The Tide Knot Read Online Free PDF

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 has picked 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.”
      “Okay, 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 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 stop wanting it 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