“It depends on the injury.”
“Suppose someone had a deep cut, on their – leg, for instance – and they had to spend a long time in the sea. Would the salt water help it to heal?”
Dr Kemp adjusts the velcro fastening, sits back and looks me full in the face.
“If any wound is deep, it’s got to have proper medical care. It might need stitching.”
“Yes, but if it couldn’t be stitched, for some reason. If the person couldn’t get medical help.”
“Morveren, is there something else worrying you, besides these headaches?”
Her voice is so nice that everything rushes into my mind at once. The gash in Malin’s leg. The lifeless way he sank down through the water. The Polish sailor in his life-jacket, lost on the sea in the darkness. Nobody being able to save either of them. It was stupid of me to come, because if Dr Kemp goes on talking in that voice I’m going to cry. I keep my voice steady. “Nothing’s worrying me. I just wanted to know. It was— It was something that someone was talking about at surf life-saving.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I regret it. You learn proper first-aid in surf life-saving, resuscitation and everything. You would never randomly put injured people into salt water. She’s still looking at me in that way doctors have, as if they know more about you than you know about yourself.
“You were out helping with the search, weren’t you, Morveren?”
“Yes.”
Dr Kemp sighs, then leans back and rubs her eyes again. She looks very tired. “It’s hard when something like this happens. It affects everyone. But he wouldn’t have suffered for long. The sea is so cold at this time of the year, and with the injury he had as well… He’d have lost consciousness very quickly.”
“I didn’t know he was injured.”
“Oh!” she sounds surprised. “I thought that was why you asked. Try not to think about it any more. You did what you could, and so did everyone. Now, let’s have a look at your blood pressure.”
At last I escape from the surgery, feeling guilty and relieved. He’d have lost consciousness very quickly. I’m glad I know that, even though it wasn’t what I came here to find out. Dr Kemp says I must come back if the headaches don’t get better, or if I’m still worried. I make a mental note not to go near the surgery for at least a year, by which time I hope she will have forgotten my visit. It was a stupid idea to come.
But even though I was only pretending to be ill, I feel better.
It’s dark already. We’ll go to the pool tomorrow morning, as soon as it’s light. Malin will have been there all night on his own. He might think that we’re never coming back. Oh no! I didn’t think about food for him. He’ll be hungry. But what do they – I mean, what does Malin eat? I’ll have a look in the fridge and take a bit from lots of different things, so Mum doesn’t notice. I’ll tell Mum that Jenna and I are planning an early-morning run.
Jenna hates early mornings. When I shake her shoulder to wake her, she rolls away and pulls the duvet over her head. I shake her again.
“We’re going for a run.”
“Wha—?”
“Don’t make so much noise,” I whisper. “We’re going to see Malin, remember?”
Slowly, she turns over, clutching the pillow. Her eyes are still closed. I’ve been awake for hours – well, an hour and a half, anyway. Waiting for light to seep round the shutters and the day to begin. It’s a cold, clenched, almost unbearable waiting. I woke up in the dark, because I’d had a bad dream. I was diving down into King Ragworm Pool, only it was much deeper than it is in real life. Metres and metres deep, so that there was no light at the bottom. I reached out to find Malin but my arms flailed on nothing. I was running out of breath, so I dived under a shelf of rock in a last desperate struggle to find him. I called his name. I was screaming out his name but my voice didn’t make any sound and he didn’t answer. Everything was cold and silent and dark. That’s when I woke up. The weird thing was that it seemed natural to be calling out underwater.
“It’s not even light yet,” mutters Jenna crossly.
“It is, look at the edge of the shutters. Get up quick, Jen, we’ve got to see Malin before everyone else wakes up.”
She rubs her eyes wearily. “I was hoping it was all a dream,” she says.
“Why? Nothing like this has ever happened to us before. It’s— Well, it’s—”
Amazing? Fantastic? No. A door has opened into another world, and everything I thought I knew about our world has been thrown into confusion. I’m not sure what words can describe that.
“Maybe it’s not a good thing any more, us being the way we are,” says Jenna, not looking at me.
“What do you mean?”
“The way we think. The way we can tell what each other is thinking. It’s all too close. Maybe one day our minds will get so tangled up together that we won’t be able to untangle them. In the night, I got really scared about what happened yesterday. You imagined him – that boy – and it was so convincing that I started seeing him too.”
“He was real, Jen! I didn’t imagine him.”
“He can’t have been. How can he be? Mer people don’t exist. It’s just a legend, you know that. A load of stupid stories for tourists.”
“Jenna, we saw him. We picked him up. He weighed a tonne. I can’t have imagined that and nor can you.”
“People have these things, Mor, where they think they’re the Queen or the Prime Minister or something. They put their crown on and say how heavy it is and everything—”
“You mean you think we’re both having a delusion.”
Jenna looks surprised, as if she didn’t expect me to know what a delusion was. “Yes. But whatever we’re doing, we’ve got to stop doing it. There’s got to be a line between what’s real and what’s not. It’s getting blurred – it’s all getting muddled up. I think it’s dangerous.”
“Is this just about Malin? Or are you saying you don’t want to be my twin any more?”
