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

don’t know who might be listening,” he whispers.

      “But Faro said that you were in Ingo too, at the same time as me. He said you and Elvira were talking to the sunfish.”

      “I wasn’t talking to them. I don’t know how. Elvira was.”

      “But that was only a little while ago. How could you have been there in Ingo, and up here waiting for me on the cliff, at the same time?”

      Conor pulls a grass stem out of its sheath and nibbles the sweet end of it, thinking too.

      “What Faro tells you,” he says at last, “I mean, the things that Faro says, they’re true in his mind. But they may not be true in yours.”

      “Do you mean he’s lying?”

      “It’s not like that in Ingo. Elvira’s just the same. There isn’t only one thing that’s true, and everything else is a lie. And I think maybe time’s like that in Ingo, too. It stretches out – then it presses itself together, like this –” and Conor squeezes his hands together, as if he’s crushing time.

      “Who told you all that? Elvira?” I ask jealously. “Were you there with Elvira, like Faro says, or not?”

      “Yes, I was there… but I don’t know how long for. I think time in Ingo isn’t just different in how fast it goes, but in the whole way it works. You said it was only a little while since I was in Ingo, but I’ve been back here for ages. Since yesterday. So maybe time there moves quite differently.”

      “But did you see me? Did you and Elvira see me, and hear me calling, and then hide from me?”

      It feels like the most important question I’ve ever asked Conor. I want him to kill the picture in my mind that shows him and Elvira slipping away together, maybe laughing, not wanting me to see them—

      “You came to me,” says Conor slowly. “You came into my mind, Saph, but I didn’t see you. I was with the seals, and suddenly you were there in my mind. I thought something bad had happened to you. I told Elvira I had to go back and find you.”

      “What do you mean, I was ‘in your mind’?”

      “You know how it is in Ingo,” says Conor reluctantly. “Everything you usually think about – everything that’s up in the Air – it floats away and fades. It doesn’t seem real. Even people fade. Even you and Mum started to feel like dreams, when I was in Ingo. But suddenly all that changed. You were really there, in my mind, solid. I stopped feeling easy and dreamy. I was scared. I thought you were in trouble, Saph, and I might not get to you in time.”

      “But I was there, in Ingo, all the time. Close to you.”

      “Yes.” Conor’s face closes in a frown. “But it didn’t feel like that. It felt as if you were far away – calling to me – and I was losing you. Like when a mobile breaks up and you keep losing someone’s voice. Elvira said—” He breaks off and frowns even more deeply.

      “What did she say?”

      “She told me not to call you. She said it could be dangerous. She wanted us to go on surfing the currents. There’s a group of islands she’s going to take me to – but I said I couldn’t go with her. I had to come back and find you. She wasn’t very…”

      He shakes his head, as if trying to shake away the troubled feeling.

      “Wasn’t very what?”

      “She wasn’t very happy about it.”

      Your precious Elvira didn’t care what happened to me, did she? I think, but I don’t say it.

      “I don’t understand how it all works,” says Conor.

      “Me neither.”

      Conor was there, in Ingo, and so was I, but we never met. Faro and Elvira kept us separate.

      But they didn’t stop us when we said we wanted to come back.

      No, I’m sure Faro doesn’t want to hurt me. He looked after me and made sure I was safe in Ingo.

      “You look terrible,” says Conor. “Lucky Mum’s not back. She’d know straight away something had happened.”

      The KitKat wrapper glints in the sun. My mouth waters.

      “Is there any of that KitKat left?”

      “No, I ate it. It was a long night.”

      “I’m sorry.” I’m so hungry. Starving. Hungry for food and hungry for sleep. “Can I sleep in your sleeping bag, Con?”

      My legs feel like jelly. I can’t walk another step. All I want is to dive into Conor’s sleeping bag and sleep until tomorrow – or even the next day—

      “No, Saph,” says Conor urgently, as my legs begin to fold. “We’ve got to get home. You can sleep in your own bed once we’re there.”

      “Can’t I even rest for a bit?”

      “No, Saph, not here. It’s not—” Conor breaks off what he’s saying, and glances around again. A black-headed gull sits quietly on a rock nearby, his head cocked. If he wasn’t a gull, you’d think he was listening to us. Conor whispers, “It’s too close here.”

      “Close to what?”

      “To Ingo. The tide will be high again soon.”

      I remember what happens at high tide. The waves come right in, under the cliffs. There are gullies that the sea has been carving for centuries, and blowholes where the water spouts up with a hiss of foam. When it’s rough you can hear the sea roaring like a lion beneath you, and feel the thump of the waves through the granite.

      Conor’s right. Air and Ingo are close, here. This shore is where they touch. Conor and I are standing on the border, between the two countries. I look out to the shining water and think of Ingo. All the colour and creatures and life of Ingo are there, so close I could still touch them – if I just reached out—

      Before I know it, I’ve moved forward, closer to the edge of the cliff.

      “Saph!”

      The gull opens his beak in a hideous squawk as Conor grabs my arm again and pulls me back.

      “Come on, Saph! We’ve got to go home!”

       CHAPTER TEN

      I wake up slowly. I’m in my own room, lying in bed. Sleep doesn’t want to let go of me, and my head is fuzzy with dreams. Strange dreams, that seem more real than the daylight. I dreamed of a huge cavern deep, deep under the cliffs where I slept in a bed of silky sea-moss while a warm current fanned my face. The dream was so real that I can still feel the touch of moss, like feathers against my skin.

      But I’m lying under my old blue duvet cover. From the look of the light, it’s late morning. I can hear Mum downstairs, talking. I prop myself up on my elbow to listen, but I can’t hear another voice answering her. She must be on the phone. I can’t hear what she’s saying, either, but suddenly I guess who she’s talking to. It’s that diver, Roger. The man who’s coming here on Sunday. Mum’s voice murmurs on and on, as if she’s already known Roger for years and has a million things to tell him. Sometimes she laughs.

      Roger the diver. Mum likes him, you can tell that from her voice. But Faro hates divers. What did he say about them? Air People with air on their backs, bringing Air into Ingo, spying on Ingo. That’s what he thinks they are: spies.

      I’m glad Faro hates them. Now that Mum’s told me about Roger the diver coming on Sunday, I don’t like divers either. I think they should keep out of the way and not come where they aren’t wanted.

      Mum thinks I should stop waiting and hoping for Dad to return. She says