They ended up putting the four of us, plus two private security guards on a British Air flight to Newark, one guard for the Jamaicans and one for me and the blonde girl–Ellen. I’m not sure why we needed so many chaperones. Me and my new friends were all pretty docile and good-natured and resolved to be going home. We weren’t going to cause anyone any trouble. If anything, I was the surliest of the bunch.
The British Air folks had us deportees board first, even before any parents with small children or disabled folks needing extra assistance. They wanted to make sure we were in place and buckled down before they let the regular folks on.
Our seats were in the very last two rows of the plane, next to the washrooms. Frankie and I took window seats. They kept the Jamaicans together. Rudolph while Ellen sat next to me. The guards, both American, took the aisles.
They were both wary and taciturn with us, way less pleasant than Hank and Mr. Osborne. Frankie got told to sit down and shut up when he tried to kick up a chat with a lady the next row up.
That was fine with me. I wasn’t in any mood to talk. I think Ellen sensed this, because she didn’t pry. I appreciated that.
Ellen was an old soul. I could tell that from her eyes. They held wisdom and sadness beyond their years. She had seen a lot of stuff in her time, some of it quite bad.
It amazed even me that I could tell that from a glimpse. I had never found myself particularly empathetic or perceptive, but Root had taught me a lot about people.
She caught me looking at her a little too long and I blinked away, pretending it unintentional. But in that glance, I found a confidence and optimism that contrasted greatly with Rudolph’s twin pits of doom. She might be bitter about life, but she had come to grips with it. I was pretty sure she had never seen Root. Few people do and even fewer live to tell about it.
Overhead bins slammed. The aisles cleared. Ellen picked up a Sky Mall catalog and commented on some strange cat toy. I stared straight ahead and grunted.
She probably thought me rude or standoffish, but I was just trying to settle down and get my head into that fugue state where Root could come and take my soul away for a while. Then again, even when I tried to be friendly, my social graces had never been anything to brag about.
We taxied. Stowed our electronics devices. Ignored the safety briefing. And the plane took off.
Still not a glimmer of Root showed itself. I wanted to go back there so badly. Too badly. That was the problem.
Once we got up to cruising altitude and the stewardesses brought the beverage cart around, I gave up trying and broke out of my shell.
“Where you from?” I blurted, out of nowhere.
She put down the ‘in flight’ magazine and looked at me like I was some piece of furniture that had miraculously acquired the power of speech.
“Um … well, I grew up in Connecticut, but I had been going to school in Maine … before I came out here.”
“What school?”
“Bates,” she said.
“Oh!” I said, feigning recognition even though I had never heard of it before.
“Yeah. They say it’s a really good school, I guess. I … uh … wasn’t a very good student. I kind of hung out with the townies—my Somalian friends in downtown Lewiston. I really only went there for the study abroad.”
“Why didn’t you just go to college in England?”
“I … I wasn’t sure I’d like it. I had never been there before. I just thought it’d be cool, I mean … I was a big Harry Potter and Dr. Who fan. Turns out, it’s more like ‘Skins.’
“Skins?”
“A series on E4. Dysfunctional teens. Suburban blight. You know. That sort of thing. The slimy underbelly.”
“So … you going back … to Bates?”
“Nah. I’m done. I’m done with college.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Oh? Where did you go?”
“I didn’t.”
“Are you even … college age?”
“Um … yeah. Don’t I look it?”
“You look young,” she said. “Younger than me.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“I’m … almost twenty,” I said, truthfully, though I was tempted to lie.
“Hmm. You look even younger,” she said. “Except … except for your eyes.”
I wondered if she could see the Root in me the way I saw it in Rudolph. Would she realize what she was looking at if she did? Doubtful.
“So where did they nab you?” I said. “Did I hear you say you were working in a pub?”
“Yup. In Cheltenham.”
“Sounds … familiar.”
“It’s a nice, little tourist town on the edge of the Cotswolds.”
“Oh, right. I think I’ve actually been there. I was working for a while on a goat farm in Brynmawr.”
“South Wales. Yup. I know it. We were practically neighbors.” said Ellen with a big smile that betrayed as much bitterness as it did sweetness.
***
As the meal cart inched its way down the aisle, I leaned against the window and stared through the broken clouds. Ponds took turns glinting at us, one by one. We passed over villages—clusters of cobble and slate, nodes in a network of roads and walls. And then came an abrupt and jagged line of bluffs and beaches, waves breaking in frothy arcs.
It pained me to watch all that green terrain slip away into open ocean. I hadn’t felt half as bereft leaving Florida for good, and I couldn’t understand why.
The feeling of connection I felt with the British Isles was a little difficult to explain. I was three generations removed from my Dad’s Irish ancestors. Was it because this was the only place I had ever known the earthly version of Karla? Could it be that simple?
All my pondering spurred an involuntary but familiar chain reaction. I stifled a sly thrill, disengaging my mind, nurturing the process, letting things fall where they may. Any attempt to guide the outcome would make it all go away. This is what Karla called ‘surfing.’
And wouldn’t you know, those dang tendrils came for me, entangling my soul, pulling it free from my body. I felt myself tumbling through the floor of the plane. It didn’t matter if a soul was six feet under or cruising at thirty-nine thousand feet when the Liminality calls.
