Capturing Today (TimeShifters Book 2) (15 page)

I brush past her to head toward the sidewalk. The half-risen sun plays peek-a-boo between the buildings and the rainclouds.

“Should we get on the saving people thing?” Seeing as this is the first time Nicholas has shifted me in eight months, I should focus on figuring out why.

“Right.” She swipes the back of her hand under her nose and then squares her shoulders. “Let’s go do what we’re born to do.”

She steps out of the alleyway and hails the first group of people she sees. A man with his wife on his arm and three small children stop to speak with her. He’s wearing a straw hat similar to the ones the guys in the play
The Music Man
wear. The wife holds a handful of papers.

“Excuse me.” Lark smiles brightly, all traces of her impending tears gone. “Might I ask where everyone is rushing off to this morning?”

“We’re with the Western Electric Company.” The man shows her the tickets that his wife clutches. “The company’s hosting a picnic in Michigan City.” His chest puffs out with obvious pride at being able to take his family out for the day.

Their tallest son—maybe seven years old—grabs his father’s hand and bounces on the balls of his feet. “They’re taking us on a fancy ship.”

The wife pats her husband’s arm. “We need to arrive soon if we’re to make it onto the
Eastland
in time.” She offers me and Lark an apologetic smile. “The company hired out a handful of ships, but I hear the
Eastland
is the nicest one, and we aim to be on it.”

The husband nods. “Do excuse us.” They rush off down the street. I watch their backs, straining to figure out why their words send alarms blaring in my head.

Eastland
. I read about that boat, didn’t I?

My throat goes dry, and a hollow ache pulsates in my gut.

I find the street sign. “We’re on LaSalle. Lark, we need to run.” I tug on her arm.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Chicago.” My home town. How did I not realize that before? In my defense, Chicago more than a hundred years ago doesn’t look the same.

I start walking backwards so I can relay information to her but get us moving in the right direction. “The
Eastland
capsizes, killing more passengers than were killed when the
Titanic
sank or when the
Lusitania
was torpedoed. Not as many crew members—but that’s beside the point.” Perhaps not as many research details are needed. “Upwards to seventy percent of the people who die are twenty-five or younger—mostly women and children.” I squeeze her arm hard. “Entire family lines are wiped off the planet.”

Her mouth drops open. “You studied. You know this stuff.”

“Of course I did.” Does she think I spent my time at home eating Cheetos and catching up on Netflix? For the record, a girl can eat Cheetos while researching.

“I’m really impressed.”

“Studying hardly matters if we do nothing.” I take off running down LaSalle. This is my city. I know where to go. Lark trails me.

Historically, the
Eastland
sank in the Chicago River at the Clark Street dock. The real tragedy being that the ship rolled onto its side in only twenty feet of water, while still tied to the dock, and yet so many people perished.

After the
Titanic
sank, Congress passed a law that all ships had to carry enough lifeboats to accommodate at least seventy-five percent of the passengers on board. That law sank the
Eastland
. Ships on the Great Lakes don’t sit as deep in the water as ocean liners, but congressmen failed to take that into consideration. The new law caused Great Lakes’ ships to become top heavy. Dangerous. Filled to capacity, and with the added weight of the lifeboats, the
Eastland
listed, rolling in the water and trapping everyone inside to be crushed, suffocated, or drowned.

I catch up to a man who has a ticket in his hand and yank it away. Perhaps he’s who I’m meant to save. “You can’t go on the excursion.”

“Lady! I paid for that. Stop.” He chases after me.

Lark cuts him off, grabbing his arm. I keep running and turn the corner while ripping up his ticket. He’ll thank me in a few minutes. The
Eastland’s
easy to spot, large and gleaming white. A few crew members begin to remove the gangplank. Am I too late? 

How do I stop a boat from tipping over? If I’m not meant to do that—then what? My pulse thunders in my ears and throbs against my temples.

I run harder but have to stop a second later because of the sheer number of people crowded on the dock. I spot the family Lark and I spoke to only minutes ago—safe—waiting in line to board one of the other ships.

The wife rubs the back of one of her crying sons. “I know. I wanted to ride the
Eastland
as well. Perhaps we can trade with another family on the way home.”

I let go of the breath I’d locked in my chest.

Shoving around people, I don’t care about the ugly looks they burn me with. “Get off the boat,” I yell. “The
Eastland’s
not safe.”

The boat begins to list toward the river and then rights itself. No one on board looks alarmed.

I push all the way to the edge of the dock and flail my arms, trying to catch the attention of the crew on deck. “Put the gangplank back out! Get people off the boat.”

They can’t hear me. No one can hear me.

People gather on the deck of the
Eastland
, pointing at different spots in the city. Two children race around their parents’ legs in a game of tag.

They’re all going to die.

My throat clams up.

“Look out, she’s tipping!” A man on shore hollers.

Like an angry, vanquished monster, the
Eastland
begins to roll in slow motion. Dishes slip off of shelves, raining down and shattering across the deck. Glasses crash to the floor, sounding like a string of fireworks. The bartender has to hold on to his counter to keep from falling over as the refrigerator near him breaks away from the wall, careens across the deck, and smashes into two screaming women. In the same moment, a huge piano on deck begins sliding toward the river. People have to dive overboard to keep from being crushed. Passengers attempt to run to the side of the boat closest to shore, but water gushes up over the gangway. As the boat rolls, portholes shatter, taking in more water. The weight of the water and everything sliding toward the river causes the boat to show its belly, trapping thousands of people inside.

