Haunting the Deep

by Adriana Mather

  Elijah was right; he couldn’t find her himself. “You sent Ada, didn’t you?”

  “And you liked her.”

  I do. I do like Ada. “She’s a person.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Well, you keep her here like a prisoner.”

  Annoyance flashes in his eyes. “I give her and all the rest of them the most beautiful ship in the world. Everyone here is happy. That’s what everyone wants—you said it yourself.”

  My shoulders tense. “Fake happy. Entitlement and luxury are not the same thing. Just because you’re alive and they’re dead gives you no right to take away their choice. You’re like the people who loaded the wealthy passengers first, as if they were more deserving of those lifeboats.”

  “Frame it however you want. Happiness is happiness. Tell me this isn’t better than your world of Nikis and Blairs, where your father won’t let you do magic, where your stepmother tried to hang you.”

  My mouth opens. I will punch him in his neatly combed head. “You don’t get to judge the value of my life—or anyone else’s, for that matter!”

  “Oh yeah? I was with you the first time you came to the ship. You barely even tried to remember your life in Salem. And how long did it take before you gave up on trying at all? One night, maybe two?”

  My cheeks burn. “Because you put me under a spell.”

  “Admit what we both know, Samantha.”

  “How do you explain this, then? How do you explain me remembering myself in the midst of your proposal?” I almost choke on the word.

  “I suspect the Descendants had something to do with that, although I don’t know what. You wouldn’t have done it by yourself,” he says.

  I study him. Could he be right that I wanted to be happy so badly that I didn’t resist? “But Blair and Niki? Mr. Wardwell?”

  He shrugs. “If I could put a spell on you, do you really think it was much trouble manipulating them?”

  He had access to everyone. He lives with Blair. He’s on the dance committee. He’s been pulling the strings right in front of us. Susannah was right when she likened him to a serial killer who sends letters to the police. “You put Jaxon under a spell.”

  “You weren’t focusing,” he says.

  “But you were working with spirits….How did you…” It dawns on me. I’m as bad as the girls, thinking I’m the only one with special abilities. “You see spirits, don’t you? You’re the Collector that Redd was sensing?”

  His prideful look returns.

  The image of Redd bleeding on the floor fills my mind. “And now Redd’s dead….How could you!”

  He breaks eye contact for a split second. “You know that is as much your fault as it is mine. You wouldn’t let it go. You got Redd involved, not me—”

  “Bullshit!” The word explodes from me. “Own what you did, Matt! You killed an old woman. You’re trapping spirits against their will—”

  “I said my name is Alexander here. I won’t tell you again.” He takes a fast step toward me.

  I stand my ground. “My dad. My dad and Mrs. Meriwether. What did you do?”

  At the mention of them the tension leaves his eyes, like he knows he’s in control. “It doesn’t matter now. Or it won’t very soon. Your aunt was the last passenger we needed.”

  My mind spins. “You have all of them?”

  “Every single one,” he says with pride. “And everyone inside will remain inside.”

  Elijah’s warning rings in my head. He plans on keeping me here? With all these spirits for the rest of time? No. I’m not doing that. I can’t do that. “We? You said Myra was the last passenger ‘we’ needed.”

  “I thought you would have pieced that together by now.” He laughs. “Maybe you’re not as smart as I give you credit for. I’m not the first Collector, just one of them. I’m actually Alexander the Fifth. Building this spell and collecting these people took five generations of Jessups the better part of a century. Most people couldn’t do something like this.”

  Redd’s story about the Collector when she was a girl. My eyes widen. “It was your family’s last name I would have found in the old Salem newspapers, wasn’t it?”

