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

I wait, tense and hopeful, while Faro stares into my face.

“No, it’s not working. You’re stopping me.”

“I can’t be stopping you. I’m not doing anything.”

“You are. You’re like a sea anemone when it feels a shadow on it. You’ve shut up tight. I can’t feel your mind at all.”

Part of me is a bit pleased at this. I’m stronger than Faro. He can’t break into my mind like a burglar. But another part feels sad. I will never belong with the Mer if I can’t share what they share. And it must be good to share memories – not be alone with them, hurt or frightened or not knowing what to do.

I think of what sea anemones look like in rock pools, with their soft open fronds waving through the warm water, exploring it. Soft, delicate fronds, purple and brown and red. Conor and I used to sit for hours by the pools, not letting our shadow fall over them, waiting until the crabs and baby dogfish grew confident and scuttled out from the weeds, and the sea anemones slowly unfurled like dark red flowers in a sea garden…

“You’re with your brother,” says Faro. “You’re watching the flowers. You’re very happy…”

“Faro, you did it! You saw what I was remembering!”

“ We did it,” says Faro. “I didn’t know Air People and Mer could touch each other’s memories.”

“But we did,” I say triumphantly.

“Maybe there’s more Mer in you than I knew,” Faro goes on thoughtfully. “Elvira and I used to watch those hollows in the rocks for hours, just like you. When I touched what you were thinking, it was like touching my own memory. We learned how hermit crabs find their shells, how a male sea horse cares for his babies, where to find sugar kelp and strawberry anemones.”

“Only you were underwater, and we were on the shore. But we were doing it at the very same time, maybe.”

“Maybe. But you know, Sapphire, you’re not the first Air Person I’ve met. Or even the first I’ve talked to. I know more than you think. I know all about books as well. Why are you smiling like that?”

“It’s nothing.” I can’t tell Faro how funny he looked, so proud of himself for knowing this perfectly ordinary word.

“You’re laughing at me.” Faro narrows his eyes.

“I’m not. It was just the way you said ‘books’. Like they were something out of a fairy story. Don’t the Mer have any books?”

“Why should we? I told you, we don’t need writing. If something is worth keeping, you can keep it in your mind. We don’t copy Air things. We have our own life.”

“It’s strange, Faro, that’s exactly the opposite of what humans do. They copy everything. I mean, we copy everything. That’s how we get our ideas. I mean, that’s how aeroplanes got invented, because people looked at birds and wanted to fly like them, and tried to work out how they did it. They were trying to copy birds for hundreds of years before they worked it out. And I suppose we copied fish when we built submarines—”

“But why did you want to fly?” interrupts Faro, with real curiosity. “You don’t need to. Flying’s for birds. What good is flying if you’ve got legs to walk?”

“Yes, but – if you see someone doing something, don’t you want to do it too?”

“No,” says Faro. “But you do, because you’re human. That’s what makes humans so dangerous. They want everything. They aren’t satisfied with what they are. They want to be everything else as well.”

“But how do you know what you are, until you’ve tried to be lots of other things?”

“I know what I am,” says Faro. He closes his eyes, resting on his back and letting the current do the work. “I don’t need to try to be anything else.”

My legs look strange beside the strong, dark, glistening curve of Faro’s tail. They look thin and feeble and forked. Almost ugly. I remember how Faro called me ‘cleft’. I’ve never ever thought my legs were ugly before, but here under the sea they don’t look nearly as good as a tail. One flick of Faro’s tail can take him farther and faster than any swimming I can do.

“Look how well you’re doing now, Sapphire,” says Faro, opening his eyes. “I don’t have to hold your wrist at all.”

It’s true. I think back to that first journey into Faro’s country, and how afraid I was. How much it hurt to go into Ingo then. I thought I would die if Faro moved a metre away from me. It felt as if the salt water would rush into my throat and smother me. But now I don’t even think about breathing. Faro doesn’t have to tell me I’m safe, because I know it all through my body. Every cell of me knows that the sea is full of oxygen and it’s streaming into my blood without my needing to breathe air. I am safe, in Ingo.

I squint down at my legs and wonder what it would be like if they joined together and the join fused and the skin grew strong and thick and dark, like seal skin. I wouldn’t be able to walk any longer, up in the Air. Walking would hurt, and I’d have to drag myself over the stones. But I would be completely at home here in Ingo. How would a tail look on me? How would it feel? For a second the pressure of the current seems to grow stronger, grasping my legs and pushing them together, as if they were truly joined.

Like this , I think. If my legs fused into a tail it would feel a bit like this. And then I’d be—

Faro is humming a song and I know every word:

I wish I was away in Ingo

Far across the briny sea ,

Sailing over deepest water …

“Faro, how do you know that song?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want Faro to guess how important the song is to me.

“I must have heard it somewhere,” says Faro lightly. But I can tell from his face that he’s hiding something. There’s a glint in his eye, teasing, daring me to ask more.

“I think you do know where you heard it, Faro. Who sang it to you?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Try. Please.”

Faro looks thoughtful, but after a while he repeats, “No, it’s gone. I can’t remember.”

I abandon caution. “You can! You’ve got to tell me!”

“Have I?” He flips over and turns to face me. “Why should the Mer tell you anything, Sapphire? Do you know what Air People do to us Mer?”

His eyes glower, his expression is fierce. The Faro I thought I knew has vanished from his face. I shrink back.

“I’ll tell you what you do. You send ships with nets that scrape every living thing from the ocean floor. You crush the coral and destroy the secret places where life begins. Our gardens that we lay and watch are ruined. You rip up the life of Ingo and you don’t even want it once you’ve wrecked it. You throw most of it away. You trap dolphins in your nets until they drown. You hunt for whales. You slash the fin off a shark and leave it to flounder in its own blood. You pour dirt into Ingo from pipes. You choke us with oil and cover the seabirds’ feathers with filth until they can’t swim or fly.

“You teach gulls to feast on rubbish instead of fish, until they’re full of disease. And anyway you’ve taken the fish for yourselves. You steal our shore places and fill them with buildings so that Ingo can’t breathe. You would build on the sea if you could, wouldn’t you? You’d catch the Mer and take us away and put us in glass tanks in circuses. Don’t ask me how I know, Sapphire. I understand what the gulls say, remember? Gulls go everywhere. They see everything. They tell us what they see. You humans want everything to belong to Air, not to Ingo. But Ingo is strong. Stronger than you know.”

“But Faro, I don’t! I didn’t! I didn’t do any of that! I’ve never—”

His face relaxes, just a little. He seems to see me again. Me, Sapphire, instead of an enemy he hates.