Helen Dunmore - The Tide Knot

Don’t panic, Sapphire. Let the current take you where it wants. Wherever you go, you’ll be safe. Reassuring thoughts echo in my head and I’m not sure for a moment if they are my thoughts or Faro’s. Are we sharing our thoughts again, the way we did last summer? Relax, let the current take you. Don’t resist it, or you’ll get hurt. Jolts of force shake me. I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I can’t breathe—

Don’t ever think of breathing or not breathing. Air is another country and it means nothing here. Think of now. Think of Ingo. Here. Now.

The words beat in my head like a pulse. Here. Now. Let go of everything and see what comes to you. I’ve done it before, but it’s never been as hard as this. Ingo at night is so dark, so vast. Not a safe playground but a wild kingdom. You could so easily lose yourself here. A tingle of pure fear runs through my body. No, no, Sapphire, that’s not the way. Panic is making you deaf and blind.

I stop fighting. It feels like coming out of a cage. I am free and safe in the heart of the current. There’s Faro, a little way ahead of me. His tail gleams blue in the moonlight. I can’t see his face, or his hands, or any of him that seems human. Only the strong tail, like a seal’s tail, driving Faro through the water. We are travelling faster than I’ve ever dreamed of swimming, flying through Ingo in darkness.

By the time the current swerves away from us, throwing us off into calmer water, we must be miles and miles from land. I’m exhausted. It seems that even Faro’s tired, because he pulls my hand and we swim down and down to the sea bed. Here the sand is deeply ridged, and we sink into one of its sheltered hollows to rest. It is almost totally dark down here.

“Where are we, Faro?” My voice echoes strangely.

“Close to the Lost Islands.”

“Why are they lost?”

“They’re not all lost. Some of them still rise above the surface. There are still humans living there. But the largest islands came to us hundreds of years ago, in a single night.”

“Came to you? What do you mean? Was there a battle?”

“Yes, there was a battle, but not with guns or swords. The water rose and the islands fell to Ingo.”

“But, Faro, what happened to the people who were living there?”

“Some were lost,” says Faro with cool indifference. “Some took to their boats and made for the nearest islands that were still above water.”

“Why did the sea rise?”

“It was time for it to rise, I suppose,” says Faro. I can’t see his face clearly in the gloom, but his voice is maddeningly calm.

“Faro, please don’t talk like that. As if everything is – well – fate. We should be able to make things better. Change the future. Those islanders could have built a sea wall, couldn’t they, to keep the sea out? That’s what people do in Holland. They build dykes and ditches. They don’t drown. They’re brilliant engineers.”

“So I’ve heard,” says Faro thoughtfully. “They’re very obstinate, those people in Holland.”

“The point is, Faro, that countries don’t have to drown. Holland proves it. It’s the other way round there. They reclaim land from the sea. Did you know that?”

“For now, they take land from Ingo,” Faro reflects, “but that doesn’t make it theirs. What works today may not work tomorrow. Weren’t you saying just now that we should be able to make things better, and change the future? I agree. It would make things better for the Mer if Holland were to grow… smaller.”

“But why, Faro? Why? Isn’t Ingo strong enough already? The oceans are greater than the land. Don’t you know that?”

Dad taught me that. He took me way out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon , until I could clearly see how small the land looked, and how insignificant, compared to the hugeness of the sea.

“Why do you want more and more and more , Faro?”

“You humans are the ones who want more,” says Faro fiercely. “You want the whole world to bow to human desires.”

Faro’s argument is making me uneasy. “Can we… could we go to the Lost Islands?” I ask quickly.

“Everyone’s going to the Lost Islands tonight.”

“Why?”

“There’s a Gathering. Look over there.”

“It’s too dark.”

“ Look , Sapphire. Open your eyes.”

I peer through the deep dark velvet of the water. Yes, there are shapes and shadows, shifting with the pull of the currents. There’s a group of them, close together. A shoal of fish swimming to their feeding grounds, maybe. But they’re too big for fish, surely; they’re as long as – as tall as—

“Mer, Faro! Look! They’re Mer!”

I’m seeing the Mer at last. Faro’s people. The curtain that has hidden them from me every time I’ve visited Ingo has lifted at last. They are moving fast, in a group of twenty or so. They’re a long way off, and they don’t notice us. They seem to shimmer as they swim, as if they’re covered in fish scales. But I know from Faro and his sister Elvira that the Mer aren’t really covered in scales at all. That’s for fairy stories where mermaids bask on rocks, combing their hair and singing to sailors. The real Mer are not like that. They’re more powerful, more complicated and much, much more real. I blink, and the Mer have gone.

“What were they wearing, Faro? What’s all that shiny stuff?”

“Mother-of-pearl on cloaks of net, I should think. That’s what people generally wear to a Gathering when it’s moonlight.”

“How beautiful. Have you got a cloak like that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you got one? A cloak like that? In your wardrobe or whatever?”

“I’m not going to the Gathering tonight, so why would I have a cloak? I’d make one if I was going.”

“Do you mean that you make a new cloak every time there’s a party? I mean, a Gathering.”

“Of course. They take days and days to make. The patterns are complicated.”

“Then why don’t you keep them? You could have a beautiful collection of cloaks.”

“Collection!” says Faro with scorn, then he lowers his voice as if what he’s saying is dangerous and not to be overheard.“Listen, Sapphire. A long time ago, some of the Mer started to keep things. They grew so proud of what they had collected that they became rivals, then enemies. It nearly brought us to war.”

“Do the Mer fight wars?” I ask in surprise. Faro has always given me the impression that Mer life is peaceful.

“We almost fought a war then. We were ready to kill each other.”

“We have wars all the time. I’ve seen them on TV.”

“Is TV real?” asks Faro curiously. “I thought it was stories humans make up for one another.”

“The news is real.”

“It’s good to know about the human world,” says Faro with decision. “Some Mer say that we should keep right away from it, but I think how you live is interesting.”

“You make me feel as if I’m in a zoo, Faro!”

“Zoos! How can you humans keep creatures trapped in cages for pleasure when they are begging to be released?”

“Humans don’t hear them. We can’t talk to animals, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Sapphire.”

Faro presses my hand in sympathy. If, like him, you can talk to whales and dolphins and sea urchins and sea eagles, then no wonder he thinks human life is a bit limited…

This seems like the most important talk I’ve ever had with Faro. It’s the first time he’s admitted that things have ever been less than perfect in Ingo. In the quiet darkness it’s easier to speak openly, and not to start arguing—

“I wish I could see those islands,” I tell him.