Fathomless

by Jackson Pearce

  Nothing. What the old ones are always looking at.

  The water welcomes me. The waves are rough and thrash me around. I let them. I hate Celia, I hate Jude, I hate how they’ll have beautiful, happy lives, maybe together, maybe not. But either way, they won’t long for their lost souls. They won’t become darkness. They won’t be forced to kill themselves.

  Forget Lo. Forget Naida. Forget Jude, and Celia. Forget it all.

  Find nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Celia

  Anne and Jane are standing outside my door, whispering to each other.

  “Should we call him?”

  “Don’t be stupid. That won’t help,” Anne snaps.

  “Ugh. Celia? Please let us in,” Jane calls through the door. “I know you’re mad, but come on. This is, like… what sisters are for.”

  I don’t want to see them any more than I want to see Jude, to be honest. I’m angry at all of them.

  Anne and Jane retreat, though I hear them mumbling to each other from the kitchen. Just when I’m wondering if it’s possible to sneak to the bathroom and take the world’s longest bath without them catching me, I hear a knock at the front door. Swift, quiet, like the person is hoping no one will answer. Anne and Jane fall silent; I hear footsteps as one walks to the door.

  “Oh, hell no,” I hear Anne say. The door opens swiftly, slams into the back wall.

  “Is Celia here?”

  Jude’s voice. It sounds weak, almost frightened.

  “No. She’s on a date,” Anne says firmly.

  A long pause.

  “You’re lying,” he says.

  “You’re an asshole,” she replies.

  “Look, I just need to talk to her. It’s about Lo.”

  I turn on my bed, letting the blankets wrap around me. I try to beat down the frustration, the jealousy that sprung up in my chest when I heard her name.

  Jane’s voice now, “You’re definitely not talking to her about Lo.”

  “It’s not like that—” Jude says, but falls silent. He sighs, begins again. “Just… just tell her that Lo left. I don’t think she’s coming back, but I didn’t know how to stop her. I’m worried.”

  I sit up. Lo left? Then Naida left with her…. What does he mean by “left”?

  “We’ll let her know,” Anne says sharply.

  “Okay, I just…” Jude tries. I kick my legs over the side of the bed, stand up, and grab the knob. I don’t want to see him, but I don’t think I have a choice. I swing open the door. Jude is standing just outside the frame, blocked from entering by Anne and Jane—they’re wearing matching angry expressions, their hands planted firmly on their hips.

  Jude looks at me, takes in my red eyes and streaky face. “Celia. I—” Anne gives him a threatening look, but he continues. “I went to talk to Lo,” he says slowly, and I try to pretend that hearing that doesn’t bite. “She asked me if I loved her, and I said I didn’t.”

  I don’t speak.

  “I went there to see if you were telling the truth, if she really did come out of the water. And then she did, and she… I don’t know. But she told me that she’d be nothing soon.”

  Something in my stomach twists. I swallow.

  “And then she went into the ocean like something was hurting her. I’m worried about her, and I don’t know who else to tell, because I don’t even know what she is.”

  “She’s a girl,” I snap, shaking my head. “She’s just a girl.”

  That’s not true. Naida was just a girl; Lo is something more.

  But Naida needs me. If Lo is alive, Naida is in there, somewhere. Hidden, buried, down deep maybe, but there. She has a life, a whole world that she can only remember if I help her.

  I move toward the door.

  “What are you doing?” Anne asks in disbelief.

  “Helping Naida,” I say, slipping my feet into my sandals.

  “She lied to you, too! She and Jude both played you, Celia—”

  “No, Lo lied to me. And Jude,” I say, looking at him hastily. I don’t care right now, I really don’t. He doesn’t understand my power, he doesn’t see music in me, he doesn’t care. Fine. I’ll deal with that later. I reach to grab the car keys from the counter, but Anne’s fingers close around them before mine can.

  “You can’t leave, Celia,” she says firmly. She’s serious, her eyes are intense. “It hasn’t changed. Your future. You’ve got to make another choice.”

