The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  Even the vicar came and had one of his lengthy cups of tea with Mum and said to tell us that he was always there, apart from his week’s holiday in Rome in November. The vicar is a very literal man.

  We’re all going to help raise money for their trip, because it’ll be hard for Mum and Roger to find enough to keep us here, on top of all the expenses of going to Australia. Roger says he’ll work all the hours God sends between now and September. Conor’s going to help me work on the vegetable garden. If we get the whole plot dug over, we can grow all the fruit and veg we need this summer and sell the surplus at the top gate to summer visitors. People pay a lot for organic veg and fruit.

  Mal’s dad says Conor can help out with the fishing trips this summer too. He doesn’t pay much, but it’s something, and Conor will be bringing home plenty of mackerel and maybe sea bass too. I’m still thinking about more ways to earn money.

  “Guided tours of Ingo?” Conor suggested.

  I don’t mind cooking and washing and cleaning and stuff like that while Mum is away, as long as Conor does his share. I do loads already, as Mum had to admit. I have ever since Dad left.

  So it’s more or less settled. Mum is beginning to sound just a bit excited about Australia again, although she still brings up several new worries a day. If it weren’t for Granny Carne’s being our guardian, she’d never have dreamed of considering it, she says. And she trusts Conor to look after me. We’ve got to email or phone Mum every day. Roger will set up his computer so we can make free international calls, and there’ll be no excuse for being out of touch.

  I haven’t let myself think about missing Mum. They’re leaving at the beginning of September. Less than five months. Four months. Three months now. Time picks up speed as the date of their flight comes closer. A line from Dad’s song keeps going through my head:

  But since it falls unto my lot

  That I should go and you should not…

  Yesterday Mum came in to show me her new bikini and sarong. Sadie and I were lying in a heap on the living-room floor, watching TV. The sarong was all different pinks, some faded, some hot and vibrant. Very Australian. Mum wound the sarong into a few different styles to show me, and then she said abruptly, “At least with Sadie here I don’t have to worry so much.”

  “She’d soon scare off the burglars,” I agreed.

  “I didn’t really mean burglars,” said Mum slowly, and then she was speaking to Sadie, not me. “You’ll keep my Sapphy safe, won’t you, girl?”

  She was only half joking.

  “Mum, I—”

  But then I couldn’t think what to say. Mum, nothing’s going to happen. Mum, I’ll be fine, you know I will. I can’t promise either of those things. You’re the best mum in the world. I hope you have a wonderful time. Conor can say things like that, but I can’t.

  “Look after her for me, girl,” Mum said, her voice low and intent. Sadie was really listening now. “You keep her safe till I come home.”

  Faro holds the sharp edge of the clamshell steady.

  “How much hair do you need for the bracelets, Faro? I can’t have too much cut off, or Mum will notice.”

  Faro separates a lock of my hair from the mass that floats around me like seaweed. “This will be enough. Keep still.”

  The clamshell saws at my hair, pulling it. They definitely need scissors in Ingo, but I suppose scissors would rust.

  My head jerks. The lock of hair is in Faro’s hand. Very carefully he binds the ends tightly together with what looks like cotton thread but is really three strands of angel hair seaweed woven together for strength. Then he tucks it into his belt.

  “Now you.”

  I grasp a lock of Faro’s hair, close to the roots. Maybe that’s too much. I don’t want to make him look as if I’ve scalped him. “This much?”

  Faro squints at it. “Yes, that’s enough.”

  I start to saw. The clamshell isn’t very sharp, or else I’m not using it right. Faro makes a face. “You’re pulling my hair.”

  “I know. I can’t get this shell to cut.”

  “Turn it sideways a bit.”

  Ah, that’s easier. I smile as the strands of hair begin to separate. We are tucked away in calm water, in an underwater cove only about a mile down the coast from home. It’s the first time I’ve seen Faro since the day we got back from the Deep, and he seems changed somehow. There’s no sparkle in his eyes.

  “Is anything the matter, Faro?”

  “Nothing new, little sister. Only that Ervys continues to gather followers, even though he has looked into Saldowr’s mirror. Many of the Mer are dazzled by his promises.”

  “You mean Talek and Mortarow are still with him?”

  “Talek and Mortarow! They are like the tip of a rock showing at high tide when the underwater mountains are hidden. Most of Ervys’s followers stay hidden. They won’t declare themselves yet. But they exist. And so even though the Kraken sleeps and the Tide Knot is healed, there is still trystans in Ingo.”

  “Trystans…? Oh, yes, I understand.” As soon as the word is in my mouth, I understand it. Sadness. Grief. Division. Ingo isn’t healed yet.

  “How is Saldowr?”

  “Better,” says Faro guardedly, then glances round as if to check that no one’s spying on us.

  “There, it’s done.” The last strands of Faro’s hair are severed. I give the lock to him carefully, and he binds it as he did mine.

  “I will weave them into bracelets,” he promises.

  “You know how you said there were lots of patterns? What are they like?”

  “There is one that will belong to us alone. It’s woven as closely as the scales of a fish. No one can see where two hairs join. It’s called deublek.”

  “Deublek…” I try out the name. “What does it mean?”

  “Two together. And strong, as we were strong in the Deep. Next time you come, the bracelets will be finished and we will put them on. After that we will always wear them.”

  And Mum will ask me if I got mine from a craft fair, I think.

  Faro’s face brightens. “And then, little sister, we will present ourselves to the Assembly and say that we are ready to make the Crossing of Ingo.”

