The Tide Knot

by Helen Dunmore

  There is an endless flood behind it. There isn’t a shore where the sea stops anymore. There isn’t a tide line. The barrier between Ingo and the human world has broken. In St. Pirans the sea is everywhere. It doesn’t look like Ingo, and it doesn’t feel like Ingo. The water is too dirty and mixed up with household rubbish for that. But there’s an open path between Ingo and where we are—

  And between me and the Mer. I could call my father. He’d come. I know he would. Fathers always come to their children when they are in danger.

  But it’s not safe to call Dad. What if Mum sees him? I can’t begin to imagine what might happen then. What if she finds out everything that’s happened since Dad left us?

  There’s another fear too, so deep in my mind that I can barely put it into words. It sounds so…so disloyal. But it’s my deepest fear of all. If I do call Dad and then he doesn’t come—

  No. Don’t think of that.

  But I could call Faro. Faro is bold, and he loves an adventure. He would come. His strength is much greater than mine. Faro could break open the cupboard door.

  Maybe Faro doesn’t even know about the flood, if he’s still deep in Ingo, in the Groves of Aleph with Saldowr. Has Saldowr finished healing him yet?

  My thoughts whirl, as fast and confused as the floodwater. Rainbow mustn’t see Faro. No one else must see the Mer; it’s dangerous for them. But I must call Faro. He’s our only hope now.

  “Sapphire, quick, we’ve got to get upstairs,” Rainbow urges me. “It’s no good. We’ll never get that broom closet open.”

  The right answer comes to me. “You go up. Mum shouldn’t be on her own. I’m going to have one more try.”

  “Don’t be crazy. I’m not leaving you.”

  “Please, Rainbow. Listen, Mum’s calling! She’s ill; she needs us. And I’m really good at holding my breath. I’ll just do one more dive.”

  As if in answer to a prayer, I hear Mum’s voice. “Sapphy! Quick! Quick!”

  Rainbow and I stare at each other in the light of the candle.

  “Go up to her,” I say rapidly. “Leave the candle on the top stair. It’s worth one more try. I’ll yell if I get the door open; then you come down and help me with the ladder.”

  The water is lapping around my feet, even though I’m halfway up the stairs. I watch the struggle in Rainbow’s face. Fear, responsibility, the anguish of not knowing what to do—

  “Sapphy!”

  Reluctantly Rainbow backs away up the stairs, toward Mum. “I’ll see how she is and I’ll come back.”

  Faro, where are you?

  What’s the best way to call him? Suddenly I know. Faro won’t be able to find me easily, in the jumble of drowned streets and houses. He’s never even been in a town before. I’ll have to show him the way.

  I open my mind and create a picture inside my head. This room, full of water. The stairs and the open front door. And then I let my mind travel outside, like a camera, showing him the route he must take. The narrow street that turns a sharp corner and leads down to the slipway, the steps, and the beach. But there won’t be any beach now. Look down, Faro. Follow the pattern of the road. Follow the houses. Can you see the way?

  But come quickly, quickly. There isn’t much time left. Come now.

  Time slips. I feel it move inside me. Human time or Ingo time, I don’t know which it is. Time won’t hold steady anymore. It wants to swirl like the water. The seconds stretch, becoming minutes, hours…

  And there he is in the doorway, diving gracefully through the shadowy water. I know it’s Faro before I see his face. Who else could have read my thoughts and known where I was and come to rescue me?

  “Greetings, little sister,” says Faro, pushing back his hair and smiling calmly, just as if we were sitting on a rock in summer sunshine.

  “Faro!”

  “I’ve been everywhere looking for you. I kept seeing humans, but nobody who looked like you. I’ve been going in and out of all these caves where you humans live, searching—”

  “They’re called houses, Faro. You know that perfectly well.”

  But Faro ignores this. “And you didn’t even send me a message until now.”

  “So you were here in St. Pirans already!”

  “Of course. How could I miss what is happening tonight, little sister? Ingo has broken her bounds.” He looks at me with sparkling, triumphant eyes. “Do you understand what that means? All the territory that was closed to us is now open. I can go anywhere!”

