The Explorer's Apprentice

38:Working For Mr.Mason

Abby Bronte

The morning sun has risen fully, shining high in the sky, gently caressing Abby’s skin.  She’s been outside all day, walking around decks with Eli’s velvety hand tightly in hers.  Sometimes he stops and kisses her, randomly in the middle of her sentences.  One moment they’ll be speaking, and the next his lips will come crashing down on hers.  Each and every time the butterflies take flight at the pit of her stomach.

They’ve stopped at the rail for a moment, leaning over to observe the below deck traffic.  Abby giggles at the ridiculous hats the women wear, secretly envying them.  She’s always been the type to do the polar opposite of what is precisely in style.  If Abby ever goes back to the present, she assures herself that she will purchase one of those hats, particularly the emerald green one with peacock feathers.  That one in particular reminds her of the ones she dug out of her favourite aunt’s trunk years back.  Abby used to spend hours modeling them for an applauding family, putting on one man plays as she spoke in a terrible British accent.

“I want that one,” Abby says using the same words she had as a child, when the hat had been too high for her to reach.  She leans into Eli as he chuckles.  She loves how his laugh vibrates against her.  It’s one of the best feelings in the universe, Abby thinks, after the feeling of his lips on hers.

“And I shall get a top hat,” Eli says with a smile, as if he couldn’t imagine himself in a top hat, although Abby’s positive that his mother had forced him into one before.  “And we’ll be the most dashing couple on all the Titanic.”

She blushes, but for once doesn’t hide herself for doing so.  She likes how he makes her feel, like she at any moment she could grow wings and fly, like she’s beautiful and smart and the only girlin the whole world.

                        “I’m sure we will,” Abby agrees, and tilts her head so it rests perfectly on Eli’s shoulder, right below his chin.  She can feel him breathe, feel his jaw muscles pull up to smile, and she can tell before his lips touch her forehead that he’s turning to do so.  They stand like that for a long while, simply basking in each other’s company.  The bliss that surrounds Abby, and fills her soul, is perfect.  She wants to be with him forever.  He’s truthful, and she likes how he questions her arguments; it’s refreshing.  He’s her best friend, somehow, even after only knowing him for a few days, and her true love.  It’s as if they’re soul mates.  Abby’s never had this type of connection with anyone, not even her best friend Belle.

                        Perhaps that’s why I’ve been taking aboard the Titanic, Abby muses, so I can find my soul mate, and know what love is truly supposed to be like.  Maybe he only exists here.  If so, this is the only place I want to be.  Fate must want me here with him, in Charlotte’s body, because nobody cares about her.  I can leave with Eli, and nobody will care.  That’s all I want.  Whatever’s waiting for me in the present, my brother, my family, my friends, doesn’t matter as long as I have Eli.

                        The future time, it isn’t worth leaving Eli for.  Her life then was not miraculous.  She may have had a more caring family, more friends and further freedom, but she didn’t have love.  Abby knows that if she were to go to the future, she would never be truly happy again.  She’d always know that she was missing Eli.  She’s not sure if she could live with that.  Abby needs him, like oxygen.  She needs to tell him everything about her, and watch as he loves her even more for it.  That’s all Abby wants, it’s all she’ll ever want.

                        “Eli,” Abby says with a small voice, looking up into his sparkling Caribbean eyes.  “I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to think I’m insane.”