Adrift In Currents Clean and Clear

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Adrift In Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire

A baby is born in a hospital in Russia to a girl who is not much more than a baby herself. She doesn't want the child, never wanted it, and she wants it even less when she sees that it is missing part of its right arm. The young mother flees the hospital and the nurses send the baby, whom they say is perfect just as she is, called Nadezdha Sokolov, nicknamed Nadya, to an orphanage. 

As the years pass in the orphanage, Nadya always pushes her brothers and sisters ahead of her in the line when prospective parents come by, making them all seem amazing and deserving of families while she fades into the background. She knows if she is a good girl, her real mother will surely come back for her, so she is the best she can be, even though she spends her free time wallowing in the shallow river behind the orphanage. 

One day, Nadya brings a sick tortoise in, and though pets are not allowed, she somehow manages to keep him, tending to him and helping him heal and then giving him to a family when they take one of her siblings away with them. A few more years pass and when Nadya is nine, a group of missionaries from the United States come and take Nadya away with them.

Nadya has a new family in Colorado and they seem perfectly nice. The father takes her to a pond to see some turtles because the matrons from the orphanage said she likes them. The mother is upset when they return from their turtle walk because she was at the grocery store and didn't get to go with them, so obviously their new daughter will love her father more. 

Some time passes and Nadya learns English through classes at the family's church and how to lose her Russian accent, which is what her new mother prefers. She's enrolled in school and making friends and helping the other kids learn to be kind in their own ways. Then, one day, Nadya is taken to see a doctor. The doctor looks at her arm and takes some measurements for a prosthesis, but Nadya isn't interested in having a hand to replace the one she is missing because she's perfectly fine without. Her parents insist and soon enough, Nadya has a prosthetic forearm and hand, but the hand doesn't do anything. 

Nadya doesn't like the prosthetic and how all her schoolmates stare at her because of it like she's a new toy. They aren't purposefully mean, but it bothers Nadya all the same. They invite her to play dodgeball now that she has two hands and can join in, but she just gets pelted with balls and is unable to do much to dodge them, never having played before and only just now having a new, useless hand to use. She spends the rest of the day at school seething and then goes home to a mother who is disappointed because Nadya isn’t over the moon about her new arm. 

Nadya asks her mother if she can go out to the turtle pond and while she’s out there, she sees that someone has rudely carved letters on one of the turtles’ shells. Not only is it strange that someone has written on a turtle, what’s even stranger is that it is in Russian. The letters spell BE SURE and, as Nadya looks more closely at the turtle, she sees what appears to be a door forming in the clear water of the pond. Curious, she looks closer, but then she slips and falls through the door.

Nadya falls into a river that she's never seen before, and there's another one right behind her and it's… flowing backwards? How strange! As she tries to figure out where she is by looking at the river and the trees and the clouds, a giant frog falls from the sky! It's the biggest frog Nadya has ever seen, and it eats her prosthetic! Terrified it's going to eat her, too, Nadya runs off into the forest just beyond the rivers. 

Nadya wanders through the forest, scared and starving, and she finally breaks down in tears, worried that she will never get home, and that if she ever does, she'll be in lots of trouble for getting dirty and for a frog eating her arm. As she sits crying, a fox named Artyom approaches her and leads her through the woods, helps her find things to eat, and takes her to a place where human people often meet. The people that they find are fishers and offer to take Nadya and Artyom to the harbor, but Artyom declines, offering to come back if Nadya needs him.

Nadya gets on the boat and realizes it's being pulled by something that she can't see. The fishers sing songs that are somehow familiar to Nadya and they ask her about traveling through her door. She explains about seeing the turtle with BE SURE on his back and how she was sure she wanted to help him, which, to Belyyreka is sure enough. They call her a Drowned Girl, and even though they say this is not a time for heroes, whatever that means, they offer to take her to the harbormaster who knows everything about everything.

The fishers continue their work and at the end of the day, they travel underneath the water, which scares Nadya until she realizes she can breathe there. She sees the boat being pulled by a giant turtle and meets another little one on the boat. They have a conversation, which is confusing at first, but she enjoys it. She learns from the other human people on the boat about traveling through Doors and it really seems like she's supposed to be here in Belyyreka, like she belongs. They stop in the harbor town and Nadya meets the harbormaster.

The harbormaster, Ivan, tries to explain Belyyreka, how it has light and breathable waters and heavy, sailing waters, and about being a Drowned Girl to Nadya, and it makes as much sense as anything else but she accepts it quickly. He also talks about the Doors, how they open for people who are Sure and that children who are not called to be heroes or who are lonely might be sure for a time, but they also might be called back through the Doors to the land they came from. Nadya is sure she wants to be in Belyyreka and she's sure that she wants to meet the turtles who live there and choose people as their companions, but first, Ivan suggests she rest. 

