Read Online Fathomless by Jackson Pearce - Free Book Online Page B

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.

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