Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  His forehead knits in concern. “I’m not saying we should go. I’m just checking on you. I want to make sure you’re happy. I know you have friends here.”

  “At least one.”

  He smiles. “The way Jaxon tells it, the whole school’s fascinated with you.”

  “Don’t believe him. He’s an optimist. It’s more like they don’t clear out when I enter the hall.” I look up at my dad. “But seriously, I really like it here.”

  “I just want to make sure it’s the right choice. If this place is unhealthy for you, then we’ll go.”

  “Funny enough, I feel more myself here than I ever have. And one friend is more than none.”

  He nods. “I can do my business from Salem almost as well as I could from New York. I don’t plan on traveling for a while longer anyway.”

  He puts his arm around me, and I lean my cheek into his shoulder, breathing in his familiar musky aftershave.

  He chuckles to himself.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking how much your mother hated those parties your grandmother threw.”

  “She came to them?”

  “Her mother made her. And my mom had a strict dress code, as you might imagine by the decor in this house, and both of our mothers made her conform to it. I used to watch your mom stomp around the lunching ladies and purposefully pull curly strands out of her own braid. By the time the parties were over, her hair would be sticking out every which way, and there would be at least four holes in her tights. Once, she even spilled a cup of tea on herself in order to go home, only to find out my mother had a spare dress her size.”

  It’s weird how much I don’t know about my mom. “Were you guys dating then?”

  “Nooo.” He laughs again. “It took me all of our teenage years to persuade her to go out with me. And a whole year in a relationship for her to stop calling me ‘Charles the fancy.’ ”

  “It’s been forever since we talked about Mom.”

  He stares at the fireplace. “This place brings up a lot of old memories.”

  “Is that why you always stayed away? Because of Mom’s memory?” I hesitate. “All those times I bugged you to visit Salem…”

  He nods against my head. “At first, yes. But then it was because your grandmother was convinced that your mother’s death was part of a curse. She wouldn’t let it go. It became an unpleasant topic. We started fighting and drifting. I didn’t want her spreading her ideas to you. I was trying to protect you.” He stiffens slightly. “Meanwhile, I was the one who put you in danger by marrying—” He stops just before he says Vivian’s name.

  I pull back and look at him. “Dad, don’t do that. Please don’t blame yourself.” This is why I can’t ever tell him the full extent of what she did. It’s bad enough that he knows she tried to hang me and put him in that spell-induced coma. If he knew he’d gone straight into the arms of the very person who killed my mother and my grandmother, I don’t know what he’d do.

  He ruffles my hair. “Don’t worry about me. You’ve got enough going on right now.” He stands up. “You hungry? Mae brought over a box of her spring pastries. They’re little flowerpots made out of chocolate, mousse, and meringue.”

  I stand up. “I definitely need to eat that.”

  “I thought you might.”

  We make our way into the hallway, and the old floorboards creak. The familiar faces of our ancestors look out from the portraits lining the walls. I wish my grandmother was still alive to tell me their stories. I find her handwritten note cards describing family furniture all over the house and shoved in the back of drawers with old diaries, but it’s not the same.

  I scan each portrait as we pass, some beautiful, some old and serious-looking. Wait.

  I stop abruptly. This can’t be right. “Dad?”

  He stops, too. “Yes, sweetie?”

  “This painting.” I point at the woman in a formal gown. A chill runs down my arm, raising all the hairs as it goes. “There was a man in it.”

  My dad’s eyebrows push together. “I don’t understand.”

  There was a man in it, I’m sure of it. She was standing and he was sitting. And now she’s still standing but he’s gone. “Don’t you remember a man being in it?” My voice rises.

  He frowns. “This painting’s new. Well, not new, but I don’t remember seeing it displayed when I lived here. Mom must’ve brought it down from the attic at some point.”

  “Oh.” I pull my hair over my shoulder. “You know what? I could be wrong. There are so many paintings in this place, and I haven’t really been down this hallway in a while. I may have gotten it confused.” More than anything, I want that concerned look to disappear from my dad’s face. “Whoever she is, she’s beautiful.”

