by Alma Katsu
He rises from the stool, anxious to keep busy. He’d hung Annie’s wet clothing to dry and he checks them now, putting his hand to the skirt and apron. Still damp. There’s something bulky and stiff in the pocket of her apron. He pulls out a clumsily folded paper packet. He unfolds it: a map of the Aegean Sea and, more specifically, the Kea Channel, which the ship must sail through to get to Mudros. He’d spoken to one of the officers last night on the promenade over a cigarette and the officer had told him the Kea Channel was difficult to navigate, full of narrow straits and rocky shoals. But this—this is marked with mysterious symbols and codes.
His stomach sinks as he looks on Annie one more time. He remembers all the times she prepared warm milk for Ondine. Remembers how Ondine had seemed so sick, so . . . altered. He remembers Caroline’s misgivings. He’d thought it was just another case of female jealousy. Now he wonders if he was wrong.
He has no idea what to make of Annie’s rantings, why she wants to think she’s Lillian. Something to do with him, no doubt. Wanting to step into Lillian’s shoes. It’s terrifying, what the mind can do. He’s seen men snap in the trenches, suddenly believe they’re seven years old again playing hide-and-seek in the forest and their mummies are looking for them.
In the end, he takes a cue from her own actions, and knows exactly what to do. He reaches for his belt.
Chapter Fifty
Where am I?
She remembers being walked by Mark down a passage, her arm slung over his shoulder, her feet barely touching the floor. Then being eased gently onto a bed. And that is where her conscious memory ends.
Annie is a passenger in her body as she descends into sleep. Unable to speak, unable to control her thoughts, unable to make her body obey.
Images appear in her mind—she’s immediately aware that they’re Lillian Notting’s memories—like a moving picture that’s playing just for her.
The nightstand on Mark’s side of the bed. A book sits at an angle, like it was recently discarded. A plain cream-colored envelope juts out of the pages, holding his place. She doesn’t recall Mark reading last night or any night. . . . Lately, he has not been coming to her bedroom, and so she has crept into his. Only he isn’t here. She knows what that must mean. She knows where he must be.
With Caroline. She touches the book—no doubt one lent to him by Caroline—and as she lifts it, the envelope falls out.
She picks the envelope off the floor. The upper-left-hand corner reads White Star Line.
Inside, there is a ticket. Titanic. First-class passenger: Mr. Mark Fletcher.
Rubber-stamped in red, sprawled over the words: PAID.
She runs her thumb over the red ink. There is only one other person Lillian knows with a ticket for the crossing.
The pain she feels is immediate, a dagger plunged into her heart.
Mark’s straight razor lies innocently within reach. She does it not just for the release from the anguish—the blood a distraction from her inner pain—but to defy the world. So much for a woman’s beauty. We are nothing without it.
Her hair comes next—hacked off in rough patches, her hands trembling with a white-hot rage that burns the despair, turning it into determination, into a strange and eerie focus.
Like this, a monster, she leaves the house. Walks down the lane for all to see.
It happens in a blur. The outcries and whimpers from those who notice her. But no one can stop her. She is racing now, frantic, still bleeding, and people draw back as she passes, a nightmare in the flesh.
She follows the scent of water on the wind. Standing on a bridge, the wind scuttles over her near-bare head. The coolness, where before there was only the fire of her agony, brings momentary relief. For a brief second, Lillian smiles. This is what freedom feels like.
And then she steps into air. People on the street below her gasp as . . .
She plunges into the frigid Thames. The water surrounds her immediately, merciless. It grabs her nightdress and pulls her down, down. . . .
She swallows a bellyful of water, sucks even more into her lungs. . . .
Her brain floods with panic, fights to make her wake up. . . .
No, no, no . . . What have I done? . . . But it is too late. . . .
Mark is all she can think about, all she can see. Even now, she forgives him. . . .
She wants all of it back, her man, her baby, her life. . . .
But the pressure in her chest is unbearable. She tries to fight her way to the surface, but it only seems to fall farther and farther away. . . .
And then, in the darkness, in the lung-shattering pain, comes a voice, pure as music, sweet as an angel’s. A voice that sounds like innocence itself.
I can give you a second chance, the voice says. It is the voice of the water, the voice of something vast and invisible. But in Lillian’s last gasps, she sees the glitter of two green eyes, the splay of wild hair. A sea goddess, or a last hallucination, a passing vision, she can’t be sure.
I’m everywhere, the vision seems to say. I am the great mother witch of the sea, able to hear the drowning no matter where they are. You want to live? I will grant your wish, but you will owe me something in return: an innocent soul.
You cannot return to your body. It is destroyed beyond use. But I will give you a new one, a fresh one. She has just died. The body is perfect.
Go now. Reclaim your love, if that is what you desire. Just do not forget: you must make good on your part of the Bargain. I will have my innocents, and they will live with me in the depths. Protected and loved forever. This is a bargain you cannot undo.
