As the plane lifted off from the runway, my cheeks were wet with tears. I felt a buoyancy in my bones, as well as a heaviness in my chest. My father had brought me bits and pieces of the world from his many trips. He’d promised we would one day fly together to places he had shown me on a globe so I could collect my own treasures. My first flight was supposed to bring me closer to him. Though my parents were gone, I still felt like a traitor to be leaving them behind.

The airplane took on altitude, the engine rumbling beneath us, gears shifting. We bobbled through a veil of clouds, and Tilly’s hand stayed on mine until we were above the fray. Her face looked flushed, and thin beads of sweat persisted on her hairline. Her staccato breaths unsettled me. She sounded as if she was trying not to cry.

A solemn silence permeated the plane as all who had just evaded death ascended into the heavens. With my eyes on the bright blue sky outside the window, I drifted to sleep, losing track of time and place. I didn’t know if I was falling or flying, if I would soar or sink. All I knew was that nothing would ever be the same again. I had new hollows and edges and curves and knots. I let my head fall against the seat and prayed for wings.

Chapter 26

“When we get there,” Tilly explained, “we’ll tell them you’re going to stay with me. Antonia will come soon. Once they meet you, once they see how brave and bright you are, they will do all they can to help you.”

I did not know who “they” were, but hoped they would be as kind as Antonia and Tilly. Tilly sensed my discomfort and brushed my hair away from my face and squeezed my hand. She looked at me the way my grandmother did when she was still alive.

Tilly pulled a small booklet out of her purse and offered it to me as a way to pass the time. It was the travel guide, Eastern Bound, that she’d taken from Indigo’s friend. I flipped through the sections, each devoted to a country. Chapters began with ink drawings of a bearded man with a turban on his head. In Turkey the cartoon man held a bow between his hands. In Iran he sat perched on a rearing horse, and in Afghanistan he sat in profile, the tip of a long-necked water pipe between his lips. The pages were decorated with childish flowers, leaves of five fingers, and miniature buses with clouds of smoke trailing behind them.

I pointed at words I didn’t recognize and asked Tilly what they meant.

“Nymphs and satyrs are just people drunk on themselves,” she said. “You’re destined to be a sober goddess, which is infinitely better.”