There’s a cloud outside her window.

It’s a dark gray blur with light emanating from the center. Elisheva puts a hand to the thick glass and studies its undulation.

Out of the main center, wisps stretch in all directions, making its shape hard to determine. It’s a chandelier, she decides. No, a mushroom with roots. Or even –

“Elisheva,” her mother calls. “Stop staring at the phantom jellyfish and put your boots on. We’re leaving in three minutes.”

“It’s not a jellyfish,” Ellie objects, but pulls away to grab her purple boots, made of recycled plastic and glitter. “Jellyfish are boring. It’s a cloud. We learned about them in school yesterday.”

“Clouds,” her mother scoffs, coming over, pins between her teeth as she tries to put up Ellie’s unruly hair. “Why bother teaching about clouds? It’s not like you’ll ever need to know about them. It’s surface nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense,” Ellie protests, which causes a rebuttal in the form of a sharp yank. “There were so many different types. There were cumulus, which were big and fluffy, and cirrus, which were thin and wispy like seaweed, and cumulonimbus, which meant - ”

“Enough,” her mother says, grabbing her hand and her backpack and leading her out of the room. “We’re late. Let’s go.”

The door to their unit slides open, and her mother sets a brisk pace down the hall that Elisheva has to run to keep up with.

They walk down the street, past dozens of doors to other units in their sector, before reaching the flooding checkpoint. There’s a line, and they have to wait for what seems like forever before they can enter New Atlantis’ central hub. Ellie gazes up at the dark ocean beyond the glass ceiling as they stand, watching the crabs crawling across the reenforced glass until the attendant scans them through.

Elisheva loves the hub, with its giant glass dome illuminating the vast sea above via the golden glow water-air converter that towers from floor to ceiling in the center. She loves the way the ever-present whooshing of water being sucked through the massive tubes tickles her ears. It’s full of light and sound and smells. The smoke and food from the open markets make it the only place in the city with scents strong enough to overpower the air purifier and smell of something other than metal. She fills her lung in a big sniff that smells of smoked fish and holds it in.

They pass through another checkpoint to the parking deck and climb into her mom’s white, Honda sub. Elisheva buckles her seatbelt while valets check the air seal, then they are wheeled out to the gates and released.

Tritown, the smaller city where her dad lives, is a two-hour drive from New Atlantis, one and a half if the current is good. Elisheva spends the whole ride peeping out the tiny, round windows. She looks past the spider crabs, isopods, and anglerfish that also live in the deep in search of more clouds. She doesn’t find any.

Her mom shuts down the sub and pops the hatch when they arrive. Ellie closes her mouth and pinches her noses before exhaling, forcing her ears to finally pop at the pressure change. She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs up the ladder. Instead of a valet, though, her dad is waiting to help her climb out.

“Daddy!” the eight-year-old cries, scrambling onto the rolling platform and down the stairs to throw herself into his arms, which wrap around her shoulders like octopus tentacles.

“Hey, cuttlefish,” he laughs.

“Make sure she logs in on time for school this time, Dave,” her mother says, scowling. “Her teacher messaged me during your last visit and said that Elisheva was late to four classes.”

“I will, I will,” dad says, hefting Elisheva’s bag onto his shoulder. “It was an accident, Val. Won’t happen again. Now, say bye to your mom, cuttlefish.”

“Bye mom,” she waves.

Her mother waves, though more at her than her father, and gives her dad another pointed look before stalking off to find a valet to connect her sub to a charger port for the return trip.

Once her dad swipes them into Tritown, he asks, “So, what do you want to do today? Get some seaweed ice cream? Sushi? Go to the zoo and pet a stingray? Diving expedition to the shallows?”

“Can we go cloud watching?” she asks.

He stops, “Cloud watching? What do you mean? Is this a new type of game the kids are playing nowadays where you try to spot things in cloudy water? Like I Spy?”

Ellie laughs, “No, dad, don’t be silly. I want to see look at real clouds. The ones in the sky.”

“Real clouds, hm?” her father muses, tapping his chin with a finger while he thinks. “On the surface? Interesting idea. The air’s unbreathable, even for a short visit. I don’t know if there even are clouds up there anymore.”

“I know,” she says. “But we learned about them in school and saw them in documentaries and people used to play a game where they would look at the shapes and make up funny guesses of what they would look like. There was a phantom jellyfish outside my window, and it looked just like a cumulonimbus cloud. It was so cool. We could look for more jellyfish and guess their shapes.”

“Hmmm,” her dad thinks. “Not many phantom jellyfish around these waters. Or other kinds big enough to be like clouds. However, when your teacher taught you about clouds, did they also teach you about stars?”

***

Her dad tells her stories that his grandfather – the last member of their family to live on the surface – told him about the stars as they drive. About constellations. She pulls up more information on her tablet, eager to know more.

When they arrive, they turn off the sub and the headlights, and settle down to wait. They take turns keeping watch, but, after three hours, there’s still no sign of the stars.

“Should we go back home?” Elisheva asks. “I don’t think they’re coming.”

“They’ll be here,” her dad assures. “Saw a bunch last week when I had a shift out here collecting plastic. Give it a bit longer, then we’ll go home.”

Ten minutes later, the first speck of light makes an appearance in the distance. Then another. Then another. Then, the sub is surrounded by scores of little, white, glowing moon-jellyfish.

“Look,” she tells her dad, pulling on his sleeve. “If you connect that one with those two and that one over there, it makes a mermaid.”

“I think you’re right. Look at that group over there. It looks like coral.”

“And those,” she says. “Do you see that cluster? Guess what kind of constellation that is?”

“A rock?” he guesses.

“Nope,” she says.

“A sub?”

“No, silly. It’s a cloud.”

“Ah,” he realizes, slapping a hand to his forehead. “A cloud. I should have known.”

They trade constellations back and forth, until the jellyfish start drifting away and her dad tells her, “You know, there’s one more tradition about stars we haven’t done yet.”

“What is it?” Elisheva asks.

“They say that if you pick one and make a wish on it, it’ll come true. Here, quick, before they’re gone. Make a wish.”

She picks one of the tiny specks of light and scrunches her eyes closed as fast as she can:

I wish I could see real clouds and stars someday.

She opens her eyes, the stars are gone, and the ocean is black again.