The Tide Knot (22 page)

  “I bet they are,” murmurs Conor.  

  As soon as the first dolphin reaches us, I realize just how frightened of the sharks I was. It’s like meeting a friend with a lantern in a dark, dangerous forest. My heart goes out to these beautiful warm-blooded creatures. Their eyes are alive with intelligence, and their voices reach out for us through the water.

  “Greetings, little sister.”

  “Greetings, brother.”  

  It’s no effort to understand the dolphins now, as I had to struggle to understand them when we were on Mal’s father’s boat. I glance at Conor. He is smiling as he stretches out a hand in greeting.

  “Can you understand them, Con?”

  “Anyone could understand them,” says Conor. “You don’t need language.”

  But I did understand their language easily this time. Does that mean I’m speaking full Mer? I don’t know. But Conor’s right: The dolphins’ language isn’t just a matter of words.

  They wheel around us in the water, playfully nudging us and then arching in circles. It’s a welcoming pattern, full of warmth and affection. With a surge of joy, I realize that we have won the trust of the dolphins because of that long night when we struggled to save their stranded sister. The dolphins are not here just because Saldowr has ordered them to come but because they want to be here. They’re happy to see us.

  “They’re thanking us, Conor!”

  “I know.”

  “She must have survived, that dolphin who was stranded.” Saldowr smiles as he watches the dolphins. I remember what the whale told me. It is because the dolphins are so intelligent that their lives are made of play. The whale was envious, in her huge, gentle way. She would have liked to play too. And she’d definitely have liked to be better at telling jokes.  

  “Greetings, brothers, and welcome,” says Saldowr, and there’s an affection in his voice that I haven’t heard before.

  He turns to us. “They are ready to take you home now.

  They’ll bear you out of Ingo before the storm comes.” These are young male dolphins. They swim alongside for us to climb onto their backs. I remember what Faro taught me last summer: I must ride with the dolphin, not on him.

  I sit on the dolphin’s back and lean forward, curving my body into his shape. My arms are round him, my face against his skin. I can sense the energy and eagerness in him. He can hardly wait to be flying through the water again.

  Conor and his dolphin are already moving forward. Conor turns to me, his face glowing with excitement. “Can you believe this, Saph?”

  “I know. It’s amazing.”

  Conor’s dolphin swims a little faster, with a lazy flick of the tail that hints at the speed he could reach if he chose.

  Suddenly he plunges forward into a perfect somersault and brings Conor back to me in a swirl of bubbles. Both the dolphin and Conor are laughing.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t fall off.”

  But Conor’s already gone again. The dolphin’s playing a new game with him. Conor and the dolphin rush forward and then stop dead, rush forward and stop dead again, making the water churn around them. They weave a figure eight, curving in and out, round and round, upside down and then right side up, in a way that would make the most brilliant figure skaters in the world look clumsy. I’m dizzy with watching them. I can hardly pick out which is the dolphin and which is Conor.

  “Are you ready, little sister?” my dolphin asks gently.

  “Yes.”

  I close my eyes. I know we’ve got to go through the sharks’ territory, but I don’t ever want to see those sharks again.

  “Don’t be afraid, child,” says Saldowr. “Open your eyes.

  Look at me.” I open my eyes reluctantly. Saldowr’s face is quizzical. “You are a strange child,” he says. “You survived the Deep, which should have destroyed you. When you should be afraid, you are not afraid, but when you have no reason to fear, you are full of terrors. I have told you that the sharks will not hurt you.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Be brave. Each time you are brave, it grows easier. This is only the beginning.”

  “The beginning of what?”

  “Of the times when you will need all your courage.” Saldowr is older than I thought. His face is smooth and unlined, but his eyes look as if he’s been alive for a thousand years and seen more than I can ever imagine.

  Conor’s right—Saldowr is like Granny Carne, even though he’s also her complete opposite. Her wisdom belongs to Earth and Air; his wisdom belongs to Ingo. But they share something deeper than their differences. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I can feel it. Power isn’t quite the right word. Granny Carne and Saldowr are like magnets, drawing everything to them: people and creatures and knowledge.

