Chapter 7 #2
Simon raised an eyebrow, remembering Tarik’s sudden change in emotion as Shanna talked to him. “And you definitely didn’t put a spell on him to let you go through the security check?”
She gave him a side glance. “Friendliness is not a spell. You should try it sometime.” She leaned to look past him at Chris. “Maybe she should, too.”
Only a slight flicker of Chris’s darkened eyelashes indicated she’d heard her. “Look at the A340,” she murmured to herself, more than them, and continued to stare at one of the airplanes. “What an awesome bird.”
Simon hadn’t thought to check the seats they’d been assigned until they boarded the plane, and as Shanna and Chris reached their row, another man was already occupying the aisle seat.
“Hi!” Shanna greeted the stranger with a smile. “Yup, that’s our row.” They maneuvered around so Chris got the window seat, then Shanna turned to Simon, her eyes widening.
He checked his boarding pass.
They’d been separated. He was nearly on the other end of the plane.
“What?” Shanna whispered.
He held up his wrist with the tattoo.
“You can switch with Chris,” Shanna said.
“No way,” Chris said. “I got the window seat.”
“This is slightly more important than having a good view,” Simon said.
“Yeah? And what are you going to do?”
“Listen, kid.” Simon leaned closer, ignoring the man sitting by the aisle. “You don’t have the power here.”
“Maybe, but I have the ticket with my seat number on it.” Chris waved it, then put in her earbuds and looked out the window.
“Excuse me,” the man grumbled, and Simon moved away.
“Maybe there’ll be an empty seat nearby,” he said to Shanna and walked away. Or perhaps the distance wouldn’t be too great. He squeezed past the other passengers, but still a few rows before his assigned seat, his wrist yanked.
Come on. Just a little further. He took a few more steps.
His wrist yanked back with more force.
Acknowledging defeat, he made his way back to Shanna. The rest of the passengers had settled down by now. Not a single empty seat in sight.
Simon cleared his throat. “Hello. Hi.” He tapped Shanna’s neighbor on the shoulder. “Would you mind switching seats so I could sit with my … wife?”
The man looked around. “Where’s your seat?”
“Down there, in the middle.”
“Uh, I’d rather not. I have to get up frequently, and sitting in the middle …”
“Okay.” Simon brought out his wallet. “How much do you want?”
The man narrowed his eyes. “I don’t like your attitude.”
“My attitude? I’m only trying to sit—”
“Simon,” Shanna urged quietly.
“And I don’t like how you spoke to your kid earlier, either.”
“She’s not my—ugh.” Simon turned away, trying to ignore the stares of those who’d noticed the drama.
What was he supposed to do? He literally could not go to his seat without dragging Shanna out of hers, and the plane was full.
If they could’ve gone on his nice private jet, with nice comfortable seats, this would never have happened.
“Hey, Shanna,” he heard Chris’s voice behind him. “You didn’t forget to ask the flight attendant for nausea bags? You know how you get.”
“Right,” Shanna responded after a moment, not sounding entirely convinced.
“I would hate for you to puke all over the plane. Especially after all the sausages you’d eaten today,” Chris continued in a flat, mildly disinterested voice.
“You know me.” Shanna chuckled. “Love my … sausages.”
Something shifted behind Simon’s back. The man got out of his seat. “On the other hand,” he said, “which one is your seat, again?”
Simon directed him toward it, then plopped down next to Shanna.
“Thanks, Chris,” Shanna said. “That was a great idea.”
Chris hmmph-ed. “Never say I don’t do anything for you.” And she put her earbuds back in.
Simon had fallen asleep somewhere after the dinner meal and before the movie Shanna was playing—lots of scenes of a man and woman tramping through a jungle—had ended. He must have been sleeping pretty well, because he was completely disoriented for a few seconds after waking up.
He’d heard a ping. Was that his microwave? Wait, was he making breakfast? And then he suddenly dipped, and he realized he wasn’t at home, but on an airplane—in the middle of a turbulence.
He shook his head, trying to get his bearings. The lights were still low, so they must be mid-flight. The plane shook again, and a few passengers yelped. A baby started crying.
Yawning, he looked over at Shanna. “Hey, how many hours till—”
Shanna’s face was pale, and she clutched both armrests, her knuckles gone as white as snow.
“Shanna? Hey.” He waited until she looked at him. “It’s just a little turbulence. It’s gonna be fine. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”
The plane dipped again, like they were dropping down on a roller coaster.
“Oh, no,” Shanna whimpered. “Let me out.”
“What?”
“Let me out!” She unfastened her seatbelt and turned to him. “I have to go out.”
“But we have to stay fastened—”
“Please.”
Did he imagine it, or were her eyes watering? “Okay.” He stood aside. She whizzed past him and to the back of the plane, toward the bathrooms. He kept his gaze in that direction for a few more moments, then sat back down.
“Dude,” Chris said.
“What?”
“She’s clearly unwell.”
“I noticed that.”
“Not I’m-gonna-puke type of unwell. Go after her.”
“I’m not going to …”
Chris kept staring at him with her big blue unblinking eyes, surrounded by dark eyeshadow.
“Oh, for god’s sake,” he muttered, got out of the seat, and headed to where he’d seen Shanna disappear.
She hadn’t locked the bathroom door, so after he knocked and she didn’t respond, Simon entered. Shanna was nudging the cover of the toilet seat with her foot, sniffling and grumbling.
“What are you doing?”
She turned to him. In the warm light of the bathroom, she looked a little less pale, but her eyes were still wide and scared, and her hair was disheveled, hugging her face and shoulders like a puffy golden cloud. “I told you. I need to get out.”
“To where?”
“Out of the plane. Do you think the hole in the toilet is big enough?”
“What the—Shanna, stop.” He grabbed her hand. “We’re at forty thousand feet. You’re not jumping out of the plane!” It was highly unlikely she’d be able to open any doors anyway, but that didn’t seem like the most important thing to point out.
“But I have to. Don’t you see?”
The plane shook again; they both grabbed the edge of the sink.
“It’s me,” she said. “I’m causing this. My technology ruining curse. It’s going to crash the plane!” Her chest lifted and fell with her rapidly increasing breaths. “If I don’t get away, I’m going to kill everyone on board!”
That was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard … but he also understood why she thought so.
“Move!” she barked. “I need to find a way—I need to—”
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into his arms. “Shhh. It’s not you. It’s just a little wind.”
For a second, it looked like she’d tear herself away. If she would, he’d let her. But then she settled into his embrace, like a little bird realizing this was not danger, but shelter, and her rebelling subsided to only slight shivering.
“Turbulences happen all the time,” he cooed, gently brushing her hair with one hand. “There are thousands of planes in the air right now, and most of them will get a little shaken up by the time they land. And you’re not on those planes, are you?”
She lightly shook her head.
“See? It’s calming down already. Everything is going to be fine.”
“But my curse …”
“No curse can conquer the forces of nature,” he whispered into her hair.
She sniffled, her face rubbing his shoulder. One of her hands moved from lying limply by her side to seeking out his; cautiously, hesitantly. He wrapped his fingers around hers, a slight warmth spreading across his wrist as their bonds touched.
Minutes passed as the plane settled, and they stayed in their embrace. Shanna’s shivering subsided, but to his strange satisfaction, she didn’t move away. She was soft and warm, and Simon leaned his chin on the top of her head, her light strawberry smell teasing his nostrils.
And he wondered, in the back of his mind, if she was the only one who’d needed comfort.