Louise had selected a piece of decadent chocolate cake, which had been prominently displayed on the top shelf of the cart. Shoveling a heaping spoonful into her mouth, she discovered it had a warm and gooey center that tasted like brownie batter. It was perfectly accompanied by a scoop of silky vanilla-bean ice cream. With each bite, Louise’s corset was getting tighter and more constricting. How did women eat in these things?
Spooning up the last succulent bit of chocolate goo, she reluctantly acknowledged that her body was in intense pain. She leaned back in her chair and rested her hands on her stiff corseted belly. The rest of the table was still eyeing her suspiciously, although pretending to be engrossed in their personal conversations.
Louise opened up her gold mesh evening purse to reapply Miss Baxter’s glamorous lipstick. She would have to find a way to sneak a tube of this back to Connecticut with her. It was the perfect shade of movie-star matte red. The texture was thick and creamy, and they didn’t make anything like it anymore.
Fishing around the deceptively cavernous clutch, she pulled out a crumpled-up piece of cardstock. Louise unfolded the balled-up piece of paper.
Say what?! I’m where?!
“OHMUHGOD we are on the Titanic?” Louise screamed in panic, holding up the piece of paper. The table got quiet, and all eyes stared directly at her. Then, in unison, everyone burst out laughing, like it was the most hilarious joke they had ever heard.
“Of course we are, my dear. What an amazing actress she is, isn’t she?” Mr. Baxter exclaimed. “I’m glad I signed her when I did!” He took another large gulp of his champagne.
“You are an odd bird,” Benjamin Guggenheim chided through his laughter.
And you are a cheating creep, Louise wanted to scream back at him. But she didn’t, because it hardly seemed important anymore, considering this newest and extremely disturbing revelation. With shaking hands, she dropped the boarding pass onto the food-stained tablecloth.
“May I be excused?” Louise asked, not forgetting her manners in even the most dire of circumstances. “There’s something I need to take care of.” Shakily, she got up from her seat, still in shock that she had failed to realize she was a passenger on the most infamous doomed ship in history. Without waiting for a response, she unstrapped herself from Miss Baxter’s pinching high heels and hurriedly walked barefoot toward the captain’s table.
Halfway across the dining room, she heard Mr. Baxter calling out, “Alice! Where are you going? We haven’t had the cheese course yet….” But Louise didn’t turn around. She was sick of playing the role of Miss Baxter, and now she was scared. She marched straight ahead, determined to speak with the captain. This wasn’t a game anymore. She needed to get home.
The captain’s cheeks were rosy from drink, and he had the entire table enraptured by an anecdote he was telling. When Louise walked up to the table, he stopped mid sentence and greeted her warmly.
“Excuse me, Captain Smith, I’m sorry to interrupt,” she began hesitantly.
“Miss Baxter, not at all! It’s wonderful to see you looking much more vivacious. How are you feeling?” he asked enthusiastically.
“I’m fine, sir,” Louise replied slowly, not sure how to phrase what she had intended to say now that all eyes were on her.
“But I need to speak with you privately; it’s rather urgent.”
“Let me get you a seat,” he gestured. “I’m sure nothing can be that pressing on such a gorgeous night as this. And you’ll have to pry me away from this chocolate soufflé,” he added, pointing to the china plate on which sat his half-eaten dessert.
“Have you met my lovely wife, Eleanor?” the captain inquired. Mrs. Smith smiled at Louise with a vapid expression. She was an attractive enough older lady with silver chin-length hair and thin lips who looked a lot like the librarian at Louise’s school.
“And my first officer,” the captain continued, “William Murdoch. You two met this afternoon.”
“Yes,” Louise said impatiently, “but—”
“Please, do join us,” Mrs. Smith chimed in. “Edward was telling me that you had quite a scare this afternoon.”
“I’m fine,” Louise repeated, a bit more firmly. “But I really do need to speak with you, or else no one will be fine.”
