The Explorer's Apprentice

11:A Lovely Dream, Isn't It?

PEOPLE!! This chapter has not been edited. At all. So sorry if it has more errors than usual, but this will all be fixed soon. I just wanted to post it now, before my editor edited it, because I feel it's been far too long since my last upload, and for this I offer you all my sincere appology! Anyway, here it is, my raw, unedited, but new chapter, and I expect that I will have the edited, clean-cut vesion posted within the next few days. Thank you all so much for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!!:)

Alison Lovett

When Alison arrives on the top floor, the elevator gives a pleasant little ring.

A pressed-and-polished elevator attendant opens the gate for her as she disembarks. He nods and smiles at each person as the stride past, hoping to persuade ringed fingers into velvet change purses. Flocks of little girls are gathered outside – they giggle, enchanted, pretending he's nodding at them, and produce buttons for him from their patchwork pockets like jewels. Embarrassed, he bends down to accept their gifts.

Alison, feeling whimsical, snatches the pillbox hat off of his head, murmurs a little "Wheeeee!" and twirls into the thick crowd before he can shout. She likes the way her strange silk skirts spray outwards.

The girls shriek with delight as they follow her, trailing their hands over the billows. Allison passes on the hat to a head of bronze ringlets. "Lovely dream, isn't it?" Alison asks. The girl clutches the hat with sticky fingers and nods, mystified.

The tide shifts. Mothers come to claim their daughters, men drop their card games, and even the staff leave their posts to dash up the echoing stairwell. Alison quite enjoys this sudden change of pace, and allows herself to be drawn upwards, onto the deck, into the piercing sunlight of a clean April afternoon. She squints until her eyes adjust, and accepts this world of sound and color. Like the sea itself, people tumble against the railing, sending out tendrils of waving hands and good intentions.

"Goodbye! Goodbye, I'll miss you!"

"Au revoir, my darlings! I will send the money soon!"

"What's happening?" Alison shouts, but no one hears her.

The black water below churns and foams as the rotors start up. Fifty thousand tons of metal and flesh sluggishly drift away from the harbor of Liverpool. The salty wind stings fantastically.

"Beannacht, mháthair!"

"Goodbye!"

"I love you!"

The city starts to move sideways, a slideshow of faces and cars and buildings. Everyone shifts from the side of the great boat to the back, like a single living organism. Alison's arms are cramped and pinned to her sides, and she can't breathe past the corset and pressure of people, but she loves every minute of it. She waves and screams with the rest of them, to no one in particular.

"Write often!"

"Ich liebe dich! Tell me who wins, yes?"

Alison works hard to squeeze her elbow up through the writing masses. She taps a woman on the shoulder.

Titanic's foghorn gives a self-righteous rumble, to the delight of the writhing crowd. The flash of bulky cameras is nearly blinding. Reporters practically foam at the mouth as they scrawl on their notepads.

When the woman turns around, Alison bridges the distance between them. She starts to stroke the soaring feather that has been coifed into the woman's braids. "It's like I can almost feel it!" Alison shouts at the astonished expression. "How is that possible, do you think? The brain is an amazing thing!"