by Suzanne Weyn
“So that doesn’t tell us anything,” Jessica said.
“No,” Samantha agreed.
“You’re not kidding me, are you? You really did see a ghost or something that wanted this locket?” Jessica checked.
“I really saw it, Jess. It nearly scared me to death. I don’t ever want to see it again.”
“But why would she even want the locket?”
“Who knows?!” Samantha cried. “Who knows why it jumped into your bag and followed you onto the ship?”
“I’m telling you the truth,” Jessica said. “I did not steal it.”
In her heart Samantha believed her sister. It wasn’t any more bizarre than everything else that had happened that day.
“Why are these things happening to us?” Jessica asked. “Haunted lockets are following me, and you’re seeing skeletons.”
“I don’t know.” Did Samantha even believe in ghosts? Before today she would have said she absolutely did not. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Jessica returned the locket to its hiding place. “I don’t think we should tell anyone about having the locket,” she said. “No one will believe I didn’t steal it. When we get home, I’ll mail it back to the Haunted Museum.”
“Okay,” Samantha agreed. “I won’t say anything.”
Jessica unlaced her boots and wiggled out of her narrow skirt. “I’ll tell you one thing, these clothes are not comfortable,” she commented. “Ashley Holmes told me this is called a hobble skirt.”
“Hobble?” Samantha asked.
“As in ‘to cripple.’ The skirt is so narrow you can’t walk normally in it. You have to take tiny little steps.”
“I guess they thought that was ladylike,” Samantha suggested.
After changing into a T-shirt and soft, checked flannel pants, Jessica inhaled deeply. “That’s better. I can breathe again.” She flopped on her bed and listened to her iPod. Soon her eyes were closed and she was nodding her head to the beat playing in her ears.
How could she be so calm? Jessica always had a way of putting her worries aside. Samantha wished she could be more like that.
Samantha changed into sweats, careful to hang up her costume and put her plumed headpiece safely on top of the dresser. She rummaged for the magazine in her canvas bag and stretched out onto her bed to peruse it. But she’d been up early and it had been a long, busy day. Soon she laid her head on the pillow, drifting into a dreamless sleep.
When Samantha awoke, the room was awash in a gray-blue dusk coming from the porthole window. How long had she slept? According to the digital readout on her cell phone, she’d been out for nearly two hours! It was suppertime.
Rolling over, she saw that Jessica wasn’t in her bed. If Jessica had wanted to go out, why hadn’t she woken her up?
“I know why,” Samantha muttered as she crossed to the wardrobe for her costume. She was probably looking for more alone time with John.
Opening the wardrobe door, Samantha cried out. Jessica’s costume was still hung up, but Samantha’s maroon frock was gone — and so was the feather headpiece. “Jessica!” Samantha growled.
The big hat that went with Jessica’s outfit no longer intrigued Samantha. She wanted an elegant dress like the one she’d had — the one Jessica had taken.
There were more dresses in the wardrobe department. She’d hurry down to get another, a better one. She’d wear it to dinner and look unbelievable in it. That would catch John’s attention.
Samantha hoped she remembered the way down to the wardrobe department on C Deck. The hallways of the ship were such a maze of identical corridors. She was relieved when she came to a curved stairway with an arrow pointing down and marked: THIRD CLASS — STEERAGE.
Before going down, she hesitated as gooseflesh sprung up on her arms. It was more than a passing chill. The cold seemed to seep all the way into her bones. Coupled with that was the distinct feeling that she wasn’t alone.
Gazing around the hallway, Samantha saw no one, not even a shadow. But, just the same, she couldn’t shake the eerie sensation. “Who’s there?” she whispered.
No one responded, and so Samantha continued on, stepping down into the winding staircase — desperately hoping that whatever it was that she’d sensed wouldn’t follow her down.
IN A few minutes, Samantha was outside the wardrobe department. Turning the door handle, she discovered it was locked. “Hello?” she called as she rapped on the door, her voice sounding loud in the silent hall. “Hello, Ms. Holmes?”