Muddy brown sediment from the bottom of the river swirls around the
Eastland
, momentarily obscuring the bodies bobbing in the water. But the second the boat stills, the water begins to churn with people. I kicked over an ant hill once—just because—and milliseconds later there were hundreds of ants climbing over each other, scurrying, trying to pull their lives back together after a senseless disaster.

This is no different.

People scream. I’ll never be able to forget the wild screaming. Bodies of children float in the water, already drowned. Families hang on to each other and go underwater together not to resurface.

On shore, panic breaks out. Some begin to jump in, and others run for help. Still others, like me, stand in a transfixed sort of distress. Tears form twin trails down my cheeks. It’s then that I realize my whole body is shaking. I’m not sure when that started.

We failed them. I failed them.

Lark pants at my side. “We have to start hauling people out.”

I nod absently. “Sure, but I’m not a good swimmer.”

“Then find a row boat, and start helping. Nicholas sent you here for a reason. Figure it out.” She dives right into the river.

Lark’s right. People are dying. Now’s not the time to worry about my lack of swimming abilities. More than likely, I’m a better swimmer than most of the people on board the
Eastland
. People didn’t learn how to swim back when modesty was such an issue.

 I slip out of my shoes and jump in after Lark. Gulp a mouthful of brown water. My stomach revolts against the rancid liquid. I start gagging and coughing but doggy paddle on. I blink murky water from my eyes, but they still feel clouded by the film. Someone kicks me in the hip, and I cry out.

A child, maybe four or five years old, splashes and starts to go under the surface. She’s only a few feet ahead of me.
Save her
. Summoning my strength, I surge forward and latch my arm around the girl. Finding footing against the side of the boat, I use it to propel us to the surface again. My lungs burn, and a cramp pulls my side. I go into tunnel vision and ignore the shrieking around me. There’s a tugboat a little less than ten feet away. Securing the girl against me, I back paddle until I’m near enough to hand her over to a man on board.

“You should get out too, miss.” He reaches out and clamps onto my wrists and hauls me out of the water before I can offer an answer. Cold rain pings against the front roof of the tugboat. Despite it being July, my teeth chatter.

I look back at the
Eastland
. More boats are coming abreast of the sunken ship, rescuing people. There isn’t much left for me to do. I failed them ten minutes ago. Nothing I do now will take that away.

Next to me, a lady shivers in her mud-caked dress and wears only one shoe. The girl I fished from the water sobs on the floor while the sailor hauls a few more people on board. Once we’re full, our tiny vessel moves to an open area of the dock, and we begin unloading.

Lark’s not on the dock that I can see, so I scan the water but don’t spot her. When I step back onto solid ground, I keep studying the crowd, trying to locate my friend.

Instead, I see my mother.

Granted, unless we’re counting birth, I’ve never met my mother. But photos of her plaster the walls of my father’s house. Those images have watched me grow up. She’s imprinted on my brain—as if I do know her.

And now she’s looking at me.

The crowd grows thicker as the mass of humanity presses closer to the river. Some gawk at the ghastly scene of the
Eastland,
while others rush forward to help pull bodies from the water. That’s all that’s left now—bodies. Not people. Trucks pile up on the road, each one waiting for its load of snuffed-out life to bring to the morgue. A nurse flags down car after car and packs each of them with survivors, instructing the drivers to abandon their plans for the day and instead drive the sopping wet, crying people home. No one argues with her.

All the while, my mother stays rooted across the street, on the corner, locking eyes with me despite the jostling crowd. She stands with her chin lifted, her arms relaxed at her sides, and her lips pursed in concentration. As she faces the wind, her hair billows behind her, making her look like a warrior princess who wouldn’t back down in a fight against a dragon.

My feet are frozen in place, and my muscles tremble—from towing the little girl out of the river, from the shock of witnessing the sinking of the
Eastland
, or from finally seeing my mother—I don’t know which. And don’t possess the brain power to decide at the moment.

Why isn’t she cutting in front of the vehicles to get to me? 

Move. Cross the street. Go to her.

But what if she still doesn’t want me?

I’ve imagined meeting her hundreds of times but never in the midst of turmoil. Should I dart across traffic to her? Wait for her to approach me? Yell her name? Perhaps she doesn’t realize it’s me, her daughter. The one she left.

Mimicking her pose, I clench my fists and lift my chin. Unfortunately, I’m standing with the wind at my back, and it sends my hair across my face. I scramble, palming the hair away from my eyes to catch it all together in one of my hands. My breath shudders. She’s not across the street anymore. In an instant, I’m shoving through groups of people, frantically craning my neck in search of her. I only looked away for half a second. If that. Where did she go?

“Rosa!” I scream, but my voice is lost on the wind.

A policeman catches my arm as I elbow past him on my way out into the street. He jiggles it a little to get my full attention. “Are you hurt, miss? If not, we’re asking survivors to head home so we can clear the area.”

Survivors? Right. I’m all wet.

I shove at his hand. “My mom.”

“She might already be home, and if she’s not …” He looks behind us. His eyes trace over the
Eastland
as he scrubs his free hand over his mustache. “We need you to head on home.”

I nod because until I agree he’s not going to let go of me. When he does, I take off into the street, banking on the fact that most of the cars on the road are moving at a crawl. I weave past a large truck and leap over the stream of moving debris in the gutter, landing in the spot where my mother stood only minutes ago.

On this side of the road, the sidewalks are empty. No one wants to carry on with normal life when there’s a tragedy to watch. Especially when they are simply observers—able to wear the badge of
I was there when
—and aren’t actually suffering loss.

Did my mother cross to the dock? Is she over there searching for me?