That fatal evening she lay with her arms and legs spread out and her middle only a little submerged, shirt plastered flat to her belly and chest. She stared up at the glowing blue circle in the night sky: it crowded out the stars and looked much like an incandescent jellyfish itself, crowning in a black ocean.
Nona had been very happy when she turned around and kicked back toward the jetty and the shore, slipping among the waves and the foam and the floating plastic rings people used to keep bottles together. It felt so easy to be good when you were happy. Nona had been ready to eat as many meals as Camilla wanted her to, so long as the number was less than three. She had made it to the end of the pier and Camilla was clear in her view, and a big shock went right down her spine when she saw her: not because it was Camilla, but because she was not alone.
There was a little cluster of figures in tatty coats spread out on the beach on the side they’d come in on. Nona counted six of them. They looked black-headed, but when Nona squinted she saw that they were wearing goggles and caps or wraps around their heads. One of them was holding one of those little motorized bikes that you often saw going plut-plut down the streets of the city. It was turned off now except for the lamp, which was on full brightness. The suds and the waves filled her ears and she could not make out what anyone was saying—if they were saying anything. It was impossible to see their mouths. Easy enough to see Camilla, silhouetted in the lamp of the plut-plut bike, strung across one of the supports beneath the pier like a sinuous night animal. The beam was hot and white and bright, and Camilla hovered within it like a moth.
Nona assumed it was the police. Only the police got to have those bikes but still couldn’t afford good jackets. Each one had a shoulder holster, which meant each one had a short gun, and they stood in a kind of triangular gaggle with one right at the point before Camilla. Nobody’s guns were drawn, but the holsters were out in the open, each a kind of glittering mechanical bulge at the top of the chest.
Camilla had put her hands out in a beseeching no guns here kind of a way. The light made the wrist-strap watch on her arm glitter. She swung her legs down off her pillar to land in a little puff of sand, with one hand still raised; she rummaged around in her pocket—threw something down on the ground—backed off. One of the figures ducked forward and picked it up. Nona kept the water right up to her eyes and began to approach—made it to the next pole in the jetty, and the pole after that—but Camilla tucked her hair behind one ear, as though she was nervous, and flashed her palm out to the jetty. One thumb tucked in; four fingers spread. That was the sign to stay put.
Nona hesitated, then stayed put. There was a lot of discussion in the triangle about whatever had been picked up. It could have been a perfectly ordinary conversation, albeit a conversation between six people with guns in a triangle and one person with her hands up. Camilla was so bad at staying still: even as they talked she stretched in that cold white circle of light, one foot pressing down into the sand and then the other, slowly and deliberately and liquidly. Nona swam to the nearest pillar, found her footing on a big metal screw, and waited, buffeted by the waves and the brushing lappets of three comfortably stinging jellyfish.
She still couldn’t make out what they were saying. One of the police （？） had thrown the object back down into the sand in front of Camilla. Nona could see it better now; it was Cam’s wallet. Had they asked for papers, or something? Camilla didn’t retrieve it. Then all at once, one of the cops at the back drew their gun—Nona threw herself forward into the water—and shot. The muzzle flashed.
Camilla hadn’t fallen down. She hadn’t been hit. The bullet had gone wide past her shoulder and she hadn’t moved, hadn’t ducked, hadn’t done anything except keep her hands up. Nona kicked silently to the pillar in front, where she could hear snatches of conversation—
“—said scare her—”
“—did what y—”
“—speak House,” Camilla was saying.
The figure at the front made their mouth look different and said, exaggeratedly loudly and clearly, “Try again. Unjust Hope says—” but the waves took the rest.
Camilla said something Nona didn’t catch at all. The cop turned around and said, mouth different again, “—ut a bullet in her this time.”
The one with the gun responded, sounding garbled, but the first figure said clearly, “Get the knee. I’m sick of this—” and something else.
Nona had broken. Her only use was translating, and there she was, listening to the most important conversation that had ever been had, and she was not translating. She had surged out of the water and shrieked, “Run! They’re going to shoot you,” and instead of shooting Camilla, the cop with the gun aimed right into the dark water, and shot Nona.