THE SHIP OF DREAMS
Chapter Thirty
Mac and Anastasia followed
Michael and Callista to their cabin so they could discuss the situation without
worrying about waking Fabrizio. The girls clambered onto one of the spare bunks,
Michael took the chair, and Callista stood in the center. "What are we
going to do?" Anastasia asked. "Aren’t we going to save him?"
"Yes, but it isn’t safe to
do so right now."
"What?" Michael cried,
hopping to his feet. "You’re not just going to leave him there! They’ll
throw him into jail when we get to the states, and then what?"
Callista glared at Michael.
"I already know that. But it’s going to be very difficult to get him out,
as there is a guard who will be sitting in the room all the time."
"Why can’t we just create a
diversion, startle the guard so he runs out of the room, wait until he’s far
enough away, run in, and shut the door?"
Anastasia and Mac glanced at each
other. "That’s pushing it. I know that when they go to jail in New York,
sometimes they can get out on bail. We could always send for rubles from the
Tsar, and then we can convert it to American money."
Callista sat down on the bunk
opposite them and folded her arms. "I mean, as long as Sam didn’t actually
kill anybody, he’ll be safe, right?" Michael asked Mac, who nodded.
"Assault is bad, but murder
is always worse."
Callista sighed.
"It is my fault, Callista.
I’ll never forgive myself for having let it happen." Michael lowered his
head, and she sighed.
"Well, what’s done is done,"
she replied, and Michael bit his lip. He’d never felt more embarrassed in his
life, but all that could be done now was to try to get Sam out of jail.
"It’s a little after
eleven," Mac told everyone, pointing up at the clock on the wall.
"11:15, actually. I’ve never been allowed to stay up past ten."
Anastasia giggled. "If this
were any other occasion and you were just disobeying your father, he’d have you
grounded forever!"
Mac smirked. "Probably.
Should we go back to our cabin or just—stay here?" She glanced at Michael,
who was gazing out the window into the pitch-black night. Callista thought for
a moment, fingering a loose strand of her almost white-blonde hair.
"I think you had best get
back to your cabin, as Fabrizio is technically in charge of you. Michael, I
will let you return them," Callista added when Michael started to chime
in, and the girls blushed a little as he nodded to them.
"Come along then,
ladies." He shuffled them through the door.
"I’m not the least bit
tired, though," Anastasia told Mac as they walked at a quick pace.
"Me, either. But we probably
will be once we lay down," Mac replied.
"Maybe." Anastasia
doubted that, but she kept her mouth shut. They reached their cabin at last,
bid Michael good night, and shut the door behind him.
"Bon nuit!" Anastasia
giggled, once the girls were in their nightgowns, hair brushed, and under the
covers.
"Pantalon de smarty,"
Mac replied, sticking her tongue out, and the two attempted to go to sleep.
*****
Sam continued to lean against the
pole meanwhile, watching as Lovejoy reached into his pocket and took out an
extra pack of bullets. The pistol they would fill lay on the man’s lap, and Sam
felt his heart racing. Would he be executed for this? he wondered, a bit angry
that Callista had not even attempted to rescue him yet. He closed his eyes and
banged his forehead lightly against the pole, letting out an irritated sigh. He
knew Michael was young still, that the boy needed to be trained further, but he
wanted to wrap his hands around the teenager’s throat and strangle him at the
moment.
Another sound startled Sam out of
his thoughts, and he saw that Lovejoy had placed a single bullet at one end of
the desk, letting it roll down and into his hand with a small plink. Neither of
them said a word, and it was probably the silence that was the worst of all. If
he had his choice, he’d be calling him very nasty names in Russian, English,
French, and German, but he did not want to get himself into further trouble.
All you have to worry about is
what the Tsar will do to you when he finds out about this, he thought, and that alone made him sick
to his stomach. Then again, he’d only been doing his job, though perhaps a
little too well. He gazed up at the tiny porthole window, trying to let his
mind turn to something else.
*****
Rose took the long, somewhat
painful trek back to her stateroom at 11:30, wanting to check on Coddie Anna.
Jack was currently asleep, which she preferred him to be at this point, because
to be awake caused him a lot of pain. Though she hated the thought of leaving
him, the opportunity to stand up and stretch her legs was certainly a relief.
