She stopped just inside the door and stood there, her coat and backpack on. Like the day she’d come to tell them she was quitting. “I came…” Amelia said, and took a deep breath. “Dr. Lander came to see me at the university.”
That’s where she went in the taxi, Richard thought, and wanted to ask her what day that was, but Amelia was having enough difficulty. He didn’t want to throw her off.
“I didn’t tell the truth about why I quit,” Amelia said. “Dr. Lander asked me if it was because I experienced something upsetting, and I told her no, but that wasn’t true. I did, and I was so scared I couldn’t face going under again, but then I heard she died, and I got to thinking about it happening to her, only she didn’t have a choice, she couldn’t back out.”
The words tumbled helplessly out of her, like tears. “I got to thinking about what a coward I’d been. She was always so nice to me. Once, when I asked her to do something for me, she did, and I—” She broke off, blushing. “She said it was important, my telling her what I saw. I shouldn’t have lied. I should have told her. How can I be a doctor, if I let my fear—?” She looked up at Richard. “It’s too late to tell her, but she said it was important, and you’re her partner—”
“It is important,” Richard said. “Here, take your coat off and sit down.”
She shook her head. “I can’t stay. I’ve got an anatomy makeup lab.” She laughed shakily. “I shouldn’t even have taken the time to come over here, but I had to tell you—”
“Okay,” Richard said, “you don’t have to take your coat off, but at least sit down,” but she shook her head.
And she’ll bolt if you push her, Richard thought. “What did you see that frightened you, Amelia?”
“The…” She bit her lip. “Have you ever had a scary dream that, when you tried to explain it, there wasn’t anything scary in it, like a slasher or—” She stopped, looking appalled. “I didn’t mean to say that. Honest, I—”
“You didn’t see any murderers or monsters,” Richard prompted, “but you were frightened anyway—”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “I was in the tunnel, like I had been the times before, only this time I realized it wasn’t a tunnel, it was…” She glanced longingly at the door.
Richard stepped sideways, easing himself between her and the door. “What was it?” he asked, even though he already knew what it was. And she was right, there was nothing inherently frightening in the sight of people in old-fashioned clothes standing outside a door, in the sound of engines shutting down. “What’s happened?” Lawrence Beesley had asked his steward, and the steward had said, “I don’t suppose it’s much,” and Beesley had gone back to bed, not frightened at all.
“What was it, Amelia?” Richard said.
“I… it sounds so crazy, you’ll think…”
That you’re Bridey Murphy? he thought, like I did Joanna. He said, “Whatever it is, I’ll believe you.”
“I know,” she said. “All right.” She took a deep breath. “I have biochem this semester. The class is in the daytime, but the lab’s at night, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in this old room. It’s long and narrow, with these dark wooden cabinets along the walls that they keep the chemicals in, so it looks like a tunnel.”
A long, narrow room with tall cupboards on either side. He wondered what it really was. The dispensary? He’d have to ask Kit where the dispensary on the Titanic was.
“It was the lab final,” Amelia said. “We were supposed to do this enzyme reaction, but I couldn’t get it to work, and it was really late. They’d already turned the lights off and were waiting for me to finish.”
“Who was?” Richard asked, thinking, lab final? Enzyme reaction?
“My professors,” Amelia said, and he could hear fear in her voice. “They were standing out in the hall, waiting. I could see them standing outside the door in their white lab coats, waiting to see if I passed the final.”
The biochem final and professors in lab coats. She’s had weeks to rationalize what she saw, he thought, to confabulate it into something that makes sense. Or at least more sense than the Titanic. “When did you realize it was the biochem lab you’d been in?” he asked.
She looked at him, bewildered. “What do you mean?”
“Was it a few days after your session or more recently?”
“It was right then,” Amelia said, “when I was having the NDE. I didn’t tell you and Dr. Lander because I was afraid you’d make me go under again. I said I saw the same things I’d seen before, the door and the light and the happy, peaceful feeling, but I didn’t. I saw the lab.”
It wasn’t the Titanic, Richard thought. She didn’t see the Titanic.
“It wasn’t really the lab, though,” Amelia said, “because the cabinets aren’t really locked, like they were in the NDE, and it wasn’t my biochem professor, it was Dr. Eldritch from anatomy and this director I had when I was majoring in musical theater. And I was so frightened.”
“Of what?” Richard asked.
“Of failing,” she said, and he could hear the fear in her voice. “Of the final.”
She wasn’t on the Titanic, he thought, trying to take this in. She was in her biochem lab. “What happened then?” he managed to ask.
“I started to look for the key. I had to find it. I had to get into the cabinet and find the right chemical. I looked under the lab tables and in all the drawers,” she said, her voice tightening, “but it was dark, I couldn’t see—”
The connection wasn’t the Titanic. And that was what Joanna had realized when she talked to Carl Aspinall.
“—and the labels on the drawers didn’t make any sense,” Amelia was saying. “There were letters on them, but they weren’t words, they were just letters and numbers, all strung together, like code. And I was so frightened… and then I was back in the lab, so I guess I found it and I guess I passed. I don’t know what grade I got.” She laughed embarrassedly. “I told you it sounded crazy.”
“No,” he said. “No, you’ve been very helpful.”
She nodded, unconvinced. “I have to go to my anatomy lab, but—” she took another deep breath, “—if you want me to, I’ll go under again. I owe it to Dr. Lander.”
“That may not be necessary,” he said, and, as soon as she was gone, called Carl Aspinall.
He was afraid Mrs. Aspinall would be the one to answer the phone, but she didn’t, and when Carl said, “Hello, Aspinalls’ residence,” Richard said, “Mr. Aspinall, this is Dr. Wright. No, wait, don’t hang up. I understand that you don’t want to talk about your experience. I just want you to answer one question. Did your experience take place on the Titanic?”
“The Titanic?” Carl said, and the astonishment in his voice told Richard all he wanted to know.
He hadn’t been on the Titanic. And that was the revelation that had sent Joanna on her plunge down to the ER. It wasn’t what he’d told her about his NDE, it was the fact that he hadn’t seen the Titanic, and Joanna, realizing that that wasn’t the connection, that she had been on the wrong track, had seen what the real answer was, and run to tell him.
He had to make sure. He called Maisie. “When you had your NDEs, Maisie, were you on a ship?” he asked her when the nurse finally let him talk to her.
“A ship!” she said, and he could see the face she was making. “No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know,” Maisie said. “It didn’t feel anything like a ship.”
“What did it feel like?”