“The dolphins?” asks Conor blankly.
“They are our brethren. They have been one with us since time began. Their sorrows are our sorrows, and their children are our children too. Saldowr knows this.”
Saldowr nods. “But Byblos died on Ervys’s spear,” he says. The Mer look at one another. Nothing they say or do can change that.
“We never thought any of this would lead to shedding dolphin blood!” cries Talek. The other Mer men rumble agreement from their deep chests. “Even our own wives and daughters shun us now, for killing Byblos. They say we have brought evil on the Mer. We have got to atone for the crime, and make peace with the dolphins again. And with you, too,” he adds quickly.
Dad’s death is an afterthought; it’s the dolphins that count. The Mer can’t live without their relationship with the dolphins. Talek is honest, at least.
Another Mer man speaks up, “We must cleanse ourselves of Byblos’ blood.”
“And how are you going to do that?” asks Saldowr. He speaks quietly, but his voice rings around the cave. “Are you asking me to travel back in time and undo what you did? That is impossible. You have torn Ingo apart and that wound cannot be healed with a few words. I told you that you must accept these children, with their human forms and their Mer and human blood, but you refused. You sent the sharks to kill them. You were prepared to do anything rather than let them make the Crossing. You scorned my scolhyk because he has human blood in him too, from far back, and because he is part of the healing of Ingo, like these children.”
Saldowr is awe inspiring. I’ve never seen his full authority before. His eyes flash, and I can hardly bear to look at the sternness of his face. His power fills the cave, and makes Ervys’s followers seem like children. All the Mer men bow their heads.
“But they have made the Crossing,” he goes on more quietly. “They are fully Mer now, and fully human too. You must accept them. You think that you hate them. You are Mer, and it is in your nature to hate change. I don’t judge you for that. I judge you for your following of Ervys, your breaking of the laws that forbid weapons, and your greed for power in Ingo.”
“You could have stopped him, Saldowr,” mutters one of the men, head still down.
“I am not a magician,” says Saldowr, even more quietly. “Ervys was free to choose, as you are free to choose now. Your mistake was to believe that your freedom was my weakness.” Saldowr stretches out his left arm and points to me and Conor. “Look at them. Do you recognise them? Will you accept them? Say nothing unless it is true in your hearts.”
The nine Mer men raise their eyes and stare at us. It’s not a comfortable feeling. Each of them is far stronger than I am, and they’ve only recently stopped wanting to kill us. I know they won’t hurt us while Saldowr is here, but it’s still frightening to be with nine people who are full of hatred for you and who just want you to disappear and never be seen again.
I gather up my courage, and look Talek in the face. He is staring at me intently, but not with quite the expression I expected.
“Saldowr,” he asks, “may I ask her a question?” Saldowr nods.
“Tell me,” says Talek, “how you returned from the bottom of the world.”
“With the dolphins.”
“We saw that you were accompanied by four dolphins when you came to the Lost Islands. But how did you travel before that?”
“We were with the dolphins all the time. They called it a flight of dolphins.” A ripple of sound runs down the line of Mer.
“A dolphin flight,” repeats Talek. “And the dolphins offered that to you freely?” he asks, as if we might have blackmailed the dolphins into it somehow, or bribed them. But this doesn’t seem like the time to take offence.
“Yes.”
“To you, or to Faro and Elvira?”
I think back to Seiliko’s words. Because you are a friend of Ingo, Sapphire, we have agreed to send you home on a flight of dolphins. “Seiliko – one of the dolphins – told me my recognition pattern. She said it was ‘friend of Ingo’. That was why they agreed to take us home.”
There is a long silence. I expect Saldowr to break it, but he doesn’t. He has moved back a little in the water, as if to say, I’m not going to interfere. Whatever happens now is for you to decide.
The Mer are drawing closer to me and Conor. I want to shrink back but I don’t move, and nor does Conor. Their gaze rests on our faces, piercingly concentrated. At long last, one word breaks the silence.
