At last, Saldowr lowers the conch. “Your turn,” he says, passing it to Ervys.
The conch must be much heavier than it looks. Ervys’s shoulders sag as he takes its weight, and for a second it looks as if the conch will fall to the sand. But Ervys braces himself and lifts the conch to his lips.
The Call is different this time. Ervys blows a harsh, blaring sound. It is loud, but it does not touch Faro. He hears Ervys blow on the conch, and feels nothing. But some of the Mer will answer it, thinks Faro. Some of them, who won’t answer Saldowr, will answer Ervys. They’ll come to the Assembly chamber and present themselves as candidates for the Crossing of Ingo, because Ervys has blown the conch.
It’s an ugly thought. Faro doesn’t understand why Saldowr even let Ervys lift the conch. He could have smashed Ervys’s skull with it. If I’d been holding the conch, that’s what I would have done, thinks Faro. Ervys’s body would have drifted down to the sand, his tail limp and his blood making red smoke in the water. Faro’s eyes sparkle as he considers the defeat of his enemy.
But he’s getting cramped, hiding behind these rocks. Surely Ervys will leave now that he’s got what he wants. Ervys lowers the conch. Saldowr swims forward and takes it. He seems to hold the weight without effort. Faro thinks that the lustre of the conch looks less bright now that it has been blown. It will be put away and it won’t emerge from Saldowr’s cave for another five years, when the next group of young Mer is ready to take on the challenge of the Crossing.
But if Ervys gets more power, everything will change. He won’t blow the conch for the whole of Ingo as Saldowr does. He’ll blow it, but only for his followers. Instead of a whole age group of the Mer travelling to the Assembly together, there will be angry arguments. Fights, maybe.
Faro’s fists clench again. He wants to leap through the water to Saldowr’s side and fight for him. Now’s the time to stop Ervys, while he’s alone and before he can grow any stronger.
It’s already too late. Ervys turns with a twist of his broad, powerful shoulders, and strikes off through the water with a blow from his tail. In a surge of bubbles he is gone, and Saldowr has done nothing to stop him.
But Faro is still stuck behind his rock. He can’t come out now. Saldowr will know that he saw and heard everything. His fingers tingle with cramp, and he unclenches his fists. His tail aches for free water.
“Come out now, Faro,” says Saldowr.
Faro’s heart jumps in his chest like a fish on dry land. Saldowr has turned to face the rock where Faro is hiding. His face is stern. Faro braces himself. This is the worst thing he has ever done. He has spied on Saldowr and eavesdropped on his conversation. How could he have been so stupid as to believe Saldowr wouldn’t sense his presence? Saldowr had only kept silent until now to shield Faro from Ervys’s fury. Cold, heavy trepidation fills Faro. He’s not afraid of any punishment, but if Saldowr says that Faro can no longer be his scolhyk and his holyer, he would rather die. He can’t imagine a life where he doesn’t serve Saldowr, and where Saldowr no longer teaches him and prepares him for the future.
All these thoughts flash through Faro’s mind in a couple of seconds. Already he’s swimming out from behind the rock. He won’t make Saldowr call him twice. He swims to within an arm’s length of Saldowr, and then the Guardian of the Tide Knot holds up a hand.
“Why did you disobey me, Faro? I told you to stay at the borders of Limina with Fithara until I sent for you.”
Faro bows his head. He could argue, but he will not.
“You should not have seen me blow the conch. One day I would have shown you, but not this time.”
Perhaps Saldowr is going to bar him from making the Crossing. Faro bites his lip, staring at the sand.
“Look at me, Faro.”
He looks up.
“You are loyal. You want to serve me.”
Faro nods.
“You must believe that there is a pattern in what I do. You were angry because I did not attack Ervys. But if I had done that, Ervys’s followers would have risen up in fury. They would have said that their leader had been killed by my treachery. That I had invited an unarmed man to come to my cave alone. That I did not care about the Mer, only about clinging on to my own power. Understand me, Faro, I would have lost my influence with the Mer. Without their trust I can do nothing. Even those who follow Ervys, I think, still trust me in their hearts. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Saldowr,” says Faro reluctantly.
