The Complete Ingo Chronicles: Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, The Crossing of Ingo, Stormswept

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Faro, I never even said thank you. You helped me to bring Conor to the surface. Without you and Elvira we’d never have got Roger and Gray on board. So you did save us, even if you didn’t want to.

There was no time to thank you or say goodbye, and now you’ve gone. The sea has swallowed you. There are so many things I want to say to you, but I can’t, because Roger and Gray are waking up. First, Conor and I have to find a convincing reason for them to be in the bottom of Roger’s boat, wrapped in foil blankets, covered in bruises and with their equipment damaged. We also have to explain how it happens that when they wake up the first people they’ll see will be Conor and me. They’re well able to remember that their boat was way out by the Bawns when they dived. They’re also well able to remember that we weren’t in their boat when they set off from St Pirans. And so where did we come from, and how?

While Roger and Gray are still semiconscious, we make our plans about what to say to them. How to convince them.

“We don’t really have to convince them, Saph,” whispered Conor. “It doesn’t matter how unlikely our story is, does it? If the alternative to believing something unlikely is believing something impossible, then they’ll have to believe us.”

“You mean, if it’s a choice between believing that we rescued them from Ingo with the help of two Mer People, after a battle with guardian seals, or believing that we swam out to help because we thought they were in trouble, they’ll believe that we’re Olympic swimmers.”

Conor nodded. “They’ll go with the Olympic swimming option. They’ll have to. Hush. Roger’s opening his eyes again.”

Gray and Roger recover more quickly than we’d dared believe they would. Half an hour after Roger was feebly clutching my hand, he’s standing up and giving Conor instructions about managing the boat.

Roger can’t work out what’s happened. What went wrong with the dive? Where did we spring from? Roger and Gray are bruised and bleeding and bewildered, but they’re recovering fast and they’re full of questions. They want answers.

“Conor and I were out on the rocks by the mouth of the cove, Roger. You know how you can see the Bawns from there, though you can’t see them from the beach? We spotted your boat out there – we had Dad’s binoculars with us. We watched you dive. They’re really good binoculars. Conor wanted to watch you come up from the dive, so we waited. You were gone for a long time. We got worried. People are always saying how dangerous it is around the Bawns. We thought maybe something had happened to you. So we decided – we decided to swim out.”

“Swim out?” asks Roger, frowning in disbelief.

“Yes,” says Conor. “We didn’t think there was time to fetch help.”

“You swam out from those rocks? All the way to the boat? But we were anchored way out by the Bawns. You swam?”

“Yes.”

Roger looks from one of us to the other. He looks like a judge in his foil-blanket robes. Slowly he shakes his head. No judge would believe us. Roger doesn’t, can’t believe us.

“That’s – that’s unbelievable,” says Roger. But I stare back at him without blinking. After all, it is true. We did swim all the way out to the Bawns. It wasn’t exactly swimming as Roger understands it, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“My God, you were so lucky,” says Roger at last, shaking his head again. He believes us! He has to believe us. He has no choice. How else could we have reached the boat?

Now Roger’s foil-blanket robes crackle around him as he looks from one of us to the other. “My God, you two have no idea how lucky you were. What a crazy thing to do. All that way – and in that cold water. You weren’t even wearing wetsuits. The currents round this coast are lethal. You should never have tried to swim. What if you’d been swept away? You should have been swept away. Your guardian angels must have been working overtime.”

We know, Roger, we know, I think, keeping my face innocent. You don’t need to tell us that this is a dangerous coast. Much more dangerous than you realise.

“Conor and I know where the rip is,” I continue. I put on a serious expression, as if I understand just how risky it was, and I want Roger to know we were as careful as we could be. “We kept well clear of the rip. And we were lucky that it was such a calm day. The sea was flat. I know we shouldn’t’ve risked it, but we thought there’d been an accident and we had to get to you. We’re strong swimmers, aren’t we, Con?”

Conor gives me a look that means, Don’t push it, Saph.

And when we got out to the boat, we saw you both clinging on to the ladder. Even though you were nearly unconscious, you were holding on. We didn’t know what had happened, but it looked like there’d been a bad accident. So Conor pushed and I pulled until we got you into the boat. Then we got the foil blankets and checked your pulse and stuff.”

“Jesus. You guys must be pretty strong,” says Gray in his twanging Australian voice, looking from me to Con and back again. “Hauling two grown men up a ladder after swimming that distance. You deserve a medal.”

