Illusory

"Hey, Mom, it's me," I said softly, tapping my foot as I looked around the airport lobby. I tried to cross my arms over my chest but realized that I only had the one free for movement, so I pretended I had an itch to scratch on my side, just in case anyone was watching. After that, I had no idea what to do with it. I put my hand on my hip for a second, then realized how weird I looked and just dropped it to my side. But it felt so awkward there, so boring, and I began to clench and unclench my fist just to give myself something to do. I then remembered I had a cell phone pressed to my ear and happened to be in the middle of leaving a voice mail, and I rushed to fill the awkward silence that I'd begun with the answering machine.

"I'm about to get on a plane, and you know how I am with planes. If it goes well, maybe I'll be brave enough to come see you for Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll even bring Van, except he'll probably be doing something with his family, or maybe not since they don't really seem to be very friendly people, or, at least, his father doesn't, but then again, he's almost too friendly, 'cause he told me the second I walked into his office the other day that I had nice legs, and —" I forced myself to stop, realizing that I'd just begun to yammer in my nervousness. "Sorry, Mom. You know how I am with planes. Well, I...um...I love you, and I miss you, and I hope to see you soon. You know, if the plane doesn't crash and I don't get burned alive...Yeah, I really hope I see you soon. Bye, Mom. I love you." And finally, I hung up, thoroughly surprised that the answering machine hadn't cut me off.

"You're so cute when you're nervous," Van said laughingly from behind me, and I spun to glare at his smirking face.

"I'm not cute," I blurted, then quickly amended, "I mean, I'm not nervous. Why would I be nervous? It's just an airplane, and there's nothing wrong with airplanes; but I really do prefer cars, you know, 'cause they seem safer somehow than being thousands of feet in the air with nothing beneath the wheels and nothing to stop you if the engine fails or you run out of gas or...uh..." I stopped my rambling and scowled at his growing smirk. "There's nothing wrong with airplanes. I'm not nervous."

"Right, right," he said. "But whether you're nervous or not, we need to go. Our plane's about to leave."

"All right," I said as confidently as I could. "This should be fun." We started for the gate together, and Van took my sweaty, shaky hand without another word — his only form of comfort.

-?-

Once we were seated — in first class, of course, as Van would have nothing else — I found myself fidgeting uncontrollably: tapping my foot, or drumming my painted blue nails against the armrest, or wiggling my leg back and forth, or any other spastic, aggravating twitching that you could think of. The sad thing was, we'd only been in the air for a matter of moments.

"It's going to be okay, Ember," Van said softly, soothingly, in that low, deep voice of his. "It's been proven that more accidents involve cars than planes. This is actually the safer method of transportation."

"Then why doesn't it feel safer?" I asked, my eyes darting to his serene face. It didn't calm me like it usually would have. You know, if we'd been safely on the ground, in a car or a house or even a dark alley with a big man holding a knife. At least I could kick that guy in the balls and run like hell. What the hell could I do all the way up here? Stop an entire plane from crashing with only the tremendous power of my mind?

"Because you won't let go of your fear," he answered, lightly resting his hand atop mine on our shared arm rest. He spoke gently, and I wondered how he hadn't grown annoyed with me yet. "Just don't think of all of the bad things that could happen."

"But the bad things are all I can think about," I said, my eyes flitting from one suspicious area of the plane to another. I swore I heard something creaking, cracking, waiting to break off from the plane and send us all to our fiery deaths in the resulting explosion. "I'd like to think about the good things, but there aren't any."

He sighed. "I know a spell that will put you to sleep," he told me, "just for a little while."

"But what if something happens while I'm sleeping?" My eyes paused on his face for only a moment before resuming their spastic scanning of our little first-class area. "What if we're about to crash and there are safety precautions I'm told to take so I won't die and I can't take them because I'm asleep?"

"You'll wake up," he said softly, giving my hand a light rub. "It won't be a deep sleep. You'll wake up from it as you would from a normal sleep." He didn't wait for a response. He put the index finger of his free hand to my forehead, stared deeply into my eyes, and whispered, "Consopio." I promptly fell into a pool of olive green.

-?-

At the sound of wordless screams, of shouted commands, of an alarm blaring over it all, I awoke. Van had been right; I had awoken as I would have from a normal sleep on a plane: filled with terror. "Van?" I cried, lurching to my feet. I was blind in the mass of panicking bodies, pushing and shoving and writhing their panicked little ways around one another, but I knew for sure that Van wasn't beside me. He would have been the one to wake me if he'd been here, and his seat was empty. "Van?" I called again, sounding almost hurt now. Something was happening in our cabin; a gaping hole with melted edges had formed, and a fire had started on the cloth of the seats beside it. Why would he leave me during all of this? Why would he leave me when he knew I would be the most frightened?

