The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  You have to come toward the light.

  The Kraken was taunting us, but he was right too. We have to brave the lairlight.

  Faro’s braced, ready for action. I wish I could look as calm and determined as Conor does. Lairlight stabs toward me, and I flinch.

  Toward the light. Toward the light.

  The decision is made without words. We move forward. If we thought any more, we’d never do it. Slowly we swim side by side until the first of the lairlight fingers touches us.

  It doesn’t hurt. It’s all right. We didn’t need to be so scared.

  Suddenly I can’t remember what we’re doing here. What’s the point of it? My mind and heart are as heavy as my limbs. Darkness sweeps into my head. Conor…Faro…they’re a thousand miles away, behind a wall of black, icy glass. I see them and hear them, but I can’t feel anything. What am I doing here? Why did we ever think it was important to stop the Kraken? No one can stop the Kraken. The Kraken is real, and everything else is false. Even Saldowr…Saldowr…

  My mind struggles, trying not to be swamped. Faro is trying to reach me. It’s the lairlight, Sapphire. It’s the lairlight. You’ve got to fight it.

  He’s right, I realize slowly. It’s the lairlight painting blackness into my mind and killing all the thoughts except the ones it wants. But maybe the lairlight knows the truth. Maybe all those things, like riding with the dolphins and talking on the rocks with Faro, were just dreams. Stupid dreams that you cling to because you’re so afraid of the truth.

  Fingers of light flicker over my skin. They’re probing, penetrating—

  Faro’s right. Got to fight them. Like octopus tentacles. You have to—you have to peel them off.

  Slowly, with an enormous effort, I summon up my strength. I won’t let the lairlight kill my thoughts. I’ll think of the whale. Her huge, rough body. Her kindness. The way she found me in the Deep and rescued me. She didn’t need to do it; she just did it because her heart is twice as big as my body.

  No, jeers the lairlight, that whale’s a big soft old fool who likes you only because she’s stupid enough to muddle you up with one of her own brats.

  I’ll think of Saldowr instead. His wisdom and the way he believes in us.

  Believes in you? He’s desperate, that’s all. You’re not Mer, so he’s quite happy about throwing your lives away as long as there’s a one-in-a-hundred chance of helping his precious Ingo.

  The dolphins. The rush of our journeys with them through the sparkling water. Dolphin language and dolphin intelligence and dolphin loyalty.

  This time the lairlight hesitates for a few seconds before it shoots back. Humans are always mushy about dolphins. That doesn’t stop you from killing them, does it? How many dead dolphins were washed up on your beaches last year? How many choke to death in tuna nets? How the dolphins must hate you.

  My mind is gasping. I can’t think of any more thoughts to fight the lairlight. But at that moment Faro twists me to face him. His face is torn with pain. The lairlight must have got deep into his mind too.

  “Got to…help each other, Sapphire! Think together. Stronger together. Think of the reef.”

  My thoughts join with Faro’s. We’re in the sunwater, not far below the surface, gazing down into the beauty of an offshore reef. Weed sways gently. A cloud of striped baby fish separates, and the fish spurt into rock hollows. Coral glistens, and a wrasse glides by. Starfish stretch out their arms; mussels open to the taste of salt water; jewel anemones cling to the rock. Filtered green and turquoise light dances over everything. And there’s a leatherback turtle in the distance, chasing a school of jellyfish—

  What a pathetic idea of heaven—a few old rocks with fish swimming in and out of them! sneers the lairlight.

  But this time I don’t listen. That voice can yammer away as much as it likes, but the beauty of the reef is much stronger. In my mind Faro is with me, smiling and strong, sculling the water so he stays in place against the tug of the current. Our hair flows around our faces, tangling. I’m hoping to see the velvet swimming crabs that Faro told me were around here somewhere….

  The lairlight retreats, whickering maliciously to itself. It is still touching me, but it can’t get into me anymore.

  But I’ve forgotten about Conor. He’s in the lairlight too. Has it overwhelmed him?

  “Conor, think about Elvira!”

  “Think about Elvira?” Conor sounds surprised and completely normal. “What for?”

  “It’ll get the lairlight out of your head.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Faro and I stare at him in disbelief. “Didn’t you feel it?”

