It's later (I don't know how much later; time moves differently in Ingo) and we're in the cove. Conor is helping the girls clamber out onto the rocks. It didn't take us long to get the current back. The girls look exhausted, and even Ellie yawns as she struggles onto the little beach beside her dad. Faro and I linger by the mouth of the cove, watching.

Faro turns to me. "They are not like you, Sapphire. Conor has grown old. The girls are - different."

I laugh. "He's not old. And - that's alright, isn't it? You don't need them to be like me when you've got the real me."

I look at him. He is studying me thoughtfully. "But you are not like you either, Sapphire. Where is the girl I used to chase in and out of underwater caves? Who rode dolphins beside me?"

I startle. Faro wanted the old me, the playful me, not the me who has grown up and has a job riding her bike around the cliffsides, doling out prescriptions to old age pensioners and stopping for a cup of tea with Rainbow or Granny Carne. He wanted the girl who was his little sister, even though he once vowed he wouldn't call me that.

I'm here! I want to shout, even though it would be telling a lie. It's like the little girl I was disappeared under the waves when Faro did - like that part of me swam away into Ingo and never returned….

"SAPH!" Conor waves at me, looking anxious. "COME ON!" He's worried I'll go with Faro, that I'll leave him like our dad did.

Never. Not now. After all, I'm not even Faro's little sister any longer.

I flip my hair over my shoulder and stare Faro in the eye. Suddenly I'm not sad anymore. I feel…. challenged.

"She's here," I say. "You'll see. I'll show her to you. Soon."

Faro raises an eyebrow, smiles. Then I dive under the water and am gone.

Mum and Roger are sitting at the table eating eggs on toast. As I walk in, Mum lifts a finger to her lips and points to a basket in the corner of the room. In there is a curly black ball of fur.

Hamish.

"Went off like a lamb about two hours ago," says Mum softly. She looks me up and down. "My god, Sapphy, you look knackered!"

"I'm fine." I crouch by the basket, smoothing back Hamish's silken ears.

"You sure?" Mum kneels beside me. She takes my head between her hands and turns my face to hers. "Are you sleeping okay, Saph? You look washed out, sweetheart."

After we returned from Ingo Conor and the girls went home, discussing a way to slip past Rainbow as they went. I went home, showered, and changed clothes, then walked over to collect Hamish from Mum and Roger, who looked after him again. I'm ready to drop, but I need to check in with Mum so she doesn't get suspicious like she did when I was a kid and went off to Ingo every weekend.

"Sapphire, look. I know you must get - lonely, in your cottage with just Hamish to keep you company. So Roger and me, we'd like to make you an…. offer."

Roger comes and stands at Mum's shoulder, nodding encouragingly.

Mum takes a deep breath. "I'd like to take you up to Plymouth for a weekend - just me and you. We'll stay in a posh hotel, spend some time in a spa, swim, relax, have cream teas. Talk. We can go shopping. Do girly stuff. We never really did stuff like that when you were a teenager, and I…. regret it. Roger will take care of Hamish here for you."

I narrow my eyes. I know what Mum really wants. She wants me to open up. She wants me to talk to her, to let her in, which I suppose I haven't really done since Dad left us. But there are some things - the things I need to let out - which I can't ever tell her. Those things are shared between Conor and Faro and Elvira and I. Those things Dad took to Limina.

At the time I so wanted to tell her. Dad was alive. Dad hadn't drowned. But she'd never have believed me without proof, and if I'd shown her she would be even more hurt and angry that Dad had made the choice to leave us. I couldn't hurt her like that. I just couldn't.

But when Dad died for real I grieved all over again. And I couldn't tell Mum, couldn't even ask for a cuddle or cry on her shoulder. All I had was Conor, and I think it scarred me more than anything else I ever went through, more than Dad leaving us the first time, more than Dad actually dying - all this pent-up grief, all those unshed tears.

I smile weakly at Mum. "Thanks Mum. But I don't think I'll have the time. I mean, my job."

She looks disappointed, but then she nods. "Okay, Sapphy." She touches my shoulder, and I can't help but wish that I was eleven and could crawl into her arms for no apparent reason.