OSTER’S HANDS CLOSE around my arms as my knees give way. He lowers me slowly to the ground, murmuring Eden’s name.
I cling to Oster, gasping. And then a wild sound tears free of me—laughter. I clutch at Oster’s arm and laugh, and the laughter turns to weeping, and he holds me.
“Eden,” he says urgently. “We need to get out of here. Before she comes back.”
Before she comes back. I almost laugh again and catch the sound in my teeth, biting down with vicious pleasure. What an idiot. He was a young idiot and now he’s an old idiot.
“Please,” I say, teeth chattering. I let him help me up. I need it—my limbs feel strange, not quite my own, and the water soaking through me leaves me chilled and shaky. He takes off his coat and puts it around my shoulders, and together we stagger away from the Narrow.
Come back, it calls, as it calls me every time I claw my way free of it. But now I feel no urge to follow.
“Let’s get you home,” Oster is saying. Yes, home. I want to go home—and home is Grace. My thoughts come easily now. Not dragged up from the silt like they were when I lurched on a broken leg, wandering in the dark. What did Eden say? She claimed that Grace and Delphine were the same girl, the two of them swirled together like ink in water until no difference remained between the two.
But that isn’t the only option, I know now. I could surrender the borders of myself, let Eden seep in and mingle with me, but I don’t have to. She’s still here. I can root around in her memories; I know she’s experiencing everything I am. Experiencing it as me. But I don’t have to let her will or her personality bubble up. I can keep her suppressed. Take what I want and bury the rest.
Did Grace realize the same thing? Even if she did, I know my Grace. She had no barriers, no selfishness. She would have given herself completely to Delphine, without hesitation.
By the time we reach the top of the hill, I’ve regained some coordination. There’s a girl standing by the old chapel. She’s wrapped in a puffy winter coat and wears a red cap with a little pom-pom at the top; she dances from foot to foot nervously. It’s only when she lets out a cry of relief and runs toward us that I find the name, a splinter in the corner of my mind.
Veronica.
“Eden!” she cries and wraps her arms around me. Muscle memory saves me, returning the hug as I dredge up more of Eden. The more of her I let in, the more I feel muddied. I have to stay myself. She’d never let me do what I need to. She’s too soft.
She didn’t understand like I hoped she would.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Oster says wearily. He’s gotten so old. Time doesn’t pass the same way beneath the water. It’s flat eternity, punctuated only by pain and fear. When Grace was there, it was bearable. When she was gone, only the horror was left.
Left, left, left me—
I swallow down the water that floods my mouth.
“I realized you were gone. I was afraid—” Veronica cuts off with a sob. “What were you thinking? What happened down there?” She pulls back from me but keeps a hand on my shoulder, as if she wants to reassure herself that I’m not going anywhere. That Eden isn’t going anywhere, and I need to keep that distinction in mind, because, oh, it’s harder than I thought to hold her at bay, to keep her tucked up against the borders of her own mind.
“I’m okay,” I say, and borrow a smile from Eden’s memories. “Dean Oster told me the truth. Maeve is . . . she’s gone, I guess.”
“Good,” Veronica says fiercely.
“Not forever, I fear,” Oster says, and the word echoes in my mind. Forever and forever and forever.
I need Grace. But not yet. I can’t just rush over there. I need to be patient.
“Let’s get you two back to bed,” Oster says. “We can talk more in the morning.”
Veronica puts her arm around me, and I lean into her. Oster’s coat smells strongly of wet wool. I hate having it against my skin, but at least it’s warm. I haven’t been warm in such a long time.
Oster lets us into Westmore and leaves us at the door of our suite. “I wish I could say that you’ll be safe here, but I don’t know if she can come back, or if she will,” he says.
“Coming out of the water takes a lot of strength,” I say. “She’ll be too weak to do it again tonight.”
Oster gives me a considering look, and for a moment I fear he’ll realize that this isn’t something Eden has entirely pieced together, but he nods. “That makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose. As much as any of this does. I still can hardly believe . . . But that’s the problem, isn’t it? If I had believed earlier, I might have prevented so much of this. I could have stopped her from attacking Aubrey.”
“That was an accident,” I say immediately, and berate myself for the slip. This is proving harder than I thought. It’s been so long since I actually had a conversation with living people—other than Eden, and she isn’t doing much talking at the moment.
“So she claims,” Veronica says viciously.
Why does she think she can know what happened? How could she believe that she can understand even a fraction of what it was like?