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  “Oh.”

  So while I was struggling, nearly drowning in the lairlight’s influence, Conor was perfectly all right.

  “That is so unfair,” I murmur.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Conor.”

  “He’s too good to live; that’s his trouble,” grumbles Faro.

  “Too good to live…what a fascinating concept,” repeats the spoiled, silky voice of the Kraken. “So you don’t like my lairlight. What a pity. What…a…pity. Some people can’t live without it. But even so, see, you have entered into it. And here I am again. Peekaboo!”

  I start violently. Water swirls round me like oil. Something jumps in the corner of my eye. A man? No. There’s a seal’s tail, as strong as Faro’s. One of the Mer? But the Mer can’t live here. The tail vanishes, but now a sea serpent coils and stretches through the water toward me. On my left a shark’s jaws open, showing row after row of jagged brown-edged teeth. I flinch to the right, but there a purple Portuguese man-of-war stretches out its tentacles. Ahead of me a cloud of piranha feasts on a lump of rotten meat. I look behind me, and a Mer man stands wrapped in a cloak like Saldowr’s. But it’s not Saldowr. It’s Ervys, arms folded, watching me with a cold sneer.

  Conor and Faro see them too. Faro raises his crossed arms over his face to ward them off. Conor plunges to my side and holds me close.

  And then comes the worst thing of all, which makes me cry out in horror. The giant sea slug that used to live in my nightmares when I was little and wake me up shaking and shivering. From the mouth of the sea slug comes a faint, giveaway little giggle, the kind of titter you might get from a clever bully who’s pulled a trick you don’t understand.

  “It’s him,” says Faro through gritted teeth. “They’re all him. He’s a shape-shifter.”

  The shapes flitter and fleer around us, whirling until we’re dizzy.

  “They’re not real,” Conor says, gripping me tightly, and it sounds like a prayer. “They can’t hurt us, Saph. Look at me, not at them.”

  I do as he says, and even though my own fear is reflected in his eyes, I feel calmer. We’re in this together, the three of us. The Kraken can change shape as much as he wants, but he’s only got himself. And looking at Conor’s face, I see something else. The talisman, hanging from his neck. Maybe it was the talisman that helped Conor into the Deep. Maybe that’s the limit of the talisman’s powers, but it’s just possible that it can do more. For a second, in the lairlight, I believe that I can see features on the face of the diving figure.

  “Conor, look, your talisman!”

  His hand goes to it automatically. His fist clenches tight over it, and then he releases his grip, and I realize that he was right all along. Conor saw from the beginning what I’m only just starting to notice. The diving figure has Conor’s face, even though he is Mer. I don’t know what this means, but I’m afraid. If this is a portrait of my brother, what does it mean? Is it a portrait of what is or only of what might be?

  My thoughts break off. Conor is gathering himself. Power is flowing into him, as it did when he faced the guardian seals, as it did when he read the runes that made the keystone heal itself. He raises his arms against the weight of the Deep, as if he’s invoking something.

  A shiver runs through me. This is my brother, but at the same time it’s not
the Conor I know. It’s someone who reaches beyond Conor and can do things that my everyday brother couldn’t even imagine.

  “In the name of our Mer blood,” says Conor in a voice that’s like a chant. “In the name of our human blood. Mer and human, I command you to come forth.”

  Everything stops. The shapes vanish. The world stops jittering and becomes calm. The wicked little Kraken voice is dumb.

  He’s done it, I think. He’s stopped the Kraken’s mouth.

  Silence hangs. My mind is numb. I don’t know what to think anymore. Can Conor really be strong enough to defeat the Kraken with just a few words? I want to believe it, but somehow it feels too easy. Faro and I float motionlessly, waiting and hoping. Conor’s arms are still upraised. The silence lengthens, lengthens, like a drop of oil ready to fall from a spoon.

  And then there’s a tiny giggle. My heart sinks. It’s the Kraken; it’s got to be. No one else could put so much malice into a sound as small as that. The Kraken giggles again, then finds his voice. It’s only a thread of a voice at first, but as soon as I hear it, I know that the Kraken hasn’t changed. How could I have expected Conor to overcome a monster who has been prowling the Deep for more than fifty life spans? Life isn’t like that.

