by Holly Hook
"We have to."
He's right. I take a deep breath and push the thoughts of the sea from my mind. But it only works for a few seconds. I lean down and we turn the handle. It squeals and the rushing noise gets worse. I drop the gun on the floor and a few men in overalls rush past us, shouting. This must be the crew area. Everyone's cleared out of this part of the ship. At least, everyone who didn't get trapped behind those watertight doors.
The hatch comes open. The smell of sea and salt rushes out and into our faces.
Along with a line of terrified men.
They scramble up a ladder and out of the hatch, a mixture of men in pajamas and overalls and sailor uniforms. One gasps for air. Another claps Simon on the back and mutters what must be a thanks. Yet another has blood flowing from his arm, and a red trail drips off him and down past the ladder below. They make their way up the stairwell and towards the deck. We wait while ten, twenty, thirty men make their escape.
“We saved their lives,” I breathe. “They were trapped down there before.”
But now we're going to go down and shut ourselves in a space that's filling with frigid water.
“You ready, Julia?” Simon asks.
There's a roar of panic in my ears. “I can't do it.” I just can't. That means facing it all again. My heart races. I feel like I'm about to pass out.
Simon stares me in the eyes. His chocolate eyes are wide. Reassuring. “We can't drown. Once the ship docks, we'll come back up and escape. If they capture us, the plan is over.” He kisses me hard.
He's right. I think of Melvin, screaming for me. My father who never had a chance.
We separate. I grab the gun and throw it down the ladder. I don't want the captains and their soldiers to find it and make the connection. I pat my pocket to make sure Arnelia's butterfly is still there. Check. I hope it's waterproof. It must be. Arnelia's too smart to overlook that. It's a risk we have to take.
Footfalls sound overhead. The soldiers are running through the ship, searching for us. It won't be long before they head down here. They might even think we had something to do with the torpedo.
I take a deep breath and climb down the ladder.
Water.
It sloshes at the bottom of the ladder, at the foot of the next deck. My heart freezes but I force myself down the rungs. Simon's right above me. I want to scream and scramble out of there like those sailors, but he's blocking my way. Maybe by accident, maybe on purpose.
“I've got the hatch,” he says.
It closes like a giant trash can lid. Latches.
We're stuck down here.
“Now what?” I ask. My voice echoes. I hold onto my rung. My foot wants to slip off. The water bubbles up a little higher now and I close my eyes. I've got to keep it together. I won't die down here. “We've changed history, haven't we?”
“We have. I can't believe it. I thought whatever Frank was talking about was going to come out and destroy us.”
“So Isabel will get off with her family. And that piece of garbage. They're not in this part of the ship.” I don't want to call that scum her father.
“And we'll have to find her when that happens.”
I open my eyes. The water's a little higher now and a few muffled shouts come from deep within the ship. There are still some people trapped way down here, but there's nothing we can do. They're too far away.
“So we wait here.”
“Yes. If we're lucky, the water won't rise all the way to the hatch.”
If we're lucky. He doesn't sound so sure about that.
Footfalls sound above us. There's shouting. The soldiers are up in the hall, searching the ship. I don't think the men we freed will tell on us, or even think we were heading down there.
Another shout sounds from somewhere distant in the ship. The water's nearly up to my feet by now. This part of the ship is filling fast.
I focus on a screw holding the ladder to the shaft. The air's cold. Freezing. Rushing up into my face. I can't die in this. I have to remember that. This is better than getting captured by Nazis. But what if they open the hatch to look for survivors?
But the footfalls fade away. Either they know a lot of people already escaped, or they just don't care. I stop thinking about the water and grit my teeth.
“Simon, we just saved some people who don't deserve to live.” At the same time, I feel awful for saying that.
“I know. I hate that. But it had to be this way. Just think of the others we saved. All the kids. Isabel's little sister and--”
“--and her father,” I finish. “We're going to need to get Isabel away from him.” I'm calmer if I keep talking. “How are we going to open this hatch when we dock? Those guys trapped down here couldn't do it. I heard it latch. Are we going to have to swim through the ship to find a way out?”