Dragging myself from the water, across the campus, the only thought twining through the labyrinth of suffering was that single name: Grace. Following an instinct I wasn’t aware of, much less could explain. Finding in her place that girl, who looked at me in terror, who wouldn’t tell me where Grace was.
I only wanted to speak to her. To make her understand. When I held her face in my hands, when I showed her the rush and the current and the clamoring rocks, it wasn’t out of malice. I only wanted her to know my suffering, so she could understand why I needed Grace. So she would stop standing in my way and let the water in.
“Eden?” Veronica asks, a quaver in her voice.
I tame the anger lashing inside me and let out a weary sigh. “I don’t want to argue about this right now,” I say. “I just want to sleep.” I shrug out from Oster’s coat and hold it out to him. He takes it, folding it over his arm.
“Please be careful,” he admonishes us. “Be safe.”
Veronica takes my hand. “I won’t let that drippy bitch anywhere near her.” Her expression is fierce.
I am going to wipe that look off your face. I am going to make you afraid. You are going to find out what forty years in the dark have made me, and you are going to taste the darkness, too.
I squeeze her hand and smile.
I don’t dare sleep. I don’t want my mind to rest and shutter itself and risk Eden waking up in my place.
When morning comes, I find myself moving through Eden’s routine as if it is my own. I’m up before anyone else, and I pad down the carpeted hall to the bathroom and turn on the shower. I’m not sure until I extend my hand beneath the droplets whether it will have the same deadly effect on me as it does on Delphine, but the water flows harmlessly over my hand.
I know what I am. The river has never left me. Maybe that is enough protection, for now, against the Narrow’s pull.
I undress, taking a moment to examine myself in the mirror—this unfamiliar body. Shorter and stockier than mine, with a curved belly, larger breasts. Pretty girl, I think. But I liked her better when I was a ghost and she was the bright living thing that drew me like a moth to a candle flame. Except I’m the one that burned her, of course.
I step into the shower. The water patters against my back, my shoulders, my hair. Just like the rain.
The rain that night
Pattering against my shoulders
The rain, cold, sliding down my back, droplets in my eyelashes.
I gasp, bracing a hand against the wall. The cool, hard tile brings me back to the present, and I twist the faucet quickly, cutting off the water.
The shower was hot, but I’m shivering as I towel myself off quickly. Grace subsumed herself in Delphine. Forgot everything she was. And still she had to go to extremes to stay alive. How long will I last?
I look at myself in the mirror again. There’s a single red pinprick in the white of my eye.
Not long.
I dress quickly. Outside, the others are stirring. I don’t want to know their names. They’re annoyances, things I have to deal with to get to my goal, but even unbidden, Eden’s mind supplies me with details. That’s Zoya, stretching as she comes out of her room. She looks like she’d snap in two if you blew on her. The fat one with the pimples is Ruth.
“What the hell happened last night?” Ruth asks, scratching the back of her head. “Where were you two?”
Veronica leans against the doorframe of her room, arms crossed. She looks at me as if waiting for me to supply an explanation.
“None of your business,” I say testily.
“Eden decided it was a super-brilliant idea to go commune with the ghost by herself. At the Narrow,” Veronica says.
“What?” Ruth squawks. “Do you have a death wish, girl?”
“Why would you do that?” Zoya demands.
They’re all in my way. A gauntlet of teenage girls. I might have died at nineteen, but I was never like this, fluttering around and screeching in worry. That’s why I noticed Grace. Quiet, serious. Not like these chattering birds.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I say.
“The Drowning Girl would have killed her if Oster wasn’t there,” Veronica says, still glaring at me.
I hate that name. The Drowning Girl. Reducing me to my death. “I didn’t die. So why are we still talking about this?” I ask.
“And get this—it turns out Maeve wasn’t some lovelorn lesbian; she was an abusive piece of shit. Grace was trying to get away from her,” Veronica says.
“That’s not true,” I snarl. They all look at me, startled, and I put my hand to my forehead. “I mean . . . We don’t know exactly what happened, and I’d really rather not talk about it right now.”
Veronica straightens. “We’re going to have to talk about it, because Oster wants us to go to his office in half an hour.”
“No thanks,” I say dismissively.
“We don’t have a choice,” Veronica says. “Unless you want to get kicked out of school.”
What I want is to rake my nails down that perfect face, liven up its topography. But I need to be Eden. For a little while longer, at least. So I sigh and shake my wet hair back from my face. “Right, I know. I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted, and last night was . . .”
“It was a lot,” Veronica supplies.
“Is the ghost going to come after us again?” Ruth asks.
She doesn’t want anything to do with you, I want to say, but I make myself shake my head. “I don’t know. I hope not.”
