see into the future. I’m sure that she can see and understand things which ordinary people can’t. She has gifts that come from the Earth. Years ago she might have been caught and burned as a witch, because she knows too much. That’s what Dad always said.

I follow Granny Carne in my mind as she goes down the path to the churchtown, and then as she takes the road round to the track which leads down to our cottage and Mary’s. Our cottage will have lights on in the windows by now. It gets darks early in November. Granny Carne knows her way in the dark. I’m glad that I don’t have to walk past there and see other people living in my home. I wonder if the curtains are the same? Those red checked curtains that Mum made when we were little. They always looked so welcoming with the light shining through them when we came home from school on winter afternoons.

I wonder if the people who are living in our cottage ever go down to our cove? I wonder if they will ever catch sight of Faro or Elvira sitting on the rocks by the mouth of the cove, where Conor and I first met them? I hope they don’t. I’m not just being selfish in hoping that. If they see the Mer, their lives won’t ever be the same again.

But Granny Carne’s cottage is at least two miles from the sea. I don’t know how far inland the power of Ingo can reach, but Granny Carne’s cottage definitely belongs to the Earth. Maybe that’s why Sadie is sleeping so peacefully by the stove. I don’t feel peaceful, though. I’m going to stay because of Sadie, but I wish I didn’t have to. I’m not at home here.

It takes a long time to get ready for the night at Granny Carne’s. I help her to carry in more wood from the stack in her woodshed, and fill the scuttle full of coal. The stove’s got to be kept going through the night. Before Granny Carne goes to bed, she riddles it out with an iron poker with a hook on its end. By the time Granny Carne finishes, the hook glows red. I help to shovel out the hot ash into the ash pan. Granny Carne says ash is good for the earth, and she’ll spread it on her vegetable patch tomorrow, when the ash is cold. She stokes up the stove with logs and a thick layer of fine coal, and closes the damper on the front.

Suddenly I remember something. “We had a stove like this when I was little, before Mum got storage heaters.”

“That was the way everywhere, before the electric came.” Granny Carne talks as if electricity has only just been invented. “They’ll never bring the electric all the way up here, but I don’t miss it,” Granny Carne continues. She has lit the paraffin lamps. I like the light they give. It’s soft and yellow and it gives warm colour to the white walls. She uses paraffin lamps downstairs and candles upstairs. “You don’t need a lot of light to sleep by,” she says.

The cottage smells of candles and wood smoke, paraffin and stone. There are big shadows in the corners of the room. It’s not a frightening place exactly, but it has too much power to be comfortable. I’m glad Sadie’s here. If I wake up in the night I’ll hear her breathing, and if I say her name she’ll wake up at once.

Granny Carne gets slowly to her feet from where she’s been kneeling by the stove. She mutters something, too quietly for me to hear.

“Now he’ll sleep through the night,” she says. “Praise fire and he’ll serve you well.”

“Does your fire ever go out?”

“He’s been alive as long as I have, my girl. Sometimes he’s burned low, but he’s never died.”

“Granny Carne? I ask hesitantly. “How long have you – I mean – how many years—”

She looks at me with her arms folded. Her fierce owl eyes are bright with amusement. She knows exactly what I want to know, because it’s what everybody in Senara has asked themselves, one time or another. How old is Granny Carne? How many years has she been living up there in her cottage, with people from the village coming up to see her privately when they have troubles to which they can’t find an answer? Years… decades… or even centuries?

“I’m as old as my tongue and a little bit older than my teeth, Sapphire,” she says. “Does that answer your question?”

“No,” I say boldly.

“You want more?”

“Yes.”

“You ask a lot of me, Sapphire.” Her voice has grown harsher. Her tone changes. She is no longer an old woman, and I’m no longer a child. I stare into her eyes. People’s eyes don’t change.

But everything else is changing. As I watch, the wrinkled brown skin around Granny Carne’s eyes grows smooth and soft. Colour steals into her grey hair, which breaks loose from its knot and ripples lustrously over her shoulders. Long, dark brown hair, the colour of the darkest earth, and with red lights in it like fire. Her lips are red and full. Her body grows straight and slender as a young birch tree.

“Granny Carne,” I whisper. But there’s no Granny Carne in the room. The young woman’s lips part in a smile, and then she lays a finger on her lips to silence me. This is Earth magic, and it’s too potent for me. I shut my eyes. When I open them again, the woman like a birch tree has disappeared, and Granny Carne is standing there.

“Where’s she gone?”