“You want to fight.” Saldowr’s voice is warmer now. There is humour in it, and affection. Faro looks up, full of hope. Perhaps Saldowr is not going to send him away. Perhaps he is not going to bar him from following the Call.
“You must wait, my son. There will be a time to fight, and we must be ready for it. If we act too soon, we destroy all our chances.”
Saldowr is still holding the conch as easily as if it were one of those fluff feathers that drift down from under a young gull’s wings and lie on top of the water.
“You heard my Call,” he says.
“Yes,” replies Faro.
“You will answer it. And there are others who will answer it. Your friends. They will hear the Call but they will need your help to reach the Assembly chamber. You must go to them, Faro.”
“To Sapphire and Conor?”
“Of course.”
The echo of the Call seems to thrum through Faro. Sapphire and Conor will hear it too. Their Mer blood will dance in their veins as his does.
“We’ll come to the Assembly together,” he says eagerly. His blood tingles, turning a hundred somersaults in his veins. “All of us together.”
“Listen carefully, Faro. Your friends are called not only for themselves, but for the healing of Ingo. If those who come from the world of Earth and Air, and who have both Mer and human blood can be called and chosen, and can complete the most important journey in the life of the Mer, then there is hope that Mer and human will come to understand each other in peace. But where there is a great prize to be won then there is also great danger.”
“Ervys will try to stop us.”
“Yes. You must be prepared for that. Now go to Sapphire and Conor. Quickly, Faro.”
CHAPTER TWO
“I wasn’t born with a duvet-washing gene just because I’m a girl,” I shout up the stairs to Conor.
Saturday. I tick off a list on my fingers. Laundry, do the vacuuming, clean the bathroom. Dig over the potato bed. Go up to the farm for eggs. There’s my maths homework, and I’m supposed to be handing in my project on climate change after half term and so far all I’ve done is download some photos of deserts.
Saturday morning. Work, work, work. I might as well be at school. And we’re coming to the end of all the food Mum stacked in the freezer before she and Roger went to Australia. Shepherd’s pie, chicken casserole, homemade soups, lemon drizzle cake (my favourite) and gingerbread with almonds (Conor’s favourite). Mum made more cake in a week than she usually makes in a year. Roger called it guilt cooking, and he put a stop to it when he came in the morning before they left and she was baking cakes and crumbles for the freezer instead of doing her packing.
“You’ve got to stop all this guilt cooking, Jen.”
“What do you mean?” Mum asked fiercely, her eyes bright as she wielded the flour sifter.
“You’ve no call to feel guilty. These kids want to stay here, surely to God you’ve heard that from them enough times. I know I have. Sapphy’s a great little cook and Conor’s no slouch. You go on upstairs and finish your packing or you’ll end up in Brisbane without a bikini, which is a crime under Australian law.”
I couldn’t help laughing, just as I couldn’t help liking Roger when Mum put down the sifter, rubbed her hand over her face (leaving an extensive trail of flour) and smiled reluctantly.
“Come and help me pack, Sapphy?” she asked.
Mum and Roger have been gone for a month now, and we’ve eaten all the dinners Mum left in the freezer, apart from some grey fr
ozen parsnip soup.
“Conor! You need to wash your sheet and your duvet cover.”
“I’m still in bed.” Conor’s voice floats down from the loft, blurred and sleepy. “It’s Saturday morning, Saph, for God’s sake.”
“You can’t be asleep if you’re shouting at me. It’s ten o’clock, Con. I need to get the washing on or it’ll never dry.”
I am turning into Mum. I sigh and start sweeping the floor while Sadie pads round me, thumping her tail against the flagstones. She’s desperate for a real walk. I took her out for ten minutes when I first got up, but she wasn’t impressed.
“Oh, Sadie.” I throw the broom down, drop to my knees and wrap my arms around Sadie’s warm neck. She whines sympathetically, rubbing her head against me. “Shall we leave all this and go for a long, long walk?” I ask her. Sadie’s tail whacks against my legs. “Walk” is her favourite word.