I check to see if he’s being sarcastic, but he isn’t. Like Roger, he’s got to believe the incredible, because there is no alternative.

“It was pretty tough,” I say modestly. “But we sort of knew we had to keep going, didn’t we, Con?”

“Yeah,” Conor agrees reluctantly. He was hating this parade of lies, especially because it was making us look like heroes when we weren’t.

“I’d give a lot to know what happened during that dive,” says Gray. “I feel like a kangaroo’s been jumping up and down on my belly.”

“We were lucky,” says Roger. “But all the same, never, ever take such a risk again, kids. Your mother would hang, draw and quarter me if she knew.”

If she knew? Does this mean – can this possibly mean that Roger isn’t going to tell Mum?

“Call the coastguard if you ever think something’s gone wrong. Don’t risk your own lives,” goes on Roger, sounding like one of those safety posters on the beaches in St Pirans. I can’t stop a little smile curling round my lips. Big mistake. Roger looks at me sharply.

“By the way, what happened to the binoculars?”

“Binoculars?”

“Yes. Your father’s binoculars. The ones you were looking through when you saw us dive.”

“Oh. Oh, those binoculars. We—”

“We left them there,” interrupts Conor.

“On the rocks?”

“We put them up above the tide line for safety. We’ll be able to find them again.”

“Good,” says Roger.

“But I’m too tired to look for them today,” I say quickly, in case he suggests that we pick up the binoculars when we bring the boat in. “We’ll come down for them at low tide tomorrow, won’t we, Conor?”

“You do that,” says Roger.

Roger and Gray finally make up their minds not to tell Mum about me and Conor swimming out to their boat. They’re reluctant to discuss this decision with us, in case we think they’re cheating Mum in some way. But we both agree that it would be crazy to tell her. What use would it be for Mum to know about the danger, now that it’s all over? She’d only have nightmares for months, because of what happened to Dad. She would never feel safe about us being near the sea again.

Roger doesn’t want Mum to be frightened because of him. He knows Mum well enough to sense that her fear of the sea is a real thing, alive and active. He doesn’t want her to start worrying every time he takes his boat out, the way she did with Dad.

“Your mum’s had enough to bear,” he says quietly. “And nothing so terrible happened this time. We’re all safe. A bit bruised and battered, but it could have been so much worse.”

So much worse than you know, I thought.

“And whatever happened out there – and we’ll probably never know – it’s thanks to you two that it turned out no worse,” says Roger. “Not that I want you to think I’m encouraging you to take that sort of risk again.”

“Don’t thank us,” says Conor abruptly. Roger glances at him, but asks no questions, and they both busy themselves with bringing the boat in.

Maybe somewhere in Gray and Roger’s minds, in some buried place, they knew how much worse it could have been. They don’t consciously remember the seals’ attack, but it must have left a mark on their minds as well as their bodies. Just thinking about it makes me shudder. Maybe that’s another reason they want to keep the events of today from Mum. They’d like to wipe away the memory, as if it never happened.

But I don’t think you can do that. I think that everything that happens to you stays in you, even if it stays in a part of your mind where you can’t find it. That’s why you should never try to forget when people urge you to.

People want me to forget Dad. They don’t say it as straight as that, but it’s what they want, all the same.

“You must try to move on, Saph. You’ve got your life to live. You mustn’t be trapped in the past. You’ve got to think of the future now.”

How I hate those words. Move on. Dad isn’t the past, and I’m not trapped. He’s alive, I know it. I will never stop thinking about him and trying to find him. I believe Dad knows that. He knows that I would never forget him, or stop searching for him.

While we’re heading the boat back towards our cove, Roger keeps glancing back at the Bawns. Each time he sees those black jagged rocks sticking out of the water, he frowns. Gray doesn’t look back at all.

A tiny film keeps running over and over again through my mind. The black, stick-like figures of Roger and Gray sprawl through the water again, turning over and over in slow motion. They sink down to the sea bed and rest there, until the currents cover them with sand.

No. It didn’t happen. Gray and Roger didn’t die. Roger is safe beside me, and now he’s going to come back to our cottage and play cards with Mum and tell her what a great cook she is and generally irritate me until I want to scream.

But maybe he doesn’t irritate me all the time. Sometimes I quite like talking to Roger.

I squeeze my eyes shut, and the film stops. But it hasn’t disappeared, I know that. It’s waiting inside my head, like a warning.

