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

face goes still as a mask. “You call those rocks the Bawns?”

      “Yes. What do you call them?”

      “It doesn’t matter. He can’t go there.”

      “But he’s going to, Faro.”

      “He doesn’t understand. That place is ours. It is where we—”

      “You what?”

      “No, Sapphire. I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: your Roger will never go there. All of Ingo will defend it.”

      Faro’s perfect teeth are bared. Ingo looks at me out of his eyes, and Faro’s a stranger to me, full of cold, furious determination. And then the tide ebbs, and he’s Faro again. My friend and my guide in Ingo. “Take my wrist, Sapphire,” he says. “We’re going back. If you reach home before he does, he will never believe that he really saw you in the sunwater. He’ll think it was all a dream.”

      I remember Roger’s shocked face. I’m not convinced it’ll be that easy to make him forget, or think that it was all a dream. Roger doesn’t seem the kind of person you could fool easily. But how can he possibly tell Mum he saw me lying under the water, not breathing? She’ll think he’s crazy. She certainly won’t want him to come and have Sunday dinners and games of cards with her any more.

      I put my hand around Faro’s wrist, like a bracelet.

      “Where are we now, Faro? Are we far from shore?”

      “Not far. It depends how we travel,” says Faro mysteriously. “There are ways that are even faster than riding the currents. You’ll see. Wait.”

      We tread water, side by side. I can’t see what Faro’s looking for, and I can’t hear what he’s listening for. His face is tight with concentration. He looks like a surfer, poised, waiting for a wave.

      Suddenly he turns to me, his face blazing with excitement. “They’re coming. They’re close enough now. Watch.”

      His mouth opens and a stream of fluting sound pours out, mixed with clicks. It sounds like sea music, something that belongs in the heart of one of those huge curved shells that you hold up to your ear so that you can hear the sea in them. Faro pauses, looking into the depths of distant water and listening for an answer. But if there is an answer, I can’t hear it. I wish I knew that language. I wish I were less human, and more Mer.

      “They’re coming!”

      “Who are coming?”

      “Wait. You’ll see.”

      And then I hear it too. The water’s filling with sound. It’s like Faro’s music, but richer and more strange. It comes from all sides, clicking, whistling, echoing, fluting. And now they rise out of the deep water, sleek and shining and twice as long as I am. They come so fast that I flinch, thinking they’ll hurtle into us. But they stop dead, and the water churns from their suddenness. They are smiling at us.

      “Dolphins!”

      “They’ll let us ride them.”

      The dolphins swish into place alongside us. They watch me with their small, clever eyes, and they click and whistle, waiting for me to answer.

      “Tell them I can’t, Faro. I haven’t learned their language yet. Tell them I’m sorry.”

      “They want you to climb on. Lay your body against her back, Sapphire. No, not like that. You’re too stiff, she won’t be able to hold you. Watch.”

      I watch Faro. The dolphin dips to let him climb astride and then he lies on its back. Faro’s whole body seems to melt as he relaxes against the glistening dark skin of the dolphin. I can’t even see where Faro’s tail ends and the dolphin’s body begins. I touch the shoulder of the dolphin who is butting gently against my legs, and she dips down, ready to carry me.

      “But Faro! Dolphins don’t swim underwater all the time, do they? They show their backs above the water. They’ll take you into the Air. It’ll hurt you.”

      “As long as I’m with her, riding on her back, I’m still in Ingo,” says Faro, not lifting his face from the dolphin’s skin. “Dolphins are always part of Ingo. Come on, Sapphire. Hurry. We have to go as fast as we can.”

      I lean gently forward on to the dolphin’s back, and as my skin touches hers I’m held firm, as if some suction is gripping me. The clicks and whistles of the dolphins seem to be pouring through my body, turning into a language I nearly understand. I almost know what the two dolphins are saying to each other.

      The dolphins move apart. They balance themselves in the water and then spring forward with a rush that plasters my hair over my face. I can’t see anything. I don’t know where I’m going or even where Faro is. But I have never felt so safe. My dolphin speaks to me and I wish I could answer, but I think she can tell through her skin that I trust her. I’m sure I can hear her heartbeat. The closeness of her is like a cradle.

      “I know you’re my friend,” I say, and I don’t know what language I’m speaking or if it’s only thoughts in my head. I peep at my arms and they’re wearing a coat of bubbles from the dolphin’s speed. The water round us churns white but our rush is effortless. All at once we are going up and before I know what’s happening we’ve flashed through the skin of the sea and we’re out in a shock of dazzling sunlight. We crash back into the dark water and I can feel my dolphin laughing. Again and again and again we rise and dive, going faster and faster, the dolphin jumping higher each time. Faro’s dolphin jumps at our side and I know the two dolphins are racing, urging each other on, laughing with us and with each other.

      “Faro!” I shout, not because I want him to answer but because nothing as wonderful as this has ever happened to me before. Our speed is like time unzipping and running backwards. Hope surges in me that where the dolphin’s journey ends I’ll find everything that time has destroyed. Dad’ll be home again. Dad’ll come down to the shore to meet me, saying, “Well now, Sapphire, have you been a good girl while I’ve been away? Should we give school a miss tomorrow and go fishing instead?” There won’t be any Roger, or games of cards, or Mum looking new and different with another man sitting at our kitchen table instead of Dad. The dolphins have the magic to take away everything that’s gone wrong, and bring back everything I love.

      “Faro!” I shout again, wanting to tell him how great it’s all going to be. And he yells back something I can’t hear before we plunge back into the sea and down, down, skimming along a fast rope of current. And then the white sand zooms up to meet us and I know we’re coming to the borders of Ingo, where the earth and water meet.

      Our dolphins slow down. I feel my body peeling away from the dolphin’s back. She is letting go of me, and I have to let go of her. But I want to stay with her, so much.

      “Can I see you again? Please?” I ask her, but she pushes against me, shoving me gently towards the shore as if she’s telling me that that is where I belong. I must leave Ingo. I’m human, not Mer.

      “But I belong in Ingo too,” I whisper, and she looks at me with her small, thoughtful eyes, as if she’s considering the question.

      “Don’t go,” I plead, but I already know she’s leaving, and taking her magic with her. She turns to her companion and they point their blunt noses to the deep water, and spring away from us. The clicks and whistles fade. The dolphins are gone.

      “I wanted to thank them,” I say, but Faro takes no notice.

      “You can swim in from here. Hurry,” he says.

      He won’t come any farther inshore, because the water’s too shallow. But I’m not going to leave without asking Faro something that’s been troubling me more and more. “Faro, why is it that I only ever see you? Where are all the other Mer? I don’t even see Elvira.”

      “You saw the dolphins just now.”

      “Yes, but I mean people. Mer People.”

      Faro