  He nods. “By her clothes, I’d bet she lived in the early nineteen hundreds or so.”

  I study her big hat and proud expression. “Do you know who she is?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say she might be one of our extended relatives. I seem to remember Mom saying they were from New York. I think some of them survived the Titanic. But I really don’t know much more than that.”

  Titanic? “That’s interesting.”

  The hum of the ocean at night relaxes me. I grip the banister and look fifty feet below at the white foam kicked up from the bow. Brightly lit portholes extend down the length of the large ship, twinkling like Christmas lights on the endless water.

  I scan the deck behind me. A beautifully dressed young couple chat quietly a ways down the railing. And three men in suits and top hats walk toward a door, smoking cigars and talking loudly. A butler opens it for them. I follow, but the door closes just as I reach it.

  I peer in the window and my mouth drops. The walls are adorned with elaborate molding, and chandeliers dot the ceiling. Men and women play cards and drink out of crystal glasses. The women’s dresses remind me of the lady in the painting I was looking at with my dad.

  I take a quick step away from the door. There’s something I don’t like about this place, something I want to remember but can’t. It’s like trying to stick a pin in a drop of mercury. Everything’s foggy.

  I walk toward the railing. In my path, on the deck, lies the painting from my hallway. Next to it is a green silk evening gown and a silver book the size of a playing card. These definitely weren’t here a second ago. I step around them and move toward the water. The wind whips my hair. I have this strong urge to leave. I lift my leg to climb up the railing, but my ankle feels like it’s tethered by a fifty-pound weight.

  My eyes open, and I’m gripping the air in front of me. My right leg’s raised high, straining against my thick blankets.

  Someone laughs, and I sit bolt upright, blinking at the bright light streaming through my window.

  Jaxon stands just inside my door, wearing blue plaid pajama pants and a navy-blue hoodie. “Sorry, I did knock before I came in.” He laughs again. “I didn’t know you slept with all your arms and legs in the air like that.”

  “Jaxon?” I take a deep breath. I’m back in my bedroom.

  “Yes, Sam?”

  I throw back my covers. “What time is it?”

  “Late. Breakfast’s ready. The parents sent me up to get you.”

  “Your house or mine?”

  “Yours.” He hesitates. “You okay? You look a little, I don’t know, upset?”

  “Yeah.” I rub the corners of my eyes. “Bad dream.”

  He nods. “Want me to stay? I’ll tell you funny stories and make you forget about it.”

  I look at Jaxon, with his messy hair and inviting smile. I shake my head. “Thanks, though. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  Jaxon lingers for a second and walks out of my room.

  I slide out of bed and slip my feet into black fuzzy slippers. My Titanic history homework sits on my vanity, where I left it last night. I freeze. The luxurious ship, the old-fashioned people. I grab my phone and type “Titanic lounge” into the search bar.

 
; One of the first pictures to pop up is an exact match for the room I saw through the window. But I’ve never seen this room before. How could I get it right in my dream if I didn’t know what it looked like? I flip through my Titanic homework just to be sure. There’s no lounge picture. Dreaming about it makes sense, but exactly replicating it is just…strange. Unless…

  I throw my phone onto my bed and backstep. Unless, it’s like those other dreams, the ones I had of Cotton. Only those weren’t really dreams at all; they were warnings that started right after I saw Elijah for the first time and everything spiraled out of control. I push my palms against my eyebrows.

  And it was only yesterday that I saw that spirit girl. Could Mrs. Meriwether have been right? Was seeing a spirit a sign of bad things to come?

  “No. And no. And also no.”

  My literature teacher, Mrs. Powell, passes out copies of Archibald Gracie’s book The Truth About the Titanic. Her box braids are swept up into an elegant high bun, and her suspenders and white blouse are way more fashionable than most teachers’ pantsuits. She’s by far my favorite teacher. She doesn’t put up with nonsense from anyone, but she’s always fair. And she was one of the few who didn’t reflexively turn on me after John died and Lizzie blamed me for it in front of the whole school.

