Stormswept. Part 9

No human being could do that. You would need a tail, as powerful as the tail of a seal or a dolphin. I'm too far away to see his face clearly, but I can see the hair streaming over his shoulders. He lifts his arms high and sweeps them out until they almost touch the water, up above his head and down to the water again. It's a signal. He's seen me. He must have been waiting patiently all night long, for some sign of life from the sh.o.r.e.

I glance behind me, at the safety of the beach. I'm only waist-deep. Even if he came after me he wouldn't get to me in time. Mer people can't go on to land. If they are thrown up on to the beach, as Malin was, they're helpless. The Mer man sweeps the air with his arms again. What strength he's got, to be able to raise himself head and shoulders above the water like that.

I've got to go to him. He doesn't want to come any closer insh.o.r.e. He wants me to come to him.

I'm so afraid. I've never been so scared in my life. He's so strong and he's in his element. If he wanted to drown me he could do it without even trying. Maybe he thinks I've hurt Malin, or done what Malin thinks all humans do: try to kill the Mer, or sell them into captivity to make money out of them. But if he thought that, then why would he be signalling to me? He would hide until I was in deeper water, and then attack. No. He really is signalling to me. He must want to find out what's happened to Malin.

I stop thinking. As the next wave comes, I dive under it, and the green water takes me into itself, as it always does.

As it always does... No, this time it is different. Maybe I still have that live water in me. I cut through the water to the ploughed ridges of white sand on the sea floor, and then up again. But I don't rise to the surface, because I've still got plenty of breath. I swim on, fast and sure. I don't know exactly where I'm going, but the sea knows where it wants to take me. My fear has dissolved into exhilaration. I have never, ever swum so far on a single breath. And even when I come up, breaking the surface and pushing my hair out of my eyes, it's not so much because I need to breathe, as that I think I should need to breathe.

There he is. Three or four metres away and watching me. He's even bigger than I thought. Broad shoulders, a craggy, watchful face. He does not smile or seem to greet me. An instant later, he disappears beneath the water.

I tread water, feeling stupid, and then afraid. He didn't want to talk to me. He just wanted to lure me out here. I look back at the sh.o.r.eline and I'm amazed at how far away it is. Much more than the two hundred metres I calculated. How could I have swum all the way out here without taking breath? If I start to swim back, he'll catch me easily, because he'll be so much faster than I am. As my thoughts scurry round, a second dark shape breaks the water, almost close enough to touch. A sleek, shining head rises, and a face looks into mine.

It's a woman. Her skin is dark and faintly, strangely tinged with blue. Her eyes are the colour of mussel sh.e.l.ls. Her hair is long and it swirls around her like a cloak. I look around to see if the man is with her, but there's no one. Only me and the Mer woman, rocking on the swell.

Her eyes fix on mine. I think I have never seen such pain and desperation.

"Malin?" she pleads, as if she hardly dares to say his name.

"He's all right. He's injured but he's all right. We're looking after him. He's in a rock pool, quite safe."

But from the way she's looking at me I can tell she doesn't understand more than one word in ten.

"Malin?" she asks again.

I nod vigorously, trying to rea.s.sure her. Her gaze seems to burn into me. I have an inspiration. I'll try to act out what has happened to Malin. I scoop up water and throw it forward into a wave, while with my other hand I shape a small figure, riding on top of the wave. "Malin!" I say, and show her how the wave caught him and tossed him. I make a flat line for land, and make the wave hurl Malin on to it. I see her flinch, but I hold up my hand as if to say, "Stop, it's not as bad as that." I say "Malin" again, and point to her tail, where the wound was, then act out the gash on my own leg, to show her how deep it was. I try to show how weak he was, and in pain, and then I mime carrying Malin and releasing him into a pool of water. I'm not at all sure she understands, though. Maybe it just looks like a girl waving her arms around. I try it again, and this time her face clears and she nods as if to say, "That's enough, you can stop now."

