THE NIGHT IS cold and crisp, no clouds to conceal the plentiful stars or the harsh crescent of the moon. I lie in bed and send another message.
What’s going on? Please talk to me.
It’s the latest in a long string of plaintive messages to Del that have gone unanswered. Did her mom take her phone?
Or could it be that Del is the one who wants me gone?
No. That’s just my depressed, paranoid brain coming up with the worst explanation. “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m going to go eat worms”—level emotional sophistication. Good job, depression brain.
Having a word for the pattern my brain has fallen into—not just a feeling, but a sprawling web of thoughts and beliefs—doesn’t fix things, but it feels like a start.
Miss you, I write simply, and make myself set the phone down.
It’s entirely possible that Oster and Madelyn Fournier decided to kick me out because of me and Del. At least for Madelyn, I doubt it has anything to do with my gender. If she wants to break us up, it’s because she’s too protective of Del when it comes to anyone, male, female, or nonbinary.
It doesn’t make it suck any less, though. And the other possible explanations are more worrying.
Like that Oster somehow knew we were onto him.
That he knows about the Drowning Girl, maybe.
Maeve must have lain in bed like this so many times. Knowing that Oster and others like him were doing everything they could to keep her away from Grace. Wanting to talk to her, to touch her.
I roll out of bed. The dorm is silent. It’s past midnight, and even insomniac Zoya is fast asleep. I pad out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. I pull the trash can out from under the sink, not sure that I’ll find what I need. But there it is.
The bottle of river water. I fish it out of the trash, glance around guiltily, and hurry back to my room, easing the door shut behind me.
“This is stupid,” I say, because it feels like someone should say it, and I’m the only one around. Then I unscrew the cap and tip a few drops of water over my upturned palm. It gathers in the creases. I sit on the edge of the bed, the liquid cold against my skin and my heartbeat swift.
“Maeve?” I call softly. “Can you hear me? Can you come?”
I feel the moment before she arrives. A shift in the air, a tension. And then there she is.
“Eden,” she says, a smile on her lips. Water drips from the cuffs of her pants and the tips of her hair, but the crimson star in her eye is gone and her limbs are straight and whole. She steps close to me and brushes the hair back from my face. I wait for the spark of pain that always follows her touch, but it’s hardly a whisper.
“You’re getting better,” I say.
“It’s easier to remember who I am,” she says. “To keep from hurting you. I’m sorry, Eden. I never mean to.”
“I know,” I say. Her palm cups my cheek. She feels so solid—cold but solid. She feels real. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“When I’m in the water, it’s hard to hear,” Maeve says. She trails her fingertips along the shell of my ear as she speaks, sending a shiver down my spine. “It’s all darkness down there. And we’re alone, all of us.”
“There are others?” I ask.
“The Narrow drowns all it takes, and holds them fast,” she says. “Haven’t you heard that? We’re all down there. The damned and the drowned. It will never, ever let us go.”
“Except for you. You’re here,” I say.
“For her.” Her gaze grows distant. “I would do anything for Grace. We were made for each other, she and I. No one ever loved each other like we did. Maybe that’s how I can escape. For a little while, at least. But it always pulls me back.” Her voice is melancholy, but there’s a core of rage behind it.
“What you showed me from that night . . .”
“Don’t,” she says sharply. Her hand drops from my face. “Don’t talk about that. I don’t like to think about it. It makes me—it makes it—” She shudders, and blood oozes into the air behind her skull. She gasps, lunging forward. Her lips catch mine.
Now there is pain. A quick pulse of it at the base of my spine, and where she kisses me there’s a burst that sends me rocking back, but she holds me, her hand tangled in my hair, and cradles my head against her chest.
“Shh. No, Eden, I’m sorry, shh. It’s hard, holding on. I can’t think about those things. You can’t make me think about them, okay?”
I gasp, sagging against her. I almost made her lose herself. I almost made her die all over again. She’s trying to be whole, trying to keep from hurting me.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I whisper, frantic to make her believe me so she won’t leave.
She sinks down into a crouch in front of me, her hands on my knees. “It’s okay. You didn’t know,” she says. “Just don’t do it again.”
“I won’t. I promise,” I tell her. She beams. I feel bruised from her kiss, but that smile is beautiful. And when she rises up and touches her lips softly to mine, I don’t draw away. Not at first. I cannot deny the pull she has on me, the aching current of need. I can’t tell if it is hers or mine. With her wounds knitted, life in her eyes and even faint color in her cheeks, she is beautiful, but Del’s voice and face and touch are fresh in my mind. “What are you doing?” I whisper.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Her fingertips trace a slow path along the inside of my knee.
“I’m not her. I’m not Grace,” I say, and she makes a soft ah.
“I know. But I’ve been so alone, Eden. And you bring me back to life,” she whispers.
Her presence makes the air electric. The energy before a storm. She’s going to kiss me again. And that’s like a storm, too, inevitable and powerful. “I’m with someone,” I say.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she says. Her hand in my hair tightens. The pressure pulls back my head, bares my throat, and her lips and tongue and teeth are there, and I make a soft noise that she must take as agreement because then she’s kissing me again, pushing me back onto the bed.
“Wait. Stop,” I manage, and get a hand between us. It rests over her unbeating heart.
She looks down at me curiously. “What’s wrong, Eden?” she asks. Cold water drips onto my chest, my neck, making me flinch.
“I told you. I’m with someone,” I say. Am I? We haven’t talked about what we are to each other. As if defining it might make this fragile thing slip away.
“And you would rather be kissing her,” she says. She bends, nips my jaw. “You would rather be touching her.” Her cool palm slides up under my shirt, ghosting across my belly, and I suck in a startled breath. “Have you tasted her? Have you slept with her? Has she told you that she loves you, the way she told me?”
Alarmed, I try to rise, but she’s straddling my torso now, pinning me to the bed. Her eyes are wild with something I can’t name—grief and longing and rage and hunger.
“The way she told you? Delphine?” I ask.
“Grace,” she says. “You’re the girl who lives in her house. You’re the one that helps them keep her from me.”
I shake my head. “She’s not Grace. Her name is Delphine. Del.”
She bends. Presses her brow to mine, her hand wrapped around the back of my skull. The pressure is almost painful. Not quite. She hums in the back of her throat. “I’m remembering so much now. They took her name and who she was and they hid her away like a princess in a tower, but it won’t work. We’ll find our way back to each other. We always do.”
As the last words fade, so does she. I’m alone.
I shiver, cold water on my skin everywhere she touched me.