Page 2 of Beneath the Sugar Sky

(It would turn brown again if she stayed here long enough, if she stayed dry. Eleanor had met other children who had traveled through Cora’s door, and she knew, although she would never tell Cora, that on the day when the green and blue began to fade—whether that happened tomorrow or in a year—that would be when the door would be locked forever, and Cora would be shipwrecked forever on this now-foreign shore.)

“Everyone’s been really nice,” she said. “Kade says he knows where my world falls on the compass, and he’s going to help me research other people who have gone there. Um, and Angela introduced me to all the other girls, and a few of them went to water worlds too, so we have lots to talk about.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Eleanor, and meant it. “If there’s anything you need, you’ll let me know, won’t you? I want all my students to be happy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Cora, the brightness fading. She bit her lip as she tucked her phone into her pocket, and said, “I have to go. Um, Nadya and I are going to the pond.”

“Remind her to take a jacket, please. She gets cold easily.” Eleanor stepped to the side, letting Cora hurry away. She couldn’t keep up with the students anymore, and she supposed that was a good thing; the sooner she wore out, the sooner she could go home.

But oh, she was tired of getting old.

* * *

CORA HURRIED DOWN the stairs, shoulders hunched slightly inward, waiting for a sneer or insult that never came. In the six weeks since she had arrived at the school, no one had called her “fat” like it was another word for “monster,” not even once. Kade, who served as the unofficial tailor and had a selection of clothing left behind by departing students that stretched back decades, had looked her up and down and said a number that had made her want to die a little bit inside, until she’d realized there was no judgement in his tone: he just wanted her clothes to fit.

The other students teased and fought and called each other names, but those names were always about things they’d done or places they’d gone, not about who they were. Nadya was missing her right arm at the elbow, and no one called her “gimp” or “cripple” or any of the other things Cora knew she would have been called if she’d gone to Cora’s old school. It was like they had all learned to be a little kinder, or at least a little more careful about what they based their judgements on.

Cora had been fat her entire life. She had been a fat baby, and a fat toddler in swim classes, and a fat child in elementary school. Day after day, she had learned that “fat” was another way to say “worthless, ugly, waste of space, unwanted, disgusting.” She had started to believe them by the time she was in third grade, because what else was she supposed to do?

Then she had fallen into the Trenches (don’t think about how she got there don’t think about how she might get back don’t do it), and suddenly she’d been beautiful. Suddenly she’d been strong, insulated against the bitter chill of the water, able to dive deeper and swim further than anyone else in the school. Suddenly she’d been a hero, brave and bright and beloved. And on the day when she’d been sucked into that whirlpool and dropped into her own backyard, on dry land again, no gills in her neck or fins on her feet, she had wanted to die. She had thought she could never be beautiful again.

Maybe here, though … maybe here she could be. Maybe here she was allowed. Everyone else was fighting toward their own sense of safety, of beauty, of belonging. Maybe she could do that, too.

Nadya was waiting on the porch, examining the nails of her hand with the calm intensity of a dam getting ready to break. She looked up at the sound of the closing door. “You’re late.” The ghost of a Russian accent lingered in her words and wrapped itself like waterweeds around her vowels, pale and thin as tissue paper.

“Miss West was in the hall outside my room.” Cora shook her head. “I didn’t think she’d be there. She’s so quiet for being so old.”

“She’s older than she looks,” said Nadya. “Kade says she’s almost a hundred.”

Cora frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Says the girl whose hair grows in green and blue all over,” said Nadya. “It’s a miracle your parents got you here before the beauty companies snatched you up to try to figure out the mystery of the girl with the seaweed pubes.”

“Hey!” yelped Cora.

Nadya laughed and started down the porch, taking the steps two at a time, like she didn’t trust them to get her where she needed to go. “I only tell the truth, because I love you, and because one day you’re going to be on the front of the supermarket magazines. Right next to Tom Cruise and the Scientology aliens.”

“Only because you’re going to turn me in,” said Cora. “Miss West told me to remind you to bring a coat.”

“Miss West can bring me a coat herself if she wants me to have one so bad,” said Nadya. “I don’t get cold.”

“No, but you catch colds all the time, and I guess she’s tired of listening to you hack up a lung.”

Nadya waved her hand dismissively. “We must suffer for our chance to return home. Now come, come, hurry. Those turtles aren’t going to tip themselves.”

Cora shook her head, and hurried.

Nadya was one of the school’s long-timers: five years so far, from the age of eleven to the age of sixteen. There had been no sign in those five years of her doorway appearing, or of her asking her adoptive parents to take her home. That was unusual. Everyone knew that parents could withdraw their children at any time; that all Nadya had to do was ask and she’d be able to return to the life she’d lived before … well, before everything.

According to everyone Cora had spoken to, most students chose to go back to their old lives after four years had passed without a doorway.

“That’s when they give up,” Kade had said, expression turning sad. “That’s when they say, ‘I can’t live for a world that doesn’t want me, so I guess I’d better learn to live in the world I have.’”

Not Nadya. She didn’t belong to any clique or social circle, didn’t have many close friends—or seem to want them—but she didn’t leave, either. She went from classroom to turtle pond, from bathtub to bed, and she kept her hair perpetually wet, no matter how many colds she caught, and she never stopped watching the water for the bubbles that would mark her way back to Belyyreka, the Drowned World and the Land Beneath the Lake.

Nadya had walked up to Cora on her first day at the school, when she was standing frozen in the door of the dining hall, terrified to eat—what if they called her names?—and terrified to turn and run away—what if they made fun of her behind her back?

“You, new girl,” she had said. “Angela tells me you were a mermaid. Is that so?”