The Time-Traveling Fashionista (14 page)

“Believe me, Miss Baxter, as your captain, I am telling you that we are safe. We are
not
going to collide with an iceberg. The
Titanic
is unsinkable,” he replied confidently. “Now if you don’t sit down, you are going to alarm the other passengers.”

“Yes, please, have a seat,” Mrs. Smith parroted. “It’s probably just nerves. You’re still recovering from this afternoon.”
She spoke without losing her plastered-on smile, while the rest of her face remained frozen and expressionless.
Did they already have Botox in 1912?
Louise couldn’t help wondering at that moment.

Then she got back into focus. “I’m fine!” she exploded, feeling her ears getting hot in anger. Why wouldn’t they listen to
her? Why were they dismissing her like this? “We need to change direction. We need to stop, or thousands of people will die.
I know it’s going to happen. It’s history.”

“We are staying the course,” Captain Smith said as he rose to his feet.

“If you want to go down in history as the captain of a sinking ship…” Louise threatened, not able to control her temper anymore.

By this point, they were attracting quite a bit of attention from nearby tables. The orchestra conductor was doing his best
to drown out the commotion with crescendos of music. The first officer, a ruddy older man with an intense gaze, had also risen
to his feet. He was stealthily making his way around the table toward Louise.

“Why don’t we get Dr. Hastings? He’ll be able to give you something to calm your nerves,” First Officer Murdoch said in a
firm tone. “It’s normal for a woman to become frightened on a ship.”

“I sometimes get scared, too,” Mrs. Smith added. “We delicate females simply can’t help it.”

“But what I can’t have,” the captain continued, interrupting his wife, “is you scaring the other passengers with this nonsense.
Do you know how quickly this irrational fear can spread?”

While he said this, the burly first officer had almost reached Louise, who was slowly starting to back away from the table
as she realized the trouble she was in. He reached out to grab her by the arm, and Louise took off running, in her bare feet,
through the dining room.

As she ran, she saw Dr. Hastings unfolding himself from his chair. His two dinner companions jumped to their feet.

“Alice! Where are you running to?” a befuddled Mr. Baxter called out across the room.

She didn’t stop to answer, nor did she turn around to see if First Officer Murdoch and Dr. Hastings were chasing her. She
just ran as fast as was possible for a lady in a rock-hard corset.

Louise exited the dining room, flew back up the Grand Staircase, elbowed her way past several stunned passengers, turned down
a long, maroon-carpeted hallway, up a short flight of stairs, and finally burst out into the open air on the upper deck.

Shaking, she took in huge gulps of the fresh sea air. She turned around slowly, half expecting to see that she had been followed,
but no one was there. The wind was biting, and she hugged her bare arms around her body.

Louise stood at the railing and looked out at the expansive sea. For the first time in her life, the sight of water didn’t
fill her with a feeling of freedom and excitement. She felt quite the opposite: trapped. She was stuck on a sinking ship in
a life and body that weren’t hers.

Looking up at the infinite, starry night, Louise couldn’t help but wonder if her mother was looking up at that same sky, worried
that she hadn’t come home for supper. Were there really a hundred years separating them? She bit her lip so that she wouldn’t
cry. She needed to keep a clear head.

She began twirling her hair and pacing the deck to keep warm. Perhaps she had been naïve in believing that the captain would listen to her. But she could not give up. There must be someone else in the crew who would believe her. She
needed to find the navigation room. If she could stall the boat for only a moment, or veer it off course by the slightest
degree, maybe the disaster could be averted.

Louise continued twirling and pacing and was completely lost in her own thoughts when she walked directly into the skeletal
frame of Dr. Hastings.

“Miss Baxter, what a pleasant surprise,” the doctor hissed. Louise looked around frantically for another passenger who could
help her, but the deck was deserted.

“Do you really think you should be outside without a wrap in your condition? You’ll catch your death.” He grabbed her upper
arm in a viselike grip. “I’ll be happy to escort you back to your stateroom.”

Louise tried to protest, but the doctor would not let her go. “Please let go of my arm, Doctor. The fresh air will do me good,”
she pleaded.

“No, Miss Baxter. As your doctor, I insist. You must come inside at once.” He began to pull her toward the ship door. He was
strong, despite his advanced age and bony frame.

Louise tried to keep her feet firmly planted on the deck but managed only to get a splinter in her right heel as she was dragged
across the wooden planks. “I have explicit orders
from the captain to make sure that you are taken directly to your room and then given something to calm your nerves,” the
doctor declared. “We can’t have a hysterical woman upsetting the other passengers.”

He pushed her roughly through the door and back into the ship, still refusing to loosen his iron-tight grip.

“You’re hurting me,” Louise growled through clenched teeth. Dr. Hastings ignored her pleas and continued to forcefully lead
her through the empty hallways. They made a sharp turn and, out of the corner of her eye, Louise thought she saw two women
in wide-brimmed hats at the end of the corridor. Before she could call out for help, they darted around the next corner.

