Ingo

by Helen Dunmore

  People want me to forget Dad. They don’t say it as straight as that, but it’s what they want, all the same.

  “You must try to move on, Saph. You’ve got your life to live. You mustn’t be trapped in the past. You’ve got to think of the future now.”

  How I hate those words. Move on. Dad isn’t the past, and I’m not trapped. He’s alive. I know it. I will never stop thinking about him and trying to find him. I believe Dad knows that. He knows that I would never forget him or stop searching for him.

  While we’re heading the boat back toward our cove, Roger keeps glancing back at the Bawns. Each time he sees those black, jagged rocks sticking out of the water, he frowns. Gray doesn’t look back at all.

  A tiny film keeps running over and over again through my mind. The black, sticklike figures of Roger and Gray sprawl through the water again, turning over and over in slow motion. They sink down to the seabed and rest there, until the currents cover them with sand.

  No. It didn’t happen. Gray and Roger didn’t die. Roger is safe beside me, and now he’s going to come back to our cottage and play cards with Mum and tell her what a great cook she is and generally irritate me until I want to scream.

  But maybe he doesn’t irritate me all the time. Sometimes I quite like talking to Roger.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, and the film stops. But it hasn’t disappeared, I know that. It’s waiting inside my head, like a warning.

  We all agree the story we’re going to tell Mum. Roger will say that Conor and I went out with them in the boat, to watch the dive. (Mum will be bound to see us coming back in the boat, because she’ll be waiting with the picnic.) Picnic! Is it possible that it’s still the same day, and that only a couple of hours have passed? It seems so. Roger’s watch says quarter to four. Ingo time and human time have kept close together today. I wonder why that is. Maybe because Roger and Gray were never in Ingo at all? Divers go down into the water, but they never go into Ingo. And because Roger and Gray were following human time, we had to as well, or we’d never have been able to rescue them.

  But when we bring the boat into the cove, Mum isn’t there, waiting onshore. She didn’t come down to the cove at all, she tells us later. She changed her mind because there was so much picnic food to carry, and she wasn’t sure what time Roger and Gray would arrive in the boat. She thought it would be better to keep the food in the cool and have the picnic up in our garden.

  Roger and Gray agree enthusiastically that it’s not worth taking the picnic back down to the cove now. Mum has spread a rug in the garden and laid out the food with cloths to cover it against the flies.

  But once the first flurry of greetings is over, Mum gets a proper look at Roger and Gray. She sees everything. She’s horrified by the scratch across Gray’s face and the bruises that are starting to appear on Roger’s and Gray’s arms and legs.

  “What happened? Oh, God, you should never have gone. I should have guessed something would happen.”

  Roger puts his arm around her shoulders. It’s the first time I’ve seen him touch Mum.

  “Take it easy, Jennie, nothing’s happened. We took a bit of a battering against the rocks, that’s all. The currents out there are stronger than I’d allowed for.”

  “It’s dangerous,” says Mum. Her voice cracks with tension. “This whole coast is dangerous. People don’t realize.”

  “It’s okay, Jennie.” Roger’s hand grips Mum’s shoulder, rocking her gently. “You don’t have to think about it anymore. Put it out of your mind. We won’t be diving around the Bawns again. There’s nothing there.”

  Mum’s face slowly relaxes.

  “You promise?”

  “Swear and promise,” says Roger. Conor and I exchange startled glances. I can see how relieved Mum is. Before we eat the picnic, she cleans Gray’s scratch carefully with boiled water and a pad of gauze.

  “Strange,” she mutters. “This doesn’t look like a cut from a rock. It looks almost like a cat scratch. And it’s deep. I’m worried it’s going to leave a scar.”

  “You have everything round here, even underwater cats,” says Gray, wincing as Mum applies the antiseptic cream. It’s a lame joke, but Mum smiles.

  “But it does look like some sort of claw mark. We’ll have to watch it doesn’t get infected.”

  “Give me dogs any day,” says Roger. “You know where you are with a dog. That reminds me, Jennie. What do you say we walk up to the farm one day this week, and find out what the position is with Sadie?”

