Suddenly the shoal shudders. Within a second it changes direction. The mackerel plunge downward and disappear.
“Isn’t that weird?” I say to Conor. “They were all swimming along quite happily and then they just—”
“Shark!” calls Faro. He and Elvira stop dead in the water as only Mer and dolphins can. “Quick, sideways, let’s get out of this current.”
But why is Faro so worried about a shark? I think as I kick free at a diagonal to the current’s tug. There are plenty of sharks around here. Basking sharks, porbeagles, even the odd mako, but none of them will harm us as long as we don’t upset them. The sharks that patrol the Groves of Aleph are Great Whites, and they scare me even though Saldowr has taught them to recognise us, and let us pass safely.
We’re all out of the current now, close together. “Did you see it?” asks Faro.
“No, nothing.”
“Up ahead. It will turn soon and come back. That’s what they do. They circle, like this …” He draws an oval shape through the water with his hands.
“What kind of shark was it?” asks Conor.
“What did you call the sharks from the Groves, Sapphire?”
“Great Whites. But they know us, Faro!”
“Wait. Look ahead. He is coming again.”
It’s just a dot in the water, and then it grows towards us like a train first seen way down an empty line. “He’s coming straight for us.”
“No, he will pass us,” says Faro. He does not take his eyes off the shark. As he predicts, the shark swerves left to pass us on our right. He is a Great White for sure – as big as a basking shark but he moves like a knife through the water. I see his closed, underslung jaw, his pale belly and one cold, dull eye. He surges past us like a missile. In a few seconds he is small in the distance, then he disappears.
“He’ll pass closer next time,” says Faro.
“Doesn’t he know us? Isn’t he one of the patrol?”
“No.”
“Do sharks ever attack the Mer?” asks Conor. His voice sounds steady.
“Sometimes they refuse to hear that we are Mer. They hear that we are seals. This one – I am not sure. I think he knows who we are. He may be a follower of Ervys. I know that Ervys has taken time to make friends among the sharks. But even Ervys – I can barely believe that any Mer would turn a shark against his own kind.
Faro scans the water. There are no fish now. Every flicker of movement has been stilled by the shark.
“He’s coming again,” says Conor quietly. “Maybe we’d better believe it, Faro.”
We turn to face the shark. It passes a little closer this time. If it came nearer – if it even grazed our skin – it would rip it to ribbons. And then we’d bleed – there’d be blood in the water. Blood brings more sharks.
I clench my fists over my chest. I’ve got to keep calm. Sharks can smell panic. I must not think about its teeth.
“If you hit them on the nose, doesn’t that scare them off?” says Conor.
You might as well try to hit the nose of an express train as it thunders towards you. The shock would knock you out. You wouldn’t even know when the shark opened his mouth–
No, Sapphire. Don’t. I feel sick. My stomach is a knot of terror.
“It’s coming again,” says Elvira.
“I am going to try and make it recognise me,” says Faro.
This time the shark comes so close that its wash hurls us through the water, separating us. I swim frantically, arms and legs thrashing, trying to see where the others have gone. Through a churn of bubbles I recognise Conor’s outline.
“Saph!”
“I’m here.”
“Faro? Elvira?”
We are all safe. We grab hands so that next time the shark won’t throw us apart. But it’s not going to work. The shark is huge. It could toss three of us aside like plastic toys, while it turned and seized the fourth. It is taunting us, stretching out the attack so we have time to feel all the terror it wants us to feel.
The terror in my mind is so great that there is no space for anything else. A dark flood of it swallows my brain cells. All I can feel is fear. I picture Conor torn away in the shark’s mouth. His screams for rescue. The shark shakes him like a doll, but he’s not a doll. He’s my brother and he’s alive and he knows what’s happening until the second that the shark rips him apart. Would I have the courage to fight the shark for Conor, even though I knew there was nothing I could do to rescue him? Would Conor come for me if I was the one the shark took first?