  “Maybe this is the other choice,” I mutter. I hold out my hands for the keys, but Anne is stone-faced.

  “I could drive you,” Jude says. I turn to look at him.

  “I’ll walk. I already had to do it once today, when you left me at the pier,” I snap. Jude looks hurt but doesn’t argue. I push past him, down the hallway, ignoring Anne’s warnings about the hurricane, about my future, about everything.

  I can do this alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Lo

  Molly looks old.

  She’s on the deck of the Glasgow, near the other old ones. Her eyes are turned to nothing, her chin lifted to the surface. She aged fast, so fast. If the hurricane doesn’t take her, I’ll be surprised.

  Though I suppose I won’t really know. I have to go to the surface for the last time soon, before the waves get so fierce that I age and turn dark. I have to go now, before it hits.

  I lean under the ship’s railing and let my fingers run across the white paint that bears its name, of Glasgow. There was at least one other word before the of once….

  I hesitate, glance around, then dig my fingers underneath the sand and coral and shells that have latched themselves onto the wood, covering up the first word. Pull, pull hard, until things scrape against my fingertips. Finally, a piece of coral breaks free. I let it fall to the sand, eagerly crane my head to see what letter lies underneath, to see the ship’s full name.

  But there is nothing. The sediment was so firmly latched to the wood that it seems to have taken the outermost layer with it. The remaining wood looks almost new, unpainted, unmarred by ocean creatures. The Glasgow gets to keep its secrets, I guess. If it remembers them.

  I sigh, rise, and move toward Molly’s spot by the cherubs. She looks at me warily as I lean in to whisper to her.

  “I’m going to die. Do you want to come?”

  Molly narrows her eyes. “I’m not dying.”

  “You’re… letting yourself change?” I ask. It makes me shiver—but perhaps not seeing the old one change into a monster makes it easier to accept that fate.

  “Absolutely not,” Molly says. “They killed my sister. They did this to me. I’ll never be one of them.”

  “Then…” I look at her blankly. “There are no mortals you can drown. They won’t love you fast enough. There isn’t another choice,” I protest. It suddenly occurs to me why I’m fighting so hard: I may not like Molly, but I don’t want to die alone.

  Molly turns back to me. “Go kill yourself, Lo. I have other plans.”

  I back up. I don’t know what to say. I turn away, glide down the edge of the Glasgow. I’ll need to get closer to the shore before I surface, the storm is already above us this far out to sea. Swim away, go, now, before it’s too late…

  I turn around, look at the Glasgow, at my sisters. They look like part of the ship, still, hair drifting loosely around their bodies. They are beautiful, this is beautiful, we are beautiful. I wish I could stay here. Naida may not like this world, but I do, even if I was brought here against my will, even if it makes me strange and different and half dark. I love this world.

  I lift my fingers to a wave, part my lips slightly, and say good-bye.

  Just go. Go now, before you change your mind.

  I hurry along the ocean’s floor, then up, up to where the waves are stronger, readying themselves for the storm. The water moves so easily around me sometimes, but now it is hard, hands shoving me back and forth. I feel something near my chest shudder. I could let go. Just let go, let the wav
es take me, let the storm change me…

  No. Be brave.

  I break the surface and look away from the nearby shore, back over the ocean. The storm is coming, black clouds racing over rocky seas. Get on the sand, quick, before the heart of the storm reaches you—

  “Lo!”

  I spin around in the water to see Key staring at me, eyes wide, lips strangely curled into the slightest of smiles.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, moving closer to her.

  “Molly told me, she told me what you’re planning to do. You can’t die, Lo. We’re almost there. We’ll be angels together. We can let this storm change us.”

  “Key…” I don’t want to say it, but I have to—I need to. “Key, we don’t become angels. We become the same monsters that took our human lives from us. The monsters that made us ocean girls.”

  Key is silent for a long time. I feel the storm growing closer, the tugging at my heart getting stronger.

