THE FUTURE’S PAST
Chapter One
Heavy droplets of rain poured
down in sheets onto the deck of the Carpathia, pummeling the already rough
water of the Atlantic, soaking those who bore the misfortune of being outside.
They were women, mostly. Widows who stood at the ship’s rail as though waiting
to see another lifeboat, a raft bearing their missing husbands, sons, brothers,
and fathers. All of them exuded a quiet air of hopefulness that any moment now
the fog would break and there the rest of the passengers would be. Few cried
and what tears did mar their somber faces were masked by the rain.
Occasionally, a steward or fellow survivor would extricate themselves from the
warmth inside to attempt to draw these unfortunates into the dining halls, but
for most it seemed that they would continue to keep their vigil until the
Carpathia docked in New York in two days.
There were other mourners,
however, for whom the truth was clear even before Captain Rostron ordered an
impromptu memorial service for the lost passengers and crew members of the
ill-fated Titanic. The truth was undeniable--those who were not onboard the
Carpathia were gone.
The knowledge of so many
deaths had been a shock almost to all–but not to Rose DeWitt Bukater. Thomas
Andrews–God rest his soul–had informed her of the shortage in lifeboats long
before the iceberg was sighted, when such an incident was still considered
unfathomable. But she had been there when there were no boats left. No hope and
no future save the imminent plunge that the Titanic promised before she finally
sank beneath the waves forever.
And yet she had lived. If it
hadn’t been for the bravery and leadership of Mr. Harold Lowe, the ship’s
former Fifth Officer, she would have been left to slowly perish like those
around her had.
Like Jack.
Oh, God, Jack. Her beautiful,
wonderful Jack. Without him, she wouldn’t have stood a chance, but his
selflessness had come at a cost.
Rose’s singular regret for the
remaining duration of her life was that she had not done more during those last
precious moments with him. She should have shared the makeshift raft, taken
turns in and out of the water, continued to move, to talk. She’d been too weak.
Too weak to even carry on a conversation with him until lifeboat number 14
arrived.
Like many who experienced an
unparalleled trauma in their lives, Rose knew as she closed her eyes one last
time before death that, if given a chance, she would do it all over...
Tap.
Tap tap tap.
Click.
The basic functions of Chelsea’s
laptop seemed to echo through the empty house at a much louder volume than
normal. This didn’t bother her, of course. With no one around, there was no one
to hear and better yet, no one to complain. Though frankly, if someone did
comment on the excessive noise, she wouldn’t have cared anyway. Chelsea
Davenport was not someone people would call a considerate person. Or a
compassionate one.
Tap tap tap tap. Double space.
Left click.
The rest of the family had
bustled out earlier that morning to visit Chelsea’s great aunt, who had been
institutionalized years ago for claiming an ability to see dead people, a la The
Sixth Sense.
Chelsea knew better than that,
however. She certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone that Great Aunt Shelby
wasn’t just a raving mad ninety-two-year-old. Or that she herself shared the
same paranormal ability. No, she had better things to do. Study for a
cumulative quiz on function notation, pine over a sweater she had on back order
from Abercrombie and Fitch. Watch grass grow.
Tap. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap
tap.
Chelsea slammed the screen shut
with a sharp click. "Stupid thing froze again," she muttered to
herself, yanking on the power cable, knowing that pulling the plug served the
same function as hitting the power button. The laptop battery pack hadn’t
worked in months.
Grumbling about her ability to
spend the morning chatting with George Washington but not have the financial
capacity to afford a decent computer, Chelsea twisted in her rolling desk
chair. As a job, communicating with the dead simply didn’t have much of a payoff.
Or any, really.
Which is why Chelsea had
developed a number of strict guidelines for dealing with her all too frequent
ghostly visitors. Firstly, ghosts didn’t talk to her. She talked to them.
"Ugh. Where are you?"
Rifling through the papers on her desk, Chelsea shuffled aside pages and pages
of school notes in search of her study sheet. Direct, selfish, and domineering
that she was, Chelsea had no tolerance for poor grades. Grades she earned more
for keeping up appearances as a superior being than for having any real
interest in her senior year classes. She’d developed a somewhat hard-hitting
attitude early in life, something she applied to all aspects of existence. She
frequently said exactly what she thought and did only the things she chose to,
with the exception of the whole talking to ghosts gig, that being nothing more
than some sort of freakish birth anomaly. But Chelsea still endeavored to
maintain a high degree of control--as much as she could--when it came to that
particular part of her life.
