Fathomless

by Jackson Pearce

  I reach forward and take Molly’s arm, try to pull her away. She struggles, hugs the boy against her chest like she suspects I’m trying to steal him from her. I find myself wishing he’d look at me again, fighting Molly harder and harder, trying to get her away from him.

  Molly dives.

  Still holding the boy.

  Let her go. We all have to try this for ourselves once. It’s the only way Molly will stop fighting and embrace the ocean, embrace our sisters. She needs to kill the boy to love the ocean the way we do.

  But the boy’s eyes, I keep thinking about the boy’s eyes. He doesn’t need to die like this.

  I sink into the water and swim after her. She’s swimming fast, pulling him to the bottom with such force that the instrument comes loose and drifts to the ocean floor on its own.

  “Molly!” I call out. “Let him go! There’s no point! You’ll just kill him!”

  “That’s what I’m supposed to do—that’s how I’ll get my soul back!” she snarls. We’re getting deeper, to the part where it’s cold. The boy’s limbs flail back uselessly. His eyes are closed; he’s not even fighting. I think he’s already dead.

  Molly slams his head against the sea bottom, frustrated; a little blood curls like smoke in the water. His clothes and hair float around his body as she bows her head and presses her lips against his. Nothing happens, nothing changes, and so she tries again, again, until it looks less like a kiss and more like she’s trying to pull his soul up and out through his lips.

  She screams, a curdling, agonizing sound that ripples through the ocean. Molly tightens her fingers on the boy’s clothes—

  Enough. I dart forward and grab his arm, yank him away from her. Molly hisses at me, grabs at his sleeve. His shirt rips, but I’m older and stronger than she is. I jettison him to the surface, hold his head up as the air tastes my skin. There has to be a boat nearby now. They’ll find him; they’ll take him back to his own kind, and I can go back to mine. That’s the way of things; it’s what should happen. He’s so limp that he feels fake, like he’s a clump of seaweed instead of a boy.

  Molly breaks out of the water beside me. I release him just long enough to shove her away. Her teeth flicker, sharp like an animal’s. Where’s the boat?

  They’ve passed us. They’re searching farther from the pier now; I can’t get him there with Molly like this. The shore, it’s the only way. Get him close enough, and the waves will wash him up, someone will find him, he might survive. Molly tries to pull me back; I dodge her and kick her in the back. She spirals off in the water. I’ll have just a moment before she slows herself and returns. I clutch the boy under the arms and drag him toward the dry sand.

  The waves help, pushing us over the sandbar—closer to land than I’ve been since I joined my sisters. But there’s someone on the shore; he’ll be found. I hiss in Molly’s direction and grab the boy’s wrist, diving forward, letting the waves throw me closer and closer to the shore with each step. The person on the beach sees me. A girl, running. Take him. Take him and keep him away from us.

  Shallow water. I turn back to look for Molly—she’s stopped, waiting for me right where the water becomes deep again, where the waves begin. The girl runs into the water, awkward and clumsy as it splashes around her calves. There’s not enough force behind the waves to pull him forward here. My feet find the sandy bottom, and I rise—

  Something stings, something hurts. We haven’t walked on land in so long; did it always feel like this? One step forward, another, another, it feels like something is sticking into the center of my foot. Never mind, the salt water will heal it fast enough. Just get him to her; then I can leave….

  She’s near me now, breathing heavily, hair stuck to her cheeks and chest. She smells strange, but I’m not sure what the scent is, exactly—the scent of land? She grabs one of the boy’s arms, and I release him, move to dive back into the ocean. I want to be submerged. I want to go back down deep where it’s cold.

  The girl slows. She moves clumsily in the water; without help, she can barely even drag the boy. A small wave rocks her balance, and she’s forced to drop a knee into the sand to keep from falling.

  “Help me!” she says, sounding irritated. Her voice is biting and loud—this whole world is biting and loud. I grimace and take his other arm, rise again, wincing as something stabs at my sole.

