An hour passes, then another. I keep waiting to see something spectacular—wings blooming out of the girl’s blue-toned back, sunlight streaming through her body and lifting her out of the ocean. Nothing. We’re getting close to the shore, not the shore with the church, but someplace farther south. What if someone sees her? Plucks her from the water, thinking she’s a drowned human? What if they see me? For a moment I wonder if I should grab her arm, pull her deeper, where it’s safer, but no… no, I want to see what would happen if I weren’t here.
Even through the water, the sun directly overhead hurts me. I feel like it’s drying my skin up. When I see the old one has broken the surface and is now facedown in the waves, I worry about the smooth skin on her back. Is it cracking? Is she in pain?
Where is the angel?
My sister begins to thrash. Fight the waves, fight the water. She can’t swim, she can’t breathe—the waves rolling into shore are starting to carry us, push us toward the sand. I panic, rush toward her, but a wave takes her body and sweeps her out of my reach. Don’t worry, I’m coming, don’t worry, we’re in the shallows now—
The old one slams her feet into the ocean floor. She rights herself, lifts her head out of the water, and gasps for air. I pause, watch as she takes a step, then another, then another, away from the sea, out of the water. She can’t walk on the beach—what if people are nearby? The angel has to be here somewhere; he’ll protect her…. I peer through the water for signs of legs to indicate humans are on the beach. I see none—maybe this area isn’t popular, maybe no one will see her….
I close my eyes and lift out of the water slowly, very slowly. Water breaks away from the crown of my head, and I can feel the sun searing my scalp. The midday sun is nothing like the gentle evening one I see when I’m with Celia. I rise until just my eyes are out of the water, leave them closed for a moment while water runs down my forehead and lashes. When I open them, they tear up from the brightness.
Find her, find her—there. Just ahead, wading through the knee-high surf awkwardly, clumsily. Her skin is even more beautiful in the light; she looks like she’s carved from smooth pale blue stone, but it’s like she’s forgotten how to move in the water.
Movement catches my eyes—an angel? No, just a fisherman. He’s standing slightly down the beach, watching the old one with his mouth hanging open. He kneels and drops his rod by the bucket at his feet, grabs a battered towel, and takes a tentative step toward her. He’s old and fat, with a round belly and a large, floppy hat on his head. I look back to the old one. No wings, no light, nothing. As she clears the smallest of the waves, I look down to her feet, expecting to see blood.
There is none.
The fisherman calls out to her—what will she say? What will he do? The fisherman approaches her, looking both enchanted and afraid. He holds out the towel for her, keeping it at arm’s length.
The old one gingerly takes the towel from his hands, observes it. She carefully wraps it around her body, tucking it in at the top to stay put. The fisherman points back to his belongings; he’s talking, but I can’t hear him over the waves. He turns his back on her—
And that’s all it takes.
She’s on him instantly. Her arms wrap around his neck, her hair whips behind her.
I can’t hear him speaking, but I’m certain I’ll never forget the sound of his neck breaking. It shoots across the water, rattles my core.
I scream. I can’t stop myself. The water absorbs the sound, mutes me, but I scream anyway, then tremble as I watch the old one release the man’s lifeless body. She steps away delicately, like it was nothing. And then she runs. Up the beach, over shrubs, and around palmettos like a wild thing. She isn’t a human, she isn’t an ocean girl. She isn’t an angel.
I see movement at the top of the hill she’s running up. I recognize him even from this distance—not his features, exactly, but the way he holds himself. The way he watches the old one as she runs toward him. The way he looks at the ocean, the thick scars on his chest.
He’s the angel, the one who brought me here.
There are others behind him, men, tall and handsome like he is. Other girls with blue-green skin like mine. The old one joins them to little fanfare, like they were expecting her, not at all horrified by what they’ve just seen her do. They turn and walk away, moving like one creature, like a pack, animals prowling.
A scream ripples through my head, a memory; I blink, feel Naida’s voice bouncing in my brain. I remember, all at once, like I’m drowning in the memory.
Molly was right. He isn’t—they aren’t—angels.
They’re what made me Lo.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Naida
My sister screamed. The monster was coming toward us. It had teeth; it was a man, yet it wasn’t—a man’s face, a wolf’s teeth, a devil’s eyes. We’d seen the monster before, the night it killed our father, the night its fangs slid through his skin like his flesh was tissue paper. We thought we’d fought it off. We thought we were safe, that our dad had made the ultimate sacrifice to save us.
Yet here it was again. Back. For me.
The house was in shambles, and the sweet scent of dinner cooking fought against the iron-laced odor of blood. A tiny sound escaped from my quaking throat as I pressed against the wall behind the display cases. Keep breathing.
The noise brought the monster’s acid-colored eyes to mine. Old blood caked its greasy chin. It licked its lips.
“No!” someone screamed. My sister. She dashed across the room, slid over the counter, and crashed into me, holding her arms out. If I were brave, if I were bold, if I were more like her, I would have pushed her away from me right then. But instead, I shook, buried my face in her long dark hair, and prayed. Make it all stop. Please.
