The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  For a second the thought of Dad is so strong that it’s like hearing his voice. And then I remember the baby. Dad’s new family. My little half brother, fast asleep in his cradle of rock, so peaceful and trusting. A Mer baby with a Mer father who’s left the human world. Just as in the old legends…

  That legend was real, though, wasn’t it, Dad? It grew and grew until it swallowed you up. Maybe the Kraken is real too. I want to believe that it’s a myth that has grown into a monster because of the dread that the Mer have of the Deep. But perhaps it’s true.

  A boy and a girl…

  “They are taken to the border of the Deep, to the point where the Mer can go no farther,” says Ervys. The pain and horror in his voice make me feel a stab of reluctant sympathy for him. “They are left there for the Kraken. This is what happened in the time of our ancestors.”

  But how could anyone give their children to a monster?

  The thought floods my mind, and I don’t know if I’ve said it aloud or not.

  “No one loves their children more than we do,” says Ervys, “but unless we sacrifice to the Kraken, then the whole people will die. Not just the Mer but all who live in Ingo. Unless we can find another way.”

  All who live in Ingo…Dad’s face floats in my mind. I scan the ranks of the Mer, searching. Some of them must know Dad. Maybe Mellina and her family are here too. It gives me the strangest feeling. Does her family know if Dad is happy or unhappy here? Would they know if he wanted to leave Ingo and return to the human world? Conor thinks the Mer are keeping Dad here against his will. I want to believe it too, but sometimes it’s hard. If only I could be as sure as Conor that Dad is waiting for us to bring him back to the human world….

  Suddenly Ervys’s final words take hold in my mind. Another way. What way does he mean?

  “We know from the whales who visit the Deep that the Kraken is growing impatient,” Ervys goes on. “The breaking of the Tide Knot was not enough for him. If we are to put the Kraken back to sleep, it must be done quickly. If we can find another way, if we can avert the sacrifice, then we will do anything.”

  “The Mer can’t visit the Deep. How can you put the Kraken back to sleep if you can’t get near it?”

  “We cannot,” says Ervys, with the faintest emphasis on the first word. “But we believe there is another way. Farther back in time, more than fifty life spans ago, the Kraken woke and ravaged Ingo for more than a year. But the sacrifice was never made. Mab Avalon put the Kraken back to sleep.”

  “Who—what was Mab Avalon?”

  Ervys shakes his head. “That memory is not clear. He did not belong to us. He came to Ingo, and then he departed for his own world.”

  “What world was that?”

  “After fifty life spans even we Mer find that memory has dissolved much of what happened.”

  Fifty life spans, I think, trying to work it out in my head. If the Mer live about seventy years, as humans do, then that’s about—about thirty-five hundred years ago.

  “Mab Avalon,” I repeat. The name is rich in my mouth. I’m sure I’ve never heard it before, but it has a strange familiarity. “Ervys…did Mab Avalon come from my world? The human world?”

  “He survived the Deep. He returned peace to Ingo. He was Mab Avalon,” Ervys intones.

  It is so frustrating. I want information, and Ervys just keeps on repeating the same things.

  At that moment Karrek swims forward again, plunges to touch the stone, and comes up to us. This time he faces me and speaks directly to me. “We don’t know what world Mab Avalon came from,” he says, “but he was cleft, like you. Memory tells us that much.”

  He gazes into my eyes, his face grave, and then nods and swims back to his place.

  Ervys looks thunderous at this interruption, but he quickly covers his anger and takes control again.

  “We know that Mab Avalon was able to enter the Deep,” he goes on smoothly, as if Karrek hasn’t spoken. “We know that after a great battle, he subdued the Kraken. At least once in our history the Kraken has been calmed without the loss of our children.”

  “You can’t ask her to do that.” Faro’s voice breaks in. And then I understand.

  “We are asking,” says Ervys.

  They are asking…. Yes. All those faces turn to me. They’re still heavy with dread, but now there’s some hope in them too. They’re hoping that Ervys is right and that there’s a chance I can do what they can’t.

  Mum always says that people will do anything for their children. They’ll walk over fire for them. But what if walking over fire doesn’t make any difference? What if it’s someone else who can do the only thing that might protect your child?

