Page 145 of The Girl Out of Time
Where were the other boats? Did Will and Emmeline make it into one of them?
“Go back,” a weak voice came, and only after a second did she realize it was her own. “Go back. We have to go help them.”
“Yes,” another woman said. “We have enough room left!”
The sailor in charge of the boat looked over his shoulder. “If we get near, they’ll swarm the boat. Then we’ll all go down. Is that what you want?”
“My husband and daughter might still be there!” Sylvia objected, her voice hitching on tears.
“We’re too far away, anyway,” the sailor said. “They’ll all be gone by the time we get there. The boats closer than us can pick them up.”
The other woman quieted, and Sylvia swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Mama,” Tristan peeped, and she pressed him closer to her chest. On her other side, Brendon unmovingly stared at the empty ocean, shock frozen on his face.
Sylvia, too, stared into the dark, into where the ship and all the lights and her memories used to be.
To where Will and Emmeline might still be.
In the place where the stern dipped, a light flickered—a strange little bead, not a star, but not the light of a ship, either. It was so tiny she could barely see it, and she briefly wondered what it was, before the stream of tears clouded her vision and the gripping fear of her daughter and husband’s fates pushed out all other thoughts.
***
Emmeline wrapped her arms around Theo as he hugged her, and they stayed hovering in the in-between. On one side, the chill of the arctic night pressed against them; on the other, the heat from the flames engulfing Lady Scarlet’s castle gently fanned them. Both ways was doom; their only chance was for her to keep the passage going, to keep them stranded in between, as somehow, that kept them afloat in pure air. Out of the fire, out of the ice.
She clenched her teeth and redirected all her forces toward the passage.Don’t let go.Whatever she did, she couldn’t let go. She had to keep them out here, above the water, even as her body locked up and cold ripped into her bones.
They didn’t talk. She didn’t know how long they stayed like this; how long the ocean beneath them flowed silently and stars passed over their heads. At some point, she closed her eyes. She didn’t even realize she’d done it, but she was so tired and couldn’t look anymore; she needed to focus on the passage.
Keep it going.
Keep it …
“Emmeline,” Theo’s voice came, gentle, as if he was trying to nudge her awake.
Her eyelids were heavy, but with great effort, she raised them. The darkness was gone. A pinkish-golden dawn glittered on the horizon, turning the sea blue. In the light of a new day, they were revealed—shards of icebergs, all around them, in all shapes and sizes, a pale, whitish-blue, piercing the sea surface.
And dark against the horizon, a ship. A small steamer with a single smokestack rising up in the sky. Close. Here. Their rescue. Relief flooded her veins, making her realize how exhausted she was.
“You can let go now,” Theo said.
And she could hold no longer, so she did.
Chapter 38
Asoft voice cut through the fog, calling her name. Gradually, Emmeline’s senses awakened, painting the world around her, even with closed eyes. The warm brush of a blanket across her chest. The herbal, zesty smell of tea wafting past her nostrils. The murmur of voices and clinking of metal in the far distance. And a comforting hand, holding hers.
She opened her eyes, and the blurry streaks of white and gray cleared into the sight of bare white walls and a door with a porthole, a single ray of sun finding its way through. She was lying on a bed, and Theo sat next to her, his lips spreading into a smile when she turned her head to him.
“Welcome back,” he said. “Careful, slowly—” He helped her as she attempted to rise into a sitting position. He poured a cup of tea and pressed it into her hands; she gratefully wrapped her fingers around the warm porcelain. The terrible, numbing cold was gone from her bones, but she still clung to the teacup as if it could chase away the memories, too.
“What happened? Where are we?”
“We’re on the shipCarpathia,” Theo said. He looked well enough—tired, with shadowed eyes and unruly hair, but some color in his cheeks, and wrapped in a warm blanket, himself. “They came to rescue us. Pick up everyone …” He looked down, gulping. “Everyone they still could. They’re taking us to New York. We’re three days out, they say.”
“Three days …”
“You’ve been sleeping for most of the day.” He absentmindedly rubbed her hand. “But you’re all right. Everything is going to be fine.”
