dolphin language weaves like music. I hear some of it, and then it slides away. It rushes over my mind, teasing and tickling. I can’t grasp it.
“Please help me. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
She is very close to the boat now. Her eyes look directly into mine, powering their intelligence into me. But I can’t decode it; I can’t get there. My brain fizzes with irritation, just as it does when I’m on the point of solving a puzzle in maths.
And then the connection breaks.
“Hey, Sapphire, that was fantastic fake dolphin language you were talking!” says Mal, and the dolphin turns and dives back to the pod. I think it’s Mal’s appreciation which is fake, but I say nothing. Conor is watching me, silently willing me to shut up and not draw any more attention to myself. And I certainly don’t want everyone in St Pirans to think that I’m a crazy girl who converses with dolphins.
I haven’t conversed with the dolphin. I didn’t understand her and I don’t think she understood me. My brain and tongue couldn’t break the barrier this time, into Mer. The dolphin was so close, struggling to make me hear her, but I couldn’t. Maybe moving to St Pirans has taken me farther from Ingo altogether. I’m losing what I used to know. At this rate I will never, ever speak full Mer. A wave of despair washes over me, and I huddle down into the bottom of the boat.
Mal tags along all the way back to our house. Conor asks him in, but I say nothing. Leave us alone, go away, I think. As if he picks up my thoughts, Mal says, “All right then, I’ll be getting along. See you, Conor. Um… see you, Sapphire.”
“Bye.”
As soon as we’re inside the house, Conor says, “You might be more friendly to Mal. He likes you.”
“He doesn’t even know me.”
“OK, he only thinks he likes you. But you don’t have to be so hard on him. You don’t have to dive away when anyone comes near you.”
I hug Sadie so I can hide my face in her neck. Conor isn’t going to be deflected.
“That dolphin, Saph.”
“Which dolphin?”
“You know which dolphin. The one you were talking to.”
“I couldn’t talk to her properly. I was trying really hard, but I couldn’t. I think it might have been because I was in the Air and she was in Ingo. Even when dolphins leap out of the water, they are still in Ingo, Faro told me that. Or maybe I’m just forgetting everything.”
It’s the first time Faro’s name has passed between us for weeks. Conor frowns.
“Why did the dolphins come? Was it a message from Faro?”
“No. It wasn’t anything to do with Faro, I’m sure of that. It wasn’t exactly a message from Ingo – it was about Ingo. The dolphins were trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t quick enough. I couldn’t pick it up.”
“Did you want to?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I just said. Did you want to pick up their message?”
“Of course I did. It was Ingo, Conor, trying to communicate with me. With us,” I add hastily.
“You don’t have to pretend. It was you the dolphin was talking to. But what I want to know is, do you want to listen? Do you really want all that to begin again?”
“Conor, how could I not want it? It’s Ingo.”
Conor’s eyes search my face. A strange thought strikes me. Conor is trying to decode me, in the same way as I was trying to decode the language of the dolphins. But Conor and I belong to the same species. We’re brother and sister, for heaven’s sake. After a while, Conor says very quietly, “You could if you tried. But you don’t try, Saph.”
I struggle to explain. “It’s not like that. I don’t have a choice. I feel as if I’m only half here. Only half-alive. Our life here in St Pirans is all wrong for me. I feel as if I’m watching it on TV, not living it. Oh, Conor, I wish I was away in Ingo—”
“Don’t say that!”
“It’s true.”
“I know,” says Conor slowly and heavily. “You can’t help wanting what you want. I don’t blame you, Saph. I do know how you feel. It’s so powerful, so magical. It draws you. It draws me, too… But I think that if you try as hard as you can – if you really struggle – you can stop yourself taking the next step.”
“What next step?”
Conor shrugs. “I don’t know. I was thinking aloud.” His voice changes and becomes teasing instead of deadly serious. “But there’s something you haven’t thought of, Saph. You’re so keen to talk to dolphins that you’re forgetting Sadie.”
“What?”
“They don’t have dogs in Ingo, Saph.”
As if she’s heard him, Sadie pushes up close to me, nuzzling in. She always knows when things are wrong, and tries to make them better. Her brown eyes are fixed on my face. How could I have forgotten Sadie, even for a minute? They don’t have dogs in Ingo.
Maybe they do. Maybe they could. Sadie’s not like an ordinary dog. Could she come with me through the skin of the water, and dive into Ingo? I don’t know. I try to picture Sadie’s golden body swimming free, deep in Ingo, with her nostrils closed so that the water won’t enter them. But it doesn’t work: the picture I create in my mind looks like a seal swimming, not like Sadie at all.
Sadie whines. It’s a pleading, plaintive sound from deep in her throat. She puts her front paws up in my lap until her whiskers tickle my face.
“You’d never have got Sadie without Roger,” Conor goes on.” He really pressured Mum.”
I know that’s true, but I don’t feel like agreeing with Conor just now. Besides, why bring up Roger? Roger may have been the one who made sure I got Sadie, but he’s also taken Mum and split my family apart.
Sadie gazes at me reproachfully, as if begging me to admit that my version isn’t quite true. Who split your family apart, Sapphire? Was it Roger, or was it your own father, who loved you and Conor so much that he left you both without a backward look or even a note to let you know where he was going?
Your father, who has never seen you or spoken to you since.
Angry, bitter thoughts rise in my mind. I’m so used to loving Dad, but I’m beginning to realise that it’s also possible to hate him. Why did he go? What father who cared about his children would take his boat out in the middle of the night and never return? I can taste the bitterness in my mouth.
No, I’m not going to let that wave of anger drown me. I’m going to ride it. Dad disappeared for a reason. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to explain it to us yet.
Suddenly an upstairs window bangs.
