The Crossing of Ingo. Helen Dunmore

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СКАЧАТЬ and thoroughly over the dense mass of brambles, bracken and furze. The sound comes again.

      “It’s down here!” Conor pushes forward, down the little hidden path that goes to the cove. I’m close behind. “Stop, Saph! Here! There’s someone here.”

      He shines the torch down. A figure huddles on the path. There’s something else – two long pieces of metal reflecting in the torchlight. Conor kneels down. “It’s Gloria Fortune,” he says over his shoulder. “Hold the torch, Saph.”

      I take the torch. “Don’t move her if she’s injured, Con.”

      “I’m not stupid.”

      I recognise Gloria Fortune now. The metal things are her crutches. She must have slipped and fallen.

      “She’s soaking wet,” says Conor.

      “Oh my God.” She has done it. Somehow she has crawled down over the lip of the cliff, down the rocks to the sand. She has got to the sea.

      “Don’t shine the torch in my eyes,” says Gloria. Her voice is faint but steady.

      “Are you all right? What happened?” asks Conor.

      “I’m not hurt. Just – tired. Had to lie down a minute.”

      “You were groaning. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

      “Cold, that’s all. Got to get home – Richard’ll be back soon. He’ll think s-s-something’s – happened to me.”

      “Something has happened to you,” says Conor grimly.

      “I should never have gone down there,” mutters Gloria.

      “Can you get up if Saph and I help you? Your crutches are here. We’ll get you back home, it’s not far.”

      “But, Conor!” I burst out. I can’t go back again. We’re more than halfway to Ingo. The pull has become so strong my whole body is possessed by it.

      “We’ve got to, Saph.”

      Gloria is moving. Slowly, painfully, she rolls over and struggles up on to her knees. She waits, gathering strength.

      “Maybe we should get Richard. If you’ve damaged your leg any more you’ll need a stretcher,” says Con.

      “No!” says Gloria. “He mustn’t see me like this. Help me up.” One on each side, we support Gloria under her arms and help her up. Her clothes are soaked with water. She smells of the sea.

      “What happened?” asks Conor.

      “I thought – thought someone was calling me. Into the water. Don’t know how I got down there…found the way somehow. I think I was on the rocks…A wave came over me and then I was afraid.” Her voice drops to a whisper. I lean close. “There was something in the water that hated me,” I hear her say.

      I feel both horror and relief. Gloria hasn’t been to Ingo. Her Mer blood must be strong enough to take her to the gateway, but not to allow her to enter Ingo alone. There was no Faro there to guide her. What if she had gone into the water and found Mortarow there – or Ervys?

      I thought Granny Carne was protecting Gloria and keeping her safe on the Earth. It must be the Call that is making Ingo so powerful tonight. No one would have seen Gloria go. No one would have missed her, until Richard came home. Gloria might have been found days later, washed up miles down the coast. No one would ever guess what really happened. They’d say it was a terrible accident.

      “You must never do that again,” I say protectively. I can help Conor take her back to her cottage. It will only delay us for a few minutes, and what does time mean tonight anyway? Soon we’ll be in Ingo time, and human clocks will mean nothing.

      “Got to get home – Richard…” mutters Gloria, sounding like an exhausted child rather than the strong woman I know she is.

      Slowly, step by step, we get Gloria home. She is shivering with shock and cold, but it’s not far. The air is still but I feel as if I’m pushing into a strong wind with the effort of turning my back on Ingo. Their rented cottage is only a couple of hundred metres from ours. I don’t even glance at our cottage. I don’t want to see if the gulls are on the roof, or if one of them is flying off to deliver the message to Ervys that Gloria has survived. I remember Faro’s words. They don’t want peace, they want war, and victory.

      Gloria’s cottage is dark. “Thank God, he’s not back yet.”

      We push open the unlocked door. A wave of warmth enfolds us. Conor switches on the light, while Gloria slumps into a chair by the stove. “You need a hot shower,” I tell her.

      “In a minute.” She opens her eyes, reviving. For the first time she cracks a faint smile.

      “We’ll stay with you until Richard comes home,” says Conor.

      “No! He’ll know something’s wrong if he sees you.”

      To be here in Gloria’s cottage is torture. Faro is waiting for us. The Call is dragging at me. The time is now. But Gloria is cold, wet, weak. People die of hypothermia.

      “We’re not going until you’ve had a hot shower and got into warm clothes,” I say decisively.

      Their shower is downstairs. Gloria moves slowly but she seems stronger now she’s in her own place. I wait outside the door, listening to be sure that she’s all right. I hear the shower running, and after a few minutes Gloria comes out wrapped in a blue dressing gown. Conor brings her tea and she settles herself by the stove again, in the opposite chair because the first one she sat in is damp with sea-water.

      “I’ll be all right now.” Gloria is an adult again, competent and calm.

      “Promise me you won’t ever—” I begin, then stop. I don’t think I have any right to ask Gloria for promises. But she looks straight back as if she understands exactly what I mean.

      “Never again,” she says. “Never, ever again.”

      It’s safe to leave her now. As we close the cottage door and turn away down the track we see headlights bumping down off the main road. Richard is on his way home.

      “He’ll look after her,” says Conor.

      “Yes.”

      “They should move,” Conor goes on angrily. “He should get her right away from here.”

      I have nothing to say. I want Gloria to be safe. But denying her Mer blood isn’t going to make her safe, not for ever. There has got to be another way. Not Ervys’s way, with Mer and human battling and Ingo and Earth deadly enemies.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      The cove is brimful of tide. No jumping down from the rocks on to clean pale sand tonight. “We’ll have to climb right out over the rocks until we’re sure we’re above deep water,” whispers Conor. I don’t know why we’re СКАЧАТЬ