Samantha called out several more times, hoping that Ashley Holmes might still be nearby. After a few more minutes, she ambled away from the wardrobe department, gazing around the empty hallway. The halls were narrower here and the ceilings lower. Clearly this was the plain, no-frills part of the ocean liner. Samantha remembered reading that the people who stayed down here were poor folks looking for an inexpensive way to get to America. The servants slept down here also, as well as the men who worked in the boiler rooms.
Samantha shuddered as that same cold blast from before blew by. Once more, gooseflesh crept across her skin and she felt as though icy fingers were touching her bare arms.
“Go away!” she shouted, feeling foolish and yet somehow sure some invisible presence was nearby.
Moving down the hall, Samantha came to a cabin whose door was slightly ajar. Maybe someone in there could tell her if the wardrobe room was closed. Or how to get back up to the dining room. In truth, all she really cared about was not being alone anymore.
Cautiously Samantha peered in. The room was small, with a bunk bed across from a single bed. The only other furniture was a coatrack and a plain desk. The walls were plain, as were the curtains and bed linens. It was far different from the nice room she and Jessica shared. There wasn’t a bit of luxury here.
Samantha jumped with surprise as her cell phone suddenly rang.
Grabbing for the phone in her pocket, she checked the screen. Still no service! Private Caller was the only identification. “Hello?” Samantha asked in a puzzled, wary tone.
All she heard on the other end was the howl of a hard-blowing wind. At least that was what it sounded like to Samantha.
“Hello?” she asked again, her voice rising. “Who’s there?”
“Alice Littlefield?” the low, croaking voice on the other end asked. “Is that you, Alice?”
Samantha froze. She knew that voice. It was the ghost skeleton from earlier. “My name’s not Alice … whoever,” Samantha protested in a quavering voice. “You have the wrong person.”
“Alice Littlefield,” the voice repeated. “I know it’s you. Stay away from him.”
“Who?”
“You know who. He’s mine.”
Samantha breathed deeply to steady her nerves and was irritated that when she next spoke her voice still quivered with fear. “I don’t know who you mean. Is this a joke?”
A high, enraged shriek poured from the phone. It was so shrill that Samantha threw her phone and clamped her hands over her ears. But it kept coming, filling the hallway until Samantha was down on her knees, wincing from the pain that was searing her brain, making everything a red blur.
Samantha felt she couldn’t stand it another moment, that she would shatter into pieces.
Abruptly the deafening scream stopped.
It was replaced by total silence.
Slowly Samantha lifted her head and listened to the quiet. She couldn’t hear the hum of the ship’s engines or the crash of the waves.
Had she gone deaf? Did the nightmarish scream blow out her eardrums?
Samantha tapped the wall with her fingernails to check. The click click sound was there. That was a relief. Just the same, the hallway was eerily silent. Too silent.
Uneasy, Samantha darted toward the stairway she’d come down. When she finally reached it, Samantha was dismayed to discover that a black iron gate had been drawn across the doorway.
“What next?” Samantha grumbled as she realized that the gate wouldn’t g
ive way when she pushed it. Rattling the bars, she shouted up the stairway. “Hey! Anybody up there? I’m stuck down here. Anybody?”
From somewhere nearby, a baby started to wail. It was coming from one of the cabins. Samantha went toward the sound, knocking on the door. “Hello?”
The crying grew louder. Samantha pressed her ear to the door. Inside, people were murmuring in urgent whispers. There were a lot of voices, all talking at once; too many, it seemed, to all be in such a small cabin.
They would never hear her knocking, so she pulled the door open.
The room appeared empty. Yet Samantha was bombarded with panicked voices all speaking at once, their frantic words overlapping.
“They’ve locked us in.”
“Let us out!”
“We’ll drown down here.”
The baby kept up its crying.
Was it a recording of some kind?
Samantha stepped into the room and immediately her heart began to pound. So much emotion! Anger. Terror. Desperation. Sweat formed on her forehead. She clutched at her throat as she felt it grow dry.