“Maybe. There is a torpedo hole not too far from here. The lights should stay on. The submarine didn't hit the engine room or anything. We'll be able to see.”
“Fantastic.”
The water's lapping at my feet now. It's cold. Freezing. I suck in a breath. A fresh wave of panic explodes in me. The knives will come next, then the numbness. I'm hyperventilating.
“Julia, I think it's slowing down.”
“No, it isn't!” My voice is shrill in the narrow space.
“I'm not lying. It's not rising as fast. Those watertight doors seem to be doing their job.”
I dare to look down. The water's not bubbling as much anymore. But I also don't hear any more shouts from below. Any crew members left down here must have drowned.
We might be the only people alive in this part of the ship.
“If this wasn't so tight, I'd trade places with you,” Simon says from above me.
“I know you would.” I hiccup. “I think I'll be okay.”
“Now we have to wait. I'm sure the ship will dock in the morning and let everyone off. That's when we find a way out of here."
“And then we find Isabel.”
“Yes. And we give her the butterfly. Restore her memories."
“It's still here in my pocket. Simon, what if we don't get out of here in time? It'll be a lot harder to find Isabel if we don't get off with her.”
“I know. I'm not looking forward to when we reach land.” He looks down at me, hair hanging in his face. “We're taking a trip into Nazi Germany.”
Chapter Seventeen
The water stops rising at my ankles. I scrunch up as much as I can on the ladder, hooking my arm around the rung to keep my feet out of it. It's no less cold than it was on the Titanic. The echoes are the same. The smell's the same. The cold's the same, too. The memory of me swimming after Melvin in that enclosed hallway rises up again and again, screaming right along with him. Simon waits above me. Minutes crawl past. Hours, too. The ship's engine keeps rumbling somewhere far away, so I know we're still moving.
“We need to make a break for it when the engine stops,” Simon tells me some time later. “The soldiers will probably wait for us where everyone else is getting off the ship. I think we should swim to shore. They won't be expecting that.”
“Good idea.” I'm getting more and more used to the water sloshing below us. I'm getting over the fear of being in this tunnel. Now a new fear rises inside of me and that's what we're going to face when the ship docks.
"You're going to suggest we swim out of the torpedo hole, right?"
He doesn't answer for a moment. Then, "Yes. I've tested the hatch. It won't open from this down here, anyway."
"Rats." That means the only way out is through the water. A fresh wave of panic surges through me. “Are my lungs going to burn and all that? Will we pass out?” I don't want to admit that it's the cold that scares me the most.
“It's only bad the first minute. After that, it'll be fine. I've swam underwater before. It's not that bad. There should be enough light for us to find the torpedo hole and swim out. The soldiers won't expect us to take that route.”
“I don't like this.”
Simon scoots down a little. “The Timeless don't need air. That's why we can run without getting out of breath. It'll be like that.”
As if on cue, the ship's engines stop.
We're at shore.
“That doesn't make me feel better.” I know I should be braver than this. I shouldn't let some water stop me after all we've been through. I won't let it stop me. We have to move now or we'll miss Isabel. I don't even think Simon knows where she's going to go after this. I take a deep breath. “I'm ready.”
“Once we're at the bottom of the stairwell, we link hands. There should be enough room.” Simon takes one step down the ladder. “Then we swim. We won't get lost.”
I close my eyes. Climb down. Ice wraps around my feet, my shins. I bite in a scream, not so much from the pain but from the terror. Another step. The water rises to my waist. Then my chest. I stop. Don't think about it. Suck in a breath, and go under.
The world turns to gurgling and pain. I flail and fall. My feet hit bottom. My lungs start to burn. I've got to take a breath. No. Simon said this would pass. The burning gets worse. I open my eyes to light and blurriness. Simon's legs fall into my vision. I've drifted back from the stairwell and into a blue and white hallway. A single light shines above me. It's amazing it hasn't gone out.
