“Be right back,” Kit said and darted after him.
Joanna could hear them starting up the stairs, and then Mr. Briarley’s voice saying, “They know it when they see it. It is the very mirror image.”
I’d better think about getting back, Joanna thought, and looked at her watch. It said twelve-thirty. “Oh, my gosh,” she said and started putting on her coat. She went out to the foot of the stairs. “Kit,” she called up the narrow wooden stairs, her hand on the railing. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow about Dish Night.”
Kit appeared at the head of the stairs. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll call you if I find the book.”
Joanna opened the front door. As she let herself out, she heard Mr. Briarley say, “Aren’t you going to go say good-bye to Kevin?”
Was there a Kevin, Joanna wondered, driving back to the hospital as fast as the traffic would allow, or was he one of the hallucinations Kit had talked about? She remembered the picture of Kit and a blond young man in the library. Had he been unwilling or unable to cope with the day-in, day-out nightmare of caring for an Alzheimer’s patient, or had Kit simply given him up, as she had apparently given up movies, her education, her freedom?
And how did she end up as his caregiver? Joanna wondered, gunning her car through a yellow light. Her mother would seem to be the logical choice to take care of him, and she was obviously worried about what it was doing to Kit. “As well she should be,” Joanna muttered.
She roared into the hospital parking lot. There was some mystery here, but, whatever it was, she didn’t have time to solve it now. She needed to get upstairs. It was ten to one. She didn’t even have time to take the back route. She’d have to take the main elevator, and please, don’t let me run into Mr. Mandrake.
Her luck was in. She made it up to sixth without seeing a soul she knew and skidded into the lab, already taking off her coat. Richard was at the console, Tish over by the examining table, hooking a bag of saline to the IV stand. “ . . . found this new place for Happy Hour,” Joanna heard her say as she came in.
“Sorry I’m late,” Joanna said. “I found out something interesting. Mr. Briarley” —Richard shot her a warning glance and nodded in Tish’s direction, but Joanna ignored him—“has Alzheimer’s, and his niece says he has hallucinations where he sees people around his bed or standing in the door.”
“Interesting,” Richard said. “Alzheimer’s is caused by a lack of acetylcholine, though, not elevated levels. Did she say if he had any of the other NDE elements?”
“She said he seemed to be reliving past events.”
“The life review,” Richard said. “I wonder—”
“Can we get going?” Tish asked. “I have an eye appointment.”
Dentist appointment, Joanna corrected, going into the dressing room. She put on her hospital gown, went over to the examining table, got up on it, and lay down. Tish began placing the foam cushions under her arms and legs. “Do you like Tommy Lee Jones?” she said, looking at Richard. “He’s got a new movie out I’m dying to see.” She moved to Joanna’s other side and began attaching the electrodes.
Richard came over. “You ready?” he asked Joanna. She nodded, hindered by the electrodes. “I’ve adjusted the dosage, and I’m going to increase the time spent in non-REM sleep,” he said. “We shall see what we shall see.”
Which was what? Joanna wondered, watching Tish start the IV. “I loved him in Volcano,” Tish said, taping it in place. “Did you see it?”
No, but at this rate, I might, Joanna thought. She could see the wall clock from where she lay, even though Richard had moved it. It said five to one. We need to take it down altogether, she thought.
“I loved that scene in the subway tunnel,” Tish said, covering Joanna’s eyes with the black mask and beginning to attach the electrodes. “Where they could see this light at the end, and they didn’t know what it was, and then they realized it was molten lava, and it was heading right for them. And the part where the lava caught the guy and—”
At that point Tish mercifully put the headphones on her, and Joanna lay, waiting for Richard to come over and lift the earphone and ask her if she was ready.
Ready for what? she wondered. A fall of ash? Tommy Lee Jones? Vesuvius erupted at one o’clock, she thought, and was in the tunnel.
