Eva placed the book in front of Arachne and shut the door. Arachne held the book up against the grate. There were still holes in the top portion of the cage but Arachne mostly blended in with the dark bottom.
Satisfied with the camouflage, Eva picked up the carrier. She took a new seat in the waiting benches for her gate. She quickly pulled out a much more benign book than the one she had been reading in the bathroom and buried her nose in it. Hopefully the people around would see a girl involved in her book and not try to make small conversation.
Her plan seemed to work. Not a single person approached her between sitting and her flight being called for boarding. The attendant checking her ticket questioned the cat carrier, but Eva just tilted it back to show the two books carefully pressed against the door. The attendant smiled and waved her through.
The plane was much smaller than Eva anticipated, but much fancier looking. She had seen images of jets before on television or at school or the library and they were nothing like this. She expected rows and rows of seats. Instead she got couches.
There were seats closer to the front than the couches, but they looked more like someone took two recliners and cut off the arm rest in the middle. Definitely not what she thought airplane seats should look like. There were four sets of two, all facing the front of the airplane. A little table was set out a decent space in front of each pair of seats.
Eva could see a second compartment similar to the one she was standing in through a small doorway.
She stood right at the front, hesitating. No flight attendant had led her to her seat. Her ticket didn’t have a seat number on it. She doubted the seats even had numbers. Numbers would just blemish the lounge atmosphere.
A small group of teens around her age sat at the couches. Two girls and two guys. There was clearly space with them, but they hadn’t even looked up when she entered. They quietly chatted away with each other.
A young girl sat in the window seat of one of the pairs of recliners nearest to the couches. The girl’s blond hair was almost as long as Eva’s own black hair. It came down to just above her waistline. She wore a lavender sundress with a light floral pattern.
Eva didn’t want to walk past the group on the way to the rear compartment, but she didn’t want to appear entirely unsociable either. Not if these were going to be fellow students. So she chose the paired seat next to the girl.
In contrast to her bright aesthetics, the girl was downright depressed looking. She had her feet up on the seat with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head buried in her arms.
“Is this seat taken?” Eva asked.
She lifted her head just long enough for a quick glance at Eva. Her bright green eyes were marred by the heavy circles of sleep deprivation.
Maybe she doesn’t like flying, or perhaps stayed up too late. Without an objection, Eva took the seat next to her and set Arachne’s cage beneath the table in front of her.
A moment after Eva sat down, another teen about her age walked aboard the plane. He had a big smile on his face and walked right past Eva without even a glance in her direction. Eva didn’t bother to look to see if he moved to the couch or to the cabin beyond.
The overhead speakers crackled to life. “This is your captain speaking,” a gruff voice said. “We have three more stops to pick up students. A light lunch will be served around one o’clock. If we happen to fly over a time zone and skip one, well you’ll just have to starve.” Eva heard the group behind her give some polite chuckles.
“We’ll be arriving at our final destination by six o’clock mountain time. In the mean time, get yourselves comfortable. We’ve got a long trip from Florida to Montana. Doubly so with our extra stops.
“It is a long flight but you’re free to move about the cabin when we are in the air. We might be on the ground for a while on our stops, but I ask that you do not leave the plane. We might just leave without you. There are drinks and snacks available from our flight attendants and bathrooms between the compartments.
“With all that said, we’ll be taking off shortly. Enjoy your flight.”
The speaker crackled again and cut off.
Eva glanced around the cabin. The group of students resumed their talking, or maybe never really stopped. The blond next to her never even moved a muscle during the captain’s entire speech.
A flight attendant came out and began pointing out exits and showed how to use oxygen masks in the event of an emergency.
Eva wasn’t sure what kind of emergencies were common on flights, but felt that oxygen masks were probably more of a placebo than anything. The fact that seats doubled as flotation devices might have been comforting if they were going to Europe or somewhere, but there just wasn’t that much water between Florida and Montana.
After her speech, the flight attendant went behind a curtain up front. A few minutes later and Eva felt the plane jerk forward.
She almost wished she took a window seat for her first flight, rather than sit next to the curled up girl. Luckily the windows on this plane were fairly large. Not quite car window size, but larger than she had seen in movies.
Eva sighed. She was sure Arachne would have liked to see as well.
Eva had no doubt that the spider-demon was getting restless already. That they would be stuck in the plane, and her in her cage, for over thirteen hours could only be making it worse.
As long as everyone on the plane were students, maybe she could bring her out. At least let her stretch her legs so she wasn’t all folded up for a whole day.
Eva watched past the blond girl as the plane made its way to the runway. It stopped and sat. And sat. Eva felt a jolt of adrenaline as a worry came over her. Maybe there was something wrong.
Maybe they found out about all the contraband she had on her person. Her bag was still slung over her shoulder, but maybe they had magical detectors and had detected her ritual daggers. Or Arachne.
The plane began to move forward and Eva felt relief wash through her. The runway moved past the window as the plane picked up speed. The plane tilted back and Eva found herself pressed into her seat.
A familiar sensation gripped and pulled at her stomach. Eva almost started giggling. It was like jumping with Arachne.
The ground disappeared beneath the plane as it rose into the sky. Even as strong as Arachne was, she would be hard pressed to even hit half the height they were at now. And the plane was still rising.
As the plane leveled off, Eva was brought speechless. The sun glinted off the tops of clouds and the ground beneath was so very tiny.
Eva knew what planes were. She even had an idea of how they worked with wing shape and lift. Yet looking out the window was something special. Not magical, she knew how magic worked better than how planes worked, and nothing about planes was magical.
Well, she thought, maybe this plane. But it was probably close enough to a regular plane that the view wouldn’t be different.
Eva leaned back in her chair and just started to relax when the flight attendant popped out of nowhere. She asked if either of the girls wanted anything to drink and started listing off drinks she could serve. Eva was pretty sure some of those drinks weren’t supposed to be served to someone her age.
Of course she ordered one. A twisted doe.
She had alcohol in the past and didn’t much care for its taste or effects. She was, however, always on the lookout for new things.
The girl next to her spoke for the first time in almost thirty minutes. For the first time as far as Eva was aware. She barely tilted her head up and mumbled, “a coke.”
That had been good enough for the flight attendant. She nodded and walked away. She returned a moment later and set down a bubbling cola in front of Eva’s blond companion. Eva got a clear liquid in a fancy glass.
It didn’t smell like alcohol. She took a cautious sip. Blueberries. Nothing especially special, it just tasted like blueberries. If it had alcohol in it, it was covered up enough that she couldn’t tell.