Fathomless

by Jackson Pearce

  I raise an eyebrow, a little confused. “No. I’ve never met you before. But…” I inhale. “Sometimes when I touch people, I know things they’ve lived through.” My voice falters, like it can’t bear the fact that I’m admitting my power—despite downplaying it quite a bit—aloud.

  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.

  “Wait here,” the girl says. She frowns at me, then jogs away to get the towel while I’m left standing in the surf.

  Not Lo, not Lo. She feels like another person lurking in my head. I don’t want to be her. I try my best to cast her memories away. Think about something else—the house, the house I lived in, and the forest around it, the way it went on forever. So far from the ocean that the world smelled of pine trees and heat. Just as I remember it, though, the memory starts to fade, and I realize I can’t quite remember what pine sap smells like. Salt? No, I’m getting confused; that’s just what I smell right now. Pines are different; they have spindly needles and layered bark. I think. Why can’t I remember?

  The girl returns with the towel, wraps it around me. I look at the shore longingly—I want to sit in the sand, I want my body to dry out entirely, but Lo’s voice is in the back of my head: No, no, I live in the water. I can’t go on land like that—

  “Naida,” the girl says, and I force Lo away. “Do you remember now?” She touches my shoulder, and her eyes change, get distant, like she sees something I don’t see.

  How could I forget the scent of pine trees? They were all over the place in the woods surrounding our house. They shed so many needles that sometimes the ground looked like a red-brown carpet, and during summer thunderstorms, they swayed and thrashed against one another like giant
s at war.

  I want to sit down. I wince and force myself to walk forward. My vision goes bright from the pain. The girl pauses, then loops my right arm over her shoulders. Walking still hurts, but with most of my weight on her, it’s not quite as bad. As soon as we make it to dry sand, I collapse, staring at the trail of my blood leading back to the water.

  “Who are you?” I ask her.

  “My name’s Celia,” the girl answers. “Celia Reynolds. We met last night—”

  “I remember that,” I reply. “Sort of. It feels like it didn’t really happen, though.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Celia answers, words slightly muttered.

  “All my memories feel real—but they aren’t complete. There are parts missing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the faces,” I answer slowly. It’s getting dark now; the sun is out of sight over the palmettos behind us, but remnants of its light still cling to the sky. My hands don’t look quite as wrong now, though I’m not sure if it’s because I’m drier or because it’s darker. I look out over the water, try to remember the faces of my family, of the people I lived with. I can see their hair, dark chocolate brown, but that’s it. Their faces are blurry, their voices distorted save for the occasional laugh or when they say my name. I realize I remember exactly how my name sounded on their tongues.

  “Do you remember your last name?” Celia asks. I shake my head. “Do you remember… something frightening?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I…” She pauses, swallows. “When I look at your memories, the loudest one is a memory of someone… of someone screaming. It’s so loud it almost covers the rest of them up. I can’t see it clearly.”

  Maybe that should scare me, but it doesn’t—how can I be scared of something that I don’t remember? I wish I did. I wish I had all the pieces. She can find a scream in my mind that I can’t. It doesn’t seem fair.

  “Who am I?” I ask, not exactly to Celia, though I hope she has an answer.

  Celia shakes her head. “I don’t know. Thirty minutes ago, you told me you were Lo.”

  “I am,” I answer. “But that feels like a nickname. Like a fake name I give people, because my real name is Naida. It’s always been Naida. Naida…” My last name, it was on the tip of my tongue, it was there… but it’s gone. “I don’t remember anything. Bits and pieces of things, but nothing big. Nothing real.” I look at Celia desperately, and she reaches out to touch me again, closes her eyes. It takes her a few minutes. She moves her hand up and down my arm like she’s reading something beneath my skin.

  “I think…” she starts quietly, like she’s not certain. “You have sisters. Or, one sister? It feels like there are two, but I never see the other’s face, never see any sign of her. I must be reading things wrong—”

  “I have one sister,” I say, inhaling sharply. My older sister. She taught me how to French braid and painted my face like a cat every Halloween, since that’s all I ever wanted to go as.

  “And there’s a sign, on the door of your house. I think it’s your name, I think it’s—”

  “Kelly.” The word falls off my tongue simply, perfectly. “That’s my last name. Naida Kelly.”

  “Right,” Celia says. She releases my arm, shudders like touching me hurt her. “Sorry,” she says when she notices me looking. “I’ve never done it on purpose before. It isn’t really fun, looking into people’s pasts, and that… that scream…”

  I nod, then stare out over the ocean. That’s where Lo lives—that’s her home. Sounds drift down from somewhere above the pier, melodies and hums and generators buzzing. A carnival, it sounds like. I want to go, but… I can’t walk. I’m naked. I’m Naida, but I still look like Lo.

  “Can you help me remember anything else?” I ask Celia.

  “Maybe. It’s hard to tell,” Celia says. “It’s strange—everything in your head is dark. I think the more you remember, the more I see to help you remember, especially since that scream is in my way.”

  “But there’s more, right? There are more memories there, somewhere?”

  “Yes,” Celia says. “People block out memories all the time, but they’re always there. Even people with Alzheimer’s, the memories are still there….” She drifts off, like she’s said more than she wanted.

  The tide has been creeping in as we talk; it won’t reach us, exactly, but it’s close enough now that occasionally we feel the ocean’s spray. The sky is dark blue, balancing on the edge of night. I keep trying to dig deeper in my memories, see more, but all I can get are glimpses, tiny flashes. Then Celia touches me again, tells me about something she sees in my mind, and it jump-starts my own recollections. Still, they only go so far. After another hour, it’s clear that I’ve remembered all I can—and besides, Celia is starting to look worn from digging through my mind. I feel guilty, move a little away from her so she doesn’t have to touch me again, even accidentally.

  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 b
ring 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.