“Without Conor?” asks Faro, critically. “If I knew that my sister was in the Air, I would never leave her. I would never go home without her.”
“Do you mean that Conor’s in danger?”
Faro looks at me but says nothing. He’s testing me, I know he is. If Conor were really in any danger, how could Faro just sit here on this rock and tell me about it without doing anything to help? People don’t act like that.
People. Humans. I glance down at Faro’s curved, powerful tail. I can hardly see the place where human flesh ends and Mer flesh begins. One part of Faro seems to melt into another. Faro catches my glance.
“It must be strange to be divided, the way you are,” he says, with a tinge of pity in his voice.
“Divided?”
“You know,” goes on Faro, looking embarrassed, the way you do when you have to point out that someone’s got a splodge of ketchup on their chin. “You know, the way you are. Cleft.” He points at my legs. “Must feel strange, having two of those.”
“But it’s you that’s divided, not me. You’re half-human and half—”
“Half?” snaps Faro. “There you go again, with your Air thinking. I am not half of anything. I am wholly Mer.” He says it proudly, as if being Mer is like being royal, and he glances down at his tail with satisfaction.
“Conor is with my sister,” says Faro. “Now, are you coming?”
I have no choice. No matter how deep the shelf that drops away at the mouth of the cove, no matter how fast the tide pours in, it’s only Faro who can take me to Conor. And how can I go back home without Conor?
“I’ll come with you,” I say.
“Good,” says Faro. “But you have to leave your Air thinking here on this rock. We don’t swim as you do, half up in the Air.” He mimics someone doggy paddling along with their face stuck up out of the water.
“I can’t breathe underwater!”
“Don’t even think about breathing. Breathing is what you do in the Air. We Mer do things differently. Hold my wrist, just here. Clasp your fingers around me. Tighter than that. When I dive, you dive. Don’t try to hold your breath. Don’t even think about breathing. You must let it all out, all your breath. Hold my wrist. You won’t drown while you’re with me.”
Faro’s wrist feels warm and strong. It feels like that word he says so mockingly: human. But I look down at his strong smooth tail. It twitches, as if it already feels the water and wants to be in it.
“When I dive,” says Faro again, “you dive.”
I hold his wrist tight. I look down at the water which has risen so fast that it’s slapping at the rock less than a metre below us. I look at Faro and see that he has shut his eyes. His nostrils are narrowing, closing up like the nostrils of a seal before it dives deep.
I clasp Faro’s wrist. I shut my eyes, lean forward, take the deepest breath I can, and push off from the rock. We dive.
We dive. I cling to Faro’s wrist because there’s nothing else, but it doesn’t feel like a human wrist any more. It feels cold and smooth, like a thick stem of oar weed. My hands slip and I dig my fingers into the flesh. I’m too frightened to care if it hurts him.
I open my eyes. We’re moving faster than I’ve ever swum before, rushing down and down in a race of bubbles. Faro’s tail is driving us both. There’s salt in my nose and I want to cough but I can’t cough underwater. Water presses in on me, crushing my chest and making it burn. There’s a tight band around my ribs, squeezing in, like iron hands squashing my lungs.
I can’t breathe. The water won’t let me breathe. It’s choking me. The iron band around my chest is red hot now. My fingers tingle and sparks of light shoot across my eyes. The water’s rushing up past me and I don’t even know which way up we are any more. It’s like being wiped out by a wave when you’re surfing, but this time there’s no way up into the air. No way to cough and gasp and spit the salt away. The weight of the water won’t let me.
Terror rushes over me, and wipes me out.
“Conor! Conor!” I scream inside my head. I can’t make the words into sound because there’s no air to make them with. My eyes are full of darkness. The band round my ribs is a circle of fire. It hurts so much that I think I’m going to die.
Thoughts fly through my head like frightened birds. I’m going to die. Not sometime far away in the future, but now. Here. I see Mum’s face, turning to the door, waiting for me. I hear her voice calling me: Sapphy, Sapphy where are you? It’s time to come home! I try to call back, to say I’m sorry I broke my promise, to beg Mum to come and save me, but my mouth is full of salt and no words come out.
“Hold on to me,” someone says, close to my ear. “Don’t let go. As long as you hold on to me, you’re safe. You’re safe with me, Sapphire.”
I remember Faro. I open my eyes and he’s there, beside me. We’re deep, deep under the water and I’m still gripping his wrist as if it’s the only thing that holds me to life.
I can’t hold my breath any more. I’ve got to let go. The last of my human breath streams away in bubbles. Little bright pictures rush with the bubbles. Mum ironing in our cottage, the memorial service for Dad with the choir singing, the Midsummer Bonfire flaring up into the sky—
No bubbles of air come from Faro’s mouth. He turns to me with his hair streaming upwards. His nostrils are still closed.
“Let go,” he says urgently. “You’re safe with me.”
He’s talking! Faro’s talking underwater and I can hear him.
“Let go,” says Faro again. “Let go, Sapphire. Leave the Air. Let go, or you’ll drown.”
His words boom in my ears. Leave the Air, leave the Air. Can I do it, like Faro? How can I leave the Air? I’m not Mer, I’m human. My ears are bursting, my chest flares with fire that is licking up my throat now and into my brain. I’ve got to breathe in. I’ve got to. But I’m so far down underwater that I’ll never get back to the surface in time to breathe.
“Leave the Air,” says Faro imperatively. “Now.”
I have no choice. Water thrums in my ears. Let go or die, let go or die.
I let go. Mum’s face fades away as Air leaves me. All the bright pictures in my head fade and disappear as the sea rushes into me. Into my mouth, my nose, my ears, even my eyes. And suddenly it doesn’t matter. The sea is in me and I am in the sea. The tight band around my chest loosens. The burning eases. The darkness dissolves into light. I am breathing. I am in the water, but I am breathing. I’m cool and light and free. Why was I so terrified? I’m breathing, deep under the water, and all the pain has gone.
The sea combs out my hair and it flows behind me in the rush of our speed. We dive down, down, like swallows diving in summer sky. My hand is on Faro’s wrist, but I don’t cling to him any more. My feet are close together, like fins, and my free arm pulls strongly through the water. How fast we’re swimming! The sea floor rushes past as if we’re freewheeling downhill.
“I’m breathing!” I say in wonder. “I can do it, Faro!”
Faro laughs.
“You’re not Mer yet, Sapphire. But I let you in, so you’ll be safe here. I’ll look after you. You can let go of my wrist if you want.”
“I don’t want to… not just yet.”
“Don’t worry. It’s all