  “Yes, Faro. I’ve been trying to dive into a closet in my own living room. I certainly do understand what it means. There’s water everywhere. Nice for you, but not so great for humans.”

  “Don’t be cross, Sapphire.”

  “Cross! These are people’s lives we’re talking about,” I hiss furiously, then realize that I’m echoing Roger.

  “Why are you angry? I came to make sure that you were safe.”

  “Only me?”

  “And Conor, of course.”

  “There are other people in this town besides me and Conor.”

  Faro shrugs. He steadies himself against the incoming water with a flick of his tail. It seems incredible that Faro is really here, inside our house, sculling the water with his hands. Faro belongs to Ingo, not to St. Pirans. But now Ingo is everywhere. A dreamlike feeling washes over me. Can any of this really be happening?

  “I came to help you,” announces Faro. “As long as you remember your Mer blood, you are perfectly safe, Sapphire. You can swim with me wherever the sea goes. You can even swim alone. Come. Ingo is here. You don’t have to go and find it anymore. Ingo has come to you.”

  But at that moment reality rushes back. Mum. Conor’s safe with Roger, I’m sure he is, but Mum’s in terrible danger. And Rainbow too. Danger’s everywhere. I can’t just save myself.

  “Faro, you’ve got to help me. If we can open the closet under the stairs and get out the ladder, then I can take it upstairs and help Mum climb into the loft through the trapdoor in the bathroom.”

  Faro looks blank.

  “Down there, under the water. Look, Faro, there’s a door. I’ve got to open that door and get out a ladder. You know what I mean? To help us climb up high to the top of the house. But the water’s too strong for me to open the door.”

  At that moment Mum calls again, her voice full of fear: “Sapphire! Come up! It’s not safe down there. Sapphire!”

  “I’m okay, Mum,” I yell back up the stairs. “I’ll be up in a minute.” My voice echoes as if I’m in a swimming pool.

  Faro stares at me. “Whose was that voice?”

  “My mother’s.”

  “Your mother?”

  It’s strange. It’s almost as if Faro hadn’t really believed until now that I have a real mother at all. She was just an Air thought that he needn’t bother about.

  “I’m going to dive down again, Faro. I’ve got to open that closet. If you can’t help, I’ll do it on my own.”

  But Faro is beside me as I plunge into the murky water again. I know for sure that this has to be the last attempt. Down we go, into the darkness.

  “Your caves are very strange,” says Faro’s voice in my ear, still light and teasing in spite of everything. “They have so many sharp corners.”

  I realize with a shock that I can hear his voice just as clearly as I can hear it when we’re swimming together in Ingo. I turn and peer through the gloom, and there he is, still with the faint mocking smile on his lips that I know so well. And my lungs are not bursting with pain. My body is flooded with strength and oxygen. I am in my own living room, but also, unbelievably, it seems that I’m in Ingo.

  “Faro, help me open the closet. Please.”

  “Where is this closet?”

  “Here.”

  Faro touches the handle curiously.

  “You have to pull it, Faro. But the water’s too strong; it won’t let the door open.”

  “I think it will open,” says Faro casually. He grasps the handle and tests
it. “Yes, you are right. There is a problem with the weight of the water. We must balance it. Put your hand on my arm to help me.”

  The muscles in Faro’s arms bulge. The closet door resists for a few seconds and then yields.

  Thank God Roger is so tidy. There is no jumble of rubbish under the stairs because he cleared it all out and took it to the dump a few weeks ago. There is only the ladder, shining with a dull fishlike gleam in the darkness.

  “There it is!”

  “That’s the thing you want?”

  “Yes, the ladder.”

  Faro eases the ladder backward, and I help pull it around the angle of the broom closet. It is long and awkward. “Are you sure you need it?”

  The water surges against me, nearly pinning me to the wall again. I fight my way back to the ladder. “Pull more that way,” I gasp.

  And the ladder is out. We haul it to the surface. Faro takes most of the weight as we swim around to the stairs. I tread water as Faro skillfully angles the ladder so that it points up the stairs. I’ll be able to drag it into the bathroom. The water’s lapping close to the ceiling now.

  “Sapphy!”

  “Coming. Rainbow, I’ve got the ladder.”

