The Time-Traveling Fashionista (16 page)

Anna nodded. “But where exactly are we going?”

“I don’t know. I want to get a clear map of the ship in my head. Do you know your way around?” From what she had seen, there
seemed to be miles of passageways that all looked remarkably similar. “Do you know where the navigation room is?” Louise asked
more specifically.

“Yes, I do,” Anna said as she nodded vigorously. “Although it’s off limits to passengers; we’re not allowed up there.”

“That’s where we need to go!” Louise decided. “There must be someone there who will believe us and change course.”

“Captain Smith is a very powerful man,” Anna interrupted, grabbing her arm. “It’s not going to be easy to find someone
who will disobey his orders. Especially if the new orders are coming from two women.”

Louise sighed, feeling another surge of panic. She kept forgetting that in 1912 women didn’t even have the right to vote,
and that her opinion might be ignored simply because it came from a female voice. “Maybe we should first find Glenda and Marla.
If you saw them and Lucy saw them, then they must be on the
Titanic
with us….”

“The witches?” Anna trembled, interrupting Louise’s train of thought.

“I’m afraid it might be the only way.”

“I think we should go with the first plan,” Anna said nervously. “I mean, how will we know it won’t work if we don’t even
try? And I know someone who might help us.”

“Who?” Louise asked.

“Oh… just some boy,” Anna replied quickly.

“You lead the way,” Louise ordered. “We can use all the help we can get.”

“This way,” Anna said as she motioned for Louise to follow her. They scurried in a thoughtful silence until they reached the
outer deck and then headed toward the bow of the ship. Anna led them past a group of ladies lounging on wooden deck chairs
huddled under white blankets embroidered with the White Star insignia, sipping hot toddies and enjoying the morning sun.

Louise looked up and saw several wooden lifeboats suspended with ropes and cables overhead. Maybe she and Anna could urge
the ladies to come with them and get one down and escape now before the
Titanic
hit the iceberg.

Staring up at the lifeboats, Louise was suddenly transported back to her history class. She could hear Miss Morris’s dull
but informative voice inside her head. “The fatal flaw of the
Titanic
was that it did not contain nearly enough lifeboats for its two thousand passengers. To compound this fact, the boats were
frantically lowered into the sea half empty, and precious lifesaving seats were left vacant.”

How could Louise justify stealing a boat for a handful of people when there already weren’t enough seats for every passenger?
And, she realized, the chances of convincing these ladies to put down their steaming drinks to get into a small lifeboat in
the middle of the freezing cold Atlantic Ocean was pretty unlikely. As badly as she wanted to get off the ship, she realized
that she wasn’t willing to save herself at the expense of so many others.

“We’re almost at the bridge,” Anna said in between breaths to Louise.

“The bridge?”

“That’s the place where the ship is navigated from.”

“Perfect. You lead the way.”

Anna continued to lead them hurriedly down the deck and
then stopped suddenly at a door that read
PRIVATE—DO NOT ENTER
.

“Here we are,” she announced, looking at Louise ominously.

Louise glanced around. The coast was clear. The two girls opened the forbidden door and slipped inside.

“Follow me,” Anna whispered, grabbing on to a suspended ladder and hoisting herself up with ease. “It’s sturdy. Don’t worry,”
she added as she climbed up.

Louise hitched up her skirt, curious as to how Anna knew so much about this, and followed her friend up the dark wooden ladder.
She climbed over the top rung into what she realized must be the navigation room. Maps and sea charts were hanging on the
walls and spread out over every available flat surface.

“What are you ladies doing? Passengers are not allowed in here!” a voice boomed from somewhere behind them.

Startled, Louise and Anna spun around to find a young crew member with cropped blond hair wearing a navy White Star Line uniform.

“Anna, is that you?” The crew member’s voice suddenly lowered. “What did you bring her up here for? Now I’ll get in a heap
of trouble.”

It seemed that Anna did, in fact, have a secret crush, Louise immediately realized. A really cute secret crush.

“She won’t get you into trouble, Christopher,” Anna said as she took his hand. “I promise.” She gave him a quick kiss on the
cheek. “But I need you to help us out.” Christopher blushed a deep red and looked worriedly at Louise, or rather Miss Baxter.

He was definitely good-looking: sixteen, maybe seventeen years old, tan, very short sun-bleached hair, sky blue eyes. Actually
he was more Brooke’s type, Louise thought, instantly missing her best friend more than ever. She couldn’t help but wonder
if she would ever see Brooke again.

“I’ll try. But you really shouldn’t be in here. If Captain Smith comes up, that will be the end of it—and my job.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t let that happen,” Louise interrupted, rationalizing that it would be better to be fired than dead.

“It’s a bit complicated to explain,” Anna began, choosing her words carefully, “but let’s just say that Miss Baxter has had
a premonition that the
Titanic
is going to hit an iceberg and sink.” She grabbed Christopher’s hand tighter as she spoke. “We need you to change the course
of the ship, only by the slightest degree, or else we—”

“What?” Christopher interrupted, pulling his hand away. “Anna, have you lost your mind?”

“Please,” Louise pleaded. “You must believe us!”

“You want me to disobey my captain’s orders and lose my job because of a
premonition
?” His clear blue eyes opened wide in disbelief. “I will do you a favor and not tell the captain you were up here, but that’s
all I’ll do.” He put his hands up, backing away from the girls.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” Louise and Anna spun around and came face-to-face with a very angry Dr. Hastings. He shut
the door behind him and walked briskly over to Louise. “This has gone far enough,” he growled, grabbing her by the wrist.
“Now you’ve become a danger, not only to yourself but to the other twenty-two hundred passengers who are on this ship with
you.”

