First the ice disappeared, then the light returned, and then the colour of the water began to change. The jade greens and sharp blues of the Arctic are far behind us now. We are in the south. There is dazzling white sand on the sea bed beneath us, and if we look through the skin we find blue skies and a high brilliant sun. The water is a rich, tropical blue, with bars of turquoise above the sand.
We have come thousands of miles, changing from current to current to find the fastest, always heading south. The things that I thought would be the most difficult have turned out to be easy. The current that brought us from the Arctic knew its way to the narrow straits between Asia and America and brought us safely through, riding on its back.
We’re in the heart of the Pacific now. We’ve learned to trust the currents, and have faith in our journey. It was hard, when the current which had brought us safely all the way from the Arctic suddenly lost power, and spread out, losing its force as a river does when it flows into a lake. We had to swim for miles and miles before we picked up another current, and it was much slower It felt a bit like travelling on a rusty old cargo steamer, after a voyage on a gleaming ocean liner. “At this rate,” Conor said grimly, “we’ll have grey hair before we finish the Crossing.”
I knew that Ervys was in his mind, too. His followers would be sharpening their spears. Everyone would be waiting for the young Mer to return from the Crossing. If only I could still feel Saldowr’s presence.
But things got better. We learned never to stay with one current when it slackened speed, but to keep moving towards the fastest water. At first it was only Faro who knew how to find the best currents. We asked him how he did it and he frowned, struggling to put his knowledge into words. You don’t look for the current itself, he said at last. You look for the effect of it and then you know it’s not too far away. You have to notice everything. How the fish swim and how the kelp forest sways. How the sand is forced into channels on the sea bed, and where the dolphins are travelling. You have to listen to what Ingo is telling you.
Conor and I hadn’t picked up the signs before. We hadn’t even known that they were signs, but once Faro told us, we soon saw how water moving at speed changes everything for miles around.
That’s one of the best things about this journey. I feel more part of Ingo than I’ve ever been. I’m learning all the things that a Mer girl would pick up some time in her childhood without needing to think about it.
Elvira swims by herself a little way behind us. She follows passively whenever we change currents. It annoys me that she won’t try to help. She knows as much as Faro does; maybe more. She can change direction with one effortless flick of the tail. If I could swim like Elvira and had her knowledge of Ingo, I’d want to lead, not drift along in our wake.
Every so often Conor or Faro will fall back to keep her company and try to talk to her. After a while they give up. Elvira is lost in her own world, and she doesn’t want anyone else there. She looks so sad. Her eyes gaze at nothing. She swims as gracefully as ever, but usually when the Mer swim they look as if they love the feel of the water against their bodies. Elvira looks as if she doesn’t care where she is. Her body is with us, but her spirit is elsewhere.
I am sure now that her Atka has touched her. More than touched her: caught her in a cold spell that Elvira doesn’t even want to escape. If it wasn’t some kind of northern magic, how could she change so completely? She was happy before she went to the North; I know she was. At least, I think I know she was. But maybe with everyone, even with your closest friends (and Elvira’s certainly not that), there are things hidden so deep that you never see them.
I thought she was happy, anyway. She was proud of her skill as a healer. Everybody respected her; Saldowr allowed her to look after him when he was so terribly wounded after the Tide Knot broke. I used to feel envious of Elvira because things seemed so easy for her. She was Mer and she was at home in Ingo. Even though she and Faro are brother and sister, Elvira doesn’t seem to share the human blood that causes Faro so much doubt and anguish. Faro’s right: their ancestors’ blood must have mixed differently in them. Elvira isn’t curious about the human world, like Faro. She’s always been so sure of her place in Ingo. Suddenly, everything’s changed. Elvira loves Faro (yes, and Conor too, although I prefer not to think about that). But you wouldn’t guess it now. She hardly speaks to either of them.
I’m thinking about all this when I hear singing. It’s Elvira, crooning words I can’t quite catch. I scull with my hands against the current, to slow myself as much as I can. Elvira drifts closer, and the song becomes clearer. I recognise the words with a shiver of fear.
