Chapter 33
Will stood frozen on the deck, crewmen rushing past him as they moved to swing out the last boat on the side. His breath swirled in the cold air, and his legs shook.
He’d let Sylvia and the boys go. They were out there—alone, in the dark, scared, praying for rescue to arrive.
That the boats themselves were part of a rescue didn’t help.
It seemed like madness to send them out into the night on those tiny planks of wood, and he couldn’t stop imagining them shivering, disappearing into the darkness, drifting forever away.
He’d promised her he’d never leave her. Till death do us part.
Closing his eyes, he tried to steady his heart. Find Emmeline. He couldn’t stop, not while there was still solid ground underneath his feet, and boats to board. But he had to hurry.
He ran along the deck again, and then to the other side. A commotion below caught his attention, and he leaned past the railing. One of the boats had stopped on A Deck, where the promenade was enclosed, and people huddled by the windows, waiting to board it.
We didn’t check that deck.
With a new bout of optimism, he hurried inside and skipped the stairs two at a time, swinging around the newel as he ran to the promenade exit.
The gathering around the boat resembled more a socialite meeting in a fine hotel rather than an evacuation procedure; at least if it weren’t for the boxy life belts marring people’s attires.
There were the Carters—Brendon and Tristan had played with their boy the other day—and Colonel Astor was reassuring his young wife.
Will carefully pushed his way through the group, scanning for Emmeline, his heart dropping further and further as every face turned out not to be hers.
He reached the end of the deck and stopped at the railing, his breath catching in his lungs.
Only now, only from here, did he notice how far below the ship had gone already.
The side-to-side list was barely palpable, but the bow was going under.
The ocean had swallowed more than half of it, only one line of portholes still visible above the surface as, little by little, those too extinguished.
Time was running out.
He clenched the railing, thinking, running over the events of the evening and the map of the ship in his head.
Where on Earth would Emmeline be? Pain stung through his chest and straight into his heart as he remembered their last conversation, Emmeline’s eyes tearing up, but flashing in anger.
I wish I wasn’t a part of this family and never had to see you again.
Like lightning through the dark, clarity cut through him.
Leon. Emmeline went to see him. That’s why they couldn’t find her anywhere else. She wasn’t in first class anymore. She’d gone to third class. To their male passenger cabins.
He stared at the bow, slowly being drawn into the ocean.
The cabins which were right below it.
***
Emily patted her face dry, checked herself in the mirror—not much better than usual, but she’d looked greener—and exited the bathroom. She found James in the living room, once again bent over the Watchers’ notes, spread all across the coffee table. He looked up, scowling.
“If you’re about to tell me I look awful, remember, this is exactly fifty percent your fault,” she said.
“You always look beautiful.”
“You could’ve put slightly more conviction behind those words.”
He scowled more. “Sorry. I was studying something and …”
“Ah, frowning because of studying.” She sat next to him. “Now that I can relate to.”
“I tried to follow my family a few generations back, to see when the pendant popped up,” he said. “I know it’s not pertinent …”
“Hey.” She smoothed his hair. “We all need our distractions.”
The almonite in her blood had somehow been activated again.
She could freeze time, do regular time travel—though still not far back enough to find what happened to Will and his family—and she didn’t have a single explanation for it.
Will would surely figure it out if he were here.
But he wasn’t, and maybe she’d never see him again.
After twelve years, she was finally a time traveler again, but she felt more helpless and stuck than in the whole past decade. She couldn’t blame James for trying to focus on random bits of history. Her brain direly needed a break, too.
“Did you find where the pendant came from?” she asked.
“No, but I found something else.” He pushed a scan of an old paper excerpt in front of her. “It’s a newspaper section with marriage banns.”
“With what?”
“Marriage banns. In my time—well, in the nineteenth century—if one wanted to get married by anything else than a license, they’d need their marriage banns to be read for three Sundays before they could do so.
Some also had the engagement announcement published in the papers.
I found one for my ancestor.” He tapped on the paper, next to a line that said, Mar.
17 - The Right Hon. Viscount Haverston he ran forward through the cabin hallways, but there was no passage to the third class areas.
But, there—a narrow staircase leading down, behind an open, collapsible wrought-iron gate.
He ran, nearly losing his footing in the rush.
One deck, two—no, no further. Water was already pooling below, slowly progressing up the enclosed staircase.
Multitudes of envelopes floated on the wavy surface, like white petals fallen off a tree.
Will exited through another collapsible gate, finding himself in an abandoned hallway.
A few cabin doors had been left open and suitcases leaned on the walls, forlorn in this dimly lit corner of the ship, where steel moaned as it was slowly being dragged under.
He wasn’t in the third class area yet, but he tried shouting Emmeline’s name, anyway.
His voice bounced off the walls, but encountered no response.
Onward he went, supporting himself along the walls as the ship’s list drew him steadily to the side.
Another corner; he stepped into a puddle.
A thin stream of water was coming from behind the door further down.
Damn.
“Emmeline!” he tried again.
Steps sounded from behind him. His heart briefly rejoicing—he’d found her, she was fine!—he turned, only to instead encounter a man in a dark officer’s coat, running toward him.
“Sir, you’re not supposed to be down here anymore.”
“My daughter. I have to find her. She’s gone to third class. Do you know how to get—” As he approached the officer, recognition struck. He’d been on the bridge when Will had tried to warn them about the icebergs. Kinsley, wasn’t it?
Will paused, unsure what the officer would do if he recognized him as well.
“When has she been down here? What does she look like?”
Perhaps he didn’t recognize him, or had decided for bygones to be bygones. Will served him a quick description, and the officer’s eyes widened.
“Was she with a young man? Third class, dark-haired?”
“Yes! She could be. Have you seen her?”
“In a group that went up the third class stairs,” Kinsley said. “Come, I know a shortcut.”
With that stone rolling off his chest, Will didn’t even care for the two inches of water he had to wade through, following the man down the hallway; and he didn’t even care that Emmeline had disobeyed his orders and went to see that boy again.
At least she was somewhere here, and she was safe.
Now he only needed to get her off the ship.
“In here.” Kinsley held a door open for him.
Running through his next steps in his head—they’d have to try to board the aft boats, perhaps even the collapsibles; Emily had said C and D would be fine—Will didn’t take proper notice of the room he’d entered for the first few seconds.
It had no staircase, no other exit. It was some kind of a closet.
“I think you got the wrong—” Something hit him on the back of the head, and he said and saw nothing more.
***
“We’re not naming him Chad.” Emily unlocked the front door and left it open for James to carry the groceries in. “The kid is going to be a meme.”
“I thought it was an interesting name.”
“Bless you.” She pecked his cheek. “It might be fine somewhere else, but not in this day and culture.”
“Then what?”