Jude smiles a little. “I still can’t let go of that fear of the water. I thought you and I might walk on the pier tonight, but I keep avoiding the subject because the prospect of it makes me dizzy.” He smiles at me a little.
“Come on,” I say, rising. I offer him my hand.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he says, glumly taking it.
“Probably not,” I agree. We start toward the pier. Rides are beginning to shut down, lines of angry people sent away. The hurricane isn’t supposed to be big, but they always take warnings seriously.
The pier juts out ahead—with the dark clouds, it looks like it’s a bridge straight into the storm. I remember seeing Jude playing here the night we met, before everything changed. One stupid board sticking out from the pier changed everything.
I feel Jude’s hand tense as we grow close. It’d be easier if I looked at his memories, saw what he’s remembering about the night—then maybe I could help him through those areas.
But instead, I ask, “What are you thinking about?”
“About how right here, I was playing a song I wrote about an ex-girlfriend. Maybe me tripping was her revenge.” He tries to laugh, but it’s a choked sound. He pauses as we step from the pavement onto the pier’s wooden steps. “It was the worst feeling, drowning. I remember when I felt your hand on my arm, pulling me up. I thought you were an angel.”
“An angel?”
“I know it sounds stupid, but yeah. How else could anyone have found me in the middle of the water, dark like it was, if she wasn’t an angel?”
Naida. She’s his angel. I’m just pretending. How long can I keep this up without telling him the truth?
We walk down the center of the pier, far from the railings. Jude is meticulous about where he puts his feet, walking slowly, carefully. We get to the spot with a new floor plank that replaced the one he fell over, yellow compared with the dingy gray of the others. He stares at it, then slowly walks forward, places his hand on the railing he flipped over, keeping his body stiff and far from it.
“Are you all right?” I ask.
He nods. “I know it was a freak accident, and I’m not the type to have irrational fears, really. It just… remember how I said it was like the ocean sucked the music out of me?”
“Yes. You found it again, though, when you went to the shore.”
“I…” He pauses a long time. “I feel like it didn’t just take something from me, it put something in my head, too. Like now the ocean is in me all the time. I can’t escape it.”
I don’t know what to say—that sounds like something Naida would tell me.
Jude looks from where we’re standing to the water, to the church, and back again. “How did you do it, anyway?” he asks. There’s nothing accusatory in his voice, but my heart speeds up a little.
“What?” I feign ignorance.
“Save me. You made it from here, down the pier, down to the shore, and then you swam out for me in the dark. I swear, I remember being at the bottom of the ocean. I didn’t realize how big a distance you had to cover till now, to be honest. How’d you do it? Do you have superpowers?” he tries to joke, but the words aren’t entirely teasing.
My mind formulates a dozen lies, then lies to support those lies, then lies to support those lies. I build a masterpiece of falsities in a matter of heartbeats, ready to share. The water brought you closer to shore. I was already farther down the dock. I know the path to the church well enough to run it. The moon was bright enough that I could see you in the water.
“There was someone else.”
I say it aloud so easily, so simply, that I can’t believe it. The words sit in the air, float up gently like smoke. Jude turns to me, eyes a little wide, like he’s certain he heard me wrong.
I can’t take back what I said, so I move forward.
“There was someone else, but first I couldn’t tell you about her, and then it felt like it was too late to tell you….”
“Who is she? Wait, what happened?” Jude asks, alarmed. He doesn’t sound angry, exactly, but something closer to hurt.
“It’s crazy,” I say quietly. I get closer, stand beside him near the railing. “If I tell you, you have to believe me.”
“Of course.”
I inhale. “When you fell, I did run down the path, to the shore. But you’re right; it took ages. When I got to the edge of the water, there was already someone with you, swimming you out.”
He looks down, like he’s trying to reconcile the truth with what he’s believed for weeks now. Jude shakes his head and looks back up at me.
“But the people at the hospital told me it was you. You told me it was you—”
“I rode with you in the ambulance, but it was another girl who pulled you out of the water.” My voice sounds dead—my voice sounds like Lo’s.
“You lied?”
He sounds betrayed, hurt, angry, a strange tone, too serious for the Jude I know. But I nod.
“Who?” he asks.
I inhale. “This is the part you have to believe.” He’s going to think I’m crazy. He’s going to think I’ve lost it, that I’m not who he thought I was. He’s going to leave. “It was Naida.”
“Your friend Naida?”
“That’s the night I met her, too. She was in the water.”
“Swimming?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“That’s where she lives.”
Jude stops, looks at me. Yes, he thinks I’m crazy, I’m a liar, I’m doing this on purpose. I don’t need Jane’s power to tell me all that. I look down.
“She lives in the water. And she can’t leave the beach.”
“Brown hair?” Jude suddenly says. I nod. He looks out over the ocean. His voice grows soft, his eyes almost close. “I remember her. She sang to me.”
I nod again. Tears are hot in my eyes. I wish it had been me. I’m sorry. I wish it wasn’t a lie that I was the one who saved you.
He looks up sharply at the ocean, turns to me. “Does she have a sister?”
The question throws me; I stumble to answer. “Um, yes. Or she says she does, anyway. That there are more like her.”
