Sorcerers, Spirits, and Ships

by Katherine Gilbert

  A worker started to run up to them, saying, “Hey, you guys can’t be he—. . .” but she tossed a small “forget us” spell, and he stood staring off into the distance blankly for a moment before shaking his head and returning to his tasks.

  Annabella continued to storm.

  “Teena, stay near William and try to remember everything about the ship you’ve known in this lifetime. Do your best not to think about your previous one.”

  She felt the woman’s confusion, but Teena didn’t disagree.

  Kitty? Annabella touched her mind tenderly. It had not escaped her that the cat saw a gentle claiming as a sign of love. It also wasn’t a surprise that she was fairly freaked out by the change in Annabella.

  You know you’re kind of . . . glowing, right? the ex-cat asked.

  Annabella couldn’t really see it, but then, at the moment, she didn’t really care.

  I’m still me, Kitty, and I’m still yours.

  She felt Kitty nearly glow herself in pleasure.

  Now, we’re going to need to reclaim Armand.

  Yes. He’s mine, Kitty said automatically then seemed to think about it. He’s OURS.

  Agreed, Annabella smiled. Now, you just need to focus on him.

  Kitty nodded but said aloud this time, “But what about Brutus and Hubert?”

  Annabella stopped short, turning to her, and could see that her intensity was freaking the poor ex-cat out. Still, she burned far too much to get back to save Armand to worry about niceties.

  Her look apparently prompted Kitty. “If we’re back where we were earlier, aren’t they, as well?”

  “Damn,” Annabella muttered.

  She could feel in her bones that Kitty was right.

  “Change of plans.” Looking back to William, she ordered, “Remember the last few decades when the ship was in service. Think especially about the sort of men who’d gather in the smoking room.”

  The revenant looked uncertain but nodded.

  “And Kitty, think about Brutus. Everything you love or hate, every moment you’ve known him.”

  Kitty watched her as though she controlled the entire universe, which, at the moment, Annabella hoped was true. It was about their only way out of here.

  Looking down, she saw that a staircase had already been half-dismantled—or, possibly, it had just fallen apart from rot and neglect through the years.

  Taking Kitty’s hand and motioning her to take Teena’s—the girl still half-wrapped in William’s arm—she started to walk down the ruined stairs.

  “Um, Miss, the stairs . . .” William began.

  “Are they damaged in the ship you remember?” she asked, still leading them along to what was—currently—a giant hole back down to the deck.

  Or, rather, where that part of the deck had once been. Possibly, the falling staircase had been the final stressor it could take. The hole below the missing stairs now sank down into unending gloom.

  Glancing at him for half a second, she saw him shudder.

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Your ship,” she prompted, stopping for only half an instant. “You’ve walked its decks all these long decades. You know every hallway, every curve to its steel, every bit of gleaming wood. There’s nothing you can see there which will surprise you, because it’s yours.”

  It was a mild compulsion, only enough to focus him.

  “Kitty, focus on Brutus,” she reminded her, as she continued walking. “Teena, focus on William.”

  They were about a step away from a tumble into oblivion. Annabella, too, focused on what she needed, a pathway through the various lives of the ship into the one where Hubert and Brutus were most likely stranded. One more step and . . .

  . . . there was lively music from an apparently living band to cheer the diners, as they ate. And Annabella led a group which broke every societal standard down onto the first-class dining deck of the Queen Mary in probably about 1953. As dinner was apparently coming to a close, many passengers were wandering out toward other amusements.

  For at least two members of their group, it wouldn’t have been a great time to be among the British or Americans. For the other two, they were still not at all correctly dressed.

  Annabella could feel their watchers’ reactions somewhere inside her, and they made her a little ill. To all those gathered there, there had apparently been a revolt and some of the most insane passengers from third class were wandering among the great and the good.

