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for anyone else.”
      I still don’t think it was. I have no sense that the Mer are close. Not Faro, or his sister, or any of the Mer. But in Conor’s mind a glimpse of a rock or a seal or a buoy turns into a glimpse of Elvira.  
      “I keep nearly seeing her,” says Conor in frustration, “but then she always vanishes. I’m sure it was her this time.”
      “You can’t be sure, Conor.”
      “She was out in the bay earlier on, when the dolphins came.”
      “Are you certain? I didn’t see anything.”
      “She was there; I know she was. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned, she was gone. I expect it was because Mal and his dad were there. Elvira wouldn’t risk them seeing her.”
      “Do you think they could?”
      “What do you mean?”
      “Maybe it’s only us who can see the Mer. Because of what Granny Carne said, you remember, about our blood being partly Mer. Maybe even if Faro or Elvira swam right up to the boat, Mal and his dad still wouldn’t see them.” I remember the words Faro said to me: Open your eyes.  
      Maybe that doesn’t just mean opening your eyelids and focusing. Maybe it’s to do with being willing to see things even if your mind is telling you that they can’t possibly be real—
      “Of course they’d see Elvira if she was there,” Conor argues. “You’re making the Mer sound like something we’ve imagined. Elvira’s as real as—as real as…Saph, why do you think she’s hiding? Why won’t she talk to me?”  
      “I don’t know.”
      I don’t think I should say any more. Our roles seem to be reversing. Suddenly I’m the sensible, practical one, and Conor is the dreamer, longing for Ingo. No. Be honest, Sapphire. It’s not Ingo he’s longing for; it’s Elvira. And maybe that’s what is making me so sensible and practical—
      “We’d better go home, Conor. It’s starting to rain.”
      “Saph, you said it!” Conor swings round to face me, smiling broadly. “You said it at last. I had a bet with myself how long it would be before you did.”
      “Said what? What are you talking about?”
      “Didn’t you hear yourself? You said ‘home.”
     

CHAPTER THREE 
     

      “I ’m just taking Sadie out, Mum!” I call up the stairs. It’s Sunday night. Mum and Roger are painting the baseboards in Mum’s bedroom. They have stripped off the dingy cabbage rose wall paper, and now the bedroom walls are bare to the plaster. Our landlady says we can decorate as much as we like, and I’m not surprised. Her paint and wall paper are not only hideous but also old and covered in marks. When we got here, Mum wanted to paint all the rooms white.
      “It’s a new start for all of us, Sapphy!” I’ve painted my room blue and green, so that it looks like the inside of a wave. Our landlady, Mrs. Eagle, has been up to see it, and she says it is ’andsome. Mrs. Eagle is old. Her name doesn’t sound at all Cornish, but that’s because she married a man who came to St. Pirans from upcountry during the war, she says. He died long ago. She must be about eighty, and she owns six houses in St. Pirans, all of them full of cabbagy wall paper, I expect. But the rent is low, Mum says, and that’s all that matters. Rents in St. Pirans are terrible.
      Mum appears at the top of the stairs. “It’s late, Sapphy.
      Can’t Conor take Sadie out?”
      “He’s doing his mathematics homework.”  
      This is strictly true, but I haven’t asked him anyway, because I want to go out on my own. St. Pirans is different when the streets are empty, and it’s dark, and there’s no one at all on the wide stretch of Polquidden Beach. I feel as if I can breathe then.
      “All right, but don’t be long. Let me know when you’re back.”
      Lucky it’s Mum, not Roger. Although he hasn’t known me very long, Roger is disturbingly quick to grasp when he is being told only a part of the truth or indeed none of the truth at all .