“Well, I’m glad you got the short straw. What’s Alaska like?”
He tilted his head, humming as he formed his answer. “It’s not Pennsylvania.”
“How so?”
“Well, for starters, there are only three seasons in Alaska: butt-ass cold, break-up, and mosquito.”
“Mosquito…oh…” Hailey sang. “Uncle Pix said Alaska was full of blood suckers.” She looked at Fin shamefaced. “I thought he meant vampires,” she admitted with a self-deprecating cringe. “And with the way things have been going lately…”
Fin only stared at her in response, and Hailey cocked her head as she contemplated the other seasons. “Why would Alaska reserve a time of year for ending relationships?”
Fin straightened up and looked at her sideways. He licked his lips, shook his paper very loudly, cleared his throat, and went back to reading, just as one of the gas masks slid past them carrying a giant wrench on his shoulder.
Hailey tugged Fin’s sleeve. When that didn’t get his attention, she barked a whisper. “Hey!” she hissed as loud as she could.
Fin peeked around his paper.
“Why are these guys wearing gas masks?”
They both watched the wrench wielder disappear behind a pallet.
“So they stay awake.”
“Oh.” That didn’t make much sense to Hailey. Most folks drank coffee, but whatever. Different strokes for different folks, she guessed, and she imagined how nice a steaming cup of coffee would feel as she shivered in her seat.
It was getting colder inside the Luftzeug, and Hailey didn’t have hats and coats and blankets and puffy sleeping bags like the other passengers. Fin unbuckled and unrolled a mummy bag while Hailey hugged herself and watched.
“Are you going to sleep?” she asked him.
“Yes. So are you.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You will be when they turn the gas on.”
“What gas?”
Fin shot a glance toward the front of the plane and lowered his voice. “Come on, chowder head,” he said almost under his breath. “You can use my bag. I’ll grab a blanket from the crew.”
Hailey still wasn’t sleepy, but she was hovering around hypothermia.
“Thanks,” she said, kicking off her shoes. She wiggled inside the most comfortable sleeping bag in the world. “Fin?” she said as he settled down next to her, wrapped in a navy blue wool blanket.
“What?”
She scooted closer to him, and he smiled. Not wanting to admit that she only wanted to hear his voice and didn’t really have a question, she only closed her eyes and enjoyed her contentedness.
“Fin?” she said again, as sleeping gas hissed through the cabin.
“Mm.”
“I really missed you…” she told him, as she drifted to sleep.
“I missed you too,” he said, but she wasn’t sure it was real.
Gas filled the airplane and knocked her out.
In the Aether, Hailey emerged on board the plane next to her jump seat. The Luftzeug:Traumzeuglooked the same as it had when she was awake, except the roof was wide open, and sunlight poured in through it. The turbulence had stopped, and the plane sat parked in the clearing of a bright forest. In the distance, Hailey heard songbirds and a waterfall.
