The Deep. Helen Dunmore

is too much. I don’t care if he’s on his own territory. I don’t even care that his arms ripple with muscle and one blow from his tail could kill me. I’m not letting him get away with this.

      “So would the Mer speak from ignorance, if they came into the human world,” I answer him. “Even you, Ervys. You asked me to come here. I’ve visited the Deep, which none of you have. If you want my help, why not explain things to me instead of telling me how ignorant I am?”

      I’m out of breath by the time I’ve finished, and scared of what I’ve said, but still glad that I said it. I wait for Ervys to explode, but he doesn’t. He looks at me measuringly.

      “I see how you were bold enough to go into the Deep,” he says at last. “Listen. There are things we prefer never to speak about, but we must put them in open words now. The Kraken has the power to destroy our world. The thunder of his voice can split the sea bed, release the tides, destroy Ingo, and send flood and terror even into your world. When the Kraken broke the Tide Knot he was barely whispering. We cannot wait for him to roar. He must be calmed. He must be put back to sleep. And there is only one way to do it.”

      “What – what way?”

      There is silence in the chamber. Even Ervys doesn’t seem to want to answer. A tense silence, crawling with dread.

      “Only one thing can send the Kraken back to sleep,” says Faro, in a low, toneless voice. “A boy and a girl must be sacrificed to him. This is what happened in the time of our ancestors.”

      A low moan ripples around the ranks of the Mer. I don’t want to believe it. Surely it can’t be true. The Kraken hasn’t woken for hundreds of years; Ervys said so. Stories get distorted. Maybe there was an epidemic of a sickness which killed children, and the Mer believed that they were sacrificed to the Kraken. Dad used to say that’s how all legends start. They have a seed of truth in them, Sapphy, and the seed grows as the story gets passed from mouth to mouth.

      For a second the thought of Dad is so strong that it’s like hearing his voice. And then I remember the baby. Dad’s new family. My little half-brother, fast asleep in his cradle of rock, so peaceful and trusting. A Mer baby with a Mer father who’s left the human world. Just as in the old legends…

      That legend was real, though, wasn’t it, Dad? It grew and grew until it swallowed you up. Maybe the Kraken is real too. I want to believe that it’s a myth that has grown into a monster because of the dread that the Mer have of the Deep. But perhaps it’s true.

       A boy and a girl…

      “They are taken to the border of the Deep, to the point where the Mer can go no farther,” says Ervys. The pain and horror in his voice makes me feel a stab of reluctant sympathy for him. “They are left there for the Kraken. This is what happened in the time of our ancestors.”

      But how could anyone give their children to a monster?

      The thought floods my mind and I don’t know if I’ve said it aloud or not.

      “No one loves their children more than we do,” says Ervys, “but unless we sacrifice to the Kraken, then the whole people will die. Not just the Mer, but all who live in Ingo. Unless we can find another way.”

      All who live in Ingo… Dad’s face floats in my mind. I scan the ranks of the Mer, searching. Some of them must know Dad. Maybe Mellina’s family are here, too. It gives me the strangest feeling. Do they know if Dad is happy or unhappy here? Would they know if he wanted to leave Ingo and return to the human world? Conor thinks the Mer are keeping Dad here against his will. I want to believe it too, but sometimes it’s hard. If only I could be as sure as Conor that Dad is waiting for us to bring him back to the human world…

      Suddenly Ervys’s final words take hold in my mind. Another way. What way does he mean?

      “We know from the whales who visit the Deep that the Kraken is growing impatient,” Ervys goes on. “The breaking of the Tide Knot was not enough for him. If we are to put the Kraken back to sleep, it must be done quickly. If we can find another way – if we can avert the sacrifice – then we will do anything.”

      “But the Mer can’t visit the Deep. How can you put the Kraken back to sleep if you can’t get near it?”

      “We cannot,” says Ervys, with the faintest emphasis on the first word. “But we believe there is another way. Farther back in time, more than fifty life-spans ago, the Kraken woke and ravaged Ingo for more than a year. But the sacrifice was never made. Mab Avalon put the Kraken back to sleep.”

      “Who – what was Mab Avalon?”

      Ervys shakes his head. “That memory is not clear. He did not belong to us. He came to Ingo and then he departed for his own world.”

      “What world was that?”

      “After fifty life-spans even we Mer find that memory has dissolved much of what happened.”

      Fifty life-spans, I think, trying to work it out in my head. If the Mer live about seventy years, as humans do, then that’s about – about three thousand five hundred years ago.

      “Mab Avalon,” I repeat. The name is rich in my mouth. I’m sure I’ve never heard it before, but it has a strange familiarity. “Ervys… did Mab Avalon come from my world? The human world?”

      “He survived the Deep. He returned peace to Ingo. He was Mab Avalon,” Ervys intones.

      It is so frustrating. I want information, and Ervys just keeps on repeating the same things.

      At that moment Karrek swims forward again, plunges to touch the Stone, and comes up to us. This time he faces me and speaks directly to me. “We don’t know what world Mab Avalon came from,” he says, “but he was cleft, like you. Memory tells us that much.”

      He gazes into my eyes, his face grave, and then nods and swims back to his place.

      Ervys looks thunderous at this interruption, but he quickly covers his anger and takes control again.

      “We know that Mab Avalon was able to enter the Deep,” he goes on smoothly, as if Karrek hasn’t spoken. “We know that after a great battle, he subdued the Kraken. At least once in our history the Kraken has been calmed without the loss of our children.”

      “You can’t ask her to do that,” breaks out Faro’s voice. And then I understand.

      “We are asking,” says Ervys.

      They are asking… Yes. All those faces turn to me. They’re still heavy with dread, but now there’s some hope in them too. They’re hoping that Ervys is right and that there’s a chance I can do what they can’t.

      Mum always says that people will do anything for their children. They’ll walk over fire for them. But what if walking over fire doesn’t make any difference? What if it’s someone else who can do the only thing that might protect your child?

      “But – but I’m a child. I mean, why wouldn’t the Kraken…”

      Think I’m the sacrifice, is what I mean, but I can’t get the words out of my mouth. The idea is too horrible to bring into the open. And I’m most certainly not Mab Avalon, I want to add. It sounds like a warrior’s name from an old story. Someone in old-fashioned armour, carrying a sword. Nothing to do with me, Sapphire Trewhella of Trewhella Cottage, Senara Churchtown, West Penwith, Cornwall… Why not add The World, The Universe while you’re at it, I think, and nearly giggle in spite of everything.

      The Mer have got completely the wrong idea if they think I’m going home to fetch my trusty sword and whack the Kraken over the head with it.

      “You are too old to be a sacrifice,” says Ervys.

      A wave of relief washes through me, and then I notice the strained, desperate looks on the faces of the Mer women. Some of them cover their faces with their hands. Maybe they’re the mothers of young children…