“Dear, whatever are you talking about? Please sit down, have some tea. You’re getting quite flushed,” Mrs. Smith remarked calmly.
Almost on cue, Louise felt the warmth spreading up her neck to her cheeks. “I don’t have time to sit down. I need you to come with me. We need to change the direction the boat is headed,” Louise said as she looked intently at the captain.
“Change our course?” the captain responded in disbelief.
“The Titanic is going to hit an iceberg. I’m not sure when, but we can’t have much time left.” As Louise said this, her voice was getting louder and more hysterical. Passengers at nearby tables turned their heads to see what the commotion was about.
“Miss Baxter, please lower your voice. What’s gotten into you?” he asked, his voice now stern.
“I need you to listen to me. I can’t explain now, but you need to trust me. We are going to crash. I’m sure of it,” Louise pleaded.
“Believe me, Miss Baxter, as your captain, I am telling you that we are safe. We are not going to collide with an iceberg. The Titanic is unsinkable,” he replied confidently. “Now if you don’t sit down, you are going to alarm the other passengers.”
“Yes, please, have a seat,” Mrs. Smith parroted. “It’s probably just nerves. You’re still recovering from this afternoon.” She spoke without losing her plastered-on smile, while the rest of her face remained frozen and expressionless. Did they already have Botox in 1912? Louise couldn’t help wondering at that moment.
Then she got back into focus. “I’m fine!” she exploded, feeling her ears getting hot in anger. Why wouldn’t they listen to her? Why were they dismissing her like this? “We need to change direction. We need to stop, or thousands of people will die. I know it’s going to happen. It’s history.”
“We are staying the course,” Captain Smith said as he rose to his feet.
“If you want to go down in history as the captain of a sinking ship…” Louise threatened, not able to control her temper anymore.
By this point, they were attracting quite a bit of attention from nearby tables. The orchestra conductor was doing his best to drown out the commotion with crescendos of music. The first officer, a ruddy older man with an intense gaze, had also risen to his feet. He was stealthily making his way around the table toward Louise.
“Why don’t we get Dr. Hastings? He’ll be able to give you something to calm your nerves,” First Officer Murdoch said in a firm tone. “It’s normal for a woman to become frightened on a ship.”
“I sometimes get scared, too,” Mrs. Smith added. “We delicate females simply can’t help it.”
“But what I can’t have,” the captain continued, interrupting his wife, “is you scaring the other passengers with this nonsense. Do you know how quickly this irrational fear can spread?”
While he said this, the burly first officer had almost reached Louise, who was slowly starting to back away from the table as she realized the trouble she was in. He reached out to grab her by the arm, and Louise took off running, in her bare feet, through the dining room.
As she ran, she saw Dr. Hastings unfolding himself from his chair. His two dinner companions jumped to their feet.
“Alice! Where are you running to?” a befuddled Mr. Baxter called out across the room.
She didn’t stop to answer, nor did she turn around to see if First Officer Murdoch and Dr. Hastings were chasing her. She just ran as fast as was possible for a lady in a rock-hard corset.
Louise exited the dining room, flew back up the Grand Staircase, elbowed her way past several stunned passengers, turned down a long, maroon-carpeted hallway, up a short flight of stairs, and finally burst out into the open air on the upper deck.
Shaking, she took in huge gulps of the fresh sea air. She turned around slowly, half expecting to see that she had been followed, but no one was there. The wind was biting, and she hugged her bare arms around her body.
Louise stood at the railing and looked out at the expansive sea. For the first time in her life, the sight of water didn’t fill her with a feeling of freedom and excitement. She felt quite the opposite: trapped. She was stuck on a sinking ship in a life and body that weren’t hers.
Looking up at the infinite, starry night, Louise couldn’t help but wonder if her mother was looking up at that same sky, worried that she hadn’t come home for supper. Were there really a hundred years separating them? She bit her lip so that she wouldn’t cry. She needed to keep a clear head.