“Dr. Hastings, Christopher, you both need to listen to me! I am a respected actress, a public figure… and if the press hears
that you even attempted to lay one finger on me…” Louise said as she extracted her wrist from Dr. Hastings’s loosening grip.
This was by far her most impressive, Oscar-worthy Miss Baxter performance. “Well, the public would be outraged….” Louise trailed
off, noticing that Christopher suddenly looked very scared. Was she doing
that
good of a job? Anything to get off this boat!

Christopher raised his right hand and pointed at the wall across from Louise. He was ruining her plea; what could it be? She
looked over at Anna, who had turned a ghastly shade of pale.

Louise turned to the left, following Christopher’s terrified expression and pointing index finger. And what she saw shocked
even her. It was herself, twelve and awkward, dressed in a drab, old-fashioned costume, being reflected off the large circular
mirror hanging on the opposite wall. She felt her façade crumble. In the middle of her most important performance, she was
being exposed for who she truly was.

“Witches!” Dr. Hastings said with a snarl, his bottom lip trembling. “Good God Almighty, we’re dealing with witches.”

Louise and Anna slowly started backing away.

“You’re seeing things, Doctor,” Louise said cleverly, walking backward toward the captain’s wheel.

“Oh no, I’m not. I may be a man of medicine, but I know a witch when I see one.”

Before the evil doctor could drag her away, Louise frantically reached out, grabbed the massive wooden steering wheel, and
gave it a hard yank. She could have sworn she felt the boat jerk ever so slightly to the right.

“Stay the course!” Dr. Hastings bellowed as Christopher rushed to the wheel.

“Latitude, forty-one degrees, north, longitude, fifty degrees, west,” Christopher replied automatically.

Within minutes, the
Titanic
was back on its predestined route.

But maybe it was enough?
Louise thought frantically, as
Dr. Hastings tightened his grip on her and roughly pushed her toward the door.
Have I just rewritten history?

“We are going to put you where you won’t be able to cause any more trouble, somewhere very quiet and dark. Where no one will
be able to hear your hysterical nonsense. You have put all of our lives in danger with such theatrics. I need to alert the
captain as to who or what we’re dealing with here,” he said gruffly.

“No, Doctor!” Louise screamed. “I am not the one who is putting our lives in danger. But I suppose history will be the judge
of that!”

Louise and Anna were pushed roughly into a claustrophobically tiny broom closet off the navigation room. The door swung shut
behind them with a sickening slam.

“What are we going to do?” Anna sobbed, her head in her hands. They’d been sitting on wooden milk crates in a stunned silence
for what seemed like an eternity.

The windowless room was crowded with boxes and brooms and illuminated by one flickering bulb. Louise began furiously twirling
her hair. She did not like to be locked in small spaces for indefinite periods of time. Particularly when on a ship that was
probably going to collide with an iceberg before the day was over. She paced the perimeter of her prison like a caged animal.
When she had sufficiently exhausted herself from panic and fury, she sat down on an overturned, splintery crate next to Anna.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do…. I never liked mirrors. I guess they might end up being my downfall after all,” Louise
joked feebly. They were both quiet for a minute.

“Do you have a bobby pin?” She suddenly had an idea. In her Nancy Drew books, all that seemed to be required to spring open
a lock was a bobby pin or a credit card. And she had a feeling Anna wouldn’t have an AmEx on her.

Anna fished around in her tousled blonde bun for a moment and triumphantly pulled out an old-fashioned hairpin.

“Tell me again about Miss Baxter,” Louise requested, trying to calm Anna down while she straightened out the U-shaped tool.

“Well, you are, I mean, Miss Baxter is, very beautiful,” Anna answered, wiping her nose with her dress sleeve.

“I saw her photograph,” Louise said and then distracted herself for a moment with a sigh. The pin was taking a while to straighten.
“She looked like a gorgeous movie star.”

“You are. I mean, Miss Baxter is an actress. She’s quite talented. I’ve seen almost all of her theater performances and moving
pictures.”

“When I look in the mirror, I see myself; I’m twelve, not some glamorous woman,” Louise explained. “I can’t see Miss Baxter.
And even though it was fun for a little while, I don’t want her to be me. I miss me! That sounds so weird.”

“It’s so strange.” Anna had been listening intently. “When I look at you now, you are Miss Baxter. You are quite stunning.”

“She must have a wonderful life,” Louise mused, standing
up from her makeshift seat and heading over to the doorknob to try her new tool.

“I suppose,” Anna said hesitantly.

“She doesn’t?” Louise asked, surprised by her friend’s tone.

“I’m not quite certain. I never really could get to know her. She seems a little sad to me, a little distant. She is a very
private person.”

“Hmm…” Louise mused, focusing her attention on picking the lock, a task she had never done before in her life.

“For instance,” Anna started, “we would never be having this conversation if you were the real Miss Baxter.”

“That’s really sad,” Louise said, jiggling the pin in the lock, not exactly sure what she was doing but determined to make
it work.

“I think
she
was sad,” Anna replied. “Once I walked into her dressing room and caught her by surprise. She was all dressed up in this
beautiful pink evening gown. In fact, it was the same gown you were wearing when you fainted on the A Deck. And even though
it was an ordinary Sunday afternoon, she was made up as if for a gala. She had music playing on the Victrola and was twirling
around in this dress, looking absolutely carefree and lovely. I didn’t want to spoil the moment. But when she finally saw
me standing in the doorway, she stopped and got very angry. She yelled at me for not announcing myself. I felt as though I
had seen too much.”