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remember…
    I ran down to the shore, past the church. I could see someone in the water. I thought it was the boy, but no… it was her. She was swimming toward me, toward the shore. I remember her face, try to imagine what it would look like in the day instead of illuminated by blue moonlight. I picture the way she slipped into the ocean like the waves were sheets on a bed when she left, and the way she rose from the water when she arrived, pulling Jude like the waves worked with her, not against her. The memories I read when I touched her arm. So strange… Even once I got past the blackness, the memories I saw were like memories of a past lifetime instead of the current one. Bits and pieces, buried so deep that all I got from touching her was her name and the memory of a girl screaming.
    Screaming like she was dying.
    I play the memory over and over, think about the bloody footprints, the way she vanished. Should I have told them about her? Is it too late now? Should I go back?
    An hour later, I still have no idea what happened on the beach.
    “He’s going to wake up soon. You can wait, if you want. Is he your boyfriend?” the doctor asks.
    I blush before I can stop myself. “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know him.”
    “Oh? They said—”
    “They misunderstood. I just know his name; he told me before he passed out on the beach,” I explain swiftly. Now that I’m a little calmer, I can lie better.
    “Ah. So you went into the ocean to pull a complete stranger out of the water? What a hero,” the doctor says genuinely, putting a hand on my shoulder.
    “Thank you,” I answer, and force a smile.
No, I didn’t go into the water. I stayed on the shore while Naida pulled him out. She’s the one who really saved him.
    “Well, feel free to stay if you want. I’m sure he’d like to meet you,” the doctor says. He tucks his clipboard under his arm and walks away, leaving me alone in the waiting room. The television goes to a commercial, something about a magically absorbent towel. Outside, a pack of nurses laugh loudly. I would like to meet him, too—the real way, not the way I already have.
    But I’m afraid he’ll ask about Naida. I’m afraid he’ll know I’m lying, that I didn’t really save him, not alone,anyway. I’m afraid of how much I know about him—even worse, how I
liked
so many of the things I saw, like his middle school talent-show performance or the way he worried about asking his first girlfriend to prom. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to hide the sheer quantity of memories I read. It’d be easier to walk away, to keep him at arm’s length. He’s just a boy, just like any of the boys Anne and Jane pick up. Just leave him here.
    It’d be better for everyone if I just went home.

Lo
     
    “You stole him!” Molly screams at me. Bubbles slip from her lips; her eyes are red, her hands clenched in fists. “He was mine!” Her voice is like lightning caught in the walls of the
Glasgow
. Fish dart away as she grabs onto a decaying stair rail so hard that it rips away from the spiral banister. She drops it and screams again. I’ve never seen one of us so angry before. The other girls try to comfort her, save the old ones, who regard her with mild curiosity from just outside the ship’s body, like she’s nothing more than an interesting bit of coral or a strange tide.
    “He didn’t love you. There was no need to kill him.” I try to sound calm, even-keeled, like Molly is nothing more than an insolent child. But I’m shaken; I feel like I could dissolve into the water around me.
    The girl. The girl on the shore knew my name. Naida.
    While Molly curses at me, I turn the name over in mymind. The memories it sparked when I first heard it are dull, faded now, and I’m having trouble bringing them up. But the name, the name I can remember if I just keep repeating it. I don’t know why I care. Naida is long gone. And yet over and over, I keep saying it, don’t let