The Flight

The plane shuddered as it climbed through clouds, the roar of the engines pressing against the metal skin like a heartbeat too large for the body that held it. Inside, everything was red, the dim emergency lights casting the cargo hold in a ghostly glow that made faces look carved from clay.

Raven sat alone near the rear of the aircraft, buckled into a webbed seat bolted against the wall. Her boots didn’t touch the floor; she was light, almost floating in the vibration that passed through every rivet and beam. The air smelled of oil, rubber, and salt. Somewhere above, a loose chain clinked in rhythm with the turbulence.

Across from her, a handful of soldiers dozed with their headphones on, helmets resting on their knees. Two families sat further forward, a woman holding a baby wrapped in an Air Force blanket and a teenage boy scrolling through a phone. They all belonged here, in this world of orders and movement. Raven didn’t.

She wore her mother’s old flight jacket. It was too big, the sleeves swallowing her hands. The patch on the shoulder was half burned, the letters of the squadron name melted into unreadable shapes. She tugged it tighter, breathing in the faint scent that still clung to it: smoke, cedar, and something that reminded her of rain on desert stone.

The sound of the engines changed as they leveled out over the Pacific. The hum settled into a low, steady rhythm that reminded her of a chant, the kind her grandmother used to sing when storms gathered over Crownpoint. The vibration seemed to echo in her chest, as if the plane itself were alive, breathing in time with her pulse.

She stared out the small porthole window beside her. Black sky. Silver clouds below. Somewhere beneath that blanket of white, the world she’d known had already disappeared, her mother’s grave, her grandmother’s house, Hannah’s name whispered at the roadside memorial.

She pressed her forehead against the glass until it ached. For a moment, she thought she saw movement in the reflection, the faint outline of a bird in the darkness outside, wings spread wide and slow. But when she blinked, it was gone.

Raven sat in her seat, mindlessly watching the soldiers across the cabin from her. More accurately, she was staring off into space listening to the lullaby the engines sang to her. She unconsciously traced the stones of her turquoise pendant with her fingers. The vibrations were both a source of comfort and tension. They reminded her of the vibrations she felt that night in the desert.

She folded her arms across her chest and let the sound cradle her. Raven’s eyelids grew heavy. The soldiers’ breathing faded, and the air thinned. Somewhere over the Pacific, she fell asleep.

* * *

When she opened her eyes, the red light of the cargo bay had turned gold. Smoke curled gently across the ceiling.

She recognized this place. She was home. Her bare feet touched the cool tile floor contrasting with the warm air blowing against her skin. The kitchen walls glowed orange, flickering with the reflection of the firelight. On the counter, her mother’s turquoise and silver bracelets gleamed, catching the light like tiny mirrors.

“Mom?” Raven whispered, confused as to why she was here.

The only answer was the sound of the wind moving through the cracked window. The air smelled of sage and burned plastic.

The sounds were all muted as if she was underwater, but she thought she heard her mom’s voice from somewhere down the hallway. It wasn’t a voice of panic, but one of sorrow.

“You can’t run from what calls you, my girl.”

Raven turned, heart hammering. “Where are you?” She yelled.

“It crosses oceans too.”

The voice seemed to come from everywhere, the floors, the walls, the air. It wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

Her throat ached. “Please. Just tell me where you are.”

A shadow moved through the living room doorway. She ran toward it, but the floor stretched beneath her, each step longer than the last, as if the world was pulling her away.

Through the window, lightning flashed. Only it wasn't the sky that was beyond the glass. It was sand, glowing red in the light of the full moon.

Hannah’s laughter echoed from somewhere outside, wild and bright, the way it used to sound when they raced their bikes down the highway at night. Raven pressed her palms against the window. “Hannah?”

The laughter broke into static. Then came the scream.

Her mother’s bracelets slid from the counter, chiming as they fell. Smoke turned turquoise, pulsing with the same hum that lived beneath the plane’s engines. It filled her chest and skull until the tiles cracked and light bled through the seams.

Flame climbed the walls, but it didn’t burn; it shimmered like water.

“Listen, not look,” her mother’s voice whispered.