  “Colonel Archibald Gracie was cutting the last collapsible boat free from its ropes when the waterlogged Titanic lifted into the air,” Mrs. Powell says as she makes her way down the rows of desks. “He was pulled down by the suction created from the weight of the ship as it sank, and he was lucky enough to free himself and emerge not far from that same collapsible boat. Unfortunately, it was overturned and covered with men. He and the others hung on all night until one of the lifeboats eventually found them. They were in the Labrador Current at the time, and the water was no more than twenty-eight degrees.”

  Mrs. Powell plops a copy of the book onto my desk. The black-and-white photo of the large ship on the cover reminds me of my dream. I immediately turn it over. The upper left corner is frayed, and I run my thumb over the worn bit.

  “This book is not without its faults. You’ll find that the third-class passengers are often neglected and that their nationalities are generalized. Keep in mind that this is a first-person telling of what happened. The colonel died in December of 1912 from health complications related to the exposure and hypothermia he suffered in the water. He didn’t live to see this book published.”

  The bell rings.

  “Remember, if you keep a journal about your reading progress, you get thirty points extra credit. Some of you are in desperate need of those points,” Mrs. Powell says as everyone stands up.

  I shove the book into my bag and head into the hall. There’s no way I’m reading this thing. From now on I’m steering clear of all things Titanic, avoiding the painting in the hall, and definitely not going to the dance. Done and done.

  I twist my combination lock and open my locker. Blair passes with a group of girls.

  “Hey, Sam,” Blair says, and stops.

  “Hey?” First Niki talked to me, and now Blair?

  “Sooo, I wanted to ask you about something.”

  Oh man, not this. Her long lead-in is a dead giveaway. “Is it about someone in your family who died?”

  Blair’s face lights up. “How did you know that? That’s crazy. The thing is, my dog died a few years ago. And ever since then my mom keeps finding these unexplainable holes in her garden. You know, almost like someone or something was digging, and she swears—”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “You haven’t even heard the question yet.”

  Damn that school assembly where I announced that I could see spirits. Anywhere else, people would think I was off my gourd, but here they all think I should come check out their attics and basements for dead grandparents and stray cats. “I know. I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”

  Blair crosses her arms, and for a second we just stand there in awkward silence. “Any new leads on who attacked you in the woods?”

  I turn away from her and take my lunch bag out of my locker. Please just let this whole topic go. “Not that I’ve heard of.”

  Blair plays with her hair. “I can’t believe you guys got hanged and this mystery woman is just gone. It’s so wrong. And my dad was saying that the police aren’t even looking anymore. Like it’s okay to just leave that psycho out there.”

  “So wrong,” the group parrots.

  People talk about the worst thing that’s ever happened to me like it’s nothing more than entertaining gossip. I slam my locker shut.

  I turn away from them and head down the hall.

  Blair snickers behind me. “Wow, someone’s in a mood.”

  I pick up my pace and make a fast left around a corner, walking smack into someone wearing an old-fashioned suit and a hat. The butler from my dream. I scream and stumble backward.

  He lifts his head and his hat, revealing a grinning Dillon. “Whoa, sorry, Sam.”

  I exhale.

  “Dude, you look like you saw a ghost. Oops. You do see ghosts. I guess that actually makes sense.” Dillon laughs at his own joke.

  My chest drops a little farther from my chin and I take a breath. “Nah, I just wasn’t looking where I was going. What’s with the suit anyway?”

  “Trying out costume options for the dance.” A piece of his red lacrosse jacket peeks out from under his suit jacket.

  I manage a smile. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  He briefly breaks eye contact. “Girlfriend. She thought my last costume choice was total shit. ’Scuse me…was ‘not up to standard.’ ” He uses his fingers to make quotation marks.

