Stormswept. Part 18

"Malin! It's Morveren."

"Ha!" he cries. It's a harsh, guttural cry and it makes me even more afraid. His eyes meet mine in the moonlight. I put down the groundsheet and kneel on the rock, leaning over.

"We've come to take you to the sea."

"To Ingo," he says. There is water glistening on his forehead, or maybe they are drops of sweat. His eyes are very bright.

"Malin, please, we have to hurry."

Very slowly, as if his rush from the water has been the last spurt of energy and he has no more, he swims to the rock. I reach out my hand for his and nearly cry out with shock. He has been in the water yet his skin is burning hot. Now he's close to me I see that his eyes are blank and glittering with fever.

"Malin, it's me."

"I know you," he says, frowning with effort.

"Can you climb out on to the rock? Jenna and I have got the groundsheet. We can carry you down."

Even as the words leave my mouth I see there's no chance of that. I'll have to get in the water and help him. "Jenna, get down on the ledge. I'll lift him. We can roll him on to the groundsheet. "Malin, is your wound bad again?" I ask him fearfully, but he shakes his head.

"I have fever for Ingo," he says in a harsh, unfamiliar, dried-up voice.

He's been in the pool too long. I was stupid, I didn't understand. All the time I was worrying about his wound healing, and I didn't think about what it was doing to him, to be out of the sea for so long. No wonder his voice sounds parched. He is on fire. I slip into the water and put my arms around him. If he were human he would be dead already. No human could run a fever like this and survive. The heat of him burns into my skin.

"Malin, Jenna, listen." He's slipping down. I'm going to lose him in a minute. "I'm going to dive to the bottom of the pool then I'll turn, I'll kick off as hard as I can and it'll lift him. Malin, Jenna will catch hold of your hands and then I'll keep on pushing and we'll get you out."

It's the only plan I've got but even I don't really think it's going to work. I dive down. Tonight, King Ragworm Pool tastes choking, fetid, dead, as if the giant ragworm is still curled there at the bottom, corrupting. I shiver as I sense what it must be like for Malin to be trapped here. I touch the rock with my fingers, then twist sharply into a somersault and kick off as hard as I can from the slimy bottom of the pool, and push Malin upwards. As I do so he gives a lash of his tail and our combined force brings him halfway out of the pool. Jenna grabs his hands, I push, bracing my feet against the rocky side of the pool, she pulls and after a blind, choking struggle he is on the ledge.

I am trembling as I clamber out of the pool. I'm sure he is hurt. But not a sound escapes from Malin's lips as we wrap him in the groundsheet.

"He's so hot!" says Jenna.

Malin's face looks like something carved out of rock. He has gone a long way inside himself, in order to endure our clumsy shoving and pulling. "I'm sorry," I say to him, "I'm so sorry," and to my horror a tear drops on to his face. That's all he needs. He should be the one crying, not me. But he opens his eyes for a flash of a moment, and I know that he recognises me this time, and knows that I'm trying to help him.

Getting Malin down from the rock is much harder than it was to climb up with him. I have my arms under his, and Jenna has the knotted end of the groundsheet. We go slowly, bracing ourselves as his weight shifts and we feel blindly for the next foothold down. Once Jenna slips, teeters and almost falls backwards, but she just manages to throw her weight forward, jarring Malin but landing safe against the rock. I lean forward to wipe the sweat out of my eyes with the back of my hand, still holding Malin.

"Are you OK, Jen?"

"Banged my elbow," she mutters through her teeth, and we go down another half-step, and another. I'm beginning to think it's going to be all right, we're going to do it, we've only got to get him across the sand, when Jenna says sharply, "Mor. Look behind you."

I glance over my shoulder, and freeze. Two lights are moving. They vanish then reappear. Twin lights. Headlights. They're moving slowly down the track on the other side of the dunes. They are way down the other end of the beach but they are heading towards us. No tractor would be out at this time of night.

"It's them," whispers Jenna.

I grasp hold of Malin. "We've got to get down faster."

"But it'll hurt him-"

"It's his only chance."

