called me ‘little sister’. I said I wasn’t his sister, and he looked as if he wanted to tell me something, but then he didn’t. And then, when he was leaving us at the boat, he said it again. Little sister.
I wish I’d thanked him. And those somersaults were amazing. I’d love to learn to do somersaults like that. Maybe Faro would teach me one day.
No, don’t think of Ingo now. Don’t let Ingo get too strong in your heart, or it will crowd out everything. I’ve learned that now. It’s what the first Mathew Trewhella did, when he followed the Zennor mermaid and left Annie behind to give birth to his son without him.
I used to think that when a child was born, a parent made a promise to stay with him. Or her. But if there’s a promise, it can be broken. That first Mathew Trewhella broke his promises. I wonder if he ever forgot them, or did the torn edges of his promises hurt him to the end of his life?
When someone goes away from you suddenly, without warning, that’s what it’s like. A rip, a torn edge inside you. I have a torn edge in me, and Dad has a torn edge in him. I’m not sure if those edges will still fit together by the time I find him.
And I will find him. That’s more than a promise. It’s the next level up from a promise: it’s a vow.
It’s evening now. I’ve decided to clear the garden that’s been neglected since Dad went. I’ve been digging up weeds, chopping back brambles and piling up the rubbish into a heap. Dad would be pleased. I’m hot and sweaty but it feels good. Conor’s gone into St Pirans with Mum, but I’m all right on my own. Because… because something wonderful has happened. I have got someone with me. She’s lying on the path, watching me intelligently. Sometimes she gets up and investigates one of the million smells of the garden that only dogs can recognise.
No, she’s not my dog yet. But I’m working on it. She’s visiting just for a week, while Jack’s family is on holiday. We’re going to see how she gets on here.
“Supper soon, Sadie,” I tell her, and she thumps her tail. She understands every word I say.
“There now, Sadie, don’t you think Dad would be pleased if he saw how much I’ve done?”
The bees are going home after working all day in the flowers. One of them brushes past me and I wonder if it’s going home to Granny Carne’s hive. It stops, and burrows into a snapdragon flower. I can hear it buzzing and bumbling around inside. Maybe it’s stuck? No, slowly it emerges.
Suddenly an idea strikes me. Maybe, if Conor could talk to the hive, I could talk to one single bee?
“Um – listen, can you hear me?”
But as soon as I start talking to the bee, I know it’s not going to work. I haven’t any of the feeling in me that Conor described. To be honest I don’t believe that I have any earth magic at all. Sure enough, the bee takes no notice of me, and flies off with its load of pollen.
At that moment, a shadow falls over me. I look up quickly. There’s no one there, but Sadie is on her feet, bristling, a growl starting in the back of her throat. And the evening sun’s not so bright. No, the light’s changing. It’s going a strange colour, greenish blue, like the colour of underwater. But the sea can’t come here! Ingo is not allowed to break its bounds, I know that.
“Sadie!”
Sadie backs against me, growling loudly now, pressing herself against my body. She’s terrified, although for some strange reason I’m not afraid. But something’s about to happen, I know it is.
“Myrgh kerenza,” says a voice. It is so close, so familiar, that I can’t believe there is no one else in the garden. “Myrgh kerenza…”
My mind stretches, and discovers the meaning of the words. Dear daughter. Only two people in the world can call me by that name. “Dad!” I whisper. “Is it really you?” Dad here, in his own garden, at home…
But no one answers. Slowly, the light begins to change. The green-blue tinge of the light fades to the warm gold of evening. Sadie moves away from me, shakes herself all over as if she’s coming out of the water, and barks and barks and barks.
“Quiet, Sadie!”
I listen hard, but all that I can hear are the normal sounds of a summer evening. But I feel warm. It’s a good feeling. I am Dad’s myrgh kerenza. His dear daughter. Somewhere he knows it, and I know it too. After Conor talked to the bees, he knew that Dad was alive. I believed Conor, but I still didn’t really know it.
But now I do.
FOR ISSY CHEUNG
CONTENTS
