Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  I flip to the next page, but it’s the same as the first, and so are all the ones after it. “A blank dance card, though? What does it mean? It’s the third object in my dream. It has to be significant.”

  “Maybe there was an actual dance card on the Titanic that has a real story?” Susannah suggests.

  I pull out my phone and search. “Nothing pops up. And all the Titanic artifacts are cataloged in museums. If this was a real one, or a replica of a real one, it would be easy to find.”

  My phone vibrates in my hand.

  Dad: Where are you?

  Me: With the girls.

  Dad: I need you to come home now.

  I stare at my phone. Something must have happened. He never talks like that.

  I jump out of the Jeep and sprint up to my house, the girls on my heels.

  I push open the door. “Dad!”

  He’s standing in the foyer.

  “I need you to go pack your things,” he says.

  “Wait, is that why you called me home?”

  “We’re leaving bright and early. Take whatever you need for a few days, and the rest we’ll have shipped.” I can tell by his tone that he’s dead serious. He looks at the girls. “I’m sorry to do this, but I’m going to have to ask you girls to head home. I need to talk to my daughter.”

  “But—” Alice starts.

  “I really must insist,” my dad says. The girls walk out the door reluctantly.

  “Dad, what happened? You’re scaring me.”

  He waits for the door to close. “First, I got a call from one of your teachers, a Mr. Wardwell, telling me that he was worried about you. That you were all jumpy in his office this afternoon and that you look like you haven’t been sleeping for the past week. Only to be followed by Jaxon coming over saying all kinds of wild things about you and the girls and how they’re potentially bad people? At which point Mae tells me Jaxon doesn’t mean it because he’s under a spell?” He pauses. “Which, I can see by your lack of shock right now, you knew about.”

  “Dad—”

  “No, Sam. I told you what my fear was about Salem. I don’t know if Mae is right about Jaxon or not, but if so, I’m not taking the chance. If someone is using magic at your school against Jaxon, of all people, then it’s no longer safe for you to be there. I told Mae that she and Jaxon could come with us.”

  I take a deep breath, trying not to panic. I can’t leave Salem right now. I just can’t. “Did she accept?”

  “Not yet,” he says. “But I have her in the ballroom right now, and I’m trying to convince her. You’ll want to get started on that packing. We’re leaving right after breakfast tomorrow.”

  “You’re in the ballroom and not the living room or the kitchen?” I ask, peering down the hall. Is it because they’re fighting and don’t want me to overhear?

  “Time to pack, Sam,” my dad says, pointing toward my room.

  I walk past him and up the stairs. I can’t argue with him when he’s in this kind of mood. If I push now, he might put me in the car and drive to New York this very moment. And there is definitely no explaining the Titanic at this point. Not only would he make me leave immediately, but he’d probably burn the house down just to make sure nothing with magic in it ever comes near me again.

  I close my bedroom door.

  “Elijah?” There is fear in my voice.

  He blinks in.

  “I went—” I start.

  “I saw.”

  “My dad—”

  “I know.”

  “We have to fix this—solve this, whatever—tonight or I have no possibility of convincing him to stay.” I dump the tissue-wrapped dance card onto my bed. “What do you make of this thing?”

  He furrows his brow and his posture is tense. “It is reminiscent of the objects you have been receiving all along—seemingly random, but not. If it in any way relates to Myra and Henry, there is no information telling us so. We have already researched them ad nauseam.”

  “Maybe it’s more literal than we think? Maybe it’s about the school dance?” I crack my knuckles. “It does have the same image as those raffle tickets Blair handed out.”

  “I have checked Niki’s and Blair’s houses,” he says.

  “But what about the room where the dance committee meets? Maybe there’s something there?” I say.

  “Potentially. Or the venue where they are holding the dance? I will go now.”

  There is a tapping on my window, and I whip around. Elijah already stands by the glass. Did he blink across the room to get there that fast? I can just make out Alice, Mary, and Susannah through my lace curtain. Elijah unlatches the window and opens it.

  “Jeez, you scared the crap out of me,” I say as the girls climb in.

  “You and me both,” Alice says. “These bozos forced me to climb the latticework on the side of your house. An experience I hope to never repeat.”

  “It took ten minutes to convince you and two minutes to actually do it,” Mary says.

  “I will check the school,” Elijah says, and disappears.

  “We have no time for you two to bicker,” Susannah says to Mary and Alice. “Sam is leaving in the morning.”

  For a second the room gets unnaturally quiet.

  I clear my throat. “I was just talking to Elijah, and we were thinking this dance card might have something to do with the Spring Fling. Or with Niki and Blair’s dance committee? Elijah went to check out the committee room.”

  “Not a bad call,” Alice says.

  “Let’s think this through—the connection with the Spring Fling, I mean—and see if there are any other meanings or associations we can come up with,” Susannah says.

  We all look at her.

  “Weeell, the first thing you need for a dance is a date,” Mary says.

  “Says you,” Alice says, and Susannah gives her a warning look.

  I pace. “Jaxon asked me to go with him. And now he’s under a love spell because of that bracelet sold to him by the dance committee. So there’s one connection. What else?”