  “Nothing’s settled, Sapphy!” says Mum hastily. “We’re making inquiries, that’s all. Don’t look like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’ll die if it doesn’t happen, that’s what she means,” says Conor. “Take it easy, Saph.”

  I force myself to be calm. Jack’s mum and dad might have changed their minds about selling Sadie. Who wouldn’t want to keep a dog like Sadie? I can’t imagine even thinking of giving her away if she was mine.

  “Don’t look so desperate, Saph,” says Roger. “We’ll do what we can.”

  That night Roger sleeps on our sofa, and I hear him yelling out in the middle of the night. Mum goes padding downstairs, and I hear them talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Their voices rise and fall for a long time. I ask Mum about it in the morning, once Roger has left.

  “What happened last night, Mum?”

  “Roger had a nightmare,” Mum says.

  “What was it about?”

  “You know how it is. Nightmares never make sense. He dreamed he was being tossed by a herd of giant bulls. They were underwater, and he couldn’t escape. It must have been terrifying. He woke up drenched in sweat. Underwater bulls! Funny what our minds come up with when we’re asleep.”

  “Poor Roger.”

  “It’s nice the way you’re trying to get on with him now,” says Mum, smiling at me approvingly. “Do you know, when we were talking about his nightmare, he suddenly said he was very grateful to you. That was a strange thing for him to say, wasn’t it? What’s he got to be grateful to you for? You’ve only just stopped giving him a hard time—Sapphire, are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.”

  “It’s okay, Mum. Just sometimes it hurts when I breathe.”

  “What sort of pain is it? Does your chest feel tight? Breathe in deeply now, Sapphy; let me hear if you’re wheezing.”

  Mum wanted to be a nurse when she was young, but she didn’t have the right qualifications. She’s trained as a first-aider, but she always says she’d like to take it further. So far, the only place she has taken it further is in our house.

  “Mum, I haven’t had asthma since I was about six. It’s not that sort of pain.”

  “All the same, you ought to have a quiet day for once tomorrow. Watch a film, read a book. You and Conor are always in that sea. You’ll turn into a fish if you’re not careful.”

  “Oh, Mum.”

  “I mean it.”

  “If we had a dog,” I say casually, glancing sideways at Mum, “it would be good to hang out around the house with her. When I wasn’t taking her for walks.”

  I can almost see the thought crossing Mum’s face. It’s true. If Sapphy had a dog to look after, she wouldn’t be running off down to the cove all the time.

  I say nothing more. With Mum, it’s best to let the thought settle and sink in.

  If Sadie was here now, I could tell her everything. I could whisper it into her soft ears and she’d strain to understand me. I think she would understand some of it. There are so many things I can’t tell anyone, not even Conor or Faro. So many questions I want to ask.

  It’s Conor that Roger ought to be grateful to, not me. Conor could barely breathe or move, but he faced the seals for Roger’s sake. I don’t know what magic was in Conor’s song, but it must have been powerful, to stop the seals’ attack. Granny Carne said that Conor had his own power, and he must never forget it. I believed that Conor was weak in Ingo, and I was strong, but it was Conor who save
d Roger and Gray. Faro and I and Elvira only helped to finish what Conor began.

  I’ve called for Faro twice now when I’ve needed him. Both times he’s answered and come to help me. But he doesn’t come because of any power I’ve got, I’m sure of that. I don’t know why it is that there seems to be a bond between us. I feel as if I’ve known Faro much longer than I’ve really known him.

  Faro called me “little sister.” I said I wasn’t his sister, and he looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but then he didn’t. And then, when he was leaving us at the boat, he said it again. Little sister.

  I wish I’d thanked him. And those somersaults were amazing. I’d love to learn to do somersaults like that. Maybe Faro would teach me one day.

  No, don’t think of Ingo now. Don’t let Ingo get too strong in your heart, or it will crowd out everything. I’ve learned that now. It’s what the first Mathew Trewhella did when he followed the Zennor mermaid and left Annie behind to give birth to his son without him.