  Faro slips beneath the water, into the shadow of the wall, as Rainbow rushes to the head of the stairs.

  “Oh, Sapphire, I’m so sorry, your mum was faint, and I had to hold her. I couldn’t leave her—Wow, you got the ladder! I can’t believe it! However did you drag it out of that closet?”

  “Can you—can you lift it up the stairs? Got to rest a minute—out of breath.”

  “I’ll set it up beneath the trapdoor.”

  Rainbow seizes the ladder, hauls it to the top of the stairs, and bumps it away toward the bathroom. Faro surfaces. “Faro, you shouldn’t keep doing that. It hurts you to breathe Air, you know it does. You should stay under the water.”

  “Ingo is strong everywhere tonight,” says Faro. “Even the pain of breathing your Air is not so bad.”

  “But you’ve been ill, Faro. You’ve got to be careful.”

  “Saldowr healed me,” says Faro proudly. “I told you, he is a great teacher.”

  But not such a great keeper of the Tide Knot, I think, making sure to keep this disloyal thought hidden from Faro. Whatever’s been going on in Ingo tonight, Saldowr hasn’t been able to control it.

  “And you are safe,” says Faro. For a moment his smile sparkles, but then a look of exhaustion crosses his face. The ladder must have been too heavy for him. Maybe he’s not really recovered yet.

  “Oh, Faro, you’re always rescuing me. And I never even thanked you last time.” Faro swims close. He stretches forward and takes my hand in his. The water level is only about fifteen centimeters from the ceiling now.

  “There’s no need for you to thank me,” he says. His voice isn’t mocking now, and his eyes look into mine with deep seriousness. “We are joined by our blood, little sister. We two can never be strangers to each other. Whenever you call me, I will come. Even in this closet place we can find each other.”

  “Faro, believe me, I’m grateful.”

  A quick, glancing smile crosses Faro’s face, and then he slips beneath the surface in an eddy of water and is gone. I think I see his shadow pass across the threshold, but I can’t be sure.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I wake suddenly, jolted out of a deep sleep. Did my alarm clock go off? No, everything’s silent. Where am I? I stare around, struggling to remember. There’s a light. A candle burning. A jumble of shapes in its flickering light. Boxes, bags, old furniture. And three other shapes, curled up on the floor.

  Mum, Sadie, and Rainbow on the other side of Sadie. I don’t even remember falling asleep. We were so exhausted. Rainbow and I got Sadie up the ladder into the loft first; that was quite hard because Sadie kept trying to help us by scrabbling her paws on the ladder’s rungs and licking our faces to encourage us. She knew we were trying to rescue her, and she wanted to do her bit. I was wrong to think she would panic. Sadie was like a lion for courage.

  Helping Mum up the ladder was a nightmare, even though she was so brave and kept saying she could manage. But she couldn’t. We were afraid of hurting her and making her even more ill than she was already. In the end Rainbow supported Mum on the ladder and lifted her while I pulled her through the loft trapdoor. Mum couldn’t really stand up on her own. As soon as we got her into the loft, she gave a funny little gasp and collapsed onto the floor. After a bit she started saying, “I’m all right, I’m all right,” but even in the light of one candle she looked so far from all right that we gave her more of the brandy in case she fainted.

  Rainbow climbed down again, collected our duvets and pillows, and pushed them up through the trapdoor, one by one. We spread them out on the floor, and then we lay down to rest just for a while. We must have fallen asleep.

  The candle is on top of a packing case, where Rainbow put it so that it couldn’t set fire to anything. Mum said this candle should last for forty hours. Forty hours! What if we have to wait for forty hours before anybody rescues us? This loft isn’t meant for human beings. It’s cramped and low, full of spiderwebs and dust. Maybe there are mice too. I don’t really mind mice, as long as there aren’t any rats.

  I wish I was still asleep like Mum and Sadie and Rainbow. They look so peaceful. I wonder if I can crawl over to the window without waking them; then I’ll be able to look out and see what’s happening. Surely they’ll be sending boats out soon? We heard a helicopter go over while we were helping Mum up the ladder. Rainbow and I thought it was a rescue helicopter. It came down low, beating the air, and we saw the flash of a searchlight. But then it went away again. I thought all the rescue services would be here by now. That’s what happens on TV when there’s a flood. Helicopters everywhere, and boats, and even TV and radio crews to cover the drama. I can only think of one reason why they aren’t here, and it’s alarming. Maybe this flood is so big that there just aren’t enough rescue vehicles and helicopters to cover all the flooded towns and villages up and down the coast.