Example--as she reached into her
desk drawer to pull out a pen, she was pointedly ignoring the elderly ghost who
had been standing just behind her left shoulder for the past fifteen minutes.
But she had important things to do, much more important than speaking to this
particular ghost. This woman was dead and had all the time in the cosmos to
wait for service, while Chelsea not only had a math quiz in the morning, she
also needed to finish updating her tabs on a recent paranormal encounter.
Chelsea Davenport couldn’t just
talk to ghosts. She also possessed the ability to send them back. Back to their
former lives to live a portion over. There were rules to this, too, of course,
ones that hadn’t even been made by Chelsea. It was a generally accepted fact that
if she let someone have a do-over–which wasn’t often–they couldn’t do anything
earth-shattering with their new lease on life. Score higher on the SAT’s? Sure.
Not yell at a spouse moments before the heart attack that ended their life? Why
not.
But prevent a serious tragedy
from happening?
That was the biggest no of all.
No tragedy would mean no people
dying, causing changes in economic structure, social patterns, population
growth...
Besides, Chelsea was a sucker for
tragedies.
"This can’t be
right..." In the moment between finishing the write-up on the ghost most
recently sent back–to the RMS Titanic, so potential for slip-up was
unsettlingly high–and starting a new task, Chelsea realized her visitor was
mumbling to herself. "Where’s Jack? He’s supposed to be here. This can’t
be right..."
The woman was clearly distressed,
which was unsurprising as she had just shown up in Chelsea’s bedroom, which
must not have been where she assumed she would end up–Heaven, most likely,
the teen thought to herself. Chelsea hoped Jack was her grandson. Older ghosts
like her were usually easier to handle. Most often they just wanted her to pass
a message on to the grandkids–it’s okay that you played on your PS3 and never
came to visit me at the retirement center! In these cases, once Chelsea
promised to relay the heartfelt memo, the ghosts usually passed on.
Whether she did it or not.
And most often it was a not.
"I don’t understand...I
thought I died..."
Unable to resist the scathing
remark that demanded to be said, Chelsea turned to her visitor to say,
"You did," then resumed filing away her notes into the appropriate
sections of a binder.
In a voice much haughtier than
Chelsea would have expected from such an old woman, she floored her with,
"So, you can see me after all. Well, if you’re done ignoring me, could
please tell me what’s going on?" Apparently the old woman was more lucid
than she had thought.
Although instinct told her she
shouldn’t simply cave in, Chelsea knew that the faster she got this over with,
the sooner the ghost would be gone. "Rose Calvert, right? One hundred and
one years old, one of the last living survivors of the Titanic, ironically died
at its site."
Rose’s eyes widened, though the
effect was lost in her too tight, wrinkled face. "How do you–"
"Your picture was in the
obituary." Chelsea spared a glance at her watch. Almost five. Her family
would be home soon, and though none of them would be able to see Mrs. Calvert,
they would be able to hear her speaking to her. And getting caught in a Great
Aunt Shelby moment was not high on her to-do list. "You obviously want to
go back, or you wouldn’t be here. So, what is it you want? Forget to write a
will? Didn’t see your great-granddaughter before you died?"
There was a long pause while Rose
appeared to process this. Chelsea resisted the urge to start ignoring her
again.
"What?"
A sigh. If there was one thing
Chelsea hated most, it was repeating the stupid explanation about going back.
But if she was going to be stuck here with the ancient Mrs. Rose Calvert for
the next hour, she might as well make it easier on herself.
In less than the blink of an eye,
Rose’s appearance changed completely. Gone was the curly white hair, replaced
with a rich, red mane, already neatly pinned behind her head. Her eyes, just as
blue and vibrant as they had always been, remained unaltered, but the skin
around them firmed, the wrinkles gone and her face rounder and smoother. Her
body, rather than that of a century-old crone, was that of a strong, sturdy
young woman around Chelsea’s own age. Her hands were soft and uncalloused and
her complexion an unblemished, creamy white. She opened and closed her mouth
one–two–three times, taking in what had happened.
Chelsea merely shrugged with
indifference. "At least now we’re getting somewhere."