Falling. Water. Then pain. Mind-numbing, excruciating pain. In her bed, Calisto turned over, and her breathing eased, but the next morning, she realised that something had changed. Calisto had known everything she needed to know about her life: she knew that her family had always lived on this ship – the Flame Lily – for three generations; that her parents had died when she was a baby; and that she had lived here, aboard this watercraft, for her whole life. Her whole existence was on the ocean, and it had all been smooth sailing on calm, crystal waters. She’d never had to question any of her history. It was fact. Solid as stone.
Until now – until she had arrived. Now, this girl had turned her tranquil sea into a raging storm, with waves crashing and wrecking her boat. Now, Calisto was questioning everything. No one knew where the girl had come from. Where could she have? Calisto knew that the planet was made up completely of water… except for those chunks of land floating on the surface.
“No,” she told herself firmly.
Those pieces of land were uninhabited, she remembered, and continued her theorising. The girl couldn’t have swam; she had been dry when she arrived, and even if she had, where would she have swam from? There wasn’t another vessel in sight. But there was something, something about the mysterious girl, the girl who they called Mei, that had jarred a memory buried so deep inside her mind that she had never acknowledged it before. It was only a shard, a fragment, but it played over and over again inside her head so urgently that she knew it was important.
The first time Calisto had encountered the scene was a few days ago, the day Mei had first climbed on board, when she’d been dreaming. It had been a pleasant dream, about soothing blue skies and joyful voyages. But then everything clouded over, and her mind – her mind was racked with pain so fierce she thought it would burst, until… she was falling, down and down, and it was getting darker and darker still, as the greenish glow faded, unable to penetrate this deep into the water. Water! She was drowning. Calisto hit something hard, and the pain returned, worse than ever. She woke up in a cold sweat, but somehow managed to convince herself that it was just a nightmare. But after two days and several replays of the same scene, every time she closed her eyes – for even a second – she had to admit to herself it was something different. That wasn’t the most frustrating part, though: what infuriated her the most were the blanks. Everything before that scene, and everything between it and six years ago, when she was seven years old, was a complete blank. She couldn’t find anything in the middle of the pain and her life on the ship except a huge, stifling void of darkness. She wondered what had been there before. Calisto attempted, again and again, to remember what had filled those gaps before Mei had come, but, try as she might, she came up empty-handed every time.
That night, Calisto approached Mei’s room. She didn’t know why. Mei had spoken in a tongue unknown to even the most educated translators. All they had heard was the word ‘Mei’, so that was what they had decided her name was. There was no way Calisto could understand her, but still, for reasons even she did not understand, she knew she had to meet Mei.
“Hello?” she stuttered.
Calisto immediately regretted entering.
A faint, melodic voice answered her – if it could be called an answer. Instead of words, Mei sang sweetly. Calisto finally realised why the translators could only hear ‘Mei’. Mei’s song was so enchanting, so bittersweet, that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out what words the girl was speaking. It was as though she was in some sort of trance, like the harmonious music had put her under a spell. She was strangely reminded of fields of flowers, captivating sunsets, and picturesque beaches; although she had never experienced any of that, she felt nostalgic for it. How did she even know what fields were? Mei’s song seemed to illuminate the room, and Calisto saw the girl clearly for the first time. No. Wait. Her eyes had to be deceiving her. Calisto had seen, not one, but two versions of Mei: the first was as she had always looked, the way the inhabitants of the Flame Lily saw her, with pale skin, cloudy grey eyes and short, choppy, auburn hair, sheared off at the chin. Suddenly, that Mei melted away into mist, and… Calisto muffled a scream, because there was a completely different girl now standing in front of her. This Mei nearly shocked Calisto into dropping her candle. She could’ve been looking in a mirror. Both their eyes were amber, their faces heart-shaped and long. Mei’s hair was the same strawberry blonde as Calisto’s, and smooth, like a waterfall. Looking closer, Calisto noticed some minor differences: Mei had a more downturned nose and a small scar above her right eyebrow, but when Mei smiled at her, Calisto saw that she had the same mischievous glint in her eyes that often made schoolteachers wary. Speechless, and utterly bewildered, Calisto stumbled back to her bedroom and collapsed onto her bed, overwhelmed with thoughts.
In the late hours of the night, Calisto lay awake, staring at the stars, her breathing heavy. She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. All her life, she’d been living in a dark passageway, and Mei’s arrival had turned on a light. But the light had revealed that the passage led in a dozen different directions, with mirrors lining every inch of the walls, so that she was more puzzled than she had been in the dark. Again, Mei’s face, her real face, the one only she saw, appeared in her mind, and her song rang in her ears. Calisto gasped aloud. That tune had opened a door back into the world, showing her where to go. All that she never knew came flooding back to her in a rush, because Mei’s voice was the final piece of the puzzle, and now she could see the whole picture. Calisto remembered everything.
Mei couldn’t sleep. Every detail of Calisto’s face was etched permanently into her mind. She had come to this ship with a mission from her parents to take back what was stolen from them all those years ago. It had been planned so painstakingly, with a backup plan for their backup plan, and an emergency flare. But now? Now that she was finally here, her confidence crumbled. The look on Calisto’s face – so confused, hurt, joyed, but pained – told her that her disguise hadn’t worked; Calisto had seen her as she really was, had heard her voice. Mei used that as fuel to keep herself determined. She couldn’t turn back now, after the arduous journey here, after she’d managed to hide her tiny watercraft and climb on board, after she’d gotten this far. Her parents had trusted her, depended on her. She wouldn’t let them down. Mei would bring Calisto back. She would bring her sister home.