  He looks at me like he is trying to decide something. “You remember that story I told you about buying tickets off of someone to get on the Titanic?” He doesn’t wait for me to confirm that I do. “That was Alexander the First. Only, he couldn’t afford to barter his way to first or second class. He had carried his family’s entire fortune with him to start a business in America. As you may have guessed, he never made it onto a lifeboat. And his family was financially ruined. His daughter died when his wife couldn’t afford a doctor. His wife died shortly after of a fever. His son was adopted by the Wilder family and moved to America. He lost everything, including his name. But his son was old enough to remember, and he was determined to right the wrongs. He did his part, as did his son, and his grandson. And now it’s my turn. I am going to give Alexander the pleasant journey he deserved.”

  For a second I just stare at him. Alice was right. They’re trying to rewrite history. “So one family gets privilege and power”—I gesture at the lavish suite—“at the expense of everyone else? Don’t pretend for a second that this isn’t selfish. You say your ancestor deserves this? What about all those third-class passengers locked in the bottom of the ship? What do they deserve? What about free will? You’re not—”

  “Oh, come on. I see spirits, Samantha, like you do. You know how awful it is for them to be stuck throughout the ages, never passing on. This place is like a retreat.”

  “Do you even hear yourself right now? A ship that sank and killed fifteen hundred people is not a retreat. It’s been more than a hundred years—this place is nothing more than a distorted time loop, a tomb. You want to do something? Help them all pass on, don’t trap them here!”

  Anger flashes in his eyes. “I’m not going to warn you again about talking about the Titanic like that.”

  “That’s how you talk to someone you just proposed to? How confused are you?”

  “You should jump the hell off your high horse, Samantha, and be thanking me right now.” By the look in his eyes and the tone of his voice, I know he believes what he’s saying. “You pulled that stunt in the lounge, questioning Bruce Ismay about the speed of the ship. It was Alexander who threw you over that night. Do you know how long it took me to convince him that I didn’t need to kill you right away? To let me do things this way instead?”

  A chill runs through my body. Right away? This way instead? Please, Alice, Elijah, someone get me out of here.

  “Where are the other Jessups? Why have I only seen you and Alexander the First?”

  Matt smirks like he’s been waiting for me to ask this question. “They each maintained the spell until their deaths, and they passed on. The only way to stay here if you weren’t originally a passenger…is to die here.”

  I look down at the silver dance card he wanted me to sign in blood.

  Matt follows my line of sight. “That would have been the gentle way to go.”

  Three more seconds under his spell and I would have signed my life away. I glance over my shoulder at the door.

  “Don’t bother. Even if you get out of this room, you would never make it off the ship.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “That’s what I know. Do you really think I could let you leave after you figured out what this place is? Who I am? You should have left it alone.”

  “So seal me out.” Although the moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them. I can’t leave these spirits trapped here for the rest of time and do nothing. I’d be as bad as him, assuming my life counts for more.

  “It doesn’t work that way.”

  I take a step backward. The room suddenly feels claustrophobic. “So your solution is to kill me?”

  “I just want to help you transition,” he says, like I’ve got it all wrong.

  “Like hell you do. If it
’s so great here, you die and transition here.”

  “I maintain the spell, Samantha, and will for my entire life. I can’t die until there’s someone else to take my place. It was passed on to me when my father died in a car crash last year.”

  I grip the engraved dance card in my hand, my pulse impossibly fast.

  “I’m trying to do this the nice way.” The threat is clear in Matt’s voice.

  “Well, I’m not.” I yank at the dance card, tearing the page.

  He reaches for me, but I grab the knife he pricked my finger with. “Don’t you even think about touching me again. I’m not under your spell anymore.”

  “You can’t do magic here, Samantha, not without your physical body. And besides, you’re part of the Titanic’s story now. You helped make this happen. You belong here and you belong with me.” He’s so confident that for a second I almost doubt myself.

  Almost. I slowly back up toward the door with the knife held out in front of me. “No, I’m not part of the story. I never was. I don’t belong with you, and I definitely don’t belong to you. This ship isn’t real!” I feel the doorknob against my back.

