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Sinthia knew what it felt like to be haunted.
In some ways, she was right. She felt the ghost of her mother’s absence, slinking in and out of her life like a sinuous beast she wasn’t equipped to hunt. But then there was Magnus—the sudden violence of it, the looming horror of the mystery, or, worse, learning the truth at all—and she learned there were more kinds of loss than she could ever catalogue. A haunting could feel cold, like a block of ice melting on the back of your neck. It could feel like two weights strapped to your shoulders, lopsided and loose so you could never set them straight. It could even blind you, like a light inside yourself you weren’t sure you were supposed to have. A light, blinking its forbidden morse code as she crept deep into the halls of her heart, past the hollow in her life where a family should be, slowly and half-asleep so she didn’t alert herself to what she was really doing.
Sinthia kicked her heel against the captain’s chair. She should be doing something—helping the detectives, or kicking them out and solving this herself, or…leading! Deciding what should happen next! Instead, she drifted along the currents of her own numbness and disbelief and fear until she washed ashore onto a daydream of her and Symmetry lying on her bed, laughing, close enough that a few strands of Symmetry’s pale hair fell onto her nose.
Sinthia slammed her elbow against the chair.
Symmetry. Shining with the gentle light of the moon. So skilled in hiding herself, and yet choosing to bare her soul to Sinthia late at night in their bunk room. Sym, with her endearing, terrified shriek, her charmingly antiquated speech, her bursts of creative passion. Her perpetually wide eyes, deep enough for Sinthia to see her own reflection in.
Sym. Sym. Sym. A rhythm as regular as the waves that rocked the submarine or the beating of her own heart.
It was the stress. People had weird thoughts because of stress, right? It was just her brain making up nonsense as a distraction. All she needed to do was figure out who’d betrayed her trust, remove them from the submarine, and start fresh once and for all.
"Something on your mind?" Sinthia looked up with a start at Tadpole's voice. She'd been wandering the halls, muttering to herself about friendship and Symmetry, Symmetry and friendship, trying to make the two pieces fit without any extra knobbly shapes.
"Oh! No...well, yes, but..."
"Well?"
"Just wondering what to do about someon—something. Yes."
Tadpole raised an eyebrow.
"It's a hypothetical situation," Sinthia said weakly. Tadpole looked about as convinced as a cat staring down a vaccine.
Sinthia looked up into the jellyfish lamps, into the antique diving helmet, the sealed, opaque bottles that adorned the shelves. Tadpole could invent herself out of driftwood. She could take her old self, shred it into scrap paper, and emerge from the mess gleaming, a pure distillation of whatever she wanted most.
All Sinthia could do was hang onto the past and wait.
"How do you know if you like someone?" Sinthia blurted out before she could stop herself.
Tadpole laughed.
“Oh, that’s all? You just do, Sin. It happens to you, and you don’t get to give it back.”
“But...” That was painfully simple. “How do you know if it’s happening to you, exactly? How can you tell what’s happening—”
“You’re asking all the wrong questions,” Tadpole said. “Look, start here. When you can’t sleep at night, and there’s no one left to talk to, what do you want?”
* * *
"Detectives, might I inquire about a personal matter?" Grimoire and Sally shared a look.
"Uh...sure, Symmetry," Grimoire said. He fiddled with the edge of his notebook. "Is this related to our case?"
"Not...related, no. I would not say that." Symmetry clutched her locket and shifted from foot to foot. "I just wished to know if either of you had ever been in love."
I guess murder suspects can have crushes too, Sally thought. Not that she would know anything about that.
She glanced at Grimoire. Frozen in a state of shock, one finger raised as if to make a point that had since flown away.
Typical Grimoire.
"I was, briefly. When I was around your age," Sally said. "Why do you ask?"
Symmetry flinched, then coughed in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the flinch. "Simple curiosity! About life!"
Sally could see a flush of pink on Symmetry’s normally pale face.
"Grimoire and I almost had a thing," she said, her voice light and teasing. "Didn't work out, though."
Grimoire snapped to attention at long last.
"Sally! Don't tell her that." He adjusted his coat and belt, looking mortified.
