The Titanic Locket, Page 6

  Samantha’s heartbeat accelerated. This didn’t sound good at all. Was some animal in there with Jessica? She remembered the scratching and whimpering.

  “Jess? Jess, what’s going on in there?”

  No reply.

  Something crashed against the wall. Glass shattered.

  “Jess! Open the door! What’s going on?”

  Then a warm sensation caressed her toes. Her socks were wet.

  Water was seeping under the door.

  Samantha turned the doorknob. Locked! Frantically she shook the knob with all her strength. “Jess! Open up! Jess!”

  She had to get help!

  But she couldn’t leave her sister in there!

  “Help!” Samantha shouted, still shaking the knob. “Somebody! Help!”

  A dark-haired woman ran in from the hallway. She was dressed in black pajamas, wrapped in a red-and-orange paisley-print satin robe. Her tumble of curls created a mane of dyed black hair around her lined face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t open the door. My sister’s in trouble in there,” Samantha explained, speaking fast.

  “Ah! I knew it!” the woman exclaimed. Coming beside Samantha, she placed both of her palms on the door and leaned into it as though she were attempting to push down the door. “Spirit, depart!” she shouted.

  Surprised, Samantha looked at the woman quizzically. What was she doing?

  “Depart now, spirit! Spirit, depart! I command you to go!”

  “Do you think that’s really helping?” Samantha questioned doubtfully. They were wasting precious time. “Maybe I should wait here while you go get some —”

  The woman ignored her. “Go! I command you, spirit! Go!”

  Something within the lock snapped.

  Samantha and the woman exchanged an anxious look. Had it opened?

  Samantha tested the knob. Yes! Throwing the door back, Samantha and the woman rushed into the steam-clouded bathroom.

  “Oh my gosh!” Samantha shouted as she slogged into water on the floor. Through the misty fog she could make out that the rod that had held the shower curtain now lay in the water and the curtain was bundled under the water of the overflowing tub.

  “Jess!” Samantha shouted as she realized what she was seeing. Jessica was wrapped from head to toe like a mummy in the white lace shower curtain, struggling blindly to free herself. She was drowning in the tub.

  “Help me!” Samantha shouted to the woman who had come into the bathroom with her.

  Jessica was sinking even lower below the surface of the flowing water. It was as though an invisible hand was pushing her down. Jessica’s entire body writhed as she struggled to get above the water. In minutes she would lose the battle.

  “Pull the rod away!” Samantha implored the woman. The woman sprang to the tub and yanked it away. Immediately the two of them hoisted Jessica up so she wouldn’t sink any deeper below the water’s surface. Samantha yanked the lace curtain from Jessica’s face, while the woman shut off the faucet with a clank.

  “Spirit! I command you! Depart!” the woman shouted at the top of her voice, standing in the middle of the room with her arms outstretched. “Leave, I tell you! Leave!”

  A fierce growl filled the steam-choked room.

  “Go, I say!” The woman’s tone held authority and strength. “Go, now!”

  A calmness fell over the bathroom. Samantha felt the gooseflesh on her arms settle back into her skin.

  Kneeling in the water, Samantha held on to her sister. Jessica didn’t seem to realize that she was now safe. “Leave me alone!” she shouted. “Stop it! Stop!”

  Samantha tightened her hold on Jessica to calm her. “It’s okay! It’s all right!” Slowly Jessica stopped waving her arms, and her hands flew to her face as if to block out the terror of what had just occurred.

  “Something attacked me!” Jessica cried, terrified. “It grabbed me by the neck and shoved me down. Then it ripped the shower curtain off the hooks and wrapped me in it.” She began to sob. “It kept holding me under the water. I was so frightened!”

  “Let’s get her into the other room,” the woman advised.

  Nodding, Samantha put a towel around Jessica’s shoulders as they guided her to standing. Jessica began to rise but suddenly went rigid, her eyes going wide.

  “What? What is it?” Samantha asked urgently. “What do you see?”

  Jessica didn’t reply but continued to stare at something. Samantha realized it was behind her and whirled around to look.