Then she looks towards land and asks again, "Malin?" But this time I'm pretty sure she's not asking me if he's dead or alive. She wants to know where he is. I search carefully, locate the rocks which hide King Ragworm Pool, and point to it. She looks in slightly the wrong direction.

"No, not there. There." I'm not sure if I should do this, but I take her arm and guide it until she is looking the right way. Her hand points, parallel to mine. Her hands are strong and sinewy. Her skin feels subtly but unmistakeably different from human skin. Suddenly I realise that she's quite a bit older than I thought at first. She's old enough to be- Of course. She's Malin's mother. That's why she looks so desperate. I touch her shoulder to bring her attention back to me. She turns, and I make a cradle of my arms and rock an invisible baby. "Malin?" I ask her, and point to her and then at the invisible baby. She looks completely baffled, but then again, suddenly she gets it. I must be better at drama than my teacher thinks.

"An vamm Malin!" she cries, and now she points to herself and to the invisible baby.

I'm amazed and quite proud of how much we've managed to communicate with only the word "Malin" between us, and then I realise something else and I'm even more amazed. I've been treading water, acting, talking, and not even needing to think for a moment about the effort of staying afloat. I'm as relaxed as I would be if I were standing on dry land.

I wonder if the man who signalled to me was Malin's father. But if he was, why would he go? And why is it that Malin speaks English, but his mother doesn't seem to know a word?

"I want to help you," I say aloud, "but it's so hard when we can't speak to each other."

Her bright eyes search my face, and then, without a word, she dives. Frustration rises in me. How am I ever going to communicate with these people if they keep disappearing? If she would just follow me, I could bring her to Malin. Or close to him, anyway. But still I don't feel cold or tired, even though this is an old summer-weight wetsuit and the wind is blowing over my wet hair. I want to dive down after her, deeper into the sea. Maybe that's the only way I'm going to find out what she wants. I let myself sink just below the surface, open my eyes, and look into the depths.

I don't think I've ever been able to see this clearly underwater. I've swum out a long way, and the water is deep and dark. But it is perfectly transparent to me. There's the sand, far below, and rocks, and a dense tangle of weed. A shoal of sardines flickers across my vision, and then two dark shapes swoop up through the water and the fish scatter. They are so sleek and streamlined that for a second I mistake them for seals, then their figures resolve into a Mer man and a Mer woman. Malin's mother is one, and the other is the broad-shouldered man who first waved to me. They swim up to me at speed and then stop dead in the water. They are Mer, but nothing like any picture or story of the Mer that I've ever known. Their tails are sleek, tough, dark as sealskin and they look immensely powerful. Their skin is dark too, with the faint bluish tinge I've already noticed in Malin's skin. I thought it might be because he was so weak, but it must be a Mer thing. They don't look half-human. You can't even clearly see where the tail ends and the body begins. They look wholly Mer.

"I need to breathe," I think, but I don't move. Whatever happened to me in King Ragworm Pool after Malin poured the live water on me has happened again. I am part of the water and the water is part of me. The woman is staring at me, alarmed. She gestures vigorously with her hands and points up to the surface. These Mer must know about humans. She's afraid I'm going to drown.

"I'm all right," I say. But that's impossible. How can I speak without air in my lungs? I know that I'm speaking, though, and I know they can hear me, just as Malin could hear me. Sound is travelling in waves through the water, from my mouth to their ears. They both stare at me with shock on their faces. They hadn't expected me to be able to breathe beneath the surface, and now I'm talking to them. They glance quickly at each other. Malin's mother says something and at the same time she gestures with her hands so I almost catch her meaning. She's explaining me to him, I think.

The man swims forward a little way and speaks to me in a deep voice that sounds echoey, like sound heard through a seash.e.l.l. He speaks in English, but he's not fluent. His voice struggles with the words as if they are stones in his mouth.

"You search Malin."

He must mean that I've found Malin. "Yes," I say.

"Malin a hurt."

"Yes, he's injured."

