Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  Christmas party? I don’t remember. But New York City is right. “I’m sorry. I don’t. But then, I’m usually quiet at parties.” I pick up my crystal wineglass.

  A waiter places a plate of grilled asparagus with lemon and olive oil in front of me.

  “Did your uncle tell you the story of how we bought our way onto this liner at the last moment?”

  I’m grateful for a subject that isn’t about me. “He didn’t. You tell me. Does it have some good scandal in it?”

  He laughs. “Why, yes, I believe it does.”

  My body vibrates slightly. Nausea? I put my glass down on the table.

  Alexander frowns. “Samantha?”

  I push my chair back, and all the men look at me. My body vibrates more violently. “I’m sorry. I need to be excused.”

  I walk away as fast as my dress will permit. My arm jerks in front of me. The corset limits my air supply and the room spins. I push through the door and—

  Someone leans over me, gently shaking my shoulder. I blink. His dark wavy hair casts shadows on his cheeks in the dim light. His lips part slightly and he exhales, the tension in his eyebrows lessening. He’s beautiful.

  I sit straight up in my bed. How could he…I don’t understand. I rub my eyes just to make sure what I’m seeing is real.

  “Elijah?” I say, my tone unsure. Could I be dreaming?

  “Samantha,” he says with his old-world accent, and pauses. “Why would you put that dress on when you do not even know who sent it?” His look is accusatory.

  Well, that clears that up. It’s Elijah, all right. But how? I examine my legs. I’m no longer wearing green silk, only my antique frilly undergarments. The corset is off, too. I can’t quite make sense of it all; my brain still feels foggy. “Did you undress me?”

  “I could not wake you while the dress was on.” He stands. “How could you not think it might have a spell on it? Of all the—”

  “Wait, hold on a minute.” I stand up, too. My familiar room suddenly looks surreal with Elijah in it.

  “How could you be so reckless?” Elijah continues in a disapproving tone.

  I brush off his question, my own thoughts so tangled that I can only address one confusing situation at a time. “You’re here? How can you be here?”

  Elijah opens his mouth, but before he can say a word, I’m talking again.

  “Have you been around this whole time?” My tone has turned from surprise to indignation.

  “No.”

  “Part of the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” My volume is steadily rising.

  He stares at me with his proud expression.

  My cheeks are hot and my breath is fast. Six months he’s gone without a word, and then he just appears out of thin air like…“The book.” I point at my backpack. “The Titanic one that appeared in the study. Was that you?”

  He doesn’t respond, but by the look in his eyes, I know it was.

  “Did you see the package arrive, too?” I say, daring him to say he did.

  His silence holds.

  “You’ve been watching me.” I take a step toward him. “And you said nothing.” I swipe at him. “How could you?”

  He dodges my right hand, but I come at him with my left. Then my right again. I get a few good hits to his chest before he catches my wrists. We’re inches apart.

  “I hate you,” I say.

  But then I’m kissing him.

  He pulls me into his body so hard and so fast that it almost knocks the wind out of me. I wrap my arms around his neck and tangle my hands in his hair. His tongue touches mine, and his fingers dig into my back until—

  Knock, knock, knock. “Sam? Is everything okay?” my dad asks through the door.

  Elijah disappears, and I’m left grabbing the air where he just was.

  I run down the hallway to my homeroom, dodging people as I go. Three hours of sleep, no breakfast, and a brain that keeps cycling through thoughts of Elijah and that terrifying dress. If someone took a match to my nervous energy, I’d launch to the moon.

  I yank Mrs. Hoxley’s door open and head directly for the Descendants, sliding into the seat next to Susannah.

  “Big problem,” I say with zero attempt at sugarcoating. They all turn toward me. “I put that dress on.”

  Alice clicks her tongue off the roof of her mouth. “You did what?”

  “I put that dress on and—”

  “Wow. We can’t leave you alone for two seconds,” Alice says.

  Blair walks past me, and I scrunch my nose at her vanilla perfume.

  Mary dismisses Alice’s comment with a wave of her hand and leans toward me, her curls in Alice’s face. Alice frowns. Susannah and I lean in closer, too.

