Fathomless

by Jackson Pearce

  “I’m serious,” I say. “Jude and Naida are both new friends; you don’t know either of them that well. Why doesn’t he bother you?”

  “Because you aren’t lying to us about him,” Anne snaps. “He’s here. We’ve met him. We can read him.”

  My eyes narrow. “You said you wouldn’t.”

  “And we won’t,” Anne says. “But we could. And we could know if he was bad news, and we could help. I mean, if he turns out to really just have Nightingale syndrome or some other weirdo girl-who-saved-me fetish, we’ll know about it.” My face heats up with anger. She continues quickly, holding up her hands. “I know, I know, maybe he just likes you, maybe it has nothing to do with saving him. My point is, we’re supposed to help one another. We’re not supposed to just… go meet mysterious people from the water and pretend that’s normal.”

  “I never said she was from the water.”

  “What?” Anne says, like I’m talking crazy.

  “I never said she was from the water. I never even mentioned the water.” I can hear the anger in my voice. I feel hollow. They didn’t. They wouldn’t.

  Anne and Jane look at each other, briefly, a flicker of movement. But it’s enough to know that they did.

  I feel my blood speed up in my veins.

  “You read me?” I say, voice high and shrill. “Not as a joke, not to be funny. You were trying to find out—”

  “Relax,” Jane says. “I only went after the things about Naida. I didn’t just look at everything in your head while you were asleep—”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” I snarl. I feel tears in my eyes, but I won’t let them fall, not now. I’m shaking—everything is shaking. I’ve never been this angry, this… I force myself to breathe; the air gets caught at the tension in my throat.

  “You were lying to us!” Anne says. She’s not sorry—not at all. She slams the cabinet shut and stares me down. “You wouldn’t tell us anything about her, and she knew about our powers.”

  “My power!”

  “Ours!” Anne answers. “They’re ours. All of them. You’re not in this alone, Celia, and it’s selfish to pretend like you are. I needed to know at least who Naida is, and it turns out, we don’t even know what she is.”

  “She’s just a girl!”

  “She’s a lot of things,” Jane says. “But she’s not a girl. You know that.”

  “She needs my help, that’s all!”

  “Then why didn’t you tell us the truth about her? You think we’d care, that there’re more freaks like us in the world?” Anne says.

  “Because she wanted to be kept a secret,” I say, folding my arms. “And unlike Jane, I respect people’s secrets.”

  “Did she say that?” Anne asks. “To not tell us?”

  “Of course!”

  “No,” Jane says, voice hard. “No, she didn’t. I saw your mind. You were never thinking about keeping her a secret for her sake. You were always thinking about keeping her a secret for your own sake. Not I can’t tell my sisters—I don’t want to tell my sisters.”

  I inhale, try to argue, but the words hang. Is she right? Yes. Yes, she’s right. Naida never asked to be kept a secret. Lo didn’t even ask to be kept a secret.

  “I wanted to have something,” I say, throwing up my hands. I’m not sorry, I refuse to be sorry. My mother wouldn’t have been sorry.

  “Something without us,” Anne says sharply.

  I look up at her, drop my voice low and dangerous. “Exactly. I wanted something without you. Something the two of you weren’t in control of. And you couldn’t handle that.” Jane looks like she’s about to speak, but I cut her off. “So you read my thoughts. You knew what it would mean. You went prying through my head like I was just another stupid boy you’ve brought home—”

  “We had to!” Anne shouts.

  “Lies!” I yell back. “We’re not stronger together. We’re just… stuck together because we’re afraid to be apart. I’m not afraid anymore, and you two can’t stand it.”

  “We’re all you have—” Jane starts.

  “Right now, I’d rather have nothing,” I snap, and before they can say anything else, I grab our car keys and storm out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lo

  Molly is sitting alone.