  They saw a black woman dressed in lace and God-knew-what, held—shockingly—by a white man who was in a suit but one at least a good fifteen years or more out of fashion. That the woman had dyed, bluish-green hair only made several of the women consider screaming.

  With this couple—who were seen as anything from revolting to illegal by these wealthy passengers from another era—was a woman in pants and some other sort of darkish-skinned woman, maybe Indian or Afghani or something.

  Angry and tired of delays, Annabella marched her group through the crowd which varied from a lynch mob only in that they lived lives of enough privilege that they never had to interact with any type of person they didn’t wish and were therefore never tempted toward violence in anything besides their hearts and souls.

  Every conversation had stopped, and the stillness spread like an unchecked cancer. Soon, even the band wasn’t playing, as everyone came to stare.

  While Annabella could have hidden them or made this group forget, she wasn’t in the mood to coddle their prejudices.

  Only one or two people stood out from the sea of disapproval and disgust. Here and there, a man or woman smiled in a way which said they’d seen a future they very much hoped to make it to.

  And there was one pretty, petite, white girl with short brown hair and a very fashionable evening dress who stared at Teena as though she’d just seen a ghost.

  Teena, too, stopped.

  “It’s me,” she whispered, though she didn’t really need to, the point too obvious.

  A moment later, the girl came toward them.

  “Do I . . . know you?”

  Even as she asked the question, it was clear that she was thinking there was no possible way that could be.

  Sighing, Teena almost reached out to touch her arm, but fortunately William caught Annabella’s eye and pulled her hand back. Annabella knew enough very basic physics to know that two things could not occupy the same space at the same time. She rather feared to know what would happen if this same soul in two bodies met further.

  Settling on a weak smile, Teena just said, “Not yet. Can you tell me where the smoking room is, though?”

  Still clearly half in shock, the girl pointed. “My uncle’s in there.”

  Teena shook violently, and William held her closer, which the crowd definitely didn’t like.

  “It gets better,” Teena promised. “Maybe not in this lifetime, but it does.”

  Thankfully, the crowd was just a hair’s breadth too formal for sudden group violence and let them go. Annabella left behind a quick spell to ensure that the crew didn’t come after them immediately.

  Thankfully, they made it away and to the smoking room to see Hubert and Brutus coming out, staring at them.

  “You were stranded here, too?”

  Looking them over, Hubert sighed.

  “I see none of you were adequately dressed, either.”

  Annabella laughed slightly. Trust Hubert to understate things.

  Behind them, a striking older woman with very long, salt-and-pepper hair and clothes which made her look like a longshoreman came out of the room in a fug of cigarette, pipe, and cigar smoke, arguing with an attractive older man with very mean eyes.

  “How dare you try to invade our private space, you . . .”

  She raised her fist—and looked like she more than knew how to use it.

  “If you call me that name again, I will not only punch your teeth in. I’ll throw you over the side for good measure.”

  Gasping, Teena murmured in sh
ock. “That’s my uncle.”

  While this wasn’t true for this lifetime, and it was hard to say how she knew, everyone with her understood what she meant.

  Unfortunately, the man had heard, turning away from his fight with the older woman, his face livid with fury.

  “‘Uncle’? How dare you, you little . . .”

  Hubert and William stood between him and Teena, and the man reconsidered his approach. Brutus had been staring at Kitty adoringly but was now growling, too.

  “My God, what’s become of basic decency tonight!” he raged, starting to stomp off down the deck. “Is there a freak show on board?”

  Clearly off to find the nearest sailor to deal with them, he stalked into retreat.

  Hubert shook his head. “That would have been amusing if . . .”

  Staring at Teena, he trailed off.

  “If he weren’t probably on his way to kill me? Agreed,” she nodded.

  They had forgotten about the woman Hubert had apparently been trying to recruit. Hands on hips, she now stood, glaring at them.

  “Were those those historical society idiots? If so, they’re keeping to past attitudes a little too well.”

  Somehow, her stance made it clear what she’d be doing to them, if she caught one.