We are too far away for the headlights to pick us out, even if they were turned full on us. We still have a few minutes. Malin's dead weight slips and slides as we half climb and half slither down the face of the rock, b.u.mping, bruising, but twice as fast as we were before.

"I'm down!" says Jenna, and the next moment my foot touches sand. As we swing Malin away from the rock I realise I'd completely forgotten about Digory. I call him, and he creeps out from a cleft of the rock.

"I was hiding."

"Quick, stay close to us." I don't want to frighten Digory but Jenna's looking over my shoulder as we start to stagger towards the sea, every muscle in our bodies burning under Malin's weight.

"They're coming! They're over the dunes," she says. Her eyes are big and black with fear.

"Digory, stay here!"

He's running around us, getting in the way. Suddenly he dives under Malin and lifts him from below. He wants to help by taking some of Malin's weight, but he's getting in my way. Jenna sobs for breath as we break into a half-trot. Iron bands are tightening around my chest. We can't go any faster. The groundsheet's slipping and Malin's a dead weight. I'm scared that he's unconscious, and then even if we can get him into the sea he won't be able to swim away.

I can hear the engine now. The wind scours sand into my eyes but I can't wipe them.

"Mor, they've seen us!"

"Run!" The headlights bounce as the vehicle rolls down the beach, engine revving. It's not a van, it's a pick-up truck. It's coming straight at us. "Run!"

The sea roars and the wind buffets us but all we hear is our panting breath. The sand is wet now. I can't do this any more, my arms are on fire, I can't do it but I've got to. The wind pushes harder but it's behind us now, pushing us to the sea. There is black shining water close now.

A wave licks my feet. Sand churns round our feet as if it wants to hold us back. We stagger and almost fall. Digory is pushing as hard as he can to help.

"They're out of the truck!" shouts Jenna above the noise of the wind. I turn to look over my shoulder and see dark figures leaping from the open doors and starting to run. We're not going to make it. When the tide's this far out it takes ages to get into deep water.

"Help me," I say, not aloud but deep in my mind. I don't know who I'm talking to, but it's not Jenna or Digory. "You've got to help me."

I brace myself, get a tighter hold on Malin and plunge forward. The water's getting deeper. As it swirls over my knees I hear shouts behind me, hunting cries from a dark place I've never been before. The moon glares in my eyes as if it wants to come down and touch the water. The sea is moving too. Surging, lifting, getting deeper.

"Jenna!"

We are thigh-deep, waist-deep, sideways on to the tide now. The hunters are in the water. All at once I hear another cry, ahead of me, coming out of the water out the back, beyond the surf. One cry and then another, joining, rising, as wild as the sea itself. Ingo.

"Jenna, stop!"

We've got to unwrap Malin. If he can't get out of the groundsheet he'll die. Fumbling, desperate, we tear off the clinging canvas. Another wave rises, hiding us for a second from the sh.o.r.e.

"Malin!" I uncover his face: still, carved, remote. He's gone somewhere I can't find him. "Malin!"

I am almost off my feet. The cry of the Mer beats in my ears like a drum as the water lifts me, but it's too late. A hand grabs my arm. I turn in terror and Aidan Helyer's face thrusts into mine, savage with triumph, teeth bared.

"I've got you now!" he shouts, and lifts his head to yell to his men, "Over here! Over here!"

"Malin, swim!" I scream. Digory is around my legs, swimming, pulling off the last of the groundsheet while Jenna hauls at Malin to get him away. "He's got me!" I scream again. "Leave me, Jen, get Malin and Digory away!"

I twist in Bran's dad's grip. If I can get free a bit I can head-b.u.t.t him. I've let go of Malin but Aidan Helyer is plunging around trying to get hold of him while keeping a tight grip on me. Jenna catches Digory up in her arms, lifting him high out of danger. But where's Malin? Oh G.o.d, I think he's sunk down, unconscious. I see shadowy figures on the sh.o.r.e and my heart freezes in despair. They've got us now. Aidan Helyer swears violently. "You d.a.m.ned vixen!" and sucks his other hand. In the sharp moonlight I see a ring of teethmarks. "Where's that freak gone? Tell me or I'll stick your head underwater until you find your tongue!"