The terror eases a little. Conor would fight the shark and so would Faro, even if they knew it was useless. They would rather lose their own lives than live with not having tried to rescue me. And I’d rather die fighting for them. Don’t think about the shark; think about the others, I tell myself.
“The shark’s mind is closed to us,” says Faro. “I can’t make him know that I am Mer.” His voice stays calm, but there is no hope in it. The shark will circle us once or twice more, and then, when we’re stretched to breaking point, he’ll close in for the kill. There is nothing we can do to stop it.
“Hold on. When he’s ready to strike, go for his eyes. Even if he gets you in his jaws, feel for his eyes. If he gets one of us, the rest must keep fighting.”
We huddle together as close as we can, as if we’re one body. There’s a bit of comfort in not being alone. Faro tries to push me behind him, but I resist.
“I am stronger than you are, little sister.”
“No,” I say. “My nails are longer than yours. Better for gouging its eyes out.”
We peer ahead into the water. Every nerve in my body strains for the first sight of the shark. “He’s coming,” says Faro.
Out of the distant water a dark shape appears, and starts to grow. But at the same moment the water churns above us. Oh God, it’s another shark, attacking from a different direction. We are finished now.
They surge past us, so close their bodies almost touch us. They separate so that some of them are above us, some below, some to our left and some to our right. They are almost nose to tail as they begin to circle us …
Familiar shapes of snout and tail. Glistening bodies, much smaller than the shark’s. Small, intelligent eyes. Within a few seconds a cage of dolphins protects us. Now they face outward to fight off the shark.
He barrels towards us, coming in for the kill. As he turns in I see his belly and the gape of his jaw. At this moment the dolphins start to thrash the water. We can see nothing. Shark and dolphins disappear and the water turns white around us. We cling to each other. Our ears thunder as the dolphins beat the sea with their tails. We are hurled from side to side, thrown against each other. Something strikes my arm in an explosion of pain. The dolphins are fighting for us. The frothing bubbles around us are no longer white, but red with blood. We’re in the eye of the battle but we’re not fighting and we don’t know what’s happening, or who’s winning. I catch one glimpse of the shark, its mouth wide, its rows of teeth so close that I can see the filth trapped in them. The sea convulses, the shark’s jaw slices sideways, and he disappears.
I cling so hard to Faro that I don’t know if it’s his heart thundering or mine. His hair sweeps across my face, hiding everything. But I sense that the dolphins are still fighting for us. Their strength, determination and courage fill my mind like the beam from a lighthouse, driving away the terror that almost swallowed me.
At long last the storm begins to ease. The blur of the dolphins slows. Now we see them separately. There are at least ten dolphins swimming around us in circles, guarding us while others plunge off in all directions and then return. One dolphin swims slowly back into the circle. There is a deep gash in her side and her blood rolls out into the water, clouding it. There is no sign of the shark.
“Are you hurt, Saph?” asks Conor.
“Only on my arm. It’s not much.”
“I will look at it for you later,” says Elvira.
It seems very strange to
hear one another’s voices again. In my mind I had already lost them, but here they are. Faro, Conor, Elvira. The four of us are still safe, and still together. The sea no longer drums with terror. The shark has gone.
The sea rings with dolphin music. Long ago, when I first came to Ingo, I could only hear clicks and whistlings from the dolphins. Then words began to come clear, as fish show up against the sea bed once you’ve spotted their camouflage. Now I hear the full music of dolphin language as they sing to one another:
Wave-Rider struck the attacker on the gill pouch
The sons of the pod fought beside him
The daughters of the pod tamed the blood-shedder
Who is wounded?
Scylla is wounded
Is it her blood that runs in the water?
Her blood runs in the water but she will not die. She beat the attacker on the nose with her snout
Does she wish to be carried to the surface?
No, she has still got strength enough to swim
Then let us greet these little ones whom we have protected
The dolphin with a gash in her side is nudging close to me. I stretch out my arms to her and embrace her. “Dear Scylla. You saved our lives. Are you very badly hurt?”
