Passage

But she was down there, too. They all were, the intern and the resident and she couldn’t tell who else because all she could see was the tops of their heads, as they worked over her, taking her blood pressure and hooking up IVs. “Seventy-five over fifty,” one of them said.

“She’s bleeding out. It must have hit the aorta,” someone else said, she couldn’t see who, he was too far below her.

I’m up near the ceiling, Joanna thought. She would be able to look down and see the ledge outside. She wondered if there was a red tennis shoe on it, and then thought, I’m having an out-of-body experience. Finally. I have to tell Richard.

Richard, she thought with a kind of panic. I have to tell Richard the NDE’s an SOS.

“Clear,” the resident said, and then, “Where the hell is that surgeon? Did you page him?”

Not Carson, Richard, Joanna thought, looking at the resident, and now she could see his face, not at all worried, calm and impassive, and that was comforting, too.

“Page Richard. It’s important,” she said, but nothing came out, her lips had not moved, and a nurse was trying to put something in her mouth, trying to force it down her throat.

“No,” she said, twisting her head to get away from her, looking for Vielle.

“I’m right here, honey,” Vielle said, holding Joanna’s hand, and somebody must have bandaged her hand, it was white, and so bright she could hardly look at it.

“Page Richard,” Joanna said, but she couldn’t tell if Vielle had heard her. There was a funny beeping sound. One of the nurses must have hit the code alarm. “Page Richard and tell him I found out what the NDE is. It’s an SOS,” she said, louder, but the beeping was drowning out her voice.

“What the hell is that?” the resident said, doing something to her chest.

“Her pager,” Vielle said.

“Well, shut the damn thing off.”

It’s Richard, Joanna thought. I told him to page me. Tell him the NDE’s a distress signal. Tell him he has to figure out the code. For Maisie, she tried to say, but now there was another sound drowning her out. A ringing. A buzzing. “He’s in the lab.”

“Sixty over forty,” the nurse said.

“She’s bleeding out,” the resident said.

“Hang on, Joanna,” Vielle said, holding tight to her hand. “Stay with me,” but she wasn’t there. She was on the Titanic.

But not in the passageway. On the Grand Staircase. And a crush of passengers was all around her, jammed onto the stairs, dressed in dinner jackets and dressing gowns and lifejackets. They were pushing up the marble stairs, carrying her along with them. To the Boat Deck, Joanna thought. They’re all trying to get up to the Boat Deck.

“I have to get back down to C Deck,” Joanna said, trying to turn around, but people were jammed next to her, around her, behind her, wedging her so she couldn’t move. “I have to tell Richard I found out the secret,” she said to them. “I have to get back to the passage.”

No one heard her, they continued to push her up the white marble stairs. She looked over at the gilt-and-wrought-iron banisters, thinking, If I could reach the railing and hold on to it, I could work my way back down, against the crowd.

With a great effort, she turned sideways, struggling to move her arm, her torso, and set out across the flow of passengers toward the railing like someone wading through deep water. She reached it, grabbing for it as if it were a life preserver. But this was worse. People were using the railing to push themselves along as they climbed, they refused to let go to let Joanna pass. They shoved upward as if she weren’t even there, carrying suitcases and steamer rugs, pushing Joanna back against the step she was on, nearly knocking her down.

“Just let me — ” she said to a woman carrying a Pekingese and a furled umbrella, and stepped toward the middle of the step, trying to get out of the woman’s way. She raised her arm, trying to reach around—

The umbrella caught her sharply in the ribs, and she gasped and grabbed for her side. She let go of the railing, and the crowd swept her up past the cherub, past the angels of Honour and Glory Crowning Time, through the etched-glass doors, and out onto the Boat Deck.

Joanna stood there a moment, holding her side, as they poured past her, and then started back through the crowd to the doors. “Excuse me,” she said, squeezing past the uniformed man in the door, and saw it was the clerk from the mail room. He had a canvas mail sack over his shoulder, and it was dripping on the flowered carpet of the foyer. She stepped back, looking down at the carpet, at the dark drops.

“You’d better get into a boat, miss,” the clerk said kindly.

“I can’t. I have to go back the way I came,” she said, trying to get past him without stepping in the damp spot, without touching the dripping sack. “I have to tell Richard what I found out.”

He nodded solemnly. “The mail must go through. But you can’t go down that way. It’s blocked.”

“Blocked?”

“Yes, miss. There are people coming up. You’ll need to take the aft staircase, miss.” He pointed up the Boat Deck. “Do you know where it is?”