  “You would need a costume,” Susannah says, and we all look at the white box that the emerald gown came in like it might come alive.

  “We thought that specifically had to do with Myra,” Alice says. “But maybe not entirely?”

  I rub my forehead. “Music? There needs to be music to dance to,” I say. “But there hasn’t been any music that…” I freeze.

  “What?” Mary asks. “You just figured something out, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before,” I say. “The very first time you guys came over…Mary, you turned on the record player in my ballroom with that old-timey music. We were talking about taking pictures here before the dance.” My voice is fast and nervous. “And then I left the room because…Holy hell, that was also the day I got the dress.”

  “Okay. This is good. This makes sense. We need to go look at that record player,” Alice says.

  “We can’t yet. My dad and Mrs. Meriwether are in the ballroom right now.”

  Susannah’s eyebrows push together. “What are they doing in there? Will they be long?”

  “You know, I don’t know. They’re almost never in there. I just assumed they…” My voice trails off and I look at Alice. “Wardwell called my house. Jaxon came over ranting about you guys. And for unknown reasons my dad is now in the room with that record player? No such thing as coincidences.”

  I dart out of my room, the girls at my heels, and toward the ballroom. The second we enter the downstairs hallway, there is a scratching noise, followed by the low hum of orchestral music. My heart jumps into my throat, and I break into a sprint.

  We barrel into the room full speed only to stop dead in our tracks. The record player is on, and my dad and Mrs. Meriwether are slow-dancing. The whole scene has a displaced eerie quality to it, like a dead animal in the middle of a vibrant garden.

  “Dad?” I say, running up to them, but he doesn’t answer.

>   “Mrs. Meriwether?” Susannah says at the same time.

  Silence.

  I pull on my dad’s arm, but they just keep turning, slowly and methodically, like they can’t hear me or see me.

  “Dad!” I yell, my voice cracking.

  Alice claps her hands by their faces, but it’s as though we don’t exist. I can’t help but think of that time I went to the Titanic and managed to take the spoon—I was there and not there at the same time.

  I yank my sleeves down over my hands and grab the record from the old gramophone. I break it over my knee. But it makes no difference; even without the music, they continue to slow-dance.

  “Dad, please. It’s Sam. Just look at me.” My voice is verging on desperate.

  “You guys need to see this,” Mary says from the floor, next to the record I just broke.

  “Elijah!” I yell as I bend down.

  We crowd around Mary. The record title is “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” My heart beats wildly.

  “Samantha?” Elijah says, looking from the record to my dad and Mrs. Meriwether.

  “We learned about that song in history class,” Susannah says. “It’s—”

  “The one that’s famous for playing while the Titanic sank,” I say, finishing Susannah’s thought.

  “Where is the jacket? The record jacket,” Elijah says with urgency.

  I open the cabinet with my cloth-covered hands and grab at all the records, spilling them onto the floor. I push through the messy stack and land on the empty cover for “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” I flip it over.

  The girls lean closer to read the lyrics on the back.

  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.

  “The message from my bones,” Alice says in disbelief.

  “The whispers from that spell we did,” Mary says.

  “We need the spell book and the dance card,” Susannah says, and Elijah blinks out.

  I pick up the record jacket, turning it over again. Something shifts inside. “Hang on, there’s something else in here.” I pry the jacket open and shake it. A heavy piece of stationery falls to the floor.

  Alice hovers over my shoulder, and Elijah blinks back in with the spell book and the dance card, placing them on the floor next to us. I carefully unfold the stationery.

  Dear Miss Samantha Mather,

  Your presence is requested at the clock on the Grand Staircase within the hour. Sign your name to the dance card and I will take care of the rest. If you have doubts as to the urgency of this invitation, I suggest you consult Redd, as you are wont to do. Kindly appear within the hour, or I fear I will not be the only one who is disappointed.

  I search Elijah’s face for an answer. He looks as panicked as I feel.

  “It’s a threat,” Susannah says.

  My stomach clenches, and I look at my dad and Mrs. Meriwether. Who exactly is threatening me? And with what? “An hour. We only have an hour.”

  “Why Redd?” Mary asks. “Does this have something to do with what she told us?”

  “I don’t know, but between this letter and the trance, we need her,” I say. “She knows way more about magic than we do. I don’t see any other way with the time we have.”

  “I agree with Sam on this one,” Alice says. “This letter suggests Redd might know something we don’t.”

  I stare at my dad’s vacant expression. “I’ll go get her.”

  “I’ll drive—” Alice says.

  “No,” I say. “The letter was for me. Stay with Susannah and Mary and the spell book. Try to figure out how to break the spell on my dad and Mrs. Meriwether. I’ll bring the dance card. Redd’s place is only a few blocks away. I’ll get there just as fast if I run.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” Mary says.

  “Elijah will be with me.” My voice is stubborn. “Please, just figure out how to help them.”

  I run toward town the back way, Elijah by my side. We head up a narrow alley behind Redd’s building.

  Elijah stops in the shadows.

