“But Conor and I can’t enter each other’s thoughts.”
“You humans! All the same, reach out.”
We float, half awake and half asleep, for the rest of that night. No current comes near us and I’m glad of it. If we struck a strong northern current, I’m not sure I could keep Faro from surfing it. A few fish drift by. Once I think I hear a whale, but the noise dies away in the distance. I open my mind as wide as I can, feeling through the darkness for my brother’s presence.
Conor? Conor, can you hear me? It’s me, Saph. I’m here, waiting for you. If you’re hurt, give me a sign if you can. We’ll come and rescue you, wherever you are.
No sign comes. The Arctic swell rocks us like a cradle. No one seems to be out there.
A late, feeble dawn starts to seep down, lighting the water. We’re about twenty metres below the surface. The water’s crystal clarity is startling. I thought the sea around Cornwall was clear, but it’s cloudy compared to this. I can’t smell land at all. We said we’d wait two days. I’m not sure if this counts as the first day, or if it’s already the second. If it is, we have to go north tomorrow.
“Maybe we should swim round in a wide circle,” I suggest rather hopelessly.
“And exhaust ourselves,” snaps Faro. “That sounds a good idea.”
“We can’t just float here all day waiting for them to find us.”
“I know that. But we need our strength. We don’t want to end up like that seal — Wait, Sapphire. Hush. Keep still.”
“Faro, what is it?”
He points into distant water, up at the surface. I strain my eyes but all I can see is the faintest of shadows. “It’s not a shark, is it?”
“No. Wait.”
It’s coming closer. I recognise the movement long before I can really see the outline. An unmistakable firm outward sweep of the arms. A slow stroke that conserves energy and lets you swim all day long. Breast-stroke. It’s them! “Faro, look, it’s the others!”
“No, Sapphire. Look at it.” Faro’s voice is tense. The creature is coming into focus now. The blunt head, the smooth, sweeping, steady stroke that comes and goes, the limbs spreading and drawing in … “What is it, Faro?”
“Nanuq,” he replies.
It is a polar bear, swimming on the surface, its yellowish coat distinct against the rich blue-black water. It’s doing breast-stroke so powerfully that in a few minutes it will catch up with us. I stare at it, hypnotised. Its head dips below the water with its next stroke, and it sees us down below.
“Dive!” says Faro. “Dive, Sapphire!” But a shelf of ice has glided beneath us. It juts out underwater from a passing berg. We can’t dive out of the bear’s reach. Not in time. The bear plunges, diving for us. There’s nowhere to go. Faro throws his arm around me as we face the bear. Its muzzle is heading straight for us. I see its eyes, its mouth.
“Know that we are Mer, Nanuq,” says Faro. He speaks full Mer, which every creature in Ingo understands. “If you smell human blood, know that you cannot spill a drop of it without spilling Mer blood too. Our people have never harmed your people.”
The vast shaggy belly of the polar bear glides overhead, so close I could touch it. With unnerving speed and grace, the bear turns in a tight circle until it faces us again. The front paws open wide, although the bear’s claws remain sheathed. They close around me, not crushing me but holding me tight in a cage of bear flesh. The next second, Nanuq and I are shooting up to the surface.
We come up in an explosion of foam into a whiteness that almost blinds me. The bear rolls over, swimming on its back, holding me. I can smell its breath. The fur is a dirty, sodden cream. In a moment it will unsheathe its claws and kill me. My chest pounds with the agony of being torn through the surface so suddenly. I hear Faro’s voice. “Don’t hurt her! She is one of us.”
Nanuq will kill me, and Faro will see my blood in the water and rush forward to attack the bear, and then Faro will be killed too. Desperately I reach out for him in my thoughts, trying to prevent him.
Go north, Faro! Quickly! At least one of us will escape.
But Faro is rising to the surface. His voice cracks as he cries out, “Nanuq! Hear me! Hear that she is of Mer blood!”
“Mer blood,” rumbles the bear’s voice, so close to me that it feels as if she’s speaking inside my body.
“Yes,” I gasp.
“But you are breathing air.”