  She’s talked too much of her doubts about the angels. She’s never said what she believes happens to us when we grow old, but her doubts are heresy enough among my sisters. While most of my sisters are on the Glasgow’s deck, Molly is out near the rocks that wrecked the ship. She has her back against one, and with her left hand, she draws shapes in the algae that covers them. I watch her for a moment pityingly, but I can’t stay long—I want to go to the surface tonight. More specifically, I want to see Jude tonight. I swim around the back side of the Glasgow, where it’ll be easier to get away unnoticed. Does he think about seeing me during the day? I wonder…

  “You’re going to the surface,” a voice says sharply. My head snaps up—Molly. She came around the other side of the ship. Her eyes are sharp and bright; her words aren’t a question.

  “What?” I say, trying to sound confused.

  “Key was trying to make me feel better about losing the boy, trying to convince me he would only have loved you anyway. I asked how she knew that, and she told me everything. Going to the surface, meeting with him…”

  I curse Key silently. I should never have told her. “It’s nothing,” I say, but my voice betrays me, cracking at the lie.

  “You stole him from me,” Molly hisses. “Fine. He’s yours. But I want one, too.”

  “You want… one?”

  “Another boy. If you’re strong enough to go to the surface and meet with one, so am I.”

  “It’s not like that,” I say. “It’s not…”

  “Not like what? I’m younger than you, Lo. If you still care, you know I must. We’re the only ones left here who give a damn, who want to go back—”

  “I don’t want to go back,” I say suddenly. “I mean, I do. But…”

  “But what?”

  “That’s not why I’m seeing him. I lied to Key.” I inhale, pause. “I’m not going to take his soul. I just…”

  Molly’s eyes widen, but not with anything resembling understanding—it’s more like horror. “You love him?”

  “No, that’s stupid.”

  “Then you won’t mind if I make him love me,” she says, turning her head to the side.

  “No!” I almost shout. “No, I don’t know if I love him. I don’t… I just like seeing him. I like talking to him. But Molly, I don’t want to go back. I’m not Naida anymore—”

  “Naida. You remember your name.”

  “I remember her name. She’s not me. Not anymore. I’m Lo.”

  “Lo isn’t real,” Molly says, voice dangerous. “She’s just a shell. It isn’t fair for you to do this, to go to the surface, to have a boy right there for the taking and not help me.”

  “It’s never fair—”

  “It could be!” Molly shouts, shrieks almost. I’m sure it woke some of my sisters. I look up at the Glasgow’s railing nervously.

  “He wouldn’t love you, anyway, Molly!” I answer, patience snapping. “You remember being human so well, you remember your name, but you don’t remember how love works? You can’t just make them fall for you, and even with time, they might love someone else. They might love another girl….” I drift off, realize there’s a thickness in the back of my throat that accompanies a mental picture of Celia. Celia and Jude, kissing, holding hands, walking on the shore without pain or blood…

  “You’re right about that. I remember everything,” Molly whispers, hate lacing her voice. “I remember more than you. You have a boy on the shore, you have a chance to go back, and yet I’m the one who remembers what really happened the day we changed. I’m the only one who can still remember, so I’m all alone. I’m stuck down here like I’m being punished when all I did was watch my sister get torn to
shreds and—” her voice grows louder until the moment she stops short, and I realize she’s crying, sobbing, even, though the rage in her eyes is still clear.

  “You remember what happened?” I say softly. I look up to see one of my sisters peering over the railing; I smile and wave her off. There will be more, though. They’ll all be curious. I have to talk fast—

  “Of course,” she says. “I don’t know how the rest of you could forget.”

  The screaming in my head—Molly knows. As hard as I have to fight Naida at times, I still have to know what happened to her. “Tell me, Molly.”

  “Ha,” Molly says darkly. “You won’t help me. Why should I help you?”

  “Because then you won’t be alone.”

  Molly studies me for a moment, hair floating in the current—she’s stopped braiding hers, and it’s messy and tangled. “Do you remember your sister?”

  “Yes,” I say. “A little. She was older—”

  “No. Your twin sister.”