  Sighing, Hubert turned to her. “Actually, we think the demon has trapped us back in the past.”

  Looking at them all for a second, she then relaxed. “That kind of makes sense, I suppose.”

  “It does?” Teena wondered. Clearly, although she believed, she was understandably overwhelmed.

  The older woman looked at her. “Seen you in the bar, haven’t I? I’m Eveline, by the way. I’ve got a poltergeist which lives in my house with me, so I’m a little hard to scare.”

  Kitty was just staring at her, and Annabella couldn’t quite make out whether the ex-cat were fascinated or bemused. Maybe both.

  “Don’t like poltergeists,” she said.

  Eveline smiled. “Neither do I, overall. We fought a real battle for the first two years. Then I convinced it that there was no getting rid of me, so it may as well settle down, and I persuaded it to just do its worst when there was someone coming by I didn’t want to stay. We play darts together sometimes.”

  Annabella imagined the woman sitting on her couch, watching darts fly unaided across the room.

  Creepy, she thought.

  Kitty looked at her adoringly.

  “Anyway,” Eveline went on. “When I started having dreams that my brother wanted to talk to me, I knew they were real, so I started coming to the ship. Unfortunately, I’m as psychic as your average doorknob, so if he’s talking to me, I can’t hear a thing.”

  “But the poltergeist . . .” Teena pointed out.

  Eveline shrugged. “Doesn’t take much ability to notice a plate flying by your head and smashing against the wall, does it?”

  This was all very interesting, but they needed to . . .

  Interrupting, Hubert repeated his question before Annabella could press on.

  “So the demon stranded you back in time, too? I would have thought he’d separate us.”

  “He did,” Kitty answered. “Big rust bucket.”

  Hubert blinked at her, and Kitty took a deep breath. Understandably, she was fairly rattled.

  “We were in a reality where the ship was rotting and about to be dismantled. It had never been claimed and was lonely.”

  “How’d you get out of there?” Hubert looked a little astounded, which told Annabella quite clearly that he probably couldn’t have escaped this time period alone.

  Kitty gazed intentionally over to Annabella.

  Taking in a breath, Hubert stared at her eyes for a moment before bowing.

  “Maitre.” Then he looked worried. “Where’s Armand?”

  Annabella was still seething. “The demon has him. Has his soul, anyway.”

  Hubert’s eyes widened.

  “Beatrix has possessed his body.”

  Her hands on her hips, the fury was roiling, Annabella speaking before anyone could ask.

  “We’re going to get him back.”

  Chapter 21

  Kitty

  Kitty was more than happy to hear Annabella’s words.

  She didn’t like this place—the stares people gave her, the way they worshiped order over people. Firmly, she had decided that, if she ever had to choose a different time to live in, it was not going to be the 1950s.

  Staring at Annabella, Hubert smelled impressed. That was rare. Hubert rarely smelled anything but amused.

  For a moment, she thought he was going to ask how, before he seemed to reconsider.

  Instead, Kitty spoke up, although it took an effort to remember to use full human speech. “What about Miss Janeway? Does she need rescuing, too?”

  Kitty liked Miss Janeway. She had a nice soft voice and always smelled like justice.

  Kitty might act out a bit when no one was paying any attention to what she needed, but mostly she was a good kitty. She liked justice.

  Kindly, Annabella smiled at her, knowing her fears. “Miss Janeway needs none of us to stay safe. Trust me on that.”

  Mostly, Kitty did, believing Annabella on pretty much anything. Even when she’d first met her, she’d liked her.

  But she hadn’t let her know then because it wasn’t good cat manners to admit you liked your human’s new partner from the beginning. You had to issue the challenge and see how he or she responded. If they got upset or demanded that the human get rid of their animal companion, then they weren’t worthy of their human’s attentions, anyway.

  But Annabella had passed the test with every strand of fur in place. Kitty wanted to be a human just like her.