  Together, we drag the boy through the last of the waves. As the water grows shallower, the pain gets worse. Something is stabbing me, slicing at my feet, at the softest parts of my toes and the center of my arch. I have to stop, I have to stop walking. I’m not meant for this anymore, but we’re almost out, almost out, almost…

  We reach the edge of the water. As the wave pulls back, my foot strikes damp sand.

  The pain is incredible. I fall to my knees, then my hands, dropping the boy’s arms so I can grab my foot. There’s blood, blood everywhere, like the entire bottom of my foot has been scraped away. I try to find the wound, but it’s dark.

  “Do you know CPR?” the girl asks.

  “What?”

  “CPR?”

  I stare at her. She looks frustrated but then pauses for a moment. Her eyes drop to my chest.

  “You’re naked.”

  She’s right. My sisters and I, we’re all naked, aren’t we? It’s never bothered us. Maybe I should cover myself, but between the searing pain in my feet and the dying boy at my side, it doesn’t seem to matter very much.

  “Right, CPR,” the girl says, shaking her head. Her hair is blond and thick like sea grass. She tips the boy onto his back, puts her palms on his chest, then begins pressing it. Quick, tiny pushes, over and over. She leans down near his lips and listens, puts her lips over his for an instant, repeats. The girl jumps back, puts a hand to her lips as though he’s shocked her, but nothing changes with the boy. She looks at me desperately, like she wants me to step in, but I don’t understand what she’s doing.

  “I… I can’t do it, I—Help! He’s down here!” she shouts to the people farther down the beach, to the flashing red lights. I don’t think they hear her. I listen to the water, wait for it to tell me that a long wave is washing up—that’s all I’ll need to pull myself back in without standing, without the pain. I don’t care if the human girl sees me. I want to go home. Blood from my feet has stained the sand. It hurts, it hurts so badly.

  “You can do compressions,” the girl says suddenly. I look at her blankly. “Compressions! You can do them. Come on, at least try.”

  She reaches over the boy and grabs my arm, starts to pull it to the boy’s chest—

  She freezes. So do I.

  When was the last time a human touched me? I stare at her fingers wrapped around my skin, bright on the gray-blue hue of my forearm. Her palm is so hot—or am I just that cold? The girl gasps, yanks her hand away. She looks me in the eye like I’ve betrayed her, like I’ve done or said something unforgivable, something shocking.

  Her words are whispered, hardly audible over the sound of waves.

  “Naida.”

  I…

  I know that name.

  Naida. I turn it over in my mind. I know that name. How did she know it?

  That’s my name. Not Lo, I’m Naida. Or I was.

  I remember. I remember having a flesh-and-blood sister, not ocean sisters. I remember a house, I remember warm meals, I remember the sound of crickets and what the world looks like miles and miles from the shore.

  My name on her lips echoes through my head, spins around me, and deafens me to the rest of the world, dulls the pain in my feet. My name is Naida, and I was once a human girl.

  I remember.

  I remember everything. I remember my house, my real sister, my father, our dog, bedtime stories, running in the grass. I remember riding in cars and dancing and the way rainstorms sounded when they passed through the forest we lived in.

  I remember being Naida. I remember being human. But only for a moment, and then the memories begin to fade, fall apart. The harde
r I try to hold on, the more they slip through my fingers like grains of sand.

  The boy coughs, sputters. Water bubbles up from his throat. The girl turns his head to the side. His eyes open; he tries to focus as he looks at me—it makes my chest stir, makes me forget the pain, to see his gray eyes open again. His gaze turns to the girl. He’s confused. But he’s alive. He’s alive—that’s all I wanted. I can go. My sisters are in the water; they’re my world now. I can’t be Naida, not anymore. I killed my boy; I embraced the ocean long ago.

  “You saved him,” the girl says breathlessly, like she can’t believe it. She looks back up at me, but I’m already on my feet.

  I cry out in pain as I run back into the water, every step like knives twisting into my skin, pain that doesn’t stop until I dive deep. But as I do so, I chant the name over and over in my head, so I won’t ever forget it again.

  Naida.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Celia

  She’s gone.