We all agree the story we’re going to tell Mum. Roger will say that Conor and I went out with them in the boat, to watch the dive. (Mum will be bound to see us coming back in the boat, because she’ll be waiting with the picnic.) Picnic! Is it possible that it’s still the same day, and that only a couple of hours have passed? It seems so. Roger’s watch says quarter to four. Ingo time and human time have kept close together, today. I wonder why that is. Maybe because Roger and Gray were never in Ingo at all? Divers go down into the water, but they never go into Ingo. And because Roger and Gray were following human time, we had to as well, or we’d never have been able to rescue them.

But when we bring the boat into the cove, Mum isn’t there, waiting on shore. She didn’t come down to the cove at all, she tells us later. She changed her mind, because there was so much picnic food to carry, and she wasn’t sure what time Roger and Gray would arrive in the boat. She thought it would be better to keep the food in the cool, and have the picnic up in our garden.

Roger and Gray agree enthusiastically that it’s not worth taking the picnic back down to the cove now. Mum has spread a rug in the garden, and laid out the food with cloths to cover it against the flies.

But once the first flurry of greetings is over, Mum gets a proper look at Roger and Gray. She sees everything. She’s horrified by the scratch across Gray’s face, and the bruises that are starting to appear on Roger and Gray’s arms and legs.

“What happened? Oh God, you should never have gone. I should have guessed something would happen.”

Roger puts his arm around her shoulders. It’s the first time I’ve seen him touch Mum.

“Take it easy, Jennie, nothing’s happened. We took a bit of a battering against the rocks, that’s all. The currents out there are stronger than I’d allowed for.”

“It’s dangerous,” says Mum. Her voice cracks with tension. “This whole coast is dangerous. People don’t realise.”

“It’s OK, Jennie.” Roger’s hand grips Mum’s shoulder, rocking her gently. “You don’t have to think about it any more. Put it out of your mind. We won’t be diving around the Bawns again. There’s nothing there.”

Mum’s face slowly relaxes.

“You promise?”

“Swear and promise,” says Roger. Conor and I exchange startled glances. I can see how relieved Mum is. Before we eat the picnic, she cleans Gray’s scratch carefully with boiled water and a pad of lint.

“Strange,” she mutters. “This doesn’t look like a cut from a rock. It looks almost like a cat scratch. And it’s deep. I’m worried it’s going to leave a scar.”

“You have everything round here, even underwater cats,” says Gray, wincing as Mum applies the antiseptic cream. It’s a lame joke, but Mum smiles.

“But it does look like some sort of claw mark… we’ll have to watch it doesn’t turn septic.”

“Give me dogs any day,” says Roger. “You know where you are with a dog. That reminds me, Jennie. What do you say we walk up to the farm one day this week, and find out what the position is with Sadie?”

“Nothing’s settled, Sapphy!” says Mum hastily. “We’re making enquiries, that’s all. Don’t look like that.”

“Like what?”

“As if you’ll die if it doesn’t happen, that’s what she means,” says Conor. “Take it easy, Saph.”

I force myself to be calm. Jack’s mum and dad might have changed their minds about selling Sadie. Who wouldn’t want to keep a dog like Sadie? I can’t imagine even thinking of giving her away, if she was mine.

“Don’t look so desperate, Saph,” says Roger. “We’ll do what we can.”

That night Roger sleeps on our sofa, and I hear him yelling out in the middle of the night. Mum goes padding downstairs, and I hear them talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Their voices rise and fall for a long time. I ask Mum about it in the morning, once Roger has left.

“What happened last night, Mum?”

“Roger had a nightmare,” Mum says.

“What was it about?”

“You know how it is. Nightmares never make sense. He dreamed he was being tossed by a herd of giant bulls. They were underwater and he couldn’t escape. It must have been terrifying. He woke up drenched in sweat. Underwater bulls! Funny what our minds come up with when we’re asleep.”

“Poor Roger.”

“It’s nice the way you’re trying to get on with him now,” says Mum, smiling at me approvingly. “Do you know, when we were talking about his nightmare, he suddenly said he was very grateful to you. That was a strange thing for him to say, wasn’t it? What’s he got to be grateful to you for?You’ve only just stopped acting like a little madam with him… Sapphire, are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.”

“It’s OK, Mum. Just sometimes it hurts when I breathe.”

“What sort of pain is it? Does your chest feel tight? Breathe in deeply now, Sapphy, let me hear if you’re wheezing.”

Mum wanted to be a nurse when she was young, but she didn’t have the right qualifications. She’s trained as a first-aider, but she always says she’d like to take it further. So far, the only place she has taken it further is in our house.

