by Alma Katsu
“And no husband, either?” she pried. “Or . . . sweetheart?”
“No, Maddie,” Annie answered, the cold swirl becoming colder still, ice crystalizing in her chest.
“Yes, I supposed not.”
“What do you mean?” Annie asked quietly.
“Oh, just . . . there is something very . . . untouched about you.”
“Untouched?” she asked, but she knew what the heiress meant.
“Innocent. Childlike.”
She felt sick. The Lord favors good girls, Annie.
“But surely,” Madeleine went on, “you’ve got interests, have you not, Miss Hebbley? Hobbies? Practices?”
“Practices?”
“Beliefs, you know. Do you believe in spirits, for instance?”
They were in a deserted back stairwell.
“We ought to turn around now, I should think,” Annie said quietly. “Surely you don’t want to have to go up and down so many steps. It can’t be good for you.”
“Oh, to the contrary, let’s explore,” Maddie said, with a strange determination. Like she was pretending to be delighted but in fact had led Annie here with purpose. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?
Or was all of life one great impossibility?
Once again, Annie was beginning to feel that she didn’t know what was true anymore and what was not. She didn’t feel safe—that much she knew.
Slowly, they descended the stairs, which led them farther into the darkness of the ship.
“I have been meaning to ask you about something,” Maddie said suddenly.
Here it was, then, the reason she had asked for Annie tonight. Annie held still, waiting.
“When you came into Mr. Stead’s room two nights ago, to . . . to ask for a doctor. What did you . . . well, I only mean to know what you saw. I wanted to explain to you what we were all doing there.”
Annie already knew what they’d been doing. She’d helped garner the supplies for Stead. But she listened anyway.
“We were having a séance. To call forth spirits. It was mostly for a lark—someone had said they’d heard a voice calling to them over the water, that sort of thing. But then, you appeared, and then Teddy . . .”
“I’m very sorry for what happened, Mrs. Astor. It must have been terrible for you,” Annie said cautiously.
Maddie clutched Annie’s arm more tightly. “Yes, well, it isn’t just that. I think there’s something dangerous here. Something onboard that means us all harm. Can you not sometimes feel that?”
She wanted to balk, to tell Maddie her worries were foolish and unfounded.
But Annie herself had been saying, just this morning, to Mr. Stead himself, that she believed the same thing.
Could it merely be coincidence?
“I don’t deny . . .” she answered slowly, trying to think of what Mr. Latimer would consider an appropriate response. “I don’t deny that sometimes on a ship this size, one can feel very . . . vulnerable.”
“And very trapped, too, don’t you think? None of us could escape, were something terrible to occur among us.”
Annie was feeling trapped, now especially.
“We should probably get you back to bed,” she said softly.
Maddie brought them to an abrupt halt. “Ooh, look,” she said.
They were standing, Annie realized, just near the doors to the pool. It was closed at this hour, of course, but the doors had round portholes that glowed a wavering green-blue from the lights surrounding the pool. It had an otherworldly feeling.
“Come on,” Maddie whispered, pushing on one of the doors. It gave. Annie knew the doors to the common rooms were rarely locked. The library, the smoking rooms and game rooms, even the children’s playroom: Nothing was kept off-limits to the passengers. The first-class passengers, that is.
“Let’s go in. It’s good for the pregnancy,” Maddie said as she pushed her way in.
“I don’t think we should,” Annie said, but it was obvious Maddie did not intend to listen to her.
She followed the socialite into the empty room. It was cavernous. The white-tiled walls glowed eerily in the dark. The light bounced off the gently sloshing water and played randomly on the ceiling, making it seem as though something alive was in there with them, a beast waiting for them in the shadows.
Maddie unbuttoned her heavy coat and let it fall onto a chair. Then she pulled her nightgown—voluminous, sheer, and undoubtedly made of the finest imported fabrics, delicate as gossamer—over her head. The richest woman in the world stood in front of Annie in her pantaloons and a French silk camisole.
Annie had no choice but to get down on her knees and help her off with her shoes.
After she’d undressed, Annie took off her own coat and slid into the water first, sucking her breath at the cold. The water was supposed to be heated but it was still cool and not at all what she expected at this hour. She helped Maddie down the steps and into the water, wondering all the while why this woman was doing this. She didn’t seem to be enjoying it. She gritted her teeth as she lowered herself, inch by inch, into the water.
“So, tell me about your upbringing,” Maddie said through slightly chattering teeth.
Why was she going on like this, asking personal questions? It was wearying. “There’s nothing to tell,” Annie said, holding Maddie’s elbow to steady her as she took baby steps along the slippery marble floor. “I’m an ordinary country girl, like hundreds of other Irish girls.”
Maddie gave her an enigmatic smile. “I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure there are many interesting things about you. I want to know the real Annie Hebbley.”
“I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.” This was starting to go beyond merely annoying; Annie was starting to get frightened. It was as though there was something wrong with the woman . . . well, girl. Despite the fine, fancy clothes and the swollen belly, Maddie Astor was little more than a girl. Even Annie could see that. “Please don’t ask me about my past anymore, Mrs. Astor. I don’t like to think about the past.”