And Simon's there, hair floating. We link hands and he squeezes. He smiles.
The burning is gone.
It feels strange, like I've just sucked in that breath a second ago. I want to laugh at myself for getting so worked up over this. We can get out and find Isabel. I squeeze my dress pocket shut. Arnelia's device floats inside. I hope water doesn't affect how it works, but this is the only choice we have.
Above us, people must be ready to disembark. Isabel and her family must have their suitcases ready. They may even be waiting in line now, ready to go through the guards that are no doubt gathering, waiting for us. It's my hope that maybe we'll delay everyone from getting off the ship. They'll want to check everyone to make sure they're not us.
Or maybe they'll want the civilians off before they tear apart this place looking for us.
I pull on Simon. We've got to go.
It's slow, walking through the water. The cold fades and numbness takes its place. I can no longer feel my feet, my hands. I have to check to make sure that Simon and I still have a hold of each other.
There's a fork in the hallway ahead. Everything's still blurry, but I can make out doorways. Things inside that might be bunks. And a bare foot, peeking out from the corner and floating near the ceiling.
My heart about stops. I look down at the floor. We can't slow. Light forms weird wavy lines on the tile. The quality of it is changing. It's getting bluer, more natural, more--
Something brushes my head. I keep my gaze down. Simon tugs at me. We swish forward and around the corner. He's leading us now.
The light's growing stronger, dancing faster. Pieces of metal dot the carpet. Shrapnel. Wooden planks. Slivers. Something else brushes across my hair and for a moment it feels like I'm going to get stuck. I duck down and free myself.
And then the world opens up.
It's gray and blue and brown. The floor falls out into jagged cliffs of wood and metal. Mud stretches out below us and my skirt billows out like a gray flower as we step over the edge. I pull Simon away from the Gustloff and we drift out into the sea. The land slopes upward ahead. The wooden beams of dock grow up in front of us as we sink to the bottom. My feet must touch mud, because clouds of it explode around us. The water's murky with highlights of gray and blue.
We must be near where everyone is getting off. I look at Simon and nod. I hope he knows what it means: that we need to get away from the ship before we come onto land. Far away. If the military sees us surface, they'll know. They might even open fire on us. We're lucky the water's so thick with mud. It'll shield us.
I take Simon under the dock. And another, and another. We're drifting through a forest of wooden poles. I look back. The ruined hull of the ship is a wall fading away into murk. We're still too close. If we stay under the docks we should be okay. A glance up confirms that the water's surface is about ten feet over our heads. It shimmers with early morning light.
It could be minutes later, or hours, but another glance back reveals that we're far enough from the Gustloff that we can't see it any more. I slug Simon on the arm and point to the nearest dock. It forms a dark rectangle over our heads. Small boats bob up and down. It will have to do.
I kick my legs and Simon follows. The shimmering surface draws closer and I strike air.
It feels weird at first, thin. I suck in a breath and wipe the water from my eyes. I blink away blurriness and find Simon floating next to me. We're between two small boats, a gray one with rust and one that's painted bright blue. The wood of the dock spreads out in front of us. Through one of the cracks, I catch a glimpse of white houses with thick wooden frames. Somewhere, a whistle blows.
We must have been underwater for about fifteen minutes. Maybe more.
And I did it without losing my sanity.
“Julia, you did great,” Simon says. He parts the hair from my face and we kiss. “You conquered it. You overcame your fear!”
My heart pounds. I can't help but feel great about it, but there's a more pressing matter here. “Isabel. We have to find her.” I feel for the butterfly in my pocket again. “I still have our special delivery. Now for the hard part.”
“Now I know you've overcome your fear,” he says, reaching for the edge of the dock and pulling himself out into sunlight. He bobs up and down and his dark hair's plastered to his face. “You're calling this next part hard.”