  “What do you need us to do?” Hubert wondered.

  Annabella’s confidence was mingled with her anger, which Kitty thought was just right for what they were facing.

  “William and Teena, think about the ship as we left it. Eveline, focus on your memories of your brother. Hubert, do you have a safe passage spell?”

  The man looked at her quizzically, and Kitty could tell that Annabella still didn’t know the right names for a lot of the spells she’d learned about.

  “One that will protect all those traveling . . .” Her gesture took in their entire group. “. . . from outside influence or harm?”

  He nodded. “I really am going to have to teach you the right names sometime.”

  Annabella shrugged. “I think it’s a little late for that. Anyway, set that spell and focus very firmly on it leading from where we are, back through to the Grand Salon in our real time.”

  Kitty watched him. For a moment, she was certain he was going to say that was impossible then seemed to rethink.

  “Yes, Maitre,” he nodded.

  Kitty thought that was wise. Annabella had reclaimed her confidence, which had often been lacking the whole time she’d known her. Mostly, she’d been almost doglike in her obedience.

  Kitty grinned. Now, her inner cat was emerging. It was best not to try to undermine that, especially when Annabella was their only key back to reality and Armand.

  Annabella nodded. “Brutus, back him up.”

  For a moment, she glanced back and forth between him and Hubert, then focused on the witch.

  “He’s your familiar, isn’t he?”

  Hubert looked a little sheepish. “I know it’s not the modern idea of magic, but it works for me.”

  Seeming confused and smelling a little annoyed, Annabella stared at him. “Then why do you look so apologetic? Just be happy with your magic.”

  The rainbow colors through her irises shimmered all the more, like little colored strands of lightning.

  Hubert nodded his head. “Yes, Maitre.”

  Annabella looked like she was going to say more but clearly decided to wait for another time. Finally, she looked at Kitty.

  “I need you to focus on Armand. His scent. His presence. All of those ways you can see him that I don’t have words
for because I’m human. Think of him the way he should be, without Beatrix or anybody’s else’s bad influences.”

  Smiling, Kitty nodded. She’d been given the easiest job of all.

  Annabella was about to lead them back toward the Grand Salon, her eyes glowing even more, but she suddenly whipped back to Hubert. “You’re doubting me?”

  For the first time since Kitty had met him when she was still a very young kitten, he looked and smelled uncertain.

  Annabella continued to stare. Backing up, Kitty realized she might not notice the rather large crowd of unfriendly sailors who were coming toward them.

  Um, Annabella . . . she prodded.

  Later, dear, was the only response she got.

  Then, Annabella’s voice said, “Teena . . .” She was still staring at Hubert.

  “Yes?” the woman wondered, rather timidly.

  “Tell him how we got here.”

  “Umm . . .” Teena said.

  She’s feeling her past self’s emotions on the night before her murder, isn’t she? Kitty asked.

  Yes, and the only way to get it to stop is to get her out of here.

  If she noticed that the sailors were closing in, she didn’t show it.

  Teena finally went on. “We were on the ship when it was about to be taken apart. Annabella led us down a stairway which wasn’t there. I mean . . .” She shook her head. “The top part was gone or rotted or something and was over a big hole in the deck which went down into darkness. We should all have fallen and died in a time which never happened. Instead . . .” She shivered a little. “We ended up here.”

  “Poor Teena’s previous self is on this ship. Given what night it is, do you really want to make her stay here any longer?”

  Annabella nearly glared at him, as the sailors came very close. As neither Annabella nor anyone else had done anything to stop them, the fear they smelled of had turned into a kind of puffed-chest pride.

  They were about to attack.

  Holding up a hand, Hubert nodded, and all the sailors—and the crowd behind them—stopped looking so angry. Instead, they gave each other what were we doing out here? stares and started to break up.

  One woman somewhere wondered, “Why isn’t the band playing?” and soon the music was audible again.