“How can you say that?” Maddie scoffed. “The past is who we are. It’s where we come from.” She waded in deeper. Once again, Annie had no choice but to follow.
Easy for a rich girl to say that. Her past was full of rosy memories, no doubt. Nothing to make her cry, nothing to make her wish she’d never been born.
Annie could feel her lips going blue and her flesh all goose pimply. The water was now mid-chest level.
“Feeling sleepy yet, ma’am? Perhaps it’s time to get you back to your stateroom—”
But the young woman stopped abruptly where she stood. “I brought you here for a reason, Miss Hebbley. There is something I simply have to know the answer to.” The hand on Annie’s arm became suddenly fierce, stronger than Anne would’ve imagined. She was holding Annie now by the upper arm as though she thought Annie would run away.
Why would Annie run away? These people were her charges. . . .
“And that reason is to find out if you are who you say you are.”
It was a strange accusation, one that sent a dagger of fear through Annie’s heart. She shuddered from the cold, from the feeling that she didn’t know what to answer. Didn’t, sometimes, even know who she really was. Her past wasn’t just painful, it was a haze. Her future, too. She was caught in a kind of time cloud, she existed only in the moment, in this strange passage between lands.
Who am I? she thought as she stared at Maddie’s mouth, which was twisted into a kind of fearful pinch. She wasn’t looking at Annie but staring at the water. Like Stead and his scrying bowl, as though the future could be divined there.
Maddie Astor tugged Annie’s arm. “Look, Annie. You don’t have a reflection.”
Annie peered at the water. It was dark in the pool room. There was no light to see anything, let alone their reflections.
<
br /> “Why don’t you have a reflection? Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about—”
The water around them was broken by their movements, circle upon circle of rippling away from them.
“Oh, Annie,” Maddie whispered softly. “I’m so sorry.”
And then she was pushing—pushing so hard. Shoving Annie’s head below the surface of the water.
Annie was so shocked she bucked, uncertain what was even happening. But as Maddie’s hands grew only fiercer, more determined, Annie saw that what was happening was very purposeful.
Madeleine Astor was trying to drown her.
She had her hands in Annie’s hair and was holding on tightly as she held her under the water. Because she’d been pushed under before she knew what was going on, Annie’s mouth, her eyes, her nose filled instantly. Her eyes stung from salt the stewards put into the water.
She tried to free herself, but Maddie was strong for her size. The hands on top of Annie’s head held her in place no matter how much she thrashed. Too, Annie had enough presence of mind to be afraid of hurting the pregnant woman or—God forbid—doing something that ended up harming the baby.
Seconds passed in agony. She choked on water. Her chest started to burn.
Something heavy—the fur coat, she thought dimly—came down like a weight over her, and though the pool wasn’t deep, Annie struggled, shoved down toward the tiled floor.
She had to breathe or—
This was really happening. She was thrashing but slowly losing the will to fight it.
In some ways, it would be a relief to die. The thought startled her—Where had it come from? Annie was tired of fighting. Tired of running. Tired of trying to forget everything that had been done to her.
The Lord favors good girls, Annie.
Would He even have her?
The bubbles in her wake, as she thrashed, seemed to lift her. Seemed to want to carry her away.
Take me, she thought.
And then, a twin thought, coming from inside her but not—from the water itself . . .
No. You’re not done yet.
She heard the words as clearly as she’d heard anything in her life.
You’re not done yet.
She had heard that voice before.
In those frantic seconds, fighting the force pushing down on her, fighting the urge to suck in more water, to breathe, it came to her: that day on the beach when she was a wee girl, scampering along the rocks. The pretty lady with the long, dark hair waiting for her lover, the lover who would never come. The queer shimmer of her legs, like opalescent fish scales. Annie heard the voice again, with its background note of loneliness, her longing for her Innocents.
You’re not done yet.
She was transported out of the water, bursting through the surface of the pool like she was lifted up by a giant hand. Shooting up, the force knocking Maddie Astor off her feet, plunging her under.
Sputtering, Annie made her way to the edge and pulled herself out. Crawled, coughing and purging up pool water. Cold, sodden clothing weighing her down, pinning her to the tiled floor. Hands pressed into the tile surrounding the treacherous pool as though she could hold herself there by fingertips alone. Grateful for the floor beneath her. Sucking in great gulps of air, sweet air as water coursed down her face in rivulets.
Maddie fell to the ground next to her on her knees, a sodden Madonna. She was shaking. “Annie, forgive me! I don’t know what came over me. I’m so sorry, I only thought—”
Annie recoiled from her instinctively. “Don’t touch me—”
Maddie lifted her hands in surrender. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way to be absolutely sure. That’s what they say. You didn’t have a reflection, Annie. That’s how I knew something was wrong. I thought—I thought you were possessed.”
“What?” Annie spat.
Maddie was, oddly, crying now. “I wasn’t going to drown you, Annie. I was only trying to drive the spirit out. . . .”
