But it isn’t really a choice.
I can’t let Jude die, not even for Naida. And if Lo is going to die either way, then I know what I have to do. Tomorrow, when the sun is at its height, I’ll go to shore, and I’ll walk. As far away from the water as possible, no matter the pain, no matter how much my body longs to dive back into the ocean. If it worked at the Pavilion that night, it’ll work even faster in the heat of the day. I’ll fall and dry like any sea thing stuck on land.
I’ll die. But that’s the only choice I have left—how it’ll happen. I’m not letting someone else—something else—make that final choice for me.
I let my eyes drift over the Glasgow. Only a few of my sisters are in sight; most are still asleep, but they’ll be up soon. Maybe I should wake them up, tell them. Tell Key, at least—I grimly think about her wistful looks at the surface, about her longing to be an angel. She wouldn’t believe me. She may trust me, but my words aren’t stronger than her dreams. None of them would believe me, really—or they simply wouldn’t care enough to kill themselves rather than become monsters. I suppose that’s fair—I wouldn’t have started caring if I hadn’t remembered Naida. Maybe you have to know your past to look to your future, to make a decision about it. And my sisters have no pasts; they only have the present, this moment, each fleeting second—
Except Molly.
I lift my head, look for her. She’s not here; I wager she’s back in the Glasgow’s back bedroom again. She would care. She’s the only one who would care, the only one who would believe me about the “angels”—after all, she remembers how we changed. She knows the man who brought us here wasn’t an angel. She must know we don’t become creatures of the light when we’re old. She deserves to know what does happen.
I rise, swim silently into the Glasgow. I have trouble remembering the way at first; I look in several open doors, find nothing but decaying furniture, the remains of dishes shattered on the ground. Finally I spot the ancient chandelier and go toward it—yes, Molly is here. I approach the doorway to the back bedroom slowly, prepared for her to surprise me again. She doesn’t. In fact, when I enter the room, it takes me a moment to find her at all….
But there she is. Shoulders pressed against the wall, legs swinging off the top of a bookcase with ornate molding. I suppose the clumps of brown on the shelf are what used to be books. She looks down at me, and it seems to take her a moment to remember that she hates me.
“Lo?” she asks.
“Molly,” I say, and she inhales, closes her eyes.
“Molly. Yes,” she says. Her shoulders slump a little with relief. She drops down the front of the bookshelf to float in front of me.
“Did you forget?”
She doesn’t answer me, and I know what she’s doing—repeating the name to herself over and over and over, just like I did when I first remembered Naida.
“You can give yourself a new name, if you forget that one,” I say.
“It’s not the—”
“I know it’s not the same,” I say, trying to sound gentle when really, I want to shout at her—I know it’s not the same. I know better than anyone else here that it’s not the same. “Do you still remember how we changed?”
Molly stares at me for a long time, then parts her lips. “Most of it, yes.”
“I do, too, now. The monster, biting our hearts, bringing us here—” I stop when Molly cries out a little, like hearing the memories articulated stings her mind.
“You don’t need to explain. I remember,” she says. “I remember that better than I remember my own name.”
“I saw them,” I say. “The angels. The monsters. The things that changed us.”
Molly lifts her head, looks at me incredulously. “Where?”
“On the shore. They really do come back for us. That part is true. It’s just now I know you were right—they aren’t angels. We don’t become angels.” I explain to her what I saw quickly—the old one emerging from the water, joining them. Molly’s face goes from shocked to angry—determined, even.
“That’s not fair. I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to be like this, but I don’t want to be like them, either. Not after what they did to my sister. My sister, my twin…” She balls her hands into fists. “I can’t even remember her name anymore.”
“That’s something I still don’t understand,” I say. “I don’t remember a twin, and they didn’t kill my older sister. Why did they kill yours?”
Molly shakes her head, like I’m irritating her. “You had a twin at one point. We all did. It has to be twins—he told me after he killed mine. Twins have one soul split up over two bodies. That’s why when they kill one, the other body can be changed; it’s already becoming soulless. So the monsters followed my sister and me, chased us, they caught her first, killed her, and then they changed me. They killed her so they could have me.” She touches a hand to her chest, where I can see the smallest, faintest remains of a scar.
“What about triplets?” I ask, Celia’s question flashing through my mind. Of course she doesn’t want to be like me—and if she’s at risk, I have to tell her.
“What about them?” Molly asks, confused.
“I have a friend,” I say, swallowing. “The boy I’m meeting on shore—it’s not just a boy. There’s a girl, too. She’s a triplet.”
Molly laughs coldly, like I’m a child, stupid for meddling on the shore. “Then tell your friend to be careful of angels. I’m sure they’d love to find triplets. Kill one, get two new ocean girls? What a prize.”
I look down, don’t know what to say. “Look, you’re the only one I thought would want to know about them coming back for us, making us like them,” I finally say. “I don’t want to be like them, either. I’m going to the surface tomorrow. I’m going to walk until I’m too far away from the ocean and I…”
“Die,” Molly finishes when I can’t.
I nod weakly. “If you want to… come with me…” It sounds so stupid to say it aloud, but there it is.
Molly gives me a strange look, and we’re quiet for a long time. Finally, she exhales. “Leave me alone.” It’s not a demand; it’s a request. A plea. Molly sinks down in the spot between the old nightstand and the bed as I back out of the room, turn, and swim to the open center of the ship. I pass most of my sisters, swim to the deck, and find Key asleep by the cherub railing. They will be dark one day, and I can’t help them. I can’t convince them. I can’t stop them, any more than my older sister could stop the monster from taking me. I lie down next to Key silently, but in my head I’m shouting, shouting loud enough for all of my sisters to hear.