“We’re all going to die!” a woman shouted. Samantha whirled toward the voice that came from behind her, but no one was there.
What was going on? It was horrible! She had to get out of there.
Samantha raced out of the narrow, terror-filled cabin and back to the gate, shaking it with all her strength. “Let me out! Somebody open this gate! Open it! Please!”
Then she heard something move on the other side. Had someone heard her?
As Samantha looked up expectantly, she saw what was coming. Not a person but a torrent of surging water.
Pivoting on her heels, she raced down the hall, hoping to escape the powerful wave. There had to be another way out — had to be!
The foaming swirl of icy cold rushed down with such tremendous power that it knocked Samantha forward off her feet. She flailed helplessly, tossed beneath the freezing ocean waters.
Pushing upward, her arms were pinned by the force of the flood. Without thinking clearly, she tried to call for help and saw a stream of air bubbles cascade from her lips.
The last sound Samantha heard before passing out was that of a dog barking.
SAMANTHA? SAMANTHA!”
Slowly Samantha opened her eyes. Jessica was staring down at her with a worried expression. “I’ve been looking all over for you. What happened?” Jessica asked. She knelt beside Samantha, still wearing the maroon beaded dress she’d “borrowed” from her little sister.
Sitting up, Samantha gazed at her surroundings, remembering everything that had happened. But where was all the ocean water? There wasn’t even a puddle anywhere.
“How did you get down here?” she asked her sister.
“What do you mean? I just walked down to look for you,” Jessica replied. Samantha glanced across the hallway at the iron gate and saw it had been opened.
“I found you lying on the floor here. Are you all right?” Jessica asked.
Samantha opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. How could she explain this?
“Why are your clothes wet? What happened?” Jessica pressed.
Clutching at her sweatshirt, Samantha realized it was soaked. So was her hair.
“My hair’s wet!” she cried, filled with relief. It proved that what she had just experienced hadn’t been her imagination or even a dream. Samantha grabbed Jessica by the wrist. “You’re not going to believe what happened to me. But it really happened.”
“What? Tell me!”
“I heard voices down here. People were crying because they were trapped and the ship was sinking. It was so scary. And then the ocean started pouring in and I went under.” Tears of fear suddenly leaped to her eyes as she recalled it all. “I was sure I was going to drown.”
Until Jessica wrapped her in a hug, Samantha hadn’t realized she was trembling. Now all the terror of facing certain doom came over her and she shook even harder. “I was so sure I was going to die,” she gasped breathlessly. “Jess, this ship! I think it’s haunted. It has to be. I’m not crazy. I’m not making this up.”
“I believe you,” Jessica said.
“You do?” Samantha checked hopefully.
“Yeah. Look at what happened to me with the locket. You saw me put it under the mattress, didn’t you?”
Samantha nodded.
“Well, when I went to dinner, I left it there in our cabin. But when I met Mom and Dad outside the restaurant, I looked down and — I was wearing it!”
Samantha stared at Jessica, shocked. “What did you do?”
“I screamed,” Jessica reported. “I made a total scene. Mom and Dad looked like they wanted to disappear. Everyone thought I was crazy. And that cute John guy was in the room. He saw the whole thing. I could just die from embarrassment!”
Samantha felt too shaken-up to take any pleasure from her sister’s humiliation in front of John. Instead she was simply glad not to be experiencing these things alone.
“I hid that locket in our wardrobe and locked it,” Jessica added. “I know I didn’t put it on, Sam. I’m sure of it.”
“I believe you,” Samantha said as she checked her phone. There was water behind the screen. “Do you have cell service?” she asked.
“No. Nobody does. They’re trying to re-create the atmosphere of the original Titanic.”
“I didn’t, either.” Samantha recalled the chilling call before she’d nearly drowned. “But the maid spoke to me over the phone. I recognized her voice. One minute it’s all wispy, the next she’s like a beast, growling and snarling her words. She shrieked so loudly into the phone I felt like I was about to shatter.”
