The Explorer's Apprentice

15:Eli

Abby Bronte

Abby has always been the calm, cool, and collected one in scary situations. Even when she was only a little girl, and her younger brother Luke had been bitten by a rattle snake, Abby had been the first to put a solution into action. She had sucked the venom out of his arm with her mouth— the same way she’d learned to in adventure camp— only milliseconds after the incident.

Being on Titanic, the Titanic isn’t all that different. It’s still a problem that needs a solution. She knows that in any situation, the sooner one can come to realizing what the problem is, the sooner they can get to solving it. And usually, figuring out the problem is just what takes people so long. And then by the time they do, it’s too late. 

Abby can remember how much Luke, seven years younger than she, had screamed when she brought her mouth to his skin. ‘Vampire!’ she can still hear his voice, ‘I always knew there was something weird about her!’ Even while being consumed by poison, Luke still found the time to tease her. But that’s just Luke, and thinking about him is like an ache in Abby’s ribs.

You don’t have time to think about that now. Concentrate on getting home, on getting back to him. You don’t have much time.

“Honestly, Eli,” says a voice to the far left of Abby. It’s a woman, and she’s been babbling on about one thing or another for quite a while, even before Abby had made her way onto the decks. But suddenly, the shrewd nasally voice has gotten louder. “You’re behavior tonight was completely unacceptable! I will not allow you to act in such a rude, despicable manor. Do you hear me? I won’t allow it!” The voice seems to shrink back a little. “I’ve never been so embarrassed….”

Poor Eli, Abby thinks with a mental eye roll. The woman sure does sound like a handful. And a whiney one at that. Abby would go elsewhere to think, like the smoking room. But the Charlotte part of her doesn’t want to leave. She wants to be as close to the sea as possible. Charlotte finds it strangely comforting. And, having Charlotte as a strong part of her now, Abby has no choice but to agree. 

“You never do surprise me, Mother. Of course you’re embarrassed. It’s only ever about you, isn’t it?” A male voice challenges the first, his tone angry and his words cold.  

Most passengers are dining, or even still sleeping, so apart from the few periodical passerbys it’s really only Abby and the couple to the left of her, around a corner.  And she doubts they even know she’s there. Abby tries hard to block out the voices, no matter how loud and obvious they’re getting.  She tries, instead, to remember everything that happened before she woke up eighty-six years prior to the auditions. What really happened during the earthquake? Everything from the quake being big enough to open an ancient time portal, to being put under some hypnotic spell, to the theory of suddenly developing magical, time-traveling powers has flashed through her mind at some point.

Except the hypnotism theory is ruled out rather quickly. Everything feels much too real for that. Abby doesn’t know much about hypnotism—not that she ever cared to know—but she’s pretty sure that no amount of human power can put her under spell feeling as real as this. Smell, taste, sight, sound, and touch—everything is real. Charlotte is real, with real thoughts and a real family, real feelings and a real, beating heart. Charlotte is as real as Abby. 

In a way, Abby has discovered that she is Charlotte.

As Abby sees it, Charlotte is within her in order to serve as a sort of guide. Charlotte is like the second, new half of Abby’s brain. The half that knows everything there is to know about growing up in the twentieth century. And because of the Charlotte part of Abby, equipped with memories and experiences, Abby fits right in with this new era.