I can feel it
It wasn’t a dream. Someone was broadcasting an SOS message across the shortwave frequencies. Quickly, Bess snatched up her pen and scribbled down the last line of the message and waited.
Intel
Intel? Was this some sort of military broadcast? Those were usually encrypted. Much of the modern world had moved on from the shortwave for sensitive communications, but if this was a true distress call there was no telling who it may or may not be.
Intel here
At this point a second voice rang out, farther away but loud.
Margaret! Margaret!
Chills ran through Bess’s body. There was a pause before the first voice resumed. The words were garbled, the beginnings being cut off or lost completely. The signal was weak, but Bess was afraid to adjust the radio for fear of losing it altogether.
… since feast day
It’s rising now
Bevington
Bevington
… find buddy
Bess wrote as fast as she could, desperately trying to get down as much of the message as possible.
SOS
SOS
Can you hear?
The second voice once again called for Margaret. But then something else. It sounded like the word “dragging.” From far away she heard a man yelling to Margaret about dragging something. Or that something was dragging. Maybe Margaret was dragging. It was too hard to make out.
Intel here
The original woman spoke again, this time in a hushed tone like a stage whisper.
Tell her
Tell her
Tell Her
There was another long pause. Either the transmission ended or the signal was entirely lost. She laid down her pen and stared at it, hearing only static. And then:
This is Amelia Earhart
The clicky buzz-hum of radio static hung heavy in the muggy, unairconditioned garage. Bess breathed deep through her mouth and let the late August humidity coat the inside of her throat. She looked down at her notebook. Her chicken scratch shorthand looked back at her. Capital E, squiggle line, lowercase t.
She continued with the deep, slow breaths until her heart slowed from a thud to an insistent knock. Reaching with measured, deliberate motions, Bess clicked off her radio. The longer she examined what she’d written, the more obvious it became—someone was fucking with her.
“Very funny,” she said to no one, or maybe the room.
Someone wanted to play a trick on her.
“But how did they know what frequency I’d be on?”
The room did not answer, but rather presented her with more questions.
Who would play a trick on you? Who would care enough? No one knows you.
“I guess Greg knew about the Earhart stuff.”
Only what you told him.
“Even Carrie White got pranked.”
Carrie was more popular than you.
“I’m a fucking adult. I don’t need to be popular.”
The room did not answer, but instead kept a sort of smug silence. Its point had been made. This transmission probably wasn’t directed at Bess.
But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a hoax, it was just one being played on someone else. Bess hearing it was like when someone in a crowd waves at someone behind you. And you think they’re waving at you, so you wave back…
If it was a prank, why wouldn’t they recite the real Earhart transmission? Betty’s notebook pages detailing the possible last transmissions of Earhart are online—scanned and transcribed with annotations—for the world to see. So what would be the purpose of altering the message? Unless that repeated line, “Intel,” meant this was some sort of code.
Anyone acquainted with Earhart theories would catch some familiar phrases in there. Like “Bevington.” Eric Bevington was a Cadet Officer at the British Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony. Three months after Earhart disappeared, he snapped an infamous photo just off the west end of Gardner Island. Some claim to see signs of what might be the landing gear of a Lockheed Electra poking out above the water. The black, burnt-out remains of the SS Norwich City lolls in the background. Bevington and his photo fit into the Earhart mythos, but not into her transmissions.
“Unless it was a ghost,” Bess said, trying out the words to see how they sounded. The notion that Amelia Earhart’s ghost had reached out to her through a shortwave radio seemed at least somewhat unlikely.
She looked at the notebook. The SOS was undeniable. Someone needed help. Someone named Amelia Earhart. Or possibly Margaret. And there it was again. Like Bevington, Margaret was close, but not quite right.
In Betty’s notebook, where she transcribed what she believed to be transmissions from Earhart, there are several references to a man—presumably navigator Fred Noonan—shouting the name Marie over and over. Which doesn’t mean anything until you take a minute to consider that Noonan’s wife was named Mary Bea, and then you have to wonder. Marie. Mary Bea. New York City. Norwich City.
Not Margaret.
But close.
Bess thrust her thin fingers into her dark mass of curly hair and massaged the sides of her head. There was no clock in the garage but she knew it must be early morning. Her knees cracked when she stood. The bright white notebook paper glared up at her. She turned her back on it.
Inside the house proper, Bess trudged down her short hallway and into the bedroom. The floor was spattered with dirty clothes and shoes—a dropping off station rather than a lived-in space. She flopped diagonally across the bed and was asleep within minutes, sinking into the hard, dreamless sleep of the dead.
2
THE PHONE WAS RINGING. Bess blinked against the hot sunlight coming through her window. Her arm shot out and groped for her cell phone. No luck. The ringing was coming from the living room and she stumbled out, arms stretched in front of her like a barrier, to retrieve it.
“’Lo?”
“Bess?”
“Yeah?”
“Where in the holy fuck are you?”
“I’m here. What?” Bess rubbed her eyes and looked around the house, confused.
“You are supposed to be here. Should, in fact, have been here two hours ago. I’ve been trying to call you all morning, Bess.”
Bess finally recognized her boss’s voice. “Oh shit, Carol, I’m so sorry. Look, I didn’t hear the phone. I don’t know what happened. I had a long night.”
“You were fooling with the radio again.” It wasn’t a question. Carol knew. This wasn’t the first time a bout of insomnia and late-night shortwave made Bess late for work.
“It was different this time, Carol. Something kind of weird happened. Look, I’ll be there really soon. Just let me get dressed. I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. Take the day off. Get some rest. But you’d better not forget our Friday meeting.”
Carol hung up before Bess could apologize again.
Bess laid the phone down and glanced over at the clock. It was ten forty-two. For a few moments she didn’t move at all, just stood there and let her mind be blank. The temptation to lay down and sleep was overwhelming, but she knew she’d be awake all night if she did.
Bess had been the assistant manager of Antioch’s only locally owned bookstore, The Rabbit Hole, for three years. Carol Liddle was the shop owner. Books weren’t an easy sell these days, but Carol had managed to not only stay in business but expand. Last year she’d added on a bar serving a small rotation of craft beers and doubled her sales. In addition to the drinks and books, The Hole also specialized in book-related merchandise like tee shirts, tote bags, and coffee mugs. In the digital age, bookstores had to be savvy. By making her store a gift shop and hangout, Carol had beaten the odds.