  The Kraken is back—and full of bravado. “Not quite good enough, my friends,” he mocks us. “Here I am, back again. Peekaboo!”

  In spite of all his courage, Conor’s shoulders slump as his arms fall to his sides. Despair sweeps over all three of us. The nightmare circus is starting again. The shapes close round us, taunting us, hunting us down.

  “I did my best, Saph,” mutters Conor.

  “I know you did.”

  The Deep makes hollow echoes out of our voices. We’ll never defeat the Kraken. We’ll die here in the Deep, and the Kraken will still be laughing at us.

  I was so stupid. I kept expecting other people to rescue me. The whale, or Faro, or Conor. But it’s not going to happen.

  “Let’s have another game of hide-and-seek.” The Kraken giggles, and then he skips to a vanishing point. He’s gone, but I know he’s not really gone. This is just a breathing space.

  I’ve got to think faster than this. I’ve got to shake off the clinging tendrils of lairlight that still slow me down. No one’s going to help us. We’ve got to help ourselves. We’ve got nothing else.

  I thought I’d got rid of the lairlight, but it’s still in my head. It wants me to give up. I’ve got to force it away, and then maybe I’ll think of a plan.

  I make a huge effort. I remember diving through water the color of jasper. I remember dolphin voices. And Saldowr smiling at me, saying, You did well, myrgh kerenza. Those things are real.

  My mind clears like a landscape under a sweep of sun. And I see it. The mirror.

  “Conor! The mirror! We forgot about the mirror.”

  A jellyfish tentacle sweeps across my face, and I cry out. The next moment I see a claw, clacking its way toward me through the lairlight.

  “Conor!”

  “Quick,” mutters Conor, fumbling with the strapping that holds the mirror. “Saph, help me.”

  Conor pulls at the kelp to release the mirror. His fingers fumble like lead sausages, struggling against the slowness of the Deep. I tug and tear with him, breaking my nails on the tough kelp stem. The mirror’s metal back appears, then its handle. I grab it and pull the mirror free of the strapping. Down here in the Deep the mirror has grown ten times heavier. I can barely lift it.

  Even in the dismal, oily lairlight it flashes brilliantly. My eyes dazzle, although I’m not facing the mirror. But the flash catches Faro. He claps his hands over his eyes. The mirror blast has struck him full in the face.

  “I told you that mirror was cursed,” he mutters.

  “Faro! Are you hurt?”

  “Blinded me—wait—”

  Faro puts out his hand, pushing me away. His tail lashes with the pain of the mirror burn. Don’t let him be blind, don’t let him be blind, I plead in my head.

  “It’s coming back. I can see you now. Don’t look so scared, little sister.”

  “Let me see.”

  Faro allows me, and I look into his eyes. They’re bloodshot, but the life is back in them. “Oh, Faro, I was so scared.”

  Faro looks gratified. “That mirror’s definitely cursed,” he says, and shakes his head as if he wants to shake away those seconds of fear when we both thought the mirror might have damaged his sight forever.

  But the Kraken is back again. This time he skitters up to us in the form of a shrimp. I let my hand drop so the mirror is behind my back.

  “It’s only silly little me again,” he says, coy and ingratiating, but the water throbs with a hundred tons of hatred, malice, and rage. “I don’t get many visitors, so I try to put on a good show. Now remind me, why is it you came?”

  Is he going to stay a shrimp? Yes, it seems he is, for the time being anyway. A little, harmless shrimp. Why would anyone want to hurt him?

  Stop that, Sapphire. Think your own thoughts, and don’t let the Kraken into your head.

  I’m still holding the mirror. Its weight drags my left hand down. It would be so easy to let go of it. That’s what the Kraken wants. Why not let him have what he wants? He’s only a little, harmless shrimp with quivery whiskers and a cute tail. He’s not going to do any harm—

  He’s a Kraken. A monster. He devours children.

  “You’re the Kraken,” I say aloud. “You kill Mer children.”