  Words had appeared in the steam-covered bathroom mirror. One after the other, they were drawn out by an invisible finger.

  Slowly Samantha tried to make out the message. “Sta … stay … stay aw …”

  Stay away! Or else!

  THE SPIRIT is still here,” the woman murmured as they hurried out of the bathroom. “I have weakened it, but it has not fled. We must be very careful.”

  Samantha got Jessica seated on her bed and threw the covers over her to keep her warm. “I guess we’d better tell someone about the mess in the bathroom,” Samantha considered. “We’ll need to mop that up.”

  “No, we won’t,” the woman said, nodding toward the bathroom.

  Samantha gasped. The bathroom was dry and the tub once more stood with the oval rod and lace curtain just as they had been, as if nothing at all had happened. Samantha looked to the woman for an explanation.

  The woman rose and went to the cabin door, opening it. 266. “This said two-ninety-nine when I got here. It’s changed.”

  “It’s been changing back and forth since we boarded,” Samantha explained.

  “Trevor told me about what has been happening to you girls,” the woman said. “He’s my son, whom you met earlier.”

  “Do you believe us?” Jessica asked.

  “Of course she does,” Samantha said. “She saw the numbers change for herself.”

  The woman nodded thoughtfully. “I believe that the number only says two-ninety-nine when we are in the presence of the supernatural. Since it is now two-sixty-six, it’s safe to say the spirit has left. Rather, I should say, the spirits.”

  “There are more than one?” Samantha questioned.

  “I sensed two in the bathroom. They are both gone now.”

  “I’m Samantha, and this is Jessica.” Samantha introduced them. “What’s your name?”

  “My name is Rula Valenska. I am known to the ship crew as Madame Valenska.”

  “Thank you for helping us,” Jessica said.

  “I startled the spirit, breaking its concentration long enough for the door to open. I thought it had fled, but it was in there with us the whole time.”

  “Both spirits?” Samantha asked.

  “No. The second spirit entered after we went into the bathroom.”

  “How did you get it to leave?” Samantha asked.

  “I have been dealing with the spirit world for many years,” Madame Valenska replied. “I’ve grown sensitive to the vibrational patterns that spirits emit. Over the course of time, I have trained my voice to vibrate at a frequency that frightens them.” Sam recalled the richness and resonance of Madame Valenska’s voice when she spoke to the spirits.

  “It was lucky you were walking by when I called for help,” Jessica remarked.

  Madame Valenska shook her head ominously. “It was not luck. I came as soon as Trevor told me what was going on. Thank goodness I came when I did. Only a person as experienced with spirits as I am could have contained such an agitated spirit.” She extended her arms majestically, which caused her many bangles to jingle.

  Jessica and Samantha exchanged charged glances. What were they getting into? Was this woman for real?

  A wry smile appeared on Madame Valenska’s heavily lined face. “I am being honest with you. This unruly spirit is capable of real damage.”

  “Trevor told us you work on the ship. Are you a medium for the cruise line?” Samantha asked.

  “Exactly! But I do not read palms or contact the dea
d for the entertainment of passengers. I work undercover.”

  “Undercover?” Jessica asked. And then, as though the words sounded appealing, she snuggled down beneath her blanket, laying her head on her pillow.

  “Yes,” Madame Valenska answered. “When the cruise line re-created the Titanic, a tsunami of souls from the spirit world landed on its deck. They were all former passengers from the Titanic. It was a golden opportunity for them. Lots of unfinished business to be resolved, it seems.”

  “Unfinished business?” Samantha questioned.

  “Grievances left unvoiced, love words never spoken, apologies neglected — that sort of thing,” Madame Valenska explained. “No one expected the Titanic to sink, after all. The passengers all assumed they had time to take care of those things in the future. Little did they suspect that there was no future for them.”

  “Wow,” Jessica whispered. “Sad.”