  I lower my voice to a whisper. “As I was putting the dress on, my room dropped away. I swear it was like I was on the Titanic.”

  “Like in your dream?” Susannah asks.

  “Different. More real. I was in a bedroom with a maid dressing me. Everything was disorienting. I kept feeling like I was supposed to be there and not supposed to be there at the same time.”

  “So you could touch things this time?” Alice whispers.

  I nod. “I drank and ate and talked to people. I was getting dressed up for dinner with my uncle….” Those words feel comfortable, but they shouldn’t. I don’t have any uncles. “And everyone there knew me. Like I had a whole different life. Even some of the things I said were old-fashioned. I felt, I don’t know…happy? But wrong happy, like the calm before the storm. And I can’t shake the feeling that it has something to do with Redd’s death warning. All morning I’ve had this feeling in the pit in my stomach.”

  Mary is practically falling out of her chair, she’s listening so hard.

  Alice narrows her eyes. “Back up. What do you mean, your uncle?”

  “His name was Harry Harper….I’m telling you, it’s like I had a separate life there. I could feel my brain trying to remember who I was, especially in the beginning. But the longer I stayed, the more that dropped away. I had family; people knew me. I sat down to have—”

  Susannah sits bolt upright. She puts her hand on my arm. “Stop.”

  We all look at her. Usually Alice is the one telling me to stop talking.

  Alice scans the room, which is quickly filling with students. Mary looks out the windows.

  Susannah squeezes my arm. “Something’s off. Let’s talk about this later.”

  Susannah’s face looks focused and serious, like someone is giving her important information from the next room and she has to strain to hear it. Alice and Mary might be used to her reading people, but I’ve never been around when she’s had a “feeling,” or whatever it is. It’s unsettling.

  The bell rings.

  Mrs. Hoxley claps her hands together to quiet us. “It’s not Friday; it’s Thursday. Look alive, people. Blair has an announcement to make about the Spring Fling.”

  Didn’t we cover this on Monday?

  Blair makes her way to the front of the room with an uninterested-looking Matt. His hands are full of small white slips of paper. Blair flashes the class a toothy smile and grabs the top one from the stack. She hands it to the first guy in the row nearest the door. “These are raffle tickets. Everyone should write their name on one. And at the dance, three names will be chosen for prizes.”

  Blair hands four raffle tickets to me. I take one and pass three of them back.

  “Third prize is a homework pass,” Blair continues. “Second prize is a dinner for two, and first prize…”

  An approving murmur ripples through the room, and everyone hangs on her words.

  “First prize is a sur-prise.”

  I can’t deny that I would love to get my hands on that homework pass.

  I examine the raffle ticket. There’s a drawing of a ship, with “RMS TITANIC” printed above it. The drawing looks familiar, like I may have seen it somewhere before. Maybe something from my homework? I write my
name on the blank line labeled PASSENGER.

  The guy behind me leans forward and hands me the signed raffle tickets from our row.

  To my left, Susannah drops her pen. It rolls to the floor and she grabs her desk. Her head droops and she squeezes her eyes shut.

  “Susannah?” Alice and I both say at the same time.

  “Is something the matter, Ms. Martin?” Mrs. Hoxley asks.

  “Water,” Susannah squeaks. She looks like she’s beyond nauseated.

  Alice stands up. “I’ll take her to the bathroom.”

  “I’ll help her,” I say.

  “I think you’d better,” Mrs. Hoxley says, and all eyes in the room are glued on us.

  Alice and I hoist Susannah out of her seat.

  Blair wears a smug smile, and Alice glares at her. We push through the door, leaving the whispering students in our wake.

  “What the hell is going on?” Alice asks.

  “Everything looks like it’s swaying—the people, the desks, the walls,” Susannah says as we guide her to the bathroom.

  “You look like you’re going to throw up,” Alice says.

  “Worse. The floor was rippling under my feet like it was made of water.”

  “Is it still happening?” I ask.