There is a violent swirl in the water. I see a strong seal tail, and then a stream of dark hair. Malin! I reach towards him but he disappears. My feet are only just touching the sand now. The tide's dragging us out. The water around us thrashes again, and I taste salt. Aidan Helyer's fingers dig deep into my arm but I'm not so scared of him now. I pull away, pulling him with me, deeper into the sea. The salt pours over my lips into my mouth and I breathe in the sweetness of it. Ingo. I am in Ingo and Ingo has come to save me. Push my head under the water if you want to, Aidan Helyer, you'll only push me into my own world. I twist and struggle but I can't get out of his grip and as long as he's holding me I can't cross into Ingo. He doesn't care what happens to me. If I drown, he'll make sure he's far away.

Someone else is there at his shoulder now. Bran. Bran Helyer. He's told his father where to come. Now he wants to be in at the kill and the others will be coming after him.

"I hope a you die a Bran Helyer," I gasp as I struggle to free myself from his father. Malin's gone. He's escaped. I should be glad but I feel a terrible empty despair. He didn't try to help me. He left without even saying goodbye.

A cry comes out of the dark, so angry and anguished that even Aidan Helyer turns.

"Bran!" It's Jenna, farther out than us now, holding Digory, fighting the tide, struggling to get back to me.

Bran freezes. He's close enough that I see his face go blank with shock.

"Don't do it, Bran!"

Aidan Helyer's nails dig deeper into my arm. As I fight and struggle he catches me a blow across the face with the back of his other hand. There's a burst of bright colour behind my eyes.

"Bran!" Jenna's scream cuts the air like a knife. I open my eyes, sick and dizzy, to see Bran backing away from his father. He glances behind him then plunges sideways, parallel to the beach, and as he does so he yells out to the dark figures in the shallows: "Help me! This way! I've caught the freak!"

There's an explosion by my feet. I'm knocked aside by a heave of water but Aidan Helyer doesn't let go. I go down, he goes down with me and through surging sand and water I catch a glimpse of a shape I know. Strong arms and shoulders, hair down to his waist and swirling like seaweed round a rock. And a tail like a seal's tail, full of power, jack-knifing through the wave. I pull back from Aidan Helyer and catch the look of raw shock on his face. Whatever he thought the freak would be like, this isn't it. Malin turns sharply, banks, and comes straight at me. I see what's in his hand. He must have kept that sharpened stone all the time we were carrying him. Malin stops dead in the water, as only the Mer can. His arm brushes mine. It's not burning now. We are in Ingo and Malin is strong. He doesn't look at me, only at Aidan Helyer.

"Let go of her," he says.

Bubbles of air come out of Aidan's mouth. His short hair bristles as if he's been electrocuted. I know what he feels. His lungs are burning and he feels they are about to burst. He needs the air and he can't have it because although he's the one holding me, I am the one holding him down. Any moment now he'll let go and burst up through the surface.

Malin raises the stone high.

"Release her, before I give your blood to Ingo."

I know he will. This is not a game and Malin is not a boy. He is Mer now, fierce, broad-shouldered and better able to fight in the water than any human being. He's in his element. He'll do battle against everyone who wanted to take away his freedom and reduce him to a caged animal. Aidan knows it too. His hand drops from my arm but before he can escape to the surface, Malin seizes him in an iron grip. He knows as well as I do that Aidan Helyer needs air, and he's not going to let him have it.

"You have hurt my friend," says Malin, looking down at the blood and swelling on my arm. "I think I will kill you anyway, so you will do no more harm." He weighs the stone in his hand, looking directly into the man's eyes, not taunting him but preparing him.

I am in Ingo. Ingo's salt fills me and makes me whole. My blood fills with the Mer vengeance that Malin is about to carry out. I am with him, because I know that Ingo must have Aidan Helyer's blood so that no other human will learn his story and come to hunt down the Mer.