“Chosen,” says Talek quietly.
In a rush like a breaking wave, the rest of the Mer take it up: “Chosen … chosen … chosen … chosen …” Nine voices repeat the one word until Saldowr’s cave echoes with it, and then one by one the voices fall silent and the echoes die away.
My heart beats hard. I have a question now, and their answer will be the proof that they truly accept us. “A long time ago,” I say to Talek, “Faro told me that your people had many names. Mer, Meor, Mor, Mare. But he said that there was another name, that only the Mer know, and which they keep secret from all who do not belong to their people.”
Faro starts forward. “I will tell you now, lit … Sapphire. You have earned it.”
But Talek holds up his hand. “No. I shall tell her. It is her right. Do you agree, my brothers?” There’s a deep murmur of agreement. Talek smiles wryly. “It has been our name since time began. Each Mer mother whispers it into her child’s ear, just as the child’s personal name is also whispered into its ear. But to say it aloud now is … sad. We can say it but no longer feel it.” He pauses and looks at the others, as if for support. To my amazement, I’m feeling sorry for him. Whyever can’t the Mer use their name any more?
“We called ourselves neshevyn lowenna: the happier kindred.”
Happier than what? I wonder. Happier than whom? Happier than human beings, perhaps.
“But as time went on only one word was used: lowenna.”
Happier. More joyful and more fortunate. It sounds bitterly ironic now, after the blood and betrayals and deaths. I understand why Talek said the Mer might not use their name any more. We are all silent. The sadness of it creeps through the water like a cold current. Impulsively, I stretch out my hands to Talek and the others.
“Neshevyn lowenna,” I say carefully.
“Very good, myrgh kerenza,” says Saldowr, and with a swirl of his cloak he turns to the entrance again. “Who is darkening the mouth of my cave now, Talek?” he demands. “How many hundreds of your men are waiting out there for you?”
He’s right. The sea worms glow brightly, shedding their green light on the walls; but they only look so bright because the light is fading fast.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Dear whale. Dear, dear whale.”
“I came as soon as I could. I was hunting in the Western Ocean, in the trenches of the Deep. One day when I was logging – the hunt had been good, little one, and my belly was full of giant squid – I had word from the gulls that two human creatures had completed the Crossing of Ingo, and that a terrible battle was being fought among the Mer. I knew it was you they were talking about. I set out at once to find you, little barelegs. My heart was full of fear in case you had been hurt.”
“No, I’m not hurt.”
The whale turns her huge, box-shaped head. “Swim closer little one. Swim in front of me so I can see you clearly.” I swim around her jaw, and kick upwards until I’m level with her eyes. There’s a fresh scar on the side of her head.
“A squid caught me with its tentacles. It was a hard battle, but his beak will never stab a whale’s flesh again, nor will his tentacles sear a whale’s skin.”
“Did you eat him?”
“Of course. What greater pleasure is there after a battle than to eat the enemy you have defeated?”
I can’t help smiling. Imagine if we’d tried that with Ervys.
“Why do you smile, little one?” asks the whale eagerly. “Have you thought of a joke?”
“Not really.”
Suddenly I realise that in the excitement of seeing the whale, I’ve completely forgotten about her daughter. “Dear whale, you know that I promised I’d search for your daughter at the bottom of the world?”
The whale’s eyes fix on me. Her deep voice trembles with hope, doubt and fear. “You found her?”
“Yes. She’s well, and she has a baby. A calf,” I correct myself quickly.
There’s a long moment of silence, as if the whale hasn’t even heard me. Then I hear the deep, pulsing rumble of her voice: “Little one, little one, rise with me!”
The water swirls as the whale’s vast body powers upwards, dragging me in its slipstream. We tear through branches of oarweed. A shoal of pilchard falls apart like a spun kaleidoscope as we surge through it. In a churn of bubbles the whale’s body breaches, and she blows.
