The Tide Knot (24 page)

  The click of the switch seems to disturb Mum. In the light from the landing I can see that her eyes are still shut, but she starts to toss from side to side, muttering. I stand dead still , not daring to move in case she wakes up.

  “Mathew…Mathew…no…don’t go out…not in the
Peggy
Gordon
, Mathew, no—”

  She sounds terrified.
Oh Mum, don’t. Please don’t. What
you were afraid of has already happened.
 

  I wish I could make it not have happened. I wish with all my heart that we could go back in time and change it so that Dad never left our cottage that night the summer before last.

  Dad, why did you do it?

  Suddenly the Mer baby comes into my mind. His soft, plump little hands. His hair like dark feathers, drifting in the water. And his mother’s face, full of love as she looks at my father.

  Mum doesn’t know about any of it. Again I have that feeling that I am the mother and she is the daughter. I don’t want her ever to know. I don’t want her ever to feel as sad as I know she will feel if she sees the Mer baby.

  “No, Mathew. No…no…” Mum mutters again. I stand there frozen, hardly breathing.
Go back to sleep, Mum,
please
.

  At last Mum is quiet. She stops tossing her head from side to side and settles back onto the pil ow. Very slowly I tiptoe to the doorway, slip through, and shut the door as gently as I can so that the catch doesn’t even click. Maybe Mum will sleep peacefully until morning now.  

  I go to my bedroom door and listen. Not a sound. Sadie must have gone to sleep too. I won’t go in, so she doesn’t start barking again. Everyone’s restless today. Everyone’s on edge, as if something’s about to happen.  

  Conor’s not back yet. I’d like to go down to the harbor to find him, but he’d be angry. I really don’t want to stay in this house a minute longer. It’s like a cage full of sadness, as if Mum’s anguish about Dad has drifted out of her dreams and into the air, and now it’s flitting from room to room, touching everything.

  I thought Mum had put Dad out of her mind. I thought she only cared about Roger now. But in her sleep she talks to Dad.

  I’ve got to get out of the house. I won’t go far, just to the beach. I’ll stay on the slipway and watch the waves. It’s not even high tide yet, so it can’t be dangerous.

  Mum’s asleep, so she’s not going to know. Even Roger’s asleep. Imagine sleeping through a storm like this.  

  I was right. It’s not high tide yet. There are still about twenty meters of sand, glistening in the faint reflected lights of the town, and then the pounding waves. It’s hard to measure the waves from here, but they’re huge. The wind is so strong that it blows the tops off them. The air is full of flying foam, and when I lick my lips, they taste of salt.

  The wind has veered round, so I’m sheltered from the worst of it. It must be hitting St. Pirans full on from the west now. The waves roar up the beach, dragging sand and stones and hurtling them onto the shore. Not even the best surfer in the world could ride these waves. They are wild and jumbled, as if the sea itself doesn’t know what it’s doing. I don’t think it’s raining anymore, because the moon is coming out from the clouds, but there’s so much spray that I’m glad I put on my slicker. I wonder if Conor and the others have got that boat to a safe place yet.

  I can’t go back in the house. I’m restless, prickling all over. The wind hits me like slaps from huge invisible hands.

  But it’s not the wind that worries me. It’s something else, beyond the storm. That’s what is making me have that horrible prickling, frustrated feeling. Maybe that’s how Mum felt earlier on, but I’m sure I haven’t got a fever.

  The moon slips right out of the clouds and shines on the raging water. Just for a second it doesn’t look like the sea at all . Instead it is like a mass of coiling snakes, whipping the water and lashing at the air.

 
Ingo is angry.
 

  Who said that? I spin round. I’m sure that I heard a voice, but there’s no one there. Only the night, and the storm.

 
Ingo is angry.
 

  It must be inside my own head. Maybe
I
have got a fever.

  Maybe
I’m
del-i-whateveritis.

 
Ingo is angry.

  The third time is when I realize that it is not a voice at all .

  Not a real voice speaking from outside me, that is. It is a voice inside me. It is my Mer blood speaking to me.

