Annette

I don’t know if I just never thought it would end, or if I just didn’t expect it so soon.

I guess life is funny like that.

We spent today at Rosherville Gardens. The pleasure gardens were splendid. So grand and beautiful. Levi and I vowed to take a trip like this every year of our marriage. This was to be the first of many and it started out so perfectly.

We convinced Celia to come with us. She has been so distraught since Mother died. I haven’t seen her smile in weeks. And, of course, she met a man. Daniel was at the pleasure garden and we had the fortune of meeting him. It turns out, he was making the Moonlight Trip on The Princess Alice as well and I could see how please Celia was to be able to spend more time with him. Levi seems to really like him as well.

I can’t think of anything sweeter than my sister and I getting married and spending her life with such a nice man. Alas, it will never be.

At around seven-thirty this evening, tragedy struck. Levi and I stood on the deck. The water was calm. While the night was lovely, the smell was not. The river was dark and swirled with oil and filth. A crew member explained there had been a fire earlier today with another vessel and they created quite a mess while cleaning it up.

I wish that was the worst of it. As we traveled on the Thames toward the Woolwich Pier a larger ship came into view. Much larger. And it was close. She kept getting closer. She was the Bywell Castle.

I heard a woman scream.

The Bywell Castle hit our ship and The Princess Alice shook and the sound…I’ll never forget the sound of her being ripped in two. Levi and I were thrown into the water as the deck we were on rose into the air.

I gasped when I hit the water. The taste was as awful as the smell, but I didn’t have time to focus on that. My dress was so heavy, and I’d never learned to swim. The water pulled me down and I struggled to keep my head above the surface.

I saw our ship sink. It took only minutes and it was gone. I could feel myself sinking with it. Bodies thrashed all around me and I could hear screams and crying. I was cold and I couldn’t breathe. The water made me gag. I sunk down into the darkness.

And then my head was above water again. Somehow, Levi found me and dragged me up. I vomited up water, but my mind was on Celia. Levi was thrashing and trying to drag me to the pier.

“Wait! Where is—?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was strained.

My head went under again but when he pulled me back up, I saw her dress. She was so close. I screamed and couldn’t even understand my own words, but Levi somehow did. He swam toward Celia. It felt like it took a year, but we reached her and flipped her over. Blood poured from a wound in her head. Something must have hit her.

My beautiful fifteen-year-old sister is dead.

Her vacant eyes stared as Levi dragged me away. It felt like someone had hollowed out my chest. I’m not sure if it was the cold or the pain that made my body numb. Maybe both?

“We have to get out of the water.” His voice was labored and choppy as he tried to pull us toward the North Woolwich Pier.

With unfocused eyes, I saw blood following us and realized Levi was bleeding. His leg, it was hardly moving. As he tried to swim and drag me, I saw the gash. I’m not sure how a leg could heal from such an injury. I know his won’t.

The Bywell Castle was behind us and I stared at it. She was lowering ropes into the water and people on the deck threw over things that floated. I could see people bobbing on them. But we were closer to the pier. Closer, but not close enough. We weren’t making any progress.

“Levi!” My voice echoed all around me.

“Keep going!” He coughed up water as he spoke.

I know this is when I started to go mad because I could swear the water was yellow. Dark and ugly, it cast its glow around my feet as it sucked us under. The yellow swirled and when he tried to pull me up again, it grew and surrounded me. The yellow sucked me down and my heavy, wet dress only helped it along. Levi held onto me and was pulled down with me.

We sank into the swirling yellow. The cries of those around me have been silenced.

My sister is gone. My husband is gone. And I, too, am gone. We’ve been married less than a month and today is the day when death parts us. So soon. Too soon.