The Crossing of Ingo (26 page)

“I feel like a circus freak,” says Conor wryly.

The Mer man watches the scene with proud indulgence. I wonder if one of the children is his, but I don’t ask. He might suspect I’ve got some ulterior motive. After ages of giggling the children get bored with us and they all shoot off together like a school of fish to play in the kelp forest again.

The faces of the adult Mer relax. None of them comes forward, though, or even meets our eyes. As soon as I look at them they glance away distrustfully. It’s just as well I didn’t try to hug that little girl. The parents would probably have thought I was trying to strangle her or something.

“Our children are happy that they have met humans in Ingo,” says the Mer man.

“We are happy to have met them,” says Conor blandly. For someone who rarely lies, Conor is very convincing. Seizing the advantage, he inquires, “Do you know where the nearest continent is?”

The word “continent” sounds strange in Mer. The idea won’t quite translate. But I know what Conor’s trying to find out. We were talking about it last night when the others were sleeping. We think we must be close to Australia now. Conor is sure that is what the Mer mean when they describe the great land that they have to journey around at “the bottom of the world”.
At first I thought they must be talking about Antarctica, but Faro says that the sea around this great land isn’t frozen.

If we’re near Australia, then we’ll be turning for home soon. I wish the whale had been more specific about where her daughter lives now. The oceans are so vast. “The bottom of the world” could mean anywhere in thousands of miles of water.

It’s eerie that we might be so close to Mum and Roger. We might pass within a few miles of them without ever knowing it. Mum and Roger are staying on the Queensland coast. Roger might even be diving now, not that far from us. What if we saw him in all his dive gear slowly swimming around a reef? What if he saw us?

At first I thought that maybe, somehow, we could visit Mum, but Conor’s sure that we can’t. I suppose he’s right. Imagine the shock it would give her if we suddenly appeared on the beach when she believes we’re safe at home, thousands of miles away. “She might think we’re dead and these are our ghosts. She could die of the shock. People do,” Conor said seriously. Besides, how would we find one particular part of Queensland in all the length of Australia’s coast?

I’m so lost in my thoughts that I start when Conor breaks the silence by repeating his question. “The nearest continent – the nearest land mass – which direction does it lie in?”

“We live in the kelp forest,” says the Mer man at last, rather evasively it seems to me.

“We know that. But even from within the kelp forest you must communicate with other creatures of Ingo,” says Conor.
His certainty surprises me, but it seems to convince the Mer man, who shrugs. “We speak to the whales when they rest in the sunwater close to our forest. They talk of land but it does not concern us.”

“But they do talk of it.”

“They say that whenever they want to follow the setting sun, a great land lies in their way. They must go far, far south to avoid it. There is so much land that Ingo chokes on it.”

“Australia,” murmurs Conor.

“You speak our language but you put into it words which we do not know,” says the Mer man. “Are you trying human tricks on us?” There is aggression in his stance and in his voice. The goodwill from our meeting with the children seems to be dissolving quickly.

“Conor, we need to go,” I murmur. I’m starting to feel claustrophobic in the kelp forest’s crowded, shifting shadows. I have a vision of dozens of Mer children grabbing my arms and legs, wrapping me round and round with strands of kelp and pulling me into the forest. I can still hear the ghostly echo of their giggling, deep among the kelp. They would love me to come in for a game of hide-and-seek where I never found my way out again. What if their parents suddenly thought that it would be nice for their children to keep us here as playthings?

“We must leave now,” I say more loudly.

“Very well,” says the Mer man. “If you insist on finding land, ask advice of the whales. They are always travelling,” and he smiles a little pityingly. I don’t know if it’s us he pities or the
whales. Maybe both, for not having the good fortune to live in the kelp forest.

“Won’t you tell us your name?” I ask impulsively, but he just regards me coldly for a while and then says, “No.” Conor nudges me. It means
Time to get going, Saph.
He’s right. I feel the eyes of a hundred watchers on my back as we swim back to Faro and Elvira.