“When the voice spoke to you, before it started screaming, what did it say?” Jessica asked.
“It was telling me to stay away from some guy.”
“Who?”
Shaking her head, Samantha shrugged. Jessica stood and drew Samantha to her feet. “You’re shaking. You should get out of those wet clothes,” she advised.
Samantha realized that, in addition to trembling, her teeth were also chattering. “You’re right. I’m freezing,” she admitted as they began to walk up the stairway to B Deck.
“Why were you even down there at all, Sam?”
As they stepped out onto the deck, Samantha wrapped her arms around herself for protection from the wet chilled air. “Because someone took my dress!” she replied accusingly, suddenly reminded that she was annoyed with Jessica.
Jessica smiled sheepishly. “We talked about switching, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Since when?” Samantha challenged. Jessica had never been overly concerned about disturbing Samantha’s sleep before. “You just wanted to take the dress without discussing it anymore.”
“You could have worn my costume,” Jessica countered.
“I’m not going to squeeze into that narrow hobble skirt and take teeny, tiny steps.”
“That’s why I didn’t want it, either.”
“Then you should have returned it.”
Just then a tall man walked by. He was dressed in a casual white jacket and loose-fitting pants that flapped in the evening breeze. He wore a flat-topped, brimmed boater hat and smoked a pipe. With him was a pretty woman who was much younger than he was. Her frothy crepe dress fluttered about her, and she pulled her shawl more closely around her slender shoulders. Her lovely face was bathed in worry, and she clasped his arm.
“Why does he look so familiar?” Samantha asked Jessica. “I feel like we know him from somewhere.”
“We do!” Jessica replied excitedly. “We saw him at the Haunted Museum. He’s John Jacob Astor. Remember? The billionaire who saved the dogs? He was one of the mannequins in the glass cases. The woman with him must be his wife. I read that they were coming home from their honeymoon in Europe.”
Samantha noticed that they both seemed distressed. “Kitty!” the man called, looking around. “Kitty, where are you, girl?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, they’ve lost their cat,” Jessica sympathized.
“Oh my gosh!” Samantha cried, suddenly realizing what she was seeing. “They’re not searching for a cat, Jess. They’ve lost their dog.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember,” Jessica recalled. “I hope they find her.”
“Maybe we can help,” Samantha suggested. She turned to where she’d last seen Astor and his wife, but they weren’t there. It was as if they’d disappeared. “Strange,” Samantha muttered, ruffling the top of her hair.
“Oh well,” Jessica said. “They’ll find her. There’s really nowhere she can go here on a ship. She’s bound to turn up.”
“I guess so,” Samantha agreed. She stopped as a disturbing idea seized her. “Those were actors playing the part of the Astors, right?”
“Of course,” Jessica confirmed, but seeming nervous just the same. “They’re doing a terrific job with the makeup and costumes, aren’t they?”
“That guy looked almost exactly like the mannequin we saw in the Haunted Museum,” Samantha reminded her sister.
“No, no, they were actors,” Jessica insisted, hurrying them along.
They headed directly to their cabin on the second level. “I wonder what the door number will be when we get there this time,” Samantha said, fishing for the room key she’d stuck in her pocket.
“Yeah, I wonder, too,” Jessica agreed distractedly as she looked at the screen of her cell phone. She waved it slowly in the air and Samantha knew her sister was hoping to find any hidden cell service.
When they were in front of the door, Samantha was happy to see that the numbers there were 266. “Hey, Jess! Good news! The door says two-sixty-six. At least that’s normal, anyway,” she reported, turning back toward her sister. “Maybe everything will …”
Samantha’s words fell away as she looked at Jessica.
“What?” Jessica questioned, noticing Samantha’s stricken expression. “Sam, what is it?”
Samantha’s throat had dried up completely. She couldn’t find the words to tell Jessica what she was seeing, so she pointed at her sister’s collarbone.
“I don’t believe it,” Jessica breathed.