The Explorer's Apprentice

10:Years and Years Before

Abby Bronte

Abby Bronte can’t breathe.

Or, that is, she can barely breathe.

She can feel the pain even though she can’t see anything, even though everything around her is a black void. The pressure on her chest is like a mountain, the constriction like a vice around her ribs. It’s this horrible discomfort she notices first, the scarce amount of air that enters her desperate lungs, the fire in her belly screaming for oxygen.

 Then, slowly, she starts to hear the noise. The dim roar in her ears soon reaches a crescendo, and Abby can pick out individual voices. It sounds like a city, but in the distance. Underwater.

The first thing she remembers is the earthquake. She can still feel it, rattling in her bones. Her last few thoughts shuffle through her head, on repeat. She’d been elated. She’d never been in an earthquake before. She’d been hoping they might cancel school the next day.  It was nice that the quake had struck at the end of auditions. Could the timing have been better?

She was one of the few who giggled instead of screamed.

Now, though, as she sits in darkness, her chest wheezing and tight, Abby wonders if she should have taken the quake a bit more seriously.

A distorted voice pierces through her protective curtain of subconscious. “Hey.” Someone pokes her stomach. “You, lying against the wall like that.” The city suddenly comes rushing toward her. The city becomes real. Her ears open themselves to the vivid din, and light swims into her eyes. Abby blinks away the blaze of sudden self-awareness. Standing over her appears to be a boy, no older than sixteen. He gives her a nudge under the jaw and a friendly smile. “Chin up, girl. Don’t look so blue.”

Abby can feel the rough brick wall scraping her back through her shirt. She can feel sunlight on her face—not indoor sunlight, sunlight filtered through auditorium windows, which was artificial and cold—but sunlight that was real and warm and bright.

“Good morning, sleepy!” chirrups a second voice. As her eyes adjust, Abby can just make out two figures standing behind the boy. A girl, arms crossed and glowering, and a young child clinging to her skirt. “Thought maybe you were a trash bag,” he says pleasantly.

Abby stands up quickly, brushing off the stranger’s hand. “And who, exactly,” she says in a strong voice, brushing her skirt—skirt?—free of dust, “are you?”

“Come on, Zach!” The girl scolds. She’s British. “We’re going to be late!”

Zach, Abby presumes, gets up from his crouch, shrugs, hooks his thumbs in his suspenders, and trots after the girl. From behind she notices the similar gait, the sandy brown hair, and guesses the three are siblings. The youngest clutches to his sister’s skirt, struggling to keep up in his high boots, giving Abby desperate glances over his shoulder. “Wait… Georgia, wait… Can’t we take her with us?”

Abby doesn’t watch them go. She leans against the wall and shuts her eyes and tries to think. Where in the world am I? Who were those strange people? Why are they dressed like something out of a history book? Abby brushes her fingers over her stomach. Instead of flesh she touches stiff cloth. The pain around her ribs is a tightly-laced bodice, from underneath which flows into a beige cotton skirt that falls to her ankles. Why am I dressed like something out of a history book? Well, she reasons, she’ll get nowhere for sure by just standing around.

Abby appears to be in some sort of alley. The grey, expressionless walls give no clues to her location. She follows the cobblestone path, tripping awkwardly in her new clothes on the uneven path. She tries to backtrack in her mind. The last thing she remembers is being at school. She’d gone to the Titanic auditions for drama. Isabelle had—