"I speak human language. Malin mother speak Mer language."

I wonder why they didn't choose Malin's mother to signal to Digory, and then to me? This man is so intimidating. I wouldn't have been so scared of coming out here to meet a woman. She seems to pick up this thought, because she says something quickly to the man in Mer. The words ripple across my mind and vanish just before I can grasp them. The man says to me, "In me no wish to make fear."

"You're Malin's father?"

"No. Malin father far. Far from this place."

Fine, don't tell me your name then... I point to myself. "Morveren," I say. A quick look pa.s.ses between the two of them, and the man repeats "Morveren?"

"Yes."

"You have Mer name," he says, with a trace of suspicion, "but you are full human."

Although the situation is so serious, I have to hide a smile. He says it as if he's describing a strange and not very attractive species of animal.

"Of course I'm human, what else would I be?"

Malin's mother's glance glints from him to me and back again. I can see just how frustrated she is not to be able to understand. I pillow my cheek on my hands to show her that her son is sleeping, saying once again, "Malin."

"He must-" says the man, groping for words. "He must- healing."

Another stream of liquid sound from Malin's mother. This time it seems to come even closer until it grazes against my understanding and almost makes sense. But not quite. I point to myself again, keeping my gaze on Malin's mother, willing her to understand. "I go to Malin," I say very slowly, miming it as I speak. I am sure she understands. She reaches forward and clasps my hands between hers. Her grip is strong and her face imploring.

"I'll tell Malin I've seen you," I promise, hoping that the Mer man can translate for me, "and I'll come back to tell you how he is. When he is better. We're going to help him, I promise. Me and my sister..."

I've lost her. Her face is full of confusion and hope and her grip on my hands is desperate now. The man speaks to her, and her face clears a little. Maybe he understands human language better than he speaks it. The man speaks to her again and slowly she releases my hands. I hope that she can tell from my face how much I want to help her. The Mer man taps my shoulder, and then points down into the depths of the ocean. The sea-bed is further away than it was the last time I looked down. We must have been drifting out into deeper water. I should be frightened, but I'm strangely calm. There are shadows everywhere. Strong, sleek bodies which you might mistake for seals if you were far away and knew nothing about the Mer. Their faces are turned towards us. They are watching, waiting.

"Malin pobel," says his mother, and this time I don't need a translation. Malin's people. The Mer. "An pobel trist," she goes on.

"Trist?" The word sounds familiar. In French "triste" means sad. Maybe it's the same in the Mer language. The people are sad. Malin's people are sad. That would fit.

"Ingo er trist," says the Mer man.

Ingo. Malin's word.

"Ingo?" I ask, putting as much of my question into my voice as I can. What is Ingo?

For the first time, Malin's mother's face breaks into a smile which transforms it. She opens her arms wide and spreads her hands as if she wants to embrace the whole ocean. "Ingo," she says, and repeats it. "Ingo."

I see. Ingo is where I am. Ingo means the sea a or maybe it's something more. Those waiting shadows frighten me a little. There are so many of them: a whole people, all grieving for Malin. The power of it is overwhelming. Even the water seems to have grown dark. I feel more human and more alone than I have ever felt in my life. There is a choking, burning pain in my lungs. I've stayed down too long. I've got to get to the surface. I look up but it's far away, twenty metres maybe a much too far.

Malin's mother must have seen the change in my face. She seizes my arm and with a single stroke of her tail we surge upwards. We break the surface and I gulp at the air like a puppy that's desperate for water. But as the air enters me I start to cough and choke again. It feels as if air and water are fighting in my lungs and they don't care what happens to me. The battle is between the two of them.

If Malin's mother hadn't been there, I think I might have drowned. Through the red mist of choking her strong arms hold me up, keeping me above the water. I cough and splutter and spit out water. At last the world steadies itself. Air has won. I'm breathing again. I wipe tears and salt off my face while Malin's mother pushes my hair back so I won't choke on that as well.