There is another tumult in the water and Eselda is here, pale, desperate, her fists clenched. She must have seen the men from the distance where the Mer were waiting. She's taken the risk of entering the shallows because she feared they'd captured her son. She looks from Malin to Aidan Helyer to me, and then back to her son. I see she has understood everything. She puts her hand on Malin's arm, and he speaks to her in Mer, without taking his eyes off Aidan Helyer.

"An downder ke, kerra mammi." The words are Mer but as they enter my ears I understand them. He is telling her to go back to the deep. Eselda shakes her head. She's staying here, and as long as she's here Malin can't smash down the stone on his enemy.

Time seems to have frozen. A few more bubbles drift from Aidan Helyer's mouth. His face is contorted and his teeth clenched. He will have to take in air soon and then he will breathe water, and drown without Malin even needing to kill him. Let him drown, I say in my head, let Ingo take him and keep your own hands free of blood. But Eselda has a different plan. She releases Malin and swims forward. Aidan Helyer isn't struggling any more. Maybe he's frozen, too. Eselda begins a strange, liquid song, a chant maybe or a spell. As she sings she pa.s.ses her hands in front of Aidan Helyer's eyes, to and fro, as if she is weaving her spell out of the waters of Ingo. His eyes follow her, hypnotised. She looks like a witch. A sea-witch. Her long black hair streams around her, making a cape over her body, and her song streams from her, rising and then falling to a soft croon like the noise of the sea on a summer night. Aidan Helyer's face becomes smooth. His mouth opens a little. His eyes aren't glaring any longer, but fixed on something faraway. He looks like a child a a baby, even. He stares beyond Malin and Eselda, and he's forgotten me completely.

"Mother, you want to steal his death from me," says Malin quietly. I don't know this time whether he is speaking Mer or English, but whichever it is, Eselda nods and continues her weaving of song.

"Malin," I say timidly.

"She is taking away his memories. He will forget everything," says Malin, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. He wants Aidan Helyer to suffer, not forget. At last Eselda falls silent. Aidan Helyer hangs still in the water, neither breathing nor drowning. Suddenly, with a contemptuous shouldering, Malin shoves him upwards, away from Ingo, through the surface and back into his own world. "Let him swim or not swim," says Malin in the same tone, "and his friends with him. Mammi, an downder ke."

Eselda still has that witchy, trance-like look on her face. She embraces Malin quickly, turns, and plunges away towards the deep water without another word. I try to imagine Mum doing that after one of us being lost and feared dead or kidnapped. No questions, no big reunion hugs. No tears. Eselda loves him, though, you can see that.

"All his memories?" I ask hesitantly.

"Only what he has seen of Ingo. She has no power to do more than that. He will forget us and there will be no human vengeance on Ingo. She was right, but I still wish..." He looks at the stone in his hand, with its sharp edge that could break a man's skull. "I wish that I had killed him before my mother came to us."

"Malin... Have you ever killed anyone?"

He laughs and his teeth gleam white, although the wild look is still on his face. "Of course not. I am Mer and I live among my people. We do not fight and kill as humans do, unless we are driven to protect ourselves."

I shiver. His talk of killing feels much too real. If Eselda had come a few moments later a if Malin hadn't listened to her... But Malin never wanted to hurt anyone. No, it was Aidan Helyer who attacked us a but did he deserve to die? My thoughts twist in confusion, and I shake my head to clear it. "But you're all right again, Malin. You're well," I say, glancing at his tail. The ridged scar is deep, but no longer raw. Ingo is already healing it. Malin's eyes are clear and his burning fever has gone.

"I am well because I am in Ingo," he says. "And you, Morveren, how do you feel?"

"Oh, I'm fine-" I begin automatically, then I realise it's not true. I'm not fine. I'm so much more than that. I feel as if I could dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean, or race with dolphins and win. I feel like myself, but a hundred times more so than I've ever dared to be. It's as if I've been pretending to be Morveren Trevail all my life, but now I understand what it's really like to be me. Even the bruises on my arms where Aidan Helyer gripped don't hurt any more. The most amazing thing of all is that in spite of everything that's happened I don't feel shocked, scared, angry or even worried. I feel at peace. I feel as if I am at home, where I belong.