  Maybe Saldowr really has been alive for a thousand years. Maybe he can look forward and backward through time, like Granny Carne. I shiver. It must be terrible to have so much knowledge.

  As he floats there with his cloak swirling around him and his hand lifted in farewell , Saldowr is formidable, but maybe he’s lonely too. He knows so much more than everyone. All that wisdom must be a lonely thing, like a cloak of ice around your shoulders.

  “Remember that you are protected, child,” says Saldowr.

  “The sharks will not hurt you. If you keep this in your mind, then the sharks will remember it too. You must not show weakness.”

  He is very serious. I realize that Saldowr’s protection isn’t a magic trick that he can wrap around us. We have to do our part to make the protection work.

  “I know.” But I can’t help shivering again at the memory of the sharks’ cold eyes as they roamed over me and Conor.

  “Please tell  Faro—” But I don’t know what message to give. “Tel him—tell  him I didn’t want to go without seeing him. Tel him I’ll come back.”

  “Of course. But hurry now. I feel the storm gathering.” Even though I keep my eyes shut tight, I know the moment that we reach the sharks. A searching chill passes over us, like a radar beam. My skin shrinks. Coldness, emptiness, enmity. The sharks are scanning us and searching their memories for what they should do with us.

  I have got to open my eyes. It’s no good shutting them, like a baby playing hide-and-seek.
If I can’t see you, then
you can’t see me.
That’s what babies think. But the sharks can see me all right. I open my eyes. The water is gray with the sharks’ presence. Here they are, strung out in a line, on patrol. The chill creeps over me again as they reach out, probing and hungry.

 
Who goes there?
 

  The voice is harsh but empty of emotion. The shark will do its duty without emotion. The dolphins who carry us are side by side, almost touching.

  “Don’t be afraid, Saph,” says Conor quietly. He raises his head. “Look at the sharks. Tel them who we are.”

  “We are—we are—” My voice is thin. Immediately I sense the sharks picking up my weakness. From the corner of my eye I see the shark farthest from us start to circle toward us.

  “We are under Saldowr’s protection,” says Conor. His voice is calm. Yes, that’s what I must say. I gather my strength and try to swallow the crazy beating of my heart in my throat. My mouth is full of strong salt water. The taste of it gives me courage. Saldowr’s voice is in my ear.
You must
not show weakness.

 
You’ve survived the Deep,
I tell  myself.
You can face the
sharks.
 

  “We are—we are under Saldowr’s protection,” I say more firmly, and then the right words come to me. “Remember us, friends, as we remember you. We pass under Saldowr’s protection.”

  The icy grip of the sharks breaks. The dolphins gather their strength and surge upward, rushing through the water.

  The sharks’ patrol territory fall s away behind us. It’s like coming out of a clammy cave into a summer day. We’re swept along with the dolphins into the freedom and wildness of their flight as we leap out of gray into blue and then above the water’s surface into the world of Air and gul s and flying foam, before we plunge back down into the waves. Conor’s dolphin keeps close to the surface, never letting him stay underwater for longer than a few seconds. Our dolphins leap at the same moment, and water streams off us as their bodies arch high above the sea and then dive through the foaming crests of the waves.

  Conor turns to me, his face glowing. This is what Conor wants—to be in Ingo and yet not in Ingo, riding the sea with a dolphin’s freedom, and breathing easily, without pain.

  The next time my dolphin surfaces, I see a ship far off on the horizon and a black rock and a lighthouse. The light of day dazzles me.

  “The Bishop Rock!” Conor yells. “We’re almost home.” Earth will always be home to Conor. I wish I could be so sure. I press my face into the dolphin’s back and smell the saltiness of Ingo. I don’t want to leave. As long as I’m riding on the dolphin’s back, I am still in Ingo. Somewhere in a cradle of stone far beneath the water there’s my baby brother. Somewhere beneath the water my father is living another life.

  I can’t leave—not now—

  But I’ve got to. Without the dolphins, Conor can’t survive, and the dolphins aren’t tame creatures. They’ll take us on our journey, but then they’ll go back into their own lives. I wish…I wish…  

  We’re traveling up the coast now, still in Ingo, rising into the Air but not yet needing to breathe it. We can see land now.

