BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Chapter One
"Promise me, Rose, and
never let go of that promise."
"I’ll never let go. I
promise." She detached his frozen fingers from hers and let him sink down…down
to the depths of the ocean…to the place that would be his watery grave forever.
Hermione sat engrossed in her
favorite movie, Titanic. She let a salty, sticky tear escape her eye and
roll down her face as she watched Jack sink into the water. The saddest part in
the whole movie…and she always had to cry at it. She watched as the rest of the
movie flashed on the screen before her and suddenly came to an ending and the
credits rolled. She sighed and turned off the VCR. As she lay down to sleep, parts
of the movie replayed in her head. The first sight scene, the flying scene, the
drawing scene, the car scene, and so many others…
Wouldn’t it be cool if I could
go back to that time and be on the Titanic? I wish I could, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
Her dreams were very confusing
and dark. A loud scraping sound greeted her ears, which were also met by the
sound of splintering wood. Then, suddenly, without warning, icy cold water was
around her. It was so cold that she hardly could breathe, and she couldn’t
think of anything but the pain, just like he had said.
Several times, a flash of
platinum blond hair and a pair of ice blue eyes swam before her. And suddenly
she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were screaming for air, her throat closing in
on her…and then she was suddenly woken up by a woman calling her.
"Rose! Get up! Now!"
screamed a woman’s voice.
Bleary-eyed, Hermione opened her
eyes. Her eyes traced the intricate wood ceiling, and next trailed down to the
elegant room with a vanity mirror and expensive furniture. Where am I? she
thought.
"Rose! Up!" called the
woman.
What does Mum want? And why is
she calling me Rose? Sure,
Rose was Hermione’s middle name. But her mother never called her by it. Never
in her life had Hermione heard her mother call her by her middle name. Sitting
up in bed, she took another look around the room. It was decorated with strange
objects that looked like they would be in style around the 1900’s. Confused,
she got out of bed and inched towards the vanity mirror, afraid to find out who
would be on the other side of the mirror.
"Rose! I shall not call you
again!"
Startled, Hermione turned towards
the door. Now that her mind was given a total wake-up, she noticed that it was
not her mother’s voice that called her. Who is it? Turning her attention
towards the mirror, she gasped when she saw the reflection.
A beautiful creature stood on the
other side of the mirror, staring back at her, open-mouthed and awestruck. The
tangled mess of curls that usually surrounded Hermione’s face was gone,
replaced instead with soft, luminescent curls that framed her face. Her eyes
roamed over her face. It was even more beautiful than before. The luster of her
pale-white skin made it glow radiantly. Her lips were shaped in a perfect curve
and were just the right shade of pink. Not a blemish, or a freckle, or a mole
disfigured her perfect face. Hermione stared open-mouthed at the figure. Surely
it couldn’t be her.
Reaching up a perfectly curved
pale hand, she touched her face, tracing the features of it. What was this? Was
it a dream? Was it a hallucination? Had she really woken up? Her train of
confused questions was interrupted.
"Rose Jean DeWitt
Bukater!" yelled the woman.
Hermione jumped at the sound of
the voice. Definitely not her mother’s voice. And what was up with the Rose
Jean DeWitt Bukater? Sure, Jean was her other middle name, but…
Hermione’s eyes widened as she
realized. Rose DeWitt Bukater. She was the girl from Titanic. No…it
wasn’t possible…surely she couldn’t…
She felt her face again,
absentmindedly looking back to last night and remembering something…a flash of
light across the midnight blue sky…a shooting star. Did it really work if you
wished on them? She remembered the words she had whispered that night, almost
like an uttered prayer.
Wouldn’t it be cool if I could
go back to that time and be on the Titanic? I wish I could, she remembered thinking. The beautiful
reflection’s eyes widened, mimicking her expression as she thought of what
could have happened. Could she have gone back in time the night she had wished?
The night there was a shooting star? Was that possible? Did that kind of magic
exist? Or was it an accident of some sort? Maybe a time paradox…
No. She was being stupid. There
wasn’t a time paradox. But could she have been sent back in time? What if she
had been kidnapped? Possibilities raced around in her head, each of them
sounding more and more bizarre.
"We need to hurry up so we
can get there in time to board the ship!" yelled the woman.
Startled out of her reverie,
Hermione jumped and walked over to the closet. She wondered what the woman
meant by the ship. Did she mean the Titanic, perhaps? Hermione was distracted
from her thoughts by the sounds of her footsteps on the wooden floor. Light,
weightless, almost no motion to stir the dust motes on the floor. So graceful…
Thinking back to the movie,
Hermione wondered what Rose had worn on the day of the boarding. Hadn’t she
worn a white suit with an oversized violet hat? Hermione opened the closet and
the first thing she laid eyes on was an oversized, elegant violet hat and a
white suit with purple trim. It was the exact suit from the movie.
She took out the dress
open-mouthed, aware that she was holding the same dress as Kate Winslet had in
the film. Or even Rose DeWitt Bukater, if she had been real--which she was
skeptical of. She dressed in the clothes and entered the room next to hers to
find a woman dabbing makeup on her pale, round face. The woman glanced up from
the mirror, saw Hermione, and glowered at her. Hermione’s heart leapt as she
realized that this was Ruth, Rose’s mother.
"Good morning, Sweetpea.
What took you so long?" came a rough voice from behind her.
She turned around, almost falling
down when she saw the man behind her, an elegantly dressed man with brown hair.
Hermione could only guess who this man was. Cal, Rose’s annoying fiancé, who
always failed in seducing her. She almost rolled her eyes at the sight of him.
"I suppose I was just
tired," she lied smoothly.
"I see," he said,
looking at her suspiciously.
"Well, I suppose we’d better
get our things ready to go," said Ruth. She called a couple of servants
and they started loading their trunks into some automobiles.
Hermione knew what was going to happen
now; she had the whole movie memorized, even though this wasn’t part of it. She
assumed that they would go to Southampton, the dock where the Titanic was
waiting--waiting for everyone to board her.
With her heart pounding, she
followed Cal, Ruth, and the servants out to the automobiles.