"Morveren," she says gently. Suddenly I like her very much. She's worried to death about her son but at this moment she seems to be thinking only of me. I give her a weak, half-drowned smile, and she smiles back. She points to herself and says, "Eselda."

"Thank you, Eselda," I say, and I think she understands, because she smiles again. I look round for the line of the sh.o.r.e, beyond the rocking horizon of water. It seems very far away, and I'm so tired. But Eselda isn't going to let me swim alone. She grasps my wrist firmly, her tail sweeps the water and we surge forward.

I've never swum like this before. It's like being part of the sea rather than having to work against it in order to move. Eselda doesn't seem to make the slightest effort, but we skim the water like dolphins. She doesn't take me underwater, but her own face is below the surface, taking in water and not air. I wonder how long she can stay in the air?

The sea races past me, bubbling. I wish I wasn't wearing a wetsuit. It would feel so amazing. The sh.o.r.e is coming towards us, growing clearer and sharper every second. There are the dunes, and there are the rocks, rough and black. There's so much sea everywhere, and so little land. You could easily miss our island, and swim on...

I catch myself. Don't be stupid, Morveren, you can't live in the sea. You'd drown. Haven't you just learned that? If Eselda hadn't been there to help you, you would have drowned like the Polish sailor.

The Mer could have saved him, I think suddenly. Eselda could have held him up, just as she held me up when I needed her. She's probably strong enough to bring a grown man to sh.o.r.e, even in a storm. But the storm was too powerful, even for Malin, I tell myself quickly. I expect it wouldn't have been safe for the Mer to help the sailor, even if they'd wanted to.

Or maybe... Maybe they didn't want to. Eselda helped me, but then I am helping her son and I am his only chance of returning to Ingo. Otherwise, maybe I'd be just another human to the Mer. Alien, not part of their world.

Eselda slows, and stops. We are only about a hundred metres offsh.o.r.e now, and she keeps low in the water. Her head doesn't break the surface. Even a coastguard with binoculars wouldn't see her... Or if he did see a dark, sleek shape beneath the waves, he would think it was a seal.

We don't say goodbye. She squeezes my wrist in farewell, and then lets go. Instantly, she dives. In a few seconds, she has disappeared.

I swim in to sh.o.r.e. I'm not quite as tired now. It feels as if swimming with Malin's mother has given me strength. The colour of the sea changes beneath me, as it becomes shallower. The sun is out and there are glints of turquoise and cobalt. Now I can see my own shadow, swimming along on the sea floor.

I wade out of the sea, and all at once I have no strength left. My legs are so heavy that I can barely push them through the water, but I don't feel cold until I'm out of the sea and the wind blows my wet hair, chilling me until I shiver. The beach is empty. I look at the sun, but it's still low in the sky. I haven't been in the sea for as long as I thought. Time hasn't sped up this time, but slowed down. I feel clumsy with exhaustion as I make my way over to the rocks and scramble up them.

There's Malin. He's not resting against the ledge today, but swimming in a slow circle. The instant my shadow touches the water, he dives. I lean over so that he can see me rather than the shadow of a predator, and he swims up to the surface again. I take a deep breath. Malin's not going to believe what I'm about to tell him.

"You look different, Morveren," he says. "You have a new skin."

"You must have seen a wetsuit before. Don't the Mer see people surfing?"

Click, click go the thoughts behind Malin's eyes, as he tries to pretend he's always known what a wetsuit was. I laugh. "You thought the wetsuit was part of them, didn't you? Go on, admit it. Do all the Mer think that?"

"Of course not," he replies haughtily, and I feel a bit ashamed. Why should the Mer know about wetsuits or anything else about humans? We know nothing about the Mer, apart from fairytales and myths. Malin thinks I'm mocking him. I shouldn't be wasting time anyway. He needs to know about his mother.

"How are you, Malin?" I ask him cautiously. Better make sure he's not going to collapse from shock or anything. "Are you feeling better?" I brace myself, and look down at his tail. I hate seeing the wound there.

