Page 11 of The Otherworld

My heart races as I buckle up and slide my fingers to the worn grooves of the yoke.

I feel possessed—like some unseen force is controlling my body. It’s crazy to go up in this kind of weather. Visual flight requires a minimum of one mile horizontally and five hundred feet vertically. I’m lucky if I’m looking at three hundred feet right now—and distance is even weaker. There’s no telling how thick the fog will be once I’m over the straits.

“Oh, screw it,” I mutter, reaching for the throttle.

I powered out to the broadest part of the harbor, lining up the flyway ahead of me.

“Okay, this is fine,” I told myself. “Relax—you’re fine. You’re just flying solo. Holy shit—”

I wrapped my fingers around the throttle, keeping the yoke straight.

Inhale. Exhale.

“Here we go.”

The engine roars, gray waves blurring underneath my floats; curtains of white fog whip across the windows. My heart pounds harder and faster as I work the throttle with one hand, pull the yoke with the other, and lift off.

It’s the best feeling in the world: the moment your floats leave the water and gravity falls away, and all of a sudden—

You’re flying.

It feels like actually being Superman.

As I climbed into the cloudless sky, the shimmering tops of the waves shrank farther and farther away. It seemed like the world was opening up to greet me, glistening in the sun and humming with life.

Altitude: 2,000 feet.

I eased the throttle down and pushed the yoke to a neutral position. The world sprawled beneath me, a thousand colors glistening in the sunlight. I knew it all like the back of my hand, but it looked like a brand-new world that day. The shapes of the islands. The thick forests of evergreen circled by rocky beaches. Deception Pass Bridge, arching over the water like a giant steel hand clutching the last strands of fog.

I banked to the left, soaring over the pass. Tiny boats streaked through the water two thousand feet below me, leaving star trails in the blue. I brought my gaze back up, about to say something to Adam—then I remembered he wasn’t beside me. He was back on the dock, all the way down there. And I was all the way up here, on my own. Solo. Free.

I started laughing, unable to control the euphoria that exploded inside me like fireworks.

I threw my head back and hollered, “WOOOOOOOO!”

Altitude: 1,000 feet.

I was wrong—the fog isn’t thinning. There’s no sun to burn it off. I know my flight path like the back of my hand, and I can see the shapes of the islands around me, but the waves are hidden under a thick sheet of white.

Damn it.

I bank shallow to the left, watching my compass. 250, 240…

The islands slowly drift away and vanish in the fog. All around me, above me, and beneath me is white. I catch glimpses of waves far below and the darting shadows of gulls, like ghosts between layers of mist.

A crosswind comes from the north, dipping my port wing as a blinding fog swaths my windshield.

I can’t see a damn thing.

Cussing under my breath, I push the yoke out and drop down fifty feet, seventy feet, a hundred feet… trying to escape this fog.

But I can’t. It’s everywhere.

My pulse starts racing again, blood rushing through my ears as I remember what Adam used to say: Bush pilots who get stuck in clouds usually get stuck in granite.

What the hell am I doing out here?

Do I seriously think I can do a better job searching for my missing brother than the coast guard can?

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