Just then Conor staggers downstairs, still wrapped in his duvet, clutching a bundle of sheet and pillowcases. He drops the duvet on the floor, flops down at the table and puts his head in his hands.
“Are you OK, Con?”
“I got up too quickly.”
Got up too quickly! I have been up since eight thirty and I’ve already cleared the kitchen, done the washing-up and scraped a layer of grease off the stove.
“You could at least take the duvet cover off the duvet.”
Conor looks up in surprise at my tone. “I’m going to, I’m going to. Relax, Saph, it’s Saturday.”
“It doesn’t feel like Saturday to me. It feels like Monday morning.” A wave of self-pity sweeps over me. School all week, cooking every evening, chopping wood for the stove, homework, taking Sadie out, washing, cleaning, digging the garden … It all takes so long and there’s never any free time. I have to admit that usually Conor does half of everything, but this morning I’ve had enough.
“I’m going down to the cove.”
Conor looks up. “What about my duvet cover?”
“You can mop the floor with it for all I care.”
Conor leans back, tilting his chair. “Rainbow’s coming up later, maybe Patrick too. I’ll cook dinner.”
“We mustn’t forget about Mum this time.”
Last time Rainbow and Patrick were round for the evening, we lit a fire outside and sat round it for hours, talking, working out chords for a new song and trying to tell each other’s fortunes. We didn’t hear Mum call. At the weekends she usually calls late in our evenings, which is early in her mornings. She calls from an Internet café about ten kilometres from where she and Roger are staying, and then we call her back. I can’t believe how early that café opens, but Mum says it’s the way things happen there, because the middle of the days get so hot.
We’ve got a webcam and Internet calling, which Roger installed on his state-of-the-art computer before they left. There will be no escape from communication! This is both good and bad. It’s lovely to talk to Mum, but when I’m tired or not in a great mood it’s hard to hide it from her. Conor reckons that Mum calls when it’s late in the evenings here to check that we’re both safely back at home.
People say how amazing communications are these days, because you can feel as if you’re in the same room as someone in Australia. But you don’t really feel that way. You keep telling each other news about your lives, but it feels false. Conor is better at it than me. Sometimes I find myself wishing the call was over. At home we never sit down face to face for fifteen minutes with Mum and talk about everything we’ve done that day. We might wander into the kitchen and chat a bit. Often I prefer just being quiet with people.
Seeing Mum’s face on the flat, cold screen of a computer makes it seem as if she has already gone far, far away from us, much farther than the thousands of miles she has travelled physically. She looks different. Her skin is deep brown from being out in the open all day long instead of working in the pub as she does here, and her hair has light streaks in it. It’s late spring in Queensland, and Mum says it’s much warmer than a Cornish summer. Mum looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. She and Roger are staying in a little beach house, which someone has lent to them. It’s very remote. Mum gets up with the sun and pretty much goes to bed when the sun goes down, except when they light a fire and sit round it. The stars are enormous, she says.
It makes me feel as if Mum isn’t the same as the Mum I know. She is meeting a lot of people out there. She knows all Roger’s colleagues in the diving project, and their friends. She says Australians are amazingly friendly, and they are always getting asked to parties and barbies. Mum and Roger have already got a whole new Australian life together. It feels very, very weird, as if she might suddenly announce that she likes it so much out there, she’s decided to stay for ever.
Get a grip, Sapphire. You chose to stay here. You could have gone with her.
“Don’t swim outside the cove,” says Conor.
“You sound just like Mum.”
“You know what I mean.”
I know what Conor really means. Stay where it’s safe. Don’t go to Ingo without me.
I sit back on my heels. Sadie’s warm, questioning brown eyes gaze into mine, wondering what I am planning. A long walk over the Downs, maybe? A rough scramble along the cliff path? Her mind buzzes with a map of a thousand smells – farmyards, rabbit holes, flat stone boulders where adders come out to sun themselves on the warmest autumn afternoons …
“Do snakes have a smell, Sadie?” Sadie barks.
“You can’t not take her out now, Saph. Look how excited she is,” says Conor.