The angry red ridge is darker. It's beginning to look less like a raw wound, and more as if the edges of the gash are joining together. In time it will be a scar.

"I am swimming to make myself strong," says Malin, with a touch of pride that makes me feel terrible. This pool is so tiny, compared to the wild, free ocean. Now that I've experienced the strength of the Mer in their own world, I know how seriously the wound has weakened Malin.

"That's really good... Malin, listen..." My tongue feels thick in my mouth. Suddenly it seems almost impossible to tell him that I've been where he longs to go, and seen the person he must long to see. I can't do this when I'm leaning over him from a rock. I push away, and let myself drop into the water. Instantly, as if he's been longing to dive beneath the surface too, Malin sinks to meet me. We are face to face, and once again I'm doing that breathing/not-breathing thing as the water enters me and makes its home in me. Malin is smiling now. He takes my hand and says, "You came to me, Morveren. You are my friend."

"Malin, listen... I've been to... Well, to- to Ingo." The word tastes of salt in my mouth.

Malin goes quite still. His smile dies and he drops my hand. The pupils of his eyes dilate until all I can see is blackness. "Ingo? How do you know what Ingo is, Morveren? What gives you the power to travel there?"

He's angry with me. He thinks I'm trying to invade his world, not help him. I point towards the open sea. "It's out there, isn't it? Ingo, where the Mer live. Pobel Malin," I add, p.r.o.nouncing the words as carefully as I can, and trying to remember how the Mer man said them. Hope and amazement leap into his face.

"You speak my language! Morveren, you have Mer name? It is not only the live water that makes you free here. Maybe you are partly Mer and you never told me?"

In his excitement his English sounds more Mer than it did before. I shake my head. I don't want even a trace of a lie between us.

"No. I'm one hundred per cent human."

"Humans cannot enter Ingo," he says flatly, as hope drains out of his face. He thinks I'm making up a stupid lie.

"I met your mother in Ingo."

Malin's eyes flash. His hand clutches my arm, digging in. "My mother? If you are lying to me, Morveren, I will kill you."

"Of course I'm not lying, you idiot! Why would I do that? Why can't you trust me? Just because I'm human, you think I'll do anything and say anything."

"Just because you are human..." repeats Malin, scanning my face. His grip on my arm hurts but I'm not going to tell him. He'd probably be glad. "If you were Mer, you would not say that, Morveren. There is no *just' with humans. Why do you say you have met my mother? This wound is beginning to heal, but you want to rip it apart."

"I have met her. She told me her name."

"Tell me," raps out Malin.

"She's called Eselda."

Malin lets go of me. His hands come up and cover his face. He doesn't want me to see his emotion. I wait, saying nothing. I am frightened. I don't know how to handle this. For the first time that day, I wish I was at home. Slowly, slowly, Malin uncovers his face.

"How is she? How is my mother?"

"She's well. She was very... sad. You know, because of you disappearing. But now she knows you're alive, and with me."

"How does she know? My mother does not speak human language. Are you sure it was my mother?"

His questions batter me like stones in a storm wave.

"You're hurting me, Malin, let go of my arm. She told me she was called Eselda, and that's how I know her name. Why can't you believe me?"

He relaxes. Colour floods into his face. "It is my mother," he says to himself, very quietly but with such intensity that I realise he must have feared he would never see her again. "Was she alone, Morveren?"

"There was a man with her, a Mer man. I don't know what he was called."

Malin frowns. "My father is far away. I wonder who would come with her? My father speaks your language well, Morveren. It is from him that I learn it, but my mother does not speak it. She does not want human things in her head."

"It would have been a great help if she had learned a bit," I say sharply. I don't like the idea that human things are a kind of contamination.

"Do you speak Mer?" asks Malin coldly.

"An pobel er trist," I say to him, "Ingo er trist."

Malin's face lights up as a flood of Mer pours from his lips.