I move my head a little in the direction of Faro’s voice. I can just see his face. His lips are drawn back, his teeth bared. He is getting ready to fight the bear. But he mustn’t or she’ll kill us both.
“You’re hungry,” I say to Nanuq, and her grip on me seems to ease, just a little.
“Yes, hungry, little one. I have swum many miles from the far North without finding safe ice for hunting, or seals.”
“But I am not your prey,” I say with all the firmness I can muster.
The bear turns her head from side to side, peering down at me, trying to identify me.
“I must eat,” she rumbles again.
I think of the seal floating south. If I tell Nanuq that there’s a seal not far away, and that if she swims directly south she’ll find it, then maybe she will let me go. No. She’ll think I’m trying to trick her. And besides, the seal wants to live as much as I do.
“You can’t eat me,” I repeat. I don’t know where my certainty comes from, but it is like invisible armour that holds me safe even though I’m trapped between the polar bear’s paws. “You must hear that I am not your prey.”
“Does your Atka protect you?” asks the bear. I have no idea what an Atka is, but decide to say yes. The bear nods her head sorrowfully.
“Nanuq cannot cross the Atka,” she says, “and I am so hungry, and I have swum so far. Perhaps your Atka is telling me that I must prepare to die.”
My fear is shrinking. I look at the bear closely, meeting her eyes, studying her body. All I saw as she dived at us was a fearsome predator. Now I see a badly healed gash in her shoulder and the hollowness of her flanks. She has been hungry a long time. I wonder how long she’s been swimming, desperately searching for food or for somewhere she can rest. I glance at Faro. His face has changed. He knows the bear won’t attack me now.
“Go south, Nanuk, where you’ll find land and food,” he says. The bear releases me and rolls over in the water.
“The seals do not pup as they should,” she says, “and the pack ice breaks up. My hunting grounds are shrinking, and my paw is hurt so badly that I cannot run on the ice.” She extends her paw. For an odd moment the huge, powerful polar bear looks like an injured dog holding out a wounded paw.
“May I look at it?” I ask.
She growls agreement. It is her left front paw that is injured, and as soon as I examine it I see why she can’t run. The paw is swollen around a splinter of metal. Every step must drive the metal deep into the sore flesh.
“How did this happen?”
“In the summer, by the human settlements. I have tried to release it with my teeth but they cannot reach the place.” She has torn the flesh too, worrying at it with her teeth to try to free the splinter. Her paw is a mess of half-healed scars.
“Look, Faro. If I had a knife, I could cut it out.” I can feel the tip of the metal, but flesh has grown around the splinter. Elvira could do it.
“Neither of us are healers,” I tell Nanuq.
“Try anyway,” she says wearily. “If I cannot hunt, I will die.”
“Keep very still.” I brace my feet against the bear’s chest. “It will hurt you,” I warn her.
I feel carefully for the edges of the splinter. I’m going to have to dig down with my nails to get a grip and try to ease it out. She has driven it deeper, ripping at it with her teeth. My nails grate on metal, then slither away. I try again. A low growl of pain escapes from Nanuq. Perhaps there is poison deep in the wound, but once the splinter is out then the salt water will have a chance to heal it. I try again, pushing down the
proud flesh with one hand while I grip the splinter with my nails.
“It’s coming. Faro, grab hold of me! Pull me from behind!”
I’d never have done it alone. With all the power of his tail, Faro backstrokes, pulling me by the waist. I feel one of my nails break, but by now my fingers can grasp the end of the splinter. I work it round. Nanuq groans with pain.
“It’s coming …”
I get my thumb and forefinger firmly around the splinter, and pull as hard as I can. “Faro, pull me!”
Like a tooth out of its socket, the splinter comes out, slowly at first and then all at once in a cloud of pus and blood. Nanuq gives a deep groan and quivers all over.
“It’s done. It’s out,” I tell her. “Look.” I hold up the metal shard so Nanuq can see it. It is half as long as my hand. No wonder she hasn’t been able to run.
Nanuq bows her huge, heavy head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, child,” she says. “It is fortunate that I remembered you were not a seal.”
“Yes,” I agree fervently.
