Haunting the Deep Read online

  ALSO BY ADRIANA MATHER

  How to Hang a Witch

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance

  to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Adriana Mather

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Jeff Huang

  Letter and photo of Henry Harper courtesy of the author, from her personal collection.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mather, Adriana, author.

  Title: Haunting the deep / Adriana Mather.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, [2017] | Summary: Samantha Mather, fifteen, is having recurring dreams of the Titanic and, while awake, receives strange missives and visions of those who went down with the ship.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017028256 (print) | LCCN 2016056936 (ebook) | ISBN 978-0-553-53951-6 (trade) | ISBN 978-0-553-53952-3 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-53953-0 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Supernatural—Fiction. | Ghosts—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Titanic (Steamship)—Fiction. | Ocean liners—Fiction. | Shipwrecks—Fiction. | Family life—Massachusetts—Salem—Fiction. | Salem (Mass.)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M3765 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.M3765 Hau 2017 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780553539530

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Adriana Mather

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Ready to Run

  Chapter Two: After the Hanging

  Chapter Three: We All Have Nightmares

  Chapter Four: About That Night That Everything Happened

  Chapter Five: They Were Warnings

  Chapter Six: I Just Need It to Stop

  Chapter Seven: Those Voices

  Chapter Eight: I Need to Talk to You

  Chapter Nine: Just a Bad Night of Sleep

  Chapter Ten: It Wasn’t Like the Other Dream

  Chapter Eleven: I Might Lose You

  Chapter Twelve: My Brain Is in a Thick Fog

  Chapter Thirteen: Cycling Through Thoughts of Elijah

  Chapter Fourteen: I Didn’t Run Away

  Chapter Fifteen: Don’t Get Me Wrong

  Chapter Sixteen: I Just Need a Minute to Think

  Chapter Seventeen: Could This Be Real?

  Chapter Eighteen: The Question Disappears

  Chapter Nineteen: What a Mess

  Chapter Twenty: What’s Going on Here?

  Chapter Twenty-one: I’m Standing Still and Staring

  Chapter Twenty-two: I’m All In

  Chapter Twenty-three: I’ve Trapped Myself

  Chapter Twenty-four: A World of Things Could Go Wrong

  Chapter Twenty-five: That’s Why You Love Me

  Chapter Twenty-six: Maybe This Is a Good Thing

  Chapter Twenty-seven: We Stand in Silence

  Chapter Twenty-eight: Death Is Not Always Simple

  Chapter Twenty-nine: I’ll Tell You Everything I Know

  Chapter Thirty: I Live in Salem

  Chapter Thirty-one: How Did You Know You Were in Love?

  Chapter Thirty-two: It Happened So Fast

  Chapter Thirty-three: That Is All I Know

  Chapter Thirty-four: I’m Not Leaving

  Chapter Thirty-five: Has the Whole World Gone Mad?

  Chapter Thirty-six: I Never Thought I Would Say This

  Chapter Thirty-seven: You Are the Most Important Person in My World

  Chapter Thirty-eight: I Just Wanted to Stay

  Chapter Thirty-nine: So Tragic and Romantic

  Chapter Forty: However Broken It May Be

  Chapter Forty-one: Elijah Waits for Me

  Chapter Forty-two: I Do Belong in Salem

  Chapter Forty-three: You and Me Both

  Chapter Forty-four: Follow Me

  Chapter Forty-five: Somewhere Between Excitement and Fear

  Chapter Forty-six: I Would Go Headfirst into the Ocean

  Chapter Forty-seven: To Follow Your Heart

  Chapter Forty-eight: No Matter What Happens, No Matter How Scary Everything Is

  Chapter Forty-nine: I Need You to Remember

  Chapter Fifty: My Heart Beat

  Chapter Fifty-one: This Is Who I Am

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  For my amazing family, who have empowered me to dream and encouraged me to always have a sense of humor. You all are my heroes.

  I sip my hot cocoa, not the powdered kind that comes out of a packet, but the shaved-chocolate kind made from scratch. Mrs. Meriwether places a plate of steaming croissants in the middle of my dining room table. They smell like warm butter.

  Jaxon grins, poised to take a bite of French toast. “You’ve got that morning punk-rock thing going on again.”

  I touch my hair and discover that I do in fact have a cowlick. I smile. “At least I don’t have toothpaste on my face.”

  Jaxon makes no attempt to check if I’m right; he just chews away.

  “Sam and Jax—Monday-morning match: round one,” my dad says, pouring a second cup of coffee into his #1 DAD mug and looking at Mrs. Meriwether. “I think there’s a frightening possibility that our children take after us, Mae. Neighbors, best friends, surly dispositions.”

  Mrs. Meriwether pats the corners of her mouth with a white cloth napkin. “The way I remember it, I was mostly an angel. It was your mother who had to threaten you with weeding the garden for a month just to keep your slingshot on your lap and off her table,” she says.