That’s right; she had almost died. Annie looked at the pool, surface still tossing from their struggle, white shimmers winking at her.
“There’s an evil spirit following me. I was convinced—convinced”—Maddie took a deep breath—“that it was inside you. That it had possessed you. I was trying to protect my baby. That’s why I did it, don’t you see? A mother will do anything to protect her children, surely you understand that. . . .”
Annie clambered to her feet, nearly tripping over her sodden nightgown. She refused to look at Maddie Astor. The only thing she wanted was to get away from the madwoman as quickly as possible.
“The medium said that everyone I love will die. You must believe me.” Maddie padded after her a few steps, clutching her bare, wet arms against the cold. “Teddy was like a little brother to me. He was all I had! I couldn’t lose my baby, too. You see that, don’t you? You won’t tell Jack—Mr. Astor—what happened, will you? He would be so upset. I don’t know what he might do. The newspapers, they print so many awful things about us. . . . You must promise not to go to the newspapers with this. I’ll pay you—”
Maddie Astor’s voice thinned away to nothing as Annie jogged down the alleyway, coat over one arm, shoes dangling from the other hand, a thin trail of water marking her path.
Maddie Astor was safe this time, though she didn’t know it. The crazy rich woman didn’t understand that Annie would never go to the newspapers. You don’t go to the papers when you’re running away from your own demons.
And besides, there was something so plaintive, so pathetic, in Maddie’s thin, pleading voice, that Annie almost, almost, felt the pang of sadness and desperation in it as if it were her own.
1916
Chapter Twenty-Four
19 November 1916
HMHS Britannic
The ship lurches under Annie’s feet. Outside, the swells have reached thirty feet. They lift the hospital ship into the air. One minute, the bow is pointed nearly straight up at the sky, the next minute, it’s the stern. They stayed an extra day at Naples, trying to wait out the storm, but after it stalled and showed no signs of moving, the captain ordered Britannic to sea. Half the patients are completely seasick, lying flat on their backs, vomiting into pails, moaning and whinging to the few members of staff left on their feet. Water sloshes in from the deck, seeping under doors and spilling across floors, making walking extremely hazardous. Patients are asked to keep to their beds as much as possible to avoid injury.
Between wet wool—a steward managed to get all the blankets wet, and they’re holding water like sponges—and buckets of vomit, the ward smells terrible, sour and musty at once. It’s stomach turning and hangs heavy in the air, like a miasma. They’re down to a skeleton crew, many of the nurses and orderlies succumbing to seasickness and holed up in their quarters. There is grumbling that some are goldbricking, using the rough seas as an excuse to put their feet up before they take on the bulk of their patients in Mudros, that there are many injured waiting for them there. Not that it should make a difference: with the ship at a third of capacity, there are more doctors and nurses than needed for the patients on hand.
Annie works; she doesn’t mind. She prefers to stay busy. This way, she can keep an eye on Mark while there are fewer people to question why she’s lingering around this one patient. She’s heard he regained consciousness again, and her chest feels tight as she remembers how disoriented he seemed before, so . . . frightened. But he should be better now. She’ll be able to assure him. Everything will be as it should.
She stops by the canteen trolley for a cup of tea and soup crackers to bring to him. Standing in line, she overhears a couple of nurses ahead talking about the handsome lieutenant with the head injury who’s just woken up. That must be Mark. It seems he’s asked Sister Merrick to move him. Something about wanting a different
nurse to look after him.
The two nurses prattle on—Since when are patients allowed to decide who will take care of them? The nerve of some men; of course it was an officer, don’t you know, they think they’re in charge of everything—but Annie is knocked for a loop. She almost forgets where she is, for a second. Mark is in her ward. She is his nurse. There must be a misunderstanding. Perhaps this has to do with a girl on a different shift. Surely he wouldn’t ask for a change if he knew he’d be losing her.
On the other hand, it means he now can speak! Suddenly the thought of it is almost too much to bear; she can hardly breathe.
But when she enters the ward, she sees his bed is empty. Anger rips through her for a wild instant: No, not when we’ve been reunited. Not when we’ve come so close.
After twenty minutes spent visiting each ward, Annie finally comes upon a small, private area, with a half-dozen beds, only two of them filled. No nurses. No movement at all, really. A heavy feeling hangs in the air, and Annie wonders if this is a special ward for more serious cases: bandages cover the heads of both patients; both of them lying eerily still, except for the gentle rise and fall of their chests beneath their matching blankets.
Annie hovers for a moment in the doorway, almost afraid to go in—afraid for it to be him. She looks over the roster, recognizing the names of the nurses assigned to this room—Miss Jennings and Miss Hawley—both women with lots of previous medical experience. Proper types who would give her a bit of hassle if they returned and saw her.
In the corner lies Mark.
As she approaches, he rotates toward her. His face is unmistakable, even with the bandages along his jaw, and an ugly wound ravages his right cheek. His eyes are open.
And in that moment, her stomach drops. Because she can tell, can feel it from the change in energy in the room, the way his body seems to go stiff, that he is unhappy to see her.
So, the rumors are true. He asked to be moved away from her. But why?