Ingo by Helen Dunmore
But as I say it, a shiver of memory runs over my skin. There was something about sharks on TV a while ago. A fisherman thought he’d seen a great white, two miles off Newquay. He claimed that he’d found a half-eaten seal in his net. No other creature but a shark could have torn into a seal like that, he said, and the camera showed how the seal’s belly had been ripped away. I’d wished that Dad was there, so I could ask him whether it really could have been a great white. Dad would have known.
I had forgotten about the great white shark off Newquay.
Until now.
“When you say seal-feeder,” I ask Faro, “does that mean the same as a great white?”
“How should I know all your Air names? Seal-feeders eat seals. Sometimes they’ll hear you, and sometimes they won’t, so it’s best to keep away from them.”
“Do they ever hurt you?”
“I told you. You can’t predict what a seal-feeder’s going to do. They do what they want, so you have to keep out of their way. Sometimes they can’t hear that we’re Mer. They want to hear that we’re seals because they’re hungry or because they feel that way. And they’re very fast, not like her up there.”
The shark above us swings again. The gape of her mouth shines wide. Even though Faro says she’s a little-feeder, she’s still a shark—
“She heard us,” says Faro sharply. “She doesn’t like us talking about her. Let’s go.”
Faro jackknifes into a dive. When we’re a long way from the shark, we slow down, and I ask him, “Why do we have to be so careful? You said she wouldn’t hurt us. You said she only eats little sea creatures like plankton.”
“I don’t know how you humans ever get anything done, you ask so many questions.” Faro does two perfect somersaults, head over tail, head over tail. “She’s got cousins all over the place,” he says casually, flicking back his hair. “You don’t want to offend a shark, Sapphire, not even a little-feeder like her. Sharks may not be very clever, but they’ve got long, long memories, and they stick together. They’re terrible for holding a grudge. You’ve got to remember that sharks are fish. I told you, fish share their memories. They never forget a place where they can find food, and they never forget an insult.”
“I thought she looked very intelligent,” I say loudly, and Faro laughs.
“If we meet any more sharks, I’ll let you do the talking,” he says sarcastically.
“Well, at least I noticed the shark.” I feel triumphant. I may have “slow human reactions,” but I saw the shark first. “You didn’t see her until I pointed her out, even though she was right above us.”
“Oh, didn’t I?” asks Faro. He rolls lazily in the water. “Of course, we Mer aren’t very observant, compared to Air People like you. You even put air on your backs and come down and peer around.”
“Do you mean divers?”
Faro shrugs. “Air People dressed in black, with air on their backs. It’s bad to bring Air into Ingo. They shouldn’t do it.”
“Ingo?” My heart thuds. I have the strangest feeling, as if I know that word better than I know anything else in the world. But it’s hazy, distant. There’s a part of my mind I can’t reach while I’m underwater. “Faro, what is Ingo?”
“Don’t you know that? I thought you knew so much. Ingo is where we are. Ingo is everything that doesn’t belong to the Air.”
“So am I—am I away in Ingo now?”
“Not all that far away,” says Faro in a voice that sounds as if he’s secretly laughing at me inside himself. “Just on the edge of it, maybe.”
“Ingo,” I repeat, tasting the sound of it in my mouth. “I’m in Ingo.”
“Those—those divers—they bring Air with them, so they can go down where they shouldn’t come. They poke around where they shouldn’t be,” Faro goes on. “Exploring, they call it. Spying, we call it. Trying to get into Ingo without going through the skin. Luckily they don’t see much. They don’t enter Ingo at all.”
“But they dive down here, don’t they? How can you say they don’t enter Ingo?”
Faro shrugs. “A stone drops into the water. That doesn’t mean that the stone is swimming. Divers come into the water, but that doesn’t mean they’re in Ingo. So you saw the shark first, did you? Look around, Sapphire, and tell me what else you’ve noticed,” he challenges.
I peer through the water.
“Well, rocks—over there, look, sharp ones. I wouldn’t want to go near them. And there’s a fish! Just going out of sight. Look, it’s a really big one.”
