Titanic, 1912 (The Symbiont Time Travel Adventures Series, Book 5): Young Adult Time Travel Adventure Read online

  Titanic, 1912

  The Symbiont Time Travel Adventures Series, Book Five

  T.L.B. Wood

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  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2018; Tara Brooks Wood All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-94783-346-3

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Note From the Author:

  Acknowledgments

  Reader Invitation

  A Conspiracy to Murder, 1865

  Purchase A Conspiracy to Murder

  Also by T.L.B. Wood

  About the Author

  For Lydia Brook

  All fordone and forgot;

  And like clouds in the height of the sky,

  Our hearts stood still in the hush

  Of an age gone by.

  Walter De La Mare

  Chapter 1

  “And remind me again whose idea was this?” Kipp asked, craning his big dog-like head around to stare at me, eyes unblinking, for a second. Our footsteps made no sound against the hard packed earthen floor of the cellar; the passageway was not particularly narrow, but it felt claustrophobic, nonetheless. It took little imagination to detect the rancid odor of sweat born from fear, a lingering trace from the past horrors of that place. Not normally given to flights of fancy or unreasonable fears, I pulled my elbows closer, tucking them tightly at my waist. The cloying, musty smell of old, settled dirt swirled around our small party as we navigated the dimly lit passageway; I suppressed a sneeze with a little hiccup.

  Our human guide was willing to let us wander, since she had no fondness for the place we traversed. It was understandable she might think I was one of her kind, given my appearance, but I was not. I am a symbiont, and my looks are meant to deceive people so that I can move surreptitiously amongst their midst. And Kipp, despite his canine appearance, was definitely no dog. Together we form a synergistic bond that allows us to travel back in time. Looking for mysteries to solve was my usual trade, and unfortunately our current assignment didn’t involve time travel or even a riddle about which I could wrap my interest. We found ourselves mired in a contemporary engagement that I could blame completely upon the unique abilities of Kipp if I felt mean spirited. After all, if he weren’t so remarkable, possessing talents only known to our ancient ancestors, we wouldn’t be pretending to be ghost hunters on that particular day. And who would have thought that Technicorps, our employer, would be interested in using telepaths to communicate with ghosts, spirits and the undead?

  Reaching out, I ran my hand down Kipp’s broad back to smooth his fur, which was raised in a narrow strip from his neck to his tail. The rich auburn ruddiness of his pelt, which turned to molten copper in sunlight, faded to dullness in the low lighting. Thick muscles rippled under my light touch; he was at his prime, powerful, elemental and a pretty solid ship to navigate any storm imaginable. He wagged his plumed tail for a moment, signaling me that he was still game, despite his protestations. Being connected telepaths was a joy as well as a natural part of our selves.

  The other half of our party almost ran into Kipp and me when we paused, since those two youngsters were busy checking all the nooks and crannies for possible hiding places for ghosts, specters, and other things unseen by the naked eye. I wasn’t quite certain how I’d been convinced to bring them along, since this assignment really called for Kipp’s skills and the rest of us were just window dressing. But we’d been given the responsibility to tutor and train a novice pair of time travelers in the art of our species, and even though our current work did not require movement through the ages, Elani and Peter were told to accompany us, making what was typically a duo become a quartet.

  It was good that our contemporary rules of engagement prohibited Elani or Peter from eavesdropping on my less than charitable thoughts. We were all telepaths and could exchange ideas with a fluidity that mimicked the effortless flight of a bird, but unfortunately our cultural mores kept us earth bound and politely conversant…except, of course, for Kipp and me. We shared complete and unfettered access to one another’s thoughts, no matter how private, at all times. That was the natural way of our kind before becoming civilized–if, indeed, that is the correct word to use for the evolution of my species—and I was finding I enjoyed it more and more as my relationship with Kipp expanded over the years.

  “I heard what you said,” Kipp remarked privately to me, giggling.

  “What?” I asked, feigning innocence of any alleged transgressions.

  “You said that if Peter and Elani needed a mystery to solve, perhaps they could go figure out if it was Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick.” Kipp giggled again.

  “Why don’t you just stick to your business and this job?” I asked, trying to sound stern and not laugh.

  Of course, all our mental chat was not heard by either Peter or Elani, both of whom were good students and quite excellent symbionts. Their only problem was that they were young and inexperienced, and Peter was more than a little headstrong. Despite my better judgment and stern reminders to myself to not become attached, I’d grown very fond of them. On our first significant trip together, Peter had managed to put us all in danger as result of a tendency towards unchecked impulsivity that is not a good trait for a telepathic time traveler who can influence the timeline of history. Since he was not ready to fly solo with Elani in search of past mysteries to investigate, the two of them would tag along with me and Kipp for the foreseeable future.