The monster raced across the floor—it’s coming, it’s coming, closer. There were thick scars on its chest, perfectly straight lines the size of my hands, like axe marks. I stared at them uselessly while my sister pressed against me, like her body was strong, like the monster’s claws couldn’t rip through her as effortlessly as they had my father six months before. She shook her head, pleading, begging, furious, emotions slamming into one another.
She was raging, while I slowly became calm.
It’s not that I wanted to die. I just didn’t see the point of fighting anymore. It was easier to give in than to continue running from the inevitable.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and hugged her. She thought it was because I was so scared.
But it was me saying good-bye.
I stopped listening to my sister’s shouts, ignored the thudding sounds as she threw anything within reach at the monster—a demon, a man, an animal, it was everything, everything terrible. It was darkness.
It took slow, deliberate steps toward us, claws clicking on the hardwood. I could already feel its sticky breath on me, the scent of rot on its tongue. I braced myself and, with all the strength I had left, shoved my sister aside. She screamed.
She screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
The monster lunged, and almost instantly, I felt his warm, smooth teeth slide into my heart. Not to kill me, no—to change me, to make me more like him. I remember the woods, and then things blur, things soften, time slows…. I’m at the beach. The monster—he’s not a monster now, though; he’s a man, a handsome man—is showing me the ocean. Telling me about the other girls in the waves, girls who would help me until he returned for me.
And so I went into the water. I didn’t understand anything, I didn’t feel anything; my memories were already fading. I let them fade. I let myself forget. The present didn’t make much sense, but it made more sense than the fragments of past floating in my mind.
I became an ocean girl.
I understand now: the reason we forget, the reason only the ocean can make us feel. The reason we need one another, and the reason that the old ones stop needing anything. It’s because being one of the ocean girls is what happens when we’re clinging
to the very last, tiniest shreds of our souls. It’s merely a stop on the way to becoming a monster. Not dead, not a human, not an angel. A monster, just like the thing that brought me here, hurt me, made my sister scream, and turned me into this. How did I ever think he was an angel?
Because I didn’t understand. Nothing made sense anymore when I was there on the beach with him. I wanted to believe he was an angel—we all wanted to believe he was an angel—and so he became one, simply because he’s all we remembered. Because he was the one who brought us together, who made the pain in our feet and minds and hearts stop. I touch the spot on my chest that used to be scarred.
Is there any going back?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Celia
I go to the beach Wednesday at seven o’clock. The Pavilion is starting to look nearly abandoned, with just a few older couples wandering from slow ride to slow ride. They’ll start packing up some of the street vendors before hurricane season gets here, and then eventually, the rides will come down in pieces to be packed away in storage for next year. I make my way down the path to the beach to see Naida waiting for me by the church door.
“Hi,” I call out—she’s so focused on the waves that I’m worried I’ll startle her. She turns to look at me as I draw closer. It’s not till I’m a few yards away that I realize something is wrong. She’s not Naida; she’s Lo, and the expression on her face frightens me. No, not her face—her entire body. Everything about her is slow, careful.
“I remember,” Lo says. Her voice is quiet, even.
“What?” I ask.
She looks up at me. Water still clings to her skin, and she hasn’t put on the dress yet. She looks like a Roman statue, a goddess. “I remember what the scream was.”
My eyes widen. I wait for her to explain.
“We thought it was Naida screaming the entire time,” she says. “But then yesterday I saw something horrible. I screamed. And I—well, Naida—remembered. It wasn’t her screaming.”
“Who was it, then?” I ask, breathless.
“It was my sister, Sophia. She was screaming at it to leave me.”
I feel cold, stiff. Screaming like that for her sister, screaming like it was her being hurt, being ripped apart…
“It?” I whisper. Lo looks at me, then lowers her eyes, extends her hand. I take it gingerly.
The memory explodes through me, as if it were shot from a gun. The house, the twilight, the scent of rot mingling with something sweet cooking on the stove.
I cry out but hold on; Lo tightens her grip on my hand. The man, the monster—his chest is covered in scars, thick and heavy, and as I’m looking at them through Naida’s eyes, his face breaks down. Nose shoots out, jaw cracks and lengthens. He becomes a monster, claws and teeth like a wolf, hands like a man. He runs at me, Sophia screams screams screams—
I let go. Inhale, slowly. I’m shaking. Lo waits to speak, waits until I’ve found my breath.
“No wonder you blocked it,” I finally gasp, and let my head rest against the church.
“Yes.” Lo stares out at the ocean for a long time before speaking. “I saw one of my sisters come out of the water. She killed a man. She broke his neck. It was easy for her. That’s what made me remember.”
I swallow hard. Lo turns to me.
“She walked away and joined others like her. Girls who used to live in the ocean, other men who are part wolf. And the man—the monster—who changed me. I recognized him.”
“Did they hurt her?” I whisper. “When she joined them?”
Lo shakes her head. “They welcomed her. She’s one of them now. A demon. Darkness. I don’t know. But that’s what I’ll become. All this time, we thought we became angels when we grew old.” She pauses, looks down. “Naida’s sister—my sister loved me. She fought for me. I fought for me. But it wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t it enough?”
