The Crossing of Ingo by Helen Dunmore Page B

got me in its grip. It hates me. It wants to destroy me. It will carry me to the back of the cove, smash me against the cliff, drag me into the underwater caves where no one will ever find me …
    Dark despair crawls over my skin. Where is Ingo? Why wasn’t Faro here to greet us as he promised? A wave surges over my face.
    “Why struggle?” says a voice which is so close that it seemsto be inside my head. “Why not let go? There’s no hope of escape. If you stop fighting, it will only hurt for a little while and then it will all be over.” The words seem to echo around the cliffs and the rocks. They are waiting for me to give in. Our cove has become an enemy.
    There was something in the water that hated me.
    Gloria said that. She felt it too. The wave tried to get her but she escaped. She fought her way up the cliff on her crutches. Crawling up the steep, rough rock, dragging herself, dragging her crutches. Doing what no one would ever believe could be done by a woman with a shattered thigh-bone who is waiting for a hip replacement operation.
    The gap between Conor and me has widened. He’s being pulled back too, but in a different direction. I kick my way as hard as I can through the hostile water. I’m not going to look at the sheer sides of the rock, bearing down on me, or at the cliffs behind. Only at my arms sweeping the water aside, and Conor’s head on my left. He’s fighting too, beating his way forward.
    You must never, ever swim out of the cove, Sapphy. The currents are dangerous. Stay in the cove where it’s safe.
    Dad drummed those words into me for years, but tonight I’m certain that they aren’t true. Getting out of the cove is our only hope. Once we are in the open water, then Ingo has got to come to us. Or else—
    Don’t think of that. Just swim.
    The feeling of hatred is growing stronger, as if whatever has possessed our cove knows that we’re about to escape it. I’mswimming as hard as I can, but my limbs are so heavy that they can hardly push the water aside.
    “Saph! Look! I think – I saw Faro – out there–” Conor’s voice comes in gasps. We are both exhausted, but Faro’s name sends a pulse of hope through me. If he’s there, then Ingo is close.
    A few more metres, that’s all. Those rocks aren’t really closing in on us from both sides. It’s an illusion. The thing that hates us wants to frighten us into turning back. Remember how wide the mouth of the cove really is. Remember how easily the
Peggy Gordon
used to sail out. It was wide – safe …
    “We’re through!”
    The drag on my mind and body has disappeared. I’m free. The sea buoys me up, salty and welcoming. It feels neither cold nor warm. It feels – it feels …
    The surface parts, and lets me in. I swim down, and moonlit bubbles stream from my hands. I know there are no air bubbles streaming from my mouth. Down, down, down, through the live, velvety water. I catch a faint, far-off sound, like the boom of sea in a giant shell. I am in Ingo.
    “Greetings, little sister.”
    “Faro! Why didn’t you come?”
    Faro swims close. “Speak softly. There are spies everywhere.”
    Conor swims towards us. “What happened, Faro?”
    “Ervys has made your cove into a Porth Cas. I could not enter it or warn you.”
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
    We are in the moonwater, and there’s enough light to see the anger on Faro’s face.
    “You know that we Mer can enter each other’s thoughts, Sapphire? You know how the Mer reach decisions in the Assembly chamber, by thinking together? Ervys has taught his followers a different way of using that power. They think together and make their hatred into a weapon. It becomes like a living creature, which can be kept in one place until it grows strong enough to change the nature of that place. They have made their Porth Cas at your cove. They knew you would enter Ingo that way.”
    “Couldn’t Saldowr have stopped them?”
    “No. He’s at the Assembly chamber now. Ervys is