“Of course I don’t mean that, Mor. How could we stop being twins?” asks Jenna is a way that sounds patronising, not reassuring. “But we’re growing up. It’s time to change.”
I feel as if she has slapped me in the face. “We can’t change the way we are. Anyway, us being twins – us thinking that way we do – that’s got nothing to do with Malin.”
“I wish you’d stop talking like that, as if he’s a real person.”
“Jenna. Stop it. He has a name, just like that Polish sailor. I know you’re only pretending. He is real and you know it.”
“He doesn’t have to be,” says Jenna with a firmness that makes me feel cold. “We’ve made it all happen. It started in your imagination and then it crossed into mine and it got twice as strong. I think it’s the way we are that’s made him be here. In our imaginations, I mean,” she adds quickly. “If we made him up, we can unmake him.”
“You can’t believe that. You helped me carry him to the pool.”
But her face is closed and obstinate. “I thought I did,” she says.
“All right then. I’ll go on my own. You can go back to sleep.” I turn away from her and pick up the bag of food I’ve taken for Malin.
“What have you got in there?”
“An apple, half a Twix, two cold sausages, some of Mum’s egg custard. I thought it’d be good for someone who’s ill.”
“Yuck, what a disgusting combination. He’ll never eat that.”
I pounce on her. “You see? You do know he’s real.”
“No, I don’t! It’s just a very complete delusion, you nutter.” She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed. “Anyway, you’re not going on your own,” she says, with that sudden smile that transforms her face and makes everyone want to do and say the things which will make her smile again. “I don’t trust you. You’re so completely crazy that you’ll be giving egg custard to a seal if I’m not there to stop you. I’ll just go to the bathroom and then throw on some clothes.”
I wait un
til she’s gone, and then quickly grab a change of clothes and stuff it into my backpack, underneath the plastic bag of food. I tiptoe down to the kitchen. I want to make us some toast but the smell would wake Digory and he’d stumble downstairs half-asleep and wanting breakfast. The kettle makes too much noise, so no mugs of tea. I make us a peanut butter sandwich each, and then Jenna’s ready.
We let ourselves out of the cottage into the morning. It’s been raining all night and the gate and the branches of the rowan are hung with drops. It is very still, as it sometimes is after a big storm. The sky is a pale, mild blue. It looks as if it’s never caused any trouble in its life.
Jenna closes the gate noiselessly, and we walk a little way before breaking into a jog, in case anybody’s up and about. I think you could commit any crime you wanted, as long as when you set off to do it, you made it look as if you were going for a run. Jenna feels a long way away from me, even though she’s at my side. She has walled off her thoughts, instead of letting me share them as she usually does.
I don’t mean that we can read each other’s minds. That would be creepy. But Jenna’s mind is open to me in a way that no one else’s is. That’s not because our minds are especially alike. They’re not. We’re very different in every way except the way we look. We like different foods and different music. Jenna is studious, responsible, mature. But she’s got a wild streak in her too, deep and hidden. I’m probably the only person who knows it’s there. Or maybe Bran does.
She hates what is happening. She doesn’t want to go and see how Malin is. She knows I know this, which is why she’s closed herself off from me. We run side by side, not talking.
We lean over the dark, still waters of the pool. I can’t see him and there’s no sign of movement. My dream floods back, making my heart jump.
“There he is,” says Jenna, pointing.
I glance at her. That is so typical of Jenna. She almost convinced herself Malin wasn’t real. She so wanted to believe it, but she’s too honest ever to lie to herself, and pretend she hadn’t seen him when she had.
He’s lying, almost invisible, at the bottom of the pool. His body curves to fit against the rock shelf. He’s hiding, as much as he can. I lean further forward, and maybe he senses my shadow, because he stirs. Very slowly, using his arms rather than his tail, he twists in the water and looks up.
Our eyes meet, but Malin is in his world, and I am in mine. He isn’t a wounded half-human that we have to help. He is Mer. I knew it yesterday, in my head, but today I understand it. He’s at home, down there at the bottom of the pool. Lying under three metres of water is no effort for him, but a comfort after the harshness of air and sand. He doesn’t have to hold his breath and fight the burning in his lungs until he’s forced back to the surface again. He is injured and probably afraid, and yet he belongs here in a way that I never will, even though I’ve been swimming in this pool since I was first able to swim. His eyes hold mine, and then move to Jenna. His hair flows upwards, drifting over his face like weed, then parting again. Even through the water I can see the glitter of his eyes. No human eyes shine like that.
Very slowly, sculling with his hands but not moving his tail, he rises to the surface. His face breaks the skin of the water. I see his nostrils open, like the nostrils of a seal when it surfaces after a dive. For a second his face is mask-like, almost rigid, as air flows into him. I’m sure he’s in pain. He seems so much more of a stranger than he did yesterday.
“Morveren.” He tosses his hair back, and it swirls around his shoulders. He looks from me to Jenna, and back again.
