The Deep. Helen Dunmore

all too complicated. I’m not going to think about it any more. Mum and Roger are buying stuff over in Porthnance. I didn’t use to be allowed to come down to the cove without Conor, but I’m older now, and Mum hasn’t said anything about it since we’ve been back. And anyway I’m not on my own. I’m with Faro. No one could keep me safer in the sea than Faro.

      At this moment, Faro’s head breaks the surface, sleek and shining. He pushes back his hair.

      “Sapphire! Come quickly!”

      “The water’s freezing, Faro. It’s only April. I’ve got human blood as well as Mer blood, remember? I’ll get hypothermia.”

      Faro shakes his head impatiently. “Come on, Sapphire. I’m not talking about the swimming that humans do. Come to Ingo with me.”

      To Ingo. I won’t feel the cold there. The water will envelop me, and feel like home. I’ll dive beneath the surface, through the skin of the sea, and my lungs will burn just as Faro’s burn when he enters the Air. But not too badly. Like Faro, I don’t feel the change so much these days. The sea change. A thrill of excitement runs through me. But I still hesitate. Time in Ingo isn’t like our time. I might be in Ingo and think only an hour had passed, while it could be a whole human day. Mum has had enough fear and worry. Conor and I haven’t been into Ingo since the night of the flood. We’ve kept close to home.

      “Quickly, Sapphire! My friend is here, waiting. There’s an Assembly.”

      “What’s an Assembly? Is it like a Gathering?”

      My heart quickens again. When I was in Ingo with Faro last autumn I saw crowds of the Mer in the distance, their beautiful cloaks of shell and net glimmering around them, on their way to a Gathering. It sounded like a wonderful party, but Faro wouldn’t let me go. I didn’t even get close enough to speak to the Mer. But maybe this time I will. I’ll get to know Faro’s people. Maybe I’ll have a cloak, too—

      “No,” says Faro, “a Gathering is for pleasure. An Assembly is more… more serious. My friend has been sent to summon you.”

      “Summon me!”

      I stand up on the rock, and draw myself to my full height. “Summon me, Faro? Who is he to summon me?”

      Faro looks up at me, and I look down. I feel the power in him. Mer power, strong as a magnet. But I feel the power in me, too, rising to meet his. I’m his equal. We stare at each other, and neither of us looks away.

      At last Faro says, “They’re asking you to come, Sapphire. They need you there.”

      “That’s not what ‘summon’ means, Faro.”

      “Maybe that was the wrong word. Don’t be angry.” A persuasive smile flickers on Faro’s face. “Come, Sapphire. Come.”

      I look behind me. The white sand of the beach, and then rocks and boulders rising almost to the lip of the cliff. The way home. I look back at Faro’s face, and then beyond him to where I think I see a shadow waiting, deep in the water. One of Faro’s friends. The Mer want me to go to an Assembly.

      Maybe this means that the Mer are letting me deeper into Ingo now. An Assembly… If it’s for something serious, as Faro says, maybe Saldowr will be there. Surely they’d need him there, because Faro says Saldowr is the wisest of the Mer. I want to see him again. I hope the wound in his shoulder has healed. He was so badly hurt in the struggle to seal the Tide Knot again that I was afraid he would die.

      So far, even though I’ve been to Ingo many times, I’ve only met Faro and his sister Elvira and Saldowr, and seen the shadows of other Mer swimming in the distance. There are bound to be a lot of them at the Assembly. Hundreds, maybe. And I’ll meet them face to face.

      Excitement pulses in me like a rising tide. Senara, Mum, Conor, Sadie are already shrinking in my mind. They’re just as clear, but small and distant, like images at the wrong end of a telescope. Ingo is holding out its arms to me.

      “I’ll come,” I say, and I swing my arms forward, and dive from the rock.

       CHAPTER TWO

      As soon as we’re out of the cove, the sea bed plunges away beneath us. We dive deep, through the turquoise surface water and into the rich blue-purple that lies beneath. Faro’s friend swims ahead. I watch the swish of his tail from side to side as it drives him through the water. Sometimes I think he glances back to see if we’re following, but I’m not sure.

      The power of Ingo sweeps through my body and I race after him. I could never swim this strongly in the human world, up on the surface. My body cuts through the water. I feel as sleek and fast as a seal, and I’m not tired at all, even though we must be more than a mile out from land already.

      Now there’s the first tug of a current. It seizes us in its strong arms, and drags us southward. Slowly at first and then faster, faster, until the water flies past us and the sea bed below us is a blur.

      But no matter how fast we go, Faro’s friend is still ahead of us. There he is, just visible, riding the current’s crest. He’s not going to let me catch up with him. Faro could, easily, but I’m not fast enough.

      “Why won’t he wait for us, Faro?”

      Faro’s white teeth show in a teasing smile. “He’s shy of you, Sapphire.”

      “He can’t be!”

      “You’re human, don’t forget. Morlader’s not like me. He’s never spoken to a human, or even seen one up close. Most of the Mer are like that. You don’t realise how unusual I am,” he adds with self-satisfaction.

      “Why?”

      “Why what?”

      “Why are you different from the others?”

      Faro frowns. “You wouldn’t understand, Sapphire. It’s a Mer thing.” Streams of bubbles play over his face, half-hiding it. He’s close, but he looks far away. A Mer thing. His words hurt, but the water of Ingo surges around me, and my own Mer blood tingles with excitement. How fast is this current taking us? How far? We must be miles and miles from land now. It’s like flying underwater. I’ve never travelled so fast in Ingo, but I’m not afraid. I’m elated. How can Faro think I won’t understand?

      “I’m not all human, Faro,” I say. “You know that.”

      Faro turns to me. His hair flows past his shoulders, plastered to his skin by the force of the current. His eyes scan my face, intent, anxious – and maybe even a little fearful. He isn’t hiding from me now. Suddenly I remember the first time we met.

      “You weren’t ever shy of me, Faro.”

      “No.”

      “Why weren’t you? You’re Mer too.”

      A strange expression crosses Faro’s face. “Yes,” he says, more hesitant than I’ve ever heard him, “yes, of course I’m Mer. But Sapphire, there’s something—Look out!”

      He grabs my hand and hurls us sideways out of the grip of the current, just missing a jagged spear of rock. In the calm water, he lets go of me. There are white marks on my hand where his fingers dug into the flesh. I could never have got out of that current on my own. Faro’s strength is almost frightening sometimes – but he did it to save me.

      Faro looks shocked. “It nearly got us. I must have been dreaming. I can’t believe I let that happen.”

      “Scary,” I say weakly as I try to calm the pumping of my heart. Usually Faro is as quick as a fish. He senses danger at the first shadow of it. That rock would have killed us, and we only missed it by a few centimetres. If Faro hadn’t dragged me sideways, I’d be drifting down to the sea bed now, my body broken and bleeding. For the first time, I really understand