  “I told you not to say things like that,” he says angrily, his cool demeanor broken. “Unless you want to go headfirst into the ocean! I’m the best choice you have. You go out there, and it won’t be only me. Alexander the First will hunt you down.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “But will you take a chance with your father and your neighbor?”

  My heart skips a beat. What was that trance he put them under? “You wouldn’t—”

  “Like I didn’t with Redd?”

  I clench the doorknob so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crumble in my hand.

  “Stay, and I will give you everything. Walk out that door and you will lose your entire world.”

  “My world isn’t yours to take.” I twist the knob and swing the door fully open. A breeze blows in. The air is noticeably colder than it was a half hour ago.

  Matt lifts his hand, feeling the cold air that’s blowing into the room, doubt shimmering in his eyes. “What did you do? Samantha, stop!”

  He lunges at me, and I jab with the knife. It sticks an inch into his upper thigh. His eyes widen.

  I don’t hesitate. I run.

  I make a sharp left, running as fast as I can away from Matt. My legs strain, and I hold both hands in front of me, pushing open the door to the staircase.

  That last moment I spent with Matt loops in my mind. The look in his eyes when he asked me what I had done, the knife lodging in his leg. What did he mean, though? What did I do?

  I run the short distance from the stairs to my room and burst through the door. “Mollie!”

  She stands up from where she was mending a dress. “Miss, what happened? Yer in a state.”

  I grab her arm and pull. “We need to go somewhere that’s not here.”

  She resists. “But the mendin’…”

  “Mollie, please. We need to leave now. This is the first place he’ll look. I’m in danger.”

  She drops her needle.

  “Do you know of a place, an out-of-the-way place that no one goes?” I try to picture what I know about the Titanic layout. “Anything close by? A storage room, a pantry even?”

  “Aye. There’s a maid’s pantry. It’s only used durin’ the day.”

  “Perfect.”

  I grab Mollie’s hand, and we run. Luckily, we don’t have far to go and none of the passengers are in the hallway to see us.

  Mollie pushes through the door to the maid’s pantry. I lock it from the inside.

  “Miss, yer scarin’ me. What happened?”

  I grab Mollie by the shoulders. “Can I trust you?”

  Mollie looks like I just kicked her. “How could ya ask me that? Ya know me better than most.”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t.”

  Mollie’s eyes widen. “You do, Miss Samantha. I have been workin’ with yer family fer a long time.”

  “No, you haven’t.”

  She gasps. “I don’t know what’s got ya all fired up, but I think we should go see yer aunt. Ya don’t sound well.”

  I look her square in the eye. “I just need to know if I can trust you.”

  “A course ya can!” she practically yells.

  I assess her. “Good. Because I need your help. You know this ship better than I do. You know the back passages.”

  Mollie narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Miss, I do know the back passages. But I am not takin’ ya anywhere until ya start tellin’ me how yer in danger.” She puts her hands on her hips.

  “Matt…Alexander Jessup is trying to kill me.”

  She opens her mouth and closes it again. For a few seconds she’s quiet.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  Mollie presses her lips together. “I’m not sayin’ that. I’m just sayin’ that it sounds a little odd, is all.”

  How can I possibly explain this to her with no time? Or convince her of who she really is? It breaks my heart that she doesn’t even remember the fiancé she died trying to be with. I push my fingers into my temples. “You say we’ve known each other for a long time, right?”

  She nods.

  “Have I ever lied to you or sounded an alarm for no reason?”

  Her eyebrows push together. “Well…no.”

  “Good. Then you have no reason to mistrust me now,” I say. “Just give me a minute to think, Mollie. And then I promise I’ll try to explain.”

  She crosses her arms. “I suppose a minute couldn’t hurt.”

  I rub my forehead. Think, Sam. What are you missing here? Matt said that he couldn’t die before he passed the spell off to someone else. Does that mean if he does die, the spell falls apart? I bite my lip. No, I’m hardly going to murder the person trying to murder me. And the chance of the Descendants or Elijah figuring out how to wake me up is pretty slim if they haven’t done it by now. There’s always the hope that they figure out who he is, but he wasn’t even on our radar.