  “But—but I’m a child. I mean, why wouldn’t the Kraken—”

  Think I’m the sacrifice, is what I mean, but I can’t get the words out of my mouth. The idea is too horrible to bring into the open. And I’m most certainly not Mab Avalon, I want to add. It sounds like a warrior’s name from an old story. Someone in old-fashioned armor, carrying a sword. Nothing to do with me, Sapphire Trewhella of Trewhella Cottage, Senara Churchtown, West Penwith, Cornwall…Why not add The World, The Universe? I think, and nearly giggle in spite of everything.

  The Mer have got completely the wrong idea if they think I’m going home to fetch my trusty sword and whack the Kraken over the head with it.

  “You are too old to be a sacrifice,” says Ervys.

  A wave of relief washes through me, and then I notice the strained, desperate looks on the faces of the Mer women. Some of them cover their faces with their hands. Maybe they’re the mothers of young children….

  Suddenly I’m afraid. Terribly afraid. There are hundreds of the Mer, and I’m alone. And they all want one thing. People will do anything for their children. If I don’t give the Mer what they want—or if I can’t do it—then what will they do?

  I have never felt so isolated.

  And then I feel an arm around my shoulder. Faro is at my side. He turns and looks into my face as if Ervys and the whole chamber of the Mer don’t matter at all. He speaks as if we’re alone.

  “I’ll go with you, Sapphire,” he says.

  “Go where?”

  Faro looks intently into my face, my eyes. “Into the Deep. We have to stop the Kraken before he grows so strong that nothing can stop him. We’ve got to stop the sacrifice.”

  “But you can’t enter the Deep, Faro. You’re Mer.”

  Faro tosses back his hair. “I can try.”

  He is so brave. He’s already been hurt before, trying to go to the Deep to find me. The Deep nearly crushed him, and yet he’s ready to brave it again. But it won’t work, I know that it won’t work. No one has more courage than Faro, but courage isn’t enough on its own.

  All the Mer are looking at me hungrily. Wanting. Needing. I’m being hit by wave after wave of pressure. But they can’t make me do this!

  I’ve got to think clearly. Of course. Why didn’t I realize it before? I need Saldowr. And Conor. I’ve got to talk to Conor.

  “I must see Saldowr,” I say firmly.

  “Saldowr!” Anger leaps into Ervys’s face. Quickly he smooths out his expression. “But what help can he give? Saldowr is sick and weak.”

  Faro makes a quick, outraged gesture at this disrespect toward his teacher. Quite a lot of the Mer don’t look happy about it either. There are frowns and mutters. I lay my hand on Faro’s arm warningly. Strength is rising in me again, now that I’ve got the beginning of a plan. I don’t trust Ervys. He wants me to help the Mer, but it’s for himself as well. If he can defeat the Kraken by sending him back to sleep without sacrifice, than he’ll be famous in Ingo and more powerful even than Saldowr, maybe—

  “I must see Saldowr,” I repeat, looking Ervys in the eyes. “Faro and I will go. We need to hear his wisdom.”

  It’s scary to outface an adult and a leader among the Mer. My voice wants to shake, but I’m not going to let it. I’m not going to let Ervys use me to increase his own power. Y
ou want me to help you, I think; you want me to risk my life in the Deep. You think that because I’m a human and a child, you can make me part of your plan. But I knew Saldowr long before I met you. If I go to the Deep, it won’t be for you.

  Ervys’s brows knit with anger. His tail lashes the water, lightly, like the tail of a lion when it spots an oryx on the plains. He’d like to pounce on me. He’d like to punish me for daring to take Saldowr’s side against his, but he can’t. However much he wants to brush Saldowr aside, Ervys can’t deny me if I say I need to talk to him. The Mer assembled here are afraid and desperate, and they believe that I’m their only chance. If the Kraken really has woken, they’ll do anything to make him sleep again. And besides, they aren’t all on Ervys’s side.

  Faro’s eyes glitter. Ervys dared speak insultingly of Faro’s teacher in front of all the Mer. He’s made an enemy of him now. I know Faro well enough to understand that he’ll do anything to stop Ervys from getting what he wants.