I release the splinter. It turns over in the water, once and then again, and begins to dive, still turning, into the clear and endless depths. I rub my eyes, which are strained by the dazzle of light on ice. Already the sun seems to be sinking in a mass of crimson. I’ve been above the surface too long breathing air. I want to sink down like that splinter into the safety of Ingo. The sea around us is covered in blobs of ice, but they are too light to support as much as a seal’s weight, and much too light for Nanuq to stand on and sail south. She will have to swim.
Slowly, wearily, Nanuq turns on to her belly, flexes her strong hind legs, and begins to swim. She doesn’t say farewell. She seems to have no energy left for anything but the struggle to survive. Maybe she’ll find a seal – not our seal – I add quickly in my thoughts – just another seal that doesn’t want to live quite as much.
“If you see our brother and sister, tell them to come north! Tell them we’re waiting for them!” I call after her. As soon as the words are out of my mouth I’m not sure I should have told Nanuq about Conor and Elvira. Perhaps she’ll start to look out for them. She’s very hungry.
“Faro, I shouldn’t have told her—”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Faro quickly, but I know he’s only trying to make me feel better. He didn’t say a word about the others to Nanuq.
We’re silent for a while, and at last Faro says reflectively, “We are still in Ingo, little sister, but this is not our home. We must keep silent, and watch, and listen. We can trust no one.”
I nod. Faro dips his head beneath the water then comes up shaking it so hard that hundreds of glittering drops fly through the air.
“This is the longest I have ever been in Air!” he announces proudly.
“Yes, but it’s not really like being in Air, is it? I don’t feel the cold.”
“No. Maybe the boundary between Air and Ingo is not so sharp here. This is good Air. It has no human dirt in it.”
“Faro!”
Faro grins at me over his shoulder as he prepares to dive. “It’s the truth, little sister!”
As I dive after him I think of Nanuq. At least her paw will heal. If she finds land, Nanuq will be able to hunt. Maybe she’ll survive.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Arctic days are even shorter than I thought. After Nanuk has swum away, the light fades. A reddish glow lights Ingo for a while, and Faro and I swim in a wide circle, searching, as I suggested. It’s obvious that Faro thinks it is a complete waste of time, but it would feel even worse just to float and wait.
We see more harp seals, all on their way south. Most of them look thin and weary. Everyone we meet has the same story. It’s been a bad season. There is not enough fish and there are hungry polar bears with cubs to feed. Many seal pups have died because their mothers did not have enough milk for them. A bad season, but perhaps the next will be better, says one old seal philosophically. We keep a lookout for sharks, but so far we’ve seen none. There’s no hint that Ervys’s followers are on our track. Maybe the dolphins have decoyed them in another direction – or Saldowr’s power is holding them back.
So far we haven’t seen any orcas. A beluga whale comes close with a calf at her side, swimming northward. We hear other belugas singing, but we can’t see them. The beluga mother swims up to us and asks fearfully, “Have you seen Nanuq?”
“She’s gone south,” I say, but Faro interrupts.
“The whale doesn’t mean our polar bear, Sapphire, she means any polar bear.”
“Oh, I see. No, we’ve only seen one, and she’s heading south.”
“Nanuq has stolen my sister’s calf, who was not yet weaned and still spent his life tucked behind her flipper. We fought hard. We thrashed with our flippers and tails and we made a circle to protect the little one, but Nanuq was too quick for us. Nanuq tore my sister’s calf away from us and his blood flowed in the water.”
Her own calf sticks to its mother’s side like a shadow. He’s only been alive a short time, and already he’s seen his little cousin taken by the polar bear and ripped apart.
“I must stay close to the pod,” says the mother anxiously. “We are on our way north for the winter, where the food is rich under the ice-sheets. But my little one was born late. He finds it hard to keep up.” The water pulses with whale clicks and whistles. “I must go on.” Slowly she swims off, the calf tucked against her flank.
“It’s a pity the babies aren’t the same colour as the mothers,” I say, “then the polar bears wouldn’t be able to see them so easily. But at least they’re heading north, not south.”
“Like us,” says Faro.
“Not yet, Faro! We’ve still got one more day.”
“You keep telling me that.”
“Everyone in the North seems to be looking for someone or running away from someone. I wish …”
“What do you wish?”