  I pause. “I don’t remember a twin.” Even as I say it, though, I remember something Celia said once—“It feels like there are two, but I never see the other’s face, never see any sign of her.” Maybe that’s who she saw—a twin? But what does it matter—

  Molly flinches at me, like I horrify her. “You had one. She was just like you. She was just like you, and she was killed. It could have been you, it could have been me, they didn’t care. It’s just one had to die so the other could come here.” She speaks fast, angrily, bitterly, and it becomes clear her words aren’t really meant for me. They aren’t really meant for anyone. “They murdered her. They tore her to pieces like a doll. They didn’t listen when I begged and screamed—”

  “Who?” I finally interrupt. Molly looks up at me like I’ve startled her.

  “Your angels,” she hisses, then turns and swims away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Celia

  I stay away from my sisters as much as possible. Come in late, leave early. I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t want to see them. Is this what it felt like for my mother, when she left her family behind to marry my dad? Becoming more like her isn’t quite what I expected.

  They aren’t even sorry. They still see it as something that had to be done. As much as I’ve come to appreciate my power over the past few weeks, I can’t help but wish it was something more along the lines of shooting lightning from my fingertips. I know exactly who I’d strike.

  I spend most of my time at Jude’s place, even when he’s away at work. The apartment he shares with his roommates is a dive. A clean dive, but a dive. The furniture is beaten, none of the plates or cups match, and bills with PAST DUE are categorized on the table—a pile for things that are serious when they say PAST DUE and a pile from companies that won’t be serious for another few months, according to Jude.

  None of that bothers me—and it doesn’t seem to bother Jude, either, really. We sit on a blanket-covered couch, windows open and box fans blasting, watching DVDs of eighties cartoons. They’re funny and stupid and clever, entertaining enough that between the shows and a box of banana Popsicles we’re able to forget the blazing heat. And I’m able to sometimes forget, at least temporarily, that my sisters betrayed my trust. That I don’t know how to help Naida. That I don’t know how to banish Lo. How is it that I’m here with Jude, growing happier, while Naida can’t even leave the shore?

  “You look worried,” Jude says. It startles me; I jump, then shrug.

  “I’m fine. I’m just… I don’t know. I’m mad at my sisters, but I hate being mad at them. And I have this friend Naida who I’m sort of worried about. I just…”

  Jude nods, drums his fingers against my shoulder—it’s getting easier and easier to stop his memories from filtering through to my mind, a fact that makes me smile despite everything. “Why are you staying mad at them, then? Why are you worrying about your friend?”

  I look down. “Because I’m tired of them expecting me to be nothing but their sister. I feel like what I want is more important than me just smiling and nodding. And I worry about my friend because I’m the only one who can help her, so I need to. I want to.”

  “Ah. Anne and Jane’s sister no more,” Jude says, a little teasingly, and kisses my palm. “What did the three of you fight over, anyhow?”

  “I… I don’t want to talk about it,” I say with a sigh. This doesn’t seem like the time to bust out an explanation of how we have powers.

  “Would it help if I made you lunch?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Made me lunch? Are we in a fifties sitcom?”

  “No, but I’m an excellent cook. I make peanut butter sandwiches better than any of those television chefs.”

  “So by ‘cook,’ you mean… peanut butter sandwiches?” I ask, grinning. Jude lifts a hand to my chin and kisses me quickly.

  “It involves more than one ingredient. It counts as cooking,” he says, and rises from the couch. “If we just ate more Popsicles for lunch, see, that wouldn’t count.”

  Jude walks to the kitchen and pulls down paper towels to put bread on. I get up, lean on the counter across from him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I say hesitantly. He nods. “You don’t… I mean, the Nightingale syndrome thing. That’s not why you’re here. With me. Right?” Anne’s suggestion that he really does only want me because I saved him, like some sort of pathetic pity romance, it got me more than I want to admit. But I don’t want to hear theories from Anne or Jane—I want to hear the truth from Jude. And whatever he says, I’ll believe, I think steadfastly.