  Sometimes you know more than you think you know. All the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. The raging and raving of the waves no longer sound like any normal storm that will blow itself out by the morning. Saldowr’s words about the Tide Knot leap into my mind. Saldowr was afraid because the Tide Knot was beginning to loosen, and soon it wouldn’t be able to hold the tides in place. And then he said that there were some in Ingo who would welcome that. They’d like to see our world drowned if that made Ingo stronger.

 
To see our world drowned.
My blood shudders in my veins as if the fierce wind that blew under our door is blowing straight through me. Can our world be drowned like that village on the Lost Islands? Could it really happen?

  Another heavy bank of clouds is about to swallow the moon. What the moon showed me is burned onto my mind.

  A mass of coiling, writhing snakes. When I looked down into the Tide Knot, it was like a nest of snakes, twisting and twining. But then they were prisoners of the rock….

  I glance back at the row of cottages. Cracks of light show between the curtains. Patrick and Rainbow live in one of those cottages, that one, down by the end. They’ll be sitting by their fire in the living room, listening to the wind but feeling safe because they believe the storm will blow itself out, like every other storm there has ever been. And they know that the tide only ever comes so far and no farther.  

  Saldowr didn’t want our world to drown. He didn’t want the balance between this world and Ingo to be destroyed.

  But the tides are so powerful. Their strength was awesome when I saw them, coiling endlessly, shining blue against the sheer dark sides of the rock that enclosed them. When you look at the Tide Knot for more than a few moments, it starts to hypnotize you. Maybe the tides can do whatever they want now.

 
“Sapphy…”
 

  This time the voice is no more than a breath. It’s very faint and faraway, but it’s struggling with all its power to reach me. I know straightaway whose voice it is. I don’t answer; I just stand there, every fiber of my body tense. Listening, listening for the voice to come again. It fades, then breaks through again, like a voice on a radio from a country thousands of miles away.

 
“Myrgh…myrgh…”
 

  The voice is struggling through a nightmare, trying to cry out a warning as loud as it can but only managing a whisper.

  It’s my father. He’s desperate to tell  me something, but he can’t get close enough.

  Suddenly I’m sure I know where he is. He’s out there in the bay, coming as close to shore as he dares before the waves grab him and smash him onto the rocks. He’s broken the laws of Ingo once more: He’s left the Mer baby and the Mer woman to find me again and tell  me the secrets that only Ingo should know. But I can’t even hear what he’s trying to tell  me.  

  I shout back into the mouth of the wind, “Dad! Dad!

  Where are you? I can’t hear you!” The wind snatches my voice away.

 
“Dad!”
 

  I wait, willing the noise of the storm to part and let me hear Dad’s voice. The wind rips my hood back and my hair flies free, tangling over my face. And then the voice comes again. Or is it a voice? Maybe it’s just my imagination. The voice is so far away now, as thin as a spider’s web. But if it’s as thin as a spider’s web, it’s also as strong. The urgency in it burns me like fire.

 
“Sapphy…”
 

  The voice is real; I know it is. Dad wants me to come to him. I know it as surely as if the words were written on the sand. And I can do it. If I run along the top of the beach, past the café and the beach shop, past the lifeguard station and round onto the headland, I can clamber onto those rocks below.
It’s not dangerous,
I tell  myself. I’ll stay well above the tide line. Down below the rocks the water’s deep. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be possible for Dad to swim closer in and speak to me.

  I don’t stop to think twice. As if the moon has heard my thoughts, it chooses this moment to break out of the cloud bank again. There’s enough light for me to make my way round to the rocks.  

  I daren’t stand up once I’m out on the headland for fear of being blown off into the sea. I get down on hands and knees and crawl forward, clinging to clumps of thrift and grass. The moonlight is strong now, but I don’t want to look at the sea for fear of seeing those coiling snakes again. I look just a short distance ahead, the way I’ve got to go.

  I crawl down a little way onto the rocks. A huge wave hits the other side of the headland, and the rock shivers. I hear an explosion of water far below me, then a dragging, sucking sound as the water is forced into all the cracks of the rock. I don’t dare even crawl now. I’m flat on my stomach, wriggling along, clinging to every handhold I can find, flattening my body against the rock so the wind won’t be able to pry me loose.