  I turn around. “What are you doing? We don’t—”

  “I cannot follow you,” he says.

  “You mean into Redd’s protected room? I—”

  “Samantha, you must ask her to allow me in, to adjust her spell,” Elijah says. “Or bring her out of that room so that I can hear what she says.”

  “I’ll do what I can. It all depends on time.” I turn, but he touches my arm.

  “Promise me you will not sign that dance card while you are in there.”

  I look at him. “I’ll do everything I can not to.”

  He takes a step toward me. “Promise me.”

  “Elijah…”

  “Samantha, you know as well as I do that if you sign that dance card, you will be putting yourself under another spell.”

  “Believe me, I have no desire to sign it. But I also have no idea what I’m being threatened with. You remember Redd’s warning. You saw my dad and Mrs. Meriwether.”

  “Still, you must not sign it,” Elijah says.

  My mouth opens in disbelief. “What are you even saying right now?”

  “If there is danger, we will find a different solution,” he says.

  “With what time?” I say much louder than necessary.

  “If you sign that card and go to that ship, I cannot protect you. What if whoever threw you overboard succeeds this time? What if Redd’s warning was about you?” His intense eyes hold mine. “If you die there, Samantha, you could get trapped just like all the other souls.”

  Suddenly it’s hard to breathe. I know he’s right.

  “If you sign that card, I might never see you again. There are many things I can endure. But that is not one of them.” For the first time since he came back, he feels like the old Elijah. And it hurts.

  I step backward. “Don’t you dare say something like that to me right now.”

  He doesn’t flinch. “I am saying it.”

  “You’ve been here for months without a word. You gave me no explanation. And now you…you just can’t.”

  “I am aware how unfair it is to say these things to you. But this is more important than being fair,” he says.

  I shake my head. “I don’t buy it. You’re suddenly worried about being around me after months of…”

  Elijah moves close to me, his gaze focused and insistent. “You asked me if I had the opportunity to pass on with my sister. I did. But I did not take it. There was never a question of my leaving, knowing you were still here.”

  I’m at a total loss for words. It feels like someone is tearing my heart in two.

  My phone buzzes. I break eye contact with him.

  Alice: Update?

  “Time is running out,” I say, and force myself to turn toward Redd’s door and away from his demanding eyes. “I need to go.” My voice is barely a whisper.

  I grab the handle. It immediately twists in my palm. Redd would never leave her door open, would she? I slip inside, closing the door behind me and closing Elijah out.

  “Redd!” I yell, and my voice cracks.

  There’s no answer. I follow the zigzagging wall to the curtain and push it open.

  Redd is on the floor, blood leaking from what looks like a knife wound in her chest.

  “No!”

  I press two fingers into her neck. No pulse. She holds a silver pen in her hand. The room spins. The words of the invitation come rushing back to me: Sign your name to the dance card….I fear I will not be the only one who is disappointed.

  Panic throbs in my temples. Redd told me not to come back here. She said she was serious. Did she know this would happen? Is this my fault?

  I look down at Redd’s still face. I can’t let this happen to someone else. What if my dad and Mrs. Meriwether are next?

  Me: Get me out of here and call 911

  I grab the dance card out of my hoodie pocket, not both
ering to cover my hands with my sleeves this time. The blood on my fingers tints the cream pages. There is a pull to it, like the dress but stronger. I scan the room, but there’s nothing to write with other than the blood-soaked pen in Redd’s hand.

  I take it from her and sign my name on the top line.

  I smile at the bronze cherub statue and start up the Grand Staircase. I take each step slowly so that I don’t trip on the hem of my green silk dress. The main landing is directly ahead. Above it is a huge wrought-iron-and-glass dome, from which a chandelier hangs.

  I stop on the platform next to the elaborately carved clock. It depicts two angels. Honour and Glory Crowning Time. Someone told me it was called that. Or maybe I read it somewhere?

  I scan the stairs above and below me. I’m meeting someone, but for the life of me I can’t remember the details.

  “Twelve steps, just as I said!” Uncle Harry says to Mr. Stead and the two generations of Jessups as they approach the bottom of the staircase. His voice is bright, and he holds an amber-colored drink. I smile down at the group of men, but they are too caught up in their conversation to notice me.

  “But I ask you, my dear fellow, does the Grand Staircase not include all the levels?” Alexander’s father asks, sweeping his hand up and down dramatically.

  My uncle turns to Mr. Stead. “What say you? Is the Grand Staircase the entirety of the stairs, or is it this, the dome, clock, and cherub? Symbolism or literalism? This should be an easy answer for a writer.”

  Mr. Stead scratches his white beard.

  “Come now, think carefully. Can you take the legs from a horse and still call it a horse?” prods Alexander’s father. He holds a wad of money in one hand and a drink in another.

  I laugh. They’re gambling, no doubt. Aunty Myra would be furious if she knew. But I’m not going to tell her. They look so happy. And it’s a wonderful, sparkling night. Who am I to spoil their fun?

  Alexander looks up and sees me grinning down at them. I immediately look away. I don’t want him to think I’m staring. But when I look back, he’s walking up the stairs toward me.