  “I’m here, doing my job, and am willing to explore this
cellar, but I still refuse to go into the basement of the Farnsworth House,” Kipp replied, pursing his lips in a charming, dog-like pout. “I knew what I’d encounter, and the idea of going down that narrow staircase beneath the floor of the house was more than I was willing to do.”

  “You can walk your dogs back that way.” Sandra, our guide, hovered at the base of the staircase, her hand touching the wooden railing, not wishing to walk with us into the darker area of the cellar of the Soldier’s National Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Along with past ghost hunters, we’d been given leave to explore, and the feeble story of examining the effect of psychic phenomenon on canines had got us past the door. Little did she know that the minds of our canine-appearing companions were as deeply complex as were any humans’ coupled with the instinctual gifts of a genuine canine. Kipp’s intelligence and sensitivity was greater than that of any member of our collective. His connection to me was an ongoing gift, and I’d been forced to become a more serious practitioner of our craft as result.

  I was the elder of the group at a little over four hundred years of age, although humans might think me to be in my late twenties or maybe thirty after a sleepless night. It was placed upon me the responsibility to make certain that my younger cohorts matured in the way of our kind and learned the ethics and role of our trade. The fact we had the ability to travel through time was carefully concealed since humans could easily corrupt and misuse the information gathered from beings who could move effortlessly between centuries.

  Kipp was brimming with confidence, and why not, I wondered? After I was stranded during a time shift in a desolate and dangerous place before recorded history, he found me and formed the bond needed between lupine and humanoid for time travel. His origins made him, uh, natural and unencumbered by centuries of procreation with a limited gene pool as well as way too many arbitrary rules from my way of thinking. Without a moment of hesitation, he left his home to travel to the future with me, and that very fact captured the essence of Kipp. Our collective respected Kipp’s abilities which, untouched by the passage of time, mimicked what was normal for our kind and allowed gentle guidance to let him bloom, so to speak. I protected him like a mother bear and stepped in when I felt the collective might use him…just because they could and the fact he was unprecedented and fascinating. Love was not a big enough word to describe our feelings for one another.

  Kipp paused as his lips curled into an involuntary snarl. Sandra saw his expression and hesitated for a moment. Due to his remarkable size and power, Kipp was intimidating to most humans through no effort on his own.

  “He’s probably picking up on something,” I said, smiling broadly to calm her fears. “Would it be acceptable to just let us wander down here by ourselves for a few minutes?” Tilting my head slightly, I tried to give a plausible reason. “Kipp might react to your anxiety since he’s unaccustomed to you.”

  Sandra replied in the affirmative, her sense of relief flooding the old cellar. We could hear her heavy steps thudding as she climbed up the narrow wooden staircase to the first floor landing, where the aged floorboards overhead creaked and shuddered.

  “I’m glad she’s gone,” Elani remarked, shaking her head. “Her anxiety was getting in the way of my focus.” Despite the inadequate lighting in the cellar, her fur had a shimmery, ethereal glow due to long blond hairs woven throughout her thick gray pelt, making one wonder if fairies had cast pixie dust at her birth. Elani was an attractive female lupine by any measurable standard with a feminine, girlie face and brown eyes the color of a tantalizing nugget of dark Dove chocolate that would melt any heart. Well, almost any. Kipp, knowing of her attraction to him, maintained his boundaries. In his rigidly ethical manner, he thought of her as a kid and he as her instructor; his moral core stopped any romantic speculation right there. I’d learned to not tease him about it since the usually good humored Kipp found nothing at all amusing about the situation.

  Technicorps initially had chosen Kipp and me for this particular exercise since Kipp had demonstrated an unusual degree of sensitivity when exposed to what might be thought of as ghosts at a local graveyard as well as having a similar experience at a Civil War battlefield. In the eternally curious nature of my species, our boss–and my close friend–Philo had sent us to Gettysburg in search of haunted places and wandering spirits. It was truly off the mark for us, and I felt as lost as anyone who has started a new job with limited skills. It seemed, however, Kipp and I were primarily being used as mentors for the next generation, which included Peter and Elani. Well, work was work, after all, and there was a stack of bills at home on my desk in need of immediate attention.

