Ingo

by Helen Dunmore

  I squint down at my legs and wonder what it would be like if they joined together and the join fused and the skin grew strong and thick and dark, like sealskin. I wouldn’t be able to walk any longer, up in the Air. Walking would hurt, and I’d have to drag myself over the stones. But I would be completely at home here in Ingo. How would a tail look on me? How would it feel? For a second the pressure of the current seems to grow stronger, grasping my legs and pushing them together, as if they were truly joined.

  Like this, I think. If my legs fused into a tail, it would feel a bit like this. And then I’d be—

  Faro is humming a song, and I know every word:

  I wish I was away in Ingo

  Far across the briny sea,

  Sailing over deepest waters…

  “Faro, how do you know that song?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want Faro to guess how important the song is to me.

  “I must have heard it somewhere,” says Faro lightly. But I can tell from his face that he’s hiding something. There’s a glint in his eye, teasing, daring me to ask more.

  “I think you do know where you heard it, Faro. Who sang it to you?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Try. Please.”

  Faro looks thoughtful, but after a while he repeats, “No, it’s gone. I can’t remember.”

  I abandon caution. “You can! You’ve got to tell me!”

  “Have I?” He flips over and turns to face me. “Why should the Mer tell you anything, Sapphire? Do you know what Air People do to us Mer?”

  His eyes glower, his expression is fierce. The Faro I thought I knew has vanished from his face. I shrink back.

  “I’ll tell you what you do. You send ships with nets that scrape every living thing from the ocean floor. You crush the coral and destroy the secret places where life begins. Our gardens that we plant and watch are ruined. You rip up the life of Ingo, and you don’t even want it once you’ve wrecked it. You throw most of it away. You trap dolphins in your nets until they drown. You hunt for whales. You slash the fin off a shark and leave it to flounder in its own blood. You pour dirt into Ingo from pipes. You choke us with oil and cover the seabirds’ feathers with filth until they can’t swim or fly.

  “You teach gulls to feast on rubbish instead of fish, until they’re full of disease. And anyway, you’ve taken the fish for yourselves. You steal our shore places and fill them with buildings so that Ingo can’t breathe. You would build on the sea if you could, wouldn’t you? You’d catch the Mer and take us away and put us in glass tanks in circuses. Don’t ask me how I know, Sapphire. I understand what the gulls say, remember? Gulls go everywhere. They see everything. They tell us what they see. You humans want everything to belong to Air, not to Ingo. But Ingo is strong. Stronger than you know.”

  “But, Faro, I don’t! I didn’t! I didn’t do any of that! I’ve never—”

  His face relaxes, just a little. He seems to see me again. Me, Sapphire, instead of an enemy he hates.

  “I’ve never tried to hurt you,” I say. It sounds pathetic, even to me. The things Faro says strike heavy in my heart, and I know that they are true. I’ve heard of dolphins drowning in tuna nets and tankers releasing thousands of tons of oil into the sea. I’ve seen seabirds on TV, coated with oil and struggling in the water until they die. And layers of dead, gaping fish on the tide line. What would it be like if oil swilled out of a tanker now and coated our lips and our tongues and burned our eyes? Would it kill us, too? Yes, it would cover us, and we would choke to death.

  “You think you haven’t done anything to us,” says Faro, more quietly. “But you’re still part of Air, Sapphire.”

  “No, I’m not! I’m—” I break off because Faro is watching me so intently. Why? What is he waiting for? There’s a pressure in my mind, as if someone else’s thoughts are beating against mine.

  “Faro, don’t!”

  “Don’t what? I’m not doing anything.” He looks surprised.

  “Aren’t you trying—you know, to see my memories?”

  “No. Why do you say that?”

  “It’s as if there’s something else inside my mind. It’s pressing on me. It wants to come out. I can feel it, but I can’t quite tell what it is.”