"Nay! This is most relevant," Symmetry said. "Can either of you say why your attempt at love failed?" She turned her wide eyes on each of them in turn. Grimoire felt like he was sinking into a deep pool, the banks creeping upward to swallow him whole. Innocent, but deadly.
"Well, I was investigating a murder when we met." Grimoire crossed and uncrossed his arms, unsure what to do about having a body with feelings. "Wasn't a good start."
"Hey, I got your attention, though."
Grimoire laughed in response, and Symmetry thought she caught something lingering in that laugh. Something awkward and unresolved. She was about to follow up on this most unusual development when Wirman had the misfortune to show up, reading and rereading a crumpled paper in his hand.
"Wirman! May I ask you a quest—"
"—We're talking about love," Sally said, smirking. "Symmetry here is 'curious about life.'"
Wirman opened his mouth, closed it. He had a mix of horror, discomfort, and a little awe on his face, as if he’d just seen a train wreck orchestrated by a gang of raccoons.
"Nope! Not for me. I do not need to participate in this." He made a hasty retreat from the mess hall, but not before Sally nodded her head in his direction.
"He just needs a little convincing," she said. "He'll have plenty to tell you once you wear him down. Detective’s instinct."
Symmetry—such a smart kid, really, underneath all that gloom—didn't need to be told twice.
It was quiet. Sally noticed for the first time that the mess hall was full of light. Soft green from the daylight outside. The unattended candles oozing lazily on the table. The pufferfish lamp suspended like a miniature sun. No matter where she looked, the room was bathed in light, warmed by its glow.
Grimoire flipped through his pad, pretending to review case notes, but noticeably red around the ears.
"Grimoire?"
"Hm?" He didn't look up.
"You got my attention, too."
* * *
Godrik was already in a mood when Sinthia entered his room to "check on the compass." There was something eating her, he could tell—he read it in the way her hands fidgeted as if they were full of ants, the nervous, purposeless look on her face. That's how it had felt to accompany Magnus and Felicia on their voyage. Always an accessory. Always stowed away, desperate for meaning but unwilling to look it in the eye.
Even now, he'd been thwarted—the tongue, gone, before he could taste the clear water of clarity—and he was left with the memory of what he'd done.
"I'll fix it," he said, turning away from her.
"Sure...I know." Her voice was soft. Godrik wanted nothing more than to rage at the poor creature, rage at her mere proximity to the plan that had cost him so much and still needed tweaking, tuning.
Instead, he noticed how young she was, and the flame of anger in his chest was replaced by pity.
"Sinthia..." He stopped.
Who was he to give advice?
“Is it Magnus?” He said softly. She shook her head. “Taking the wheel as captain? Is it too much?” Another no. “Well, there has to be something.” Sinthia looked utterly bereft. “Whatever it is, surely there’s someone else who can straighten things out for you? Maybe Dirk? He’s a bit odd, that one, but he’s—”
“—Thanks for working on the compass for me,” she said, finally, forcing a smile onto her face. “Can’t leave a ship without a sense of direction for too long.” And then she left, her jacket fluttering behind her.
Godrik slumped against the basket of his hot air balloon, clutching Cornelius so hard he thought his fingers might bruise. The cog behind him thumped as it turned, a heart that beat with purpose, yet would eventually tremble and die like every other heart.
He’d seen himself as a tool for so long, he’d forgotten that anyone else might look at him and see…what, a person? Someone capable of holding conversation, being a friend?
He unrolled his piece of the treasure map even though he’d memorized it by now, his eyes fixated on the coral erupting from The Mermaid’s Tongue.
Some people were better as tools.
* * *
“But—your work—surely some of that was based in your own history!” Symmetry was hot on Wirman’s heels. “You wrote a tragic romance. You touched the hearts of many!” Clunk, clunk, clunk went the sounds of their footsteps against the floor.
Ugh, went Wirman.
“No. Sorry. It’s fiction, Symmetry. I made it up because it’s my job to make things up.” Not that he was any good at it lately. “Some of us…we just don’t get to have experiences like that. We don’t—” He paused at the crestfallen expression on her face.
This was the last thing he needed.
“Dirk over there—he’s better at this stuff. Go talk to him.” He snuck around her, away from the bunk room, and was free.