  She’s in the water. I don’t know what to do—it’s so dark out there, I wouldn’t be able to see myself, much less find her. I look down at the footprints she left in the sand as she ran back toward the water, lit up by the moon. They’re darker than they should be. I kneel down and touch the center of a print. Blood. It’s blood.

  A wave sweeps high across the shore, dragging the footprint into long, misshapen lines, and then another that washes away all traces of the blood. I squeeze my eyes shut—I feel dizzy. I saw the girl’s past, and just before that, the boy’s. My head feels crowded, like my own thoughts can’t breathe under the weight of their memories—especially hers. Her memories were wrong; they were darkened, like someone painted black over them. My head aches….

  The boy coughs. I turn around, drop back to the sand beside him. His eyes are closed, but he’s breathing, a broken noise, like there’s wet cloth lodged in his throat. The ambulance is rumbling down the tiny road by the pier, the same way I came down. The headlights blind me as it draws close.

  “Hang on,” I tell the boy. “You’re fine. They’re here to help you.”

  He whispers something, something quiet. I lean closer, drop my face near his lips. “Sing again.”

  He’s confused. Of course, I just saw a naked girl with bloody feet run into the ocean, so perhaps I’m not one to talk. The ambulance reaches us, slides to a stop on the sand. I sit back as the paramedics leap out. They run to us, drop down by my side, start talking in codes I don’t understand. I’m jostled out of the way as they lift his body, then rest it down on a board. One paramedic, a younger woman with thin eyes, spots me as two men lift the board and hurry the boy to the ambulance.

  “Was he breathing when you found him?”

  “Yes. I mean no, no. He started, though.”

  “Any idea how long he was in the water?”

  “I… four minutes? Five? I don’t know. It all happened so fast. When I ran down here, she was already pulling him up….” I glance back at the pier. A crowd has gathered, pointing at us, gaping.

  “She? Is there someone else here?” the woman asks, looking around.

  I swallow, look out over the water. The red lights from the ambulance bounce off the waves, like thousands of glistening rubies are hiding under them. “No. There’s no one else here.” It’s not entirely a lie—she’s gone. I can’t explain who she is or where she went to myself, much less to someone else.

  “Is she coming?” another paramedic yells.

  “Can we take you to the hospital, miss? You might need to get checked out, too,” the woman says, taking a few steps backward, toward the ambulance. “Come on, it won’t take long. Just in case.”

  “Yes. Yes, right,” I say hurriedly. I’m fine; I know I’m fine, but I want to know the boy will be okay—and I don’t want to be left out here in the dark, not with the crowd staring, not with a mysterious girl who might come back. I jog with the woman to the ambulance. A male paramedic stretches out a large hand to help me in. I’m quickly moved toward the back, near the boy’s head. There’s a mask over his nose and mouth, bags of fluids are on hooks, things are beeping, moving. It feels like I’m a giant in a city of machines. I bang my elbow on something behind me, grimace, and try to catch my breath.

  “Do you know who he is?” an EMT asks me.

  “Jude,” I say quickly. I look up. “His name is Jude Wallace. He’s from Lake City.”

  “Oh, so you actually know him. I’m sorry—I thought you were just a good Samaritan,” the EMT says, smiling at me. I don’t know what to do, so I just nod. Truth is, I do know him, and rather well. When I put my lips against his to save his life, I saw deeper into his past than I’ve ever seen into anyone’s before. I saw his childhood home, his father leaving, his first job, second job, third job, and the bank account he opened to save up and leave town when he graduated from high school. I saw his first love and his favorite color, thousands of bits and pieces, a kaleidoscope of his life.

  It’s the first time my lips have been on someone else’s. Does that count as my first kiss? I’d avoided it for so long, both because most boys want Anne and Jane, but also because of this. Anne and Jane have always said kissing makes their powers strong, that the more intimate the touch, the closer you are, the more you can see. They were telling the truth, it seems.