  “Angels, monsters… maybe they’re the same thing,” Key finally says. Her voice is small but firm. I will not change her mind. I will not convince her of anything.

  It’s my choice to die; I suppose it’s Key’s choice to live as something dark. I open my mouth, try to find something to say as waves lift us up, down, stronger and stronger.

  And then I hear my name. Wait, no. Not my name. Naida’s name.

  Key and I look to the shore, to the church. I tilt my head—someone’s coming down the path, long blond hair, running—Celia.

  Why is she here? I betrayed her, met with Jude, kept it a secret, longed for him to love me instead of her. I’ve hurt everyone. I sink down a bit and swim closer, so I can see her better, still far enough out in the water that human eyes couldn’t spot me. Her face is red, her hair messy, being whipped around in the wind. I turn to look back over the ocean…. The storm will be here soon. She should leave, go home, go to Jude. She doesn’t understand how precious the choice to be happy is. She calls out—I swim closer to hear, stay almost submerged….

  “Naida!” The name is almost lost in the wind. “Lo! Please!”

  Maybe she wants to yell at me. To tell me she hates me, to tell me she’s sorry she ever helped me. I’d deserve it, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear it. I should go. I turn—

  “She’s here for you?” Key asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Key looks at me, confused. “You said you were meeting the boy….”

  “I was,” I say. “But also her.”

  Key looks hurt at the lie. She dips under the water for a moment, reemerges looking relieved to have wet her face again. She licks the salt from her lips. “You didn’t have to lie to us. Any of us.”

  “I did. Or I’d have ended up exiled like Molly.”

  “Molly wanted to be exiled. She didn’t want to be one of us. Maybe you don’t, either.”

  “That’s not true,” I say. “Not true at all. I love being with our sisters. It’s just Naida…”

  “That’s your name? Who you used to be?” Key asks. I nod. Key considers this for a moment, then looks toward Celia. “You want to go back. You should go to her.”

  “No. She’s angry with me, too. I’ve ruined everything. I guess it doesn’t matter though,” I say, stomach tightening. “I’ll be gone soon enough.”

  “Not if you get a soul.”

  “But I won’t. He… he doesn’t love me. And even if he did…” I feel warm water against my face—tears, not the ocean….

  “He might not. But…” Key lifts my chin with her fingers, then points to the shore, “she came here for you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s closer to mortal love than we’ve seen in a long time, since before we came here. Even if she’s angry, why come all this way if she doesn’t care?”

  I stare.

  I turn, look to the shore. Celia is still calling my name, her voice cracking from straining. She’s here for me. Here in a hurricane, here after I lied to her, after I lied about Jude.

  You can have her soul.

  “No!” I snap aloud, to Key, to myself, to Naida. I look back at Key, shake my head. “No. No, I won’t.”

  “It’s the only way out,” Key says, eyes widening, like I must not understand.

  “No,” I say, whisper. Close my eyes, try to drown out the voice inside me, the voice that sounds like Naida clawing to get out, desperate, longing to live again. No. No.

  “Lo, the storm will be here soon. I don’t want you to die. You have to—”

  “I’d rather die,” I say, but my voice shakes. I’m afraid to look at the shore again. Afraid if I see Celia, something will change my mind.

  “You can be human again. Don’t throw this away,” Key says, grabbing my shoulders. “Please, Lo. It’s too late for the rest of us, but you have a choice—”

  “This isn’t a choice. It’s murder,” I hiss. I wince as I hear Naida’s name bounce across the waves again.

  My name is Naida Kelly. I have an older sister. We lived in a house surrounded by trees. My feet didn’t bleed when I walked on land, and my skin wasn’t milky-blue. I was a normal girl.

  I duck back into the water, try to breathe slowly. No. My name is Lo. I live in the ocean with dozens of sisters. We were once human, but that’s gone. It’s gone, and it’s never coming back. I can’t take a soul. I won’t take a soul. I can’t…

  My name is Naida Kelly.

