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

Granny Carne catches me looking at her. The faintest smile crosses her face. Suddenly I feel a flicker of hope and courage in the dark sadness of the church.

Who is Granny Carne? Why is she different from everyone else ?

I remember asking Dad that, when I was about seven. We were sitting on the beach on a day of flat calm, and Dad was skimming stones on the water with a flick of his wrist. Just Dad and me, on our own. The stones hopped on the silky smooth water. One jump, two, four, six jumps—

“Dad, who is Granny Carne? Why do they call her that when she’s not anyone’s real granny?”

“Some say she’s a witch,” answered Dad.

“I know,” I said. I’d heard that in the playground. “But there aren’t real witches now, are there?”

“Who knows?” said Dad. “She has power in her, that’s for sure. If you want to put a label on it, you could call it witchcraft. Or you could call it magic.”

“Does she do spells, Dad?”

“Out of a great big spell book, do you mean?”

“Or she might know them off by heart.”

“She might. She has earth magic in her. That’s why she’s so strong, old as she is.”

“How old is she, Dad?”

Dad shrugged. “She’s always been as old as she is now. If you ask her how old she is she’ll say she’s as old as her tongue and a little bit older than her teeth. Maybe she’s been old for ever.”

“Are you scared of her, Dad?”

“No, I’m not scared. There are two sorts of magic, Sapphy. I’d say that Granny Carne’s magic is mostly benign.”

“What does that mean?”

“That her magic does good, rather than harm. Most of the time.”

“Not all the time?”

“Magic’s wild. You can’t put a harness on it, or make it do what you want. Even the best magic can be dangerous.”

I remember being very surprised that Dad talked about magic as if it was a real thing. I knew that most grown-ups didn’t believe it was.

“Always show respect to Granny Carne, Sapphy,” said Dad. “If you do that, and you don’t cross her, she’ll be a good friend to you. She’s always been a good friend to me. Never whisper about her behind her back, like ignorant people do. You think she doesn’t know, but she does.”

Benign. Dad thought that Granny Carne’s magic was benign. I didn’t even know what the word meant then, but much later I looked it up in a dictionary. Characterised by goodness, kindness , it said. I thought about good magic, and wondered what Granny Carne’s magic was really like.

And here she is at Dad’s memorial service, dressed in earth colours and red like flame, not in best black like all the others crowding into the church. Her face is deep brown from wind and sun, and her eyes are yellow amber, like an owl’s.

Is there such a thing as owl magic? Maybe Granny Carne is really an owl, changed to a human and sailing high above the church and then swooping down on us. Owls are strong and powerful and wise, but they can tear you with their claws. Mostly benign , Dad said. Her owl-eyes are piercing and full of light, as if they can see everything you try to hide.

People have come to the church from miles around, in their dark clothes. Mum and Conor and I sit in the front pew. No one except the vicar can see our faces.

The choir sings, but no one has a voice as good as Dad’s. I remember what Dad said about wanting to sing in the open air, instead of inside the church, in the choir. If Dad was here, he wouldn’t stay. He’d slip out of the open back door. He’d wink at Granny Carne as he went. I nearly laugh when I think of Dad escaping from his own memorial service, but I stop myself.

Oh hear us when we cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea …

They sing this hymn because it’s the hymn for sailors and fishermen, and they believe that Dad has drowned.

And ever let us cry to thee

For those in peril on the sea …

Mum doesn’t sing. She stares straight ahead as the song swells louder. Her lips are pressed so tightly together that there’s no colour in them. If you didn’t know Mum was sad, you’d think she was furiously angry. She often looks like that since Dad went. It’s such a slow, gloomy, droning hymn. Dad would hate it. He likes music to have life in it.

I close my eyes, and shut my ears to the church hymn. I strain to listen to a different music. Yes, I can almost believe that I hear Dad’s voice:

I wish I was away in Ingo

Far across the briny sea ,

Sailing over deepest waters …

Maybe that’s where Dad has gone, sailing over deepest waters. He’s away in Ingo, wherever Ingo is. That’s where we’ll find him. If I can just catch one note of his voice, I’ll be able to follow it. I’ll follow a single thread of his voice, to where Dad is.

The hymn ends. People cough and rustle as they sit down, cramming themselves into the tight pews. Fat Bridget Demelza is spilling over the edge of the pew and into the aisle. I turn to Conor and whisper, “We’ll find him, won’t we, Conor?”

“Yes,” whispers back Conor. “Don’t worry, Saph. Let them get on with their memorial service if it makes them happy. It doesn’t mean Dad’s dead. I know we’ll find him.”

We’ll find Dad in Ingo, I tell myself. In Ingo, however long it takes. We’ll find Dad, however hard it is.

No, I am not going to cry. I tip my head back so the tears that are swelling in my eyes will not fall. They run down the back of my throat and into my mouth, tasting of salt. I swallow them. Dad’s still alive. He wouldn’t want me to cry.

It seems like a hundred years since the day of Dad’s disappearance. But really it’s a year and a month and a day. Three hundred and ninety-six days.

Sometimes when I first wake up I don’t remember. I think I can hear Dad downstairs, or in the bathroom. Everything’s normal. And then it sweeps over me like a dark cloud.

In the daytime I make myself forget. It doesn’t always work, even when I’m doing things I love, like swimming or eating chocolate cake, or designing stuff on the school computers. The thought of Dad is always in my mind somewhere, like a bruise. It’s the same for Conor. We don’t talk about Dad in front of Mum, because she gets upset. We hate her getting upset. She’s a lot better than she was. She eats proper meals now, and she doesn’t get up in the night and drink cups of tea and walk about downstairs for hours.

We never, ever tell Mum that we think one day we’ll find Dad again. She wouldn’t believe us anyway.

I used to run to the phone every time it rang.

Yes? Hello? Who is it ?

Each time it wasn’t Dad’s voice I felt as if all the lights had been switched off. When the postman came I’d try to get to the door first, and grab the letters with my heart pounding. But it was never Dad’s handwriting on the envelopes. Even when somebody knocked at the door my hopes would spring up again. But why would Dad knock at the door of his own house?

I don’t do those things any more. The phone ringing is just the phone ringing, the postman’s probably bringing another bill, and a knock on the door means a neighbour.

You know how the sea grinds down stones into sand, over years and years and years? Nobody ever sees it, it happens so slowly. And then at last the sand is so fine you can sift it in your fingers. Losing Dad is like being worn away by a force that’s so powerful nothing could resist it. We are like stones, being changed into something completely different.

If you looked casually at me and Mum and Conor now, you might think we were the same people as we were a year ago, except that we’re a year older. But we are not the same people. We’ve changed where no one can see it, inside our minds and our feelings. I didn’t want us to change, but I can’t stop it.