  Susannah touches her forehead with her fingertips. “The farther away we get from that class, the walls become more solid and the floor sloshes less.”

  Alice pushes the bathroom door open. Susannah heads for the sink, turns on the cold water, and splashes it on her face.

  I check the stalls to make sure we’re alone.

  Susannah pats a paper towel over her face. “It was a spell. At least, I think it was. It started the second I touched the raffle ticket. And I could practically smell the ocean. Almost like seasickness.”

  Alice cracks her knuckles. “But how could it have been the ticket? We all got them and no one else almost puked, so it makes it less likely or more difficult. Blair would have had to set you up to get a specific one. She’s not a Descendant, and she doesn’t know jack about magic. And Matt isn’t even from Salem.”

  “I know,” Susannah says. “But the feeling went away as soon as I left the ticket behind.”

  “Just like the dress,” I say. “I mean, it can’t be a coincidence that two times in the past twenty-four hours we’ve come into contact with objects that have spells in them.”

  The bell rings.

  “No, it’s not,” Alice says. “And if someone is doing magic that way, that person could be clever enough to deliver the objects through other people. It’s not easy, but it’s also not impossible.”

  The bathroom door opens and Mary walks through, holding our bags. “Please tell me that wasn’t a spell.” She looks at Susannah and then at Alice for confirmation. “Damn. But it’s gone, right?”

  I take my bag. “Gone. But I think we should avoid anything Titanic-related for the rest of the day to be safe.”

  “Agreed,” Alice says.

  Susannah frowns. “A weak spell is almost worse than a strong one. It’s like someone’s just toying with us….And casting it in public like that? The person either doesn’t think they’ll get caught or doesn’t care. Like the way serial killers send letters to the police.”

  The warning bell rings. Mary opens the door.

  We say our goodbyes, and I speed-walk to Wardwell’s history class. The bell rings just as I enter. I freeze. Jaxon’s laughing with Niki, who is sitting on his desk.

  “Seats, everyone,” Mr. Wardwell says.

  Niki slides from her perch, grinning at me. What is it with these girls recently? She flicks her ponytail over her shoulder and touches Jaxon’s arm. I plop down in my chair.

  Wardwell grabs a stack of thick paper packets. He drops a few of them on each of the front-row desks; they make a weighty clunk as they land. “These packets are divided by categories. You’ll be expected to learn or, better yet, memorize them.” Clunk. “Because…next Friday we’re having a Titanic trivia contest. And the winning team will be excused from the test with an automatic A.”

  There’s a murmur of excitement from the students. Raffles and trivia contests. I’ve got to hand it to this school; it has have the carrot method down.

  “Let’s get you used to the Jeopardy! categories by starting with some of the passengers we learned about this week. I want a name, what you know about the person, and if they survived.”

  A few hands shoot up around the room. Wardwell points to Dillon, who is once again in his lacrosse jacket. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without it.

  “Joseph Laroche,” Dillon says. “He grew up in Haiti and was working as an engineer in France. He’s thought to be the only black dude on the entire ship. His wife and two daughters were on board with him. They got into a lifeboat, but he didn’t. He went down with the waves.”

  “Correct.” Wardwell nods and points to a girl in the first row.

  “Margaret Brown. She was the only first-class passenger who came from nothing. She and her husband got rich in the mining industry. She was a feminist and suffragette and known for her philanthropy. She helped load passengers into lifeboats, and even rowed in her own boat. She survived.”

  “Great, perfect,” Mr. Wardwell says, and points to Niki.

  “Henry Harper,” Niki says.

  I jerk my head up. Harper. Uncle Harry. Harry could definitely be a nickname for Henry.

  “He was one of the owners of the Harper and Brothers publishing house and one of the few men who survived with his entire family. I think because they were in one of the first boats and everything hadn’t gone crazy yet? Anyway, Henry, his wife, and even his Egyptian valet survived.”

  All the blood drains from my face. Seeing Elijah threw me for such a loop last night that I didn’t consider that the man who called himself my uncle on the Titanic could have been my actual ancestor. I raise my hand.

