The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  Conor took Sadie with him because Rainbow was desperate to see her again. She loves Sadie. Thinking about Rainbow makes me feel guilty, because I haven’t seen much of her since we moved back here. She wants to be friends, and I want to be friends too, but it’s complicated. I keep thinking: Would Rainbow still want to be my friend if she knew the truth about me? If she knew that I had Mer blood and half belonged to Ingo? If she could see me sitting on this rock, now, with Faro? I’m afraid Rainbow might blame me for what Ingo did to St. Pirans that night.

  It’s all too complicated. I’m not going to think about it anymore. Mum and Roger are buying stuff over in Porthnance. I never used 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 has 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 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 seabed 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 seabed 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 realize how unusual I am,” he says 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 traveled 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 centimeters. If Faro hadn’t dragged me sideways, I’d be drifting down to the seabed now, my body broken and bleeding. For the first time I really understand that only a second separates life from death, and it’s very easy to die. My heart thuds so hard I can feel it in my throat.

  Faro rubs his hands
over his face, as if he’s wiping away a nightmare. He takes hold of my hand, lifts it, and examines it. There are the marks of his nails, too, in my skin. My hand is bleeding.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you, little sister,” he says.

  “I’m all right. We could have died, couldn’t we? I think you saved my life.”

  Faro glances around quickly as if someone might overhear him. “This place could eat us alive and still be hungry,” he whispers. “Its spirit is bad—drokobereth. We must hurry.”

  I glance around fearfully. Now the rocks look as if they are clawing the water, reaching out for prey.

  “Where’s Morlader gone?”

  Faro points ahead where the rocks rise up sheer, towering into an undersea mountain range. I thought that the Bawns near our cove were huge, but these are ten times higher. They are bleak and barren. They look as if they’ve crowded together deliberately, so there won’t be a way through them. They don’t want us here.

  “Morlader has gone ahead of us, to the Assembly,” says Faro.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Farther on. It’s no use being afraid of the mountains, Sapphire. There’s no other way except through them.”

  “I’m not afraid!”

  “Of course you are,” says Faro. His face is very serious. “And so am I.”

  “If it’s so dangerous, why do the Mer hold their Assemblies on these mountains?”

  “Not on the mountains; in them. Our Assembly cave is deep in the heart of the mountains. Our ancestors chose it because we could hide from our enemies there for a thousand years if need be. We could defend ourselves with only a handful of warriors.”

  “What enemies?”

  Faro glances round again, quickly, cautiously. “We can’t talk about it here. Come on, Sapphire. It’s not solid rock; there’s a way through. We’d be safer approaching from the south, but we haven’t got time to swim all the way round now.”

  “Do you know the way?”

  “Of course,” says Faro. I’m sure I can hear doubt in his voice, but there’s no choice. We’ve got to go on.

  “Careful,” whispers Faro. “Even a scratch from these rocks can turn to poison.” We swim forward very slowly, gliding cautiously around the razor-sharp flanks of the rocks.

  Before long the rocks have closed around us. Ahead, the rising mountain blocks our sight. There’s no clear water anywhere, only channels between dangers. I’ve never felt cold in Ingo before, but these rocks cast an icy shadow. There is no sign of life. No flickering fish, no glowing sea anemones, no graceful herds of sea horses. There isn’t even any seaweed clinging to the rocks. The valleys are empty, and the peaks bare. Below us the sand is dark, ashy gray.

  We swim on, barely disturbing the water. Now the rocks on either side of us look as if they’ve been split open by a giant hammer.

  “The tides did this when they broke loose,” says Faro, steering me past a shattered fang of coral. We slow down even more, so that we can ease our bodies through the wreckage without getting trapped in it. Besides, I don’t want to disturb these waters, for fear of what might come out.

  “Why can’t we swim higher up in clear water?” I whisper.

  “We have to go this way,” says Faro. “Mind your hand, Sapphire! That’s where the eels have their holes.”

  I snatch my hand back, shuddering. So there is something alive here. Roger told me once that divers have to watch out for conger eels. They live in crevices like these. If they get your arm in their jaws, they won’t let go. What else is hidden away in the holes and crevices?

  “Search every crook and granny,” I murmur.

  “What?”

  “It’s meant to be ‘Search every nook and cranny.’ Conor got it wrong when he was little, and so we always say it like that.”

  “Why would you search a granny—you mean your mother’s mother?”

  “Never mind, Faro, it’s not important.”

  It’s like trying to tell a joke at a funeral. Everything is so eerily silent. The split rock glimmers like oil. At the corner of my eye something flickers.

  “Faro!”

  But when I turn my head, there’s nothing.

  “Faro, I’m sure someone—something was there.”

  A flash of alarm crosses Faro’s face.

  “Just keep swimming,” he whispers in my ear. “Pretend you haven’t seen them.” He takes my hand and pulls me with him. “Don’t look back.”