  “Very sad,” Madame Valenska agreed. “Though, most of the spirits on this cruise are benevolent enough. They are not out to hurt anyone. Some just want to finish the journey they set out to take. Others wish to see old friends again. They are here for many reasons. When the cruise line realized what was going on, they hired me to deal with it.”

  “What do you think this thing wants with us?” Jessica asked.

  “I do not know. This is a very angry spirit,” Madame Valenska said. “I have not encountered it before.”

  “It’s a she. I saw her,” Samantha told the medium. “She was in a maid’s outfit and searching for a locket.”

  Jessica suddenly sat bolt upright and began screaming.

  MADAME VALENSKA and Samantha leaped to standing, alarmed. “What happened?” Samantha demanded urgently.

  “The locket’s back!” Jessica shouted. “I slid my hand under the pillow just now to get comfortable, and I found it.” Withdrawing the chain and locket from under the pillow, she held it out to them.

  Samantha recoiled at the sight. Was she imagining that the locket seemed to pulse like a living animal?

  “Drop it, now!” Madame Valenska commanded.

  Jessica tossed the locket to the floor. As if it was alive, the locket snaked its way under the bed.

  Instantly Jessica was out of bed, standing. “Make it go away — for good,” she begged Madame Valenska. “Can you?”

  “Perhaps. I am not certain yet. When did you girls first encounter this locket?”

  Speaking quickly with their words overlapping, the sisters told her how they had seen it in the Haunted Museum and how it seemed to have been following them ever since.

  “The Haunted Museum,” Madame Valenska repeated with a sigh. “I should have known.”

  “Known what?” Jessica asked.

  Madame Valenska shook her head wearily. “That place is not what it seems. Did you touch the locket while you were in the museum?” Madame Valenska inquired.

  The sisters looked at each other guiltily before nodding. “I just wanted to see the pictures inside it,” Jessica confessed.

  “And I only touched it for a second, just to shut it,” Samantha put in.

  “A second or an hour — it doesn’t matter when it comes to the Haunted Museum — a touch is a touch,” Madame Valenska said ominously.

  Samantha’s head snapped toward Jessica. “I told you not to touch it,” she reminded her sister accusingly.

  “Sorry,” Jessica said sheepishly. “I couldn’t help it.”

  “There were signs everywhere. Do not touch!”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know it was haunted!” Jessica defended herself.

  Samantha decided to let it drop. Laying blame on Jessica wasn’t going to help things. “It doesn’t matter,” she gave in. “We both touched it.”

  Madame Valenska shook her head absently, clearly deep in thought. “That means you’re both under its spell. This spirit wants more than only the locket. The locket is part of something greater.”

  “How can you be certain?” Jessica asked.

  “My intuition,” Madame Valenska replied. “The locket is what started the haunting, but it is more than the locket alone. Perhaps it is this particular cabin or even you girls yourselves.”

  “Us!?” Jessica gasped.

  Nodding, Madame Valenska knelt on the floor and groped under the bed for the locket. Like something alive, it wriggled away from her grasp, snaking itself out from under the bed and twisting along the floor.

  Squealing with horror, the sisters scurried to the closed door, pressing against it, ready to flee into the hall if it came toward them. Jessica turned her face against the door, too frightened to even look at the locket.

  A deep and rhythmic hum began to emanate from somewhere deep in Madame Valenska’s throat. Soon its buzzing vibrations of chantlike music filled the cabin.

  The locket stopped whipping across the cabin and settled. It was like a cobra succumbing to the powers of a snake charmer. Without stopping her song, Madame Valenska stooped to pick up the locket, gripping it firmly with both hands.

  Samantha turned away from the door to watch as Madame Valenska ran her fingernail in the seam between the two halves of the locket until it clicked open. Eagerly the girls flanked her on either side.

  “It’s me!” both sisters cried out at the same time.

  In the locket, the vague, faded photos had grown clear. In the right-hand photograph was the back of a boy, turned away. In the left half were the photo portraits of two pretty girls with large brown eyes. Their abundant chestnut-colored hair was pulled up in flattering loose curls.

  They were dressed in costumes identical to the ones Jessica and Samantha had worn.