“Not very badly,” answers the dolphin. Her voice is weak, but calm.
“All of you saved our lives,” I go on. “We are so, so grateful. Another minute and the shark would have killed us.”
“It was not time for you to die, my sister,” murmurs Scylla. “You have a long journey to make. You must stay alive.”
“I certainly want to,” I say fervently, and Scylla starts to laugh then stops because it hurts.
Another dolphin swims up at high speed, and stops with the sudden, brilliant dolphin dead-stop that amazes me afresh every time I see it. I am sure I recognise him. He looks like the dolphin who rode with Faro when we returned from the Deep to the Groves of Aleph.
“I am Wave-Rider,” says the dolphin. “Quick, we have gained a little time but not much. We dolphins can hold off one shark, maybe two. But if more come we cannot protect you.”
“Do you think they will come?” asks Faro.
“I am as certain that they will come as I am sure that the sun will rise tomorrow,” says the dolphin. “That shark may not return, but others will. They will test us and test us until they break through our defences. We dolphins understand the ways of sharks and rarely have to fear them. But these sharks are different.”
“They are Great Whites, aren’t they?”
“They are Ervys’s creatures,” says the dolphin, and I learn that dolphins’ eyes, usually so warm, intelligent and communicative, can also blaze with anger. “They have gone outside their nature to fight Ervys’s battles. They have made you their prey, not from hunger or from any natural desire, but because they do Ervys’s bidding.”
Elvira swims down to examine the wound in Scylla’s side. The flesh gapes red. The gash is so deep that a layer of fat is exposed. It seems to be bleeding a little less now. Elvira pushes the sides of the wound together while Scylla floats patiently, sculling with one flipper to keep herself in place. It must hurt, but Scylla doesn’t flinch. Another, older female dolphin swims to Scylla’s other side to support her. Gradually, as I stare in fascination, the lips of the wound seem to draw closer together.
“How do you do that, Elvira?” I ask. Elvira does not answer until she has finished stroking together the ragged edges of the red tear in Scylla’s side. Her fingers look as if each of them possesses a deep, sure knowledge.
“It will do better now,” murmurs Elvira to the dolphin. “You must swim slowly, and keep close to your pod until the wound is completely healed. If you feel weak, don’t try to swim at all. Allow the others to support you.”
Elvira’s healing isn’t magical. The gash is still there, but it no longer looks raw and dangerous. It looks as if it will know how to heal itself.
“How did you do that?” I ask again.
“I can’t explain it very well. I am only learning. A year ago I could have done nothing for Scylla. I don’t heal her myself – you understand that, Sapphire. All my hands can do is to remind Scylla’s body of how it wants to be. Not injured, but whole. Sometimes a wound is too serious and I can achieve nothing. Only a great healer like my teacher will succeed with someone who is close to death. Let me see your arm now.”
It’s only a bruise above the elbow. The skin is blackening already. Elvira feels my arm and then my shoulder. She massages the shoulder joint carefully, and then her hands move down my arm and stroke the bruise from sides to centre with a light, butterfly touch. “Your shoulder will be stiff,” she says, “but luckily it was not dislocated. Your arm will hurt, but you can swim. Later I will give you another treatment.”
Wave-Rider, who was silent while Elvira treated us, now says, “We must hurry before the shark tells his fellows where we are. The sharks believe that you are going south.”
“Of course we must travel south,” Faro cuts in. “There’s no other way to make the Crossing of Ingo. Since the time of our ancestors …”
“You will never make the Crossing if you continue south,” goes on the dolphin. His voice is calm and logical. “If you go south, the sharks will swallow your bones. Even if you escape them – which cannot happen, I think – Ervys will have set other traps in your way. He is determined that you will not make the Crossing of Ingo.” The dolphin’s skin ripples as he flexes his muscles. “Ervys fears you. If Ingo is healed, and the human world and our world can live without enmity, then the Mer will not need him. This is what Saldowr tells us.”
The thought of the sharks hammers at my mind. We’ve got to get away.