"I'm fine," I say again, and this time I really mean it.

"Come with me, Morveren."

"Come with you?" I'm sure of what he's asking but I can't answer straight away. My stomach lurches as if I've been walking in the mist and suddenly the mist has cleared to show that I'm standing on a cliff edge. Far below, the ships are so small they look like toys.

"You are Morveren and your name was given to you rightly," Malin urges me. "You have saved my life and you are one of us. You feel it. You know it. Ingo welcomes you. Your brother will come with you and make music with us."

"My brother?" It takes me a second to connect. Of course: Digory.

"Morveren, all will be well for you if you come with me."

As he speaks, I seem to understand the meaning of my name for the first time. Morveren. Mer girl. That's why salt is sweet to me and I'm more myself in Ingo than I am in the air. I'm not impatient here and I don't get angry. I know who I am and what I'm meant to be doing. Longing overwhelms me. I can follow Malin, and be at home here for ever. For a while I'll still be human but day by day my body will change and my skin will darken until I have the strong seal tail of the Mer and the blue-dusk complexion. I'll cut through the waves with a lazy side-swipe of my tail. All those Mer who were dancing in the great hall will become my friends. I won't have to struggle to stay afloat on top of the water, or go into the sea in a wetsuit. I'll be part of it. My hair already floats around me like seaweed and my lungs breathe easily under the waves. Maybe I've already changed so much that I will never want to change back.

Malin smiles at me. That smile on his fierce, harsh face is so sweet and unexpected that it's like meeting the real Malin for the first time. I've only known him in exile from his own element, not free like this. His eyes glow as he takes my hand.

"Everything you have seen of Ingo is only the very beginning," he says. "Come with me, Morveren. Who would choose to live in the air when they could live in Ingo? Who would choose to live with humans when they can live with the Mer? Your people are full of hate and destruction, Morveren. They have no future. They will destroy themselves as they destroy everything that they touch. But you are one of us. You belong in Ingo."

Yes, who would choose... I gaze into Malin's eyes and dreams flow between us. The salt tide beats in my ears like a pulse. We can do anything, if I only choose. We can swim through midnight seas that are as dark as velvet, past sleeping whales and under the hulls of ocean liners. We can explore labyrinths of caves half a mile below the water-line, or race with dolphins in the warm clear waters of the Caribbean. We'd be free for ever and no one could capture us. Aidan Helyer might remember something, in spite of Eselda's spells, but he can babble about mermaids in the pub as much as he wants. No one will believe him. He'll be like all the sailors before him who have told stories of how they've seen mermaids sitting on rocks combing their hair, or luring sailors into the sea to drown. Everyone knows they're only stories. Mermaids aren't real: they're a legend. As long as humans believe that, Ingo is safe. But around me Ingo is real now, so real that it blots out the human world. My thoughts twist and leap like dolphins. I can leave everything behind as if I'm casting off an old skin that doesn't fit me any more.

I shake my head again. The water hums with enchantment, as if some of Eselda's spell has been left in it. "I belong in Ingo," I murmur, repeating Malin's words to hear how they sound. They sound good, as strong and real as the salt water that is pulsing around me, full of life, ready to take me with it out of the bay. I laugh aloud and hold out my hands to Malin. He grasps them.

"You'll come with me, Morveren? You'll really come?" He's laughing too, showing his sharp white teeth. I can feel his heart beating. I open my mouth to tell him that yes, I have chosen, and I have chosen Ingo.

he spell breaks like water shattering into a million droplets.

"Morveren! Morveren!"

It's not Malin calling me now. It's my sister.

"Morveren, I need you! Help me!"

I whirl round but all I see is a confusion of bubbles.

"Jenna, where are you?"

I can't even tell where her voice is coming from. I look wildly one way and then the other. Malin isn't holding my hand any more. He must have dropped it, or maybe I pulled mine away when I turned to find Jenna.

"Malin, listen! It's my sister, it's Jenna. She needs us."