The passage was silent, as if a loud sound had just stopped. The light shone, blinding gold, from the open door. If it’s Vesuvius, just put your hand over your mouth and nose and run back into the tunnel, she told herself, starting toward the door. But it wasn’t Vesuvius, or an oncoming train, or the walkway down on third, and she had known it from the moment she came through. It was the Titanic, and through the open door she could see the woman in the white nightgown talking earnestly to the woman with the white gloves.
“I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, Edith,” the woman with the white gloves said.
“Go and find Mr. Briarley,” the bearded man said to the steward. “He’ll be able to tell us.”
“Yes, sir,” the steward said.
“We’ll be in our cabin.”
“Yes, sir,” the steward said and started into the light.
Joanna tried to see where he was going, but the glare was too bright. She moved forward, trying to see, and then stopped. I need to cross the threshold, she thought, and felt the sense of dread again.
“A voice said, ‘You are not allowed on this side,’ ” Ms.Grant had said, and Mr. Olivetti, “I knew if I went through that gate, I could never come back.” What if, once out on the deck, she couldn’t return? Or what if Vielle was right, and the NDE was some kind of death process that crossing the threshold set in motion?
It’s not, Joanna thought. They’re both wrong, and so is Mr. Mandrake. The NDE isn’t a gateway to the Other Side. It’s something else, and I have to find out what it is. But when she came up even with the door, she halted again and looked down at the floor. Light spilled onto it, and the line between the waxed wood of the passageway and the unvarnished boards of the deck was sharply marked.
Joanna put her hand to her chest, as if to quiet her heart. “ ‘To die will be an awfully big adventure,’ ” she said and stepped across the threshold and out onto the deck.
“Now we can cross the shifting sands.”
—LAST WORDS OF L. FRANK BAUM
MR. BRIARLEY WILL BE ABLE to explain things,” the bearded man said to the women. None of them had turned to look at Joanna when she came out onto the deck. She wondered if they could see her.
“In the meantime,” the bearded man said, “you ladies should go back inside where it’s warmer.”
The young woman nodded, clutching her coat to her. “It’s so cold.”
The steward had disappeared into the light. Joanna started through the group of people, trying to see where he had gone, past the young woman and a stout white-haired man in tweeds.
“What do they say is the trouble?” the stout man asked a taller man in a black overcoat as Joanna edged by him.
“What are you doing here?” the bearded man said loudly.
Joanna jumped and looked back at him, startled, but he wasn’t talking to her. He was addressing a young man in a grubby-looking sweater and a soft cap.
“You shouldn’t be here,” the bearded man said sternly. “This area is restricted.”
“Sorry,” the young man said, looking around nervously. “I heard a noise and came over to investigate.”
So did I, Joanna thought, and walked toward the light. As she got closer, she saw it was radiating from a lamp on the white-painted metal wall. One of the deck lights, Joanna thought, and it must still be very early. Toward the end, the lights had begun to dim and glow red because the engineers couldn’t keep the dynamos going.
And then they went out, Joanna thought. But this light was reassuringly bright, so bright she couldn’t see anything through its radiance, even when she shielded her eyes. She would have to walk past it to be able to see anything.
&n
bsp; She paused again, the way she had at the threshold, her hand to her chest, and then walked down the deck in the direction the steward had gone and into the light, through it, beyond it.
She had been wrong. It wasn’t outside, in spite of the biting cold. The deck was glassed in, with long, wide, white-framed windows that stretched the length of the deck. Joanna went over to them and looked out, but the glass reflected the light so she couldn’t see anything but the reflection of the white wall and the empty deck. Joanna turned and looked back at the door to the passage. It yawned blackly.
The passengers must have gone back inside. The bearded man had told the steward, “We’ll be in our cabin,” and the women had complained about being cold. They must have gone back to their staterooms, Joanna thought, and started after them, back toward the passage.
