Her eyes widen. “You know about her life?”
“Your life,” I say, though it’s more of a question than a statement. “What… what are you? How do you live in the water?”
She continues to stare at me, like this is something she’s never considered before. “The same way everything else lives in the water. We’re not like you. But I was, back when I was Naida.”
“Wait, you were Naida? Who are you now?”
“Lo. My name is Lo, for a while.”
“I don’t understand.” The sky has turned purple, like there’s a haze over the beach. The scent of cotton candy drifts down from the Pavilion, but with the tail end of the pier closed off, there still aren’t any other people to see us. Naida—Lo, whoever she is, does the closest thing to a shrug I think she can manage.
“I don’t, either. Something changed. I used to be a human named Naida. And now I’m not, and my name is Lo. We all used to be human, but now we’re not.”
“We?”
Her eyes darken a bit, an expression I recognize—it’s the way Anne looks if someone slights me or Jane. It’s protective, it’s cautious. She finally answers. “My sisters. They’re like me.”
“How did you become… this, if you used to be human?”
“We don’t know for certain. An angel brought us here.”
“An angel?”
“Yes,” she says dismissively, shakes when a gust of wind sweeps across us. “You know my human name because you touched me?”
I tense a little, but nod.
“Do you know anything else?”
“Not very much,” I answer—it seems too early to mention the scream. “Your memories are strange; it’s like they’re hidden. What do you remember from being… Naida?”
Her gaze becomes unfocused for a moment, but she shakes her head. She looks sad, mournful, like someone has died. “There was more last night, but I’ve forgotten it again. I can’t hold on to it.”
“I can…” Am I really going to do this? I swallow. “I can help you. I have to touch you again, though,” I add quickly. What am I doing? First I tell her about my power; now I’m using it on her? I don’t want to see the pain in her head, I don’t want to hear the scream again, but…
My power has only failed me before this. But now it’s worth something. Now it’s needed…. How could I walk away, especially from the girl who saved Jude’s life—the girl whose credit I stole?
Lo looks at me, though I don’t think she’s debating whether or not to do it—I think she’s having trouble believing it’s possible. It seems odd, that a girl who claims to live underwater would find something like reading memories strange. She extends an arm; she wants me to come to her.
“I promise not to drown you,” she says sincerely. The possibility hadn’t occurred to me, but it manages to entirely replace the fear of using my power. I cringe and creep closer. She watches me, intrigued, and I remember how effortlessly she moved through the waves. Closer, I can see that her arms are faintly patterned in a way that makes me think of lichen on trees. She inhales as I reach out, and I see her teeth are slightly pointed.
I’m afraid to close my eyes, though I want to so, so badly.
I clamp my fingers down on her slick forearm.
The scream echoes through my mind, so strong that for a moment I think Lo is actually screaming aloud. Blackness, blackness is everywhere, a fog of dark and unknown with only the name Naida and the fading sound of a girl screaming. Lo whispers something, but I ignore her. Focus, Celia. I give in and close my eyes, try to look the way Anne and Jane do when they touch boys on the pier.
The darkness in her head starts to clear ever so slightly, flashes of memories that are buried deep. A house, a man, a woman, a town—
“What do you see?” Lo’s voice finally breaks through the barrage of images in my head.
“There’s a girl. She has dark brown hair. She’s pretty. And a kitchen, with green doors that lead into it and—”
I was going to keep going, but Lo snatches her arm away. My eyes shoot open. I’m ready to run, ready to scream for help, though I’m not sure if I’d be yelling for myself or for her. She’s staring at me like I’ve said something wrong, but then her eyes widen. She exhales, her breath shakes, her eyes dart around in a way entirely different from her eerie stillness. She shudders and falls forward into the water, with none of the grace she had before. Before I can stop myself, I reach out, grab her under her arms, and pull her face back out of the ocean. She coughs, chokes, and looks up at me. Her eyes are less gray than before, more hazel.
“I remember,” she says.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Naida
Am I dreaming?
The world seems wrong and mixed up and different from the one that I know to be real, so it could be a dream. I inhale; the bite of salty air fills my lungs.
That felt real. I look down—my hands are strange, the wrong color, like I’ve been picking blueberries and haven’t washed them. I stare at them for a moment, turn them over, and inspect my palms. Everything feels real, but something isn’t right….
And then I realize I’m naked. Naked, kneeling in the ocean. I look up at the girl in front of me, try to cover my chest with my arms.
“Lo?” she asks. She looks scared.
Lo. Something inside me sparks, recognizes the name…. I am Lo. But that’s not my real name; that’s not who I really am. I shake my head. “Naida?” she whispers, and I nod.
“I…” I look down at the waves washing around me, embarrassed—at least we’re here alone.
“I’ve got a towel up there,” she says, pointing toward an old building—a church, I think, or some sort of temple. “Do you want it?” I nod. I know how I got here, I know I’ve been underwater, and yet I feel like the name Lo and the ocean full of girls are just a strange nighttime fantasy, that just yesterday I was…
Where was I? I can remember the house. It was also a store. We sold things; we sold food—I remember the smell of vanilla and cinnamon. The girl takes my forearm with her hand and starts to lead me forward—I eagerly take a step.
I cry out loud, almost fall to my knees. Pain shoots up through my feet, like it’s prying the bones of my feet apart, like it’s burning them. With it come memories, memories of the world underwater, of a sunken ship, of being someone else—of being Lo.