  “Ah,” says Faro. His breath comes out in a long sigh. “I know that feeling. Haven’t you had it before? Don’t you really know what it is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s you. It’s yourself. But it’s another part of you, a hidden part that you don’t know about.”

  “That sounds crazy.”

  “No, it’s not crazy. But it’s…difficult. Don’t think about it now, Sapphire. Think about something else.”

  “Faro.” I try to speak calmly and quietly. “That song you sang. Have you ever heard of my father?”

  “Yes,” says Faro immediately. He’s still watching me closely. “You mean Mathew Trewhella.”

  He knows my father’s name. Or did I tell him? I can’t remember.

  “How do you know his name?”

  “I told you. We hear things. We know a lot about humans when they live close to us. He was always out in his boat.”

  “Have you ever seen him?”

  There’s a pause, and then Faro says, “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I can’t remember. Not long ago.”

  But time for Faro isn’t the same as human time. Not long ago could be months…or years.

  “Where was it?”

  But Faro shakes his head. “No. It’s gone.”

  “But it’s important, Faro! You must try to remember.”

  “I can’t. It’s gone.”

  “Is there anyone, anyone at all who you think would know what happened to him? Anyone here in Ingo, I mean?”

  Faro shakes his head. A ripple of movement runs through his body and down into his tail. Faro says no with his whole body, not just his voice. His hair sways like fronds of seaweed.

  “Leave it, Sapphire,” he says. “I’ve nothing to tell you. I saw him in his boat once, that’s all. Let’s get out of this current and go back south. I want to feel the sun.”

  Even though questions burn in my mind, I have to let them go. But I won’t forget them. If Faro can’t give me the answers, I’ll search until I find someone who can.

  We slip out of the current like eels. Outside it, the sea is cold. How far are we from home?

  “Not very far,” says Faro. “That was a slow current. We’ll catch a faster one back.”

  We swim through the cold dark sea. We’re in midwater, Faro says, which means we are between the seabed and the surface. The water is so deep I can’t see the bottom.

  “If we were up on the surface, we wouldn’t be able to see land,” says Faro. “Keep your eyes open. Now, Sapphire, see that current there? That’s the one we want.”

  It’s a cold current this time, and it settles itself around us like an icy, prickling glove. Yet when I’m in Ingo, I feel the cold, but it doesn’t hurt me. My blood is changing, Faro says. It’s slowing down and becoming like his.

  “Hold on!” shouts Faro suddenly. “This current is wild.”

  He’s right. It’s like the roughest roller coaster in the world. I make a grab for Faro even though I know I don’t need him anymore. But the current’s too strong, and it tears our hands apart and sends me swooping and tumbling over and over as it rushes me south.

  I hate it and I love it. If it goes on for one more minute I’ll die, but at the same time I want it never to end.

  “Pull out, Sapphire!” Faro’s yelling. “Now!”

  We burst out into warm, still water. The icy current is gone, racing south without us.

  “Time to feel the sun,” says Faro.

  Feeling the sun doesn’t mean going up into the Air. It means sunbathing a couple of meters below the surface, in the brightest water. Faro takes my wrist. We rise together, toward the shining surface. Faro knows something about Dad, I think. I’ll find out. I won’t let Faro know that I’m
still searching. I’ll keep it secret.

  “Let’s have a sleep,” says Faro.

  We close our eyes. I’m tired from the current pummeling me all over. Water rushes gently in my ears. Faro’s right—it’s good to feel the sun. All my worries are slipping away from me. I stretch out my arms and legs to the delicious warmth and let myself rock and drift on the swell of the water. I will find Dad. But now I’m away in Ingo…far, far away, in a garden of seaweed and sea anemones.

  Memories flood into my head. A boy and a girl, side by side, peering into the depths where blue and silver fish flick from rock to rock like electric darts. The boy has dark hair, like Conor. I can’t see his face. But where his legs should be there is thick, glistening sealskin. I try to move my legs and feel the powerful flick of my own strong tail, and I shoot upward through the water, laughing as my brother chases me—

  It’s the cold shadow passing over me that wakes me. I open my eyes at once with a feeling of panic and stare up through the water. The surface is black. Something is directly above me, blocking out the light. A shark. Fear whips though me. No. It’s not alive. The dark shape is solid and dead-looking. Man-made. Not something of Ingo but something of Air. How do I know that?