Toward the tunnel. Don’t, she thought. You don’t want to go back yet, not till you’ve found out why you’re seeing the Titanic, not till you’ve found out what the connection is. Don’t even look at it. Remember what happened to Orpheus, she thought, and turned forcibly away from the door.
“But what if I can’t find it when I’m ready to go back?” she said out loud, and her voice echoed hollowly in the enclosed deck. She wished she’d brought some breadcrumbs with her, or a ball of Mrs. Troudtheim’s yarn. You’ll just have to keep track of where you go, she thought, and not stay too long. You have a little over two and a half hours. Or four to six minutes.
But this wasn’t a real NDE. This was a simulation, and she only had till Richard stopped giving her dithetamine, which might be any minute. So you need to get going.
She started down the deck. The steward had disappeared, and the long deck was empty except for deck chairs and low, white-painted lockers with the word Lifejackets stenciled on the lid. At intervals, shuffleboard courts were painted on the deck.
Far down the deck, she caught a glimpse of the steward’s white jacket as he emerged from a door and started on down the deck. His white coat flickered to brightness as he passed one of the deck lights and then disappeared into the shadows between, like a light blinking on and off.
Joanna walked faster, trying to catch up with him, but he was already opening another door. She hurried down the deck to where he’d gone in, searching the inside wall for a door, but the wall was blank, though it seemed to Joanna she had already walked past the spot where he had disappeared.
No, here it was, a white metal door. Joanna reached for it, wondering what would happen. Would she be able to open it, or would her hand go through it like a ghost’s?
Neither. Her hand closed firmly on the handle and pulled, but it was locked. She tried again, with both hands, and then gave up and started down the deck again. There was another door a few yards past the first one, and another farther on, but they were both locked when Joanna tried them.
The deck began to bend inward, following the line of the ship, and become narrower. Farther down, directly under a deck light, was a door. She hurried down to it and pulled on the handle.
It gave under her hand, and she started in and then stopped and looked back down the deck the way she had come. She couldn’t see the passage because of the curve of the deck, and she hesitated, wondering if she should go back and check to make sure the door was still open, and then opened the door and went in.
She was in some sort of lobby. There were rugs on the polished wooden floor and high-backed benches against the walls. In the center was a straight wooden staircase with carved banisters. Joanna went over to it and leaned over the polished railing. She could see the stairs going down to the next deck and the one below that, receding into darkness.
She looked up, trying to see to the top of the stairs, but it was dark up there, too, and there was no sign of the steward. She hesitated, her hand on the railing, trying to decide which way to go. Not down, she thought, not on the Titanic, and started up the stairs.
At the top was another flight of stairs, narrower, steeper, and another lobby, this one much more elegant. The rugs on the floor were Persian, and paintings hung on the wallpapered walls. Off to the right was a pair of doors inset with beveled glass. Through the glass, Joanna could see a large rose-carpeted room filled with tables set for dinner.
The First-Class Dining Saloon, Joanna thought and tried to open the double doors, but they were locked. She couldn’t see anyone inside and no waiters moving among the white-linen-draped tables. Each table had flowers and a small rose-silk shaded lamp on it, and the silver and crystal and china glittered pinkly in its glow.
There were rose lamps on the walls, too, which were paneled in some pale, fawn-colored wood, and a lamp on the top of the grand piano. The piano was made of the same pale wood, only highly polished. Its angled top glittered goldenly in the light from the crystal chandelier overhead. A gilt birdcage stood in front of it, though from this distance Joanna couldn’t make out whether there was a bird in it or not. Had there been birds on the Titanic? Maisie hadn’t mentioned any.
A narrow wooden stairway led up past the windows of the dining saloon, and there was another flight above that. Joanna climbed up. The stairs ended at a door with a porthole in it. It must lead to the deck outside, she thought, but when she looked through the porthole, she couldn’t see anything but darkness. She opened the door.
She still couldn’t see anything. The sudden coldness told her she was outside, but she couldn’t feel any wind on her face, not even a breeze. It was utterly still that night, she thought. Mr. Briarley had talked about that in class, about how the survivors had all commented how still the water had been, without any waves at all.