With a sudden movement, Dr. Hastings pushed her into a dark room. Without giving her eyes time to adjust, he switched on the
electric lights, and Louise saw that she was back in her stateroom. “Miss Baxter, as your doctor, I am ordering you to rest.”
He still had her by the arm and was dragging her over to the wooden four-poster bed.

Louise decided to change her strategy and reluctantly climbed up into the bed. Perhaps she could pretend to be asleep and
then break out and continue on her mission.

“Where is Uncle Baxter? Where is Anna?” Louise asked, hoping they would walk into the room at any moment.

“They are in their respective dining rooms. You ran out
before the entertainment. And thanks to your antics, I am now missing my poker game,” Dr. Hastings responded huffily.

“I’d like to see them,” she demanded, trying to sound braver than she felt. “Why don’t you go find them for me?”

“Oh, they’ll be back soon. However, you will most certainly be asleep by then. The captain requested that I give you something
to be sure of that.”

“Oh no, I’m quite sleepy already, no need for any sleeping medicines,” Louise tried to speak slowly and in a casual tone,
but she was starting to panic.

Dr. Hastings paid her no attention as he rummaged through his black leather medicine bag. She wondered nervously if he was
looking for sleeping pills. She made a quick plan to hide them under her tongue and spit the tablets out later. Louise let
out an exaggerated yawn. “Wow, am I tired,” she lied.

Dr. Hastings grunted triumphantly. He had found what he was looking for. “Now you see, Miss Baxter, I am not one who disobeys
my captain’s orders.” He carefully extracted a syringe with what had to be a three-inch-long pricker. He tested it, and a
little squirt of clear liquid shot out the tip. “Come now, this won’t hurt at all.”

“No!” Louise screamed. “Don’t you dare stick me with that!”

“It’s to help you sleep through the night,” he explained in a
fake soothing voice. “All natural. A vitamin shot.” He was inching toward the bed with the syringe poised in his right hand.

“Don’t touch me!” Louise shouted again. But the doctor ignored her cries.

She scurried to the other side of the bed, trying to escape, but the doctor’s reflexes were too sharp. He grabbed her by the
ankle, and without a moment’s hesitation, jabbed the needle into the top of her exposed left foot.

Louise let out a high-pitched scream of pain and shock. She turned to look into the doctor’s remorseless black eyes, and within
a few moments, everything else in the room turned into that same bottomless black.

That night Louise had the most extraordinary dreams.

She dreamed she was covered in a thick blanket of darkness. She was in a cave that was so deep and so black that she didn’t
know how she would ever return to the world above the earth. Her legs felt like lead weights, anchoring her to this lower
and darker world.

“Open your eyes, open your eyes,” a woman’s voice hissed. The raspy voice sounded miles away.

“Open your eyes,” the distant voice said more urgently. Louise’s eyelids were so heavy, how could she possibly open them?
What if she obeyed the voice and was to awaken into another layer of dream? What if she could open her eyes and still be dreaming?

“Open your eyes.” The voice was getting closer and stronger. Louise had to obey; she didn’t have a choice anymore.

She was immediately blinded by a burst of color, like a fiery red cloud.

“Louise,” the voice whispered, “the time is near. You must save yourself. History cannot be rewritten, but the dress will
prevail.” Louise saw a flash of gold and an image of a black poodle dangling in the red cloud. She could no longer fight the
utter heaviness of her eyelids, and her weighted feet plummeted her back down into the darkness below.

The cave was filling up quickly with rushing water. The cold water rapidly rose up past her ankles and her knees. The water
was tickling her thighs. She tried screaming but, like in all of her most terrifying nightmares, no sound came out of her
mouth. The only sound was the roar of the water pouring into the black cave. The icy wetness had reached her belly button,
and Louise felt a stabbing pain in her stomach. The water level was quickly moving up to her chest. She heard two distinct
female voices yelling, but she was too far away to make out the words.

She bolted upright in bed. An evening dress was clinging to her like another layer of skin. She anxiously glanced around the
room to get her bearings. Now she could never be sure where she would wake up. The room was dimly lit, but Louise recognized
it immediately as Miss Baxter’s stateroom.

How she wished that she would wake up in her familiar
bedroom under her grandmother’s handsewn patchwork quilt. She hoped this was all a long, awful nightmare.

“Miss Baxter? Are you all right?” Anna asked eagerly as she came over to the bed.

“No, I’m not,” Louise croaked, her throat parched. “I just had the most horrible nightmare. And then I woke up, and I’m in
the middle of an even worse nightmare….” She paused. “Anna, are you okay?” A terrified look was spreading across her friend’s
face. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Even in the dimly lit room, Louise could see Anna’s pallid complexion and trembling bottom lip.

“I’m not sure,” Anna said hesitantly. “I think I may have.”