The knives are boring into me, twisting, tearing the bones on the top of my feet; it feels like they might break apart like pieces of driftwood. I don’t wince. I can’t, I can’t cry; he’ll know. Instead I stare at him, unwilling to move, unable to move. He’s looking at me closely. I worry for a moment he’ll realize I look wrong, even in the moonlight.
“It was nice meeting you,” he says. “I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for out here.”
“So do I,” I say. I inhale. He’s waiting for me to move.
I’ll have to walk. I’ll have to pretend like it doesn’t hurt. He thinks I’m a human girl, and not only should I not let that stop… I don’t want it to stop. I inhale, turn. One foot in front of the other. Step, another step, another. I feel blood drip from the shoes, hope that the moonlight hides any trace of it in the sand. Another, another. Just get far enough into the dark, then I can dive, go back to where there’s no pain… Is this what the fish, the dolphins, the whales feel like when they find themselves trapped on the shore?
I glance back at him; he’s still watching me. I wave, he waves back, then turns to leave. I think about him under the water, the way his limbs flailed around his body, the way he couldn’t live beneath the waves the way we so easily do.
Another step. Another. Burning through my legs, it feels like my toes are being severed.
Into the dark, into the water—I hit my knees and let the ocean rush around me, soothe my feet, calm me like a friend with each wave that laps against my legs. When I pulled him out, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t know Celia could do the things she does. I didn’t even know I was Naida.
I didn’t know how much it could hurt to be Lo.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Celia
“Where have you been the last few nights?” Anne asks several days later at a café down the street from the dorms. This area is unabashedly antitourist; there are no beach towels, no inflatable alligators, no neon signs. It’s tucked away neatly behind the school, and were it not for the salt in the air, it could very well pass for a street in the middle of the country instead of at its edge. I stall, tapping the bottom of a mustard bottle to drown the order of fries we’re sharing—a taste all three of us love and just about everyone else seems to hate.
The silence goes on a beat too long, long enough that I can practically feel Anne growing suspicious. “I’ve been hanging out with someone I met here, when Jude fell off the pier.”
“Hanging out? Like, a friend?” Jane says, furrowing her brows. The way she says friend is odd—not only because the three of us don’t really have friends, so to speak, but because I’m not sure I really consider Naida a friend. She’s more like… a cause. I barely know her. But then, I like her. Friend isn’t a crazy term, I guess…. I nod at Jane.
“Who is it?” Anne asks.
“Her name’s Naida,” I say.
“A girl?” Jane asks in disbelief.
“We were friends with that girl, the younger sister, in Ellison,” I argue.
“For all of five minutes,” Anne says. “But forget it—who is she?” They sound like they think she might be a spy from another set of triplets.
The lie is on the edge of my lips, ready to go: a girl from the public school. Just someone to hang out with. It’s nothing, really. Don’t worry.
But I think of Naida, of the sister she can’t remember. You only get so many.
These are mine. They’re my sisters. It’s my power, it should be my choice and mine alone… even if we are stronger together. I inhale. “She has trouble remembering things. I’m helping her.”
Anne’s and Jane’s eyes widen. They look at each other. “She knows what you can do?” There’s a note of panic in Anne’s voice, fear, even.
“It’s fine,” I say swiftly, shaking my head. “She doesn’t remember anything from before a few years ago, and I touched her and… it’s not what you think, Anne. I promise, it’s fine.” Revealing that Naida knows about the power is one thing; that she’s something like a mermaid is another thing entirely.
“Did you tell her about Jane and me?” Anne says, voice low. I hesitate, wishing I hadn’t said anything. The secret was bad, but the look on Anne’s face is worse, as is what she’s said—Jane and me. Like the space between my sisters and me is much larger than a restaurant table.
“No,” I answer. “Well, I told her I had sisters. But I didn’t tell her about the powers—”
“We don’t tell people, Celia. We’ve never told people,” Anne hisses. “How could you?”
“I’m helping her. She needs me. You have to trust me, please. She’s fine. She can’t tell anyone.”
“Yes, she can—”
“No. She really can’t.” I breathe in as the waitress stops by to refill our drinks; I think she realizes she’s interrupted something, because she scurries away quickly when she’s done. I continue, “If you’re that worried, Jane can look. She can see I’m not lying.”
Of course, if Jane looks, she’ll know what Naida is, where she comes from—if I let Jane in to see details, she’d inevitably see the core as well. But I’m counting on Anne balking at the very suggestion that Jane essentially use her power against me. Use her power because they don’t trust me. Even if it’s true, it isn’t something Anne would want to admit.
Anne presses her lips together. “It’s fine,” she says swiftly. “If you say it’s fine, it’s fine.”
Her words are stilted—caught between saying what she wants to believe is true and what she’s scared isn’t. To be honest, I’m impressed. Anne is so used to being in control. Handing the reins to me is clearly uncomfortable, but she tries to manage it nonetheless. For that much, at least, I’m grateful.
“I promise. It’s fine,” I tell both of them sincerely.
“Can we meet her?” Jane asks.