  “Will you waste our time by consulting a sick healer?” Ervys demands, making his voice ring until the chamber fills with water echoes. “Will you give the Kraken more time to gather his strength?”

  His face blazes with conviction. He throws back his shoulders proudly. Some of the Mer are nodding; some even raise their fists in what looks like a salute. But I notice that others look doubtful. Some are even turning away. And there’s Elvira, all the way at the back of the chamber, her anxious, imploring gaze fixed on us. She’s afraid too. She doesn’t trust Ervys; I know it.

  It’s not enough just to stand up to Ervys. I’ll make an enemy of half the Mer gathered here. They’ll believe what he tells them: that I don’t care about saving Ingo from the Kraken. I’ve got to make them understand. Ervys won’t listen, but maybe some of these others will.

  I jackknife into a dive, down to the floor of the chamber, to the Speaking Stone. I touch it. The cool solidity of the stone clears my mind. By the time I’ve swum up to Ervys and Faro again, I know what to say.

  “It’s true that I went to the Deep,” I say slowly, talking not to Ervys now but to all the Mer. “And I came back alive. But it wasn’t my own power that did it: at least I don’t think so. The Deep let me; it was the Deep that chose not to destroy me. And then there was a whale….”

  My heart lightens at the memory of the whale. She was so huge, like a rough-skinned mountain. So motherly. And she had such a terrible sense of humor. The whale didn’t have to help me, but she did. She brought me back safe from the Deep.

  The Mer think it’s just about being able to enter the Deep, but it’s much more than that. You have to be able to find your way once you’re there.

  “So you see I have to talk to Saldowr. I can’t just decide that I’m going to the Deep; I’m sure I can’t. But Saldowr will know what to do; I know he will. And my brother…”

  Conor was the only one who could read the writing that healed the Tide Knot. I can’t do all this alone or even with Faro. I’ve got to have my brother with me.

  “My brother will come to Saldowr with me,” I say as firmly as I can. “I must talk to my brother first, and then we’ll go to Saldowr.”

  Murmuring fills the chamber. Again the ranks of Mer sway as if strong currents are pulling them this way and then that. Ervys watches them, his arms folded, his face stormy.

  It seems a long time that the argument ebbs and flows without words, and then a Mer woman with long white hair leaves her place and swims forward slowly, dives to the stone, and rises to speak. Her face is lined with age. Ervys bows his head a little, in unwilling respect.

  “The child is human,” she says. Clearly age doesn’t diminish the Mer habit of stating the obvious. But she has a face I trust. “She is human, but we know by her presence here, by the fact that she can live in Ingo like us and not drown like her human brothers and sisters, that she is also Mer. Her blood is mixed; her fate is mixed; her knowledge is mixed.”

  Every time she says the word “mixed,” she sounds as if she’s striking stone against stone.

  “We see things that are hidden from this child, but she sees what we cannot see. If she says she must go to Saldowr before she can help us, then we must accept her words or risk losing our only hope against the Kraken.”

  As soon as she’s finished speaking, the old Mer woman swims slowly back to her place. There’s a ripple of approval. More and more Mer nod their agreement. Suddenly I understand how the Assembly works. They don’t vote; they are like a tide moving. And now the tide is running my way. They’re deciding to believe me.

  Ervys knows it too. The tide is too strong for him to swim against it.

  “Let her go to Saldowr then,” he says harshly, as if the decision is his. But we all know that it isn’t. The power of the assembled Mer has been stronger than Ervys’s will.

  If Faro weren’t in the middle of the Assembly chamber, I know exactly what he’d do. He’d flip into a series of triumphant somersaults, whirling so fast that all I’d see was the gleam of his tail and the cloud of his hair. As it is, he gives me a quick, sparkling glance that says, We won.

  The decision is made. The waters of the chamber swirl as the Mer rise from their ranks of seats and start to swim upward, toward the roof, where light filters down. So that’s the way out. Maybe it leads to the south entrance, the one Faro talked about. He said it was easier than the tunnel route we took. I hope so. The thought of going back through that cramped tunnel makes me shiver. I want to get home. I want to talk to Conor.