  My dad smiles at her, and I stop chewing. His time in a coma felt like an endless walk down a dark tunnel. I’m sure I’ll eventually get used to him just sitting here drinking coffee and smiling. But for these past six months, every minute I’ve spent with him still feels like borrowed time.

  My dad’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “Now, we all know it was your slingshot. You’re too young for your memory to be slipping. Maybe you should do more crossword puzzles.”

  Mrs. Meriwether raises her eyebrows. “Be very careful, Charlie, or I’ll tell them about the time you tried to prank Ms. Walters. Emphasis on the word ‘tried.’ ” She looks at me and Jaxon. “I believe you know her as Mrs. Hoxley.”

  “Wait, you pranked my homeroom teacher?” I ask. No wonder she’s always eyeing me like I’m about to do something wrong.

  My dad shakes his head. He’s got that dignified and refined thing about him—gray at his temples, big brown eyes, confident. When he wants to, he can shut the world out behind his stoicism and clean button-downs. But right now he’s bright and alive, enjoying himself.

  “I definitely want to hear this story,” Jaxon says.

  My
dad checks his watch. “Don’t you two need to get ready for school?”

  “That bad, huh?” I say, and pick up a forkful of blueberries and whipped cream.

  “Why are you wearing boys’ clothes?” asks a little girl’s voice just behind me. My fork drops with a clang, and a blueberry goes flying, hitting Jaxon smack in the face. I whip around in my chair.

  A girl about ten years old stands a couple of feet away from me in an old-fashioned pink dress. Her brown hair is braided and tied with ribbons. She giggles, scrunching her dark eyes and small nose together as the blueberry sticks to Jaxon’s cheek. No one else is laughing but her.

  Jaxon wipes his face and stares at me without looking in the girl’s direction. My skin goes cold. He doesn’t see her. I shut my eyes for a long second and take a breath, turning back to the table and away from the girl.

  Jaxon, Mrs. Meriwether, and my dad all watch me with matching worried expressions.

  “Is everything okay?” Mrs. Meriwether asks.

  My hands shake, and I put them under the table. “Um, yeah.”

  “Are you sure, Sam? You look spooked,” my dad says, all his good humor replaced with concern.

  I glance behind me; the girl’s gone. My shoulders drop an inch. “I thought I heard something.”

  My dad frowns. “What?” We’ve only talked once about what happened while he was in a coma. And I only told him selective pieces. How Vivian sold our New York City apartment and lied about his medical bills. How when I found out she was lying, she threatened my friends to manipulate me. How when she realized I wouldn’t do what she wanted, she tried to kill us with spells. And how those spells backfired on her. Mostly, he just listened with his eyebrows pushed forcefully together. When I finished, he had tears in his eyes. He told me to get some sleep, and he kissed me on the forehead. He doesn’t know how many people she killed. And I left out all the magical elements I could. Every time I said “spell,” he flinched like someone had burned him. There was so much guilt on his face that I hated telling him even the pared-down version. He hasn’t brought it up since. And I’m grateful, because I can’t stand being reminded that I lied to him. That was the first time I ever did.

  “Just a noise,” I say, and look down at my plate. A second lie.

  “A ghost noise or a people noise?” Mrs. Meriwether asks.

  My dad stiffens at the word “ghost.” Mrs. Meriwether and Jaxon know I saw Elijah, but he’s one of those details I never mentioned to my dad. How would I even start? Hey, Dad. I fell in love with this dead guy from the sixteen hundreds who was stubborn and beautiful. And then he disappeared and I had a crap time getting over him.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe I imagined it.”

  Mrs. Meriwether turns to my dad. “I really think she needs some training, Charlie. Otherwise, it’s just a loosey-goosey free-for-all. What happens when she learns to drive? What if a ghost appears in the seat next to her?”

  I sit straight up, every muscle in my body ready to run away from this conversation. Did Mrs. Meriwether tell my dad about me seeing Elijah? Or did he hear the rumors in town? How could I be so stupid to think this would all just go away?

  My dad stares at me with such seriousness that everyone gets quiet, waiting on his reaction. “Sam, did you see something just now?”

  “No,” I say, doing my best to keep my anxiety out of my voice.

  My dad’s home from the hospital, the kids in school don’t hate me, and with Vivian gone, my bad luck has basically vanished. Vivian. My stomach tenses. All I want is for things to stay normal; I’m happy for the first time in a long time.

  My dad looks from Mrs. Meriwether to me. “Then why is Mae worried about a ghost appearing in your passenger seat?”

  I push my plate away, avoiding the matching sympathetic looks from the Meriwethers. The words don’t want to leave my mouth. “I saw a spirit during the whole thing that happened last fall.” My cheeks redden. “But I haven’t seen one since.” I’m not seeing spirits again. I won’t. Elijah was different. He…he was just different.