Alatuk alatuk Atka, Atka amaluk alatuk …
I scull more strongly, waiting for the current to bring Elvira alongside me.
“Elvira, where did you learn that song?”
“In the North.”
“I thought it sounded like a northern song,” I say neutrally. I don’t want to scare her off by mentioning the Atka straightaway. “But won’t it make you feel worse, singing it?”
“You don’t understand, do you?” I feel a rush of annoyance. I’m only trying to help, and besides, I hate it when people say “You don’t understand” in that self-pitying way, as if their feelings are much more complicated than anyone else’s.
“No, I don’t, and I can’t unless you tell me,” I say crisply.
To my surprise, Elvira responds. “Then I will try to explain, Sapphire. I don’t want to feel like this. I have not chosen it; it has chosen me. My Atka has touched me and now I know I must live in the North. I will find my people there. I have already seen them and spoken to them. I will find my happiness. The North is pulling me – so strongly – and I must go to find it again.”
Her words strike a chill into my heart, because it’s like listening to myself. Ingo has pulled me like that, so powerfully that I haven’t wanted to fight it. It has taken me from the human world to the Mer. Elvira’s right. You can’t resist it, because it’s not just outside you, it’s within you as well.
I touch her arm gently, in a kind of apology. “I do understand, Elvira. I’m sorry. But can you – I mean, will you really be able to leave behind everything you know? Even Faro?”
“I don’t know,” says Elvira soberly. “But if I cannot live, then I will die.” This is such typical Mer fatalism that I want to shake her.
“No, you won’t, Elvira! You can’t just die when you want to, you’re much too young. Besides,” I add slyly, “what about Conor?”
Elvira blushes, then bites her lip. “I think Conor will never come to live in the North,” she says, looking sad again. There’s no point lying to her. Conor would hate a world of darkness, ice and atkas. Besides, he belongs here …
Here? asks an inconvenient voice in my head. And where exactly are you so sure that Conor belongs?
I’m not going to think about all that now. I make up my mind and say, “I’ll help you, Elvira, if you really do decide that you want to go back to the North, once we’ve made the Crossing.”
A faint smile touches her lips. “Thank you, Sapphire.”
“But you’ve got to try to be happy until then. We really need you to come back to us, Elvira.”
Elvira shrugs. “I came with you. I am here, aren’t I?”
“We’re not the four of us together making the Crossing any more. I didn’t know how important it was that we were together until we came apart,” I say.
“I did not think you cared so much if I was with you or not,” says Elvira. Now it’s my turn to blush, because she’s right. How often have I found Elvira irritating, or wished that she would just go away and leave my brother alone? But now she has gone away, with her mind and spirit wandering elsewhere while her body follows us listlessly, and I hate it.
“I’m sorry, Elvira. We do need you. Please.”
“Then I will try.”
“Elvira …”
“What is it, Sapphire?”
“Couldn’t you try and som
ehow block the North out of your mind?”
“I wish I could!” Elvira bursts out passionately. “Don’t you think I would do that if I could? Everything I thought would be my future has been taken away from me. It is like a Tide Knot breaking in my life. But I can’t fight the pull of the North, Sapphire. It is too strong for me. It’s like a call which goes down to the bone and into my heart. I know that my brother and – and Conor – they are both angry with me. I wish I could explain it so that you all understood.”
“I do understand,” I say slowly. “It was the same for me when Ingo called me for the first time. You’re right, you don’t even want to fight against it.”
“And now you are here, in Ingo,” says Elvira.
“Yes.”
“So you see how it is for me.”
“Yes. Yes, I do, but … I don’t think it’s simple, Elvira. If you could just make one decision and then it’s finished, it would be easy. I’d be here in Ingo, I’d become more and more Mer, end of story. But it’s more like … Oh, I don’t know, Elvira, it’s like a tide that ebbs and flows inside you, just as real tides do. Sometimes it’s so strong you can’t do anything but go with it; and then you have a chance to think, and you remember everything you’ve left behind.”