  Jude puts down the peanut butter–laden knife and looks up at me, concerned. “You don’t really need me to answer that, do you?”

  I inhale. “I… yes. Yes, I do. I just need to make sure.”

  He looks a little hurt but nods. “It has nothing to do with you saving me, and it has everything to do with you saving me.” I don’t say anything. Jude licks his lips nervously, comes around to my side of the counter, and leans beside me. “No one, in my entire life, has ever done anything for me. I mean, sure, my mom bought me school supplies, but then she forgot when the first day of school was, so I was two weeks late. No one has ever risked anything for me or…” He shakes his head. “But you went after me in the ocean, in the middle of the night. And you didn’t even know me. So… yes. That’s why I’m here. Not because you saved me, but because you’re the kind of person who saved me.”

  “What if I hadn’t?” I say warily. Because I didn’t save him. Not alone, anyway.

  “Then… I would be at the bottom of the ocean?” he jokes. When I don’t laugh, he answers seriously. “You’d still be the kind of person who would. But that aside, Celia, you’re interesting. You’re fun to talk to. You’re beautiful. And you don’t fall asleep when I talk about guitars, which is more impressive than you might think.”

  I smile—Has anyone ever called me beautiful?—then open my mouth. I should tell him, tell him about Naida, about Lo, about how I didn’t save him, I just watched as she did. About how I tried to do CPR, but I was afraid of all his memories hitting me at once. About how I lied to the EMTs, the doctors, to him.

  But I can’t. I would have saved him. I would have, if Lo hadn’t. Right? And that’s what matters. That’s what he cares about.

  I feel guilty when he leans in, drops his hands down, and interlaces his fingers with mine gently. But when his lips meet mine, the guilt melts away. I build the wall in my head, stop his memories before they flood my mind. Everything is deliciously normal. Perfect. Beautiful. For the time being.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lo

  It’s the middle of the day, when most of us are sleeping, splayed around the Glasgow like decorations instead of girls. I am awake. I feel like I’m always awake lately, thinking about Molly’s words—your angels. She hasn’t spoken to me since, but I haven’t stopped thinking about what she said. The screaming, her twin sister… Did I really have a twin? Did she die so I could become
this? I stretch back along a group of rocks into an area where the tiniest amount of sun penetrates the water—so small that I think I may just be imagining it. I close my eyes, try to relax despite the thousands of thoughts and questions running through my mind.

  A shadow passes over the light ahead. I ignore it at first—it could be any number of things. Dolphins, fish, sharks… but then I feel something brush the skin of my waist. Fingertips, hair, maybe, and my eyes spring open.

  I almost cry out in surprise but manage to keep the noise hidden. Above me, directly above me, breaking apart the tiny trace of light I found, is one of the old ones.

  She looks dead.

  She blinks. No, she’s alive, of course she’s alive—she’s just old. She drifts with the current; it sways her limbs and her hair around her body. It’s terrifying and beautiful at once—she looks like some sort of flower, something caught in the water. Everything about her is perfect. Smooth skin, dark eyes, lovely hair.

  She is frighteningly beautiful. I feel like I’m hypnotized just looking at her.

  And she is leaving. She moves up, up away from me slowly, then faster as the upper current takes hold. I watch, entranced, until she fades from sight, off to become an angel.

  Your angels.

  I snap out of it—this is my chance. I look around at the rest of us; we’re all asleep. I can follow her if I go now. I can ask the angel why Naida was changed. I can ask him if there’s a way to keep me and Naida alive, if there’s a way out of both of us dying. I can find out if he and his kind really did murder Molly’s sister, if I had a twin. I can ask him a million questions that no one else can answer.

  I’m terrified, both because of what Molly said and because knowing the truth might be much harder than believing the fantasy.

  Yet I push down on the rocks and jettison upward. The old one isn’t swimming, isn’t struggling; she’s merely being carried along. I’m afraid to get too close to her, and afraid of the surface at midday, so I follow along deeper in the water. I wonder if Key would have come with me. I wonder if Molly would have come.