  The Mer stream past me. Their tails flicker, and their hair fans out as they go by. They don’t talk to one another. No one lingers. There’s fear on many faces. They want to get home, to make sure everyone’s safe: the children and those who are too sick or weak to make the journey to the Assembly.

  It’s the Kraken who puts so much fear on their faces. He’s far away, but he’s everywhere in people’s minds.

  I reach out for Faro’s hand. The rush of the Mer swimming past me makes my eyes blur and my head dizzy. So many of them. Young men, old women, groups of Mer who look so alike that they must be brothers or sisters or cousins. They stream past us. All the faces are tense.

  What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t help them? And I’ve got to go to the Deep, where the pressure of the ocean makes you feel as if you’re being crushed as thin as a piece of paper. And there’s no life…only the creatures of the Deep, and I don’t know any of them.

  And the Kraken. The Deep is his home. It’s so dark down there that I won’t be able to see him or touch him until I’m—

  Don’t think of it. The whale, that’s who I’ve got to think about. The whale who looked like a monster with her sides as tall as a cliff. I was afraid of her, but she helped me.

  “Sapphire,” says a voice close to me. A figure pulls away from the flowing current of the Mer and swims to me. Her hair swirls back from her face.

  “Elvira, is Mellina here?” My voice comes out harshly. I can’t help it. Why shouldn’t I be angry with the woman who stole my father? I push away the memory of Mellina’s gentle, welcoming smile when I saw her face in Saldowr’s mirror. Long ago, before the Tide Knot broke and the flood came, and the Kraken stirred in the Deep.

  Saldowr, Mellina, my father, the Deep: They’re all connected, but I still can’t see how. It’s all happening too quickly. I shake my head to clear my thoughts.

  “Mellina,” I repeat. “Is she with you?”

  “No.” Elvira hesitates. “Sapphire, I have something to give to you.” She opens her hand. “I carved this. Will you give it to Conor for me?”

  It’s coral. It’s a tiny figure, a young Mer man. The body is perfectly carved, but the face has no features. It could be anyone. There is a tiny hole through the tail.

  “Take it,” says Elvira. “It’s for Conor.”

  I’m not sure I want to touch it.

  “It’s a talisman,” Faro murmurs in my ear. “It brings good fortune. Take it, Sapphire.”

  I stare at the
little coral carving in Elvira’s palm. She smiles at me. “Will you give it to him, Sapphire?”

  The carving is so fine. It must have taken hours to make this little figure out of hard coral.

  “Please give it to Conor,” says Elvira.

  Suddenly the thought crosses my mind that the carving might be a charm, with magic in it to pull Conor to her, the way Mellina drew my father from Air to Ingo. Is it safe to take it? I hesitate again.

  “Please, Sapphire. It’s for Conor’s good,” urges Elvira. Can I believe her? But if it’s a talisman, as Faro said, I can’t refuse it. Conor might need it. Good fortune. Something tells me that we’re going to need all the good fortune we can get against the Kraken.

  I never even heard of the Kraken before today, but something deep inside me recognized his name with a chill of fear. As if long ago, in another life, someone told me about the Kraken, in the way that human mothers tell stories of giants and ogres and witches….

  The difference is that the Kraken is not a creature of myth. The fear in the chamber is real and solid. The Kraken is awake….

  My hand goes out and takes the talisman.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT’S A GRAY EVENING, CLOSE to darkness, by the time I am out of Ingo. I shiver and stumble as I scramble up the rocks. Faro’s gone, and the rough gray surface of the sea hides everything.

  Why didn’t I leave some dry clothes up on the rocks, above the tide line? Because you didn’t know you were going to Ingo, of course, you idiot. And now I’m freezing, shaking and shivering as I climb over the grassy lip of the cliff and start to scramble up the path. Bony fingers of last year’s brambles snatch at my hands. Up the path, up the track. What’s going to happen when I get home? I’ve been gone for hours. I was sitting in the sun when Morlader came to fetch us, and now it’s evening.

  I reach our gate, dodging in past the rowan tree and through the door. We never bother to lock the cottage unless we’re going away.