I stay beneath the skin, tossed by the waves of her rising. Slowly, the pounding of my heart eases. I swim backwards a little, away from the whale’s shadow. A few minutes pass, and then she sinks down beneath the surface again.
“I had to do that,” she explains. Her voice bubbles with emotion. “My daughter has a child! I am a grandmother.”
“It’s a boy – a male.”
“Aaah,” sighs the whale, as if there is still some air left in her, “and I was not there to help my daughter during the birth.”
“She wasn’t alone. Her sisters in the pod were there,” I say quickly, and then wonder if the whale will want to hear that.
“Good. Good,” booms the whale heartily, but I’m sure I detect a note of wistfulness in her voice. Of course she’d have liked to be there. It seems so wrong – unfair – that I’ve seen the whale’s grandson and she has not. But she can go and visit him, of course she can.
“No, little one. It is too far. I am too old. One day, when he is old enough and strong enough, he will travel the world and then perhaps he will come in search of his old grandmother and I shall see him.”
“Oh.” It sounds bleak to me, not even meeting your grandchild until he’s grown up. “That’ll be good,” I add quickly, in case the whale guesses what I’m thinking.
I tell the whale every single thing I can remember about her daughter. Every word she said, how she looked, exactly what the little one looked like. I give her all the messages from the other whales. She keeps getting me to repeat things, especially the message about how her daughter thought of her when the calf was born. It’s quite boring, but I don’t mind. I don’t say anything about how the whales were hostile to us and might even have killed us.
“I don’t suppose they’ve named the calf yet,” says the whale.
“No, I don’t think so.”
The whale is silent for a while, obviously lost in her own thoughts. I understand why she’s so absorbed, but at the same time I’m slightly hurt. I’ve come halfway across the world with her message – I’ve crossed Ingo and nearly been killed and met polar bears and Atkas and those strange Mer of the kelp forest – and all my whale wants to hear about is one little calf.
And then I realise something. I’m exactly the same as the whale’s daughter. I’m jealous. I want to be first in my whale’s heart. You idiot, Sapphire Trewhella. “He’s really beautiful,” I say.
The whale rumbles contentedly, but then she says, “You have changed, little one. You have grown older. I see marks of suffering in your face. Everyone who makes the Crossing is changed by it.”
“It’s not really the Crossing.” I pause. I’m not sure I can talk about Dad without starting to cry, but the whale’s attentive silence is so sympathetic that soon I’m telling her everything She is the easiest person to talk to that I’ve ever met. She never seems to misunderstand, or criticise. I even tell her about not being able to see Dad’s face any more, and how bad that makes me feel.
“I was the same when my daughter left for the bottom of the world,” she says. “I felt as if I had betrayed her. But after a long time it all came back. I could see every detail of her. I could remember everything we used to do together.”
“Dad said that once,” I say slowly. “He said he hadn’t forgotten a single thing from our childhood.”
“I’m sure that he hadn’t. When you have a child you can’t ever stop thinking of her.”
“Whale?”
“Yes?”
“You know I have a little half-brother? He’s Mer. His name is Mordowrgi.”
“I believe you told me once.”
“He won’t even remember Dad. It’ll be as if he never had a father.”
“You could remind him, little barelegs.”
“I suppose I could.”
I lean against the whale’s rough, corrugated skin that always reminds me of a giant, wrinkled prune. She is so comforting. I’m glad the others went back to the cave once they’d greeted the whale. Talek and Pledyer and all the Mer have gone too. I saw them out of the corner of my eye, swimming strongly away from the cave mouth into the glass-green distance. I was glad to see them go. Even though they’ve accepted us and we’ve accepted them, it still hurts me to look at them. Their faces make me think of the spears they made that killed Byblos and theyn Dad. I rub my face against the whale’s skin.
“Careful, little one,” she booms. “You will hurt yourself. We whales are not dolphins.”
“I know.”
“We do not have their quickness or their grace or the brilliance of their minds.”
“You always say that. I like you as you are, dear whale. I wouldn’t want you to be a dolphin.”