“There are two Morverens,” he says. He shows no surprise and his face remains a watchful blank. Suddenly I’m intensely aware of what this must be like for him, with Jenna and me peering down at him over the edge of the pool. The water is deep and salty, but it’s still only a pool, with rocks all around it. He cannot escape. The stone channel that connects King Ragworm Pool to the big sea-pools is far too narrow. King Ragworm Pool has saved his life, but it is still a prison. They will take me away. They will imprison me and take away my freedom. If humans catch the Mer, that is what will happen.
I move back a little, so that I’m not looming over him. He glances again from my face to Jenna’s, as if we’re something written in a code that he doesn’t understand. But Malin, I already suspect, is one of these people who prefer to wait for answers rather than ask questions. Yesterday he was much too ill to notice the first thing about us that everyone notices: that we look the same. Or “identical”, as people call it, but I can’t stand that word. No two people are identical, even if their DNA says that they are.
“This is my sister, Jenna. She helped you to the pool yesterday.”
“But she is another Morveren.”
“She looks the same, but she isn’t the same. She’s a completely different person. Don’t the Mer have twins?”
“I have heard of them,” says Malin guardedly, in a way that makes me think that twins may not be that popular among the Mer. “But they do not possess the same body, as you do.”
This sounds creepily vampiric, so I say quickly, “Jenna and I each have our own bodies, just like everyone else. How is your – your tail?”
“It is healing,” says Malin, as if he’s closing a door. He’s even more wary than he was yesterday. Maybe it’s because Jenna’s here, or it could be because he’s fully conscious now, and back in his own element. This is salt water, even if it is only a pool and not the open sea.
“He’s tired, Mor. We should leave him to rest,” says Jenna.
As usual, she’s right. Malin’s eyes are heavily shadowed and we can both see what an effort it is for him to stay on the surface. He’ll be weak after losing so much blood. All the same, I don’t like the way Jenna has to point it out, and talk about Malin instead of to him.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him. “We’ve brought you some food.”
“Food?”
“Yes – an apple and sausages, and some of our mum’s egg custard,” I begin, but out here, with Malin, the list sounds ridiculous.
“Human food,” says Malin slowly. “No, I am not hungry. The water feeds me.”
“Do you think he eats plankton?” whispers Jenna.
“Shut up,” I say through my teeth.
“I wasn’t joking, Mor.”
What do the Mer eat, I wonder. Fish, maybe? I could get hold of fish for him. For a second I have a weird image of myself standing on the edge of the pool holding out a fish, as zoo-keepers do to seals. I crush the picture. This is all wrong. We’re speaking the same language but we’re not communicating. If I were in the water, not up here on the rock, then maybe he would trust me a little. Jenna’s presence holds me back. She doesn’t want any of this to be happening. Her uneasiness spreads through us both, and I’m sure Malin is picking it up.
“We’ve got to go. Someone might see us,” says Jenna.
No one can see us, unless they climb right up on the rock. Why is she so nervous?
“I heard something,” she says, turns, ducks down and wriggles to the edge of the rock on her stomach. She peers over cautiously, keeping her head down. I hear it too. A shrill whistle, blown on the wind. I crawl into place beside Jenna. A few hundred metres away, at the other end of the bay, a dog is racing along the sand towards us.
“He’s coming this way,” says Jenna. “It’s Shadow.”
Shadow is the Kemps’ Irish setter.
“Jon’s out with her,” I say under my breath. Jon Kemp has appeared over the far dunes. It must have been him, whistling for Shadow. But the dog is racing flat out, belly to the ground, in our direction.
“He’s scented us,” says Jenna.
I glance behind me. The water surface is flat, still and dark. Malin has disappeared. No one will see him unless they stand right over the pool. Jon whistles again. Shadow slows, looks back at Jon, and then barks loudly to let him know that he’s on a mission. Jon whistles again. Shadow halts, quivering. He’s only about a hundr
ed metres from the rock now.
“Keep your head down!”
Even if he looks this way, Jon probably won’t see us. But if Shadow brings him over here—
“Let’s just climb down the rock,” suggests Jenna.
“No! You can’t do that! It’ll look so weird, us being up here. He’ll ask what we’re doing.”
“It’ll look even more weird if he sees us trying to hide from him.”
I’m watching Shadow. He knows we’re here. For a dog like Shadow, not being able to chase a scent must be like having a delicious dinner waved in front of your face, and then snatched away. His whole body trembles with the torture of it, but Jon whistles again, long and loud and impatient this time. Slowly, reluctantly, Shadow gives up and trails back in Jon’s direction. Once he turns and gazes at our rock with such obvious longing that I’m amazed Jon doesn’t notice. But then he’s used to Shadow, who hunts not only every rabbit but also every dead gull, rotting crab and washed-up jellyfish on the Island.
They are going. Shadow is at Jon’s side now, and in a few minutes they have disappeared behind the rocks at the other end of the bay.
“I didn’t know he brought Shadow down here,” says Jenna.
“Well, who knows anything about Jon Kemp? He’s such a loner.”
We turn back to the pool. Malin is at the bottom of the pool, curled up, his hair hiding his face.
“We should leave him to rest,” says Jenna.
Yes, because you don’t want to be here, I think. You want to go home and do other stuff, and maybe he’ll have mysteriously disappeared by the time we next come to see him.