  I shiver. Ingo has broken her bounds. Did the Mer understand what would happen when the sea flooded in? Did Faro? Is this devastation what they wanted?

  The little square window in the eaves is like Conor’s window in our cottage. It’s full of moonlight. Can I get to it without disturbing Sadie?

  And then I hear the sound. Straightaway I know it’s the same sound that woke me. A whistle. Somebody’s whistling.

  Cautiously I wriggle to the trapdoor. Sadie doesn’t even twitch, although usually I can’t move without her wanting to come with me. I’m so close to her that I can feel the warmth of her body and hear her breathing. It’s the deep, regular breathing of a dog who is lost in dreams of sunlit fields full of rabbits. I reach the open trapdoor and peer down. Nobody’s there. How could there be anybody whistling inside a flooded house?

  The ladder stands in water now. The flood has come up onto the landing, and it’s swilling ominously against the lower rungs of the ladder. A stab of terror runs through me. No, Sapphire, you are not going to panic. The water can’t keep on and on rising. It’s got to stop soon. We’re safe up here in the loft. No flood is ever going to come right over the top of a house. Sadie wouldn’t be sleeping so peacefully if we were really in danger.

  I tell myself all these things, and then I turn away from the trapdoor and the dark, threatening water and try to shut them out of my mind. I’ve got to think, got to make a plan. If no one’s coming to rescue us, then we’ll have to find a way of rescuing ourselves.

  That whistle again! But louder this time. Closer. Two notes—one long, one short. My heart lurches with excitement. Surely no one else whistles in exactly that way. It’s a signal. It’s Conor. It must be. It’s got to be Conor.

  But where? Surely he can’t be outside, in the flood. He’s bound to be safe somewhere. Roger wouldn’t let Conor take any risks.

  Maybe Roger’s here with him! Maybe they’ve come in Rog
er’s boat. That must be it. Roger has come to take us to safety on high ground. I open my mouth to wake Mum and Rainbow with the good news, then shut it again. What if there’s no boat and the whistle was what Dad used to call “a figment of Sapphire’s lively imagination”?

  I turn and crawl over the rough, splintery floor, pushing aside boxes that send clouds of dust into my face. Mustn’t cough or sneeze. The window is filthy, but strong moonlight still pours through it. I brace my elbows on the window frame and stare down.

  Water. Black, oily water, gulping up the walls. The houses opposite are almost swallowed now. That side of the street stands lower than this. The sea is right up to the top of their bedroom windows. Their roofs and chimneys are sharp and black.

  And then the moonlight glints on two faces, upturned, in the water beneath me. It’s them. Not Roger with a boat, but Conor and Faro, swimming.

  For a moment I can’t believe it. It must be a dream that I’m having because I so much want it to be true. I blink to see if the faces vanish. But when I look again, they are clearer than ever. Faro and Conor, looking up at the window. I wave, and they see the movement. Faro waves back, then dips down beneath the surface to breathe. I fumble the rusty window catch. My fingers shake so much that I can’t undo it at first. Even when I do, the window is stuck tight. It probably hasn’t been opened for about a hundred years. I glance behind me. There they are, Mum and Rainbow and Sadie, fast asleep. I decide to take the risk and bang the window as hard as I can. It flies open. Another backward glance. No one has moved.

  “Is Mum there?” Conor calls up. “Is she all right?”

  I look to see if Mum and Rainbow are stirring at the sound of his voice. But no, they lie still, as if a spell has been laid on them. Ingo is strong tonight, and Earth is weak. Sadie whines and shivers all over, then sinks back into sleep.

  “Mum’s here, Conor,” I call back as softly as I can. “She’s okay. Rainbow’s here too. They’re all asleep.”

  “Don’t wake them. Roger’s on his way with an inflatable. He’ll be here soon. His boat’s smashed. But Saph, it’s you we’ve come for. It’s you we need.”