“Not very forthcoming, was he?” says Conor.

“Don’t, Con. He might hear you. He was very, very
strong,
wasn’t he? Even though he was so small.”

“Arrogant, I thought. And quite scary,” says Conor cheerfully. Conor never minds admitting that he’s scared.

“How did you know that they communicated with other creatures, Conor?”

“Deduction, my dear Watson. Otherwise how would they have heard stories about humans and the Crossing of Ingo?”

Faro and Elvira are just as eager to get away from the kelp forest as we are. We swim in a close group, not too slow, not too fast. It mustn’t look as if we’re afraid. I
am
afraid, and I don’t know why the fear is so sharp. They didn’t hurt us or threaten us – and I’m sure they’ve got nothing to do with Ervys. They seem cut off from all the other Mer.

“I am ashamed that he was Mer. There was no Mer spirit in him,” says Faro.

“You don’t have to be ashamed, Faro. It had nothing to do with you,” I say gently.

“They are my blood. They shame the traditions of the Mer.”

“I think they think they
are
the traditions of the Mer. It doesn’t matter, Faro. They didn’t do us any harm.”

“Or help us.” Faro tosses back his hair furiously. “It seems as if wherever we go, Mer are forgetting that we are all brothers and sisters!”

“At least we found out that Australia’s to the west of us, and not that distant,” says Conor.

“Great,” I snap. “That’s as good as having a map, isn’t it? We’ve got to find the whales. The sperm whales, I mean. They’ll help us; I know they will.”

I don’t know why I am so sure about this. The currents have brought us safe so far. But everything’s about to change. Soon we won’t be going outward: we’ll be on the voyage home.

“We are wasting time,” says Faro. “We must travel on until we smell the land or until we meet dolphins. They will know better than anyone where the whales are.”

“The dolphins!” My heart leaps. When the dolphins travelled with us Ingo was truly home. “Can we call them, Faro?”

Faro smiles at me. Yes, he looks older. The Crossing is changing him. Faro will be a man soon, but I don’t want to think about that. I want us to stay as we are, Faro and Sapphire, joined by our
deubleks,
free to wander in and out of each other’s thoughts. A pulse of current washes my hair over my face, blinding me. Gently Faro pushes it back.

“If
you
call, little sister, I am sure that they will come,” he says.

T
he dolphins came when I called to them, just as Faro said they would. I opened my mind and heard the echo of dolphin language far in the distance. A wave of longing swept from me, as if I were a dolphin stranded on shore and they were my brothers and sisters, waiting to rescue me. I knew that the wave would break against their bodies, and they would come.

Of course they are not the same dolphins as the ones who helped us before, but as soon as I heard the high-pitched whistling of air from their blowholes and the first intricate clicking of their voices, I was back with my brothers and sisters.

I’m riding with a young female dolphin. She has already taught me her recognition pattern. Up until now I’ve only known dolphins by name, but their recognition patterns go much deeper. You can change your name, but you can’t change the essence of what you are. Her name is Seiliko but her recognition pattern means “Quickest of the dolphin daughters in her age group and first in understanding the water”.

Seiliko is about my age, I think, by dolphin reckoning. Understanding the water is an amazing thing. When I first got to
know dolphins back home in Cornwall, I thought they were fast because of their muscles and their sleekness. I didn’t realise how sensitive their skin is, or how they adapt to every tiny change in the flow of waves and currents so that they can work with the water and not against it. Seiliko angles herself so perfectly that nothing holds her back. Even with a human being on her back, she soars.

Seiliko asked me what my recognition pattern was and I said I didn’t know, and then she laughed and said, “I will discover it by the end of our journey together.”