Elvira shivers. “I could not live like that.”
“You might have to. Besides, it could be the way forward.” I’m thinking aloud now, trying to convince myself as much as her. “I think that’s what Saldowr’s been trying to teach us. I don’t want to offend you, Elvira, but the Mer can be a bit rigid – I mean, certain,” I correct myself hastily. “But Saldowr seemed to be suggesting that certainty isn’t always such a good thing. People who are totally certain about who they are and where they belong can become like Ervys, thinking that his way is the only way, and the Mer are the only ones who have rights …”
“But I want to belong somewhere,” says Elvira. She looks so strained and unhappy that I stop trying to express my theory.
“You do – you belong with us,” I say, and it’s true. I’ve always secretly thought that it would be great if there were just the three of us, Conor, Faro and I, but now I know that I would miss Elvira. We would all miss her. She balances us.
Elvira smiles again, faintly, and looks a little comforted.
“What would we do without you if we were wounded or ill? We’ve got to stay strong. We’ve got to finish the Crossing,” I continue, and although she makes a little dismissive gesture, I think she is pleased.
So much to do … too much. And too much depends on it. I remember the stain of blood spreading out from Faro’s tail. Everything’s changed now that the Mer have taken up weapons. One death leads to another. That’s how it happens in war. An attack, and then a revenge, and then another attack until Ingo is torn apart. Sometimes it feels as if there’s only the faintest thread of hope, but I cling to Saldowr’s words. You carry something within you that is stronger than the divisions between our two worlds. Mer and human can become one, reconciled. The wounds that tear the Mer can be healed. But we must hurry.
“Do you think we might be nearly at the bottom of the world, Elvira?”
“I don’t know. We are a long way south, I’m sure of that.” Visibly, she struggles not to get upset.
“I want to find the whale’s daughter so much.” I haven’t talked to Elvira about this before, but I want to distract her. “If only I could see her, and tell her mother how she is.”
“We will ask every whale we see,” says Elvira gently, and now I don’t know if I’m trying to cheer her up or if she’s trying to comfort me. But it feels better that there are two of us.
“Come on, Sapphire,” she says. “We must swim faster; we are way behind the others!”
I smile to myself as we plunge forward. I never thought I’d be glad to be bossed around by Elvira.
“Have you ever seen so many different coloured corals, Faro?”
We are floating above a reef. Small, brilliant fish flicker in and out of pink coral branches. I’ve already seen a fish which is shaped like a bat and a fish with wide, stripy fins that look like wings. Some of the fish are so brightly coloured and weirdly shaped that they remind me of little kids’ paintings. But the colours are far too alive for paint. Earlier on Faro and I saw thousands of tiny bright green fish scudding away from a barracuda. We’ve seen tiger sharks too, and giant rays. None of them has threatened us.
We are resting for a while before we search for the next current. Elvira has taken Conor off to search for plants which she thinks she may be able to use in medicines.
Faro dives to look at the corals more closely. Suddenly he calls, “Sapphire! Come here! This reef is made of metal.”
I plunge through the clear turquoise water towards the shaggy mass of coral, weed, darting fish and sea anemones. Faro is right. I can see metal too. A steel-grey curve, almost obscured by the living things that have made their home on it. We swim along the reef.
“I think it’s a shipwreck, Faro.”
Faro points along the sea bed. “There’s another.” And another and another. We stare through the transparent water as wreck after wreck appears in the distance, half buried in white sand.
“I wonder why there are so many? Where did they all come from?”
The water is not that deep here – no more than thirty metres – and very clear. I can’t see any rocks on which all these ships could have foundered. In spite of all the brilliant, teeming life that covers them, the half-buried ships look eerie. I focus on one of the smaller wrecks. There is something wrong about it. It doesn’t look like a ship at all.
“I’m going to swim up for a better view,” I tell Faro.
