Page 134 of The Girl Out of Time
“But that’s impossible.”
“The ripples. The goddamn ripples.”Thatwas what she saw that day when she was speaking to Emmeline on the beach. Not a camera glitch. A ripple. Emmeline had made it, probably accidentally. But not all of them were accidental. “We need to go through those notes again. We need the position of every single ripple.”
“For what?”
“Now it makes sense. They were created by a time traveler.” Emily reached her hand to her forehead. “That’s why they’re notentirelyrandom. It’s extremely hard to be precise in time travel, using your body only. We use the watches to help us! But Emmeline doesn’t have one.”
“Emmeline?”
“She’s the one making the ripples.” Sorrow giving way to determination, Emily grabbed the sofa’s backrest and leaned over. “She’s traveling through time. Will said he couldn’t find her on theTitanic,not because he didn’t look hard enough, but because she’s not there anymore. She made a ripple and popped over into 1815, or 1816 …” She scrambled for the folder with the notes and brought out the newspaper clipping with the marriage banns. “That’s where she is. That’sourEmmeline.”
James shook his head. “But how can you know? We have no proof …”
“Leon. Will said the boy she has a crush on was called Leon. That boy was on theTitanic, the last we knew. And who is she marrying here?” She tapped her finger on the line. “That’s not a coincidence. WheneverI discovered new time travel powers, it was usually in a moment of high emotions or distress. I think she’s done so, too. After the quarrel with Will, emotions would’ve been running high. She opened a portal, accidentally or not, and she and Leon went a hundred years into the past.”
James only stared at her.
“You’re not gonna try to correct me?”
“Honestly, I’ve learned that with you, I should go with the flow,” he said.
“No, no, you don’t see.” She walked around the couch and grabbed him by the shirt. “Those portals stay open for a bit, in the time they were made in. And if there’s a portal leading from theTitanicto 1815 …”
“That means it goes the other way, too.”
“It goes to theTitanic. Right on the night of the sinking.” She released him and grabbed her phone. “You go pack up. Make sure you grab our watches and almonite clothes, too.”
“And you?”
“I’m getting us plane tickets to England.” She looked up from the screen. “I’m gonna go save my best friend.”
Chapter 34
Emmeline wobbled down the narrow, abandoned hallway as gravity kept pulling her to the right. She didn’t know where the water was coming from, but it had risen up to two or three inches, and its coldness pierced through her ankles like ice.
Had she made a mistake? Had she come back to the wrong ship? No, this had to be it. The hallways looked the same as when she’d left them. But what was happeningonthe ship?
Relief momentarily doused her fears as voices drifted from up in front. The water was deeper in that direction, but she needed to find someone. She needed explanations. She pulled up her skirts and jumped through the water, finally arriving at a larger, open space, the water frothing around the benches at the side and a lower platform in the middle. A man splashed across the room, joining a smaller group heading up a narrow staircase. Among them—a dark-haired man in a familiar, deep blue coat.
“Theo!” Emmeline waded through, brushing the edge of the platform. “Theo!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. Why wouldn’t he respond,when she was but a few feet away from him? She reached him, yanked him by the coat; he turned, and …
She didn’t know the man.
“What’s your problem, miss?” he bit out in annoyance.
“I’m sorry, I thought you were … where did you get that coat?” It was Theo’s, for certain; she’d seen it only hours before.
“My cabin mate gave it to me. It was a fair and square exchange, so if you’re having any thoughts—”
Of course! She was so stupid. Theo had been wearing this coat on the first day she’d met him on theTitanic, but not on any of the days afterward. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.” The man tore out of her grasp. “I gotta go up on deck. You should, too. They’re bound to start evacuating us any minute now.”
When she still stood there, he shook his head and added, “He might be on the other side of the ship. Plenty of people went there.”
“Where?”
He sighed, turned her around, and pointed. “Down the hallway, yeah? Keep following it till the end.”