  The corners of my dad’s eyes wrinkle as he narrows them.

  “Be sure to let us know if you do,” Mrs. Meriwether says. “The last time you saw a ghost, a whole set of unfortunate circumstances followed.”

  My eyes meet hers. Is she saying that seeing a spirit is a bad omen?

  “No more talk of…no more talk of training, Mae. She’s fine,” my dad says with such finality that Mrs. Meriwether raises a questioning eyebrow.

  “I’m gonna go get dressed,” Jaxon says, sounding almost as uncomfortable as I feel and sliding his chair away from the table.

  “Me too,” I say with a grumble.

  My dad leans back in his chair, and the tension rolls off him. “Aaah. Now, there’s the cranky morning Sam I know and love.”

  I pause, soaking up his dad humor. He’s said some version of this to me since I was little. “Don’t do that. I can’t make anyone believe I’m angsty if I’m smiling.”

  We share a smile, and I can tell he’s relieved to have changed the subject.

  I push back my chair, but what I really want to push away is Mrs. Meriwether’s comment about the last time a spirit showed up.

  I’m the last one into homeroom. I slide into my desk beside Susannah just as the bell rings. Susannah, Mary, and Alice sit in a row, all wearing their trademark gothic-chic clothes. I wear black, too, but more torn and casual than their high fashion. Plus, they have that whole powerful, mysterious vibe that makes you want to compulsively steal glances at them. Maybe it’s because they’re descended from the accused Salem witches and I’m descended from the stodgy Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, who hanged them.

  Susannah flashes me a smile and places her slender, black-nail-polished fingers over mine. When she pulls her hand away, there’s a small note tucked under my palm. I don’t know where this girl gets her stealth, but I’m definitely jealous.

  Mrs. Hoxley clears her throat. “Quiet for the morning announcement, please.” She pauses until everyone settles. “It’s April fourth and two weeks until the Spring Fling. The student council has tallied the votes for this year’s theme and is ready to officially announce it.” She squints at one of the well-manicured girls in the back of the room. “Blair, if you’ll do the honors.”

  Excited whispers fill the room. I’ve never seen people campaign as viciously as they did for the themes of this dance. For the past week the Borgias Masquerade Ball and the Enchanted Forest supporters have been practically fist-fighting in the halls. But then again, costume parties are to Salem what Christmas is to the North Pole. I’m desperately hoping the Enchanted Forest doesn’t win, though. The attention I got right after the whole hanging-in-the-woods ordeal was overwhelming. I’m pretty sure a forest theme would only bring up the topic again.

  The Descendants haven’t really said anything specific about what happened, claiming shock and confusion. But the basic details about a mysterious woman trying to kill us all spread through the town faster than I could have imagined. And the only thing that doesn’t seem to die in Salem is gossip. The police are still searching for her; little do they know the crow woman was my stepmother, and she’s dead.

  Everyone turns to look at Blair, who’s taking her sweet time sauntering to the front of the class. She leaves a scent trail of vanilla and hair spray, and her outfit suggests she just stepped out of the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalog.

  “I’m thrilled to share this with you all.” Blair flicks her blown-out waves over her shoulder and scans the room. “While there were very strong themes this year, one stood out above the rest and got an almost unanimous vote.”

  “It was yours, wasn’t it?” Alice says. “The idea that won.”

  Blair’s smile grows and she looks coy. “We’re not supposed to reveal who came up with what theme, Alice. Buuut, I wasn’t opposed to the idea.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alice says. “Well, good thing you’re so subtle, then.”

  I cough
out a laugh, and Mrs. Hoxley gives Alice a warning look. Now that I’m not fighting with the Descendants, I can appreciate Alice’s dry humor. No one’s exempt from her scorn.

  “Let’s just say I’m excited to announce that the theme of this year’s dance will be…” Blair pauses for dramatic effect. “The Titanic!”

  The room explodes with objections. Everyone starts yelling at once. The tension leaves my shoulders. Phew.

  “You’re joking,” Mary says. “The Titanic wasn’t even in the running.”

  “Democracy’s dead,” Alice says. “The dictatorship of Blair and the fluff-ettes is now a disturbing reality.”

  “Shush,” Mrs. Hoxley says to the class. “We’ll have none of that. Absolutely none.”

  Blair doesn’t react. In fact, she looks increasingly smug. “There’s more. Since the dance committee supervisor is also the head of the history department, the other history teachers have agreed to rearrange their lesson plans and teach a Titanic curriculum for the next two weeks. Plus, the dresses are gonna be amazing.”

  Blair squeals with excitement and heads toward her desk. She stops dramatically in front of Matt, Salem High’s new British exchange student, who’s leaning into the aisle going through his backpack and blocking her way.

  “Um…hellooo?” Blair says.

  He makes no effort to move. “You know you can fit past me, right? Or were you just sayin’ ’ello?” Matt says in his Cockney accent.