“It will weaken me more to leave the water. I came to tell you that in two nights we will answer the Call. But Ervys’s followers are waiting for us. They will pack the Assembly chamber if they can. They will try to turn the Mer against us so that we are not chosen to make the Crossing. They fear what will happen if we succeed. They don’t want peace: they want war, and victory.”
“What time? When shall we come?”
“Be here when the moon rises. I will come for you. You will know when the time is right, because the Call will grow so strong in you that you hear nothing else. This is what I have been told by those who have made the Crossing. I will be here for you.”
“But you’re badly hurt, Faro!” I stare through the water and see a cloud of blood around Faro’s tail. “Will you be strong enough?”
“Strong enough!” says Faro, looking at me as if I am Mortarow trying to stop him. Then his face softens. “Are you wearing our bracelet, little sister?”
“Of course.” I lift my arm to show him. “Faro, what kind of weapons have they got – Ervys and his followers?”
“They have taken up spears fashioned from the wood they find in drowned ships, and from sharpened stones and coral.”
I look anxiously at Faro’s tail. I know that people often get blood poisoning from coral wounds. “Was Mortarow’s spear tipped with coral, Faro?”
Faro turns aside and spits into the water. “Mortarow has taken human metal to tip his spear. He has been rummaging deep in the belly of a wreck and has found human weapons.” He spits again. “And our sea bull says that he is upholding the pure traditions of the Mer.” He’s very pale. Anger gives him energy, but he needs Elvira’s help, and quickly.
“Go, Faro, you’ve got to hurry. Are you strong enough? Shall we come with you to find Elvira?”
Faro shakes his head. “In two nights I shall be here for you.” He turns. There are no dazzling somersaults this time, or glittering plunges into deep water. Faro dips his head beneath the surface and swims down, down into Ingo until he is lost to sight.
“We shouldn’t have let him go, Conor. That wound was deep.”
“He’ll be all right, once he gets to Elvira.” Conor turns and wades back to shore. I catch up with him. “Only two nights to wait,” he says.
“Yes.”
Conor glances at me, his face sombre and thoughtful. “Aren’t you afraid, Saph?” he asks.
“Of Mortarow, you mean? But Saldowr wouldn’t let him hurt us … would he?”
“Mortarow has just struck at Faro, Saph. He knows that’s the same as striking at Saldowr himself. They’ve lost their fear of what Saldowr can do to them. Listen Saph. Do you really still want to make the Crossing?”
I stop dead in the shallow water, grabbing Conor’s arm to make him stop too. “How can you say that?”
“I’m not even sure that I should let you go.”
“Let me go! Conor, you’re my brother but you’re not my keeper. Don’t you understand? I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to go.”
Conor sighs. “I keep thinking what Mum would say if she knew.”
“You can’t think like that.”
“You’re my sister, Saph. My real sister.”
I know this is a dig at Faro. Conor doesn’t like it when Faro calls me little sister. “I know,” I say, “but I still have to go. And so do you, don’t you? You heard the Call.” Conor nods. “Ingo needs us,” I go on.
“You don’t have to tell me that, Saph. I’ve seen what Ervys can do. We’ve got to stop him. I just wish I could go alone. Being afraid for another person is much worse than being afraid for yourself.”
I shiver. “I’m so cold, Conor. Let’s get home quick.”
As we climb up the rocks I look back. The cove is filling. The tide’s coming in. A wild tide, full of anger. Next time we come here the moon will be rising. We’ll walk into the water and our journey will begin.
Rainbow is at the cottage. She has tethered Kylie Newton’s pony Treacle to the gatepost and he is munching placidly at a clump of grass. I glance up at the roof. The gulls attacked Sadie; they might go for Treacle too. Every hour of the day they are there now, watching. Sometimes they change guard as one posse flies out to sea and another flies inland to perch along the ridge of our roof. I wonder what else they have got in their nest now. As if it feels my thoughts, one of the gulls stretches out its neck and screams down derision.
I could have given your stupid egg to the cat, but I didn’t. You should be grateful, I tell them in my mind, but I don’t think the gulls can read my thoughts.