She began twirling her hair and pacing the deck to keep warm. Perhaps she had been naïve in believing that the captain would listen to her. But she could not give up. There must be someone else in the crew who would believe her. She needed to find the navigation room. If she could stall the boat for only a moment, or veer it off course by the slightest degree, maybe the disaster could be averted.
Louise continued twirling and pacing and was completely lost in her own thoughts when she walked directly into the skeletal frame of Dr. Hastings.
“Miss Baxter, what a pleasant surprise,” the doctor hissed. Louise looked around frantically for another passenger who could help her, but the deck was deserted.
“Do you really think you should be outside without a wrap in your condition? You’ll catch your death.” He grabbed her upper arm in a viselike grip. “I’ll be happy to escort you back to your stateroom.”
Louise tried to protest, but the doctor would not let her go. “Please let go of my arm, Doctor. The fresh air will do me good,” she pleaded.
“No, Miss Baxter. As your doctor, I insist. You must come inside at once.” He began to pull her toward the ship door. He was strong, despite his advanced age and bony frame.
Louise tried to keep her feet firmly planted on the deck but managed only to get a splinter in her right heel as she was dragged across the wooden planks. “I have explicit orders from the captain to make sure that you are taken directly to your room and then given something to calm your nerves,” the doctor declared. “We can’t have a hysterical woman upsetting the other passengers.”
He pushed her roughly through the door and back into the ship, still refusing to loosen his iron-tight grip.
“You’re hurting me,” Louise growled through clenched teeth. Dr. Hastings ignored her pleas and continued to forcefully lead her through the empty hallways. They made a sharp turn and, out of the corner of her eye, Louise thought she saw two women in wide-brimmed hats at the end of the corridor. Before she could call out for help, they darted around the next corner.
With a sudden movement, Dr. Hastings pushed her into a dark room. Without giving her eyes time to adjust, he switched on the electric lights, and Louise saw that she was back in her stateroom. “Miss Baxter, as your doctor, I am ordering you to rest.” He still had her by the arm and was dragging her over to the wooden four-poster bed.
Louise decided to change her strategy and reluctantly climbed up into the bed. Perhaps she could pretend to be asleep and then break out and continue on her mission.
“Where is Uncle Baxter? Where is Anna?” Louise asked, hoping they would walk into the room at any moment.
“They are in their respective dining rooms. You ran out before the entertainment. And thanks to your antics, I am now missing my poker game,” Dr. Hastings responded huffily.
“I’d like to see them,” she demanded, trying to sound braver than she felt. “Why don’t you go find them for me?”
“Oh, they’ll be back soon. However, you will most certainly be asleep by then. The captain requested that I give you something to be sure of that.”
“Oh no, I’m quite sleepy already, no need for any sleeping medicines,” Louise tried to speak slowly and in a casual tone, but she was starting to panic.
Dr. Hastings paid her no attention as he rummaged through his black leather medicine bag. She wondered nervously if he was looking for sleeping pills. She made a quick plan to hide them under her tongue and spit the tablets out later. Louise let out an exaggerated yawn. “Wow, am I tired,” she lied.
Dr. Hastings grunted triumphantly. He had found what he was looking for. “Now you see, Miss Baxter, I am not one who disobeys my captain’s orders.” He carefully extracted a syringe with what had to be a three-inch-long pricker. He tested it, and a little squirt of clear liquid shot out the tip. “Come now, this won’t hurt at all.”
“No!” Louise screamed. “Don’t you dare stick me with that!”
“It’s to help you sleep through the night,” he explained in a fake soothing voice. “All natural. A vitamin shot.” He was inching toward the bed with the syringe poised in his right hand.
“Don’t touch me!” Louise shouted again. But the doctor ignored her cries.
She scurried to the other side of the bed, trying to escape, but the doctor’s reflexes were too sharp. He grabbed her by the ankle, and without a moment’s hesitation, jabbed the needle into the top of her exposed left foot.
Louise let out a high-pitched scream of pain and shock. She turned to look into the doctor’s remorseless black eyes, and within a few moments, everything else in the room turned into that same bottomless black.
