Helen Dunmore - The Complete Ingo Chronicles - Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, The Crossing of Ingo, Stormswept

“That’s the way it is for humans. Some of them drown of it.”

“ Some of them?”

“Well – most of them. Nearly all of them. We call and call to them but they can’t listen. They can’t let go of the Air, and that’s why they drown. It’s the other way round for us Mer. You drown in water. We can drown in the Air.”

“But you were in the air when I met you. You were all right, you weren’t choking or anything.”

Faro frowns. “Yes, some of us can go there. There are reasons—” he breaks off.

“What reasons?”

“Never mind. But it hurts when you go through the skin. It’s dangerous.”

“What skin?”

“Look up there.” Faro points at the bright, distant surface. “That’s the skin. You have to go through it. That’s what hurts. The change is bad every time.”

“So when I go back, it’ll hurt—”

“No, not for you. You’re human, aren’t you?You’ll be all right, going back to the Air. Anyway, you’re here now. Safe with Faro.” Faro smiles, and very gently peels my hand off his wrist. “There. Try again. You really don’t need me now. You only think you do, because of your Air thinking.”

We’re not moving any more. I’m floating free, in deep, deep water. My hair drifts across my face, then drifts away. The sea holds me like a baby. I’m not scared of it any more. I’m rocking, rocking in the hammock of the sea. Faro is right, the sea will look after me. Gently, my hand floats away from his wrist. I cup my hands and scull the water. Faro’s right. I am safe.

Suddenly, with a strong flick of the tail, Faro turns a perfect somersault. And again, and again, faster and faster until he’s a whirling circle of human body and seal tail.

“You try it, Sapphire!”

“I couldn’t do that. I’ll just float.”

I spread out my arms to the water as if I have never touched the sea before. And I haven’t, not like this. I’m not bouncing about on top of the water doing breaststroke or backstroke or what humans call floating. The skin of the sea has parted and let me in. I’m living in the sea. I’m part of it.

“Let’s surf a current,” says Faro. “Come on, we’ll find a strong one.”

All my life I’ve been trying not to find currents. I know there’s a rip beyond the headland. That’s why we never swim out there, because it’s too dangerous. If the rip catches you, it can pull you a mile out to sea. Even if you’re a good swimmer you won’t be able to swim against it. You’ll be swept out, and you’ll drown fighting it.

“There’s a good current this way,” says Faro. “Come on.”

“But—”

“This way, Sapphire!”

I see the current before I feel it. There’s movement in the water ahead of us, like a twisting, glassy rope. Or like a powerful sea snake coiling itself in and out. The current looks thicker and much more solid than the calm water around it. Once it gets hold of me, I’ll never escape. It’ll coil itself around me, pull me tight and take me wherever it wants.

Never, never swim out beyond those rocks, Sapphire. That’s where the rip runs .

But I can’t see anything, Dad .

It’s there, believe me. Now promise .

All right, Dad. I promise .

“Let’s go!” calls Faro, springing forward eagerly like a surfer trying to catch the perfect wave. His body twists, and vanishes into the snake of the current. But I can’t follow. I promised Dad. I can’t—

But I can’t stay here alone either. What did Faro say? As long as you’re with me, you’re safe .

I dive, and the current swallows me. Just for a second I feel the terrible python pull of it and I’m scared it’s going to crush me like a snake would crush me in its coils. And then I’m part of it. No, once you’re inside it, the current is nothing like a python. I feel as if I’m in a plane racing down the runway at full power. There’s no choice any more. The plane has got to fly, and I’ve got to fly with it.

And there’s Faro, right in the middle of the current.

“Come farther in, Sapphire!” he calls.

Now I see what you have to do. You have to swim until you’re where the current’s fastest, where you can feel the muscle of it all around you. And then lie there inside it like an arrow, as Faro’s lying. The pull is so strong that it doesn’t feel like pull at all. I only know how fast I’m going when I look down and see the ridged floor of the sand fall away as we rush into the deep.

“Yeee – hiiiii!” It’s Faro yelling, and then it’s me too, riding the back of the current as if it’s a wild horse, letting it twist me and turn me and spin me until I don’t know where we are or where we’re going. And I don’t care. All that matters is the ride. Faro’s standing upright on the current, balanced on the curve of his tail. I try to copy him but my legs won’t do what his tail does. I’ll try again—

“Rocks coming up! HOLD ON,” shouts Faro, and he swipes us sideways with his tail, and out of the current just before it rushes on to the underwater rocks and splits into a million threads of white.

“You didn’t look ahead,” Faro points out, as we hang suspended in the calm, gasping.

“Can’t look – not when going so fast—”

“Hmm. Slow human reactions. Better not get into any currents without me for the time being. They like to play rough.”

“I think I’ll keep out of currents altogether.”

“Don’t be stupid, Sapphire, how’re you going to travel without surfing currents? You need to know them, that’s all. They follow their own patterns, but you can learn them. Every current has its own path, but sometimes they come close and you can hop from one to another. That’s how you make the longest journeys. Once you’ve learned to current-hop, we can really travel. Elvira’s taking Conor to the Lost Islands next—”

He breaks off, as if he’s said something he didn’t mean to say.

“Who’s Elvira?”

“I told you. My sister. She’s around here somewhere.”

“Can I see her?”

“Maybe. She’s talking to the sunfish with Conor. We keep telling the sunfish they can go farther north now that the water’s grown warmer, but they won’t believe it. They think this isn’t their territory. Sunfish are stubborn, and they have long memories. They still remember when it was the Age of Ice here.”

“You mean the Ice Age? Faro, they can’t possibly remember that. The Ice Age was thousands and thousands of years ago,” I say confidently. It’s good to know something that Faro doesn’t, for once.

“Fish don’t keep their memories in their heads like you do.”

“Where do they keep them?”

“In the shoal. Obviously the shoal keeps changing as the sunfish get born and die, but the memory stays in the shoal and every sunfish can access it.”

Then I catch up with something else that Faro’s just said.

“Did you say that Conor was talking to the sunfish? It wasn’t just Elvira talking to them? You mean that Conor’s learned their language?”

“I wouldn’t say he’s exactly speaking it yet. Elvira’s trying to teach him.”

“Faro, how many times has my brother been here? With… with Elvira?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Faro carelessly. ‘A few. You do ask a lot of questions, Sapphire. Conor’s just the same. It must be a human thing. Come on, let’s find another current to surf.”

And we do. Current after current after current. Riding and rising and skimming and swooping and falling and starting again. Little playful currents that whisk you in circles. Powerful ones that pull you for miles. And far, far out, way beyond where we are, there are the Great Currents. Faro says he’ll take me there one day. But not yet. I need a lot more practice before I can surf the Great Currents. They are too strong and wild for me yet.