“They can’t be nesting at this time of year,” says Rainbow, puzzled. The biggest gull is staring at her and Treacle with its yellow eyes. Suddenly it looks aside, like a bully pretending to have lost interest when he spots that someone’s not going to be intimidated. He struts along the roof a little way, then flies upward in a wide circle that keeps well clear of us. One by one the other gulls lift off, squawking out their protests, and fly out to sea. For the first time since Granny Carne visited there are no gulls on our roof.
“I won’t have them on our roof,” says Rainbow as if she has perfect gull control.
“Don’t you like gulls?” asks Conor.
“I used to, but they’ve changed. They’ve become really aggressive. I don’t mind them dive-bombing to take food off people because that’s their instinct. They’re scavengers by nature. But the last year or two I’ve seen them attack for nothing. They went for my neighbour’s dog one day – you know, Sky. And she’s tiny, she’s only a Yorkshire terrier. I had to beat them off.” She strokes Treacle’s neck reassuringly.
“Does Kylie ever get a chance to ride her own pony?” I demand. Rainbow laughs.
“You know Kylie,” she says. “If she can get someone else to exercise Treacle for her, she will. She likes the idea of having a pony but she doesn’t like the work.”
I stroke Treacle’s nose while Conor goes in to make tea and rummage through the larder to see if we’ve eaten the last of the last Guilt Cake.
“Kylie is unbelievably lazy,” I agree. “If I had a pony I’d want to do everything for it.”
“They’re going to take me on at the stables on Saturdays,” Rainbow says.
“Which one?”
“Tregony. It’s mainly mucking out and leading the little ones out on rides. I don’t get paid but I’ll get two hours free riding and I can use the jumps any time I want.”
“It’ll be good for you to get up on something a bit more exciting than old Treacle,” I say. Rainbow’s a good rider.
Rainbow pats Treacle protectively. “How can you say that? He’s got the best temperament. You could put a cat up on him and he wouldn’t shy.”
“And he gallops exactly like his name.”
“Don’t listen to her, Treacle.” We both laugh. Conor comes out with a clutch of mugs in one hand and a plate of biscuits.
“No more cake?” I ask.
“No more cake.” He smiles at Rainbow. “You’re growing your hair.”
I hadn’t noticed, but he’s right. Rainbow’s bright hair is curling down over her neck now. She blushes a little. “I just felt like it,” she says, looking down at the mug of tea Conor hands her, rather than at him.
“It’s nice,” says Conor.
“But where’s Sadie?” asks Rainbow abruptly.
“She’s gone to stay with Granny Carne for a while,” I answer, not looking at Rainbow.
“We’ve had a call from family upcountry,” says Conor.
“Mum’s second cousin,” I put in quickly. “They want us to go up there for half term, and maybe stay on for a week afterwards, because of Mum being away. We’re going to write to our schools for permission to miss the time. But we can’t take Sadie because they live in a flat.”
Too much information, I realise as the words gush from my mouth. Second law of lying: don’t put too much icing on the cake. Silence falls, an awkward silence.
“In Plymouth,” I blurt out.
R
ainbow looks from me to Conor. Her face is puzzled. Her blush returns and deepens. “I didn’t know you had any family in Plymouth,” she says. “Have you been up to stay with them before?”
“Yes,” I say.
“No,” says Conor at the same moment.
Another silence falls. Rainbow turns away and starts to fuss over Treacle. “There, boy, good boy, steady there …” Treacle looks surprised but smug, while Rainbow gulps down her tea, even though it must be too hot.
“They’re not well,” I blunder on. “Our cousin and his family, that is. That’s why they want us to go, to help look after them …”
“I’ve got to get going,” Rainbow mutters into her mug. “Kylie will want Treacle back …”
Kylie Newton wouldn’t care if you took Treacle out until the middle of next week, I think, but I say nothing. I have the feeling that Conor’s got to sort out this mess, not me. The silence drags on painfully. Rainbow puts her mug down on a flat stone, fumbles for her hard hat and puts it on.
