The Deep

by Alma Katsu

  “I’d heard you were awake,” she says with forced cheerfulness.

  He shifts under his blanket, uncomfortable. Trapped. If she didn’t know better, she’d almost say he seemed frightened again. It suddenly occurs to her he could simply be traumatized. The idea of lying supine on another massive ship, after what he—what they both—had been through. Her wariness softens into sympathy.

  “Annie,” he says.

  “So, you do know me,” she replies, her voice suddenly swelling with relief, with joy.

  “You’ve tracked me down.”

  “Fate has brought us together, more like.” She feels her cheeks heat.

  “I’ve long stopped believing in such a thing as fate.”

  Poor man. She moves to his side, tries to take his hand, but he pulls it away. “As you can see,” he says, “they’ve moved me to another ward. I guess that means I won’t be your patient anymore.”

  “We can change that. I’ll tell Miss Jennings to—”

  “No—please.” He licks his lips, hesitating. An unruly lock of hair falls over his forehead; it has a streak of gray in it. “It’s for the best, don’t you think? It’s no good for either of us. The memories.” He shudders. “Best to let the past go.”

  A foreign memory floods her—not one he speaks of. Not from the Titanic, all those screaming souls fallen into the icy deep. But an earlier memory. Something from . . . the great gray wash of before. She has so few connections to the time before that it could simply be a dream. She remembers: the bark of rifles against the dawn. Her father and brothers dragging home a red deer; watching as they skinned and dried it, removing the innards—the epic process of it. Remembers the words of a man she thought she’d erased from her mind forever, echoing back to her. The soft voice of a young priest as she knelt before him weeping. It’s too cruel, she’d said to him—of the hunting. Of the slain deer. No, he said soothingly. The touch of a warm hand against her hair. No Annie. Let the dead be dead.

  But, Des—

  “But, Mark—”

  “Please.” His voice breaks. “Leave it be. Leave me be.”

  “But there is so much I must tell you.”

  He lifts an eyebrow. Curious, but he’s not going to invite trouble by asking.

  “You and I both know what happened between us on the Titanic.” The words come out in a rush. She doesn’t want to be so forward, especially within earshot of another patient, but she has no time. Mark’s been moved out of her reach and the nurse on duty could come back at any minute.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You can’t have forgotten. The way—the way you touched me. Held me. That night. When we found each other. The smoke of the fire.” Her words, and the images they held, are disordered. A chaos of touch and feeling, of desire and confusion buried so deep inside her that none of it makes sense anymore, if it ever did. “In the smoking room. That night. The things you did to me,” she goes on breathlessly. “That we did together.” She’s whispering hotly now, fighting back tears, fighting off the torrent of memories. The heat of his mouth. How she’d gone light-headed at his touch, had cried his name into the side of his neck. The flame in her is so alive she’s surprised it hasn’t broken out across her skin, lit her up in a burst of desire.

  But he’s staring at her as though she is speaking in tongues, as though she has dropped from the sky. As though he has never seen her before.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened between us, Annie. Maybe there was a bit of flirting. I can see where you might’ve thought that. But there was nothing else.”

  If he had struck her, he could not have hurt her any worse. She cannot believe he can deny it to her face. The look of incredulity is genuine. He is perplexed and angry.

  Instinctively, she clutches at her neck for the crucifix. But of course, it is gone. She lost it on the Titanic, four long years ago.

  “Mark . . .” She stares at the stern set of Mark’s jaw, the bandage still bound tightly to his head, hoping he will smile at her, will take back the sting of his denial. And then she realizes: his head injury. That must be it. Whatever knocked him unconscious and damaged his jaw must’ve affected his memory. That’s why he doesn’t remember what they’ve been to each other.

  He doesn’t remember, that is all. He will in time! And yet—the shame of it, the way he stares at her as if she is a liar—it takes her breath away.

  Just then, a set of footsteps creep up behind her. Miss Jennings has returned, a narrow blond woman with a tiny nose and eyes close together. “What are you doing here, Miss Hebbley? This isn’t your room, is it?” She crosses her wiry arms over her chest. She will have been warned about Annie.

  “Of course, I must have been turned around,” she mutters hastily, spinning away from Mark’s side and moving quickly past the beds. Needing suddenly to be far, far away from Mark and his cold stare. “I’m so sorry to have troubled you,” she whispers, feeling as though she has trespassed on a grave. The layers of sin, and hurt, and betrayal heave over her like piles of dirt. No trespasser, then. The grave is hers.

  * * *

  It is late. Annie stands over the surgical tray. Beyond the portholes, it’s still night but going as silvery as the row of neat metal instruments winking up at her.

  She is supposed to be taking inventory before surgery but is so distracted that she cannot concentrate. To force her mind from wandering, she touches each instrument in turn—clamps, retractors, forceps, scalpels, lancets, trocars—as she goes down the checklist.

  It is no use, however; her mind keeps skipping ahead to what will happen next. Mark will come around. This is just a phase, a disorientation. In any case, he will see that he needs her. He will need her to go with him to America to look for his daughter. He will need Annie’s calming influence, her good cheer. Too, he will need someone to vouch for him with the authorities, someone who knew him as Caroline Fletcher’s husband. And he will need a woman to help raise his daughter.

