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

the other side of the room my dressing-table mirror gleams back at me. Moonlight picks out the pattern of a starfish in the mirror’s shattered glass. Even though the mirror is broken I can still see my reflection. It looks like me, and yet not like me. My hair is tangled like weed, my face shines like water.

      “Sssssssapphire!”

      I can’t keep silent. I have got to answer. But just as I turn back to the window and open my mouth to speak, two things happen.

      An owl swoops past my window. Its wings are spread wide, and as it passes the owl turns and stares straight into my room. Its fierce amber gaze burns into my mind, and then is gone. At the same moment a volley of barks bursts across the night. It’s Sadie! I know it’s her. I’d recognise her voice anywhere. It’s Sadie, barking wildly, as if she’s heard an intruder and is desperate to wake the whole house. Oh Sadie, I wish you weren’t so far away! I wish I was where you are, then I’d know what’s wrong.

      Sadie barks even more wildly, as if she’s answering me. I have the strangest feeling that Sadie is barking because of me. She wants me to hear her. She wants to warn me – protect me…

      “It’s all right, Sadie girl,” I say, even though my voice can’t possibly reach her. “It’s all right, there’s nothing wrong, nobody’s hurting me.”

      But Sadie just carries on barking, telling the whole night to watch out. I bet Jack’s dad has already stumbled downstairs in his pyjamas to see if there’s a burglar, or a fox after the chickens. Sadie keeps on barking out her message, and I find myself smiling. It’s almost as if she were in my room, thumping her tail on the floor, telling me she’s here, it’s all right, she’s not going to let anything hurt me.

      Suddenly I’m very tired. What’s my window doing open? I close it, fasten the catch, and tumble into bed.

      “Goodnight, Sadie,” I say. “It’s all right now, I’m safe in bed, you can stop barking. But thank you anyway…” As if Sadie really can hear me, the barking dies away. I snuggle deep under the duvet, and fall into a dreamless sleep.

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

      Wake up, Sapphire. Wake up. It’s important. You’ve got to remember.

      Who said that?

      White wall, bedroom wall. I’m awake, or I think I am. It’s early. Mum hasn’t gone to work yet, I can hear her downstairs.

      Inside my head everything slides into place. Yes, something happened last night. The sea was talking to me but then Sadie started barking and the sea’s voice went away. And an owl flew past too. It came so close that if I’d leaned out of the window I could have touched its feathers. And it turned and looked at me. Its eyes reminded me of something… but I can’t remember what, now.

      I’m sitting rigid, upright in bed. It wasn’t a dream, it was real and it was important, even though I don’t understand what it meant. I’ve got to tell Conor.

      It’s hard work waking Conor. He keeps fighting his way back under the duvet.

      “Go WAY, Saph. Nogonnagerrup—”

      But I’m brutal. I drag the duvet right off him and when he rolls over to the wall I haul him back.

      “WhassMAAERSaph?”

      “Conor, something really important’s happened. You’ve got to wake up.”

      At last words penetrate the fog of Conor’s sleep. He says clearly, “Go away. I’m asleep.”

      “How can you be asleep when you’re talking to me?”

      Conor groans. “Go AWAY, Saph. Just cause you want to get up at dawn—”

      “The sea was calling to me last night. It was saying my name. The sea’s got a voice, Conor! I think it was saying my name in Mer, and guess what, I understood!”

      Conor’s eyes fly open. “What?”

      “Moryow were calling me.”

      “What? What did you say? Who are Moryow?”

      “Did I say that?”

      “Don’t you even know what you said?”

      Suddenly the meaning of the word opens up in my mind.

      “Moryow are the seas of the world,” I tell Conor.

      “You’re making this up, aren’t you?”

      “No, I’m not, I swear and promise. Moryow came close last night, as close as they can. But Sadie wouldn’t let me hear the voice any more… and I think the owl stopped it too.”

      Conor props himself up on his elbows. He looks rumpled and worried.

      “It was a dream, Saph. It must have been.”

      “It wasn’t. I definitely heard a voice. It was as clear as yours, and it was calling me.”

      “I don’t know. Maybe it was some weirdo.” He shivers. “Thank God you didn’t go.”

      “But I would have done. It was only Sadie barking that stopped me.”

      “Jack’s house is more than two miles away. How would Sadie barking from there have stopped anything?”

      “I know, but the barking was close, as if Sadie was in my room. I could hear the lev of the Moryow, then the lev of Sadie hid it.”

      Conor flops back on his bed. “This is all so crazy. Moryow – lev – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “It’s not crazy, Con. Listen. I think it only sounds crazy when you try to understand it all in a – well, in a human way.”

      “Which other way can I look at it? I’m human. And so are you.”

      “But imagine if I could speak full Mer, and talk to everything in Ingo. Maybe I’m beginning to learn the language.”

      Conor suddenly stops being angry with me.

      “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, Saph. It’s just that it’s really really, scary to have a sister who suddenly starts speaking a different language. It makes you seem like a stranger.”

      “How could I ever be a stranger to you, Conor! We’re broder and hwoer.”

      Conor clasps his head in his hands. “Saph, stop it. And whatever happens, if you hear a voice like that again in the middle of the night, don’t follow it. You mustn’t do what it tells you to do. Swear and promise.”

      “I can’t—”

      “You must.”

      “But Conor, don’t you understand? Promises made in this world only cover this world. I can’t promise here for what I might do in Ingo.”

      Conor nods reluctantly. “All right, then. I suppose that’ll have to do. Swear and promise?”

      “Swear and promise,” I say, and we each spit on our right hands and slap them together.

      Conor believed me when I said that the seas of the world talked to me last night. Yesterday afternoon I felt as if I was on the outside of the family, on my own, while Conor was inside, close to Mum and Roger. But now Conor and I are back together.

      “Hey, Saph, what’s the matter? You’re not crying, are you?”

      “No, I’m just glad that…”

      “That what?” asks Conor, wiping tears off me with the corner of his duvet. “You know Saph, you cry the biggest tears in Cornwall. We ought to bottle them and sell them to the tourists.”

      “That you don’t think it was just a dream.”