“It can’t be the
Mr. Briarley was already a flight and a half below her. She ran down after him, counting the decks as she went. B Deck. C. D. “There’s water coming in on D Deck,” the officer on the Boat Deck had said. She looked anxiously down at the carpet for the dark red stain of water.
E Deck. Below her, a door opened. She rounded the landing just in time to see it close. F Deck. She opened the door. Mr. Briarley was already halfway down the passage. “Mr. Briarley!” she called.
She started after him. And ran straight into the steward. “I’m sorry, miss. This area is restricted.”
“But I need to speak to Mr. Briarley,” she said, looking anxiously past him.
The steward turned and looked, but Mr. Briarley was already out of sight. “Mr. Briarley?” he said, frowning, and she saw that it was a different steward from the one the bearded man had sent to find Mr. Briarley.
“He’s my—” she said, and stopped. He’s my—what? My high school English teacher? Did they even have high schools in 1912?
“I’ll escort you back to your cabin, miss,” he said.
“Wait,” she said. “Where does that passage lead?”
“To the boiler rooms, miss, but passengers aren’t allowed in—”
“Captain Smith told me I had permission to go see—” What was in the boiler room? “—the ship’s telegraph,” she said at random. “I’m terribly interested in modern communications.”
“Only crew are allowed in the boiler rooms,” the steward said, and put a firm hand on her arm. “I’ll escort you back up to your stateroom.”
“Please,” Joanna said. “You don’t understand. It’s important—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a voice said, and Joanna jerked around. “Mr. Briarley!” she said, relieved.
“Ms. Lander,” he said disapprovingly. “What are you doing down here?”
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s about—” but he was shaking his head.
“I’m afraid we won’t be able to have tea in the Palm Court, after all. Something has come up.” He pulled the steward aside and spoke rapidly to him. Joanna couldn’t hear what either one said, but after a couple of sentences, Mr. Briarley snorted in disgust. “What’s the quickest way there?” he demanded.
“Back up to E Deck and down Scotland Road to the stairs next to the elevators,” he said, and Mr. Briarley immediately started back down the passage toward the stairway.
“Mr. Briarley!” Joanna dashed after him. “I need to talk to you,” she said, catching up.
“What is it?” he said, starting back up the stairs. It reminded her of times she’d caught up to him between classes, on his way to the office, and danced along at his side, asking him how many pages an assignment had to be.
“I need to know what you said in class,” Joanna said.
“You know I never give hints of what’s going to be on the final,” Mr. Briarley said, reaching the top of the flight of stairs.
“I don’t need to know it for the final,” Joanna said. “You said something in class—”
“I said a good many things in class,” Mr. Briarley said, reaching the top of the flight of stairs. “Can you be more specific?” He pushed open a door and started down a passage. They must still be in the crew section. The walls were painted gray, and there were pipes running along the ceiling.
“You were talking about the
“Mazes,” Mr. Briarley said thoughtfully, turning another corner. He yanked a metal door open. “After you.” He bowed, and Joanna went ahead of him through the door and into another passage. This one was painted a shiny white and stretched endlessly into the distance. Mr. Briarley set off down it at a rapid pace.
“And whatever it was,” Joanna said, “when I experienced my first NDE, my subconscious saw a connection, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Instead of in a tunnel with a light at the end of it,” Mr. Briarley said. He stopped and looked bleakly down the long passage and then turned and looked at her. “And you want me to tell you the connection?”
“Yes,” Joanna said.
“Connection. Fascinating word. From the Greek, ‘to send.’ But you must know the connection already,” he said to her, “or how could you have made it?”
“I
“Forgotten it? You should have paid more attention in class, Ms. Lander,” he said severely and began walking again. “I suppose you’ve forgotten what onomatopoeia is, too,” he said, “and alliteration. And a metaphor.”
“Mr. Briarley, please! This is important.”
“Indeed it is. Well?” he said and looked out over the passage as if it were a classroom, “What is a metaphor? Anyone?”
“A metaphor is a figure of speech that likens two objects.”
“Wrong, and wrong again,” he said. “The likeness is already there. The metaphor only sees it. And it is not a mere figure of speech. It is the very essence of our minds as we seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experiences, ourselves, seeing similarities, parallels, connections. We cannot help it. Even as the mind fails, it goes on trying to make sense of what is happening to it.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, Mr. Briarley,” Joanna said. “Make sense of what’s happening to me. And what you said in class is the connection. It was about the
“There are so many connections,” he said, frowning. “The
The passage was endless. Joanna kept her eyes fixed on the door at the far end. “Or the futility of human endeavor. ‘Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair,’ ” he quoted. “ ‘Ozymandias.’ Percy Bysshe Shelley. Who also ended up at the bottom of the ocean.”
Water, in a harrow, uneven line, was trickling down the middle of the shiny floor from the end of the passage. “Mr. Briarley,” Joanna said, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt, “look. Water.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, not even slackening his pace. “Water is a symbol, too.” The thin line of water was growing wider as they neared the end of the passage, becoming two, then three rivulets. “The crossing of water has been a symbol of death since ancient times,” Mr. Briarley said, stepping easily between the rivulets. “The Egyptians journeyed to the Land of the Dead in a golden boat.”
They were nearly to the end of the passage. He’s going to open the door, Joanna thought, frightened, but at the last minute he turned and went down a dry metal stairway at the side. “Aeneas is rowed across the Styx to the underworld by the boatman Charon,” he said, his voice echoing in the stairwell as Joanna rattled down after him, “and Frodo sets sail for the Blessed Realm.”
He reached the bottom and started off down a passage. Joanna saw with relief that the floor was dry, though how was that possible, when there was water on the deck above? She looked anxiously up at the low ceiling overhead. Mr. Briarley, unconcerned, was discussing “In Memoriam.” “Tennyson’s dead friend sets sail over an unknown sea, to a still more unknown shore.” He opened a door. “And, of course, there’s the River Jordan. After you, Ms. Lander,” he said, bowing, and Joanna stepped across the threshold. And into six inches of water.
The entire floor was awash. Letters, packages, postcards floated in the ankle-deep water, the ink on the addresses blurring, running down the envelopes in streaks like tears. On the far side of the room a mail clerk in a dark blue uniform and cap was bending in front of a wooden rack of pigeonholes, taking letters, already wet, out of the lowest row and moving them up to the top row.
It won’t do any good, Joanna thought. The whole room will be underwater in a few minutes. “Mr. Briarley, we all need to get out of here,” she said, but Mr. Briarley, oblivious, was splashing across the room to the mail clerk, pulling a folded piece of paper from his gray tweed vest pocket, and handing it to him.
The mail clerk shifted the stack of mail to one hand so he could unfold the note. He read it, nodded, and handed Mr. Briarley the sodden mail. Then he reached inside the neck of his uniform and pulled out a ring of iron keys on a chain. He lifted the chain and the keys from over his head and handed them to Mr. Briarley, taking back the mail.
“Which one is it?” Mr. Briarley asked, but the mail clerk had already begun sorting again, putting the
