Chapter Fifty
Where am I?
She remembers being walked by Mark down a passage, her arm slung over his shoulder, her feet barely touching the floor. Then being eased gently onto a bed. And that is where her conscious memory ends.
Annie is a passenger in her body as she descends into sleep. Unable to speak, unable to control her thoughts, unable to make her body obey.
Images appear in her mind—she’s immediately aware that they’re Lillian Notting’s memories—like a moving picture that’s playing just for her.
The nightstand on Mark’s side of the bed. A book sits at an angle, like it was recently discarded. A plain cream-colored envelope juts out of the pages, holding his place. She doesn’t recall Mark reading last night or any night. . . . Lately, he has not been coming to her bedroom, and so she has crept into his. Only he isn’t here. She knows what that must mean. She knows where he must be.
With Caroline. She touches the book—no doubt one lent to him by Caroline—and as she lifts it, the envelope falls out.
She picks the envelope off the floor. The upper-left-hand corner reads White Star Line.
Inside, there is a ticket. Titanic. First-class passenger: Mr. Mark Fletcher.
Rubber-stamped in red, sprawled over the words: PAID.
She runs her thumb over the red ink. There is only one other person Lillian knows with a ticket for the crossing.
The pain she feels is immediate, a dagger plunged into her heart.
Mark’s straight razor lies innocently within reach. She does it not just for the release from the anguish—the blood a distraction from her inner pain—but to defy the world. So much for a woman’s beauty. We are nothing without it.
Her hair comes next—hacked off in rough patches, her hands trembling with a white-hot rage that burns the despair, turning it into determination, into a strange and eerie focus.
Like this, a monster, she leaves the house. Walks down the lane for all to see.
It happens in a blur. The outcries and whimpers from those who notice her. But no one can stop her. She is racing now, frantic, still bleeding, and people draw back as she passes, a nightmare in the flesh.
She follows the scent of water on the wind. Standing on a bridge, the wind scuttles over her near-bare head. The coolness, where before there was only the fire of her agony, brings momentary relief. For a brief second, Lillian smiles. This is what freedom feels like.
And then she steps into air. People on the street below her gasp as . . .
She plunges into the frigid Thames. The water surrounds her immediately, merciless. It grabs her nightdress and pulls her down, down. . . .
She swallows a bellyful of water, sucks even more into her lungs. . . .
Her brain floods with panic, fights to make her wake up. . . .
No, no, no . . . What have I done? . . . But it is too late. . . .
Mark is all she can think about, all she can see. Even now, she forgives him. . . .
She wants all of it back, her man, her baby, her life. . . .
But the pressure in her chest is unbearable. She tries to fight her way to the surface, but it only seems to fall farther and farther away. . . .
And then, in the darkness, in the lung-shattering pain, comes a voice, pure as music, sweet as an angel’s. A voice that sounds like innocence itself.
I can give you a second chance, the voice says. It is the voice of the water, the voice of something vast and invisible. But in Lillian’s last gasps, she sees the glitter of two green eyes, the splay of wild hair. A sea goddess, or a last hallucination, a passing vision, she can’t be sure.
I’m everywhere, the vision seems to say. I am the great mother witch of the sea, able to hear the drowning no matter where they are. You want to live? I will grant your wish, but you will owe me something in return: an innocent soul.
You cannot return to your body. It is destroyed beyond use. But I will give you a new one, a fresh one. She has just died. The body is perfect.
Go now. Reclaim your love, if that is what you desire. Just do not forget: you must make good on your part of the Bargain. I will have my innocents, and they will live with me in the depths. Protected and loved forever. This is a bargain you cannot undo.
Lillian opens her eyes and she is standing before the gangplank leading to RMS Titanic, battered suitcase in hand, Annie’s aunt Riona’s shoes, hand-me-downs, on her feet. These are Annie’s memories: meeting Violet Jessop. Claiming the more cramped of the two bunks in the tiny cabin they must share in order to ingratiate herself with Violet. Trying on the White Star Line stewardess’s uniform, tucking in the gold crucifix so no one will see it. Learning to fold napkins and make beds and serve tea the White Star way.
Standing on deck on April 10, 1912, watching the first-class passengers come up the gangplank, wondering which ones will occupy the rooms that have been assigned to her, twelve cabins in first class. This is when she sees Mark Fletcher, looking prosperous in the fine new suit Caroline has bought for him. And he is distracted, because the baby in his arms is spitting up on the front of his overcoat.
The baby is Ondine.
Annie wakes, drenched in a cold sweat. But even awake, images continue to play against her mind’s eye. Writing a note to herself in the night, desperately trying to tell her waking mind the truth. The nights of roaming the ship, looking for Mark, listening for Mark, waiting for Mark. The way she savored the times he held her in his arms.
The dubheasa is right.
Annie is Lillian.
All this time, she has not been haunted. She has been the one haunting.
She came back—not for the child taken by Caroline. But for the man.
She came back for Mark.
But the thought that burns the most sickening in her mind is what she agreed to give up in exchange for love.
A clue—the vital clue all along—swarms into her mind: the brooch. The brooch that had been in her pocket all that time, with its little hidden latch.
A latch she knew was there all along, would thumb absently as she went about her work, for comfort. Because, once, the brooch had been hers. Caroline had given it to her—to Lillian, as a little gift.
And then comes the worst part, the dark, sickening tide of truth, as Annie watches herself—Lillian—pouring and warming the child’s milk morning after morning. Afternoons, too. In a hidden corner of the Titanic’s kitchen so as to stay out of the cook’s way.
Ever so subtly, flipping open the brooch and sprinkling powder into the warm, white liquid.
A pinch at every feeding.
Yes, she, she, had been the one, all along.
She had been the danger to the child.
She had been trying to make good on her promise.
After all, she owed the dubheasa a child. An innocent. That had been the Bargain.
She remembers going to Mark, desperate to get his attention. Telling Mark he’s not paying attention to his daughter. Doesn’t Ondine look unwell to you? I think she’s taken a turn for the worse.
I think Ondine is in peril.
I think you should listen to me.
You need me, Mark, don’t you see?
Me, Mark. Look at me. See me.
Choose me.
Now: she tries to leap from the bed, to find Mark and make him understand. He needs to help her end this nightmare.
But something is holding her down. A belt, wrapped tight around her wrists. She is lashed to the bed.
Or at least, Annie Hebbley is lashed down.
But Lillian Notting is not.