“This is the captain speaking. The storm has taken a turn for the
worse. We will be landing in Chicago
instead of River Rapids to wait out the storm.
In the meantime, please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened. We have about fifteen minutes until we reach
Chicago.”
The captain’s words are almost completely drowned
out by claps of thunder. Hail is beating
against the plane so hard Eliana is afraid the windows will crack. Lightning flashes all around them. Josh squeezes her hand. “Fifteen more minutes,” he says, his voice
far from reassuring.
Eliana’s body is shaking but not with fear. Since taking the essence of Isis inside her,
in addition to the essence of Ra, her power has become more difficult to
control. At the time, she and her new
friend Xandra needed the additional power to fight an evil Archangel and Eliana
gladly welcomed Isis. But Isis does not
sit calmly within her. She is
tempestuous and exerts her will more firmly than Ra.
It is taking every iota of will power Eliana has not
to reach out and attempt to calm the skies.
She can’t do that regardless of her growing need to make sure everyone
aboard is safe. Subtlety has been lost
to her. If she uses her powers, it would
be obvious to those around her and she can’t risk the exposure. Besides, the pilot must have flown through
storms like this before. Surely he can
keep the plane under control for another fifteen minutes.
As if the cosmos want to prove her wrong, a flash
of lightning strikes again. It hits one
of the plane’s engines and a burst of fire erupts from it. Josh’s grip on her hand tightens and their
eyes meet. No, not yet, they say
silently to each other. The plane will
be fine without that engine. Around
them, passengers are beginning to panic.
Fearful words and tears fill the cabin.
Two babies who have been calm most of the flight begin to wail. When the plane dips suddenly and the oxygen
masks drop, panic turns to terror.
Several screams rip through the air and even the flight attendants
struggle back to their seats to strap themselves in. Another dip causes one of them to fall before
she can reach her chair. She hits her
head on the arm of a seat hard enough for blood to begin trickling down her
forehead. A nasty bump begins to
form. Eliana wants to reach out and heal
her, but she mustn’t. She tells herself
it’s just a bump. The flight attendant
will be fine without her intervention.
The plane rights itself, but it is only a matter of
seconds before lightning strikes again.
The hail increases in intensity and the plane is struggling to maintain
a straight course. Eliana’s eyes meet
Josh’s again. They both know the time
has come to act. She cannot wait any
longer. Eliana must calm the storm
before the plane is ripped apart or crashes to the ground. Before everyone aboard is killed.
“They’ll know,” Eliana whispers.
Josh squeezes her hand. “They will know something, but they won’t
know the truth,” he reassures her.
Eliana tries to convince herself the others on the
plane won’t understand the details. But,
does that really matter? They are going
to figure out something supernatural is going on. And they’re going to freak out about it. In the big picture, she’d rather have them
alive and freaking out rather than everyone dying in a fiery crash. Resigning herself to this, Eliana lets go of
Josh’s hand and closes her eyes.
Reaching out with her mind, she imagines herself standing on the ground
as the storm rages around her. Narrowing
her focus, she finds a single piece of hail falling from the clouds. One piece out of millions. Warming it with the heat she can generate,
she begins to peel it apart until it is once more single rain drops. Spreading her power, the heat repeats this
action over and over. No longer is her
power focusing on single bits but on sections of the storm, beating back
curtains of damaging ice. A chain
reaction is created and soon, the pounding of hail against the sides of the
plane becomes the soft patter of rain.
Without the hail colliding in the clouds, the lightning ceases and the
thunder quiets.
The wind is still attacking the plane, though, causing
dips and sharp movements as the pilot struggles to maintain control. Harnessing the wind with her mind, Eliana wrestles
with it until it has no choice but to obey.
It too begins to calm. With each
deep breath she takes, the wind slows. It
does not become a gentle breeze, but it has lessened considerably. It will no longer affect the plane’s course
or the safety of those on board. Eliana
is unable to completely halt the storm, but she has diminished the danger.
As her mind lets go of the elements, she realizes
the panic within the plane has not lessened.
It seems to have grown. Frightened
words are still being spoken, gasps of shock and fear uttered. A scream cuts through the din and Eliana
opens her eyes. She looks to Josh first. His face is ashen and his eyes big and
round. He glances down at her seat and
then lifts his eyes to hers again. Only
now does Eliana feel the pressure of her loosened seatbelt against her abdomen
and the sense of her bottom no longer touching the seat cushion. She is levitating about six inches above
it. Almost ready to panic herself, she closes
her eyes again and focuses, forcing her body back down. Levitating has not been in her arsenal of
powers before and she is as shocked as Josh.
“Your hair,” Josh whispers.
Eliana’s hands shoot to her head. Five minutes ago, her dark hair was straight
and snarl-free. Now it feels like a
tornado raged through it making it a tangled mess. It is her turn to panic. What did she look like while she was using
her powers? “What happened?” she
whispers, trying to ignore the growing cacophony around her.
“Your hair was blowing around you like you were in
the storm,” Josh whispers back.
The flight attendants have left their seats and are
busy trying to calm the passengers. They
are having less luck than Eliana did with the storm. There was a mass exodus of the seats
surrounding Eliana and Josh while Eliana used her power and everyone is
crowding to the back of the plane. This
is almost as dangerous as the effects of the storm. They are throwing off the balance and again causing
the pilots to have control issues.
Eventually, everyone is found a seat at least two
rows in front or behind Eliana and Josh.
The captain announces the plane will still be landing in Chicago despite
the calming skies. His voice is only
slightly less worried than it was before.
Of course, Eliana muses. Not
only is an engine destroyed, there is a freak aboard. She wants to crawl under her seat and not
rise again until the plane lands and the rest of the passengers disembark.
Time has never moved so slowly. Each minute the plane is in the air is
another minute to add fuel to the pyre of ruefulness building inside her. Waiting to discover her fate after exposing
herself and her powers. The flight
attendants refuse to walk by her and she can make out words from the frightened
whispers filling the air. What is she?
How did she do it? Are we all
going to die because she did something to the plane? The last is the hardest to hear. She has saved the plane, but how would they
know that. Finally, after what seems
like forever, the plane lowers to the ground.
It taxies to a gate and the ground crew readies the exit ramp. Eliana’s fear jackknifes when no one leaves
their seats. Where passengers would
usually move en masse to retrieve their carryon items from the overhead bins, there
is a deafening stillness.
After several minutes, three people board the
plane. Two are dressed in TSA uniforms,
one older with graying hair and a stocky build and the other young with ebony
skin and a lean, muscular build. The
other person is a tall, thin blonde woman in a navy blue suit. Her face is pinched, making her features
sharp. She has an air about her that
indicates she is in charge despite her smaller stature. They walk directly to Eliana and Josh. “You need to come with us,” the woman informs
them. “Please leave all of your
belongings here except your purse and your wallet.”
There is no point in arguing. The only alternative is for Eliana to use
more of her power to allow them to escape.
Something she refuses to do for a number of different reasons. Mainly, she wants to remain on the right side
of the law. Resigned, Josh and Eliana
rise and follow the woman off the plane.
Eliana is certain she hears the other passengers sigh in unison as they
leave. If only she could explain to them
she probably saved their lives.