“There’s been no one in this room but our two selves, Sapphire. All I’m showing you is that time isn’t what you think it is.”

“But how can you be old and young at the same time?”

Granny Carne smiles. “Ask anyone with grey hair. Ask Mrs Eagle if she feels any different inside from how she felt when she was eighteen. There’s little difference.”

“Do you know Mrs Eagle?”

“I’ve known Temperance Eagle from a girl. Temperance Pascoe as she was then. Wild, she was,” goes on Granny Carne thoughtfully. “Her father used to scour St Pirans for her on a Saturday night, shouting that he’d take his belt to her when he found her. He was a strong Bible Christian.”

But I’m not going to be diverted by tales of Mrs Eagle’s youth. Mrs Eagle is most definitely one hundred per cent old now. Granny Carne’s old, too, yet she changed before my eyes into a woman like a young birch tree. I know that I didn’t imagine it. What Granny Carne did is something completely different from an old person feeling young inside.

“Mrs Eagle can’t do what you did,” I say as firmly as I dare, “and no one else talks about time the way you do, as if they can go back hundreds of years and see what was happening then.”

But suddenly I remember. Someone does. Faro talks about time in the same way as Granny Carne, as if history is still happening. As if he’d watched the Ballantine smash on to the rocks with his own eyes. And he made me watch it, too, when I saw into his mind.

Granny Carne sighs. She looks very old now. “You ask a lot of questions, Sapphire. They’re hard questions, too, and I can’t give you all the answers you want. Let me tell you this much. What you saw just now, not many would see.”

“Why did you let me see it?”

“It wasn’t me letting you. It was you that had the power to see the old and young standing in the same place. You think all your power lies in Ingo, Sapphire, but that’s because you choose to make it so.”

“But you said I had strong Mer blood, Granny Carne. You told me and Conor that last summer.”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. Your Mer blood may be strong, but your Earth blood is powerful too. Not as strong as your brother’s, but strong enough.”

“Is having Earth blood the same as living in the Air – being human, I mean?”

“No. Most people live out their human lives without choosing either Earth or Ingo. They don’t need to. They’re happy as they are. They live in the present time, and in one place. As far as they’re concerned, the past is rolled up like a carpet and no one can touch it. And the future, too. Perhaps they are the fortunate ones,” adds Granny Carne.

“I don’t see what’s fortunate about not being able to go to Ingo.”

“Ask your brother.”

Conor’s words echo in my head: I’ve got to try to belong where I am. Conor really wants to be part of St Pirans – surfing, playing guitar, hanging out with his friends, and yet all the time he’s secretly looking for Elvira. Maybe he wishes he’d never met her… maybe it would be easier for him if he hadn’t ever gone to Ingo… because he’d be able to belong.

“Time to sleep,” says Granny Carne abruptly. She gives me a candlestick, and lights my candle. “Sadie will sleep in my room tonight, Sapphire.”

“But—”

“No. She’s not strong yet. She needs to be with me. She needs the Earth to make her strong. Don’t you feel that? Sadie’s an Earth creature. She loves you, and that’s what complicates it for her. Tonight Sadie will go into a deep sleep, like the earth’s winter sleep. It will heal her. You know how a bulb lies dormant in the earth all winter, Sapphire, growing strong for spring.”

“Sadie’s not going to sleep all winter, is she?”

“No. She’ll go through her winter healing in one night.”

“You said Sadie loves me. I love her. I’ll look after her. I’d never let her be hurt.”

“Never?” The candle flame leaps and a shadow flies over Granny Carne’s face. Her eyes are hidden. “Never, Sapphire?”

I left Sadie tied up to a post, and went to Ingo. Sadie almost died… But I didn’t mean to, I didn’t want anything to happen to her, it was just that Ingo was so strong…

I don’t say any of these things, but Granny Carne knows them, I’m sure. She lays her hand on Sadie’s head, and Sadie doesn’t try to come to me. She looks at me with her soft brown eyes as if to say, “Try to understand. I can’t be with you tonight.”

The door closes on Granny Carne and Sadie. I wash quickly, and jump into bed. It’s cold. I wonder when someone last slept in this bed? Maybe it was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I shiver.

I wish I had gone down to our cottage. Just to see it. Granny Carne says that Mum won’t mind my staying here overnight, but suddenly I feel terribly lonely, longing for Mum and Conor and home. The little slip bedroom faces the side of the hill. It’s dark and quiet and earthy. I can’t hear the sea. I can’t smell salt.

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