She stared into the darkness, her hand on the door, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Maybe it’s like the passage, she thought, and there’s no light for them to adjust to, but after what seemed like a very long time, she began to make out shapes. Railings, and a horn-shaped vent, and, looming above her on the right, a tall, massive shape.
One of the funnels, she thought, looking up at its black shape against the blacker sky. She was in a little area bounded by railings. At first she thought the railings completely enclosed it, but after a minute she saw a little metal staircase, four steps leading up to a higher deck.
She started toward it, letting go of the door. It began to swing shut. Joanna grabbed for the handle and then stood there, unwilling to let it shut. She looked around the little deck, but she couldn’t see anything on the deck to prop the door open with, and she didn’t dare shut it in case it locked.
She transferred the handle to her other hand, bent down, and took off her shoe. She wedged it in the door, closed it carefully, and walked over to the stairway. She climbed the steps, holding on to both railings, and started along the upper deck. This had to be the Boat Deck. There were the giant funnels, four of them, looming above, and the thick cables of the rigging, the cargo cranes. But where were the lifeboats? She couldn’t see them. They should be all along the deck.
What if they’re already gone? she thought, and felt a stab of panic. But they couldn’t be. Collapsible A hadn’t gone until two-fifteen, when the bow was already underwater and the slant of the deck was so bad they had had to cut the ropes and float her off, and the deck here was still level.
And even after the boats had gone, there had been people on the Boat Deck, the Strauses and the Allisons, and all the men who hadn’t been allowed in the boats, all the steerage passengers who’d found their way up from belowdecks too late.
And the band, Joanna thought. They’d been on the Boat Deck, playing ragtime and waltzes the whole time they were loading the boats, and then “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” They had been on deck playing till the very end.
So it can’t be after the boats have gone, Joanna thought, because there was no one on the darkened deck. No one at all, and no sound, except for the uneven patter and tap of Joanna’s bare foot and remaining shoe.
The stretch of deck ended abruptly in a low white structure with a latticed roof. Next to it, a set of metal stairs,
longer than the first one, led down through a cut-out roof to a covered deck. Joanna climbed down, looking back as she did to memorize the route she’d come so she could retrace it, and then turned around.
And there were the boats. They hung in their white metal davits, suspended from pulleys and thick bundles of ropes, and Captain Smith must not have given the order for the boats to be lowered yet. They were still shrouded in their canvas covers.
But there should still be officers on the deck. Captain Smith had sent two of the officers to investigate the damage, but he’d stayed on the bridge with the other officers till they returned, and some of the passengers had come up to see what had happened. And there were always officers on watch, and passengers walking around the deck. It had never been completely deserted like this.
Maybe it’s not the Titanic, maybe it’s the Mary Celeste, Joanna thought, and then, jamming her hands in her pockets, The ship’s not deserted. It’s just too cold for them to be out here. They’re all inside.
That had to be it. She could see her breath, and her bare foot was freezing. They were inside. Far up ahead, she could see light coming from a line of windows. It shone out in a golden square onto the deck. That’s where they are, she thought, and walked toward it, past a long, low, white building. “Officers’ Quarters,” a sign on the door said.
That’s where they stored the collapsibles, Joanna thought, and looked up at the flat roof, trying to see the lifeboats, but it was too dark, she couldn’t make them out.
And if this was the officers’ quarters, the lights ahead were from the wheelhouse, and the bridge. She walked on till she was standing in the light that shone out on the deck. There were steps leading up. Passengers aren’t allowed on the bridge, Joanna thought, and climbed up.
The bridge was deserted. The huge wooden wheel stood in the center, in front of the windows. Beyond it were two large metal drums with knobbed levers. The boiler room and engine room telegraphs. They had writing on them: Astern. Ahead. Full. Dead Slow. Stop. The levers on both were at Dead Slow.