“We’ll figure it out with Oster,” Veronica pledges. “We’re all in this together. It’ll be okay.”
The other two nod. In this together? Can they be that deluded? Eden turned to me because she was alone. I felt that ache inside her. I know that pain.
That’s the end of the conversation, blessedly. I drift along in the others’ wake as they get ready and troop out for a quick breakfast before our meeting.
Outside, the daylight strikes my skin, and I almost laugh with joy. The sky is patchy with clouds, but between them is blue, a blue so bright it hurts my eyes. I haven’t seen sunlight in—
The moon shines between the clouds, illuminating us briefly.
“You came,” I say as she steps from the trees.
“I came to say goodbye.”
I stumble. Ruth catches me. “Careful, klutz,” she says, and I stop myself from biting out an insult in return.
The cafeteria hasn’t changed at all. The pictures on the walls are different, but with everyone in uniform, only the hairstyles mark the passage of the years. The food is the same, too. Eggs scrambled until there’s not a trace of moisture in them, sausages slippery with grease. I put a bite in my mouth and almost moan.
Eating. I didn’t realize how much I missed eating.
I’m so focused on the flavors, it’s easy to tune out the others.
Until finally, Veronica is tugging at my sleeve. “Time to go.”
I lower my fork reluctantly.
“We’ll get your plates,” Zoya offers, all treacly sweet. I can tell she’s the sort of girl who pretends she doesn’t know how beautiful she is. Plays up being nice and sweet and shy because it’ll only make people compliment her more.
Veronica keeps glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as we walk, almost like she expects me to dart away, make a run for it. Oster called me possessive? Veronica can’t stand Eden getting away from her. But I’ve seen Eden’s memories. I know what’s really going on. Veronica doesn’t want a friend; she wants a lackey. Someone not as pretty as her, not as talented, not as clever.
She wants an audience.
That’s why they keep Eden around. Not because they care about her, but because beauty doesn’t matter if there’s no one there to adore it; wit doesn’t matter if there’s no one there to laugh at it. Eden is just a mirror for them to marvel at themselves in.
We enter the administration building. The last time I was here I—
“. . . have you corrupting the morals of . . .”
“Mr. Fairchild, that isn’t the issue here.”
“Isn’t it?”
I blink back to the present. I’m sitting in Oster’s office, and I don’t remember entering. Oster is here, behind the desk where Dean Lawrence sat the day I was kicked out. Veronica sits in the same chair where Oster himself was then, his hands folded in his lap, his expression troubled. And where my father had been sits Ms. Fournier.
She was beautiful once. Now her face is lined, her body sagging, no longer that pert little starlet. Funny, though. We’re nearly the same age, aren’t we? I’m only a few years older.
“Ms. Fournier and I have had a long talk. We have laid all our cards on the table,” Oster is saying.
How long have we been sitting here? How much of this conversation have I missed?
“Something we should have done a long time ago, I think. The facts are these: the spirit of Grace Carpenter has, somehow, found its home in Delphine; this is the cause of her condition. The Drowning Girl—Maeve Fairchild—is drawn to her. She believes they are meant to be together forever.”
Because we are.
“Eden, you have been drawn into the middle of all of this through no fault of your own. We do not know how to protect Delphine from Maeve or from the symptoms Grace’s presence causes. But we will work to find a solution. In the meantime, we need to make sure that no one else is harmed. Eden, I believe it would be best for you to leave the school and return home.”
“No,” I say immediately, in the same breath as Veronica. I look at her in faint puzzlement. Doesn’t she want Eden bundled away somewhere she can’t help me?
“Eden can’t go home,” Veronica says quietly.
Ah. Right. The brother.
Let him try to hurt me. I will drown him with a touch. I wonder if I can still do it from this body. I wonder if I can even leave Atwood. Delphine can’t, after all. But, oh, it would be interesting to try. And getting rid of that brother and his brute of a friend—that seems like a proper thanks for everything Eden has done for me. If I can find a way, I will.
I don’t think I’ll have the time, though. Pity. I do owe her.
“Eden?” Oster prompts. I wet my lips, not sure what the right move is. Oster folds his hands on the tabletop. I find myself staring at the gray in his hair. He’s so old.
You’re old, too. Old bones beneath the water. Long-lost.
“Nothing can keep me from finding you. We’re destined for each other.”
“You have to let me go.”
“When you last sat in this office, it seemed you were having a difficult time at home,” Oster says. “I didn’t push the matter, but now I wonder if that was a mistake.”