  “Exactly right,” Mr. Wardwell says. “Samantha?”

  “What was his wife’s name? Henry Harper’s, I mean.” My tone is urgent, and a few people turn to look at me.

  Mr. Wardwell tilts his head. “Huh, good question.” He picks up a packet off his desk and flips through the pages. He runs his finger down one of them. “Henry Sleeper Harper and Myra Haxtun Harper.”

  The room spins. Myra H.H. Either dead people are sending me packages now, or someone knows my family history better than I do.

  “Samantha?” Mr. Wardwell says with slight annoyance, and I look up at him. “A name?”

  I zero in on Niki. “Why did you pick Henry Harper, Niki?”

  She turns around in her chair. “Huh?”

  Jaxon stares at me.

  “Why did you pick him? Did you have a reason?”

  Niki looks at me like I might have lost my mind. She opens her mouth, but Mr. Wardwell interrupts her.

  “Samantha, I’ll ask that you stay on topic and not disrupt the class.” His eyebrows are up, and he looks like he means business. “A name.”

  I shift my eyes to him. I have the subtlety of a foghorn. “A name?”

  “Of a passenger.”

  “Uh.” My mind races. I do know some, but for the life of me I can’t think of anything right now except Myra and Henry. And I would bet anything that the painting in the hallway is of her. “Um.”

  Mr. Wardwell frowns. “Samantha, whichever team you’re on isn’t going to want a weak link. You’ll be first up tomorrow. You’d better study tonight.”

  The last bell rings, and everyone pushes their way out the classroom door. The dance committee has set up a table and is selling anchor and ship-wheel bracelets. The sign reads: HELP US MAKE THE SPRING FLING UNSINKABLE! GET BOTH BRACELETS AND GIVE ONE TO YOUR DATE! The table is swarmed. Excited conversations about costumes and arguments about who gets to be which passenger fill the hallway. It’s strange to me that with more than two thousand people on that ship, everyone wants to be the same ten famous ones. Privileged in life and privileged in death, I guess.

&nb
sp; I turn the corner toward my locker. Jaxon’s leaning against it. My stomach twists up into one of those complicated nautical knots that are impossible to undo.

  “Hey,” I say, and stop short in front of him.

  He looks as uncomfortable as I do. “Ride home?”

  I twist the dial on my lock. “Yeah, maybe we—”

  “Yo, Jax!” Dillon yells from down the hall. “You coming with me and Blair to Niki’s later?”

  Niki and Blair are seriously threatening my last inch of calm.

  “Depends,” Jaxon says.

  “Yeah, depends on whether you grow a set.” Dillon grabs his pants for emphasis.

  Jaxon laughs. “Dude. Really?”

  Dillon’s hair is messy, and his backpack is slung over one shoulder. He stops next to Jaxon and grins at me. “Man. Sorry, Sam. I didn’t see you there behind Jax’s fat shoulder.”

  I close my locker. Dillon’s a total goofball, but I’ve always liked that about him. What you see is what you get.

  I smile. “Don’t apologize to me. Jaxon’s the delicate one here.”

  Dillon laughs and punches Jaxon in the arm. “I see why you spend so much time with her.”

  Jaxon gives him a warning look. “Seriously, dude. I’m gonna have to insist that you shut up.”

  Mischief tugs at the corners of Dillon’s mouth. “Nah, it’s cool. Respect. I’m definitely not gonna say anything about—”

  Jaxon takes a swipe at Dillon, but Dillon jumps out of the way and raises his hands in surrender.

  “Okay, man,” Dillon says through a laugh. “I get it. Just be at Niki’s tonight.” Dillon walks into the crowd pushing toward the door.

  Jaxon rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Sorry ’bout that. He thinks he’s funny.”

  I half laugh as we walk toward the side door. “He is funny.”

  But Jaxon doesn’t laugh in return like he normally would. We exit into the parking lot and head for Jaxon’s truck. An awkward silence replaces our usual banter.

  “So you’re going to Niki’s tonight?” I ask.

  “Does it matter?”

  I look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you not want me to go to Niki’s for some reason?”