“Rainbow,” says Conor.
“Yes?” Her voice isn’t cold – Rainbow’s voice could never be that – but it’s constricted.
“Rainbow, I’m sorry. That wasn’t true, what we said.”
“I know.”
“Saph and I do have to go somewhere. But we can’t tell you any more than that. We can’t tell anyone. If our schools think we’re with family there won’t be any trouble.”
“You didn’t have to lie to me,” Rainbow says.
Neither of us knows what to say. Colour rises under Conor’s brown skin. He frowns and his lips tighten. I hope Rainbow doesn’t think he is angry with her. He’s furious with himself, and with everything that’s forced him to lie to Rainbow. “I was stupid,” he says quietly.
“Yes, you were.” Rainbow is frowning too. Elvira would have melted into sympathy by now, I think. But Rainbow’s not like that. She thinks a lot of Conor but she expects a lot from him too. They take no notice of me. In fact they’ve probably forgotten that I’m here. Rainbow is trying to work out what can have made the Conor she knows behave so much out of character.
Suddenly she gets it. Light breaks on her face. “Is it to do with your father?” she asks. I follow her thoughts. She believes that maybe we have been right all along. Dad is still alive, and we have managed to trace him. Conor hesitates. He can’t – no, he won’t – lie to Rainbow any more, but he’s got to give her some kind of explanation. It would be cruel to leave her thinking that we don’t trust her.
“In a way it is,” he says carefully.
Another flash of insight. “You’re going where he is, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” says Conor. You can see how relieved he is to be telling the truth. “But we can’t tell anyone else. It’s vital. People could get hurt.”
“Is it dangerous, then?” It’s an odd question, given all that Rainbow doesn’t know. It’s as if she understands what is going on by instinct.
“It could be. But Saph and I haven’t got any choice.”
This is where I have my own moment of inspiration. “Granny Carne knows,” I say.
Rainbow’s expression clears. “She knows where your father is?”
“Yes.”
“And she hasn’t tried to stop you?”
I think of Granny Carne standing in the lane a long time ago, keeping us from Ingo, giving us blackberries that tasted of Earth. She stopped us then, but time has moved on. We’re not strangers to Ingo any more, or visitors who can plunge beneath the skin, surf a few currents and come out unchanged. We’ve become part of it, even Conor, whether we want to be or not. Our future is tied to Ingo’s. That’s why Granny Carne won’t stand in our way this time, and why she can’t give us any protection. I see her in my mind’s eye, her red scarf flying in the wind, her feet planted on the Earth, her far-seeing eyes fixed on me. One of her hands is lifted. I don’t know if she’s greeting me or saying farewell. Her other hand rests on the hoary grey of a granite standing stone, while the adders – her nadron, the children of Earth – twist and twine at her feet. The vision is so powerful that I almost hear the snakes hiss.
I come back to myself. Rainbow is watching me curiously.
“Granny Carne hasn’t tried to stop us,” Conor confirms. “She’s the only one who knows where we’re going, though. You won’t tell anyone else, will you, Rainbow? Not even Patrick?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
Rainbow unhitches Treacle’s reins from the post and leads him away from the wall. He stops, placid and foursquare as ever. She puts her foot into the stirrup, and springs on to Treacle’s broad back. Her legs are way too long for him, but Rainbow is light and no burden.
“That animal’s more like an armchair than a horse,” Conor says, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Rainbow remains serious.
“You said it might be dangerous.”
“Yes,” says Conor.
“You will—” Rainbow clears her throat. “You will come back, won’t you?” The light is behind her, shining through the bright rim of hair beneath the hard hat. Conor puts his hand on Treacle’s neck. He is serious, too, as he gazes up at Rainbow.
“I’ll come back,” he says. “I promise you that.”
CHAPTER SIX
Faro was right. When the time comes, we can no more resist the force that is pulling us towards that Assembly chamber than we could stop the blood flowing through our veins. The Call isn’t just one note blown on a conch: it’s a summons. Ingo wants us, needs us, and demands that we come now.
