Stormswept (29 page)

“Mother, you want to steal his death from me,” says Malin quietly. I don’t know this time whether he is speaking Mer or English, but whichever it is, Eselda nods and continues her weaving of song.

“Malin,” I say timidly.

“She is taking away his memories. He will forget everything,” says Malin, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. He wants Aidan Helyer to suffer, not forget. At last Eselda falls silent. Aidan Helyer hangs still in the water, neither breathing nor drowning. Suddenly, with a contemptuous shouldering, Malin shoves him upwards, away from Ingo, through the surface and back into his own world. “Let him swim or not swim,” says Malin in the same tone, “and his friends with him. Mammi, an downder ke.”

Eselda still has that witchy, trance-like look on her face. She embraces Malin quickly, turns, and plunges away towards the deep water without another word. I try to imagine Mum doing that after one of us being lost and feared dead or kidnapped. No questions, no big reunion hugs. No tears. Eselda loves him, though, you can see that.

“All his memories?” I ask hesitantly.

“Only what he has seen of Ingo. She has no power to do more than that. He will forget us and there will be no human vengeance on Ingo. She was right, but I still wish…” He looks at the stone in his hand, with its sharp edge that could break a man’s skull. “I wish that I had killed him before my mother came to us.”

“Malin… Have you ever killed anyone?”

He laughs and his teeth gleam white, although the wild look is still on his face. “Of course not. I am Mer and I live among my people. We do not fight and kill as humans do, unless we are driven to protect ourselves.”

I shiver. His talk of killing feels much too real. If Eselda had come a few moments later – if Malin hadn’t listened to her… But Malin never wanted to hurt anyone. No, it was Aidan Helyer who attacked us – but did he deserve to die? My thoughts twist in confusion, and I shake my head to clear it. “But you’re all right again, Malin. You’re well,” I say, glancing at his tail. The ridged scar is deep, but no longer raw. Ingo is already healing it. Malin’s eyes are clear and his burning fever has gone.

“I am well because I am in Ingo,” he says. “And you, Morveren, how do you feel?”

“Oh, I’m fine—” I begin automatically, then I realise it’s not true. I’m not
fine
. I’m so much more than that. I feel as if I could dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean, or race with dolphins and win. I feel like myself, but a hundred times more so than I’ve ever dared to be. It’s as if I’ve been pretending to be Morveren Trevail all my life, but now I understand what it’s really like to be me. Even the bruises on my arms where Aidan Helyer gripped don’t hurt any more. The most amazing thing of all is that in spite of everything that’s happened I don’t feel shocked, scared, angry or even worried. I feel at peace. I feel as if I am at home, where I belong.

“I’m fine,” I say again, and this time I really mean it.

“Come with me, Morveren.”

“Come with you?” I’m sure of what he’s asking but I can’t answer straight away. My stomach lurches as if I’ve been walking in the mist and suddenly the mist has cleared to show that I’m standing on a cliff edge. Far below, the ships are so small they look like toys.

“You are Morveren and your name was given to you rightly,” Malin urges me. “You have saved my life and you are one of us. You feel it. You know it. Ingo welcomes you. Your brother will come with you and make music with us.”

“My brother?” It takes me a second to connect. Of course: Digory.

“Morveren, all will be well for you if you come with me.”

As he speaks, I seem to understand the meaning of my name for the first time. Morveren. Mer girl. That’s why salt is sweet to me and I’m more myself in Ingo than I am in the air. I’m not impatient here and I don’t get angry. I know who I am and what I’m meant to be doing. Longing overwhelms me. I can follow Malin, and be at home here for ever. For a while I’ll still be human but day by day my body will change and my skin will darken until I have the strong seal tail of the Mer and the blue-dusk complexion. I’ll cut through the waves with a lazy side-swipe of my tail. All those Mer who were dancing in the great hall will become my friends. I won’t have to struggle to stay afloat on top of the water, or go into the sea in a wetsuit. I’ll be part of it. My hair already floats around me like seaweed and my lungs breathe easily under the waves. Maybe I’ve already changed so much that I will never want to change back.

Malin smiles at me. That smile on his fierce, harsh face is so sweet and unexpected that it’s like meeting the real Malin for the first time. I’ve only known him in exile from his own element, not free like this. His eyes glow as he takes my hand.

“Everything you have seen of Ingo is only the very beginning,” he says. “Come with me, Morveren. Who would choose to live in the air when they could live in Ingo? Who would choose to live with humans when they can live with the Mer? Your people are full of hate and destruction, Morveren. They have no future. They will destroy themselves as they destroy everything that they touch. But you are one of us. You belong in Ingo.”

Yes, who would choose… I gaze into Malin’s eyes and dreams flow between us. The salt tide beats in my ears like a pulse. We can do anything, if I only choose. We can swim through midnight seas that are as dark as velvet, past sleeping whales and under the hulls of ocean liners. We can explore labyrinths of caves half a mile below the water-line, or race with dolphins in the warm clear waters of the Caribbean. We’d be free for ever and no one could capture us. Aidan Helyer might remember something, in spite of Eselda’s spells, but he can babble about mermaids in the pub as much as he wants. No one will believe him. He’ll be like all the sailors before him who have told stories of how they’ve seen mermaids sitting on rocks combing their hair, or luring sailors into the sea to drown. Everyone knows they’re only stories. Mermaids aren’t real: they’re a legend. As long as humans believe that, Ingo is safe. But around me Ingo is real now, so real that it blots out the human world. My thoughts twist and leap like dolphins. I can leave everything behind as if I’m casting off an old skin that doesn’t fit me any more.