Raven closed her eyes wanting it to all go away. The hum grew louder, steadier. The fear faded away to heat, to light, and something vast and sorrowful. The words of her mother came back to her just like it did that night six months ago.

“Walk in beauty, walk in fire, walk unseen…” she whispered.

Everything around her went still, the air, the sound, the world. Then it broke apart, exploding in colors of turquoise, amber, and white. Feathers spiraled through the smoke. Hannah’s face flickered in the glowing embers, laughing and screaming before disappearing. Raven reached out touching the warm ash that hardened to cold glass in her hand.

The plane jolted violently. She woke up with a gasp. The cargo bay lights flickered red again; straps swung from the ceiling. A baby cried, and someone cursed softly a few seats ahead.

Her heart pounded as though she’d been running. Sweat dripped from her brow and slicked the palms of her hands. She pressed her hands to her chest. The pendent she wore was hot against her skin. Almost burning.

The engines roared then steadied as the plane settled into calmer air. For a heartbeat, she swore she saw a shadow of crow glide passed on the ceiling of the cabin. She blinked, and it was gone.

The air in the plane smelled faintly of ozone and sage. Her breath fogged the inside of the window beside her forming a faint turquoise halo that lingered a moment before fading into the cold glass.

Someone behind her muttered something about rough air before going back to sleep. Raven couldn’t go back to sleep. Her mind thought back to that night in the desert, and the death of her mother two months later. She thought that even up here, it followed.

Instead of sleeping, Raven opened her tablet and rereads her father’s email.

“We’ll get you settled. Structure will help. Yakota’s different from what you are used to, but safe.”

That word structure made her stomach tighten. His message was as dry and distant as the man himself. Who did he think he was? She hadn’t seen him since she was around four. He never sent a birthday card or even a Christmas email. Now she was crossing the ocean to live with him. To her, he was a stranger in a uniform who believed grief could be solved with rules.

She continued scrolling through the older messages that she didn’t delete: the social worker’s short reminders about the transfer and her grandmother’s final text before she stopped answering calls.

“Remember the song, Raven. It protects you. It also remembers you.”

Around her, the world went on. A young soldier laughed about raman shops in Shinjuku. The mother hummed to her sleeping baby. The smell of stale, reheated coffee drifted through the cargo bay. Raven felt like she was watching them through glass . She was too young for their weariness, but too old for comfort.

She pulled her mother’s jacket closer. The fabric smelled faintly of sage and smoke. It smelled of her. The scent almost undid her.

She looked out the window. The sky was ink black, but the clouds below reflected the silver and white moonlight. Somewhere far beneath all that darkness lay everything she lost. Hannay, her mother, and her home were all swallowed by sand and fire.

Looking out the window, her reflection flickered for a moment. For a short moment, her reflection was replaced with that of Hannah’s, smiling as if caught mid-laughter. Her pulse thudded in her chest. The hum of the engine matched it. It was a sound that she felt more than heard. The clouds outside shifted from black, to red like the desert dunes at sunset, and back to black.

“Stop it,” she whispered. Her breath fogged the glass. The condensation left a faint, glowing turquoise ring that lingered shortly before fading away.

A civilian flight attendant crouched beside her. Her gentle voice could barely be heard over the engine noise. “You look pale. Are you ok?

Raven swallowed. “Just tired of ghosts.”

The woman frowned slightly, mishearing. “It’s a long flight. First time overseas?”

Raven nodded, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. When the flight attendant left, Raven pressed her forehead back against the window. She let her mind drift back into memory.

* * *

Dawn came gray and slow. The plane sank through the clouds into the drizzle. Tokyo appeared on the horizon as a sea of endless lights bleeding into the mist.

On the runway at Yokota, she saw a crow perched on the fence in the rain. Its feathers were black as ink, and its eyes were bright and knowing. No one else seemed to notice it.

Raven gripped the pendant through her jacket. The metal throbbed faintly, warm against her palm. “I am not running anymore,” she whispered.

The plane pulled onto the tarmac. Its engines wound down to silence. Outside the crow tilted its head, as if it had been waiting for her all along.