Page 41 of The Otherworld

“Oh!” she chirps and hops to her feet. Thump, thump, thump, into the other room.

I drag a hand over my unshaven face and flinch at the cut sliced down my cheekbone. I can’t even remember where that happened, but I remember how the saltwater stung when I swam like mad to shore, leaving my wrecked Beaver behind.

Thump, thump, thump. She returns with my backpack in hand. I realize that I should probably ask her name, since it seems odd how much she knows about me and how little I know about her.

So I say, “What’s your name?” but she doesn’t hear because she’s talking about the backpack, shoving her hands into the compartments.

“I’m not sure what you mean by the front pocket. I looked through all the pockets, and I didn’t see anything.” She kneels on the floor and offers me the backpack. I can’t help but notice that it’s empty. She must have taken everything out. Somehow, this feels more invasive than being stripped naked while unconscious.

“It’s right here,” I say, reaching into the inner flap of the front pocket. Out comes the charge cord for my phone. I look up into her face and try again. “What’s your name?”

“Me?”

That makes me smile.

She laughs timidly, looking down. “Of course me. Orca. My name is Orca.” For some reason, I feel like I already knew that. I feel like I’ve met her before. Like I’m not meeting her for the first time but rather remembering who she is.

“Well, thank you, Orca,” I whisper, clasping her hand for a moment as I give her the cord. “Thank you for saving my life.”

12

Wormholes and Coffee

ORCA

Adam Stevenson is everything I imagined he would be. Jack described him as a god, and he certainly seems like an otherworldly being to me—a real, flesh-and-blood person right here in my house! I try to conceal my delight over the fact, since broken ribs and a sprained ankle seem too misfortunate to delight in.

“How did you crash, anyway?” I ask.

“Damn fog snuck up on me,” Adam explains through a weary sigh. “I was coming back from Port Angeles, and visibility was fine, at first. But you know how the weather here changes in the blink of an eye. There was a front moving in, and I thought I was ahead of it, but then drizzle turned to rain, and the whole cloud base just… dropped. It was a nightmare. I felt myself descending, but I couldn’t see the water. Until I hit it.” He shuts his eyes, shaking his head slowly.

I frown. “I thought pilots have instruments to navigate that sort of thing.”

“IFR pilots do.”

When Adam sees my puzzled expression, he explains.

“IFR means instrument flight rules, which is what the pilots of jets and bigger planes use. It’s a whole different game when you’re flying a single-engine, like I do. Jets have instruments and equipment to fly through clouds for miles; no big deal. But when you’re a bush pilot, it’s all up to visuals. As in, what you can see. As a rule, I never push the weather, never fly below the minimums… but I don’t think any pilot could have foreseen the situation.”

“Well, everyone makes mistakes.”

Adam grunts. “A mistake like that could cost me my license, my career… everything.”

“So you do this for a living?”

He nods. “I guess you could call it an air taxi service, sort of. I mostly fly between the islands, sometimes up to Seattle. It took me a long time to build my business. And my reputation.”

“Well, you survived. That has to be a point in your favor, surely.”

Adam manages a tired grin. “I’m not sure I would have survived if it weren’t for you.”

“That’s true, I suppose. But you could always leave out the part about an eighteen-year-old girl rescuing you.”

The suggestion makes him laugh, which makes his ribs hurt, which makes him ask me for ibuprofen.

“Ibu-what?”

Adam regards me with a confused frown. “You know, like Advil.”

---