“Huge,” Faro agrees. “It must be at least as big as this,” and he puts his hands a few centimeters apart. “What else have you noticed?”
“Um—is that a current over there? And I think I saw something scuttling down on the seabed just now, but it’s so far down, it’s hard to tell—”
“Anything else?”
“I noticed that shark anyway. And you didn’t.”
“All right. My turn.” A rush of sound pours out of Faro’s mouth.
“Faro, I can’t understand.”
“I know you can’t. I’m not talking to you. I’m asking everyone who is here to come out where you can see them.”
The sea around us begins to thicken. Two gray seals slide by, twisting as they go. They turn to circle us, almost touching us. They have big eyes like retriever dogs, and they look as if they’re laughing. Their nostrils are closed tight, and their whiskers are flattened against their muzzles. But how strong they are, how powerful. Their muscles ripple under their skin as they go by. A dazzling cloud of silverfish flickers in and out between my fingers. I shut my hand, but they vanish like droplets of mercury.
I look to my left, and there’s a huge flatfish, as big as our kitchen table, with one popeye goggling at me. One after another a raft of purple jellyfish floats past, tentacles drifting, their jelly skirts bellying in and out, in and out….
“So that’s how they move,” I whisper. Their tentacles are thick and snaky and have suckers all the way down—what if one of them whipped across my leg? They look as if they would sting. I scull backward, out of range. The jellyfish sail on in a line, like battleships now, making for war.
“Look down there,” says Faro, and a giant spider crab appears out of a whirl of sand, and then another. Conor hates spider crabs. I can always frighten him by picking up a dead one on the shore and chasing after him with it, flapping its claws. But I wouldn’t touch one of these.
The sand settles and shows an anglerfish, almost buried but for the shine of its lure. Dad caught one once when he was deep-sea fishing and showed it to me. “It lives far out, on the sea bottom. They’re adapted to the dark. Just as well—poor creature, it’s ugly as sin. It wouldn’t want to see itself in the light.”
“Look up,” says Faro, and I see a soup of plankton shimmering in the light from the surface. And right above us there’s another shark, much smaller but the same shape as the other little-feeder. A school of tiny gray fish darts to the side, away from the sieving jaws. And that rock there—it’s covered with dog whelks, thickly striped. More fish flick past, and here’s a herd of sea horses riding the curve of Faro’s tail….
“It’s not fair. You made them come. All these creatures weren’t here when I was looking.”
“Not fair,” echoes Faro mockingly. “This isn’t a game we’re playing, Sapphire. These creatures were here the whole time. You weren’t looking, that’s all.” More of the liquid language pours from his mouth. Pure Mer, it must be. I wish I could speak that language. The seals nuzzle him, and I think they’re speaking it too, but I can’t understand a word. Tail to tail, Faro and the seals look the same, sleek and shining and strong, with the herd of sea horses dancing around them….
I have a sudden fear that Faro’s going to disappear with them, leaving me alone, way out in the ocean, not knowing my way back—
“Faro, I think we should go back now.”
“Go back?”
“I’ve got to go home. It’s late.”
Faro’s face is teasing. Suddenly I have the feeling that he knows something else I don’t. That Conor is close, like the seals and the jellyfish and the spider crabs. That if I looked in the right place, I would see him. Now.
I turn. Something flickers, nearly out of sight. I turn again, trying to catch whatever’s hiding. Come out, come out, wherever you are! Faro turns too, as if he knows exactly where to look. He stares deep into the water. He’s watching for something I can’t see. I think he’s going to call again, and I can’t guess what or who might come this time. But he doesn’t call.
“What a pity,” he says softly after a while. “We’ve just missed them.”
“Who?”
“Conor and Elvira, of course. They were here, but they’ve gone.”
“Did Conor see me?” I feel as if Faro’s punched me. Conor was here. He was so close that Faro saw him, and he disappeared again, without me. Conor didn’t let me see him. Conor didn’t try to find me. He didn’t even call to me. But Conor’s my brother.
“He was with the seals. He missed you,” says Faro.
Conor was with the seals. Maybe Conor understands the language that was just sound to me.
