I wish I could stay here forever, but I know I can’t. Lights-out is only a couple of hours away, and every second with Sofía is stolen from a past I don’t really have a right to claim.
“Have you ever jumped to another point in the past from the past?” Sofía asks as the credits begin to roll. She turns the volume down.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, could you take me from here to the Titanic? The ship, I mean.”
“I . . . I don’t see why I couldn’t,” I say. Usually when I’m in another time, I start to feel the pull of my own timeline, like a rubber band tugging to bring me back home. But I don’t feel that here. Sofía’s more my home than any point in time. With her, I could go anywhere.
A wicked grin smears across her face. “Let’s do it, then,” she says. “Let’s go to the ship. Just for a second. Let’s see what it’s like.”
“I think we’d stick out a bit,” I say, looking down at my T-shirt and jeans.
“I’ll make us invisible,” Sofía responds. “I don’t care if they can see us, I just want to see the ship.”
I nod. “Give me a second,” I say, closing my eyes and focusing on the timestream.
I’ve tried to go to the Titanic before. Phoebe used to make me play with her while I pushed her on the tire swing and she screamed out that she was king of the world. I didn’t get my powers until high school, but I remembered playing pretend with her so vividly that it felt real. So of course one of the first places I tried to go after I got my powers was to the ship. I had gone with the intention of warning people about the icebergs, though, so time pulled me back. I was blocked from there, never able to return.
But my intentions are different now. I just want to see the ship, to stand on the deck and see the stars over the frigid sea and maybe spot the iceberg but say nothing. I know now that this is a moment in time that cannot be changed.
I scan the timestream, looking for the moment in April 1912 when the vast ship disappeared in a sea that was far vaster than it.
“Ready?” I say, reaching blindly for Sofía’s hand.
Sofía’s fingers slip through mine, and she grips me tightly. “Ready,” she whispers.
I glance at her and watch the timestream wrap around her the way it does me. The strings move like ripples in water, easily gliding over her body. It’s clear she can’t see what I can, but I wonder if she feels the threads of her own present and future and past wrapping around her, if she can feel the red thread that connects us together, or the way it cuts off abruptly in 1692.
She turns and smiles at me.
I squeeze her hand and reach out with my other one for the dark spot in the timestream indicating the night the Titanic sank. The strings are so cold they burn my skin, but I don’t let go, feeling the familiar tug at my navel as I’m pulled into the past.
At first I see only darkness and pinpricks of lights—stars, I think, but no, it’s more than that, it’s the lights of the ship, glittering in the lonely sea. Sofía’s grip on my hand tightens as the sound of the hull slicing through the waves fills our ears and the wooden boards of the ship’s deck solidify under our feet.
As soon as the cold air hits our skin, Sofía turns us both invisible. I hadn’t realized that her powers had grown so much stronger—it’s not like we talked about our powers on dates—but it gives me some comfort to know that she probably has the strength to stay hidden and safe in Salem.
I feel her body scoot closer to mine. I want to let go of her hand so that I can wrap my arm around her shoulders, but I settle with dropping my chin on the top of her head.
“It’s freezing out here!” she whispers.
“That’s the only thing you can think of?” I ask, smiling. I pull her across the smooth wooden deck of the ship, turning her around so that, rather than the dark waves of the ocean, Sofía can see the lit-up, glorious ship we’re on. She gasps, and I can feel her head tilting back, leaning as far as she can to drink in the exterior of the ship.
“It’s gorgeous,” she breathes.
“Come on,” I say, pulling her to the railing.
With the bright lights behind us, we can see the endless sky and stars. There are few people out here this late at night, just some well-dressed men talking in low voices and a few workers. I reach out for the timestream and feel that it’s close to midnight.
Close to the moment we’ll hit the iceberg.
Sofía’s twisted around, holding my hand awkwardly to keep us invisible, her back to the railing and her eyes still on the enormous ship. But I face the other way, squinting into the dark, trying to find the iceberg. The sky is moonless, and I can see nothing but the sparkle of stars and reflected lights from the ship on the waves immediately in front of us. A bell rings, and the ship changes course, enough to make us lose our footing. Sofía’s hand clutches mine in a death grip.
The men who’d been talking stand up, shake each other’s hands, and then walk together away from the deck, toward the cabins. As soon as they’re out of sight, Sofía lets go of my hand.