Lillian opens her eyes and she is standing before the gangplank leading to RMS Titanic, battered suitcase in hand, Annie’s aunt Riona’s shoes, hand-me-downs, on her feet. These are Annie’s memories: meeting Violet Jessop. Claiming the more cramped of the two bunks in the tiny cabin they must share in order to ingratiate herself with Violet. Trying on the White Star Line stewardess’s uniform, tucking in the gold crucifix so no one will see it. Learning to fold napkins and make beds and serve tea the White Star way.
Standing on deck on April 10, 1912, watching the first-class passengers come up the gangplank, wondering which ones will occupy the rooms that have been assigned to her, twelve cabins in first class. This is when she sees Mark Fletcher, looking prosperous in the fine new suit Caroline has bought for him. And he is distracted, because the baby in his arms is spitting up on the front of his overcoat.
The baby is Ondine.
* * *
—
Annie wakes, drenched in a cold sweat. But even awake, images continue to play against her mind’s eye. Writing a note to herself in the night, desperately trying to tell her waking mind the truth. The nights of roaming the ship, looking for Mark, listening for Mark, waiting for Mark. The way she savored the times he held her in his arms.
The dubheasa is right.
Annie is Lillian.
All this time, she has not been haunted. She has been the one haunting.
She came back—not for the child taken by Caroline. But for the man.
She came back for Mark.
But the thought that burns the most sickening in her mind is what she agreed to give up in exchange for love.
A clue—the vital clue all along—swarms into her mind: the brooch. The brooch that had been in her pocket all that time, with its little hidden latch.
A latch she knew was there all along, would thumb absently as she went about her work, for comfort. Because, once, the brooch had been hers. Caroline had given it to her—to Lillian, as a little gift.
And then comes the worst part, the dark, sickening tide of truth, as Annie watches herself—Lillian—pouring and warming the child’s milk morning after morning. Afternoons, too. In a hidden corner of the Titanic’s kitchen so as to stay out of the cook’s way.
Ever so subtly, flippin
g open the brooch and sprinkling powder into the warm, white liquid.
A pinch at every feeding.
Yes, she, she, had been the one, all along.
She had been the danger to the child.
She had been trying to make good on her promise.
After all, she owed the dubheasa a child. An innocent. That had been the Bargain.
She remembers going to Mark, desperate to get his attention. Telling Mark he’s not paying attention to his daughter. Doesn’t Ondine look unwell to you? I think she’s taken a turn for the worse.
I think Ondine is in peril.
I think you should listen to me.
You need me, Mark, don’t you see?
Me, Mark. Look at me. See me.
Choose me.
* * *
—
Now: she tries to leap from the bed, to find Mark and make him understand. He needs to help her end this nightmare.
But something is holding her down. A belt, wrapped tight around her wrists. She is lashed to the bed.
Or at least, Annie Hebbley is lashed down.
But Lillian Notting is not.
Chapter Fifty-One
“Caroline is a better match for you than I am,” Lillian said, touching his shoulder. They were sitting together in the breakfast room of Caroline’s house, looking out the window at Caroline with the baby in the garden.
Lillian missed nothing. Her big blue eyes seemed to take in everything. Mark cursed himself; had she caught him looking too intently at the way Caroline moved through the manicured rows of flowers? He could always claim he felt indebted to Caroline—which was true. They owed her much and there was no arguing that. But Lillian was no fool.
“No woman could compare with your beauty,” he said, kissing her hand. It was true: Lillian could be a model for illustrations in women’s magazines. If she chose, her face could sell tea, perfume, soap. Except that it was hard to imagine her sitting still. She could perform on any stage in the West End (if she could act, but alas, she could not—she was far too dramatic for it).
“Beauty fades,” she said, her voice tipped with the silver of need. “Will you still love me then, I wonder? When I am old—”
He laughed. “To me, you’ll always be this young and this beautiful.” He could tell she wasn’t satisfied by his flattery. Lillian had changed over the past few months. Ever since Ondine had arrived. Her mood shifted without warning. She cried at the sight of a stray kitten, at a rain stain on her sleeve, at anything. He’d always loved the dark, complex winding of her thoughts, but now they seemed always to tremble at the edge of an abyss. She never slept, even when the child did.
The thing was, she wasn’t wrong to be uneasy. Mark knew he was changing, too—and he blamed her for it.
Mark had resisted joining the two women for as long as he could, in this perfect house, where the outside world could be shut out at the gates. Eventually, he could resist no more and left his lonely rooms to live with them, and then he could barely stand to leave them to go to work. His days were perfect. He had Caroline at dinner and for long walks through the woods, Caroline’s educated mind and clever tongue to entertain and engage him with fascinating stories about life in America. At night, he had Lillian in his bed. Lillian racing through his veins.
He knew he was being selfish and that it couldn’t last, one man with two perfect women, but by the same token, he couldn’t walk away from it. The longer he indulged, the harder it would be to give up—it would take some external force to pry him out of this love nest.
That force was Caroline’s imminent departure for America.
The lawyers had finished their work. Caroline had the necessary documents ready and could finally return home. For this momentous occasion, Caroline decided to book passage on the maiden voyage of a new passenger ship, RMS Titanic, said to be the biggest and most luxurious liner of the day. It was expensive, yes, but Caroline wanted to celebrate what she saw as the turning point of her life. Mark wouldn’t admit it, but he was a little jealous. What he wouldn’t give to start a new life in a new country, and to do it in luxury, not to have to scrimp and struggle as he and Lillian had done before Caroline entered their lives.