My phone rings right as the last syllable is off Jane’s tongue; I’m relieved to see Jude’s number pop up and save me from answering Jane’s question. How could I introduce Naida to my sisters? How could I explain her?
“Good news,” Jude says the moment I answer. “I’m going to buy a new guitar today.”
“That’s… good,” I say back, a little perplexed.
“You should come with me.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re involved now. You shouldn’t have saved me if you didn’t want to end up hanging out with me. This is entirely your fault.”
I pause for a long time.
Jude ups the offer. “And we can go get ice cream, if you want?”
I laugh, and Jude offers to pick me up at the café, then we hang up. Jane takes the easy bait, immediately asking about where Jude and I are going, what we’re doing, how long I’ll be gone, do I want to run home and borrow her new shirt. Anne isn’t as quick to forget about Naida, though; I can see her thinking carefully, choosing her words. She doesn’t speak until Jude’s car rumbles into the parking lot.
“Eventually we’ll get to meet her, right?” It isn’t really a question, not the way Anne’s asking it.
“Of course,” I lie swiftly, standing up and collecting my purse.
“Right,” Anne says, and I can tell she knows I’m lying. “Well, don’t do that again, Celia, telling people about us.”
“I didn’t tell her about us. I told her about me.”
“Same thing,” Anne says, like this should have been obvious. I shrug like Jane does when Anne’s irritated with her and turn, relieved when I push through the glass café door. Jude turns down some sort of bluesy music as I arrive and fall into the car’s front seat.
“Is Anne glaring at me? I think she’s glaring at me,” he says, nodding toward Anne and Jane in the café window.
“You can tell them apart?” I ask, impressed.
“Of course. Anne is the one who always looks like she might murder me.”
I laugh as Jude backs out of the parking lot. “She might. But no, she’s glaring at me. It’s nothing, reall
y.” I brush it off. “So you finally got enough money?”
“Yep. Well, technically, I had it a few days ago. My roommates got tired of seeing me mope, so they got together three hundred dollars between them to loan me. Though now I have to do everyone’s dishes for three weeks.”
“You could afford it last week? Why’d you wait so long to go get it, then?”
“Ah… well…” he says, tapping the steering wheel with his palms as we turn onto the strip, a long, straight road that runs parallel to the ocean and is packed with tourist attractions, including the Pavilion. Jude continues, “This is weird, but… until the other night, it was like I had musician’s block. I couldn’t write anything.”
“What changed?”
Jude inhales, is silent for longer than he usually could stand. “I went back to the ocean.”
Something in me stops, alarmed, unsure. “When? What happened?” Did you meet Naida? Lo? Did you remember she’s really your Nightingale? Questions I’m afraid to ask…
“The other night, late. I didn’t get in the water, but I stood on the shore. And I got an idea for a song.”
I’m relieved, and ashamed of it. He should meet Naida. He should know she saved him. I should tell him.
“What’s the song about?” I ask instead.
He pauses. “It’s a love song. A sad one. I think it’s about the ocean.”
“About almost drowning?”
“Maybe,” he says. “I’m really happy with it. I just haven’t been inspired, and then the other day…” He shrugs. “I got over musician’s block, I guess. Maybe it’s the Nightingale syndrome inspiring the romantic in me.” He says the last bit offhandedly, like it’s nothing, but it makes me blush. When he looks at me, he laughs a little, but there’s a nervousness to it that’s as charming as it is awkward.
The music store is between a pet depot and the remains of a closed water park where the slides are cracked and awnings ripped, but the sign still promises the park’s returning next summer. The music shop is empty, save the older man behind the counter, who recognizes Jude immediately. He leads us over to the wall covered in guitars—acoustic, electric, expensive, and ones so cheap that I wonder if they even play.
“How do you know which one to buy?” I ask as Jude runs his hand across them.
“You can just feel it.”
“Really?”
“No. I researched it online and figured out I want this one,” he says, tapping one in the center of the display, then grinning at me. I roll my eyes at him as the old man nods and vanishes to the stockroom to get the guitar.
“Play the song you were talking about to me,” I suggest, but he shakes his head.
“It’s just an idea right now. I’ll need to work on it—oh, that’s it,” Jude says as the old man returns. Despite Jude’s joke about “feeling” the right instrument, he turns the guitar over in his hands, holds it a thousand different ways before nodding and handing over three hundred dollars in wadded-up cash and a blue credit card. When we leave, he looks a little overwhelmed; I notice he keeps looking in the mirror to see the guitar in the seat behind us.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s just the last time I bought a guitar, I was fourteen and, stupid as this sounds, it changed my life. It made me feel like… me.” He stops and looks at me. “I never really thought I was going to be a rock star or anything. I just wanted to create something beautiful.”
“What did you want to be?” I ask.
“I just wanted to get out,” he admits, pulling out of the parking lot. “What about you?”
“It’ll depend on what Anne and Jane do.”
“What do they want to do?”
“I don’t know that they’ve thought about it, either.” That’s not entirely a lie—there are dozens of psychic reading places along the strip, promising tourists summer love and sunny vacation days. We’ve talked about opening our own one day, but it’s mostly a joke. Yet at the same time, their powers are the only thing Anne and Jane love to do. What else could they possibly become?
