The Crossing of Ingo (5 page)

“Conor,” said Rainbow, “Patrick thinks he can get you a Saturday job at The Green Room, don’t you, Pat?”

The Green Room is the surf shop where Patrick works. Everybody wants to work there because they pay over the minimum wage and you have an amazing reduction off all the stuff. Conor leaned forward eagerly. “D’you think you really can, Patrick?”

Patrick nodded. He is a person of few words. Then I saw Conor remember, and the eagerness faded from his face. The sound of the conch thrummed in my head and I knew that Conor heard it too. It drowned out everything.

“I’ll call in one day,” said Conor awkwardly, and I saw the surprise and disappointment on Rainbow’s face. She’d expected him to seize the chance of the job. But I couldn’t think about Rainbow too much, because my mind was full of Ingo. The flames of the fire made shapes like waves. I listened and I could hear the swell beating against the base of the cliffs. The tide was high, almost at the turn. Ingo was coming close. I saw Rainbow shiver.

“The sea’s loud tonight,” she said.

“You always hear it like that up here,” said Conor quickly. “It must be the way the wind blows.”

“It never sounds as loud as this in our cottage,” said Rainbow.

“And we’re closer to the water than you are,” said Patrick. “The tide comes almost to the door. Or
through
the door sometimes.” He was thinking of the flood and the way their cottage filled with sea.

“It won’t come like that again,” said Conor. He threw another log on the fire and the sparks shot upward. Rainbow leaned forward, holding out her hands to the flames.

“I love fires,” she said.

I know, I
thought.
You love fires and horses and dogs, and everything that belongs to Earth. You’ve never heard Ingo calling and you never will. You’re not half one thing and half another. You’re all Earth, like Granny Carne. You don’t have to choose because the choice has already been made in you.

The sea boomed against the cliff. I felt it ebb, then surge forward and smash on the rocks. Rainbow was right. Ingo was very close tonight. Faro was there somewhere in that deep wild water, and my father, and my baby half-brother, little Mordowrgi, and all the others. Soon I would be there too, and Conor. Excitement raced through me like an incoming tide.

But this morning everything is flat and gloomy. The rain is coming down in a thin, steady drizzle. The hilltops are hidden in mist. The only thing that is sharp and clear is the impossibility of our dreams.

How can I leave Sadie? She trusts me and believes that I’ll always be here to take care of her. I think of Sadie padding up and down, whining, sniffing the air, scratching at the door, waiting for me. I can’t abandon Sadie. Besides, there’s Mum. She’ll call us, as she does every day, and we won’t be here. She’ll call again and again, and still we won’t answer. How much human time does it take to make the Crossing of Ingo? Mum will panic and get on the next plane back from Australia.

We have to think about school as well. They’ll notice our
absence, and Mum has given them contact details for everyone who is supposed to be responsible for us while she’s away. In practice that means they will contact Mary Thomas, because Granny Carne has no phone. Mary will come over and find an empty house. In less than an hour the entire village will be searching for us. They’ll remember Dad’s disappearance. They’ll whisper,
“God forbid it’s another Trewhella lost to the sea.”
They’ll scour the cliffs and coves and all the deserted places where we might have fallen or become trapped. In my mind I see the searchers moving steadily forward, beating at the furze on the cliff tops. I see divers with waterproof torches scanning the backs of caves. They’ll risk their lives to find us. We can’t let them do that.

Even if we managed to fix school, it’s impossible to fix the whole neighbourhood. If you cough at one end of the churchtown, someone the other end will ask if you have a cold.

But we
must
go. We have no choice. I can’t hear the Call any more but the memory of it is twined into every fibre of me. It won’t let me alone. You only hear that Call once in your life; if you ignore it, it won’t come again. Faro will turn his back on me. He’ll rip off the bracelet he made from our hair, and he’ll never call me “little sister” again. Dad will be at the Assembly. It’s our chance to see him again.