  The churning of the sea sounds more violent than ever.

  It’s no good. Dad will never be able to come close. He’d be smashed against the rocks.

  Very cautiously I turn my head and peer down to the right, where the rocks protect the water. The sea isn’t boiling quite so furiously just here. The rocks create a bulwark that breaks the force of the storm. If I can crawl just a little closer to the edge, I’ll be able to look down. If Dad comes in anywhere, it will be just here. But I mustn’t go too far. I mustn’t risk falling.

 
“Sapphy…”
 

  The voice is faint, half snatched away by the wind. But it comes from down there in the water. I cup my hands to my mouth and shout as loud as I can: “
Daa-aaaad!
I’m here.” As I raise my head, I see him for a second, in the path of the moonlight on the wild water. He’s swimming with all his strength against the power of the tide, which is trying to drag him toward the rocks. He’s coming too close in.

 
“Dad!”
 

  He hears me. He turns toward me. I see the glisten of moonlight on his face and his hair; then a wave swamps him. When he rises again, he is even closer to the rock. He stops swimming to raise his hands to his face. He cups his hands, just as I did.

 
“The Tide Knot is unloosed. Run and tell them that the
Tide Knot is unloosed. Make for high ground. Can you
hear me?”
 

  I kneel up on the rock. The wind fills my mouth, so I can hardly breathe. As loudly as I can, I scream into it,
“Yes, I
heard you!”
 

  The current is dragging him into danger. He’s got to swim clear.
“Dad, swim! Swim away from the rocks! Can you hear
me?”
 

  He raises a hand in acknowledgment. But he’s got to escape. He’s got to swim with all his strength now, away from the rocks. Doesn’t he understand that?

 
“Dad! Swim out! It’s dangerous! Go now! Go now! Dad!”
Cloud sweeps over the moon again, and the water goes dark as ink. I think I saw Dad dive, a split second before it went dark. I think he plunged deep beneath the waves, to swim with all his power away from the rocks. But I can’t be sure.

 
“C
onor! Oh, Con, I’m so glad you’re back.” I push the house door shut behind me and pulls off my boots and slicker. Conor is kneeling by the fire, warming himself.

  “I should have guessed you wouldn’t do what you said, Saph,” he says coldly, without turning round.

  “What?”

  “You were going to stay here,
remember
? So Mum wouldn’t be worried?”

  “Oh! Oh…I’d forgotten all about that—”

  “Very convenient.”

  “Don’t be like that, Con. Listen, it’s important.

  Something’s happened. I’ve seen Dad.”

  He does turn round then. His eyes are wide with shock.

  “Dad? What do you mean, you saw Dad? He’s not here. We know where
he
is.”

  “No, Conor, listen—”  

  “Keep your voice down, Saph. They’ll wake up if we’re not careful. Mum’s restless. She was muttering stuff when I went upstairs just now.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “I couldn’t really hear what she was saying,” says Conor, after a pause that tell  s me that he could. He looks stressed and unhappy, and I feel a pang of guilt that again it’s me who has seen Dad, not him. But I’ve got to tell  him what Dad said.

  Conor listens very careful y, without interrupting. He doesn’t show fear, or surprise, or any other emotion. His face is pale under its usual brown. When I’ve finished, he says nothing.

  “Conor, don’t you believe me?”

  “Give me a minute, Saph. I’ve got to think.” I wait tensely. I’m so afraid that Conor’s not going to believe me. That he’ll think I only imagined that I saw Dad because I wanted him to be there.

  “Conor—”

  “The problem is, Saph, that if we go out now and start knocking on doors telling people to get out of their houses and run up the hill because we’ve had a message from our father, who hasn’t really drowned but has turned into a Mer man, and he tells us that St. Pirans is going to be drowned because it’s on the border of Ingo, they’re really not going to believe us.” 

  “But you believe me.”

  “Yes, but that could be because I’m just as crazy as you are,” says Conor.

  “We can’t
not
do anything!”

  “No. We can’t not do anything. Listen, Saph. I’m going to wake up Roger.”

 
“Roger!”