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

I dive.

I dive with hot terror pulsing through me. Down, down, down, into the deepest water, where the Mer can live but Air People can’t follow them. And in that moment for the first time I understand why Faro hates and fears divers. They are Air People who can put air on their backs and come where only the Mer should be. That man in the blue shirt can’t follow me. But a diver in a wetsuit with air on his back could have swum down after me and caught me. Faro’s right. Divers are dangerous.

I see that face again, staring down into mine. Shocked and disbelieving but something else too. Recognising . I know that I know the face, but whose is it? My memory is full of Ingo. Too much else is crowded out. I struggle to remember who that man could be… where I’ve seen him before…

No, don’t struggle, Sapphire , I tell myself. You’re safe in Ingo . The deep water rocks me gently. Yes, Faro’s right, my blood is becoming like his. I put my finger on my wrist and feel how slow the pulse beats there. Faro says—

But where’s Faro gone? Why am I alone?

“I’m here,” says Faro’s voice, soft and close. “But where were you? I was so scared, Faro! I woke up and there was a boat up above, with a man looking down at me.”

“I know. I saw him too.”

Suddenly, when I’m not even trying, the name behind that man’s face swims into my mind. Of course. It was Mum’s friend. Roger . Roger, out in his boat, exploring. Not diving yet, just mapping out the area so he can come back and dive.

But I left Roger back at home with Mum, playing cards. I must have been asleep in the sunwater for a long time. Or maybe I wasn’t asleep. Maybe it’s only the difference between human time and time in Ingo again. Why is time in Ingo so different from Air time anyway?

I think of time folding and unfolding like one of those fans you make out of a piece of paper. Time folds up tight like a closed fan, then it spreads open wide. There’s the same amount of paper in the fan whether it’s open or closed. Maybe time is the same substance, whether in Ingo or up in Air. But it’s folded differently, and so it doesn’t look or feel the same. When I’m in Ingo, Ingo time seems natural. When I’m in the Air – at home, I mean – then that’s natural too. But I can’t belong in both times, can I?

I’ve got to stop thinking like this. My thoughts are making my head hurt. If you try to have Air thoughts when you’re in Ingo, they don’t work.

“He’s a diver,” says Faro. His voice is cold and hard. Faro hates divers.

“How do you know?”

“We’ve seen his boat before.”

“I know him,” I say.

Suddenly I want to punish Roger for laughing like that with Mum, both of them so happy and relaxed as if there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world. As if Dad had never existed. Roger thinks he can go wherever he likes. He makes himself at home in our cottage, and he wants to dive into Ingo and make it his own, and take its treasures. But I’m not going to let him. None of what Roger wants is going to happen.

“He explores for wreck sites,” I go on, headlong. “He’s bringing a team of divers.”

“He shouldn’t be here at all,” says Faro, like an echo of my own thoughts. “He should stay in his own place.”

“It’s our cove, not his.”

“Air People are like that. They want to change everything.”

I like the way Faro agrees with me about Roger. It’s comforting. It silences the little voice that says I shouldn’t have told him what Roger was doing. After all, I did promise…

No, you didn’t. You only promised not to tell your friends at home and at school , I tell myself firmly, but I still feel uneasy. It’s Roger’s fault. If he would just disappear back to where he came from, everything would be all right again. Mum wouldn’t really mind. She hasn’t known him long, so she couldn’t miss him that much.

“I heard him talking to Mum about diving near the Bawns,” I say.

“What are the Bawns?”

“You know them. Those rocks about a mile off our cove. There’s a big reef below water.”

Faro’s face goes still as a mask. “You call those rocks the Bawns?”

“Yes. What do you call them?”

“It doesn’t matter. He can’t go there.”

“But he’s going to, Faro.”

“He doesn’t understand. That place is ours. It is where we—”

“You what?”

“No, Sapphire. I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: your Roger will never go there. All of Ingo will defend it.”

Faro’s perfect teeth are bared. Ingo looks at me out of his eyes, and Faro’s a stranger to me, full of cold, furious determination. And then the tide ebbs, and he’s Faro again. My friend and my guide in Ingo. “Take my wrist, Sapphire,” he says. “We’re going back. If you reach home before he does, he will never believe that he really saw you in the sunwater. He’ll think it was all a dream.”

I remember Roger’s shocked face. I’m not convinced it’ll be that easy to make him forget, or think that it was all a dream. Roger doesn’t seem the kind of person you could fool easily. But how can he possibly tell Mum he saw me lying under the water, not breathing? She’ll think he’s crazy. She certainly won’t want him to come and have Sunday dinners and games of cards with her any more.

I put my hand around Faro’s wrist, like a bracelet.

“Where are we now, Faro? Are we far from shore?”

“Not far. It depends how we travel,” says Faro mysteriously. “There are ways that are even faster than riding the currents. You’ll see. Wait.”

We tread water, side by side. I can’t see what Faro’s looking for, and I can’t hear what he’s listening for. His face is tight with concentration. He looks like a surfer, poised, waiting for a wave.

Suddenly he turns to me, his face blazing with excitement. “They’re coming. They’re close enough now. Watch.”

His mouth opens and a stream of fluting sound pours out, mixed with clicks. It sounds like sea music, something that belongs in the heart of one of those huge curved shells that you hold up to your ear so that you can hear the sea in them. Faro pauses, looking into the depths of distant water and listening for an answer. But if there is an answer, I can’t hear it. I wish I knew that language. I wish I were less human, and more Mer.

“They’re coming!”

“Who are coming?”

“Wait. You’ll see.”

And then I hear it too. The water’s filling with sound. It’s like Faro’s music, but richer and more strange. It comes from all sides, clicking, whistling, echoing, fluting. And now they rise out of the deep water, sleek and shining and twice as long as I am. They come so fast that I flinch, thinking they’ll hurtle into us. But they stop dead, and the water churns from their suddenness. They are smiling at us.

“Dolphins!”

“They’ll let us ride them.”

The dolphins swish into place alongside us. They watch me with their small, clever eyes, and they click and whistle, waiting for me to answer.

“Tell them I can’t, Faro. I haven’t learned their language yet. Tell them I’m sorry.”

“They want you to climb on. Lay your body against her back, Sapphire. No, not like that. You’re too stiff, she won’t be able to hold you. Watch.”

I watch Faro. The dolphin dips to let him climb astride and then he lies on its back. Faro’s whole body seems to melt as he relaxes against the glistening dark skin of the dolphin. I can’t even see where Faro’s tail ends and the dolphin’s body begins. I touch the shoulder of the dolphin who is butting gently against my legs, and she dips down, ready to carry me.