AN: I already wrote this chapter out once, but fanfiction deleted it... at 1 am. So now, a slightly hysterical me is trying desperately to rewrite it, with my former energy and burst of creative juices! The idea wandered into my head as I was wondering what happened to Sapphy, Faro and Conor after Crossing of Ingo. I hope you enjoy it, and please review!

The book is my favourite thing in the world, a present from my favourite person. The cover is greeny-blue, and made of silk. It's so smooth and satiny to touch, it feels like water. It's inlaid with an intricate design, a circular Celtic symbol of some sort, composed of so many swirls, it looks like the sea on a stormy day. The book is an anthology of old Cornish folk tales, and it tells of giants and heroes and spirits. But most of all, it tells of mermaids. Strange, beautiful, underwater beings. Aunt Sapphy gave it to me when I turned ten.

Dad was angry with her. "Don't get Kerrie mixed up in that stuff," he hissed at her, "isn't it bad enough, what position it's left you in? Do you really want to put her through that?" I had no idea what Dad was talking about.

"Don't be silly, Con," I remember her saying, "there just stories. The kind we grew up with. She has to know them, they're part of her Cornish heritage! they're in her blood."

I've never seen Dad get as angry as he was then. His jaw clenched, and his voice went deathly soft. "Don't. talk. about. her. blood."

Aunt Sapphy laughed softly. "You really think being silent changes anything? It's who she is Conor. It's who I am, who you are. I haven't forgotten, even if you have."

I don't remember any more of the argument. I kept the book hidden from Dad, in case he took it away from me. I read it to myself. Dad never read me stories. He always preferred to read me encyclopaedia articles, newspaper columns, autobiographies, history books... "True things," Dad used to call them.

I liked them, they were interesting. I felt special, knowing that whilst most people were read fairy stories, I got real information. But that was before the book. That gave me information of another kind altogether. But even that information wasn't the kind I really needed.