He didn’t hate teenagers. Just felt prickly around them. They reminded him of being trapped in a big house full of eyes. Squeezed and stretched into a body that didn’t want to exist. He rocked back and forth on his heels, clutching his arms just beneath the shoulders the way he did when he was—well, when he was around Symmetry’s age.
He didn’t hate Symmetry. She just reminded him of staying out too late on the docks. Getting yelled at for coming home, yelled at for leaving, for fighting back, for saying nothing, for—
He inched back toward the doorway.
“You don’t need to know what you’re doing. Honestly. You just kinda show up, try to be good to each other, and learn. Oh, yeah, that’s a big one. You gotta get better at being with them, or else it’ll all just die.”
“Die?” Symmetry repeated seriously.
“Yeah. Break-up.” Dirk winced. “I haven’t had a ton of experiences myself, but I know when it was going good, they brought out the best in me, you know? I was happy to be me.”
Wirman squeezed his arm so hard he could feel the indents of his fingernails through the thick cotton sleeve.
“I…think I understand,” Symmetry said. “But isn’t it true that love leads to dark demise more often than happy companionship?” Dirk scratched his head.
“I don’t think you should go into it assuming the worst. You—”
“All that I’ve asked tell the same story,” Symmetry said sadly. “One of love lost.”
Wirman paced the hallway outside, hunched over, a pit opening in his stomach at the thought of the girl giving up on affection before she’d gotten the chance to taste it. It wasn’t right for her to be living here. It wasn’t wholesome to let her spend the better part of her youth tricking people into seeing what she wanted them to see. He imagined a future unspooling in front of her like an old roll of film, one where she kept herself so hidden that she woke up older—his age—and realized she’d been offering people a shadow instead of herself.
“Thank you, Dirk. You’ve been most helpful.” Symmetry rose left the room, her posture deflated.
He couldn’t let that happen.
“Wait, Symmetry—” Wirman reached out toward her, and she stopped. He thought he could see tears in her eyes. “There was one. One time.” He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “People like us, who were…deprived, somehow. Who were raised without the guidance you’re supposed to grow up with. It’s easy to convince yourself that you haven’t earned the right to love anyone.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and gave her an awkward pat.
“You deserve to try, Symmetry. Even if being honest feels like a crime. I hope you know that.”
Years later, Symmetry found herself gripping the bathroom counter with both hands, sobbing out her eyes at how difficult it was not to give up on herself. It was Wirman’s words that pulled her out of it.
* * *
The mess hall was empty. Apart from the rattling of the submarine and the comforting rhythm of Magnus preparing dinner, it was quiet. Sinthia picked up each radio, ostensibly to test the batteries, but really just to feel the texture of the hand-stitched garments against her fingertips.
Gifts from Symmetry, staying up late into the night in her enthusiasm, her slim figure hunched over the miniature jacket. “And now, whenever we talk, even if we reside within the furthest corners of the Earth, we will each have a token of the other.”
Sinthia had a funny feeling in her stomach when she thought about her and Symmetry living far apart. She had a stranger one still thinking about them living close together, always a moment away, deep into adulthood—a concept, which, to her, still seemed as fuzzy and inescapable as the black water surrounding her home.
Magnus emerged from the kitchen. He glanced at the scene in front of him as if scanning for threats, but there was only Sinthia and the feelings she wasn’t ready to put into words. He picked up a radio and turned it around in his hands, his long fingers brushing the embellishments that turned it from a mere tool into an act of affection.
“You’ve decorated the old radios.” Sinthia nodded, suddenly shy.
“It was Symmetry’s idea.”
“Hm.” He put it down gently. “Some people say love is all about learning how to communicate with others. Maybe you know that better than I thought you did.”
“It was really just—"
“Just what?” Sinthia twisted one hand with the other.
“Just a way to stay close, I guess.” Sinthia was spared from further elaboration by Dirk poking in his cheerful head and asking if Magnus needed a hand. She was quiet through dinner and quiet as she lay in her bed that night, listening to the creaks and groans of the submarine.
Maybe, when she was older and being herself didn’t feel so daunting, she could ask Magnus what he meant.