“You know how you said you think you aren’t like your mother yet?” Jude asks. I nod. He pauses, then speaks. “I think you will be when you embrace being Celia, instead of just being Anne and Jane’s sister,” he says. I glare at him, and he shrugs. “I know, I know. But maybe being Celia is for you what playing music was for me. Wishing you’d left me in the water now, aren’t you?”
“At the moment, maybe.”
“There were other people on the pier, you know.” I stop glaring, raise an eyebrow at him. He slows at a red light and looks at me. “There were plenty of other people on the dock. You’re the only one who ran down to save me.”
“I was the only one who knew the way. If you aren’t familiar with it, that road by the church—”
He looks down, a little sheepish. “You were the only one. And you didn’t even know me. I was just some clumsy idiot, as far as you knew. I know Anne and Jane are your sisters, but I guess all I’m trying to say is that you’re enough without them. Even though you seem to doubt that.”
“It’s not them,” I say before I can stop myself, defend myself. “It’s that I don’t always like being me very much. Or at least, I didn’t.”
“Didn’t? What changed?”
I pause. One moment changed everything, and in none of the ways I would have expected. I turn my head to look at the guitar in the backseat as I answer. “You fell.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lo
“And then you twist this side over,” I explain. A girl older than Molly but a few months younger than me sits beside me in the sand, in the area where the Glasgow split, watching as I wind my fingers through Key’s hair. “And that keeps it from getting tangled.” The girl nods, studies my hands carefully, then does the same on the girl sitting at her feet. It’s a silly way to pass the time, but not without its merits, I guess—if you don’t keep your hair braided at the height of storm season, it’ll be a tangled mess.
“How did you learn?” the girl asks.
I smile a little. “When I first got here, another girl taught me. She’s an angel now, though. You’ll teach someone someday.”
“Or I will,” Key sighs. “I’ll be here forever.”
“Don’t be silly,” the young girl says. Her voice is almost bell-like, but there’s a slow, twisted pattern to it, something that reminds me of Celia’s voice—I guess it’s her age, her humanity, coming through. “You’ll grow old soon enough.”
“Not nearly soon enough,” Key jokes, but her voice is sad.
“Molly doesn’t believe we become angels when we grow old,” the young girl suddenly says. We all stop. I release Key’s hair and the braid dissolves, flares up around her head. We look at the young girl, who quickly stares at her hands. “I don’t think that’s right, of course. But she’s been telling people that lately. More and more.”
“She’s wrong,” Key says sharply, voice almost a hiss. “And she’s wrong to spread lies. What does she think happens when we grow old? We just… dissolve? Become sea foam?”
“She… she says she doesn’t know. But that she just doesn’t think we become angels,” the girl says meekly.
“Well, I remember being on the beach. I remember the angel saying he would come back. Don’t you, Lo?” Key says.
I nod. I remember it. It’s just… now I know there’s more to the story. There’s a scream. There’s a mystery….
But I don’t say that. I can’t say that to someone like Key. Either it would crush her or I’d lose her as my closest friend. I don’t want to be alone.
Key sighs. “Come on, Lo,” she says, extending a hand to me. “Let’s go somewhere.”
“Where?” I ask.
“Maybe to the edge?” The edge. The edge of the group, as far as we dare go—just beyond the rocks, where the Glasgow is almost out of sight.
“All right…” I say, and take Key’s hand, confused. We leave the other two, letting the current do mos
t of the work and push us away from the others. The current is tricky this deep—you think it isn’t strong because you can’t feel it tugging you, but you look up and next thing you know, you’ve drifted away.
“I have to ask you something,” Key says, and her eyes are serious.
“Of course,” I answer. We stare through the water. I should have tied off Key’s hair, had her do mine. It’s horrible trying to pick out the knots—I don’t entirely blame the old ones for giving up altogether, letting their hair tangle like clumps of seaweed.
“Look,” Key says, pointing through the water. I peer in the direction of her finger. Far away, there’s a shadow moving, thick and slow. It carves through the water carefully, like it’s moving each drop out of its way. A whale—behind it, a few more. There must be even more farther into the sea; they come in fifties, hundreds, sometimes. I grin, almost start toward it—
“What are you doing?” Key asks.
“I want to see them up close—”
“You can’t leave us.”
I stare at Key for a long time, then at my sisters behind her.
“What are you talking about?” I ask quietly, but the lie in my voice is screaming.
“Twice, at least. You thought we wouldn’t notice?”
“Have the rest of us noticed? Or just you?” I answer.
Key looks down. “Just me.” I can tell she hates it, that it isolates her to be the only one, which means she might—
“You can’t tell them.” I cringe, as does Key, when I say them out loud. “You can’t tell us,” I correct myself. “Please.”
“It’s not safe out there,” she answers. “Please, Lo. You’re not acting like Molly, are you? Doubting the angels? Because… I don’t want to feel about you the way I feel about Molly. I… I almost hate her.” She drops her voice low at the last part, so low I almost miss the word. “So please. What are you doing out there?” she asks. I back away from her slowly, letting the water cradle me as I lean into it. I look up through the ocean. I can barely, barely see the stars.