“Of course I do. It’s stuff that humans pour on the earth to stop it breathing.”
The moonlight is strong enough for me to see his face clearly. “Faro, have you grown older?”
I know that their time runs differently from ours. Is it possible that Faro has grown a year, when I’ve only grown a few months? Or maybe he only looks older because of the expression on his face.
“You can enter Ingo in darkness, even from here, Sapphire. You already know that.”
A tremor of fear and anticipation runs through me. “But I can’t come to Ingo now, Faro. Mum’s expecting me back with Sadie. If I’m away more than half an hour at most, she’ll go crazy.”
“You don’t need to worry about that. Time is hardly moving at all tonight.” He says it casually, as if saying that a boat is hardly moving across the water.
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. It’s a fortunate night, Sapphire. Come to Ingo now, and you’ll be back almost before you’ve gone. Look up at the moon.”
I stare up at the moon. The clouds look as if they are flying away from its bright surface. Moonlight bathes my face with silver.
“You’re already in Ingo, Sapphire,” says Faro.
He is right. Deep in my heart, I’ve already left the Air. The powerful, silent swell of the tide is covering my feet, my knees, my waist. The next pulse of water lifts me from the rock, and swallows me into the sea.
Into Ingo. I let out my breath, and it hardly hurts at all. I am breathing without breathing, my body absorbing oxygen from the rich water. My hair flows upward, then swirls down around my face. I push it aside. Ingo. I am in Ingo again, just as I was two nights ago. There’s a path of moonlight striking down deep into the water. I plunge forward and follow it.
How strongly I can swim in Ingo. My strokes are far more powerful than anything I can do in the Air. Below me, moonlight catches the glisten of the white sand on the sea bed. The water doesn’t feel cold. It feels like – it feels like…
Like home. Like the place where I am meant to be. I open my eyes wide and turn my head, and there is Faro swimming alongside me. The underwater moonlight shines on his tail.
“Look!” He points down. There’s a shadowy hulk, half buried in the sea bed. It’s not a reef, or a dead whale, or anything that belongs to Ingo. It’s something that belongs to Air. Metal. Yes, that’s what it is. A metal ship, half rotted away with rust, sailing to nowhere.
“I know what that is,” I say. “It’s the wreck of the Ballantine. You can see her funnels from the beach at low tide.”
“The wind drove her onshore and she was broken up,” says Faro. “We called and called to warn the sailors, but they couldn’t hear us.”
“Faro, the wreck happened seventy years ago. Why do you always talk about history as if you were there?”
“Open your mind, Sapphire. Let’s talk to each other like we did last summer.” He saw my memories, and I saw his. That’s what the Mer can do, because Mer minds are not quite separate from one another, as human minds are.
“Do you want to see what happened?” asks Faro. He floats close to me. “Look at the Ballantine, Sapphire.”
I gaze into the shadowy depths. We could swim down with a few strong strokes, and touch the jagged metal sides of the drowned ship.
I don’t want to. The wreck scares me. It must be terrifying to be driven ashore, helpless, caught by storm and tide. To know that your ship is going to smash on the rocks and break up, and that the water is too deep and wild to swim for shore.
The wind is beginning to whistle. I hear voices, crying out in terror. The Ballantine surges forward on a huge wave, and crashes on to the hidden reef. The entire ship judders with the shock. Metal shrieks and rips and grinds as the side of the Ballantine is torn open and the sea pours into her belly. Then the jumble of sound is pierced by human screams.
“No, Faro! No! I don’t want to hear any more!”
Immediately, the window of memory closes. I’m back in the calm moonlit water, with Faro.
“You saw it, little sister,” he says with satisfaction.“I wasn’t sure if you would have lost your power, living in the town.”
I shudder. “How could that wreck be in your memory, Faro? You’re not old enough to remember it.”
“The memory was passed to me by my ancestors, and so I can pass it on to you.”
“I wish you hadn’t. I don’t want those memories in my mind. Let’s get away from the wreck.”
“We can go right away if you want. Will you come deeper into Ingo with me, Sapphire? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Who?” My heart leaps. Perhaps – perhaps – could Faro possibly know someone who knows where Dad is?
“My teacher.”
“Oh.” I try hard to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but Faro picks it up at once.
“He is a great teacher,” he says, his voice proud, ready to take offence.
“I’m sure he is. Um… What’s his name?”
“Saldowr.”
“I can’t imagine going to school under the sea. What’s it like?”
Faro laughs. “We don’t go to school. We learn things when we need to learn them.”
“I see…” Faro sounds so sure that his way is the right way “…but wouldn’t it be easier just to go to school and learn everything in one place?”
“I’ve heard about ‘schools’. Thirty of you young humans together, with only one old human to teach you. All day long in one room.”
“We move to different classrooms for different lessons,” I point out.
“Hmm,” says Faro.
“We go outside at break and dinner time.”
“Human life is very strange,” says Faro slowly and meditatively. “All the young ones together, out of sight in these ‘schools’. Do you like it, Sapphire?”
“We have to do it. It’s the law.”
Faro nods thoughtfully. “I would like to see it. I expect the rooms are very beautiful, or none of you would stay. But, Sapphire, come with me to visit my teacher. He wants to meet you.”
“How far is it?”
“Not far,” says Faro carelessly. “A little beyond the Lost Islands, that’s all. We can be there and back by morning.”
“Morning!” All of a sudden the image of Sadie floods into my mind. Sadie, tied to an iron pole. She thinks I’m coming back in a few minutes. She’ll be worried already, pointing her nose towards the beach and rising tide, whining anxiously. I see her as clearly as I saw the inside of Faro’s memory. Usually the human world is cloudy when you‘re in Ingo, but Sadie’s image is bright and sharp. “I’ve got to get back, Faro.”
“Don’t worry about the time, Sapphire. Ingo is strong tonight. But I don’t need to tell you that, do I? You felt it. You slipped into Ingo almost before you knew it, and it didn’t hurt at all. Your Mer blood knows that Ingo is strong. Not only strong but happy. Listen, listen, Sapphire. You can hear that Ingo is lowenek.”
The word beats in my memory. Who said that to me? Of course, it was the dolphins. But they didn’t sound as if they were talking about happiness. It sounded urgent, dangerous. Like a warning.
“I