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 harder 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….