It’s a clear, still night, thick with stars. The moon will rise soon after nine o’clock, Conor says. It’s coming up to high tide. The salt tide of Ingo rises in me, growing stronger every minute.
We turn out the lights and lock the cottage door. A gull mews like a cat out of the darkness above our heads. Another answers, and then I think I hear wings. Conor stares up, trying to see what the gulls are doing. “Are they still there?”
“I think one flew off.”
“Do you think they’ve guessed where we’re going?”
“I don’t know.”
We are both whispering. Now that my eyes are getting used to the dark I can see the pale shapes of the gulls standing on the roof, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. There are six of them. They make no more sound. Their silence seems more sinister than a flurry of angry squawking. “Come on,” says Conor.
We cross the garden, open the gate and set off down the track. Our feet crunch more loudly on the hard surface than they ever do by day. I glance back. I can still see our home by starlight, although the moon hasn’t risen yet. The gulls are there, watching and waiting. They can wait there as long as they like, I think, but they’ll never be able to enter. The rowan will keep our home safe. I can just see the rowan tree’s shape against our door. No evil can cross a threshold which the rowan guards.
Lights glow through curtains from the scattered cottages where our neighbours live. In the morning they’ll see that no lights are on in our cottage. They’ll think we’ve left early to catch the train up to Plymouth. Granny Carne has told our neighbour Mary Thomas about Mum’s cousin, and the news will be around the village by now.
Down the track, down the path. The dew has already fallen and it’s cold. The air smells of autumn, of mushrooms, bracken and the sea. We don’t talk. The power that is taking us into Ingo now is too strong for words.
We’re almost at the place where the little hidden path curves away off this one, to the lip of the cliff where we’ll scramble down to our cove. Faro will be waiting–
Conor stops dead. I almost fall on top of him. “What’s wrong?”
“Listen.”
I listen, expecting to hear the sound of the sea or maybe the Call again, or maybe my own name carried on the wind from the sea, as I heard it once before:
Ssssapphiiire … Ssssapphiiire …
But there’s nothing.
“Conor, come on, we’ve got to hurry.”
“N
o. Listen, Saph. I’m sure I heard something.”
The night breeze lifts my hair. Prickles of fear run up my neck. Ervys can’t leave Ingo. But what if the gulls attack now, out of the night sky? They will be able to see better than us. There are hundreds of gulls roosting in the cliffs.
“Listen.”
This time I hear it too. A muffled groan. It could be an animal but I’m immediately sure that it’s not. It’s a human sound.
“Is anyone there? Are you hurt?” calls Conor. His voice is much too loud.
“Conor, don’t!”
“Answer if you can!” calls Conor, ignoring me. Again, a faint moan carries towards us. “It’s close. I’m going to shine the torch.”
We weren’t going to shine the torch until we needed it for climbing down to the cove in case its light gave us away. Conor flicks on the beam of light and passes it slowly and thoroughly over the dense mass of brambles, bracken and furze. The sound comes again.
“It’s down here!” Conor pushes forward, down the little hidden path that goes to the cove. I’m close behind. “Stop, Saph! Here! There’s someone here.”
He shines the torch down. A figure huddles on the path. There’s something else – two long pieces of metal reflecting in the torchlight. Conor kneels down. “It’s Gloria Fortune,” he says over his shoulder. “Hold the torch, Saph.”
I take the torch. “Don’t move her if she’s injured, Con.”
“I’m not stupid.”
I recognise Gloria Fortune now. The metal things are her crutches. She must have slipped and fallen. “She’s soaking wet,” says Conor.
“Oh my God.” She has done it. Somehow she has crawled down over the lip of the cliff, down the rocks to the sand. She has got to the sea.
“Don’t shine the torch in my eyes,” says Gloria. Her voice is faint but steady.
“Are you all right? What happened?” asks Conor.
“I’m not hurt. Just – tired. Had to lie down a minute.”
“You were groaning. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Cold, that’s all. Got to get home – Richard’ll be back soon. He’ll think s-s-something’s – happened to me.”
The Crossing of Ingo Page 6