“I was only thinking about the whale – not that beluga, our whale. I wish she were here. She could help us find the others. She could use her echolocation—”
But Faro is impatient. “What’s the point of thinking about her?” he demands. “We have to help ourselves. No one is coming to rescue us, little sister.”
And now night has fallen again. We’d be lost without the moon. Faro is asleep, his hair spread out in the water around him and hiding his face. I am so tired, but I can’t close my eyes. All day I’ve felt as if I’ve missed some vital clue that would help me to find Conor and Elvira. It’s like when a word is on the tip of your tongue, tantalising. I wish I could remember.
Faro’s hair drifts back, revealing his sleeping face. I’ve never seen him as fast asleep as this. It’s a little bit frightening. He’s gone away into a country where I can’t follow him, and I’m completely alone. I’m tempted to nudge him, accidentally on purpose, just to be sure that his eyes will open …
He’d be cross, though. He’s having a good dream, I think. He’s smiling in his sleep. Maybe he’s dreaming that it’s all over and we’ve made the Crossing, and all the Mer are welcoming us home.
His lips move as if he’s talking to someone in his sleep. If I woke him up now, maybe he’d remember the dream. No. If I wake him up, all the dangers and difficulties will come flooding back to him: Conor and Elvira lost, the Crossing of Ingo sliding into failure when it’s only just started. I won’t disturb him.
I stare up through the quiet moonlit water. An ice floe drifts overhead, making a black shadow that looks a little like a person with arms and legs tucked in.
It’s lonely here. Faro was right. We may be in Ingo, but we’re not at home. Very, very far away I can hear whales singing to each other. I listen hard but I can’t make out what they are saying. I wish I could remember what it is that I’ve forgotten. It’s like the answer to the last, vital clue that will complete a crossword puzzle.
Suddenly, as clearly as if I am still gripped between her paws, Nanuq’s voice rings through my mind. Does your At
ka protect you?
Atka. That was it. That was the word I was trying to find. Even though I still have no idea what an Atka is, I sense that it’s important. Nanuq thought I had an Atka who was looking after me, and so she didn’t hurt me. Nanuq cannot cross the Atka. I’m sure that’s what she said. I should have asked Faro about it. The temptation to wake him up grows stronger.
No, I’m not going to do it. Faro won’t know what the Atka is any more than I do.
“Atka,” I say aloud, but not loud enough to wake Faro. “Atka … Tell me what the Atka is.”
As if saying the name aloud has given it power, I feel the word begin to come alive. The Atka. Does the Atka protect you? The word is mysterious, powerful, even ominous. It’s a call that I have got to answer. I know what I must do now. Just as I longed to sink down into Ingo earlier, now I long to rise to the surface and view the world of ice. The Atka is drawing me upwards with an invisible but overwhelming magic.
I nearly let myself go. My arms are poised to sweep me upward, my legs close together ready for the strong kick that I’ve learned from the Mer. But the moon shines through the water on to Faro’s face and my arms fall to my sides as I turn back to him. I can’t leave Faro alone here. He might drift away, sleeping. I would never be able to find him again.
A tingle of fear runs through me at the thought of what’s so nearly happened. Faro fell asleep trusting me to be here when he woke again. Gently, very gently, I stretch out my hand. Very slowly, so slowly that he will hardly feel the pressure, I close my fingers around Faro’s wrist. My fingers touch his deublek, made of our woven and plaited hair. Faro stirs, smiles, but doesn’t wake.
Very cautiously I start to paddle with my feet. I drift upwards, and Faro comes with me. It is all so strange and dreamlike that I’m not entirely sure that it’s really happening. Perhaps I’ve fallen asleep without realising it and this is a dream. But the deublek feels real under my fingers.
Just beneath the surface, I stop. I’m not going to take Faro through the skin. The shock might be dangerous, and it would certainly wake him. Keeping hold of his wrist, I push my head through the surface and take a deep breath of the frigid Arctic air. It hurts less than I’d expected. After a few moments I’m able to look around. The moon is even more brilliant tonight, and the stars flash as if they’re about to leave their places and come down to earth.