  There are the cliffs, their granite bulk plunging down to the water. On top of the cliffs there’s a handful of cottages that look like toys. Suddenly I can smell the land. I never realized that land had such a strong smell .      We’re coming closer.

  What if someone was out on those cliffs and saw me and Conor riding on the backs of the dolphins? They wouldn’t believe their eyes. Even if they did, no one else would believe them. Imagine telling your friends that you’d seen a boy and a girl riding on dolphins, far out at sea.

  Soon the dolphins will turn and make their rush inland at full speed, just beneath the surface of the water. They’ll bring us inshore, and we’ll stagger out of the sea, our clothes dripping, the cold wind cutting us like a knife.

  But how rough the sea’s getting. The sun’s disappeared, and the water has changed from blue to pewter. Foam whips off the tops of the waves. Saldowr was right—there’s a storm coming. The sky is growing dark. The clouds on the horizon look like a mass of bruises.

  We’re almost there. Only a few minutes more, and the dolphins will leave us. Ingo will close behind us, just as the rock closed over the Tide Knot.

 
“M
y God, Conor! Sapphy! Look at the state of you!”

  I expect Mum to leap up and grab hold of me, but instead she gets up slowly—very slowly—from the chair where she’s sitting by the fire. “You’re soaked through. Come here, let me feel your hands. You’re freezing! Sapphy, your clothes—

  Is that blood on your arm? And Conor, you’re covered in bruises!”

  “No, it’s not really blood. It’s just a little cut, Mum—”

  “What’s been going on?” Mum asks frantically. “Has there been an accident? You’ve been in the sea, haven’t you?” I haven’t seen Mum’s terror of the sea burst out like this since we moved to St. Pirans.  

  “Calm down, Mum,” says Conor. “Nothing terrible’s happened. We were up beyond Pedn Enys, watching a pair of dolphins that had come close inshore. Saph slipped, and then I went in too. That’s all .”

  “You could have drowned! The sea could have swept you away! Those rocks are so dangerous when there’s a big sea—”

  “Mum, we
weren’t
swept off,” says Conor patiently. Unlike me, he never gets angry with Mum. “It was just a big rock pool that we fell into. There’s no way we could have drowned.”

  I crouch down by the fire and spread out my hands to its warmth. We ran all the way back from where the dolphins left us, wet clothes and all . Everything Conor has told Mum is true. There’s no word of a lie in it. We’ve only been away for a day, just as we promised when we told Mum we were going for a day out.

  I shall never understand about time in Ingo and time here.

  The relationship between the two times keeps shifting. It’s not like a mathematics formula in which
x
hours of Ingo time equals
y
hours of human time. Ingo time seems to be as slippery as water. As soon as you think you’ve grasped it, it pours away through your fingers.

  The dolphins were amazing. They brought us right in at Pen Tyr, where we would be protected by a rocky out-crop that breaks the force of the waves coming in from the southwest. The dolphins swam so close to shore that I was afraid they’d be stranded, but they knew exactly what they were doing.

  The water is deep at Pen Tyr, and the rocks rise up sheer, but there are plenty of handholds and footholds.

  Dolphins are so intelligent. They must have searched their minds for a place that would be the perfect combination of shelter, deep water, and climbable rock.  

  Dolphins make everything seem so easy. There was only a short stretch of water for us to swim across, and then we could scramble up onto the rocks. Even in that sheltered place the water was rough, but Conor and I are used to climbing out of the sea onto rocks. You have to tread water until a wave lets you seize a handhold, and then you can scramble up.

  We’re bruised by the rocks, and I cut my arm on some mussel shells. It looks like a lot of blood, but it’s not too bad really. Conor helped me. We couldn’t change into our dry clothes because huge waves were already smashing right over the rocks where Conor had hidden them. I love the way the sea shocks up behind the rocks in a cloud of spray and then spills all over them, making white rivers down the black rock. It’s beautiful, but it’s very dangerous. Dad always told us that the sea lets you make one mistake, and it can be your last.

  I hope our clothes and trainers will be all right. They’re wrapped in a plastic bag, and Conor wedged them right down between the rocks. Mum would go crazy if she had to buy new trainers for both of us.