It was so cold outside when she
left the hospital wing that she felt her breath being sucked away. She wrapped
herself in her pale pink and black overcoat, her hair blowing with the wind.
She knew that Cal would be in bed by this point, so that, at least, was
somewhat of a comforting thought.
She gently pushed open the door
to her daughter’s room, tiptoeing over to the bed and flipping on the little lamp
on the desk. Coddie Anna lay tucked beneath the covers, so that Rose could only
see from her nose to her forehead. She watched the child’s chest move in a
steady up and down motion, and smiled to herself when Coddie’s feet
occasionally wriggled near the edge of the bed.
"Nuuurm," Coddie Anna
murmured as Rose bent over to kiss her cheek, and the girl turned away,
bundling more deeply into the covers.
"I’m sorry, Coddie
Anna," Rose whispered, feeling guilty that she hadn’t been spending enough
time with her child on this voyage. "I will make this up to you, I
promise."
"Mmmkay," Coddie Anna
croaked, and Rose raised an eyebrow.
"Are you awake?" she
asked, and Coddie Anna turned her head, her brown eyes fluttering open.
"Maybe."
Rose sat down, grinning. "You’ve
been awake this whole time, haven’t you, you silly goose?" She watched as
Coddie sat up, grinning playfully.
"How is Jack?" she
asked, rubbing her eyes and gazing around the dimly lit room. Rose frowned.
"He’s not any better, I’m
afraid."
"Oh."
"Are you angry with me for
spending so much time with him?"
"I don’t know," Coddie
Anna replied honestly.
"I see you’ve become rather
friendly with Cal." Rose hated to say the words, but it was true.
"He does love you, Mama. He
just doesn’t know how to show it," Coddie Anna told her. "Why can’t
you give him another chance?"
Rose sighed. "I’ve given Cal
many chances, Coddie Anna. To accept the engagement in the first place was more
of Grandmother’s decision than mine. I’ll admit I did not expect to find Jack
on the Titanic, but things happen for a reason."
"Do you really love Jack?
You haven’t known him for more than two days," Coddie Anna pointed out,
and Rose wet her lips. She refused to tell her daughter about their excursion
in the backseat of the Renault.
"I am falling in love with
Jack."
"How are you going to tell
Cal? He’ll be really upset if you say you don’t want to go ahead with the
marriage."
"I’ll have to think of
something."
"I just don’t want to see
you get hurt, Mama." Coddie Anna still couldn’t bring herself to like
Jack. There was just something about him that seemed so…she couldn’t quite put
a finger on it, but it made her feel very uncomfortable. Still, her mother was
so happy with him that she decided that if she were going to forgive anyone, it
would be her.
Rose stroked Coddie Anna’s hair
with the palm of her hand. "Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’m sorry I woke
you."
Coddie Anna nestled back under
the covers. "Are you going to stay with Jack all night?" she asked,
and Rose wet her lips.
"I think it is better if I
do. I’ll be back to take you to breakfast first thing in the morning, however.
You still have to tell me all about the ball."
Coddie Anna beamed. "I will!
Good night, Mama." She yawned, closing her eyes, and Rose went to flip the
light back off. She left the cabin, and just as she was standing on the deck,
she gazed ahead. She could see an outline of an enormous shape coming closer
and closer by the second, and her eyes widened with horror.
"What in the name of heaven
is that?" she asked, dashing a few inches closer. She didn’t need an
answer, for the terrible scraping jolt that threw her off her feet occurred
merely two minutes later.
*****
"Ah!" Anastasia
screamed as she felt the entire cabin give a violent movement, and she grasped
the bars connecting her bed to the one above her to avoid flying out. Fabrizio
and Mac yelped as well, but Mac was the only one who ended up on the floor.
"Mac, are you all
right?" Anastasia yelled over the loud rumbling that followed for another
couple of minutes. Mac propped her body up with her elbow, and her limbs ached
from hitting the wood.
"Yeah. What the heck was
that?" She forced herself to her feet and hopped onto the desk chair to
peer out the window. "Can’t see anything…it’s really dark! Wait! Holy cow!
Look!" She pointed, and Anastasia climbed down from her bunk to join Mac
on the chair.
