Ingo (21 page)

“What happened last night, Mum?”

“Roger had a nightmare,” Mum says.

“What was it about?”

“You know how it is. Nightmares never make sense. He dreamed he was being tossed by a herd of giant bulls. They were underwater, and he couldn’t escape. It must have been terrifying. He woke up drenched in sweat. Underwater bulls! Funny what our minds come up with when we’re asleep.”

“Poor Roger.”

“It’s nice the way you’re trying to get on with him now,” says Mum, smiling at me approvingly. “Do you know, when we were talking about his nightmare, he suddenly said he was very grateful to you. That was a strange thing for him to say, wasn’t it? What’s he got to be grateful to you for? You’ve only just stopped giving him a hard time—Sapphire, are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.”

“It’s okay, Mum. Just sometimes it hurts when I breathe.”

“What sort of pain is it? Does your chest feel tight? Breathe in deeply now, Sapphy; let me hear if you’re wheezing.”

Mum wanted to be a nurse when she was young, but she didn’t have the right qualifications. She’s trained as a
first-aider, but she always says she’d like to take it further. So far, the only place she has taken it further is in our house.

“Mum, I haven’t had asthma since I was about six. It’s not that sort of pain.”

“All the same, you ought to have a quiet day for once tomorrow. Watch a film, read a book. You and Conor are always in that sea. You’ll turn into a fish if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, Mum.”

“I mean it.”

“If we had a dog,” I say casually, glancing sideways at Mum, “it would be good to hang out around the house with her. When I wasn’t taking her for walks.”

I can almost see the thought crossing Mum’s face.
It’s true. If Sapphy had a dog to look after, she wouldn’t be running off down to the cove all the time.

I say nothing more. With Mum, it’s best to let the thought settle and sink in.

If Sadie was here now, I could tell her everything. I could whisper it into her soft ears and she’d strain to understand me. I think she would understand some of it. There are so many things I can’t tell anyone, not even Conor or Faro. So many questions I want to ask.

It’s Conor that Roger ought to be grateful to, not me. Conor could barely breathe or move, but he faced the seals
for Roger’s sake. I don’t know what magic was in Conor’s song, but it must have been powerful, to stop the seals’ attack. Granny Carne said that Conor had his own power, and he must never forget it. I believed that Conor was weak in Ingo, and I was strong, but it was Conor who saved Roger and Gray. Faro and I and Elvira only helped to finish what Conor began.

I’ve called for Faro twice now when I’ve needed him. Both times he’s answered and come to help me. But he doesn’t come because of any power I’ve got, I’m sure of that. I don’t know why it is that there seems to be a bond between us. I feel as if I’ve known Faro much longer than I’ve really known him.

Faro called me “little sister.” I said I wasn’t his sister, and he looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but then he didn’t. And then, when he was leaving us at the boat, he said it again. Little sister.

I wish I’d thanked him. And those somersaults were amazing. I’d love to learn to do somersaults like that. Maybe Faro would teach me one day.

No, don’t think of Ingo now. Don’t let Ingo get too strong in your heart, or it will crowd out everything. I’ve learned that now. It’s what the first Mathew Trewhella did when he followed the Zennor mermaid and left Annie behind to give birth to his son without him.

I used to think that when a child was born, a parent made a promise to stay with him. Or her. But if there’s a
promise, it can be broken. That first Mathew Trewhella broke his promises. I wonder if he ever forgot them, or did the torn edges of his promises hurt him to the end of his life?

When someone goes away from you suddenly, without warning, that’s what it’s like. A rip, a torn edge inside you. I have a torn edge in me, and Dad has a torn edge in him. I’m not sure if those edges will still fit together by the time I find him.

And I will find him. That’s more than a promise. It’s the next level up from a promise. It’s a vow.

I
T’S EVENING NOW
. I
’VE
decided to clear the garden that’s been neglected since Dad went. I’ve been digging up weeds, chopping back brambles, and piling up the rubbish into a heap. Dad would be pleased. I’m hot and sweaty, but it feels good. Conor’s gone into St. Pirans with Mum, but I’m all right on my own. Because—because something wonderful has happened. I have got someone with me. She’s lying on the path, watching me intelligently. Sometimes she gets up and investigates one of the million smells of the garden that only dogs can recognize.

No, she’s not my dog yet. But I’m working on it. She’s visiting just for a week, while Jack’s family is on holiday. We’re going to see how she gets on here.

“Supper soon, Sadie,” I tell her, and she thumps her
tail. She understands every word I say.

“There now, Sadie, don’t you think Dad would be pleased if he saw how much I’ve done?”

The bees are going home after working all day in the flowers. One of them brushes past me, and I wonder if it’s going home to Granny Carne’s hive. It stops and burrows into a snapdragon flower. I can hear it buzzing and bumbling around inside. Maybe it’s stuck? No, slowly it emerges.

Suddenly an idea strikes me. Maybe, if Conor could talk to the hive, I could talk to one single bee?

“Um—listen, can you hear me?”

But as soon as I start talking to the bee, I know it’s not going to work. I haven’t any of the feeling in me that Conor described. To be honest, I don’t believe that I have any Earth magic at all. Sure enough, the bee takes no notice of me and flies off with its load of pollen.

At that moment a shadow falls over me. I look up quickly. There’s no one there, but Sadie is on her feet, bristling, a growl starting in the back of her throat. And the evening sun’s not so bright. No, the light’s changing. It’s going a strange color, greenish blue, like the color of underwater. But the sea can’t come here! Ingo is not allowed to break its bounds, I know that.

“Sadie!”

Sadie backs against me, growling loudly now, pressing
herself against my body. She’s terrified, although for some strange reason I’m not afraid. But something’s about to happen, I know it is.

“Myrgh kerenza,” says a voice. It is so close, so familiar, that I can’t believe there is no one else in the garden. “Myrgh kerenza…”

My mind stretches and discovers the meaning of the words.
Dear daughter.
Only two people in the world can call me by that name. “Dad!” I whisper. “Is it really you?” Dad here, in his own garden, at home…

But no one answers. Slowly the light begins to change. The green-blue tinge of the light fades to the warm gold of evening. Sadie moves away from me, shakes herself all over as if she’s coming out of the water, and barks and barks and barks.

“Quiet, Sadie!”

I listen hard, but all that I can hear are the normal sounds of a summer evening. But I feel warm. It’s a good feeling. I am Dad’s myrgh kerenza. His dear daughter. Somewhere he knows it, and I know it too. After Conor talked to the bees, he knew that Dad was alive. I believed Conor, but I still didn’t really
know
it.

But now I do.

Cover illustration © 2006; created from photographs © Getty Images