“I don’t know. But Naida,” I begin slowly, hoping the name will cast Lo away, “we can still change this. You’ll remember, and you’ll be Naida again, for good.”
“How do you know?”
“Because…” I pause, try to look like I’m choosing from a plethora of reasons instead of searching for one. “Because we’re going to make it happen. You’re not dark; you’re not a bad person. You’re just a girl with something terrible in your past. You didn’t have a choice.”
Lo turns to look at me, something ghostly in her eyes. “I still don’t have choices, Celia. Either I become darkness because I’ve grown old or I become a human because of Naida. I die either way.”
“But you’re really Naida,” I argue. “Deep down. I see your past, everyone’s past, and I know it can’t be changed. I can’t take back what happened to you. No one can take back their past, but you can choose something different. We can figure something out. Don’t give up.” I hear the desperation in my voice. It clashes with the look on Lo’s face.
“I’m really Lo, Celia. I’m just as real as Naida. I love my sisters and the ocean, I saved Jude, I wanted to remember my past as Naida. I’m not giving up. I just can’t let myself become a monster. I can’t let myself hurt people the way Naida was hurt.”
“I…” She’s right. Lo is real. But I can’t give up on Naida. I reach out, touch the back of Lo’s palm. “Let me help, please. There was a big swing in your backyard. Your grandmother read you stories there when you were little, and when you were older, you and your sister pretended it was a pirate ship and swung back and forth on imaginary waves so hard, one of the chains broke.”
Lo looks out over the water. She exhales, smiles.
When she looks back at me, she’s Naida again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Naida
“Do you see a twin?” I ask, after we’ve sat for a while. It’s Lo’s question, really, but it’s floating around our shared mind.
Celia frowns, touches my arm. “It always feels like there was another sister,” she admits. “But I don’t see her. Maybe she died when you were really young? Why?”
“There’s a girl out there,” I say, motioning to the water, “who says something to do with a twin is why I went from myself to Lo. Why they chose me, why the angel wanted me. She wouldn’t tell me how or why, though.”
“Just because you’re a twin?” she asks, and I nod. Celia pauses for a long time, and when she speaks, she sounds queasy. “What about triplets?”
I turn to her, shake my head. “I don’t know.” I try to disguise the hurt in my voice, that Celia so obviously is horrified at the thought of becoming like me, but it doesn’t work. She gives me a sympathetic smile and looks away, but I can tell she’s still worried, still has questions. We both do, but I feel more and more like they’ll never be answered.
I ask her to go before the sun is completely gone. She hugs me but leaves, glancing back before she takes the trail up to the pier.
I don’t want to send her away. But I want to exist without her. I need to know I can exist without her.
My name is Naida Kelly. My sister’s name is Sophia. We had a golden dog and lived in a house in the forest. One day, something dark came for me. My sister fought hard, but it won.
And now it’s coming for me again.
I remember the house we lived in. Our father made things, sweets, like candied apples and chocolate-covered lemon slices. Deer grazed in the backyard, and my sister and I often fought like sisters do. I don’t remember all of it, but that doesn’t stop me from missing it. I wish I knew what my father’s face looked like, what my mother’s hands looked like. I wish I knew where my sister is now—if she’s still alive, or if the darkness killed her after it took me. If she’s still out there, I wish I could tell her that I’m going to be okay.
But I’m not. It’s not going to be okay, because soon I’ll be gone. Celia has faith, but she’s wrong. I don’t have a soul, I can’t live on the shore, I can’t erase Lo from me entirely, and Lo can’t erase the darkness she’s going to become.
I will miss Celia.
&n
bsp; I’ll miss my memories.
I lie down on my stomach, push my fingers through the sand. My sister fought for me, might have died trying. She was brave. She had to know she couldn’t win. But she tried. She gave it everything; she was willing to die if she needed to. She went down screaming and fighting, a sound that’s forever locked in my head, a sound I don’t want to ever emerge from my own throat. The monster’s teeth on my heart changed everything. But there is a way to change everything back. There has to be. There will be.
My name is Naida Kelly. My sister’s name is Sophia. We had a golden dog and lived in a house in the forest.
And I’m not going out screaming.
But I’m also not going out without a fight.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Celia
The idea of doing this makes me angry. Makes me sick, even.
I need Anne, and only Anne. She’s the only one who can help me. But I know if I do this, she’ll think I’ve forgiven her. She’ll think that I’ve agreed that we’re stronger together, that it’s okay that they read me secretly in the night, creeping into my room like thieves.
It’s not.
But I want answers, I want to help Naida, I want to be brave, and so I need Anne.
“I have to ask you something,” I say to her a few mornings later, before I leave for Jude’s. Jane hasn’t woken up yet—I figure I’ll be able to handle my anger at my sisters better if it’s only one of them. Anne is watching TV, and the annoying weather thing keeps scrolling across the bottom of the show, muting the audio to alert us of an incoming hurricane. They’re rarely bad here, but they’re still something the weathermen like to panic over. It takes Anne a moment to look up at me—a moment I think she draws out to irritate me.