  I wasn’t going to look back. I swear I wasn’t. But somehow my head turns, and the flicker of movement behind me becomes real, solid—

  “Faro, look! Look at her!”

  “No, Sapphire!”

  “But she’s so beautiful!”

  So beautiful. She’s sitting on the knife-sharp edge of the rock, but it doesn’t seem to hurt her. Her shining hair drifts around her shoulders like a cloak of glass. Her smile glows with welcome, and her arms are open wide as if to embrace us.

  “But, Faro, she’s Mer. She’s one of your people. Why won’t you look at her?”

  Her eyes fix mine. They are huge and hungry. She wants me. She wants me to come to her.

  “She’s not Mer!” says Faro, his voice full of revulsion.

  “Just look for a minute. She’s so lovely,” I plead with him.

  “All right then, Sapphire, you look at her if you want to! Look!”

  Her beautiful face, her sloping shoulders and swirling hair—her—

  “Look, Sapphire!”

  She twists her body free of the rock. She pushes off with her hands. She’s coming…

  Where a tail should be if she were Mer, where legs would be if she were human, there is a claw. A single claw, steel blue and gleaming. An open claw that snaps as the creature swirls toward us—

  Faro raises both hands, fingers crossed, and touches them to his forehead. The creature stalls in the water.

  “Get behind me,” he mutters, “and whatever you do, don’t look at it again.” Very slowly he begins to swim backward, still holding his hands in place and shielding me with his body. I scull myself backward with trembling hands, keeping my eyes fixed on Faro’s back. I won’t look at—at it again. It’s not going to make me look at it. A faint sound drifts through the water. Clack. Clack. The claw, I think. It’s opening and shutting the claw, getting ready to snap—

  “Don’t be scared,” murmurs Faro. “Feel behind you.” My back is against the wall now. A sheer, gleaming wall of rock that blocks our way.

  Clack, clack.

  Surely the sound is fainter now?

  “Faro—Faro—has it gone?”

  “Wait.”

  We hang still in the water, backs to the wall, and wait.

  “Don’t look, Sapphire. It’s not safe yet.”

  Clack, clack.

  It’s almost gone. At last Faro’s shoulders slacken with relief. His hands drop to his sides.

  “It’s gone back to its hole,” he says. “But we’ve got to be quick. There’ll be more of the Claw Creatures around here, and I can’t hold off more than one at a time.”

  “Can’t we swim straight up the rock, Faro?”

  “No. We’ve got to go through. There’s a passage here somewhere. I used to know where it was, but since the Tide Knot broke, everything’s changed. Even the routes we’ve used for a thousand years. Come round this way, Sapphire. Squeeze through. That’s it. Good, the Claw Creatures can’t get in here.”

  We’re in a small cave. The back of it is blind, and there’s no passage through the rock.

  “We’ll rest here for a while,” says Faro, and closes his eyes. It’s very gloomy in the cave, but there’s enough light to see how drained he looks.

  “At least now you know never to look at one of the Claw Creatures,” he says lightly.

  “If you hadn’t been there—”

  “Shall I tell you what would have happened, little sister?”

  “No, don’t. I can guess.”

  We are quiet for a while, resting. I wonder ho
w much farther we’ve got to go. Faro says that everything’s different in Ingo since the Tide Knot broke.

  “But the tides went back,” I say aloud.

  “Ingo is slow to heal.”

  Like the human world, I think. St. Pirans is shadowy in my mind now, but I can’t forget the destruction of the flood.

  “Ingo er kommolek,” I say suddenly, without realizing that I’m going to speak. Just as suddenly I remember where those words came from. The dolphin spoke them that day last autumn when they came into the bay, and we were out in the boat with Mal’s dad. But the words were different then: Ingo er lowenek…was that it?

  My brain doesn’t know what the words mean, but something deeper in me understands. There’s a shadow over Ingo now. Grief and destruction have spread through Ingo like currents of rushing water.

  “Ingo er kommolek…kommolek…trist Ingo…trist, trist Ingo…”

  Faro is staring at me.

  “How do you know those words, Sapphire?”

  Power rises in me again, as it did when I was standing on the rock, back in our cove.

  “I learned them from the dolphins.”

  “You’re coming on, little sister,” says Faro in his mocking way. “You are becoming a daughter of Ingo.”

  His words thrill through me.

  “Sometimes I think that won’t ever happen. Just when I feel I’m part of Ingo, I’m pushed away again.”

  “I don’t push you away.”

  But there’s a lot you never talk about. How little I know about Faro’s history—and I still feel I can’t ask him quite ordinary things like where he was born, who his parents are—

  “Sapphire?”

  “What?”

  “Wake up. It’s time to move on.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  WE COME OUT OF THE cave and stare up the sheer face of the mountain. It’s just as forbidding, but now there’s a challenge in it too.