Chapter 30 #2
Emmeline and Louisa stared at each other across the carriage.
“Did you know?” Louisa asked.
“No. But it makes perfect sense.” Theo had said Cass intended to talk with her father. It must’ve been about this. Like Theo, she’d decided to not submit to her father’s wishes any longer. “Do you think,” she started again after a moment of silence, “that Daniel can get us to see Theo?”
“You hadn’t seen him pull his ‘I’m the Marquis Farenham’ card,” Louisa said. “It’s highly effective, I assure you.”
Nervousness, fear, but also a tiny drop of hope mixed in Emmeline’s stomach. Why wouldn’t Daniel’s orders override Wescott’s?
After about fifteen minutes, Daniel came back. “You can go see him.” He extended a hand out to stop Louisa from going after Emmeline. “It’s no place for the ladies, Sister. If I could spare you both, I would.”
“I’ll be fine,” Emmeline said to Louisa and exited the carriage. “You should go,” she then said to Daniel.
“We’ll wait for you.”
“You and Cass need to go. Don’t lose another minute on my account, please. Wescott could find out about her disappearance at any second. Don’t let him do the same to either of you.”
Daniel’s jaw twitched in frustration. “Very well. I’ll order another carriage to come pick you up.”
She nodded and started toward the entrance, when he pulled her back and leaned his head toward her, for a second invoking the old memory of last summer—before she realized he only wanted to whisper in her ear.
“He’s been sentenced to death. Tomorrow morning.”
Her breath caught.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. They barely allowed to let you see him.”
A burning rushed up her throat and to her eyes, but she managed to nod. “Thank you.”
He tilted his head goodbye and disappeared into the carriage.
Emmeline clutched her hands, steeled her spine, and headed for the entrance.
A grim, cold, darkly lit lobby awaited her inside, with a guard standing in attendance.
“This way, Miss.” He led her down a tiled hallway, through a door, and then down a stone spiral staircase, the rising gloom gobbling up her courage.
They reached another hallway, with a few lamps casting lonely circles of light onto the stone walls.
Metal screeched somewhere in the distance, covering weak screams and painful moans.
The smell of something rotten mixed with sweat and humidity, nearly making her gag.
Iron doors with rows of rivets ran down the hallway.
The guard stopped at one of those, nodding at Emmeline and leaving her alone.
A grid of small squares, perhaps two inches on the side, offered her the only glimpse inside the cell, but it was pitch dark.
She approached, taking note of a heavy metal lock.
No chance she could pick it. “Theo?” she tried, her voice coming out shaky.
“Emmeline?” Something inside the cell stirred, and his face pressed to the grate.
“Theo!” She ran to him, scratching at the door, trying to maneuver into being able to kiss him or touch him at all, but the few small holes were unyielding.
“Emmeline.” Theo’s voice was half-hopeful, half-desperate. “How are you here? Why? This isn’t the place for you.”
“Neither is it for you. Wescott did this.”
“I figured, from the police and guards’ behavior. Emmeline …” He leaned to the side. “I’m sorry.”
She pressed to the door and closed her eyes. “Don’t be. You made the right decision. But it’s not over yet.”
Theo smiled. “Always the optimist. Always ready with a plan. But this time …”
“Don’t say it.”
“You know, don’t you? Of the sentence?”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Yes.”
“I wish we’d had longer. I wish you could send us back to that castle …”
“I could try,” she said with an unconvincing peep.
It had been so long since her powers had worked.
“Maybe I could send you away, somewhere Wescott can’t reach you.
Perhaps to your mother! You could pretend you’re a neighbor.
You’d get to know her, for a few years at least, and you’d live in peace—”
“Emmeline, stop. Stop.” He squeezed a finger through the grate and brushed her cheek. “Maria Grey could do it, but I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to start a whole new life. I’d rather be with you. Even if it’s only for a day.”
“But you’ll die.”
“You’ll remember me.”
She got as close to the grate as she could, barely able to touch his nose. “I can’t let it end like this.” To hell with all the poetic, tragic endings in books—she couldn’t accept one. Maria surely hadn’t imagined this when she talked about finding her endings and beginnings.
Emmeline frowned. Her mind went back to the time so long ago—or ahead—that had once been real, but now felt more like a dream than this place.
Her home. Her family. She gave them up for a fairytale, but she ignored a crucial detail.
Fairytales didn’t exist for their Prince Charmings, sleeping princesses, and fire-breathing dragons. They existed to teach one a lesson.
Images, places, people flashed in front of her eyes.
Father heading down the gangway to the ship, ruffling Tristan’s hair as he promised to show him the wireless room.
Her mother fussing over her, warning her twenty times that day not to crumple her brand new hat.
She herself, angrily squishing the damn thing as she dropped her book at the inquiry office, and looking up into a stranger’s eyes—Leon’s eyes—Theo’s eyes.
She knew her ending—because it was the beginning.
“Theo,” she whispered. “I have it. I can do it again. I can transport you out!”
“I told you—”
“I’ll come with you. After you. I promise.”
“What do you mean?”
She gazed into his eyes—the same silver of that first day on the Titanic, even if they were now cast in shadow. “I’m sending you to my home. My family. We’re going back.”
He only stared at her.
“Hold my finger.” Through the grate, she couldn’t offer him the whole hand, but he hooked his pinkie around hers.
She closed her eyes and let the memories take her back.
Bright blue spring sky, soft winds, the sea like glass, smoke pouring out of the orange-and-black funnels.
And the day she’d really, truly, met Theo.
A splitting headache hit her temple. She opened her eyes in time to see her finger color blue, and Theo disappear.
One part done.
She pressed her fist to her mouth, concentrating on that headache, inviting it back, clinging to the memories, the pain. She’d been walking down the ship’s hallway, searching for Leon in her fury over her parents’ decisions. Be somewhere else. Be someone else. Have a different life.
I want back. Let me go back.
The wet, cold air of the cell changed into a warmer, musty smell of the ship’s hallway. Stone walls shifted into whitewashed steel ones. Emmeline let out a cry of relief and leaned on the wall to steady herself, since her balance was off.
She made it. She was back. Back on the ship, back with her family—and Theo! It looked like she aimed well on her return, too. She must’ve come back not long after she’d left. It was still night; the lights were turned low, and the hallway was quiet.
As her joy settled down, she pondered her choices. Should she go find Theo first, or return to her father to apologize? So many things to do, to clarify! But it was fine. She had time.
She pushed off the wall, then realized it wasn’t her balance that was off. The hallway was ever so slightly tilting to the side.
Something cool enveloped her feet. She looked down at the half-inch of transparent, ice-cold water rippling around her shoes. Her eyes followed the ripples to the end of the hallway, where the water lapped from in steady, low waves.
The ship was sinking.