  The words send a familiar tingle through me. They are pulling me as hard as the cove pulled me when I first heard the voice of Ingo calling. The Crossing of Ingo. The Crossing of Ingo. But I can’t leave Conor behind. Conor’s staying in Cornwall partly because of me; I’m sure of that even though he denies it. I can’t repay him by vanishing with Faro to make a journey that might take weeks…or months.

  “Conor must come with us,” I say.

  “Conor?”

  “Yes. I can’t go without my brother.”

  “But I’ll be with you, little sister. Why do you need two brothers?”

  “No, Faro. It doesn’t work like that. You and me, but Conor too.”

  “And what about my sister?” Faro’s eyes are malicious and knowing. “You’d like her to be there too, wouldn’t you, Sapphire?”

  “If it means that Conor comes, then yes, I would,” I say steadily.

  Elvira too…Oh, well, maybe it wouldn’t be too terrible. At least I’d be able to keep an eye on her and Conor and maybe spoil a few of their more romantic moments. And we’d have the benefit of Elvira’s wonderful healing powers, I suppose, which could come in handy if the Crossing of Ingo is as dangerous as it sounds. Thinking about Elvira always makes me mean. Why should anyone be so annoyingly perfect?

  “I will make us the most beautiful bracelets that have ever been seen in Ingo,” boasts Faro.

  I haven’t told him yet about Mum and Roger going to Australia, and Conor and me staying back here. It seems a bit…risky. Faro would be very glad to know that there were no adults to stand in my way. There’d be no limit to his plans for us.

  Ingo is so close. With Mum away and no Roger, there’ll be no one to stop us when the sea calls. And there’ll be no need to hurry home, in case Mum’s waiting and getting
frightened for us.

  Granny Carne says that I could become Mer. One day I could find that my body had changed, just as my mind has changed.

  I look down. There are my feet, wavering through the water. I can see why the Mer think toes look ridiculous, but I still quite like mine.

  “All right, then,” says Faro, twisting through the water so that his hair swirls and his tail glistens in the light filtering down to us through ten meters of water. “All right, then, you and me and Conor. And my sister, to balance it. The four of us will travel together. We’ll swim past the Lost Islands and take the first of the great currents.

  “I’ve heard such stories, Sapphire, from those who have made the crossing. Some have dived under icebergs and met ice bears with claws like the hooks you humans drop for fish, but a hundred times more powerful. Strong enough to rip out your spine if you turn your back to them. Some have fought killer whales and either won or left their bones drifting to the Deep. Some have come close to islands where the trees drop down into the water and there are beautiful humans singing and calling to the Mer, trying to tempt us out to drown in Air.

  “There are fish that fly and fish like rainbows and fish that walk on the floor of the sea and whales bigger than any we see in these waters. There are lost cities, too, Sapphire, which were in the Air once and which sank down into Ingo long before our great-great-great-grandmothers went to Limina. Think of it, little sister! We are going to the bottom of the world.”

  Faro’s eyes blaze with excitement. He catches hold of my wrist. I remember how I dug my fingers into his wrist long ago, the first time he took me into Ingo. I was so scared then that I didn’t care if my grip hurt Faro. I knew nothing except that I couldn’t breathe underwater. And then Ingo opened and let me in.

  There’s still so much I don’t know. But if Faro and I make the Crossing of Ingo side by side, then we’ll be equal at last. Faro and I, Conor and Elvira.

  “You will be truly my sister then,” says Faro. “And once I have made the Crossing of Ingo, no one will dare to say that I am not truly Mer.”

  “No one else can tell you what you are!” I say hotly. “Not Saldowr, not Ervys, not anyone. You’re the only one who knows. The only one, Faro!”

  Faro laughs. “Such wisdom!” he mocks me. “Saldowr will take you for his scolhyk instead of me.”

  The shadow of pain doesn’t leave his face, even when he’s laughing. Faro hasn’t begun to come to terms with his human blood yet. How cruel Ervys was to taunt Faro, as if having human blood were some kind of curse—or a contamination. Perhaps that’s what all the Mer think. I hope not—

  Faro waves his hand in front of my face. “Come back, little sister,” he says. “Listen, you may be so wise that Saldowr will be coming to you for advice soon, but can you do somersaults like me?” He flips over, churning the water, his tail driving him faster and faster until his body is a perfect circle bound by his flying hair.

  “It’s not a fair competition. You’ve got a tail,” I point out, once the display is over and he’s facing me again. Faro just looks at me with bright eyes and raised eyebrows, teasing, questioning.

  “No, Faro,” I say firmly. “Don’t look at me like that. No. It’s not going to happen. Not ever.”

  “Never say never,” murmurs Faro. “Who would think that water could grind a rock to sand, or wear away a cliff, unless they’d seen it with their own eyes? Never say never, little sister. Who can tell what the future will bring?”

  About the Author

  HELEN DUNMORE is a novelist, poet, and children’s writer. THE DEEP is the third book set in the world of her critically acclaimed INGO and its sequel, THE TIDE KNOT. She has won the Orange Prize for fiction, and her novel THE SIEGE was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Prize for fiction. Her writing for children includes short stories, novels, and poetry. Helen travels extensively to read and lecture, both in the UK and in places as diverse as Morocco, Hong Kong, and Romania. You can visit her online at www.helendunmore.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY HELEN DUNMORE

  INGO

  THE TIDE KNOT

  Copyright

  THE DEEP. Copyright © 2007 by Helen Dunmore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Adobe Digital Edition April 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-186112-3

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