That evening, as their stroll was drawing to a close, Caroline had handed him an envelope. “If I have misread your intentions of the past month, please forgive me,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “But if I let this opportunity slip through my fingers, I’d never forgive myself.”
He opened the envelope: it held a first-class ticket for the Titanic.
“Join me—or don’t, and I will know your answer,” she said before running away, leaving him openmouthed at the garden gate.
He spent the night and the next morning in a daze. It was as though Caroline had read his mind—but now he doubted whether he knew what he wanted. He’d held Lillian in bed that night, wondering if he could bear to leave her. He tried to picture life as Caroline’s husband—in America, no less. Would he be expected to run her business interests? What would be his role, when he understood nothing about America, its laws or its ways? He could end up Caroline’s lapdog, a conversation piece (“an English husband, how interesting!”) for her American friends.
And there was Ondine to consider. He had grown to hate the thought of parting with her, of sending her off to America alone with Caroline. The more he thought about it, the more heartless it seemed. Was he that kind of man? Lillian slept unaware while Mark tossed and fretted. At one very dark point, he almost rose to pick up his straight razor and slit his own throat. What kind of man had he become? This was intolerable, insane. Impossible.
He was hunched over his ledger at work the next day when the solution came to him: we shall both go to America with Caroline. He no longer cared about what he would do—he and Lillian could become Caroline’s servants, lady’s maid and butler, in order to remain close—but he would not abandon his daughter. During his tea break, he went to a pawnshop and asked how much he might get for the first-class ticket, then ran to the White Star Line office to see about prices of second- and third-class tickets. Only then would he tell Lillian about his plan. He didn’t want to get her hopes up, not when she had been so black of late.
But when he returned home that evening, Lillian was not there.
The first-class ticket sat on the nightstand, pulled from its envelope.
She’d discovered where he’d hidden it hurriedly in the pages of a book. She’d always been suspicious, even before. He should’ve known.
But the worst was yet to come.
It was a horrible scene, one his mind could not make sense of. Refused to make sense of.
What have you done, Lillian?
It was a misunderstanding.
He would find her. Make every apology, every assurance ever known to a man.
He loved her. He’d marry her, at last.
They would find a way, no matter what.
Except that they would not. Because he never saw Lillian alive again.
* * *
—
Mark lifts the bottle of Scotch and tips it upside down over his glass, for the last streaky drops of amber. The whiskey was good, a bottle found hidden in a drawer in one of the doctors’ offices.
He leans over the map he found in Annie’s pocket. It’s almost dry now, laid out on a table and its edges weighted down with books. It’s crinkled and there’s some bleeding of the ink, but it’s legible. He’s looked it over for the last hour and thinks he’s made sense of it: it’s a chart of the Kea Channel off the Greek coast. It’s in the Cyclades, which has the reputation of being windy and hazardous, considered an ancient Greek curse upon sailors. He’s no seaman, but the chart certainly looks treacherous, dotted with many islands and the space between them marked with quickly changing depths and soundings.
Most troubling are the notations—freshly made by hand—that
, as best Mark can figure, mark the location of sea mines. The German mines have been an increasing threat to ships in the area, he’s heard. And now: the Britannic is steaming up the southeastern coast of Greece, bearing down on the Cyclades, at this very minute. The captain needs to see this map right away.
As he rolls it up, he can’t help but wonder how it came to be in Annie’s possession.
He steps into the alleyway, wondering where he might find Captain Bartlett at this hour of the morning, when he hears muffled singing. He recognizes the tune: it’s “Nearer My God to Thee” and then he remembers: the morning church service is going on, probably in the mess hall, the largest gathering place. Captain Bartlett will surely be there, perhaps even leading.
Mark tugs at his clothing, unchanged since the day before. He feels rumpled and untidy, and his mind swims in the whiskey. He tries to smooth down his hair. Its natural curl has been unleashed by sweat and humidity and it makes him look like a madman, one of the many unkempt shell-shocked.
He lurches toward the service as fast as he can with his injuries, but it’s hard to navigate the ship with a cane and he nearly goes sprawling several times, catching the tip on a railing or doorsill. As he makes his way down flights of stairs, he is unnerved by how much like the Titanic this ship is—even without the fine touches, servants and musicians, female passengers in silk dresses and wildly plumed hats, alcohol fumes and cigar smoke and perfume. It’s like he’s stepped back in time—or perhaps is a ghost haunting the present day.
The sound of singing grows closer. He can make out the words now:
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be
Nearer, my God, to thee . . .
He feels the presence of many souls on the other side of the door and can picture them sitting on the benches, sailors in their uniforms, nurses in their pinafores and wimples, soldiers in dressing gowns, sleeves or trouser legs pinned up and neatened for a missing arm or leg. The smell of breakfast, long past, lingers on the air. Fried kippers and beans, coffee and tea. Human smells. Such human affairs, even the worshipping of a God is quintessentially human. The wavering sound of unaccompanied song.