That night Louise had the most extraordinary dreams.
She dreamed she was covered in a thick blanket of darkness. She was in a cave that was so deep and so black that she didn’t know how she would ever return to the world above the earth. Her legs felt like lead weights, anchoring her to this lower and darker world.
“Open your eyes, open your eyes,” a woman’s voice hissed. The raspy voice sounded miles away.
“Open your eyes,” the distant voice said more urgently. Louise’s eyelids were so heavy, how could she possibly open them? What if she obeyed the voice and was to awaken into another layer of dream? What if she could open her eyes and still be dreaming?
“Open your eyes.” The voice was getting closer and stronger. Louise had to obey; she didn’t have a choice anymore.
She was immediately blinded by a burst of color, like a fiery red cloud.
“Louise,” the voice whispered, “the time is near. You must save yourself. History cannot be rewritten, but the dress will prevail.” Louise saw a flash of gold and an image of a black poodle dangling in the red cloud. She could no longer fight the utter heaviness of her eyelids, and her weighted feet plummeted her back down into the darkness below.
The cave was filling up quickly with rushing water. The cold water rapidly rose up past her ankles and her knees. The water was tickling her thighs. She tried screaming but, like in all of her most terrifying nightmares, no sound came out of her mouth. The only sound was the roar of the water pouring into the black cave. The icy wetness had reached her belly button, and Louise felt a stabbing pain in her stomach. The water level was quickly moving up to her chest. She heard two distinct female voices yelling, but she was too far away to make out the words.
She bolted upright in bed. An evening dress was clinging to her like another layer of skin. She anxiously glanced around the room to get her bearings. Now she could never be sure where she would wake up. The room was dimly lit, but Louise recognized it immediately as Miss Baxter’s stateroom.
How she wished that she would wake up in her familiar bedroom under her grandmother’s handsewn patchwork quilt. She hoped this was all a long, awful nightmare.
“Miss Baxter? Are you all right?” Anna asked eagerly as she came over to the bed.
“No, I’m not,” Louise croaked, her throat parched. “I just had the most horrible nightmare. And then I woke up, and I’m in the middle of an even worse nightmare….” She paused. “Anna, are you okay?” A terrified look was spreading across her friend’s face. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Even i
n the dimly lit room, Louise could see Anna’s pallid complexion and trembling bottom lip.
“I’m not sure,” Anna said hesitantly. “I think I may have.”
“Go on,” Louise urged, propping herself up on her elbows as Anna sat down at the foot of the bed.
“I don’t know, maybe I didn’t see anything,” Anna stuttered. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. Please, forget I said anything.” Her gaze was darting around the room, as though she expected something or someone to jump out of the shadows.
“No,” Louise blurted. “You have to tell me. I’ll believe you!”
“Well, ma’am,” her friend began slowly. “Last night when I returned from dinner… I was sleeping right over here on the sofa to keep an eye on you,” Anna said as she gestured to a nearby Victorian couch made up with pillows and blankets. “Oh, Miss Baxter, we were all worried sick. I hear you caused quite a stir in the dining room last evening, that you told Captain Smith the Titanic was going to sink—”
“It is,” Louise interrupted, “but what happened?”
“That’s impossible. There has never been a more magnificent or sturdy boat to cross the ocean.”
“What happened next?” Louise asked, trying to get back to the story, hoping it would give her some clue as to how to get off the boat.
“Well, I was asleep right here on this sofa,” she began again hesitantly.
“I know, I know,” Louise said as she nodded vigorously.
“And in the middle of the night, I heard strange voices, so I woke up out of a deep sleep. And then I saw them.” Anna got up and started pacing the room nervously.
“Saw who?” Louise asked.
“There were two women hovering over your bed, whispering things to you. When I called out in fright, they disappeared—vanished into thin air. Oh, it’s impossible. Hail Mary.” Anna made the sign of the cross over her body.
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