“All right, Sadie, this is the deal. You and I will walk for one hour max, then you promise not to whine and scrabble at the door and look pathetic when I go to the cove and you can’t come.”
The way down to the cove is too steep for Sadie. Besides, she would hate it there. Our cove is a gateway. Most human beings wouldn’t guess it but dogs can sense what’s really going on. Sadie would know straightaway that the smell in her nostrils was the smell of Ingo.
Sadie gives me a wise, impenetrable look. I decide to believe that she’s agreeing with me. “Walk, then be good at home,” I repeat firmly.
I open the door, cross the garden, lift the latch of the gate and kick it where it sticks. Sadie bounds through. “Wait, girl.”
I look up at the sky. It’s a perfect October day. You would think it was still summer, except that the sun is lower in the sky and there’s a clear, tingling taste in the breeze. A few bronze leaves stir on the rowan tree by our door. I’ll swim without my wetsuit today. The sea still has most of the summer’s warmth in it.
At that moment there’s a slash in the air above my head. Something hurtles past me, raking my hair with its claws. I flinch and throw my hands up to protect my face. The gull squawks loudly as it soars back into the sky.
“Conor! One of those gulls went for me again.”
Conor comes to the door and squints up at the roof. A second gull sits squat by the chimney, watching us with its hard yellow eye. The first gull wheels round from its attack, glides back to the cottage roof with one powerful stroke and alights, folding its wings. I brace myself in case it dives again. It gives a mocking screech, but stays up on the roof.
“Every time we go out of the house, they’re waiting.”
“I know,” says Conor.
“I’m worried about Sadie. Mary Thomas’s cat had to have ten stitches in its back. It was the worst gash from a gull the vet had ever seen. Do you think a gull would attack a dog as big as Sadie?”
“They’re territorial,” says Conor.
“Only when they’re nesting. They can’t be still nesting at this time of year. It’s too late.”
The gulls shriek, as if they’re laughing at us. A third gull circles way above the roof, like a police helicopter over the scene of a crime.
“They never used to settle on the roof like this,” Conor says.
“No. It’s only since Mum and Roger left.” As soon as I’ve said
the words, I want to call them back. The gulls frighten me. They watch the human world, and report back to Ingo. I remember how one of them slashed my hand down by the cove. I thought then that it was one of Ervys’s spies.
Conor flaps his arms and shouts at the gulls. “Go on, get out of it!” They squawk back in derision. Sadie barks furiously, but the gulls take no notice of her.
“I’ll get the ladder,” says Conor. “I’m going to check if there is a nest up there.”
“No, don’t, Conor!” If he’s up the ladder and the gulls attack him, he’ll have no chance. He’ll have to put up his hands to shield his face, and then the gulls will get him off balance. In my head I see Conor slowly toppling backwards. “Mum’ll kill me if you fall off the ladder.”
The gulls screech again, as if they’re imitating me. Slowly, in their own time, they take off from the roof. They wheel above us, mocking our Earth-bound anger with them, and then they take aim at the horizon and fly straight out to sea. They are as sleek as rockets homing in on a target.
“Imagine being able to do that,” I say, shading my eyes and squinting after them. “They can go from one world to another whenever they want.”
But Conor’s not listening. “Saph, look. They are building a nest. Look up there, by the chimney.”
“But it’s the wrong time of year.”
“They’re building it, all the same. I wonder why.”
“I don’t like them. They patrol that roof like prison guards. Every time we come out or go in, they’re watching.”
“That’s crazy, Saph. They’re just birds.”
“Sadie! Sadie!” I shout. She’s gone into the ditch again. It’s always full of rich, smelly mud, even when there hasn’t been rain for weeks. She’s definitely going to need a bath now. “Sadie, you bad girl.”
But I’m glad really. Bathing Sadie will stop me thinking about the gulls. I fetch her zinc bath and lay it on the gravel. I fill saucepans with water and put them on the stove to warm while Conor unwinds the hose. Sadie stands watching, quivering with excitement. Sometimes she hates her bath, sometimes she loves it.