  I pace. Okay, what else did Matt say? He got angry at me a few times. The first was when I said the Titanic sank. Actually, all the times he got mad at me, I was talking about the ship sinking or about the past. What if he wasn’t getting angry that I was questioning the realness of his spell? I mean, he knows it’s a spell. What if he was actually worried that my words could affect the spell?

  I stop pacing. He said “What did you do?” after he felt the cold air. He told me to stop saying what I was saying or I would go headfirst into the ocean. I look up at Mollie. “Did you notice the temperature drop in the past hour?”

  “I did. Why?”

  “Has it ever been cold on this ship before, any other day you can remember?”

  She considers my question. “A little cooler in the evenings, but never cold. The weather is consistently pleasant.”

  “What if the cold air isn’t random?”

  “Pardon?”

  “What if I changed something?”

  “I’m not followin’.”

  What if I challenge this place more? Could it tear the fabric of the spell? Maybe even break it? “Mollie, we need to go outside, somewhere that’s secluded. I want to tell you a few things and see if…Actually, no. Where’s my aunt?”

  “In the lounge.”

  “Perfect,” I say, and grab the lock on the door. I pause. “Before we go, can you promise me something?”

  “What?”

  “Can you promise me you won’t let anyone, especially the Alexander Jessups on this ship, drag me off against my will, no matter how reasonable they seem?”

  Her eyes widen. “What an incredible thing ta say. Like I would allow anyone ta drag ya off fer any reason.”

  “No matter how conflicted you feel.”

  She waves her hand at me, like I’m getting more ridiculous by the minute.

  Good.

  I pull Mollie up the stairs as fast as she’ll go and out onto the deck. There
are people dressed in heavy coats milling about, enjoying the night. I speed-walk toward the lounge. Twenty feet from the door I stop and grab Mollie’s arm.

  “Mollie, I need you to think about what happened on the night of April fourteenth, 1912. It was something important. Something sad.”

  She blinks at me. “Miss? The fourteenth?”

  “Do you remember?”

  Her brows furrow.

  “The Titanic sank,” I say.

  “Miss! What an awful thing ta say!”

  Did I imagine it or did the temperature drop a tiny bit more?

  “Your name is Mollie Mullin. You’re from Ireland. Your family owns a general store in Clarinbridge. You told me that.” I scan my surroundings, looking for Matt.

  “Aye.”

  “But you didn’t leave them to become a maid. You ran away with the guy you loved, a barman in your family’s store. Your parents didn’t approve, and so you planned to elope to America. Your brother chased you. But you and your fiancé got on the Titanic. You listed yourselves as brother and sister. Denis and Mary Lennon.”

  “Denis Lennon,” she says. “Denis Lennon.” Something in her face shifts. “Why do I know that name?”

  Mollie shivers. The temperature definitely dropped that time.

  I take her hand and push open the lounge door before the crew butler can do it. He raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Miss, why do I know the name Denis Lennon?”

  I pause. How long has she been separated from him, forced to play some role the Jessups designed for her? I soften my voice. “Think about what I said about how you ran away. Do you remember running? Do you remember getting on the Titanic? How it struck an iceberg? You were in steerage, Mollie. You weren’t my maid.” I take a breath. “You and Denis…died together.”

  Mollie looks startled. I know the fog of Matt’s spell, how disorienting it is and hard it is to fight through. Damn you, Matt. You can’t do this to people.

  In the lounge, Henry, Hammad, and Mr. Stead are with my aunt and the other women near the fireplace. They laugh and smile and drink. The Jessups, though, are noticeably absent.

  “Samantha!” Aunt Myra beams and beckons me to join them. The whole group turns to acknowledge me as we approach. “That ring! Henry, do you see that ring? Tell us the whole story. Do not spare a detail.”