“Named Lo?”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest. Questions, fears push around my heart, rearrange my lungs. I slowly, slowly shake my head, answer before Jude can speak again. “That’s not her sister. That’s her other name.”
“Her other name?”
“When she was human, her name was Naida. Now her name is Lo. Lo is really the one who saved you, I guess.”
“She’s the girl on the beach,” he whispers, turning back to look out over the water. “That explains it. She never leaves, she looks strange, she loves the water….”
“You…” You met her? You know her? You remember her? What question do I want to ask first? Which one do I least want the answer to?
“When I went back to the water the first time, at night, there was a girl there. And when I looked at her, I felt music again, and she sang…. It was like all these songs went into my head, everything the ocean took….” He’s rambling, putting the pieces together as he speaks them aloud. Tears, more tears, though now I’m not sure for whom. He’s met with Lo, with this beautiful girl, and not told me? And the song, the song—
“It was about her. The song you played for me,” I say dully. And in the shadow of a temple, where the ocean finds its prey, / That’s where she’s waiting for me, by the water, by the waves. Jude’s eyes shoot up, like he forgot I was standing there. He shakes his head but doesn’t look apologetic.
“It was about both of you… sort of.”
That doesn’t help.
“Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” he finally asks.
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew Lo?” I answer, trying to breathe through the thick feeling in my throat. “At least I have a reason. I didn’t think I’d see you again. I didn’t think it’d matter, and I didn’t think I could exp
lain how this girl pulled you out of the water and then went back into the water. And then I didn’t want you to think I was crazy, and then it felt like it’d been so long I couldn’t tell you….”
“You could have told me. There were dozens of times you could have told me,” he says.
“You could have talked to me, too. And you kept quiet for no reason, just to keep her a secret, just to see both of us… and so did she. You both lied to me. I saved your life, I helped her, and you both…” All I can think about right now is Jude on the beach with Lo.
I want to scream at everyone.
“It isn’t like that,” Jude mutters, shaking his head.
“Then why not tell me about her?” I ask.
“Because…” But he doesn’t have an answer. He puts his fingers to his temples. “This is so much. What is she?”
“I thought she was my friend. And I thought you were my boyfriend.”
“I am,” Jude says, finally cracking. He sounds exasperated, and his mouth forms a straight line. “But you didn’t tell me any of this. You think I would have cared that you had help saving me?”
“It’s her you remember from that night. Not me. So yes.”
“Where is she now?”
My eyes widen. I feel like I’ve been cut. I turn to the ocean. “Out there. Somewhere. Good luck.” An announcement over the Pavilion’s loudspeaker tells us that the rides and pier are closed.
“She didn’t tell me she knew you. No one told me anything.” He steps away from the railing, turns in a circle. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he says darkly, exhaling. He jogs off the pier, guitar bouncing on his back. I glare at him as he goes, fold my arms, and clench my jaw.
I guess I’ll be walking home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Lo
This is my last night alive.
The moon is bright; I’ll need to stay in the shadows, if he’s here.
Maybe I should have stayed down below, with my sisters. The hurricane is coming. I doubt I’ll survive it in the depths; I certainly won’t up here. But I have a few hours, just a few… maybe that’s enough. The pain in my feet when I climb from the water is strangely sweet this time—it reminds me that I’m alive, the same way the ocean did when I first got here. I look at the trail of blood behind me.
It’s smaller than before, like I’ve merely nicked myself instead of like I’ve been stabbed. I close my eyes, force myself to breathe in the thick, heavy air. I remember how the old one ran from the water. There was no blood. How she ran to the thing that turned me, the thing with the scars on its chest, the monster, man, demon.
I swallow, turn, and move to tug the dress from just inside the church door. It’s stiff from absorbing salt water and sitting outside for ages. Ages? No, I haven’t been meeting with Celia that long. Or have I? So many of my sisters go through three or four new names before becoming old. I can’t believe I’m only going to be Lo. I drop the dress. I don’t care about it anymore. I only put it on to be Naida, anyway.
I don’t think he’s coming—he’d be here already. I lie on my back, just close enough to the water that it brushes up against my bare toes. The old one who just turned, she was kind. She was nice. I remember her from when I first came, tiny lingering memories of her telling me to stop crying, helping me braid my hair, teaching me the words to our songs. Will anyone remember me at all? I wonder if Sophia remembers Naida….
A slamming sound from behind me—I sit up, whip my head around. There’s a car parked at the top of the path, bright red and so shiny the moonlight bounces off the hood. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice it when I first emerged. A figure walks around the side; I prepare to run into the water. But no, the gait, it’s familiar.
It’s Jude. I rise.
Hands in his pockets, he comes down the path slowly, running every few steps to balance himself on the shifting sand. He doesn’t have his guitar, I notice, surprised at how that makes me sad. Perhaps it’s for the best; as happy as his music made me, I probably couldn’t resist singing to him right now. And I wouldn’t want to drown him.
He walks across the shore, doesn’t lift his eyes to me until he’s only a few yards away. They glint in the light.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hello,” he says, inhaling. “Naida.”