The next day, one of the women Nadya met on the boat, Inna, comes to talk to Ivan about adopting Nadya into her home because she's pretty sure they came from the same world. He allows this, making sure Nadya is okay with it first, and the new little family goes to meet the turtles. There's a turtle pond with turtles of all sizes and they begin chatting at Nadya immediately. She finds one, Burian, that's a little bigger than the incessantly chatty ones, but he doesn't think Nadya will want him to choose her because he is damaged, his shell is broken, and he won't be able to carry ships for a long long time, if ever. 

Time passes, and one day, Nadya meets a mean boy who pushes her off a high dock because, to his family, she is someone who came from another world to take all the rights and jobs of people who have lived in Belyyreka their entire lives. Nadya holds on to the dock with her single hand while Burian knocks the boy off too. Unfortunately he grabs her legs so he doesn't fall, but it makes it really difficult for Nadya to hold on. Suddenly, she reaches up and pulls herself up. With her right arm. The one she doesn't have. Nadya freaks out, but the boy tells her the river has blessed her and she accepts the river’s gift. The harbormaster and Burian come to find Nadya and the boy, Alexi, chatting as friends. 

Time passes again and Burian comes to Nadya when she is, what she imagines to be, about 19. He has grown enough to be fitted with a saddle, so he and Nadya can become scouts for Belyyreka. They travel up to the forest where Nadya arrived, which she now knows is called the Flooded Forest, and met Artyom, and she wants to see if he's still there. He isn't of course, many years have passed after all, but Nadya learns from the fox’s grandson that he was eaten by a giant frog. 

Nadya and Burian go back home after their day of exploring and Nadya is greeted with a party to celebrate her coming of age. The family discusses being wary of the Flooded Forest where wolves and bears roam, which Burian wouldn't easily be able to protect Nadya from. Normally scouts go up or down the river, not to the forest. Alexi is still with them, joining them for meals for years and years, and after they eat and celebrate, Nadya and Alexi go for a walk. They decide that they would like to spend the rest of their time together, Alexi becoming a farmer with a market stall and Nadya and Burian scouting. 

As they walk, hand in river hand, Alexi tells Nadya of another place where his father came from where instead of turtles, they had river otters as companions, but that place was overtaken by the giant frogs, leaving Alexi’s father feeling resentful of just about everything. While Alexi grew, his family didn't teach him anything useful or feed him and instead taught him to be jealous and mean, but he is no longer that person and wants to work hard and have a family, born or rescued, with Nadya.

Nadya and Alexi get married and move into their own little home. They spend their first night together learning each other's bodies and sleep tangled together in each other's arms. The next day brings a horrible storm, the worst one since before Nadya came to Belyyreka. The rain falls like knives, heavier than the river water, and soon Nadya spots a woman falling from the farms above. She plummets down through the deeper parts of the river and Nadya dives after her. 

They fall down down down to nearly the bottom of the river where the water is too heavy to breathe. Nadya tries to kick her feet, hoping to stop them from reaching the bottom, but it doesn't really help. She sees the mountain that her city is built upon and reaches for it, trying to stop their fall, when suddenly her river hand forms a sort of rope that she is able to use to climb. The rescued woman comes to, terrified and screaming, but finally stops enough to listen to Nadya and hold on to her as they climb.

They make it back and of course everyone has been worried but Nadya couldn't let someone fall and not try to save them. Nadya goes home, worried that Alexi will be angry with her, but he knew he married an explorer and was only worried that she'd be okay. She checks on Burian who wanted to come help rescue her, but was unable to leave the turtle sanctuary where he lives because there are giant fish at the bottom of the river who could eat him whole. Nadya didn't know that, but she's thankful that her turtle is safe and she is too. 

The two of them decide to go back up to the Flooded Forest because surely now it will be even more flooded and they will be able to explore more easily. Nadya wants to find the other city where Alexi came from and bring back new goods and information for the others. Instead, they find a giant frog, perhaps the same giant frog who ate Alexi’s city and Artyom. It tries to eat them, but Nadya uses her water arm to stop it from hurting her friend. Her arm becomes a sword and she cuts the frog’s tongue. Unfortunately it's not finished with them yet and attacks again. Nadya is flung off Burian and screams for him to get away as she stabs her sword arm into the frog’s ear. It sinks below as Nadya floats away, to a sort of threshold, or to a Door. On the other side, she wakes up, a young kid again, nearly drowned in the turtle pond.