  I close my eyes. Fight it. Fight, fight… Naida’s voice grows louder, louder, till she’s screaming in my head.

  My name is Naida Kelly, and I want to live again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Naida

  My sister did whatever she could to save me.

  I have to do the same.

  Whatever it takes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Celia

  The wind is picking up—it isn’t supposed to be the worst hurricane I’ve ever seen, but it’s still to the point where I know I shouldn’t be on the beach. Yet I slink through the fence by the calliope, run through the now-empty park. It’s frightening, so empty, lifeless…. I hurry to the pier, to the path down by the ocean. The waves are already dangerously choppy, white sea foam everywhere. The storm is close, so close…. I squint, put a hand to my forehead, try to see—

  Yes. There she is. Her head, her eyes just above the water, disappearing with each wave.

  “Naida!”

  She doesn’t move, looks away from me, like she’s speaking with the waves. “Naida!” I try again. “Lo! Please!”

  Nothing. Naida—Lo—dips underwater, vanishes. I cry out in anger, grip my hands into fists. Naida can’t be gone; Lo can’t have taken her. Not after all we’ve worked through, after all we’ve remembered together…. I turn around, look away from the ocean in frustration.

  “Celia!”

  I whip my head back toward the waves and sigh so hard that it’s almost hard to catch my breath again. She’s not dead. She’s not dead. Naida is walking toward me, struggling against the thrashing tide. Everything is gray—the horizon, the light, the ocean, even the sand. Naida’s skin is bluer than before, her eyes darker, but it’s still her. She didn’t give up after all. Jude was wrong.

  “Jude came to me. He told me you were gone, that Lo…”

  “No,” Naida says, smiling. She shakes the water from her hair. “No, I’m all right. I…” She looks away. “I should have told you Lo was meeting with him. I didn’t always remember it. I’m sorry.”

  “You should have. He should have,” I say, voice harder than I mean it to be. I shake it off. “Never mind. I was just worried. It’s getting harder for you to remember. I was afraid Lo won and you were gone….” I cringe as the wind whips my hair into my eyes. I need to go, I need to leave, but I’m afraid that if I turn around Naida will vanish again. I can’t let that happen, not after coming this far. I squint, try to open my eyes, looking down to shield myself from the brunt of the gale.

  “Your feet,” I
say, pointing. “They aren’t bleeding.”

  Naida looks down, eyes wide. “You’re right. It hurts but… not like before.”

  “Do you think you can leave the beach, then? Maybe it won’t be as bad as last time. Maybe it’s working. You’re remembering,” I say, almost embarrassed by how eager I sound.

  Naida looks at me, presses her lips together. “No. That’s not why they stopped bleeding. It’s not because I’m remembering.”

  “It could be! Maybe you’re more human now—”

  “They aren’t bleeding, because I’m changing. From Lo into darkness. It’s happening, it’s happening now.”

  I step back—am blown back, actually. Lightning cracks out over the sea. I can’t stay here…. “We’ll fight it. Tell me how to help.”

  Naida swallows hard, there’s something she’s not telling me. “Celia, I’m sorry. This shouldn’t be happening. It shouldn’t be me—they chose me because I once had a twin sister. That’s the only reason. That made them want me, made me eligible to be their ocean… thing. That’s not fair. It’s not right….” She sounds broken, desperate—like Lo sounded the first time she asked me to help her remember, even though the voice is all Naida. Lightning cracks again.

  “Because you had a twin once? Is that the sister I don’t see in your memories?”

  “I think that’s her,” Naida answers.

  “But that means… Does that mean I could end up like Lo, if something happened to my sisters?” It sounds like I’m experimenting with the concept on my tongue. Surely no. I’m ordinary. Well, I have a power, but other than that… I couldn’t become something like Lo. I think about Anne and Jane. They were right—we aren’t just stuck together; we are stronger together. Torn apart we’re… Naida.

  Naida shrugs. “I would think losing a triplet makes you as desirable as losing a twin. I don’t know. It’s not fair, though. It’s not right.”