What are they doing?
A wall of seals, solid, shoulder to shoulder. And then it parts. They are separate creatures again, twisting and diving. One, two, seven, nine – they’re leaving the surface, coming back into Ingo—
But surely that’s not a seal? Not that one there, the thin spindly one? It looks puny and out of place next to the strong sleek seals. And that’s not a seal either, that black, stick-like body, turning over and over as it sprawls through the water—
“Oh my God,” says Conor. “They’ve got them.”
I see what Conor’s already seen. Those stick-like creatures are two divers in wetsuits with air on their backs. The seals have got them. The divers’ limbs flail as the seals toss them high, then let them fall. As each diver falls, another seal butts his body upward. The divers’ heads flop back like puppet heads.
“They’re playing football with them.” I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I’m watching a game in a nightmare. The divers tumble in slow motion, and every time they fall the seals are ready for them. Up they go, booted by the lash of a seal’s tail.
“They’re playing with them! It’s horrible!”
“No,” says Conor grimly, through lips that are already turning blue. “It’s not a game. They’re pushing them in one direction – look. They’re taking them somewhere.”
He’s right. The seals aren’t just tossing the divers randomly. Each fall has a purpose. Each fall brings the divers closer to us, each brutal shove is in our direction. The seals are coming towards us. They want the divers here. Why?
The jagged underwater peaks of the Bawns glint like teeth, ready to rip and tear. If a man fell on them – if a diver was thrown on to them—
“They’re going to smash them against the rocks,” says Conor.
“They’ll be killed, Con!”
“Yes. Come on!”
He’s holding my wrist, but now he’s the one driving us. We shoot up through the thick churning water, towards the seals.
They sense us before they see us. They turn. For a moment they forget to toss the divers, whose bodies start to drift downwards. The bull seal faces us, his shoulders huge, glistening with muscle.
Every detail of him burns into my mind. His eyes and whiskers, the sleek fullness of his skin, the bunched muscle under it, the power. And the anger of a guardian. Anger beneath his skin like muscle, powering him.
The seal comes closer. He seems to swell in my sight until nothing else is there. The bull seal blocks out everything. His head lowers and he starts to measure the space between him and us, ready to charge.
Until the day I go to Limina I’ll see that seal’s face. Behind him Roger’s body drifts slowly downward. I don’t know how I know it, but I recognise Roger as clearly as I recognise the seal’s power. Roger, drifting through the water like a broken toy. Rufie… best thing in my life…
And then I hear the strangest sound. Like music, but not music. Syllables that fit together in wonderful patterns, like a puzzle in four dimensions. A sound you’d want to listen to for ever, if you once heard it.
The bull’s whiskers quiver. The focus of his eyes shifts. He looks away from me, towards Conor.
I look sideways at my brother. His bluish lips are open, but his eyes are already half-closed and dulling as they did before. His head falls back. He can hardly move, but he can sing. All the strength he has left is pouring out of him in song. Conor sings, and the seals listen. The bull seal and all his companions listen. Slowly, their heads lift. Their shoulders relax. The bull seal’s eyes are so close to mine that I think I see them change and soften.
Conor, you have your own power that belongs to you, never doubt that. The time will come to use it.
It only takes a few seconds. Before Conor finishes singing another seal has dived beneath Roger and caught him. Her teeth grip his wetsuit, but even from this distance I can tell that she has made her mouth soft to catch him, just as Poppy used to make her mouth soft to pick up her pups. She isn’t hurting Roger. Another seal has captured the second diver, Gray. They bring them to the bull seal, the divers’ limp bodies dangling in the water. Their heads loll. I think they must be unconscious.
But the bull seal doesn’t look at what the other seals have brought him. He won’t take his eyes off Conor. He opens his seal mouth and begins to sing back his own long and patterned song, which is like the brother of the song Conor has sung. And this time I can hear the seal’s song. Maybe it’s the other half of that puzzle in four dimensions that Conor was making. As the song ends, the bull seal shakes his great shoulders. The other guardian seals have fallen back, except for those who hold the divers. The bull seal calls to them, and they rise up towards the surface, taking the divers with them. Their movements are gentle now, as if the divers are as breakable as eggs.
The divers’ wet-suited legs trail. Their bodies are lifeless, and their heads have fallen back. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe Roger and Gray aren’t unconscious, but already dead.
“Boat’s up there,” gasps Conor. “Got to get them into boat. Seals can’t do it. Come on.”
“Will they let us?”
“Yes.”
It feels like a nightmare, slow and heavy and tangled. We swim up and up, pushing against the weight of the water. Conor is heavy against me, barely breathing now. If the seals weren’t supporting Roger and Gray, we’d never get them to the surface. The weight of the divers is terrible. We push them up but they sag down again. There is no way that we’re ever going to get them into the boat by ourselves. Conor’s growing weaker by the second. No matter how tight he grips me, he can’t get enough oxygen.
The seals aren’t hostile any longer, but they make it clear they think their job is done. They push Roger and Gray towards us as if saying they’re our problem now. They’ve delivered the divers over to us. They have done their duty, and protected Limina. The bull seal calls through the water one last time, and the seals who were helping us turn and dive towards the Bawns, leaving us alone with the divers. Immediately, we start to sink under their weight. Conor surely can’t go on much longer.
“It’s time to get Conor out of Ingo,” says a calm, familiar voice behind me. I turn, and there is Faro. And not only Faro. A girl as well, who is familiar even though I’ve only seen her at a distance before. A girl with long dark hair, almost the same colour as mine and Conor’s. It floats around her as mine does, like seaweed, below her waist. She has the same cool green eyes as Faro.
“Elvira.” The name comes out of Conor’s throat in a sigh.
“Quick, Sapphire,” says Faro, “push up with all your strength. You can do it. Get Conor up into the Air. Elvira and I will look after the divers.”
“You won’t hurt them?”
“After all your heroic efforts?” he asks with a glint of malice. “No, we won’t hurt them. Ingo has defended herself.”
The weight of Roger and Gray falls away from me. Conor’s eyes are closed as I push upwards with all my strength, thrusting him towards Air. And there it is, just above us, like a glittering plate of light. Air.
We burst through the skin before I have time to know that I’m leaving Ingo.