A middle-aged woman backed into my row from the one across the aisle when the flames began to snake along her seat. She bumped into me, knocking me into the wall in her hurry to be away from the fire and its searing heat. She didn't apologize, didn't even look back at me. She just kept stepping backward until I was sandwiched between her back and the wall.

"Van!" I screamed like a frightened child, and the woman jumped, startled, as if she really hadn't known I was there. She glanced over her shoulder at me but showed no intention of moving, so I shoved her out of my row and pushed past her. She gave me a dirty look, one that I felt more than saw, but I didn't have time to deal with her.

I rushed down the aisle, pushing past terrified people who were doing their best to get to the other side of the plane and continue to stare at the growing flames at the same time. Something hit the plane, jerking it to one side so hard that I toppled to the floor between two rows of seats, luckily landing opposite the fire. Someone fell on top of me, however, knocking the breath from my lungs and only adding to my blind panic.

"Van!" I cried, the single syllable coming out as a pitiful sob this time. The stranger's weight left me just as quickly as it had come, and I pulled myself to my feet with the help of a chair. I spotted another hole to the right of the first, its edges still sizzling, and that's where I found a tall silhouette I recognized all too well. "Van!" I said happily, rushing forward to be by his side, but he held out a hand, stopping me only a foot away. "Van?" I whispered, hurt and confused by his sudden shunning. In my panicked state, I couldn't take much more, and I began to cry.

"Resarcio," he thundered in command, the light from the flames creating long shadows across his face that only served to make his grim visage look even grimmer. I looked past him, to where his other hand was pointing, and I saw that the wing of the plan had been damaged. Smoke rose from a large hole just like the two in the cabin, and I began to cry harder.

"What's happening, Van?" I whimpered, but he moved forward to the hole in the wall, gripping the edges as he leaned out into the night to look about him. His hair whipped wildly in the harsh wind, his black suit jacket fluttering just as madly, and I swore this was a scene from a movie instead of cold, unforgiving reality. People just didn't look that handsomely badass in the real world.

What looked like a giant ball of fire appeared out of nowhere, lighting up the dark sky as it sailed toward Van, preparing to swallow him whole. But he thrust out an arm and yelled, "Restinguo!" The fireball instantly vanished, returning the night sky to its previous blackness, and Van turned his attention to the fire twisting about the seats within the plane. "Restinguo," he said again with a gesture to the flames dancing along the backs and seats of the chairs. Every seat on that side of the aisle had practically been burned to a crisp by now, but fortunately, the flames hadn't had the chance to spread any further, and no one had been caught up in them.

"Van!" I shouted, seeing another blazing ball of flame hurtling toward his dark figure. Most of the lights had been broken in the cabin, so the fire was all any of us really had to see by.

I wasn't sure why I'd worried, why I'd even bothered to open my mouth like my girlish cry would actually help him. He raised his arm as he had before, boldly facing the flames, and commanded with the authority of a god, "Restinguo!" Poof, the fire was gone; Van remained unharmed.

He couldn't locate a book without the help of another book to jog his memory of a basic locator spell, but he could put out massive fireballs and free-roaming flames without batting an eye. I'd never had a great grasp of the concept of irony, but I was pretty sure that this was it.

The plane jerked again a moment later, knocking me to the floor in the middle of the aisle. Bodies fell all around me, but none collapsed on top of me this time. I started to sit up, but the plane gave another jerk, sending me right back to the floor. I cried out when I was suddenly no longer on the ground, the plane beginning a steep nosedive that left me nowhere to stand. I flew backward for one terrifying second, until my back finally hit the wall to one side of the door between first class and coach. I caught a glimpse of Van on the other side of the doorway just before a pile of bodies covered us both, the other passengers having sailed up to meet us. Some flew through the door, as only a flimsy blue curtain separated the two sections, and I heard their screams as they flew away.

I'm going to die here, I thought, and a sob shook my body. I'm going to die here, surrounded by a bunch of strangers who don't even know I'm here. I looked to my right, toward where I'd last saw Van, but an old man was in my way, screaming one wordless scream after another as if emptying his lungs would save his life.

"Subrigo!" It was loud; it was powerful; it was Van.

The plane came to a sudden halt, and all of the bodies fell away from me. No longer pinned to the wall, I fell, too. But just as suddenly as it stopped, it began to fall again, though it dropped more slowly now. I latched on to the headrest of the nearest seat, clinging to it for dear life as the rest of the bodies flew right back over my head and into the wall. I searched the mass of bodies across the aisle, but I couldn't find Van.

"Subrigo!" his voice rumbled again, but the spell barely slowed the plane this time. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited, waited for the plan to crash, waited to die in some massive explosion or the fire that would result afterward.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the plane crashed into the ground. I was torn from the seat and thrown into the pile of soft bodies against the wall. The plane then fell onto its belly, which sent me to the floor and, consequently, a dozen bodies onto my belly. I grunted, the air knocked from my lungs. I didn't yet dare to open my eyes. I still expected that explosion to come, that fiery death, but it never came. The bodies began to wriggle about on top of me, people pushing themselves to their feet and looking around disorientedly, and I finally opened my eyes to watch them. Eventually, I was the only one lying on the floor from my pile, and Van was the only one lying on the floor across from me. His eyes were closed, and I crawled to his side, fearing the worst; but when I reached him, I found his chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths. He was unconscious, but alive.