  I used to think that when a child was born, a parent made a promise to stay with him. Or her. But if there’s a promise, it can be broken. That first Mathew Trewhella broke his promises. I wonder if he ever forgot them, or did the torn edges of his promises hurt him to the end of his life?

  When someone goes away from you suddenly, without warning, that’s what it’s like. A rip, a torn edge inside you. I have a torn edge in me, and Dad has a torn edge in him. I’m not sure if those edges will still fit together by the time I find him.

  And I will find him. That’s more than a promise. It’s the next level up from a promise. It’s a vow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  IT’S EVENING NOW. I’VE decided to clear the garden that’s been neglected since Dad went. I’ve been digging up weeds, chopping back brambles, and piling up the rubbish into a heap. Dad would be pleased. I’m hot and sweaty, but it feels good. Conor’s gone into St. Pirans with Mum, but I’m all right on my own. Because—because something wonderful has happened. I have got someone with me. She’s lying on the path, watching me intelligently. Sometimes she gets up and investigates one of the million smells of the garden that only dogs can recognize.

  No, she’s not my dog yet. But I’m working on it. She’s visiting just for a week, while Jack’s family is on holiday. We’re going to see how she gets on here.

  “Supper soon, Sadie,” I tell her, and she thumps her tail. She understands every word I say.

  “There now, Sadie, don’t you think Dad would be pleased if he saw how much I’ve done?”

  The bees are going home after working all day in the flowers. One of them brushes past me, and I wonder if it’s going home to Granny Carne’s hive. It stops and burrows into a snapdragon flower. I can hear it buzzing and bumbling around inside. Maybe it’s stuck? No, slowly it emerges.

  Suddenly an idea strikes me. Maybe, if Conor could talk to the hive, I could talk to one single bee?

  “Um—listen, can you hear me?”

  But as soon as I start talking to the bee, I know it’s not going to work. I haven’t any of the feeling in me that Conor described. To be honest, I don’t believe that I have any Earth magic at all. Sure enough, the bee takes no notice of me and flies off with its load of pollen.

  At that moment a shadow falls over me. I look up quickly. There’s no one there, but Sadie is on her feet, bristling, a growl starting in the back of her throat. And the evening sun’s not so bright. No, the light’s changing. It’s going a strange color, greenish blue, like the color of underwater. But the sea can’t come here! Ingo is not allowed to break its bounds, I know that.

  “Sadie!”

  Sadie backs against me, growling loudly now, pressing herself against my body. She’s terrified, although for some strange reason I’m not afraid. But something’s about to happen, I know it is.

  “Myrgh kerenza,” says a voice. It is so close, so familiar, that I can’t believe there is no one else in the garden. “Myrgh kerenza…”

  My mind stretches and discovers the meaning of the words. Dear daughter. Only two people in the world can call me by that name. “Dad!” I whisper. “Is it really you?” Dad here, in his own garden, at home…

  But no one answers. Slowly the light begins to change. The green-blue tinge of the light fades to the warm gold of evening. Sadie moves away from me, shakes herself all over as if she’s coming out of the water, and barks and barks and barks.

  “Quiet, Sadie!”

  I listen hard, but all that I can hear are the normal sounds of a summer evening. But I feel warm. It’s a good feeling. I am Dad’s myrgh kerenza. His dear daughter. Somewhere he knows it, and I know it too. After Conor talked to the bees, he knew that Dad was alive. I believed Conor, but I still didn’t really know it.

  But now I do.

  About the Author

  HELEN DUNMORE is a novelist and poet as well as a children’s writer. She has published eight collections of poetry, and has written eight novels and two collections of short stories. She has won the Orange Prize for Fiction, and her most recent novel, THE SIEGE, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Fiction. Her writing for children includes short stories, novels, and poetry. Helen travels extensively to read and lecture both in the UK and abroad, in countries as diverse as Morocco, Hong Kong, and Romania. INGO is the first novel in her major quartet for children. She lives in England. You can visit her online at www.helendunmore.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Credits

  Cover illustration © 2006; created from photographs © Getty Images

  Copyright

  INGO. Copyright © 2005 by Helen Dunmore. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061972584

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