  “So what was it at the Farnsworth House that was so disturbing, Kipp?” Peter asked, as we paused. Obviously, he’d been chewing on Kipp’s remark, waiting for an explanation. Usually tidy, one of his shirt buttons was unfastened, and the tail of his shirt had pulled free of his waistband; wisely, I stayed my hand from reaching out to correct either.

  The basement we were currently exploring stretched underneath what had once been the Homestead Orphanage which was opened after the Civil War to help accommodate children left without family. It had long been rumored to be the site of hauntings, disturbing ones, and we were looking for places with high densities of reported sightings. Gettysburg, in general, fit the bill. The dirt floor upon which we walked was dry, but the area, as with most cellars, smelled dank. The air was thick and moist with humidity that felt as if it had been collecting for the past century. The walls flanking the narrow passage were formed of rock set in a rough, uneven pattern. The current pathway ended, just up ahead, with a small door that led even deeper into the basement. It was in that dark area it was rumored some of the worst abuses of the poor children had occurred.

  “The Farnsworth House was used as a hospital during the war,” I replied to Peter’s question when Kipp paused.

  “It was upsetting,” Kipp responded in a taciturn manner that was not typical of him.

  My telepathic bond with Kipp enabled me to follow his thoughts which involved the horrifying results of the field surgeries, and his impressions were terrifying, his reactions visceral. I understood why he didn’t want to detail them to Elani, for whom he held a gentleman’s tenderness. My Kipp has always been quaintly old fashioned.

  Kipp paused to shake himself hard, the sound filling the tight space. “I just didn’t want to go inside,” he muttered. His head drooped, and the energy I normally felt within him dissipated like a deflated balloon. After a moment he seemed to recover and his tail wagged feebly. “I was thinking of being home again,” he said softly. The ability to self sooth is not one to lightly dismiss, in my opinion.

  “I wonder why the rest of us can’t see these things,” Elani mused.

  “Well, you know, Kipp has abilities the rest of us don’t share,” I replied, before one look from my partner made me dry up as fast as a lonely watering hole in the midst of the desert. It had only taken my few words highlighting Kipp’s wondrous talents for Elani’s eyes to glow with the depth of her attraction to him.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I murmured to Kipp alone.

  “I’ve told you about that,” he replied, his eyes blazing as if they were on fire.

  The orphanage had been initiated with good intentions in that the care of children left without parents was felt to be a priority after the war. But somehow, under the management of Rosa Carmichael, the noble vision became dark and twisted, and the children were subjected to harsh punishment as well as outright abuse and torture. The story was that some of the children even died during her tenure, their bodies never to be found. After the orphanage closed in 1877, Rosa disappeared from the pages of history. Later, the building was converted into the Soldier’s National Museum. Sadly, the quaint museum lost its allure in competition with other exhibits in the midst of a modern world where the internet and all things quick, bright and shiny seemed to rule. The upstairs echoed in hollow emptiness, the footsteps of occasional ghost hunters being th
e only sound heard. We passed a low table where a collection of toys had been left as gifts for the supposed spirits of children who lingered, unable to move forward into the afterlife. Noting a series of blocks, I spelled out “hello” before we moved on.

  “Maybe we’ll set a positive tone,” I said hopefully, raising an eyebrow at the others.

  Peter and I were forced to bend slightly, so that our heads would clear the exposed flooring and conduits overhead. Reaching out with my hand, I let it drag along the irregular surface of the rock wall, wondering if the tactile stimulation would help me to connect with any lingering souls. All I got was a fist full of dust; wiping my hand on my pants, I figured I was already sweaty and dirty so a little more didn’t really matter. As we proceeded into the deepest area, Kipp, who was to my left, paused again, and I heard him growl. At first the sound was a soft rumbling, but it quickly escalated into a rolling sound that reverberated in the close space. Inhaling deeply, I almost could taste the grit of old dirt in the back of my throat. I realized Kipp was blocking me telepathically so that I could not access his thoughts and experiences. He possessed an unprecedented ability with that particular skill, and it had come in quite handy in the past. But there was no way I’d let him take the brunt of this moment without my connection to him.

  “Let me in, Kipp,” I ordered firmly. Behind me, Peter and Elani were left in the dark since they were waiting for Kipp to issue an invitation to them to share his impressions. My bonded symbiont turned to look at me, his eyes sad. I’d always thought them the most beautiful I’d ever seen, the color of aged whiskey caught in a ray of lingering sunlight on a lazy afternoon. The dark fur encircling his eyes only served to enhance their amber glow, as if someone had used a stick of kohl liner to give emphasis to his expression. After briefly hesitating, he nodded, his ears flat against his head, and allowed me access.