I threw my body across his chest, weeping tears of joy. "You bastard!" I cried. "You tricky little bastard!"

-?-

"Hey, you're awake," I said softly, smiling down at Van as he finally opened his eyes. They instantly squinted until they were almost completely shut again, sensitive to the bright, early morning light that fell across our little camp. A couple of men had helped me carry him from the plane, just in case something did explode, and now, he lay on the grass beneath an ugly blue blanket that was singed at one corner. I had a similar blanket around my shoulders, as did several of the other passengers. They all sat chattering around us, whispering to one another in little groups about what had happened to the plane — or, you know, what they thought had happened. Magic had never come up, and I knew all too well that we'd been attacked by someone using magic just as we'd been saved by someone using magic. It was an important part of the night's events.

"Where are we?" Van asked, sitting up with a grunt. Steam filled the air with each hot breath; this part of Washington was much too cold for my liking. He put a hand to his head, clenching his teeth, and I waited for his jaw to relax before I answered.

"Washington," I said, looking toward the heavily forested area that lay to the left of our field. The plane was smoking on a patch of dirt a few yards away, and beyond that, the field stretched on and on for what seemed like forever. "We're only a few miles from Merriclaw, if the pilot knows what he's talking about."

"The pilots made it out all right?" he asked, and the hopefulness in his voice brought my eyes back to him. I smiled at his barely concealed concern, swimming in the olive green of his eyes.

"Yes," I answered. "For the most part, anyway. One of them has a broken leg, and the other probably has a concussion. They're alive, though." Here, my smile softened, and I dropped my gaze to where my hands wriggled nervously about beneath the rough blue fabric. "We all are," I whispered, "thanks to you."

"It was nothing," he said, and I looked up just in time to watch him lower his eyes to the cold ground at his feet. "Any magician would have done the same."

"But not nearly with that level of skill." I grinned. "Stop being so humble. You were amazing, more amazing even than you are on stage, and you're pretty damn amazing there."

He shrugged, beginning to fidget with the burned corner of the blanket. "It wasn't that great."

"If you say so," I said, my hands up placation, though I couldn't shake my grin. "You know, you're really cute when you're nervous."

"Not nearly as cute as you are when you're nervous," he retorted without missing a beat, his eyes leaving the blanket to meet mine.

I laughed lightly. "That's because you're never cuter than me, period."

"Well, I can't argue with that," he said, a small, lopsided smile curving his lips. "I'm too manly to be that cute."

I laughed, louder now, and I put a hand over my mouth when several of the other passengers glanced at me. "You're arguing with me about who's cuter," I pointed out once my laughter had subsided, though it still added a light lilt to my words. "You can't call yourself 'manly' anymore."

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "I just saved an entire plane full of people, and I can't call myself 'manly'? Your logic is flawed."

"You don't have to be manly to save people," I argued, unable to shake my grin even though he'd just said the most sexist thing I'd ever heard in my life. "Women do it all the time, and they're still very feminine."

"Right, right. Of course," he said, his eyes scanning the area. His happiness had faded, its place taken by the grim seriousness I expected from a 'manly' man in his situation. He was all business now. "Does the pilot know which direction Merriclaw is in?"

"Yeah," I answered, lifting an arm to point at the woods. "He said the city was probably through those trees. He's already called for help, though. We should just wait for someone to come for us."

"We don't have time." His bones cracked and creaked as he got to his feet, and he grunted in pain, though his darkly calm demeanor never shifted. "We'll probably be able to walk there in the time it takes someone to find us out here."

I rose to stand beside him, frowning. "But Van, the pilot said that the city could be miles from here. Miles. It's not just going to be some brief stroll through the woods. We could get lost, or something could be waiting to eat us, or we could die of starvation before we even reach the city!"

"Your argument was convincing until you said that last part," he told me coolly, picking up his black back pack from where I'd left it on the ground beside him. "It's only a few miles. We can traverse that easily." He unzipped the bag and pulled out the spell book his mother had lent to him, smiling triumphantly. "We do have magic, after all." He tucked the book away and promptly started toward the trees, the blanket thrown over one shoulder and the back pack thrown over the other.

"Van!" I called pleadingly, and everyone in our little camp turned to look at me once again. "Van, we can't do this! We shouldn't! It's stupid!" But he didn't stop walking, and none of the other passengers said even a single word of caution. I had no choice but to pick up my own silver-and-blue back pack and start after him into the woods. "Damn it, Van! If we die, I'm gonna kill you!"