“We could go north,” says Conor.
“North?”
“The world’s round, isn’t it? Surely we can still cross Ingo if we go north.”
“North?” repeats Faro with such intensity that at first I think he’s angry with Conor. It’s another case of Breaking All the Laws of the Mer, I suppose. But maybe it’s better to break a few laws than to end up in a shark’s belly …
“North!” Faro mutters again. His eyes glow. “North, of course! Why didn’t I think of that? No Mer ever made the Crossing of Ingo that way—”
“But, Faro, they must have done,” I break in. “Don’t you remember you once told me that some of the Mer dived under icebergs and met ice bears with claws like hooks. There aren’t any bears in the south – at least I don’t think there are.”
“The bears are only a story for children,” says Faro.
“Stories have to come from somewhere,” says Conor. “Polar bears only live in the Arctic as far as I know. Maybe long ago the Mer did travel that way.”
And maybe Faro believes us. “A northern Crossing …” he says as if to himself. Longing and excitement stir in his voice. “It will be an even greater adventure …”
Elvira, by contrast, looks distinctly cross. “But, Faro,” she says in a tone of sweet reason, “if the Mer have taken the southern route for generations, then surely that must be because it’s the best one? Why risk going where none of us knows the way?”
“Why risk anything at all? Why not go home and let Ervys rule over Ingo?” snaps Faro.
Elvira refuses to lose her temper. “You know I didn’t mean that. But we have to be practical.”
“Practical? So which do you think is the practical choice? Being eaten by a shark, or giving up and going home in shame?” It looks as if we’re on the brink of a full-scale sibling row – I wonder what Elvira will look like when she’s in a real rage – but Conor cuts through their argument.
“We can go through the Arctic Ocean. How frozen will it be now in October, Saph?”
“I don’t know. It starts to freeze up again in August, I think.”
“I wonder if we could dive under the Pole. I don’t suppose it matters how thick the ice is, as long as there’s free water under it. There’s a channel between Asia and America – I can’t r
emember what it’s called. It freezes in winter, but we can swim under the ice and then south again. We’ll be into the North Pacific by then …”
“North Pacific,” says Faro a little scornfully. Where is that written on the water? he’ll demand if I say “Atlantic”.
“Call it what you like,” says Conor impatiently. “We haven’t got time to argue. We can’t let ourselves be killed. We can’t give up. That only leaves one option.”
“North …” Faro lingers on the word as if he likes the taste of it. “I have gone some way north, but never far. There are currents which will take us there, but they are wild and dangerous. Ervys will not think of us taking the Northern Passage. The whales and the fulmars say that the ice joins together and becomes the Frozen Ocean.” I think of Dad’s map and the vast, shapeless mass of ice to the North.
“Everyone knows that there are monsters to the North, made of snow and ice,” Faro goes on. “They prowl the surface of the Frozen Ocean and sometimes they plunge deep into the water, searching for prey. Ervys will expect us to try again by the south. He will keep his forces there, waiting for us …”
“Let him wait! We’ll be long gone by the time he realises!” says Conor excitedly.
Conor and Faro both laugh aloud, showing their teeth. They slap hands as Conor taught Faro to do. How alike they are. Their warm dark colouring, their brown-black hair, the strength in their arms and shoulders and the fierce determination on their faces. I wish I could feel as confident that we can outwit Ervys. Once he finds out that we haven’t gone south, won’t he pursue us?
“What do you think of the North, little sister?” Faro asks me.
“I prefer it to the sharks.”
Faro laughs again. “What about the ice monsters?”
“I don’t believe in them,” I say firmly. “They are mythical creatures.” And then I think uncomfortably, As I believed the Mer were before I came to Ingo.
“When we come to the monsters I will tell them that you don’t believe in them.”
Faro’s face gleams with delight. He seems to have thrown off the memory of the sharks as a seal’s skin throws off water. For the first time since his injury, he throws himself forward and executes a slow but perfect somersault.