“Does Conor speak pure Mer?”
Faro shakes his head. “No. Not yet. Nowhere near to it. He’s only just beginning. He’s like you, Sapphire; he doesn’t know anything.”
I turn away. I don’t want Faro to see how I feel. I don’t even know how I feel. Faro says that Conor doesn’t know anything, but I don’t believe it. If Conor’s gone this deep, if he can swim with seals and plans to surf to the Lost Islands with Elvira, then he’s gone far away from me already. He’s learned too much that I don’t know. And the worst part is that he’s done it secretly, without telling me or wanting to share it with me.
Conor and I have always been together. We’ve always done the same things. Conor’s a better diver than me, and he can swim faster, but he waits for me. He used to get impatient sometimes when I was little and I couldn’t keep up with him. Sometimes I’d cry and yell after him, Conor, Conor! Wait for me!
And he’d come back and find me covered in tears, and he’d take my hand and we’d be friends again.
But that was a long time ago. Dad’s gone, and Mum’s working all the time. If she works a late shift, we sometimes don’t see her from after breakfast to the next morning. Conor and I have only got each other. That’s why we always look after each other.
But he hasn’t waited for me this time.
No, Conor wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t go away without even speaking to me. Faro’s lying.
But Conor didn’t tell me about meeting the Mer, did he? He kept it secret until I saw him with Elvira. And what about Elvira? Where’s she taking him? Conor’s going in too deep—I’m frightened.
“Conor!” I call, with all my strength and all the voice I can find. “Conor!” Suddenly the pain is there again, beginning to burn around my ribs. I feel the heavy water on top of me, pressing me down. I can’t breathe.
“No, Sapphire!” says Faro urgently. “Don’t do it! Don’t try to call him! You’ll get hurt.” He seizes hold of my hand and puts it around his wrist. The burning pain eases, like the tide going out.
“Think like us,” says Faro. “Look at me.”
I look at his strong, curved seal tail, his human face.
“Think like us. Look at the seals.”
The seals come close, touching me with their sleek sides. Their big eyes seem to be telling me something. Seal language is flowing toward me, not made out of words but made out of something else that I’m just on the edge of understanding. I reach out my hand, and the seals let me touch them as they play. They want me to go with them. They want us all to roll and play in the deep water.
There’s no pain around my ribs now. I’m safe with Faro. Safe with the Mer.
“It’s dangerous to think of Air when you’re here,” says Faro. His face is serious, his voice urgent. “You must never do it. Promise me.”
“How can I promise that? I belong to the Air. I’m human. I can’t just forget about it.”
Faro nods, slowly, as if he’s weighing things up. “Yes, but—” and then he stops.
“Yes, but what?”
“Nothing.” Whatever he was going to tell me, he’s changed his mind. “It’s time to leave now, Sapphire. Can’t you feel the tide?”
CHAPTER NINE
TIDES ARE POWERFUL. Tides know where they want to be, and they take the whole sea world with them, dragging it to and fro. Faro says tides are the moon talking to Ingo. When the moon talks, Ingo has to listen.
We come in on the tide together, me and Faro and the seals. Faro finds a current first, and then we feel the tide folding us into its strong journey. It’s strange that the same tide is still rising, even though I seem to have been with Faro for hours.
“Conor and Elvira have already come in on the tide,” says Faro. “Conor’s left Ingo now.”
I feel calm and easy about Conor again. All my fears have drifted away. I can’t remember why I cried out for him or why I felt so desperate. I’m holding Faro’s wrist, and I am safe in Ingo.
Faro takes me as far as the mouth of our cove. I don’t want him to come any farther, because I know how much his lungs would burn and how terror would seize him as he went through the skin of the sea, into Air. He says he’ll come with me all the way if I want, but I say no. I’m not worried about leaving Faro, because I know I’ll be back. The pull of Ingo has got into me, strong as the tide.
“It’s all right, Faro. I know where I am now. You don’t need to come any farther with me.” I can see that he’s relieved, although he tries to hide it.