“No,” I say. When I slipped inside Eden, I didn’t have a plan. I wasn’t capable of thinking clearly enough to form one. Since then, I’ve thought maybe I could find a way to pull this off—to live as Eden, to reach Delphine, to be with Grace. Both of us living girls once again. But the only way to stay in this flesh is to become Eden, and I know that will never happen. I’m not like Grace. She can bend without breaking. I am sharp and brittle. I can’t be Eden and be me, the way Grace and Delphine are themselves and each other. I just can’t.
I have to make other plans.
“My home life is difficult. And this summer . . .” I look over at Veronica. If I lie, she’ll rat me out and say it’s for my own good, but I can skirt close enough to the truth to satisfy her and mollify Oster. “This summer was particularly bad. But it’s not going to happen again. My parents know what happened. We’ll manage.”
“I’ll need to speak to them.”
My first instinct is to tell him not to—but that’s Eden’s instinct, Eden’s fear. She’s too self-sacrificing, this girl. Willing to bear that pain so she won’t cause trouble. I’ve never been a martyr, though. You’ll thank me later, I tell her.
“You want me to give up everything I have. All of my friends. My family.”
“They don’t love you. They love the version of you they pretend you are. You’re better off without them.”
“Am I better off with you, then? Am I even safe with you?”
“You know I never meant to hurt you.”
“—tonight,” Madelyn Fournier is saying, and I jerk, startled back into the present. Fournier and Oster look expectantly at me.
“I’ll do whatever you think is best,” I croak. “But only if you let me see her one last time.”
They exchange a look. All these quiet conversations, as if I can’t tell exactly what they’re saying to each other with meaningful glances and weighted silences. My fingers curl in my lap, claws I’d like to rake across their skin.
Fingers wrapped around one white arm, perfect lips parted in a shattered second’s surprise.
My nails dig into my thighs instead, my teeth clenched, holding the past at bay. I thought it would make me strong, knowing what I am, but my death pulls at me like a fist in my hair, its teeth against my neck. A drop of water slides down my knuckle and darkens the fabric of my jeans.
“I think that could be beneficial for everyone,” Oster says. “Let them say a proper farewell to each other.”
The only thing anyone ever wanted us to say to each other was goodbye. But our love held a different promise. It shouldn’t have ended like it did. We should have had years together—a lifetime. Lazy summers and winters by the fire and a dog that grew old curled at our feet.
We should have had a bright forever, and instead we had only the dark.
If we’d lived, I would have told her how sorry I was, enough times that she understood. She would have known how afraid I was of losing her, how the panic had welled up, cold and caustic, and scraped my insides hollow. It wasn’t me that did it, not really, but the fear. It wasn’t really me that hit her.
“No,” Madelyn Fournier says. Her lips are pressed tight, split with a dozen wrinkles all her beauty treatments can’t hide. “We can’t risk it. You can call her when you’re gone. Not before.”
Madelyn Fournier thinks she is a strong woman. She believes that love can make you strong. She has a great deal of love, after all. But she cannot comprehend how weak she is—a paper napkin crumpled easily in one fist. Your strength dictates the quality of your love. A weak woman can only ever be made weaker by love, and she is weak.
I am not.
I don’t really mean it as an insult. Grace was weak, too. She always had been. She needed me to draw her out. To teach her how to laugh and straighten her spine, to feel the weight of herself in her own feet. She taught me how to soften. How to yield to her, to love, to the possibility of something other than pain.
I ruined all of it with a careless moment, and Oster made sure I never got the chance to fix my mistake. But now I can.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” Veronica says. She reaches over, takes my hand. Her skin is dry and cool.
I imagine her pinned beneath the water, gape-mouthed as a dead fish, held fast against an unyielding spar of rock. I squeeze her hand.
“I’ll have your things packed for you,” Oster says. “We’ll have a car take you into town, and you can stay at the hotel until we can arrange things with your parents.”
“Tomorrow,” I say. I make my voice small and sorrowful. I cling to Veronica’s hand. “Give me one more night with my friends, and then I’ll go. I checked the weather. It isn’t going to rain. Please.”
I didn’t check. I just know. This would not have been a night I could go wandering, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
“One night, then,” Oster says gently, suffocating in his own kindness. He wants us all to suffocate with him, wrap us in soft, downy worlds with no sharp edges to bruise. Until we can’t breathe.
They’re still talking, but not to me. They consider Eden’s part of this to be over. Neither of them understands how little of this concerns them at all. It never has. They are staring at their own reflections on the surface of the water and imagining they can see its depths. But living in the light blinds you.
It’s only looking up from the darkness that you see the true shape of things.