  “Aaah. Well, this one works. Very authentic.”

  “Really?” He’s all smiles.

  “Dillon!” Blair squeals from down the hall. “I looove it!”

  Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. He’s dating her? So disappointing. And it’s weird that Jaxon didn’t tell me.

  “See ya,” I say, but his attention has already shifted.

  I push open the side door and follow the walkway toward the bench that’s my current favorite lunch spot.

  I glide for a split second on wet grass cuttings. The concrete squares ahead of me have a trail of watery footprints. And at the end of them is a guy in an old suit, not unlike the one Dillon was wearing. He sits on my usual lunch bench with his head tilted down, a hat covering his face.

  “Let me guess, you’re friends with Blair and Niki.”

  No answer. He doesn’t even look up.

  “Seriously, the dance isn’t for another two weeks. You guys can chill out with the costumes.” Plus, this is my lunch spot. I feel strangely territorial over it.

  He stands up, his hat shadowing his eyes. There’s thick stubble on his chin. He’s older, I realize, maybe early twenties. I take a quick step backward. The wooden bench where he was sitting is wet. He’s dripping water. Salt water. I can smell the brine on the breeze. It feels like the temperature dropped twenty degrees.

  Behind him Niki and Matt head down the path toward us. They seem to be arguing about something. Niki walks right through the drenched man’s body. Dread coils around me like a boa constrictor.

  Matt and Niki take note of my expression. Matt looks confused.

  I sprint toward the school.

  “Sam?” Niki says, but I don’t turn around.

  I run through the hallways toward the one place I know is full of people.

  I burst through the double doors and into the crowded lunchroom. There’s an explosion of chatter. I skid to a stop. Across the room, at a round table near the window, sit the Descendants. People turn and watch as I walk toward them. Blair takes one look at my heavy breathing and starts whispering to her friends. It’s like being in an aquarium tank with people oohing and aahing and tapping on the glass.

  I drop my bag and pull out a chair at the Descendants’ table. “I need to make spirits leave me alone. How do I do that?”r />
  “Well, hello to you, too,” Alice says.

  “What do you mean, leave you alone?” Mary asks, scanning the nearby area. Her face mirrors my anxiety. She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Are they here now?”

  “No, but…” I stop, considering how to phrase it. Oh, screw it. There’s no sugarcoating this. “I just saw a man in an old-fashioned suit dripping salt water in front of school. Like he walked right out of the ocean after he drowned in it.”

  Mary’s eyes widen. Susannah looks at the nearby tables.

  “Okay, get up,” says Alice.

  “There is no scenario where I’m going back outside right now.”

  Alice stands, and Mary and Susannah follow suit.

  “Do you want our help or not?” Alice asks.

  I don’t move.

  “We’re not going outside,” Susannah says. “Honest.”

  I push back my chair, and we make our way out of the lunchroom in a mass of black. There isn’t a pair of eyes that doesn’t watch us go.

  Alice winds us through the halls and stops in front of a nondescript door.

  “Got it,” Mary says, and it swings open. Did she pick the lock?

  Susannah looks both ways down the hall. “Go.” And we do. We file into the dusty room and close the door behind us.

  Alice flips on the light. It’s a storage room full of file cabinets. Mary pulls out her black wool blanket and spreads it on the floor. Does she carry that thing everywhere, just waiting for something witchy to pop up?

  “How do you guys know about this place?”

  Alice shrugs and sits down on the blanket. We all follow.

  “How’d you know how to get in?”

  Mary opens her mouth. Alice puts a hand on her arm and she shuts it again.

  “Why should we tell you anything if you don’t want to join our circle?” Alice asks.

  “Why should I join your circle if you don’t want to tell me anything?”

  Alice and I stare at each other.

  “You’ve barely talked to us these past six months,” Alice says with a frown.

  I hesitate. Did she want me to talk to her? I didn’t figure I mattered to her. “I know. I just…I needed a little quiet.”