The Crossing of Ingo (16 page)

“No, he never has.”

Faro and Conor are up ahead, discussing our route again. Faro believes there is a very strong current about two days journey from here, which will take us directly east of a great frozen land mass. Conor and I think this means we’ll be travelling east of Greenland, towards the Arctic.

“I swam away silently while my mother was sleeping,” Elvira continues.

“Your mother?” My curiosity burns. I want to hear more about their mother. Faro never talks about his parents.

“Yes, Sapphire.” Elvira smiles the sweet, gentle smile that has infuriated me so often. “Has Faro never spoken to you about our mother?”

“No, not really,” I say reluctantly. I don’t want Elvira to think Faro doesn’t confide in me.

“He does not wish to speak of her. I understand that.”

“Why not, Elvira? Is she … is she dead?”

“Yes, she is dead,” says Elvira, still smiling at me. A surge of frustration goes through me. Elvira must have feelings – why does she hide them all the time? Or perhaps she only hides them from me.

“She died when we were seven.”

We?
“You were both seven? You mean you and Faro are twins?”

“Of course. It is very common among us Mer.” Faro never told me that, either.

“She was ill for a long time, and then she went to Limina,” goes on Elvira in her silvery voice.

“That must have been so hard for you – and for your father,” I add, thinking that perhaps Elvira will tell me more about her family. I know nothing of their father either. Why haven’t I ever asked Faro? I know so little about him in some ways. And yet I know him so well – I understand him as if I really were his sister.

“We had no father,” says Elvira. “Saldowr is our guardian.”

Of course you had a father,
I want to say. The word makes me feel raw. In my mind I see Dad watching as we swim away. Everyone has a father, even if they don’t see him or know him. Not to have a father is
an-at-om-ic-ally im-poss-ible,
as Faro told me when I first met him and suggested that he might be a “mermaid”. But Elvira’s sweet silveriness has a core of steel to it, and I don’t ask any more questions about her father.

“That must have been hard for you,” I repeat lamely, and then I remember that Elvira hasn’t finished telling me about her escape to the North experience. “So what happened when you ran away – I mean, swam away on your own? How far did you get?”

Elvira laughs. “Not very far. A dolphin who knew my mother found me wandering and brought me home. I was so
angry, but I didn’t dare to show it. And when we got back, my mother hadn’t even noticed I was gone. She thought I was with Faro.”

We both laugh. It reminds me so much of the times I used to storm off in a temper when I was little, and hide under my duvet making secret plans to run away so no one would ever find me, and then they’d be really sorry and wish they hadn’t been so horrible to me … I did run away once or twice, but only as far as the end of the track. Elvira’s story makes me feel quite fond of her, for the first time ever.

At this moment there’s a yell from the boys. “Current! Current up ahead!”

“I thought it was two days away,” I shout back.

“Quick, we need to keep together!
Elvira! Sapphire! Come on!”

As I reach them I see the current, about a hundred metres away. It’s a bright, glacial green, pulling at speed through the darker Atlantic water. Faro is assessing it with the kind of attention a canoeist might give to white-water rapids.

“Is it the current we want?” I ask.

“It’s definitely going north,” mutters Faro. “I’m not sure we can risk it, though. It’s very fast – and look how the flow keeps changing.” He’s right. As I watch, the current gives a wicked swerve as if it’s taking an invisible corner at top speed.

“It is unstable,” says Faro. “That is where the danger lies. As we go north they say there are mountains of ice that sail with their heads in the Air and body and tail deep in Ingo.”

“Icebergs!” says Conor.

“Icebergs – is that what you call them? They are mountains. The part that shows above the water is far higher than any of your cliffs. Here in Ingo they are ten times as large. The current must take us safely between these ice mountains. If we are hurled against them the ice is as sharp as coral. It would kill us for sure,” goes on Faro in a matter-of-fact tone. “I am not sure that we can trust this current …”

Faro talks about the current as if it’s a living creature, and perhaps it is. We all gaze at the sinewy race of it. It looks as if it is rushing north because, like Elvira, it has always dreamed of the world of ice. Perhaps it will turn into ice when it reaches the Arctic. I agree with Faro. I’m not sure we can trust it to keep us safe. The current is stretched out like a rope, but inside itself the strands coil like a serpent. Now I’m studying it I can see that the green colour is made up of thousands of different streams, some almost white, some emerald, some a bright, cold turquoise. I understand why Faro is scrutinising it so carefully. It might be deadly.

“It will take us where we want to go,” says Faro at last. “Are you sure?”

“Sure? What is
sure
when you are making the Crossing of Ingo?” he mocks me. “This is not a tame current. Even if we lie in its heart, we may be battered by its force.”

“Do you think we should risk it?” asks Conor.

“Yes,” says Faro.

“Saph? Elvira?”

“If Faro thinks so,” I say. Elvira says nothing. She’s deep in contemplation of the current.

“It is so beautiful,” she says quietly. I watch the flash and turn of the water. It reminds me of jewels – diamonds and emeralds – but no jewels have so much life in them.

