The Crossing of Ingo

“You can’t destroy their nest, Con! What if there are babies in it?”

“I won’t do anything to them. And why would gulls try to lay eggs at this time of year anyway? The chicks wouldn’t have a chance of survival.”

“What if they come back and attack you?”

What if the gulls are spying for Ervys? is what I want to say, but I keep quiet. Conor will think I’m imagining things as usual. But to my surprise he says what I’m thinking.

“I don’t want them spying on us.”

“Do you think they are spies, Con?” I ask, lowering my voice to a whisper.

“Whatever they are, I don’t want them there.”

“Don’t get the ladder, Con. Please.” I’ve lost Dad – or as good as lost him. Mum’s gone to Australia. My brother’s got to stay safe.

Conor’s expression changes. “Don’t panic, Saph. I’m not planning to fall off the roof and break my neck. You hold the bottom of the ladder and it’ll be fine.”

The ladder is heavy. We drag it across the garden and hoist it against the wall. It’s the one Dad used when he painted the outside of our cottage. I remember the last time he did that. The fresh white against the storm-battered old paint.

“Hold it like that, Saph. Lean all your weight against it.”

“Be careful, Conor.”

He goes up the ladder quickly. Con’s used to ladders because his bedroom is up in the loft.

“Can you see anything?” I ask.

There’s a pause. Conor is at the top. He hasn’t got anything to hold on to now. He braces his feet on the top rung and leans forward, then carefully stretches to his right, towards the chimney.

What if they come back? If they strike at him now, when he’s off balance, he’ll fall. I turn and scan the horizon. No black dots of gulls. I turn back to Conor. “Is it a nest?” I shout up.

“Yes.” His voice sounds strange. He’s leaning right across to the chimney. His hand is almost in the dark mass of the nest. He’s taking something out of it. Now he’s looking at what’s in his hand.

Conor freezes. Sadie and I stare upwards in suspense. Slowly Conor’s hand closes around whatever he’s found. He teeters as if he’s forgotten he’s at the top of a ladder. For a second I think he’s going to lose his balance. At my side, Sadie lets out a volley of warning barks. I turn around and see dark specks on the horizon, growing bigger as I watch. The gulls.

“Conor! Get down quick! The gulls are coming.”

Conor scrambles down the ladder one handed. As he jumps to the ground, Sadie leaps around him, barking protectively. The sky is suddenly full of gulls. A cloud of beating wings hides the chimney as they circle the nest, screeching out their anger.

Conor’s holding a handful of seaweed. “Is that what the nest is made of?” I ask.

He nods. “It’s all woven together.”

“But gulls don’t make nests like that.”

Conor shrugs. He is very pale. He pushes apart the strands of weed and I see a pale, glistening oval, about the size of a fingernail.

“That’s not a gull’s egg.”

“Look at it, Saph.”

I look at the egg. It is translucent green. Inside it there is a tiny creature, moving. A creature with fins and a tail. A fish. I shudder.

“The nest was crammed with them,” says Conor.

“But if they hatched, they wouldn’t be able to breathe in the air.”

“I don’t know what they are,” says Conor. “Touch the shell, Saph.”

I put out a finger reluctantly, and prod the egg. It is rubbery. There’s liquid inside in which the little fish can swim. I snatch my hand away. There is a ringing sound in my ears. My mouth turns dry.

“Why have they put the eggs on our house?” I whisper to Conor.

“They’re just trying to scare us.”

“Do you think he’s behind it? Ervys?”

“Probably.”

“What are we going to do with this horrible egg thing?”

“Feed it to Mary Thomas’s cat.”

I laugh, but my spine crawls with horror as I imagine fish hatching out of the eggs and swarming all over our roof. I know what Ervys is telling us. You human creatures are coming into my world. I have my powers too. I can make Ingo come to you. It’s happened before. Fish swam in the streets of St Pirans after the Tide Knot broke and the sea flooded the town. Ervys thought that was a great victory for the Mer, in the battle between Ingo and the human world.

The gulls have settled on the roof again, in a long line, watching and waiting.

“What are we really going to do with the egg?” I whisper.

“I don’t know. Bury it?”

“No. That’s what they expect us to do. Let’s give them a surprise, Conor. Let’s take the egg down to the sea and release it.”

Conor looks at me, eyebrows raised. “You’re very peace loving all at once, Saph.” But he gives me the egg in its nest of weed. I am just putting it in the watering can so it won’t dry out before I can take it down to the cove when there’s an explosion of wings and silent, furious, stabbing beaks.

“Sadie!”

We both rush to her, screaming at the gulls. They fly off, climbing steeply into the sky like planes after they’ve dropped their bombs. Sadie stands silent, quivering all over. On the golden fur of her back there is a long, ugly wound. Her blood wells and spills down her coat.

“Sadie!”

She is too shocked even to bark. I rub her face, calling her name.

“Bastards,” says Conor. “Quick, Saph, help me get her into the cottage. I’ll call Jack’s and ask them to help us get her to the vet. She needs stitches.”

It’s early evening. Sadie is asleep on the hearth rug. I’ve lit a fire, and the reflection of flames dances on her coat. The vet has stitched her wound and dressed it, and given Sadie an injection against infection. Conor spent his savings to pay the vet’s bill.

Mary Thomas said we’d have to get someone up from the council to do something about those gulls. We just nodded.