The whale rumbles again. It’s a bit like the sound Sadie makes when she’s drowsing by the fire and I’m massaging her head with my fingers, in just the place she likes—
“My brother wants us to go back to the Air,” I say abruptly. “You know, back home to Mum and her boyfriend, and our house and everything.”
“Back to the human world …” muses the whale. “Well, it’s a long time since you saw your mother.”
“Not all that long.” I tell the whale the story of my journey through the reef to Mum. I remember every detail, but the strange thing is that the more I describe it, the more unreal and dreamlike it sounds. When I finish the story, there’s silence.
“Don’t you believe me?” I ask after a while.
“Oh yes. Your spirit met your mother’s spirit,” answers the whale confidently, as if she’s quite used to such things.
“But what does that mean? Do you think I didn’t really meet Mum – not in real life?”
The whale chuckles. “I did not say that, little one. You met your mother truly. No dolphin would lead you on a false journey.”
But I want the truth. Did I meet Mum or didn’t I? Did she really call me lovely girl and tell me what happened to her in the sea when she was a little girl of two? And then suddenly I remember something that I ought to have thought of long before. Why would Mum be in a wooden bungalow with a verandah anyway? She told us that Roger’s friend was taking them on a trip way up north into wild country where they wouldn’t even be in phone contact. They were going somewhere out in the bush. Would there be proper bungalows with verandahs?
My mind whirls. The more I try to sift out what’s real, the more the layers of reality melt into one another. But I can hear Mum’s voice, and it rings with truth.
“And will you go back with your brother into the human world?” asks the whale in a voice which sounds as if she’s carefully keeping her own opinions out of it.
“Yes,” I say.
“Ah.” A sigh of disappointment – or even of grief – ripples through the vastness of the whale.
“Not in the way you think, dear whale,” I say quickly. “Not for ever.”
“You will come back to us?”
“Yes, I’ll come back. I belong to Ingo now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
There’s the entrance to our cove, up ahead of us. Conor and I swim together, not far below the surface. We’ve already parted from Faro. He wanted us to say goodbye out in open water:
free water, he calls it.
I hated saying goodbye to him. I just wanted to get it over quickly. Now I’m worried that he’ll think I didn’t care, because all I said was, “See you, Faro,” instead of all the things I could have said. It didn’t seem real that we were going back to separate worlds after so long together. Faro was going to Saldowr’s cave. Conor and I were going back to our cottage, where the washing-up would probably be piled in the sink where we’d left it.
The water is calm. Conor swims with the speed we’ve learned from the Mer. I swim a little way behind him. When I was little I was always trying to keep up with Conor, but not now. Once we’re through the entrance to the cove, it’ll be almost time to rise and break through the surface. I dread the thought of it after so long in Ingo. Conor’s full of anticipation He can’t wait to be there.
Slow down, Conor. The rocky entrance is so close now. As if he hears my thoughts, Conor turns. He looks a bit anxious. He hasn’t said anything, but he’s been watching me closely since last night. I think he’s afraid I’ll make a break back to Ingo at the last minute. “Come on, Saph!”
“I’m coming.”
I’m not going to desert Conor; he doesn’t need to worry about that. It’s bad enough for him to leave Ingo knowing that Dad will never follow us home. I couldn’t bear to see Conor with that blank, shocked look Faro had when Elvira told him she was leaving for the North.
“You’re so slow, Saph.”
“I’m swimming as fast as I can.”
It’s true. I’m swimming against a strong tide that wants to keep me in Ingo. It presses against my arms and legs. It wants to pull me back into the deep water. I’m not scared, because it isn’t like a rip tide that wants to drown me. It’s a tide that pulls my blood in the same way that the moon pulls the sea.
“It’s not because I don’t want to come with you,” I whisper. “But not now. Not yet.”
The tide relaxes its hold as if it understands. The rocks loom closer. Weed clings to them, below the tide line. The tide is rising now, and we’re going home on it.