Ingo needs us to make the Crossing. We are mixed in our blood, Mer and human. Ervys hates us for it: he wants nothing human in Ingo. I used to hate it too because I wanted to be one thing only, instead of being torn two ways. But now I’m beginning to understand that to be double adds things to you
as well as taking them away. I’ve been to Ingo so many times and there’s still so much I don’t know. I will never know Ingo truly unless I make the Crossing. Saldowr believes that the Mer world and the human world can come together, and stop fearing each other and trying to destroy each other. If human blood can make the Crossing of Ingo then maybe there is hope for a different future, where we’re not all battling for what we want and trying to destroy what is different from us.

Ervys will do anything to stop us. He wants Mer and human to remain apart. Fear and distrust is what drives his followers, and gives him his power.

I’ve got to go, but I can’t … I must go, but how can I …?

By ten o’clock this morning my head felt like a hive of swarming bees, full of thoughts that couldn’t live together. I was so desperate for distraction that I even dug one of my school set books out of my bag. Now I’m sitting at the kitchen table, trying to read
Pride and Prejudice.
The words dance and dive. If only Jane and Lizzie realised how lucky they were. All they had to worry about were their embarrassing parents and the embarrassing men who kept trying to marry them. They were never going to go to Ingo in their shawls and long dresses and elaborately curled hair …

Sadie is under the table, asleep. She’s been trying to hide under things ever since she got back from the vet’s. I keep telling her, “You’re safe now, Sadie girl. No gull will ever come into our cottage.” I wrap my arms around her neck and kiss her cold black nose, but she looks at me with scared eyes and I see she
doesn’t really believe it. Even in her sleep, Sadie twitches and whimpers. She’s dreaming of gulls with cold yellow eyes and beaks that stab at her flesh. I’ll never let it happen again. I’ll throw myself on top of her so that they can’t get to her.

Conor has gone back to bed. In his view sleep is the best thing to do with a rainy day like this. I tried to talk to him about the Call but he was grumpy and monosyllabic – “Yeah, all right, Saph, we’ll work it out” – and then he dived back under the duvet. I’ve got to wake him up at one o’clock because we’re due at Jack’s house for Sunday dinner at one thirty.

When the knock comes at the door, I shout, “Come in, it’s open,” and quickly shove a heap of ironing off the table into the laundry basket. Some of our neighbours are all too curious about “How those two younguns are coping with their mum off in Australia”. They come round with a pie or a bunch of onions and their eyes dart round the kitchen, checking every heap of unwashed mugs.

It’s Granny Carne. Her old brown coat is dark with rain. She takes off her boots at the door and steps inside. Fortunately she has no interest in dirty crockery or unswept floors.

“Those gulls are thicker’n ever on your roof, my girl.”

“I know. Do you want a cup of tea?”

“Cup of tea would be good.” Her eyes burn on my back as I fill the kettle. “You want to do something about them,” she says.

“Yes,” I reply.

“I hear they hurt your Sadie.”

“We took her to the vet. She had to have stitches, but she’s
OK now, except she’s been asleep most of the time since. She doesn’t want to come out from under the table.”

Granny Carne bends down and whistles softly. Immediately Sadie stirs. Shaking her head as if to shake away a bad dream, she creeps out from her shelter and rubs against Granny Carne’s long skirt. Sadie trusts Granny Carne more than anyone except me, ever since she almost died and Granny Carne healed her.

“She’s not looking so good, spite of what the vet’s done for her,” observes Granny Carne. A pang of dread goes through me.

“She’s all right. The vet said she was.”

“All right, is she?” asks Granny Carne. I look at Sadie. Her tail is down. She’s huddling against Granny Carne as if she wants to make herself disappear.

“She’s still scared that the gulls will get her,” I say.

“With reason good,” answers Granny Carne. “A dog can’t stay in a house all day long, cowering under a table. It’s not in her nature.” She bends down and strokes Sadie with a strong, reassuring hand. “It’s not in her nature, what’s going on here. You let me take Sadie, my girl.”

“Take Sadie!”

“You let her come up to my cottage where she’ll be safe. There’s no shadow of a gull there.” Granny Carne looks up, straight at me, hard and clear.