  A boat, I think. It’s a boat, but I’m seeing it from upside down, and it looks quite different. That’s why I didn’t know what it was. I’m looking straight up through the water at its hull. The boat is about the size of a fishing boat. I can see the rudder and the propeller. A small boat that wouldn’t hurt me even if it passed right over me. But the engine isn’t running. The boat is drifting silently.

  And then it happens. A face looms over the side of the boat. A face and shoulders, part of a body in a blue shirt. Someone looks down, staring deep into the sea where I am. The face is distorted by Air. It wobbles. But upside down and distorted as it is, I can see it. It’s a man’s face. And if I can see him…

  That’s when it happens. The eyes look down and catch sight of me. The face goes still. The man stares and stares as if he can’t believe that what he sees can possibly be real.

  With a shock, I know what he sees and why he can’t believe it. He sees a girl, deep under the water, looking back at him. We meet each other’s eyes. He sees me, and I see him. It’s a long moment, and even through Air and water I recognize the frozen disbelief in his face. It can’t be real. A girl sunbathing way below the surface. A girl with her eyes open, who doesn’t need to breathe like Air People. Not a drowned girl but one who is alive and looking back at him. A mermaid. I think I see the word form on his lips. And as his mouth opens to cry out and tell someone else on the boat to get a net and catch me and take me away and put me in a glass tank in a freak circus—

  I dive.

  I dive with hot terror pulsing through me. Down, down, down, into the deepest water, where the Mer can live but Air People can’t follow them. And in that moment for the first time I understand why Faro hates and fears divers. They are Air People who can put air on their backs and come where only the Mer should be. That man in the blue shirt can’t follow me. But a diver in a wet suit with air on his back could have swum down after me and caught me. Faro’s right. Divers are dangerous.

  I see that face again, staring down into mine. Shocked and disbelieving but something else too. Recognizing. I know that I know the face, but whose is it? My memory is full of Ingo. Too much else is crowded out. I struggle to remember who that man could be…where I’ve seen him before….

  No, don’t struggle, Sapphire, I tell myself. You’re safe in Ingo. The deep water rocks me gently. Yes, Faro’s right, my blood is becoming like his. I put my finger on my wrist and feel how slow the pulse beats there. Faro says—

  But where’s Faro gone? Why am I alone?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I’M HERE,” SAYS FARO’S voice, soft and close.

  “But where were you? I was so scared, Faro! I woke up, and there was a boat up above, with a man looking down at me.”

  “I know. I saw him too.”

  Suddenly, when I’m not even trying, the name behind that man’s face swims into my mind. Of course. It was Mum’s friend. Roger. Roger, out in his boat, exploring. Not diving yet, just mapping out the area so he can come back and dive.

  But I left Roger back at home with Mum, playing cards. I must have been asleep in the sunwater for a long time. Or maybe I wasn’t asleep. Maybe it’s only the difference between human time and time in Ingo again. Why is time in Ingo so different from Air time anyway?

  I think of time folding and unfolding like one of those fans you make out of a piece of paper. Time folds up tight like a closed fan; then it spreads open wide. There’s the same amount of paper in the fan whether it’s open or closed. Maybe time is the same substance, whether in Ingo or up in Air. But it’s folded differently, and so it doesn’t look or feel the same. When I’m in Ingo, Ingo time seems natural. When I’m in the Air—at home, I mean—then that’s natural too. But I can’t belong in both times, can I?

  I’ve got to stop thinking like this. My thoughts are making my head hurt. If you try to have Air thoughts when you’re in Ingo, they don’t work.

  “He’s a diver,” says Faro. His voice is cold and hard. Faro hates divers.

