The Continent (The Continent #1)(20)

We’re on our way back to the island now, and everyone has relaxed into a sort of easy quiet. My mother and father speak softly to one another in the back row, and Aaden sits beside me, looking through my drawings.

“You have quite a keen eye,” he says. “I have no talent for this sort of thing.”

“Cartography? It’s really more of a science than anything, and with education, I think anyone could—”

“Drawing,” he says with a smile. “I have no talent for drawing. I’m a mediocre artist.”

“I’m sure that’s not—” The heli-plane gives a sudden shudder and lurches to the side, startling me so much that I grab the seat in front of me. I look over at Aaden in wonder. “What was that, do you think?”

“What on earth?” exclaims Mrs. Shaw from the front row.

I lean over and peer up the aisle to see the steward smiling patiently at her. “Just a touch of turbulence, I expect. Nothing to worry about; it’s quite normal.”

“If I’d known we’d be in for a bumpy ride, I might have brought my adventurer’s hat with me,” says Mr. Shaw. “You know the one, Nora, the brown topper with the metal grommets?”

“If you’d packed that hat, I’d have stayed at home,” she says, and my mother laughs. Another jolt, this one smaller than the first, rattles the heli-plane. Mrs. Shaw laughs nervously. “I wonder if I ought to have stayed at home after all? I don’t go in for this turbulence one bit!”

Mr. Shaw pats her hand. “Not to worry, my dear. Remember what the steward said; these heli-planes have been fit to fly for ages. They simply do not crash.”

The plane shudders again, dropping a few feet in the air and taking my heart with it. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“Don’t worry, Vaela,” Aaden says. “These aircraft are equipped with highly redundant systems. It would take an improbable series of malfunctions to cripple one of them, much less bring one down.”

I open my eyes. “Really?”

He smiles. “Really.”

Mr. Shaw stands up, steadying himself with one hand on the top of his seat, and opens his mouth to say something when a horrible wrenching sound comes from the belly of the aircraft, and the whole cabin begins to shake.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mrs. Shaw says, her voice shrill. “What was that dreadful sound?”

“I’ll just go and speak to the pilot,” the steward says. “I’m sure we—”

“You tell him to return this plane to Ivanel at once.”

“I’ll just be a moment,” he replies, and disappears behind the sliding door that leads to the forward compartment.

Mr. Shaw puts a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Let’s just try to calm down and wait for the steward,” he says. “I’m sure everything is under control.”

He does not at all sound sure.

I glance up at the ceiling, where the light fixture is rattling in its casing. The sight of it makes me feel sick, and I look away.

The steward emerges from the cockpit, mopping his brow with a white cloth. “The pilot is going to try to land the plane,” he says. “There seems to have been a mechanical failure, and if everyone will do their best to keep calm, we’ll just—”

“Fire!” shrieks Mrs. Shaw. “There’s a fire!”

Mr. Shaw is on his feet. “Where?”

“I don’t know,” she says, her voice quavering. “But look.”

Acrid gray smoke has begun to seep through the seam of a panel in the forward part of the cabin on the right-hand side. I find myself gripping the armrest, my knuckles gleaming white beneath my skin. But it is the expression on Aaden’s face that brings me from nervousness to fear: gone is the easy confidence of just a moment before. Consternation and dread rule his features.

“Surely this isn’t serious?” I say, my voice thick in my throat.

“The airplane is on fire, Vaela.”

I am overcome by a terrible sense of desperation. “But you…you just said the plane couldn’t crash! That it couldn’t fail, that there are systems in place to keep that from happening!”

“Vaela,” he says quietly, “it is happening—though I don’t understand how. It makes no sense. The—”

“The pilot will land and they’ll send another heli-plane for us,” I say, aware that I am beginning to sound hysterical.

“Don’t you see where we are?” he says, jerking a thumb toward the window. “There’s nowhere to set down. We’re over the mountains southeast of the Riverbed.”

“Please,” I say, but have nothing else to add. I only want him to tell me everything will be okay. I want this plane to stop shuddering. I want to go home.

“When I kissed you,” he says, “I intended to honor every implication of such a thing.”

“What do you mean?”

He stands. “Excuse me, I need to pass by.”

“What?” I say, utterly confused. “Where are you going?”

He doesn’t answer, but steps awkwardly into the aisle and moves forward to address the steward, who gives him a look of utter surprise before nodding emphatically. Then Aaden turns at once and stalks down the aisle toward the aft cabin. He does not look at me or say another word as he passes.