“Mum, I haven’t had asthma since I was about six. It’s not that sort of pain.”

“All the same, you ought to have a quiet day for once, tomorrow. Watch a film, read a book. You and Conor are always in that sea. You’ll turn into a fish if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, Mum.”

“I mean it.”

“If we had a dog,” I say casually, glancing sideways at Mum, “it would be good to hang out around the house with her. When I wasn’t taking her for walks.”

I can almost see the thought crossing Mum’s face. It’s true. If Sapphy had a dog to look after, she wouldn’t be running off down to the cove all the time.

I say nothing more. With Mum, it’s best to let the thought settle, and sink in.

If Sadie was here now, I could tell her everything. I could whisper it into her soft ears and she’d strain to understand me. I think she would understand some of it. There are so many things I can’t tell anyone, not even Conor, or Faro. So many questions I want to ask.

It’s Conor that Roger ought to be grateful to, not me. Conor could barely breathe or move, but he faced the seals for Roger’s sake. I don’t know what magic was in Conor’s song, but it must have been powerful, to stop the seals’ attack. Granny Carne said that Conor had his own power, and he must never forget it. I believed that Conor was weak in Ingo, and I was strong, but it was Conor who saved Roger and Gray. Faro and I and Elvira only helped to finish what Conor began.

I’ve called for Faro twice now when I’ve needed him. Both times he’s answered and come to help me. But he doesn’t come because of any power I’ve got, I’m sure of that. I don’t know why it is that there seems to be a bond between us. I feel as if I’ve known Faro much longer than I’ve really known him.

Faro called me ‘little sister’. I said I wasn’t his sister, and he looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but then he didn’t. And then, when he was leaving us at the boat, he said it again. Little sister.

I wish I’d thanked him. And those somersaults were amazing. I’d love to learn to do somersaults like that. Maybe Faro would teach me one day.

No, don’t think of Ingo now. Don’t let Ingo get too strong in your heart, or it will crowd out everything. I’ve learned that now. It’s what the first Mathew Trewhella did, when he followed the Zennor mermaid and left Annie behind to give birth to his son without him.

I used to think that when a child was born, a parent made a promise to stay with him. Or her. But if there’s a promise, it can be broken. That first Mathew Trewhella broke his promises. I wonder if he ever forgot them, or did the torn edges of his promises hurt him to the end of his life?

When someone goes away from you suddenly, without warning, that’s what it’s like. A rip, a torn edge inside you. I have a torn edge in me, and Dad has a torn edge in him. I’m not sure if those edges will still fit together by the time I find him.

And I will find him. That’s more than a promise. It’s the next level up from a promise: it’s a vow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It’s evening now. I’ve decided to clear the garden that’s been neglected since Dad went. I’ve been digging up weeds, chopping back brambles and piling up the rubbish into a heap. Dad would be pleased. I’m hot and sweaty but it feels good. Conor’s gone into St Pirans with Mum, but I’m all right on my own. Because… because something wonderful has happened. I have got someone with me. She’s lying on the path, watching me intelligently. Sometimes she gets up and investigates one of the million smells of the garden that only dogs can recognise.

No, she’s not my dog yet. But I’m working on it. She’s visiting just for a week, while Jack’s family is on holiday. We’re going to see how she gets on here.

“Supper soon, Sadie,” I tell her, and she thumps her tail. She understands every word I say.

“There now, Sadie, don’t you think Dad would be pleased if he saw how much I’ve done?”

The bees are going home after working all day in the flowers. One of them brushes past me and I wonder if it’s going home to Granny Carne’s hive. It stops, and burrows into a snapdragon flower. I can hear it buzzing and bumbling around inside. Maybe it’s stuck? No, slowly it emerges.

Suddenly an idea strikes me. Maybe, if Conor could talk to the hive, I could talk to one single bee?

“Um – listen, can you hear me?”

But as soon as I start talking to the bee, I know it’s not going to work. I haven’t any of the feeling in me that Conor described. To be honest I don’t believe that I have any earth magic at all. Sure enough, the bee takes no notice of me, and flies off with its load of pollen.

At that moment, a shadow falls over me. I look up quickly. There’s no one there, but Sadie is on her feet, bristling, a growl starting in the back of her throat. And the evening sun’s not so bright. No, the light’s changing. It’s going a strange colour, greenish blue, like the colour of underwater. But the sea can’t come here! Ingo is not allowed to break its bounds, I know that.