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

“So I never saw her again before she died,” says Mum. “But about two weeks later, after the funeral, when I was in the garden of our house – I hadn’t gone back to work yet, I was helping Dad – I heard Mum’s voice. She said, ‘Jennie?’ and I said, ‘Yes.’ And then she said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Jennie, I’m fine.’”

I stare at Mum. She’s never told me anything like that before.

“Did she say anything else, Mum?”

“No. But I felt her come up close. I didn’t see her, but she patted my cheek just like she used to when I was little. It was as real as that.”

“Was she a ghost, then?”

“No. She was Mum, same as always. And then she wasn’t there. Do you know, Sapphy, I’ve never told anyone about it until this minute.”

I look at Mum. She’s smiling, but her eyes are shiny. “Does it make you sad,” I ask, “when you remember your mum?”

Mum shakes her head. “No, I like talking about her. Come here, Sapphy, give me a big hug.”

I hug Mum tight, squeezing her until she gasps for breath. What if Mum died, and all I had was a ghost who walked up a path and then disappeared? Mum seems to be happy about her mum doing that, but I certainly wouldn’t be.

“Promise me you won’t,” I whisper.

“Won’t what?”

“You know. Promise . You won’t ever just—”

“Ever just what ?”

“Disappear.”

Mum takes a deep breath. I can feel her ribs rise as her lungs fill with air.

“I promise, Sapphy,” she says.

As soon as Mum’s left for work, we’re on our way to Granny Carne’s. Her cottage is up on the Downs, tucked into the hillside, half hidden. The grey granite walls look like part of the hill until you get close. There’s no track, only a narrow path, so even a Jeep can’t get up here. The path is steep, and the sun beats on our backs so that we’re sweaty and out of breath by the time we get up to the cottage.

We stand side by side in front of Granny Carne’s door.

“Go on, knock.”

Conor’s knock is loud in the stillness. A few bees buzz and the wind riffles. The knock echoes, but nothing moves. He knocks again, more loudly.

“She’s not there.”

“Oh.” We stare at each other in disappointment. All that climb for nothing.

“What shall we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go back?”

“No, let’s wait. She might come back soon.”

We sit on the rough grass. This is where people come when they have troubles. They talk to Granny Carne and she tells them things no one else knows. Things about the future, and the past too. People say she can look into the future, like a fortune-teller. Dad used to say that the doors that are closed to most of us are like windows to Granny Carne. She can see straight through them. I used to think he meant real doors, and imagined Granny Carne waving her wand to turn them into glass, like a witch in a storybook.

Conor’s trying to make a beetle walk along a grass stalk. We both crouch down to see if it will. I squint, and my squint makes the stalk look as big as a log. This is what it must look like to the beetle. A big rough log, a climbing conundrum that he has to work out. Maybe there’s a Beetle world, just as there’s a Mer world. In Beetle world, shoes look like boulders, and flowers are as big as bike wheels. We’re giants, and a puddle of water would be as deep as Ingo…

“I wish we’d brought a bottle of water, Conor,” I say. “I’m really thirsty.”

“There’s a stone trough round the back of the cottage. It’s spring water.”

“How do you know?”

Conor hesitates. “I came here with Dad once.”

“You never told me! When?”

“Last summer. Early last summer.”

“Before he left.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Before he left.”

“What happened?”

“Me and Dad were out walking. He was taking photos at the top of the Downs, and we came back this way. He said he would just call in on Granny Carne.”

Conor stops. Like me, he can hear the echo of Dad’s voice saying those exact same words. Dad’s voice always made you want to hurry along where he was going.

“Dad went inside the cottage, but I didn’t,” Conor goes on. “I was thirsty and I heard water trickling, so I went round the back and found where the spring ran into the trough. There were some baby frogs.”

“What do you think Dad asked her about?”

“I don’t know. He was in there a long time, but I didn’t bother, because I was watching the frogs.”

Conor is good at watching. He’ll watch the seals for hours until they lose their fear and come right up on the rocks, close.

“Then he called me,” Conor says. “He and Granny Carne had finished talking. She stood in the doorway and watched us go, with her arms folded like this. I don’t think they even said goodbye. I thought maybe they’d quarrelled.”

“Did she look angry?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe not angry. But they both looked serious.”

“Did Dad tell you anything?”

“No. He walked so fast I almost had to run to keep up with him. But he did say one thing.”

“What?”

“He said, That’s the last time I ever go there .”

“Then they must have quarrelled.”

“Maybe Granny Carne told Dad something he didn’t want to hear.”

I try to think what that could be. It must be terrible to see into the future. To know what’s coming, but not be able to change it. Like a curse.

But if Granny Carne has earth magic, then maybe she can use her power to change the future. Then the future wouldn’t be like an accident rushing towards her – it would be a thousand possibilities. Not all of them have to come true.

The beetle has decided it’s not going to bother walking down the grass stalk, however invitingly Conor waggles it. It scurries away, back into Beetle world, away from the two mysterious giants who do things it can’t understand.

Suddenly, the bright sun on Conor’s hand is covered in shadow. We look up at a tall figure dressed in white, with a white veil over its face, and white gloves. It takes me a moment to recognise that it’s Granny Carne.

“I’ve been seeing to the bees,” says Granny Carne. She takes off her bee keepers’ hat and veil, and carefully peels off her gloves. She’s wearing a white smock, with trousers tucked into her boots.

“Where are the bees?” I ask.

“Up on the moor,” she says. “I’ll take my things off in the shed and then we’ll go in.”

People say strange things about Granny Carne’s home, but they don’t say them aloud and they don’t say them in front of children. But we know it all anyway. Nobody says they believe in witches these days, but whether you say you believe or not, it doesn’t alter what’s there. It’s probably dark and a bit creepy in the cottage. I’m glad Conor’s here with me.

Granny Carne emerges from the shed in her usual shabby old clothes that make her look like part of the moor.

“I made a honey cake, seeing as you were coming,” she goes on, taking us in. Inside, it’s not at all as I’d imagined. The downstairs is all one room, clean and white and bare, like a cave. It is cool and calm, with all the things in it you need and none that you don’t. A strong wooden table that looks as if you could dance on it without breaking it, wooden chairs with red cushions, a smooth dark floor.

“Sit down.”

There’s a sticky-topped honey cake on a blue plate. There are three mugs, ready for tea, and a blue pitcher of water with three glasses. One for her, one for Conor, one for me. Did she really make that honey cake because we were coming? Did she put out those three glasses before we arrived? She can’t have known. We only just decided to come this morning. Maybe she saw us climbing up the hill, from a long way off? But no, if she was tending the bees, she couldn’t have been here in the cottage at the same time, making cake and setting the table.