“We’ll take that as a yes, then,” says Conor.

We decide that we’ll dive one by one. As each dives, the other will follow immediately. Once we are in the current we must swim to its heart. I know from past experience that currents are like storms. All the fury is on the outside, but in the heart, or eye, there is stillness.

Faro will dive first, then me, then Elvira and Conor last. We must keep close and not hesitate because if the current gives one of its sudden, wicked-looking swerves, one or more of us could be left behind.

“What if we get separated?” I ask.

“Keep going north. Ask every creature you meet if it has seen any of us. But be careful of the orcas, little sister. Remember that sometimes they refuse to hear that we are Mer. They may not hear that you are human and prefer to believe that you are a seal.” I shiver.

“Keep going north …” repeats Elvira dreamily. Conor looks at her, frowning slightly. Elvira looks a million miles away from us, lost in her own world. But we have to be alert. We have to keep together. This is real.

“Are you ready?” asks Faro. The muscles in his shoulders tense. His tail lashes from side to side, gathering power. His arms
go back, and his tail whips up and then down. He plunges forward and vanishes into the current. Instantly, without thinking, I follow him.

I’m inside, looking out. A veil of a million shimmering particles hides me.
It was easy,
I think with a surge of joy and relief.
I’ve dived straight to the heart of the current.

The green Atlantic rushes past me at a speed I’ve never known before. This is a new world, where mighty currents sweep from ocean to ocean, grazing continents as they go. Faro told me about the Great Current once. This can’t be it because the Great Current goes southwards. But this one deserves to be called great, too.

Faro is ahead of me. His arms are pressed to his sides, like mine. We can’t speak to each other because our voices would be drowned in the roar of rushing water. I open my thoughts and try to find his.
Faro?

A surge of exultation hits me. Faro is loving this. The force of the current and the excitement of the journey flood his mind so that there’s no room for anything else. But I want to talk to him.

Faro? It’s me, Sapphire.

Slowly, reluctantly, his thoughts make room for me.
Sapphire? Isn’t it amazing, Faro?
As soon as the thought leaves my mind I know it’s stupid. He doesn’t need me telling him it’s amazing,
because he knows it with every fibre of his body. I’ll leave him alone. I’ll let go, let the current take us, and stop thinking.

But it’s too late for that. Faro is restless now.
Look behind you, Sapphire. Can you see the others?

I am doubly stupid. I haven’t even bothered to check that Conor and Elvira are safely in the current. But it’s hard to turn round against the rush of water. Slowly, centimetre by centimetre, I twist my body until I’m lying sideways, and I can look back and down my body.

I’m staring into a green tube that coils round and round on itself with dizzying speed. A crush of bubbles hides everything. There’s no sign of Conor or Elvira. Maybe it’s because I’m ahead of them. I could see Faro clearly because I was behind him. Probably the others are just hidden by the surging coil of the current. I wish I could share thoughts with Conor, but I’ve never been able to – at least, only in the ordinary human brother-and-sister way. As for Elvira’s thoughts, I’ve never even tried to enter them. She is so different from me that I’ve always been sure I wouldn’t succeed.

But what if they’re not there? What if Faro and I are rushing on faster and faster and they are left behind? We mustn’t lose one another. Whatever happens, we must be together.

Nightmare images dance in my mind. Conor knocked sideways by the power of the current, losing sight of us. A prowling killer whale, forgetting that Conor and Elvira are human and Mer. Or perhaps Ervys’s followers, swimming steadily north, catching up with us—

Sapphire.
Faro has broken into my thoughts.
Listen. I will have to close my thoughts to you while I try to find Elvira. She is far away and I need all my strength. Don’t be afraid, little sister. I am still here, even if you can’t communicate with me. Don’t lose sight of me.

I’ve lost touch with how long we’ve been inside the current. It could be an hour or a hundred years. All I hear is the thunder of the Atlantic pouring past me, and the deeper, serpentine roar of the current that has hold of me.

We were travelling so fast that everything we passed was a blur. It hurt to look at it. I knew I must look ahead and fix my eyes on Faro. His shape shimmered and dazzled up ahead of me. Sometimes I thought I’d lost sight of him, and a wash of panic went through me, and then I found the outline of his tail again through millions of dancing green and silver and turquoise particles. Sometimes he seemed to dissolve completely, as if the current had swallowed him. I couldn’t find him with my mind. I had to keep on believing that he was there, up ahead of me, and I wasn’t alone.

If I let myself think about Conor I felt the kind of terror you experience when you’re standing on the edge of a cliff and a buffet of wind hits your back and you feel yourself start to sway so that the churning water far beneath you seems to rock towards you – and poor Elvira, dreaming of the North and the ice. She was longing to make this journey and now perhaps
she’s been separated from Conor as well as from me and Faro. She might be alone, terrified …

The water we sped through was growing darker. Either night was coming, or we were being pulled deeper. At that moment the current whipped round so sharply that I felt as if I was going to break in half. The rush of speed stopped, the current convulsed and I was flying through the dark water alone. In the distance I saw the thick green rope of water pounding on without me.