Page 108 of Haunting the Deep

“Who?”

“Alice. She gave me this necklace.” I look at him, with his perfectly combed hair and his shining hypnotic eyes. I hope he can explain what I’m saying to him. I don’t quite understand it myself.

For a brief second he appears worried. “I’m afraid I do not know her.”

I look down at my necklace. “Alice is close to me. A friend maybe. A friend from New York?” I roll the necklace between my fingers. “Not New York. That’s not right. I know her from somewhere else.”

“Samantha, please, this night should be about us, not about friends and the past,” Alexander insists.

I hear the agitation in his voice, and I want to agree with him. But I can’t let it go. Something about the necklace is pulling at me. “Salem?” The moment the word leaves my lips, thunder rattles my cloudy memory. “Salem,” I say more definitely. “I live in Salem.”

“Your family is from New York,” he says, taking a step closer. His gaze is focused and intense.

I’m ruining this moment, aren’t I?“Yes,” I say. “Of course.” I pause. “What’s wrong with me, Alexander? I feel like my mind is being pulled in two directions. Half is here with you and half is somewhere else.”

He takes my hand in his. “There is only a small divide between excitement and fear. You just need to focus on what makes you happy. You are happy here with me.”

“I am happy. Very happy.”

He gently lifts my hand and dips the pen in the blood on my fingertip.

I lay the dance card against the edge of the record player. He hovers next to me.

The song fades, and the record slowly spins to a stop. I examine it for a moment. “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” I read out loud.

Alexander guides my hand to the paper.

“The song that played when theTitanicsank?” I say. And suddenly there’s a flash of a beautiful room with a record player on a cabinet. Two people dancing. A note.

“Do not say that, Samantha,” Alexander says, his eyes tensing. “We are on theTitanic.Do not say that.”

More images appear in my mind—a stack of note cards with the words “Body not found,” a little girl in braids, a painting of my aunt, a small box with a broom necklace, my dad hugging me.My dad.I take a step away from Alexander.

“My name is Samantha Mather,” I say. “I live inSalem.” As clear as day I remember sitting in a circle on the floor of my spare bedroom doing a memory spell.Through my sisters’ eyes and my own, the seed of memory is firmly sown.And with that moment the rest of my memories come rushing back. “Aliceismy friend. And theTitanicdidsink.”

Alexander’s jaw tenses. “I told you tostopsaying that.”

I stare at Alexander. His once shining eyes look a normal blue.

He stares back at me, the tension between us thick.

I blink at him. Am I seeing this correctly? How could this be right?

“Matt?”

He flinches ever so slightly. “Alexander. I am Alexander here.”

“Your accent…you’re…American?”

He smirks. “You should take it as a compliment really, that I went through all that trouble to sound British. I put on my best show for you.”

My mouth opens and I hesitate. “But…I didn’t recognize you. I mean, I saw you so many times.”

“The dress,” he says, his words clipped.

“Wait, I don’t understand.Youput the spell on the dress?”

He nods like this should be obvious to me.