“Well, we have Nazis to contend with.”
Simon's face falls. “True. How much do you know about them? I know you only had a year of education in Nancy's time.”
“Enough.” I grab onto the dock and scoot myself towards shore, ducking to avoid the side of a boat. “I learned about them in History. The teacher made us watch a film about them and well, it was bad.”
“That's why we're not going to get caught.”
We embrace. Kiss. It brings back that beach and that carnival where we met back in our original life. For a moment, we're no longer under a dock in freezing water during the darkest time in world history. We're home.
But we can't wait long. I separate from Simon and paddle towards the shore. The water gets shallower and a car clunks past somewhere above us. I think my foot strikes mud. I don't know. It's numb. We're on the edge of a drop-off. Above us is a rail separating the land and the sea.
Sirens go off in the distance. Ambulances. There must be injured people on the ship. They'll also need to go down and look for the dead. And for us.
“Let me go up first,” Simon says, coming up behind me.
“I've got it.” I grab the dock and hoist myself onto gravel and over the railing. My clothes drip and stiffen. I straighten up. We're standing at a row of ships. The sky stretches out gray above us. Docks and rigging fill the space between us and the Gustloff.
It's maybe half a mile away. There's a hole in the bow. It's barely above the water but from here it looks like a gaping maw into a dark cave. We just came out of that. Above it people stand behind rails and behind glass, anxious to get off. There's a crowd gathering around the ship. Men with cameras. People with notepads. Journalists. They're probably writing a story about the miracle ship that made it across the Baltic Sea with a hole in its side, a ship that shouldn't be here.
Simon and I changed history.
For the better or for the worse, I can't know. Whatever danger Frank was talking about is sure to come down on us now.
I'll worry about that later. The crowd's swelling but it's not big enough for anyone to have gotten off the ship yet. Isabel still needs to disembark. We can catch her.
“Simon...come on!” I grab his arm again.
“Wait,” he says, stopping. “Soldiers.”
I stop. The crowd moves a little and
I see.
There's a line of them waiting next to one of the gangplanks, guns ready. A black uniformed officer that looks a little like Isabel's father waits at the entrance, ready to check everyone who gets off. Yeah, they're looking for us.
“Good thing we're not still on the ship,” I say. I spot some long, low buildings not far from the crowd. “Maybe we can go around these warehouses over here. The crowd's probably going to go through the soldiers and down this street. We can wait for Isabel there. If they only let a few people through at a time, it should be easy to pick her out.”
“I like that idea.”
Simon and wring out our clothes the best we can. My skirt's stiff. It's freezing solid in the air. I stomp to bring some feeling back into my legs. A tingle runs up them both. I know this can't kill us but it's not comfortable.
We skirt well around the crowd, over some railroad tracks and past a few houses where an old woman standing on her porch stares at us. I look away, grab Simon's hand and move on. It's best not to open our mouths or blow our cover to anyone. We can't trust anybody.
“Here,” I say, coming up on one of the long warehouses. We stand at the edge, in view of the street. The faint sounds of chatter float away from the dock. Across from us, quiet shops wait in neat rows, their windows dark. One of them has a wooden swastika above the door. An older man sweeps the doorway of another. “It looks like we'll have to wait for a while for her to pass by. Then we need to figure out how to get her away from her father.”
“It won't be easy.” Simon licks his lips. Gulps. "Her father could be one of the ones searching for us."
Slowly, very slowly, people start to trickle past as they head down the street and to a new life. There's more children than adults. Mothers keep their kids close. Nobody really talks. All the families drag their feet. It must be taking a long time for the authorities to check and make sure they're not us.
The feeling comes back to my limbs after the first half hour. My skirt dries and turns lighter. Family after family walks past. Some include soldiers, but they appear just as exhausted as everyone else and don't give us a second glance. Most don't. The first hour drags past and the air warms a little, but not much. My breath spirals in front of me. How long will we have to wait here?