  The shrimp convulses with laughter. “Kill children! Wherever did you get that ridiculous idea? Kill children indeed. If people want to bring their children to the threshold of the Deep and abandon them and then blame it on me, what can I do? It’s always the poor old Kraken who gets the blame. It’s been the same since time began. As soon as a person like me tries to make a better world, you find someone else pointing the finger and calling him a murderer.”

  The shrimp’s self-righteousness is horribly convincing. I glance at Conor uneasily.

  “He’s lying,” says Faro. “Can’t you hear the slime of lies in his voice?”

  For a flash of a moment a monstrous Claw Creature swells up, and then the Kraken is a shrimp again. “Don’t worry,” he says meekly. “I’m used to being misunderstood.”

  “That’s just as well,” says Conor. The Claw Creature bulges like a threatening phantom for a thousandth of a second, and then the Kraken brings himself under control. I try to look as if I haven’t noticed anything.

  “I don’t think you should be so harsh to the Kraken, Conor,” I say. “Maybe he’s right, and we’re not being fair to him. Think of all the stuff we were told about what a monster he was. But how could an innocent little shrimp shake the seafloor so that half of Ingo is destroyed? How could a harmless creature like that hurt a child? It’s obvious he can’t. Look at him.”

  Faro and Conor turn horrified, disbelieving faces toward me. The shrimp gives a skip of joy.

  “At last, someone who understands me.”

  I stare at the thing and have to hold myself rigid to stop my body shuddering all over with revulsion. I’m on the Kraken’s wavelength now. I understand him. The bile of his barely suppressed rage and cruelty seeps through the lairlight and sickens me. But I swallow down my nausea and continue earnestly, “I’m sure the Kraken’s only trying to help the Mer, really. They just don’t understand him.”

  Faro hisses through his teeth, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing, but Conor’s watching me narrowly.

  “Saldowr’s supposed to be so wise”—I go on—“but he doesn’t know everything. Anyway, people are already saying Saldowr’s past it.”

  I wait for Faro to erupt, but nothing happens. Conor has laid a restraining hand on his shoulder, but Faro doesn’t need it. He’s picked up what I’m trying to do, and his eyes glow with excitement.

  “Past it,” squeaks the shrimp, his voice vibrating with glee and spite, “past it past it past it. I knew it would happen! Saldowr thinks he�
�s so great, but he couldn’t fight the Tide Knot, could he? Could he could he could he could he?”

  “No,” I say, making myself sound regretful and ashamed. “We thought he could do anything, but well, we were wrong. And I think he was wrong about you. He just didn’t want us to be friends with you because you’re more powerful than he is. But—but we do.”

  “You do? Really really really really? More than anything? But what if you’re just a little human wiggle-waggle-wiggle-tongue who’ll say anything if it gets you out of a tight place? Words words words words words. What if you’re trying to trick the poor little Kraken?”

  The shrimp zigzags in front of me until my eyes hurt from trying to follow him. “What if what if what if what if?” he needles me, hovering a few inches from my nose. I frown and then clap my hand to my forehead as if I’ve just come up with a wonderful idea. The shrimp darts away, still whining like a mosquito.

  “Listen, we can prove we want to be friends. Friends give each other presents, don’t they?”

  “Presents!” shrieks the shrimp.

  And before he can repeat it a dozen times, I say quickly, “Yes, presents. We brought something into the Deep from Saldowr’s secret treasury. He doesn’t know we took it, but—oh, well, I don’t suppose he’ll mind really. It’s not as if we’re stealing it or anything. Anyway, even if he does, he can’t do much about it.” I force my features into an ingratiating smile. “Because—because of all the misunderstandings there’ve been between us, I’d like you to have it. As a present.”

  “His treasury!” The shrimp is having a lot of trouble hiding his triumph. “My dear girl, you shouldn’t have. Shouldn’t have shouldn’t have shouldn’t have.” The shrimp releases a trill of titters. I don’t know which is worse: the Kraken’s horrible glee or his venomous spite.

  “Conor tied it to his leg to hide it from Saldowr. Look. Here it is. We’ve brought it all the way to the Deep.”

  With all my strength I lift the mirror, keeping its back to the Kraken. This time there’s no flash, but even so, the shrimp shoots back through the water, out of the lairlight and into the dark of the Deep.