Page 142 of The Girl Out of Time
“Okay, no, but she’ll still kill me if she finds out I left her husband behind.”
He sighed. “How do you find this portal?”
“It’ll activate when anyone with almonite in their blood comes near. So it’ll work for either of us.”
“Then I’ll go. I’ll try. But you go either to the boats or … can you time travel back from here?”
“I might be able to.” It was hard to wrap her mind around it. Her body was in present-day England; then she’d time traveled to 1815 with the help of her watch, which created a duplicate of her body in that time. But from there, she went through a portal—and she had no idea how those worked. Did this still count as her duplicate body, or did traveling through a portal scramble something?
Either way, it would be risky to try. If she traveled and disappeared from here, she couldn’t make it back in time to help Will. Not through that flooded passage.
“If you can, go,” Will said. “I’ll take care of myself.”
“You don’t even know where exactly the passage is. And how do I know you’re not trying to trick me, huh?” She attempted a smile. “That you won’t give up the moment I’m gone, like all of those men outside, smoking cigars and enjoying the last song from the band?”
His silence told her enough. Realization set heavy in her stomach. “Youaretrying to trick me, aren’t you? Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you fight?”
He put down the glass. “Because they said women and children first, and I wouldn’t do to someone else what I don’t wish to be done upon me. Imagine if, when I got Sylvia and the children in the boat, a man jumped in and threw them out. Imagine I do that to someone’s wife or child.”
Emily huffed. Of all the times and places to cling to honor! But she should’ve known. She knew him, after all.
“I promised Sylvia I’d be right after her.” Will stared morosely into the amber-red cognac left in the glass. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever lied to her.”
Emily pushed the glass away and leaned on the bar. “Nuh-uh, Gramps. That’s not how it’s gonna go.”
“We can’t swim all the way to the portal.”
“Well, then, I’ll find—” She was about to roll up the plan when her eyes stopped on the large, empty space near the hallways where the portal was.
The first funnel.
She looked Will straight in the eyes. “I have another plan. And you’re going to like it even less.”
***
Emmeline had wondered why she suddenly found it so hard to run, like her feet were chained down with iron, until her eyes lifted to their goal—the stern—and she realized it was rising higher and higher above them while the crowd closed in from behind. Up in front, a collapsible boat had been slid off the roof of the officer’s quarters, and the crew scrambled to get it ready. Hope lit up in her chest again. Perhaps this time, they’d accept any passengers, not only women. At this point, they could no longer afford to prioritize.
“The boat,” she panted at Theo. He nodded, and they ran toward it; but the fastest people in the crowd had already caught up with them. Another group came streaming in from the inner side of the ship, and something hit Emmeline hard in the back, and then on the side, and her fingers, numbedfrom the cold, left Theo’s grip. A man came between them, then two. Theo yelled for her, and she for him, but she was being pushed and jostled to the side, thrown about like a leaf, until she could no longer distinguish Theo’s head in the crowd.
Somehow, she made it to the railing and clung to it for dear life as people rushed past her, some to the remaining boat, others ahead to the stern. “Theo!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, but her voice couldn’t pass the crowd.
She wrapped his jacket tighter around her, trying to find solace in the leftovers of Theo’s sandalwood smell, and moved toward the stern, clenching the railing. A terrible rush came, and more screams, and then a low, metallic groan from behind her. She turned in horror. The first funnel was leaning over, and as she watched, lowered slowly toward the sea, where the rest of the ship had sunken, too. As it hit the water, the metal of the funnel collapsed as if it were but crumpling paper, and Emmeline stared, half in awe, half in terror. When she’d climbed one of those funnels, they seemed so solid, safe, indestructible. She’d once stood on the top of it and watched the crowd wave them goodbye on this magnificent journey, and now pieces of metal lay scattered in the water, people screaming around them, scrambling to get somewhere—away from the ship, back to it, she didn’t know.
All she knew, as water foamed around the funnel and encroached upon the deck, was that they were going under—fast.
***
Emily trembled, holding Will’s hand, as they stood on the roof of the officer’s quarters and watched the funnel fall down. Perhaps it was her imagination, but for a moment, everything seemed quieter, as the screams of many were stifled by the collapsed funnel. Then, they returned tenfold, harrowing, haunting, wailing into the night. Why had she done this? Why didn’t she stay at home and let the past take its course?
But as gallons of water rushed into the empty hole left by the funnel and the shafts running alongside it, she reminded herself of her mission.Theirmission. She and Will were getting out of here. She’d make sure he wouldn’t become one of the fourteen hundred, ninety-six, or fifteen hundred and three, or fifteen hundred and seventeen.
He’d been family to her ever since the day he first approached her, with his strange words and awkward gestures. And she wouldn’t leave family behind.
She tightened her grip on his hand. “Quickly, before it fills up,” she said. “Ready?”
His face was pale, but he nodded.
She held up her other hand and counted down. Three, two, one—she took the in-breath of her life, and together, they dove into the inky void.
