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

is as small as a grain of sand, I don’t feel like a stranger there. I feel different when I’m in Ingo. More alive. More… more myself.

      “Conor. Tell me truthfully. Do you truly believe that we’re all Air, and not Mer at all? You and me, I mean?”

      “But Saph, what else could we be but human? We’ve got a human mother and a human father. That makes us a hundred per cent human. Why do you want to believe anything different?”

      “I don’t know.” Suddenly I feel tired all over. Conor is standing right next to me, but he’s far away. “I don’t know why I believe it, but I can’t help it. I feel it, Conor. When I’m in Ingo I’m free. I can go anywhere, wherever I want.”

      “Only if you’re holding on to Faro’s wrist,” says Conor sarcastically. “I don’t see what’s so free about that.”

      “But I don’t need to do that any more.”

      “What? You don’t need to do that any more?” repeats Conor slowly. “No. Of course, you’re right. It’s true. You can’t have been with Faro when Roger saw you, otherwise Roger would have seen him too. You mean you can breathe and move and do everything on your own, all the time you’re down there?”

      “Yes. If I want to go really fast though, I hold on to Faro or we get the dolphins—”

      “You should never have gone back there, Saph. It’s dangerous. It’s changing you. Each time you go, it draws you deeper in. I keep trying to make you understand. Why won’t you listen?”

      “No, Conor, why won’t you listen for once? You should have been with us today. You don’t understand what it’s like. We rode on the dolphins and I nearly understood what they were saying. It doesn’t hurt at all to go into Ingo now, not like it did the first time. And Faro and I—” I stop. I’d been about to blurt out that Faro could hear my thoughts.

      “Faro and you what?”

      “Oh, nothing.”

      “Faro and you what?”

      “Conor, it’s nothing. Don’t look at me like that. It’s just that he can – I mean, we can – we can see into each other’s minds. Just a bit. I can see his thoughts and he can see mine, the way fish do in shoals. They share their memories, did you know that?”

      “I do not believe I’m hearing this. Sapphire. You – are – not – a – fish. You are not even partly a fish. Get over it. You are my sister and you live in Senara Churchtown, West Penwith, Cornwall, the Earth, the Universe. Not in ***!!!!*** Ingo!”

      “I wish Mum could hear you swearing like that.”

      “Why don’t you swim off and tell her? Assuming you can still remember enough human words? Mum can’t share your thoughts like Faro, remember. She’s only human.”

      “Conor, we mustn’t!”

      “Mustn’t what?”

      “Argue.”

      “I’m not arguing.”

      “Nor am I.”

      Face to face, not arguing, we can’t think of anything else to say. But without saying anything, I know that something has shifted. Conor is my friend again. Maybe that sounds a strange thing to say, because how can your brother not be your friend?

      “All the same, Saph,” says Conor after a while, “I am going out with Roger again. I do want to learn to dive. Roger’s going to fix up a course for me. He’s got a mate who’ll give me the course for nothing, in exchange for a favour Roger did him. It’s really interesting, what Roger does. It’s the kind of thing I’d like to do one day.”

      “It’s dangerous,” I say, and then I realise I’m echoing what Conor’s just said to me. “The Mer don’t like it, Conor. And in their own world – in Ingo – they’re powerful. We aren’t.”

      “I know, I know. Can you please stop being the Mer Broadcasting Company for two seconds? Listen. Roger’s not trying to do harm. He’s not working for an oil company or anything like that. He knows loads about marine ecology, Sapphire. He cares about it. That’s what he’s interested in. You ought to talk to him.”

      “Don’t go out with him, Conor.”

      “But why not?You’ve been out in Dad’s boat hundreds of times and nothing’s ever happened. Well, not much, anyway. So have I. What’s so different about Roger?”

      “I don’t know. I can’t say. It’s feels like – I don’t know. Like bad weather coming, when the sun’s still shining. But you can see the storm moving in from the sea. And you feel the pressure inside your head.”

      “OK, I promise, if it’s bad weather, or if it even looks like bad weather, I won’t go,” says Conor. But it wasn’t bad weather I was talking about. It was a different kind of storm. If I could put what I’m afraid of into the right words, then surely Conor would understand.

      “And Roger won’t go out if there’s a bad forecast. He’s very careful. Divers have to be. Come on, Saph, we’d better go downstairs.”

      I’m not finding the right words. But at least Conor won’t be going out again with Roger for a while, so I’ll have time to persuade him.

      “Hurry up, Saph, Mum’ll be waiting.”

      “She won’t. She’s happy talking to Roger. Anyway, you’d better change your jeans first, hadn’t you?”

      “Why?”

      “Because you told Mum they were wet. And it’s a good idea for Mum to keep on thinking that at least one of us tells the truth.”

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

      All through tea I’m on edge in case Roger says something about seeing me underwater. I can’t eat more than half my slice of cake, even though it’s one of Mum’s best, and Mum is trying to feed me up. After Roger’s eaten two fat slices, Mum asks if he’d like a fresh pot of tea.

      “You sit down,” he says, “I’ll make it, Jennie. You deserve a rest.” Then he turns to me and Conor. “Your mother is an amazing woman,” he announces, sounding like a character in a TV sitcom. “The best waitress in town, best cook I know – finest coffee and walnut I’ve ever tasted, Jennie.”

      “Is that all I’m good for? Baking cakes and running around the restaurant?” asks Mum, but she doesn’t sound cross at all. Her voice is full of teasing laughter.

      “I think you know that’s not the case,” says Roger, and they laugh together.

      For several reasons this conversation makes me prickle. We know that Mum is a good cook. We know how hard she works. Isn’t that why we try all we can to help her? We don’t need Roger to tell us. It’s our life, not his – none of it is Roger’s business at all – and yet the way he laughs with Mum makes me feel as if I’m the one who is left out. I try to catch Conor’s eye to see what he thinks, but he’s on his way out already.

      “Got to fetch the milk, Mum. See you in a bit.”

      “I’ll make that tea,” says Roger, dragging his eyes away from Mum.

      “Sapphire’ll help you, won’t you, Sapphy,” says Mum, settling herself luxuriously in her chair and closing her eyes. “Now this is heaven. All the meals cooked, nothing to do for the rest of the evening… Sapphy, love, show Roger where things are in the kitchen.”

      Roger and I traipse into the kitchen. As soon as I’m alone with him, I suddenly realise how big he is. Not heavy, but broad and strong and tall. He has to duck his head to go through the kitchen doorway.

      I