The seals are still with us. It’s easy for them to slip from Ingo into Air, because they can live in both. So they’ll come all the way with me, swimming in on the tide. I’m still holding Faro’s wrist when I see the place where the deep, deep water meets the shelf of sand. He mustn’t come any farther. I’m safe to swim in from here.
“It won’t hurt you to go through the skin,” Faro reminds me. “You’re going home this time.”
“Don’t come any farther in, Faro,” I tell him again. I feel protective of him now. He’s been looking after me deep in Ingo, and I’m going to look after him here, where we’re coming close to my own country. The surface of the sea wobbles not far above our heads. The light is sharp and dazzling, and the air will hurt Faro like knives, the way the sea hurt me when I first went down.
There are flickery broken-up shadows of sunlight all over the seafloor and all over Faro. He looks like a boy and a seal and a shadow all at once as he does a last backflip and his tail swirls around his head. And suddenly there’s only a shadow, and Faro’s gone. I haven’t said good-bye to him. I haven’t asked when I’m going to see him again.
I don’t need to. I’m sure that I’ll see him soon.
The two seals are close to me, one on each side. They want to push me onward into the shallower water. The tide’s pushing me too, and there’s sand not far below me, almost underfoot now.
“Tell Faro that I’ll be back,” I say to the seals. They roll and circle round me, and I don’t know if they understand or not. Mer, I think. Speak Mer to them, not Air. I open my mouth, and the cool, sweet underwater rushes into it. Speak Mer, not Air. I let the sea flow out of my mouth and make its own words.
“We will,” says the seal closest to me in a gravelly voice like the tide sucking over a pebble beach. I feel his breath on my ear, and then he’s gone with his partner, and I’m diving up through the skin of the water, into Air.
It doesn’t hurt. It’s like stepping off a boat after hours out at sea with Dad. The land feels wobbly when you do that, as if it’s still going up and down, up and down. You can’t get your balance. Dad says it’s because you’ve still got your sea legs, and you have to get your land legs back. In a while you get used to it and the land stops behaving like the sea, and you’re back at home.
I’m back in the Air. I wade through the shallow water, up the beach, toward the rocks at the back of the cove, where I have to climb. It’s a perfect day now, hot and still, without a trace of mist. The sand is warm underfoot.
I climb the rocks very slowly. My legs are tired. The rough, dry rock feels so strange under my hands. I’ve got used to the textures of Ingo. My arms and legs feel much too light, now that there’s no water pressing against them.
I clamber up the rocks, through the gap between the boulders, and haul myself up over the grassy lip of the cliff.
Conor.
Conor’s sitting there, waiting. He’s pale, and there are dark shadows under his eyes. He jumps up when he sees me. He looks shocked, as if he can’t believe it’s really me. He grabs hold of my arm and drags me onto the grass. He holds me so tight it hurts. For a moment I’m scared. Conor looks furious. I even think for a second that he’s going to hit me. But of course he doesn’t. He just stares and stares at me, as if he hasn’t seen me for years. Our faces are very close. Conor scans mine, searching for something.
“Saph,” he says very quietly, as if he can hardly believe it’s me. He shakes me gently, the way he does when he’s trying to wake me on a school morning.
“Saph, where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting and waiting for hours. I thought you were never going to come back.”
“Back from where?”
“Where do you think!” he explodes. “Don’t try and fake it, Saph! I know where you’ve been. You’ve been away nearly twenty-four hours. Mum would’ve gone crazy if she’d known. But the car wouldn’t start, so she stayed overnight in St. Pirans after work. She got Mary to come up last night and check if we were okay. I lied for you. I said you were in the bath. And then I came out here to look for you. I’ve been waiting all night.”
I look around. There’s Conor’s sleeping bag, and his flashlight, a KitKat wrapper, and a bottle of water. Maybe—maybe it’s true….
“Twenty-four hours,” I repeat slowly. I remember the other day, when I saw Conor on the rock with the girl, Elvira. Conor thought he’d only just cleaned out the shed, but it was already evening. He didn’t know how much time had passed because he was away in Ingo. Like me. So time in Ingo is different from time here.