  “They must be Alice and Matilda,” Samantha realized. “The Littlefield sisters.”

  “What should we do?” Jessica asked Madame Valenska. “We can’t go through the whole cruise with these terrifying things happening. I’m scared.”

  Madame Valenska stood and pulled a pair of narrow, purple-jeweled reading glasses from the pocket of her robe. Putting them on, she scrutinized the photographs in the open locket. “These two sisters might not be in the same photo,” she observed. “The pictures might be laid on top of each other. The passing years and maybe even the time spent underwater could have fused them into one so that they look like they are together.”

  The sisters looked down at the locket, each one peering over one of Madame Valenska’s shoulders. “There’s a third person in the locket picture,” Jessica observed softly. “Look.”

  Samantha saw it immediately as Jessica pointed to the blurred shadowy image of a girl behind the two Littlefield sisters. She glanced up sharply at Madame Valenska. “Could it be the ghost?” she asked.

  Madame Valenska snapped the locket shut. “Possibly. Allow me to hold on to this,” she requested. “It might draw the spirit to me instead of to you. I will be better able to handle whatever comes.”

  “Are you sure you can control it?” Samantha asked as she and Jessica jumped away in alarm.

  Madame Valenska resumed her chant and nodded.

  “Great idea, then!” Jessica agreed. “Take it with you. Definitely. I don’t want it.”

  “All right,” Madame Valenska told them, momentarily ceasing her chant. “I have a special box full of calming herbs that will hold it. From now on, I advise you girls to stay together as much as possible. I will mediate on what you have told and see what comes to me.” She began to chant once more.

  Samantha grabbed Jessica’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you! We’ll stay together — won’t we, Jess?”

  “Yes! Yes!” Jessica agreed eagerly. “Absolutely.”

  Without another word, Madame Valenska swept out of the cabin, still clutching the locket. Jessica and Samantha sat looking at each other, speechless. “Are you all right?” Samantha asked after a moment.

  “Not really,” Jessica replied. “It was horrible, Sam! I thought I was going to drown in that tub! Now I know how you must have felt down in steerage.”

  “Did the spir
it say anything to you?” Samantha asked.

  “She kept pushing my head under the water and each time when she let me up she’d sort of growl at me and say, ‘I told you I’d get you!’ over and over! ‘I told you I’d get you!’ ”

  Samantha nodded, remembering how scared she’d been when she’d heard the ghostly voice. “I know. It’s really frightening.”

  Someone knocked on the door and the sisters grabbed each other’s hands. Together, they moved to the front of the cabin. “Hello?” Jessica asked softly. “Who’s there?”

  JOHN.”

  Jessica threw open the door. “What’s wrong?”

  Samantha saw that John’s skin was ashen. “Come in,” she said, pulling him toward her. “You’re freezing,” she noted. “What happened?”

  “Sorry to bother you,” John apologized. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “You’re pale as a ghost,” Jessica noticed.

  “I don’t know about that — but I think I’ve just seen a ghost,” John told them.

  “Was she in a maid’s outfit?” Samantha asked him.

  John’s eyes went wide with surprise. “You’ve seen her, too?”

  “I have!” Samantha confirmed. “Yesterday. Did she say anything?”

  John placed the straight palm of his hand inches from his nose. Samantha noticed he was trembling. “She got right up to my face!” he cried in a quaking voice. “This close! And then she started screaming at me.”

  “Could you tell what she was saying?” Jessica asked.

  He nodded his head. “She said, ‘How could you?!’ She kept shouting it over and over.”

  The girls told John about Madame Valenska. “I’ve heard of her,” he said. “Some of my friends on the ship have met her. They say she’s amazing.”

  “She seemed pretty amazing to us,” Jessica confirmed.

  “We should go see her,” Samantha suggested. “Maybe she can talk some sense into this spirit.”

  “I hope so,” John said.

  “All right. In the morning,” Jessica said.

  “Good idea,” Samantha agreed.

  “Thank you for believing me. Good night,” John said, backing out of the room.