I’ve ridden with dolphins before and I know you have to relax, stop being separate and let yourself become part of the dolphin’s journey. But Seiliko taught me much more. She said, “You must feel with your skin. You must let the water flow over you. You must learn how the water parts to let you through it.” I couldn’t get it at first. My skin wasn’t sensitive enough and all I felt was the way I slowed Seiliko down. After a while I began to feel what she meant. For a few seconds at a time I became part of Seiliko’s understanding of the water. It didn’t last, because I’m not good enough yet. But I’ve learned something about moving through Ingo which I’ll never forget.

Seiliko can go faster than the other dolphins who are riding with Faro and Conor and Elvira, but she’s always careful not to get too far ahead. I’m sure she would if she were hunting. She’d use all her speed to bring down her prey. But now, if she pulls too far ahead of the others she’ll surge to a stop, or whirl around in a circle so that the water and the other dolphins
become a racing blur. Then she’ll stop dead and each time I think I’ll be thrown forward over her head, but it never happens. I think Conor and Faro were a bit jealous that I’m riding with Seiliko, but it wasn’t my choice. You don’t decide, with dolphins: they do. She came up alongside me and said:
We’ll ride together.
Elvira didn’t care; she never minds about things like that. She was already deep in conversation with the dolphin who had chosen her. Probably asking him if he had any cuts that needed treating. Elvira still vanishes into her dream of the North for hours on end. Her body is making the Crossing but I think her spirit is always travelling backwards.

I slept a little during the night. Seiliko and the other dolphins plunged on tirelessly, always heading westward. Sometimes they breached and we saw the night sky with a big golden moon and millions of stars. I looked up but I couldn’t recognise the constellations. All the stars were in the wrong places. A second later, we dived back through the skin.

“Dawn will be here soon,” Seiliko says to me. She’s right. The darkness begins to thin. The sea takes on a tinge of grey. We breach again and the moon and stars have disappeared. Seiliko keeps close to the surface, skimming at speed, sending up plumes of spray. Exhilaration pours through me.

“Sunrise!” says Seiliko. The sun explodes from the sea’s grey rim, flooding it with colour. The huge ball of the sun is scarlet,
then gold, then a pulsing yellow so brilliant that my eyes hurt and I have to look away. Streaks of fire shoot across the sea’s surface. My face is bathed in flames.

“Sunrise!” cry all the dolphins exultantly, thrashing their tails on the surface so that the spray catches rainbows. Seiliko gathers herself and leaps clear of the water, then crashes down. She’s going at full speed now, the others are falling back and I wish we could ride like this for ever.

At that moment Seiliko throws herself sideways. The jolt hits me like an electric shock. I’m hurled forward, then back. I’m not part of her any more. My skin peels away from hers. The next moment I feel myself slipping. I scrabble to hold on but her skin is suddenly slippery. Seiliko bucks again and I pitch sideways. As I fall, I hear her high-pitched warning cry: “Nets! Nets! Nets!”

I’m on the surface, pushing my hair out of my face. My lungs are burning. I’m not in Ingo any more. When you’re riding with a dolphin you stay in Ingo even when they breach, but now I’m on my own. I have to breathe, and the pain is so terrible that I would scream if I had enough breath. Immediately Seiliko is alongside me again. I can hardly see her through a haze of pain. It only lasts for a second and then I’m back in Seiliko’s protection. She eases herself under me, and I cling to her, exhausted, as Ingo flows back over me and into me. I don’t have to breathe any more. The pain ebbs and I can see clearly again.

“Where are the others?”

“Below us,” Seiliko reassures me. “They stopped before they hit the nets.”

Seiliko plunges beneath the surface, and I see what she’s already seen. Loose nets hang swaying in the water. If we’d driven on at such speed, the nets would have tangled round us so tight we’d never have got out. Slowly, cautiously, the dolphins skirt the nets. There’s no sign of a boat. Maybe these nets have been abandoned, or ripped loose in a storm.

There’s a shadow ahead of us in the water. Seiliko quickens her pace, then her body shudders to a stop. Her voice rises, keening. Behind us, the other dolphins respond with answering wails. My blood chills as I realise that the shape hanging from the net ahead of us is a dolphin.