“But … but I look after her. I won’t let anything hurt her.”

Granny Carne glances down at Sadie’s back. She doesn’t say anything about the injury. She doesn’t need to. “Listen, Sapphire.
Nothing of Ingo is going to come close to where I am. Sadie can walk on the Downs with me and be free. Those gulls lifted off your roof the moment they saw me put my foot to your threshold. But once I’m gone, they’ll be back, and more of them each day. You want your dog to be frightened out of her life? You give Sadie to me and no harm will come near her.”

Sadie is watching Granny Carne’s face very closely, following the conversation. She whines deep in her throat, as if agreeing.

“But I can’t. She’ll miss me too much.”
I’ll miss her too much, is
what I don’t say. “Sadie needs me.”

“How will you look after Sadie where you’re going?” asks Granny Carne. Her face is stern, intent. There is no point trying to pretend I don’t know what she means.

“How do you know?”

“You’ve been called to make that Crossing. You remember I told you once, my girl, neither hell nor high water would stop you once your heard that Call. And your brother too. Look at your face. Look at those gulls gathering. There’s some in Ingo don’t want you to make it, seemingly.”

“But we can’t go. Sadie – Mum—” Suddenly the reality of it hits me as hard as a blow. I am only going to hear that Call once in my life. If I don’t go, I’ll feel as if something has reached inside me and ripped my spirit down the middle like a piece of paper.

“Some things, if you don’t do them, they follow you all your life, whispering in your ear,” says Granny Carne. She faces me sternly as if she’s judging me. “You’ll find a dozen good reasons why you pulled back from the Call, and you’ll even fool yourself
that you had no other choice. But in your bed at night you’ll curse yourself for a coward.”

I stare at her in astonishment. Why isn’t Granny Carne trying to keep me here, as she’s always tried before? It feels like a cold wind whistling through me. Granny Carne isn’t going to stop us. The choice is completely ours.

I hear the creak of Conor’s loft ladder. He’s heard voices and he’s coming down to see who is here. The door opens and he ambles into the room, yawning and wrapped up in his duvet as usual.

“Granny Carne.” A slow, warm smile spreads over Conor’s face.

“Yes. I’ve been talking to your Sapphire. The two of you are going out into the world, seemingly.” Conor shoots me an accusing look.

“I didn’t tell her. She knew,” I say quickly. “But, Con, I can’t see how we’re going to do it. There’s Sadie, and Mum, and everyone else. They’ll think we’ve – we’ve disappeared.”

“Like Dad,” says Conor. He frowns, thinking. Conor is logical. He always looks to find a path to a solution. Usually it works, but this time logic isn’t going to help. Granny Carne isn’t going to help either. She stands there, watching, waiting.

“There’ll be more than those gulls wanting to stop you,” she observes.

“I know,” says Conor.

“I’ve no rowan berries for your protection this time. You’ll have to go alone.”

Without meaning to, I glance down at the bracelet on my wrist. My
deublek.
Granny Carne’s gaze follows mine. “Earth can’t help you in the Crossing.”

“We’re not helpless,” says Conor hotly.

“I know that, my boy.” Granny Carne’s ancient, hardened face remains impassive, but her eyes soften as she looks at Conor. “I can’t give you anything. No berries, no touch of fire. There’s no Earth magic where you’re going, only what’s inside yourselves.” She pauses. Her owl eyes are lit up now, fierce and bright. “But never forget how strong that is. Come here, give me your hands.” She takes Conor’s outstretched hands and presses his thumbs together. “Think of what’s strongest for you here on Earth,” she whispers. “Let it come to you. Don’t force your thoughts now.”

Conor closes his eyes. I look away. I feel as if I shouldn’t spy into his thoughts. There is a long silence, then Conor opens his eyes again. He looks surprised, as if what came into his mind wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Now you, Sapphire.” My thumbs touch. It feels like a connection being made. “Think of what’s strongest for you here on Earth,” she says. “Let it come to you.”