  Too late, she realizes she has cut her hand. She wasn’t paying attention when she reached for one of the scalpels. The blade is so sharp that she didn’t feel it slice into her flesh, but she looks down and all she sees is shiny wet red. Blood streams down her hand, drips onto her skirt.

  Her head floods with panic. It must be a bad cut for there to be so much blood. She will need stitches. She should go for a doctor, but she can’t bring herself to do it. She’d have to explain how it happened, admit she’d been daydreaming.

  Holding up her hand to slow the flow, Annie runs to the bandage cabinet. She pulls one from a stack and knocks several others to the ground. They bounce and roll and unravel all over the place like balls of yarn. She curses under her breath, leans down to pick them up, realizes that, no, she should take care of her wound first, and starts to wrap up her hand—only to realize there is no cut.

  No blood. Her hand is fine. Fine.

  She squints and looks closer. Could it have healed? All by itself?

  But there is no blood: not on her hand, not her sleeve or her skirt. Annie doesn’t understand. What could’ve happened? Was it a miracle—another miracle?

  The floor of the operating room lurches up at her. She feels like she is falling. The lights are bright, too bright. What is happening to her?

  Annie . . .

  Someone is calling her. A voice that cannot be heard.

  Fear floods Annie’s mouth, sour.

  You didn’t think you could hide from me forever, did you?

  It is the sea. The sea has spoken to her since she was a girl child standing on the beaches of Ballintoy, the gray foamy water clawing at her bare feet.

  She goes cold, so cold.

  I’ve come for what’s mine. For what you owe me. You remember, don’t you?

  There is no fighting the ocean. Only a fool would try.

  In her p
anic, she recalls the night Madeleine Astor tried to hold her down beneath the surface of the great ship’s pool. How she ran to William Stead—good William Stead—the next morning looking for an explanation. “Maddie Astor said I was possessed,” she told him. A shameful secret, that anyone could think this of her.

  “It happens,” he told her then, of no comfort at all. “I’ve witnessed it: mediums willingly letting the soul of the departed inhabit their body, so they can speak to the living. But I’ve heard of times when a dead soul inhabits a body against the person’s will. An ordinary soul, under extraordinary circumstances. It’s never easy, possession. The souls will fight for control of the body, you see. And at night, the spirits are stronger. They find it easier to take control of the body when the mind is asleep. Dormant.

  “We must tread carefully, now,” he said to her then. “This malevolent spirit may be responsible for one death already. We may all be in danger.”

  She thought she’d escaped all this. Escaped all the fear and confusion of the Titanic. That had been her solace during those four years in the asylum. The conviction that whatever had been haunting her had gone down with the ship itself. But now, here she is, alone with the whispering and the horror, the certainty that it isn’t over after all.

  1912

  WESTERN UNION, April 13, 1912

  TO: LADY LUCILLE DUFF-GORDON,

  first-class passenger

  Lucy, I’m afraid the fire inspector’s office isn’t quite done with us. They were not pleased to hear that you had left the country, but I assured them that you were prepared to answer all questions to their satisfaction. I am dispatching by post their latest list. Do not despair! This ordeal will be over eventually. Give my best to Cosmo.—H. Benedict Ridgely, Esquire, Offices of Banks and Banks

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Caroline was by no means meticulous when it came to her personal possessions—one’s best items were meant to be worn and admired and enjoyed, she felt, not stored carefully away and kept in waiting for another day—but even she could see in the fresh light of morning that two of her ruby-studded combs had gone missing. She flipped through the tray that held her more common pieces of jewelry. She found them, but it gave her the opportunity to look through the majority of her things and frankly, she was alarmed. Quite a few pieces were missing. She might’ve left one or two behind, or packed them in crates of household goods being shipped back to her father’s house, but she was certain of several personal items she’d packed for this trip and they were missing. A couple of bracelets, a ring . . . and the gold heart-and-arrow brooch.

  Her pulse picked up on realizing the latter was missing: that piece was important. Lillian had loved that brooch, had commented on it the day she came to fit Caroline for the blue dress from Lucile of London. They chatted the afternoon away, like real friends. Caroline, on her grief tour, knew few people in London, just a handful of her father’s associates to make introductions, and there had been teas and museum visits and a few musical salons but no real friendships. Until that day.

  She poked through the compartments of her little jewelry case, growing increasingly irritated. With the anger came jitters, like spiders were crawling all over her. She felt as though she could jump out of her skin. What a disaster this trip was! She nearly threw the case against the wall.

  Caroline wasn’t a suspicious person. She was used to having many servants come and go, was often known for leaving her valuables unlocked, out in the open. Even for leaving her first-floor windows ajar when she was not at home. She wanted air and sunlight to come in, and bad energy to go out. She was like that, herself: an open window. Which only made her feel more offended—more hurt—that she’d been taken advantage of. She was leaning against the dressing table, fighting tears, when she heard the door open behind her, the scent of stale air and unwashed linen following close behind. “What was that racket?” Mark asked, his voice still sleepy. Clearly, he expected an apology.