  The ambulance screeches through town, the siren blending in seamlessly with the fanfare of the beach at summer. They’ve stopped working on Jude, and his breathing doesn’t sound painful anymore. The hospital is just outside town, where there are no tourists, no neons, no bathing suits—just sea grass and trailer parks. I watch them fly by, look out the window hoping to see the glow of the hospital’s fluorescent lights ahead….

  “You can hold his hand if you want,” the thin-eyed woman says when she sees me staring at him.

  “No,” I answer. “It’s fine.” I want to take his hand, to be honest—I don’t want him to be scared. I want him to know someone is there with him, someone is thinking of him, someone wants him to survive. But I’ve already seen so far into his mind, and I don’t want to pry any further.

  We arrive, and the boy is rushed off the ambulance and down a hall. They send me to a separate room, but it doesn’t take more than a half hour for them to realize I’m fine. A woman in cat-print scrubs gives me a package of Nutter Butters, then leads me toward a waiting room. She talks the entire time, assuring me that everything will be all right with Jude, that they’ll update me soon, that they will let me know the minute he wakes up. All well-rehearsed lines, delivered with sincerity, but not enough to distract me from the onslaught of Jude’s memories and the strangeness of Naida’s.

  I load sugar into a cup of weak tea from a machine and rest in one of the many uncomfortable chairs, trying to tune out the noise from the televisions, the people talking in the hallways. Tune them all out and remember…

  I ran down to the shore, past the church. I could see someone in the water. I thought it was the boy, but no… it was her. She was swimming toward me, toward the shore. I remember her face, try to imagine what it would look like in the day instead of illuminated by blue moonlight. I picture the way she slipped into the ocean like the waves were sheets on a bed when she left, and the way she rose from the water when she arrived, pulling Jude like the waves worked with her, not against her. The memories I read when I touched her arm. So strange… Even once I got past the blackness, the memories I saw were like memories of a past lifetime instead of the current one. Bits and pieces, buried so deep that all I got from touching her was her name and the memory of a girl screaming.

  Screaming like she was dying.

  I play the memory over and over, think about the bloody footprints, the way she vanished. Should I have told them about her? Is it too late now? Should I go back?

  An hour later, I still have no idea what happened on the beach.

  “He’s going to wake up soon. You can wait, if you want. Is he your boyfriend?” the doctor asks.

  I blush before I can sto
p myself. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know him.”

  “Oh? They said—”

  “They misunderstood. I just know his name; he told me before he passed out on the beach,” I explain swiftly. Now that I’m a little calmer, I can lie better.

  “Ah. So you went into the ocean to pull a complete stranger out of the water? What a hero,” the doctor says genuinely, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I answer, and force a smile. No, I didn’t go into the water. I stayed on the shore while Naida pulled him out. She’s the one who really saved him.

  “Well, feel free to stay if you want. I’m sure he’d like to meet you,” the doctor says. He tucks his clipboard under his arm and walks away, leaving me alone in the waiting room. The television goes to a commercial, something about a magically absorbent towel. Outside, a pack of nurses laugh loudly. I would like to meet him, too—the real way, not the way I already have.

  But I’m afraid he’ll ask about Naida. I’m afraid he’ll know I’m lying, that I didn’t really save him, not alone, anyway. I’m afraid of how much I know about him—even worse, how I liked so many of the things I saw, like his middle school talent-show performance or the way he worried about asking his first girlfriend to prom. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to hide the sheer quantity of memories I read. It’d be easier to walk away, to keep him at arm’s length. He’s just a boy, just like any of the boys Anne and Jane pick up. Just leave him here.

  It’d be better for everyone if I just went home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lo

  “You stole him!” Molly screams at me. Bubbles slip from her lips; her eyes are red, her hands clenched in fists. “He was mine!” Her voice is like lightning caught in the walls of the Glasgow. Fish dart away as she grabs onto a decaying stair rail so hard that it rips away from the spiral banister. She drops it and screams again. I’ve never seen one of us so angry before. The other girls try to comfort her, save the old ones, who regard her with mild curiosity from just outside the ship’s body, like she’s nothing more than an interesting bit of coral or a strange tide.