  “How do you know?”

  “We’ve seen his boat before.”

  “I know him,” I say.

  Suddenly I want to punish Roger for laughing like that with Mum, both of them so happy and relaxed as if there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world. As if Dad had never existed. Roger thinks he can go wherever he likes. He makes himself at home in our cottage, and he wants to dive into Ingo and make it his own and take its treasures. But I’m not going to let him. None of what Roger wants is going to happen.

  “He explores for wreck sites,” I go on, headlong. “He’s bringing a team of divers.”

  “He shouldn’t be here at all,” says Faro, like an echo of my own thoughts. “He should stay in his own place.”

  “It’s our cove, not his.”

  “Air People are like that. They want to change everything.”

  I like the way Faro agrees with me about Roger. It’s comforting. It silences the little voice that says I shouldn’t have told him what Roger was doing. After all, I did promise….

  No, you didn’t. You only promised not to tell your friends at home and at school, I tell myself firmly, but I still feel uneasy. It’s Roger’s fault. If he would just disappear back to where he came from, everything would be all right again. Mum wouldn’t really mind. She hasn’t known him long, so she couldn’t miss him that much.

  “I heard him talking to Mum about diving near the Bawns,” I say.

  “What are the Bawns?”

  “You know them. Those rocks about a mile off our cove. There’s a big reef below water.”

  Faro’s face goes still as a mask. “You call those rocks the Bawns?”

  “Yes. What do you call them?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He can’t go there.”

  “But he’s going to, Faro.”

  “He doesn’t understand. That place is ours. It is where we—”

  “You what?”

  “No, Sapphire. I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: Your Roger will never go there. All of Ingo will defend it.”

  Faro’s perfect teeth are bared. Ingo looks at me out of his eyes, and Faro’s a stranger to me, full of cold, furious determination. And then the tide ebbs, and he’s Faro again. My friend and my guide in Ingo. “Take my wrist, Sapphire,” he says. “We’re going back. If you reach home before he does, he will never believe that he really saw you in the sunwater. He’ll think it was all a dream.”

  I remember Roger’s shocked face. I’m not convinced it’ll be that easy to make him forget or think that it was a dream. Roger doesn’t seem the kind of person you could fool easily. But how can he possibly tell Mum he saw me lying under the water, not breathing? She’ll think he’s crazy. She certainly won’t want him to come and have Sunday dinners and gam
es of cards with her anymore.

  I put my hand around Faro’s wrist, like a bracelet.

  “Where are we now, Faro? Are we far from shore?”

  “Not far. It depends how we travel,” says Faro mysteriously. “There are ways that are even faster than riding the currents. You’ll see. Wait.”

  We tread water, side by side. I can’t see what Faro’s looking for, and I can’t hear what he’s listening for. His face is tight with concentration. He looks like a surfer, poised, waiting for a wave.

  Suddenly he turns to me, his face blazing with excitement. “They’re coming. They’re close enough now. Watch.”

  His mouth opens, and a stream of fluting sound pours out, mixed with clicks. It sounds like sea music, something that belongs in the heart of one of those huge curved shells that you hold up to your ear so that you can hear the sea in them. Faro pauses, looking into the depths of distant water and listening for an answer. But if there is an answer, I can’t hear it. I wish I knew that language. I wish I were less human and more Mer.

  “They’re coming!”

  “Who are coming?”

  “Wait. You’ll see.”

  And then I hear it too. The water’s filling with sound. It’s like Faro’s music, but richer and more strange. It comes from all sides, clicking, whistling, echoing, fluting. And now they rise out of the deep water, sleek and shining and twice as long as I am. They come so fast that I flinch, thinking they’ll hurtle into us. But they stop dead, and the water churns from their suddenness. They are smiling at us.

  “Dolphins!”

  “They’ll let us ride them.”

  The dolphins swish into place alongside us. They watch me with their small, clever eyes, and they click and whistle, waiting for me to answer.