I shake my head again. The water hums with enchantment, as if some of Eselda’s spell has been left in it. “I belong in Ingo,” I murmur, repeating Malin’s words to hear how they sound. They sound good, as strong and real as the salt water that is pulsing around me, full of life, ready to take me with it out of the bay. I laugh aloud and hold out my hands to Malin. He grasps them.

“You’ll come with me, Morveren? You’ll really come?” He’s laughing too, showing his sharp white teeth. I can feel his heart beating. I open my mouth to tell him that yes, I have chosen, and I have chosen Ingo.

he spell breaks like water shattering into a million droplets.

“Morveren!
Morveren!”

It’s not Malin calling me now. It’s my sister.

“Morveren, I need you!
Help me!”

I whirl round but all I see is a confusion of bubbles.

“Jenna, where are you?”

I can’t even tell where her voice is coming from. I look wildly one way and then the other. Malin isn’t holding my hand any more. He must have dropped it, or maybe I pulled mine away when I turned to find Jenna.

“Malin, listen! It’s my sister, it’s Jenna. She needs us.”

“Us?” says Malin.

“Yes, can’t you hear her? She needs help!”

The cry comes again. It’s fainter now but even sharper. It is a knife that cuts me to the bone. “Morveren, help me!”

Malin looks back at me impassively. “I can’t hear anything,” he says.

“You must be able to! You’ve got to help me, Malin, I don’t even know which direction to go in. Where are we?”

I look around in panic. Smooth, dark water surrounds me in every direction. Below me it’s so deep that the sea floor has vanished into shadow. Malin and I must have been drifting out to sea all the time that we were talking, and I didn’t notice. Did he? Jenna’s voice searches for me through the water: “Morveren! Morveren…”

“She needs me! You’ve got to help me find her, Malin.” I’m convinced that he can. If Jenna is lost somewhere in Ingo, then Malin’s my only hope of finding her. But Malin frowns, and remains silent.

“You don’t
want
to hear her,” I accuse him bitterly. He throws back his head. “I have heard enough from Air and Earth,” he says. “Why don’t
you
listen, Morveren? I am here with you. I am closer to you than your sister, and we are of the same blood and spirit.”

“Jenna’s my twin. I know you think we’re not the same, but that doesn’t mean we’re separate. If she’s in danger, I am too. If she’s unhappy, I am too. Please, Malin. Please.” I think of saying
I helped you, didn’t I, when you were in danger? –
but I don’t. I have a feeling that bargaining will anger Malin rather than persuade him.

He swims forward and takes my hand again, looking deep into my eyes as if he’s searching for something there. “You can find your sister if you want to find her. I’ll even help you. But you’ll lose the best part of yourself if you leave Ingo, Morveren. Surely you know that. Surely you can feel it.”

I nod. I do know. I don’t just understand it; I feel it. My happiness and certainty are already ebbing away as the human world grows strong in my mind. I know only too well what I’m returning to, and what it will make me be. Angry, frustrated, not good at things, getting into trouble. For some reason Bran’s face flashes across my mind. Bran at school, defying everybody.

In the human world I’ll never be the Morveren I could be here in Ingo. The knowledge is as sharp and heavy as swallowing a stone. But Jenna will be there. I can’t live with myself if I don’t answer her call. I belong in Ingo but I also belong with Jenna.

“Jenna’s always been there – we were together before we were even born,” I tell Malin, trying to explain, but it sounds so weak. I can’t put into words what it feels like when another person is more important to you than you are to yourself – so much part of you that if you lost them it would be like losing your own soul. And then I realise that I don’t have to. Malin already knows. He doesn’t say anything, but he searches my face again and comes to a decision as suddenly as the Mer come to a stop when they are flying through the water as fast as diving seals. He looks so sad that I want to pull back my words and wash that look from his face.

“Then you must go back to your own world,” he says.

I don’t think the journey takes long. All I really remember is Malin’s grip on my wrist and the way we soared through the water. It wasn’t even like swimming. I felt as if I were Mer too, as if Malin had given me that gift just for the time of our journey. Ingo accepted me just as it accepted Malin. It wanted us to be there, together, and it moved the currents to make us go faster. I belonged then, I know I did.

But it’s over. I’m back in my depth. I put down my foot and it grazes the sand. I’m suddenly cold, although I haven’t felt cold all night. I look inshore and see a pick-up truck keeled over on its side, and a girl and a boy standing on the sand, looking out to sea. Jenna and Digory. How could I ever have forgotten about them, even for a second? But I don’t call out and I keep my head down in the water. I want to say goodbye to Malin first.

I turn to him. “I’m sorry,” I say. He doesn’t say anything at first and I’m scared he’s going to turn and vanish beneath the waves with that Mer suddenness and speed. He doesn’t. He seizes me in a hug that is as fierce as it is brief, and then pushes me away from him. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Morveren,” he says. “You saved me,” and he lifts his left hand in salute. His face lights up in that sudden, brilliant smile, and in one movement he dives and vanishes.

“Malin!” I cry, but no one answers. I stare out to sea but there’s nothing there, only the breaking surf with moonlight on it. Nothing. But just as I turn back to shore I see a movement. One after another, dark figures rear out of the water just beyond the line of the surf. Their heads show, and their glistening shoulders. I see their hair streaming like seaweed and a hundred hands lifted, like Malin’s, in salute. The moment holds. I’m sure that they can see me as clearly as I can see them. I raise my left hand. It’s a greeting, an acknowledgment, a farewell. And then they’re gone, and the sea is empty.