But despite all that, in the back of my head, there’s always the ocean—not the one here, the surface of the ocean that everyone sees. There’s the hidden world, the place deep underwater where everything is cold. There’s Lo. She gets louder and louder, aching to slip into the waves. She is me, and yet she isn’t—it’s like we’re forced to share this body. My body. I squeeze my eyes shut to try to ignore her, but a moment later, my gaze is cast over the sea. Lo is stronger than me right now, her urge to return to the waves more powerful than my longing to stay here. We aren’t even fighting, yet I know she’ll win.
My eyes burn from salt and tears. “I can’t stay here.”
“What do you mean?”
“The water. I’ve got to get back in the water—no. She has to get back in the water. She needs it to live….”
“Are you sure?” Celia asks. “I could talk to my sisters, maybe…. Our dorm is sort of close…. Can you leave the shore?”
“I don’t know,” I say, frustrated. “I don’t know anything. It’s just… she’s pulling me to her home, and I don’t think I can ignore her much longer.”
Celia looks down, shakes her head, like she can’t believe what she’s about to say. “I can come back. If you want. In a few days, maybe?”
“Yes,” I say instantly. “I’d like that. Please.”
Celia nods, looks like she’s readying herself for battle. I exhale, rise, wince as the pain shoots through my feet. She moves to help me, but I dodge her hands—she shouldn’t have to touch me, have to remember for me again. I grimace and awkwardly slide the towel off my body. Celia takes it and looks away.
Lo knows how the ocean works. She knows how to dive into the water. But as I walk forward, I’m afraid. This isn’t my world. It isn’t right, it isn’t—
I sigh involuntarily when the first wave brushes around my feet, soothing the pain. Another step, another, and with each one I feel better—like I was sick and I’m being healed. When I get thigh-deep, an especially large wave crashes in front of me. It almost knocks me backward, sweeps me back to the shore, but then it’s perfect, it’s beautiful, it holds me like it loves me. I fall forward, and the water envelops me, swirls my hair around me like a blanket. There’s no pain. There’s nothing but simplicity, nothing but beauty as I slip away from the shore and dive deep, deep into the ocean, into the silence, into the cool water and the smooth sand that coats the ocean floor.
CHAPTER NINE
Celia
I feel shaken, confused when I get back to the dorm. There’s still sand stuck to my legs and salt coating my hair, and my cheeks are raw from the wind.
I don’t like reading memories. I don’t like carrying anyone else’s burdens, don’t like seeing the things so horrible that even they’ve blocked them out. And I certainly don’t like intentionally doing it. But the look on Naida’s—Lo’s?—face when I helped her remember…. It was like each memory was a breath, something that sustained her till the next one. I never thought my power could be useful. What if I can help Lo remember Naida? What if I can bring Naida back entirely?
Lo scares me. She lives in the water, for starters—something I still have trouble believing—and the way she talks…. It’s disconcerting, like she’s a very old person in a young body. And yet, Naida is someone I could be friends with. Naida is someone who needs me. My power can help her in a way even Anne’s and Jane’s couldn’t; my silly, useless power might turn out to do a greater good than theirs combined….
And she’s forgetting her past. I think of my father, of the blank look in his eyes when I tried to help him remember. No one should forget their past; no one should lose their memories. Not if I can stop it.
I drop my bag on the counter with a sigh and realize Anne and Jane are still out. They’re likely at the Pavilion, by the place I just left—yes, when I check my phone, I see a text from Anne suggesting I join them there. Then another, advising me to bring the boy I saved. I roll my eyes, wonder how I’ll explain why I didn’t see him tonight. I can’t tell them about Naida, can I? My secret with her seems as sacred as the one between Anne, Jane, and me. But they’re my sisters. I can’t keep it from them forever.
I get in the shower, fight with the dozens of shampoos and cleansers and conditioners that line the side of the tub, then head to the couch with my hair still wet. I slept in too late to be tired at midnight, but I want to do something mindless, something to help me forget that I saw a girl run into the ocean and vanish less than an hour ago. I turn on the television, find a movie, and stare at the screen until the people start to look like shapes and the words sound like noises. When the phone rings, I don’t hear it at first—it takes several rounds before I blearily sit up. A number I don’t recognize—I sigh and answer the call.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is… this is weird, but is your name Celia?”
“Yes, who is this?” It’s after I’ve said it that I recognize his voice—I didn’t hear it out loud at much more than a whisper, but I heard it in his memories.
“Hi. My name is Jude Wallace, and I believe you saved my life last night.”
“I… yes…”
“Well, I was calling to say thanks, which sounded a lot more genuine and less lame before I said it out loud, and now I think I just sound like a lunatic. I’m not crazy—I sneaked a look at my chart at the hospital, and your information was on it and… yeah.”
I laugh a little. This is easier than talking to someone in person, where I worry they might brush past me, might come too close, might share their memories without meaning to. “It was nothing,” I say. “The paramedics did all the work.”
“They say you pulled me out and did CPR. That’s not nothing. Trust me, my lungs would know if you’d done nothing.”
“Well… you’re welcome, then?” What do you say to something like this?
“What’s especially stupid about all this is I’ve noticed that plank and avoided it hundreds of times before—I play at the pier every night during the summer. I don’t know what happened,” he says. “And I lost my guitar in the water. Which I know in the grand scheme of things isn’t a big deal, but now I have to play with my crappy one until I can get a new one.”