  Not today. “I’m glad you’re up. There’s something we need to discuss.”

  Mark went rigid, not used to that tone from her. But instead of rising to the bait—What are you talking about?—he looked around. “Where is the baby? She’s not in her crib.”

  “Ondine was fussing, so the nanny’s taken her for a stroll on the promenade. I thought fresh air would help settle her,” Caroline said. She clasped her hands, trying to sound calm. “Mark, some of my jewelry is missing.”

  His reaction was an odd combination of shock and anger, those two emotions seeming to struggle for domination. He staggered back a step, his face flushing bright red. After a moment where he appeared speechless, he said, “Are you sure?”

  “Am I sure? Of course.” She fought the urge to snap.

  “I didn’t mean to doubt you. It’s just that . . . it seems so unlikely, doesn’t it? I mean, who would steal it on board this ship?”

  “Oh, please, Mark. It’s not as though we have much privacy. People are tramping through here night and day. And don’t act as if I’m being unreasonable.”

  “Caroline, I can see you’re upset, but let’s keep a cool head. First thing is, we’ll give the rooms a thorough search. . . .”

  Don’t say I just misplaced it, like I’m a child.

  “You’ve probably just misplaced it, whatever it is.”

  She suppressed the urge to scream.

  “You think I’m being unreasonable, don’t you? Unstable? Isn’t that what you said of her, too? Isn’t that what you thought of Lillian, in the end?”

  “Caroline.” His voice broke as it dropped a register. From the rictus of pain in his face, she could see she’d gone too far. They’d promised not to say her name again.

  But Caroline couldn’t slow down. Her anger had reached the breakaway point. She could only pivot and keep going. “Where were you last night? I woke in the middle of the night and you were gone. I waited up for hours and you never came back.”

  He gave her the queerest look, as though seeing her for the first time. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. I went for a walk and got lost.”

  Hard to refute that. But she didn’t accept it, either.

  Rather than explain his absence, however, he switched the subject. “I think Ondine has taken a turn for the worse, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He went to the empty crib, looking into it forlornly. “The listlessness, lack of appetite . . .”

  Caroline had no patience for this. “You’re not suggesting that we take her to the ship’s surgeon, are you? The man is worthless. I’ll take her to a physician once we’re in New York.”

  “Yes, yes, very well . . . But what do you think the problem is? I’m worried about her. I must admit, after talking to Miss Hebbley—”

  The stewardess’s name was like nails on a chalkboard. “You were talking to the stewardess about our baby?”

  “Surely, there’s nothing wrong with that. She does help care for Ondine—”

  At first, Caroline couldn’t speak, she was so mad. Anything she tried to say would be gibberish. But Mark was staring at her as though she’d lost her mind, so she forced herself to reply. “I want to stop that arrangement, Mark. I think there’s something wrong with the girl, to be frank. I don’t like the way she’s always hanging around, showing up at all hours. It’s as though she’s developed an obsession with us. And it might be more than an obsession. Maybe my jewelry—”

  “Obsession? It’s only been three days. You can’t possibly suspect the stewardess—”

  “Who else could it be?” They both glanced in the direction of the chair where the nanny usually sat. “We don’t know what Miss Hebbley does when she’s in here by herself. I must say, Mark, that I resent that you’re taking the stewardess’s side.”

  “That’s not fair. I’m not taking anyone’s side—”

  “Do you think I’m a fool? I’ve s
een the way she follows you around like a lovesick puppy. And you do nothing to discourage it. I think you enjoy the attention.”

  Now she’d done it: she’d managed to make him angry. She was becoming more like Lillian, if that were possible. His head snapped up, and it was like he had to forcibly stop from rushing at her. He quivered where he stood, hands on the belt of his bathrobe. “Tell me where you were last night?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, I told you. I walked the halls.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “To corroborate my story? Is that what you require—witnesses?” He laughed hollowly. “It was late. Most people were asleep. I suppose I might’ve crossed paths with a crew member here or there. . . . Then I saw Miss Hebbley. She’d had a mishap. She was sopping wet, and I helped her back to her room.”

  “A mishap? What kind of mishap?” What he was saying made no sense.

  He froze. “I’m sorry—she asked that I not speak of it.”

  Caroline roared. “Isn’t that ridiculously convenient? My God, Mark. Honestly, how do you expect me to react?”

  “I expect that, as my wife, you would believe what I tell you.”

  He could’ve been a stranger standing there in front of her. Her fingers twitched with the urge to dig up another dose of her medication—her nerves felt as if they were on fire. But she wasn’t in the mood for Mark to comment on it.

  It occurred to her that maybe Mark wasn’t the stranger before her. Maybe she was the stranger. A few short days on this ship had changed her. Possessed her. Maybe she was mad.

  “I just . . . need to be alone. We can talk about this later.”

  She left him standing in his bathrobe, mouth agape; felt the knob cool and firm in her hand as she pulled the door closed behind her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  You could hear the squabbling all the way from the grand staircase.

  William Stead took a deep breath before going inside.