I swim up until I’m a few metres from the surface, in the sunwater, then gaze down at the wrecks. Immediately, as if a jigsaw puzzle has put itself together before my eyes, I see the blunt nose, the tail, the broken wings. It’s a plane. And there’s another, with its fuselage shattered into coral-covered pieces.
“I think there’s been a battle,” I say to Faro as he swims up beside me. “Those ships didn’t break up on rocks. They were sunk by something. Torpedoes or bombs, maybe,” I go on, forgetting that Faro probably won’t know what I’m talking about. “Maybe the planes were bombers.”
“You mean that all these wrecks destroyed one another?” asks Faro.
“Yes. They were enemies.”
“But now they are together.”
“Yes.” A school of crimson and orange fish shimmers above the wreck of a plane. “I wish I knew more about aeroplanes, then I’d know when all this happened. Which war it was, I mean.”
Faro shakes his head incredulously, looking at the wrecks which litter the sea floor. “So much metal,” he says.
“It must have been a huge battle.”
Faro nods. I’m expecting an attack on the ways of humans, but he surprises me. “We will have to fight a battle, too,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“Ervys will not yield easily. We escaped the sharks, and his anger will be deeper and stronger than ever if we succeed in making the Crossing. He wants us to die.”
“I know. But no one seems to have followed us so far.”
“That doesn’t mean that we are safe.”
The reef is so beautiful and rich with life, but there will be bones buried deep in that white sand. My mind fills with planes roaring down the sky, guns blazing, oily smoke streaming behind them. They smashed through the skin of the water, and Ingo swallowed them. The shattered metal and shattered human beings would have sunk slowly to the floor of the ocean. After all the thunder of battle it would have been silent.
No one has ever wanted to kill me before.
“You always told me that the Mer didn’t have wars,” I say. “You were always saying that the Mer knew how to sort out their arguments without fighting.”
“I thought it was true,” says Faro grimly, “but it turns out that when we want something enough we will kill for our purposes, j
ust like humans.”
“I want to go,” I say. “Let’s find the others.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
We’re skirting the edge of a huge kelp forest. Its dense, tangled mass sends a shiver through me. Faro doesn’t mind exploring a little way into the kelp, but I never go with him and I count the seconds until he swims free again. I wish he’d stay out in the clear water, but he only laughs at me and says he’s been swimming in kelp forests since he was a baby. Not forests like this, though, I’m sure of it. This one goes on for miles, dark and brooding. Anything might lie hidden in its depths. Even Faro has drawn away from it now, and he’s swimming up ahead with Elvira.
Suddenly Conor is at my side. “Saph! Look to your left.”
“What? Where?”
“Just between those two clumps of stems. There,” Conor whispers as if someone – or something – might hear us. “Turn your head slowly. Don’t make it obvious.”
I steal a look sideways. Nothing. Or was that a movement? The back of my neck prickles as I peer into the gloom, trying to make it look as if I’m just glancing casually at the kelp.
“There, Saph! Can you see it?”
I catch a glimpse of a shape flitting between two thick stems of kelp.
“What is it, Con?”
“I don’t know. Look, there’s another! Don’t let them know you’ve seen them.”
The shape moves again. And there’s another. There’s a head – a flicker of an arm – a tail …
“Conor, they’re Mer!” I exclaim much too loudly. Elvira and Faro hear me, twist round and are with us in a couple of powerful strokes.
“Mer! Look in the kelp forest. Not there, Faro, there!”
We can all see them now. A face glints through the gloom, then vanishes. A figure flickers into sight, then another and another. How many are there? I can’t see clearly through the shadows.
“They are Mer,” says Faro decisively. “I shall greet them.”
“But, Faro, do you think you should?” asks Elvira anxiously.
“They are not likely to be followers of Ervys. His influence can’t have spread this far. Of course we must greet our brothers and sisters.” He raises his voice and calls out, “Greetings and good wishes to you, friends. We are travellers making the Crossing of Ingo.”