“That’s not my name,” I tell him, unable to disguise the misery in my voice. How does he know her name? With him I’m Lo. With him I like being Lo.
“It is,” he says, and he sounds something between accusatory and hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because that’s not my name,” I repeat. “It used to be, a long time ago. It won’t ever be Naida again. She’ll be as good as dead soon.”
“Don’t play games,” he says, and there’s an unfamiliar snap to his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me about Celia? And what you are? You let me think you were…”
“Normal?” I fill in the blank, motioning to my body as evidence of just how normal I’m not.
“I knew you weren’t,” Jude mutters, as much to himself as to me. “I knew something was strange. You don’t talk like a normal girl, you don’t look like a normal girl. At the ocean at midnight…”
I raise an eyebrow. “Then why did you keep coming to see me?”
He shakes his head, looks at the sand. “Because you made me remember music.”
“Why couldn’t Celia do that?”
“I don’t know,” he says. He waits. “You saved me. With her.”
“Yes,” I admit.
“You live in the ocean.”
“Yes.”
“What are you?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I used to be a girl on land. And for a little while longer, I’ll be a girl in the water. But soon, I’ll be nothing. You can forget me. Everyone else will.” Except Celia, I realize. She lives in the past. The thought is calming, comforting. Celia will remember me, Celia will remember Naida.
“I don’t…” He presses his lips together, looks to the stars. “I don’t want that to happen.”
“There’s nothing to be done,” I say. “I can’t be anything but nothing.”
“You saved my life,” Jude repeats, like he’s convincing himself. “I’ll help you. There has to be something that I can do.”
I pause, look at him curiously. There was hope in his voice, pleading. He doesn’t want me to go, even though he doesn’t know me. I take a step away from him, surprised, alarmed, even.
He’s known me for longer than other boys, though. Longer than the first boy I killed.
“Can I help? At all?” he says. His voice is barely loud enough to reach me over the sound of the waves.
I watch for an instant longer before speaking. “Do you love me?”
I didn’t mean to ask, but I don’t regret it. I want to know. I have to know.
Jude looks at me for a long time, like he doesn’t understand. Not like he’s scared, even though he probably should be. Because if the answer is yes, I could kill him. Something in my chest spirals through me. I think about the way it would feel to pull him in. I wonder how it would feel for his soul to become mine.
I squeeze my hands into fists, try to stop thinking about the old one, about darkness, about all the things that I could stop from happening if he loves me. I’d still vanish, but Naida would live. A tiny, good part of me would live instead of drying up on the shore like just another sea creature. I got over drowning the first boy. I could get over drowning Jude. There’d be nothing to do but get over it, with my soul intact. Naida would go on, back to her house, her sister, her dog. Her life.
And yet I know, without the tiniest hint of doubt, that I will not let myself kill Jude if he loves me. That the tiny voice inside me that wants to steal his soul will not win. I won’t kill him.
I can’t kill him.
But I want so, so badly for him to love me nonetheless. I step forward, reach a hand out to him. He doesn’t back away, so my fingertips find his. I let my hand slide up his arm, to
his shoulder. Love me. Please, say you love me. Give me this one tiny thing before I die.
Jude stiffens. He looks down at my hand against his skin, milky-blue on tan. Closes his eyes for a moment, then finally looks back up at me. “I’m sorry, Lo.”
“Sorry?” I ask, stepping closer, trying to ignore the tight feeling in my chest, like it’s full of knots.
“I think I’m in love with Celia.”
I know.
“But… what does that have to do with me helping you?” he says.
It’s not fair. She wouldn’t have even met him if it weren’t for me. She wouldn’t know anything. I saved him. I’m the one who pulled him from the water. I stopped Molly. I walked on the shore like it didn’t hurt so he would see me as a girl instead of a monster.
He should love me.
I grimace, my hands itch, ache. Drag him into the water. Pull him in, make him regret it, make him love you. The voice isn’t mine, it isn’t me, but I can feel it feeding off the sorrow that’s eating up my chest.
I take a step back. My hands are shaking. He should love me. It’s not fair.
“Lo?” he says, takes a step toward me, toward the water.
Grab his arm. You’re stronger than him, especially once you hit the water. Pull him down. Maybe he’s lying. Maybe he loves you. You won’t know until he’s gone and his soul is yours. Just because the angels aren’t real doesn’t mean this isn’t—the old ones have told stories. They’ve known girls who won their souls back. It would work; it would be easy to pull him in—
“Stop,” I say, taking another step back. Don’t kill him, don’t kill him, don’t kill him. You don’t want to kill him. The voice in my head sounds like Naida one moment, Lo the next. I lean forward. He’s so close. It would be easy.
He looks at the water behind me and freezes. He’s afraid—of me or the water, I can’t tell which. Good. I look at him, spend one second memorizing every feature I can. Then turn around and sprint toward the waves. Jude is shouting after me, yelling my name—My name, Lo, not Naida; he’s calling for Lo—but I run faster. Drops of blood spray my calves; I don’t care. If I don’t leave now I’ll take him, I know I’ll take him, and I won’t be any different from the old one on the shore. My first murder was out of desperation. If I kill again, it will be out of…
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