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I lifted the glass, trying to pretend my hand wasn’t shaking.
I was all of a sudden a nervous wreck. Almost too upset to even take in my surroundings. Almost but not quite. Everything was beyond luxurious. Rich woods and fabrics, the nicest bathroom I’d ever been in. Ever.
I wasn’t nervous about flying even though it was my first trip in the air. Flying on this plane was like taking an air-bound limousine. The seats were soft leather and I’d almost fallen asleep in between Dexter or the copilot asking me if I wanted something to eat or drink, or if I wanted a fluff pillow, whatever in the hell that was. I’d almost ordered one just to see what the name was about.
I had no idea where I was going. No clue about country, city, or even county. I didn’t know if the academy was a place I would love or a place I would hate.
Hell, I could barely pronounce the name of the school, and now I was on a plane headed there like I had good sense and knew what I was doing.
After a couple of hours, the copilot came back and told me I could come up front if I wanted and sit in the third seat. It was a private jet, so they could invite passengers up. And that’s where I fell in love with flying and swore I’d get my pilot’s license someday.
Before I knew it, the plane landed without a bump. Peeking out the window, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My brow dipped right over my nose as I took in the surroundings. Instead of the cold concrete of an airstrip, we were tented by high-rising trees. Somehow this plane had landed without disrupting the understory, which seemed to be a miracle of its own accord. Bright-green leaves adorned almost every branch in shapes and sizes that were more like cookie-cutter designs than anything I’d seen in nature.
Tall grasses in every shade of tangerine and magenta and every color in between dotted the ground in groups that looked like someone with a pink wig had been buried standing straight up and her hair was the only thing sticking out.
The sun shot through the breaks in branches in rays like lasers, lighting up the place and making the dew on the leaves shimmer and shine.
“It’s time, Endymion. Your car is waiting. The bags have already been put into the trunk. They are waiting for you.”
Dexter, now that I wasn’t thinking of him as an airport car driver, was one handsome dude, but he had scared the ever-loving shit out of me. The trees and grass and leaves had completely captured my attention and held me hostage in their beauty.
“Oh, okay. It’s so pretty out there.” I poorly tried to excuse myself for not paying attention.
“Lodradian has always been beautiful this time of year. I remember coming here myself. Long ago…” She scoffed and stood up straight again. “Back then, I thought I was so adult and knew everything. How wrong I was…”
I got up and walked toward the open door. Hoisting my bag up on my shoulder, I stepped down the silvery stairs and was relieved once my feet hit the ground. “Good luck, Endymion.”
Those were the last words from my pilot before the stairs enfolded into themselves and I was left standing next to an airplane with a limousine next to it.
“Here we go. Man, the ’rents went all out this time. The driver, the plane, the limo. Maybe all of this is escorting me to my death, and they just want me to have a good time before I go.”
I should really stop talking to myself.
A man wearing a dark suit and a chauffeur’s cap called to me and opened the door to the limo. If left to my own devices, I would’ve just stood there and looked at my surroundings for the rest of the day.
“Oh…” I said as I got into the limo. There were four other girls in the back huddled together in a corner near where the driver sat. All of the seats were dark-gray leather and matched the carpet. There were buckets with ice and several kinds of drinks that looked like the pink bubbly stuff on the airplane. It still freaked me out. “Hello. I didn’t know we were carpooling. I’m Endymion.”
All four girls looked up from their phones at once and then, without giving me a greeting or even the time of day, went back to talking to each other. Their voices seemed like each one of them were tubes on a wind chime, each having a different note, but still, together, putting out a song that I didn’t understand.
Didn’t even seem like they were speaking English.
All four of them were wearing high heels and skirts so short, they didn’t leave much to the imagination. Each one’s hair shimmered despite the lack of light in the car.
I looked down at my jeans and flip-flop-clad feet. “I bet you ten are grateful I don’t wear high heels.”
My toes didn’t answer.
“Is this your first time here?” I asked, trying again to strike up a conversation, but again, I got the cold shoulder and more tinging and clinking of voices filled the air.
Oh well. Maybe there will be someone here I can make friends with. These four probably sensed that the limo and the private jet weren’t exactly my norm.
I leaned back against the seat, my purse and bag clenched tightly against my chest, and fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Four
Our driver, unlike Dexter, really did seem to be a chauffeur. I couldn’t say how I knew the difference, or what about Dexter made him not a driver, but there it was. He wasn’t even “just” a pilot. And he’d mentioned arriving at the school himself…so he was an alum for sure.
But since I’d seen the jet taking off as we drove away, it didn’t matter. I’d probably never see him again, not even to ask how he knew my father. Turning my attention back to the other occupants of the car, I did that thing where you don’t speak a language, but you try hard to find meaning in anything they say. A word or phrase that sounds like something in English perhaps? But as the car rolled down the two-lane road with fields on either side, I got nothing. I couldn’t even figure out what language it was. And I might not have been in the car, for all the attention they paid to me.