They both saw the dark shape
passing by, and Anastasia’s mouth fell open. "Oh, my…"
"I think that’s…an
iceberg." Mac gulped, feeling her heart beating very quickly. "We’ve
hit an iceberg! I heard they were out in this area of the ocean."
Fabrizio had climbed down from
his bunk and was standing behind the girls. He was taller than both of them
together, and shook his head.
"What’s going to
happen?" Anastasia whispered, and suddenly the engines came to a complete
stop.
"I don’t know," Mac
admitted, scratching her head and glancing at the clock, which read 11:40.
They’d only been asleep for twenty minutes.
"This ship is unsinkable,
right?"
"The brochure says so,"
Mac agreed. "Oh, no…my father! What am I going to do? I want to make sure
he’s all right!"
"Well, we won’t do anything
until we find out what’s happening," Fabrizio told them.
"Plus, after what happened
up in first class, I don’t think it’s safe for us to go back now,"
Anastasia added, and Fabrizio gave her a strange look.
"What happened in first
class, eh?" he asked.
Mac blinked. "Well, I’m not
sure if we should tell you or not." She hesitated. "But we got into a
fight with Rose’s daughter Coddie Anna. She doesn’t like us, and she saw us
coming back over the rail after the party. Michael’s…friend…he tried to rescue
us, but he kind of threatened Rose’s fiancé, who came out and hurt Ana, and
then he was arrested."
"Arrested! Quello
terrible!"
Anastasia blinked. "What?"
"That’s terrible…you don’t
speak Italiano, no?"
She shook her head. "I’m
afraid I don’t. I only know how to speak French, Russian, English, and
German."
"That’s all right." He
grinned. "But maybe we should try to go back to sleep, and see what
happens from there?"
Mac gulped, not sure if she could
sleep at all at this point, at least not until she discovered what had occurred
as a result of the collision. She cringed as she climbed back onto the bed and
lay back against the mattress, staring up at the wooden base above her.
*****
Rose groaned as she eventually
stood again, and it took a moment or two before she could get over the shock of
the jolt. They’d hit an iceberg! She remembered going on a small tour of the
ship on the first or second day of the voyage, and the captain had mentioned
that there were sightings of ice nearby. She hurried to the hospital wing,
wondering how Jack had fared due to the jolt, and found him wide awake.
"Rose?" he croaked,
coughing and wheezing. "What—happened?"
She took his ice cold hand and
smoothed his damp hair away from his eyes. "We’ve…" She paused. The
last thing she wanted to tell him was that they’d hit an iceberg.
"Rose, something’s happened.
Tell me the truth." He sounded so weak and tired that Rose wanted to burst
into tears.
"Oh, Jack, we’ve…we’ve hit
an iceberg. I saw it on my way back."
Jack’s eyes widened. "An
iceberg?"
"You shouldn’t be
talking," Rose pointed out. "You need to keep whatever strength you
have to fight this." She kissed his forehead, which was still warm.
"Mac…" Jack began
coughing again, and Rose had to ease him into a sitting position so she could
rub his back soothingly. He leaned against her, shivering with more chills.
"Jack, I wish you would feel
better."
"I’ll be fine," he
promised, trying to smile. "Eventually."
Rose managed a chuckle. "Lay
back down and try to rest, sweetheart."
He did as she told him, and
closed his eyes as she began to blot his face and neck with a damp cloth again.
She leaned down to whisper, "I love you, Jack," into his ear. He
opened his eyes and touched her cheek with his fingers. He wanted to say
"I love you" in return, but he was afraid. He was afraid to open his
heart completely yet, not after what had happened to Alyiah. Still, Rose had
lost her spouse also, and felt it was all right to move on.
It is time to open your heart
again, darling. A
familiar voice spoke inside of his heart, and he breathed softly. It is time
to let go of me.
I will never be able to let go
of you, he replied, and
felt his stomach twisting into knots. Not my wife.
I will always be yours, but
you must live life while you still are in it.
"I…" Jack began to
speak, and Rose stared down at him.
"What is it, Jack?" she
asked, not sure what he was trying to say. "I love you, too, Rose,"
he managed to respond, and Rose opened her mouth and closed it.
"I know." She smiled at
him, and then urged him to go back to sleep.