A/N: Once I come out with the next chapter. I’m going to put this together with chapter one and make the next one chapter two. Other than that, enjoy and let me know what you think. Thank you Singing For Absolution and ..You for reviewing! It means a lot!! Enjoy.

I’d planned to keep up the façade, keep the smile going until I was in bed at Cloverfield but it had faded after I’d boarded the plane. It had waned slightly through all of the demeaning questions all of the adults in authority had asked as I tried to get to my flight. “No, my parents aren’t coming. Yes, I’m sixteen. No, I don’t need someone to accompany me. And yes, I have someone picking me up from the airport in Dublin”. But it was only as I sat down in my window seat near the wings of the plane that it had completely gone.

“”Ma’am, are you awake?” the stewardess whispered to me over the young boy and even younger girl sitting next to me. I lifted my head from the Plexiglas window and looked her way. She was the same woman who’d been responsible for the two children sitting next to me. “We’re about to land. Please fasten your seatbelt,” she said before glaring at the young boy and returning to the front of the plane.

Sullen and groggy my eyes met with the boy’s before turning back to the window. What are you looking at, his eyes had said before I focused on the overwhelming darkness outside. It was too dark for five o’clock in the evening like my watch said it was, but with the five hour time difference it was nearly ten here.

“Hello passengers this is your captain speaking. The time is 9:58 pm and we’re about to make our descent into Dublin airport. Please fasten your seatbelts, we’ll be landing shortly.” A clear voice spoke from the loud speakers of the plane.

With one last look at the barely visible mint green wings of Aer Lingus’ airplane, I pulled down the window shade and closed my eyes.

I hated the window seat. There was nothing worse than watching the plane take off or land. I wouldn’t have bought a seat here in a million years. Everyone knew that if the plane went wrong during take off it was always the wings that caught fire and exploded first. But I hadn’t ordered the seats, mom had, and she wouldn’t have known any better.

“Just think of this as an early vacation, Fae. And didn’t you tell me you’d always wanted to travel?” she’d said.

What vacation, I though angrily. They were sending me away and worse than that, to the countryside with a grandfather I’d never met because my father couldn’t stand him. “Heartless and cold blooded,” he’d always said. No. This was imprisonment, a death sentence for my life.

The red seatbelt sign overhead went on with light pling and I buckled myself in, leaning back into the seat and gripping the arms of the chair. In my mind, my imagination made up gruesome images of the plane catching fire, moving from the front of the wings and then farther back until finally the whole massive aluminum structure explodes. The odds were slim to none I reassured myself and I was sure I could reach the emergency exit in five whole seconds, fast enough if I saw the fire right away, which I wouldn’t if the blind was closed. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, like hell I’d pull it up. Maybe then I could see us nose dive into concrete.

“The time is 10:15 here at Dublin airport the weather is fifty six degrees out with slight fog. Hope you had a good flight and enjoy your stay,” the pilot’s voice rang again. I opened my eyes and physically forced myself to release my prying hold on the arms of the chair.

“Emma we’re here,” the boy who sat closest to the aisle said to the younger girl who I noticed was innocently asleep. “Wake up or I’m ditching you right now.”

That seemed to wake the girl up because seconds later she was wiping the sleep from her eyes, looking from me to the boy in confusion. Just then the stewardess materialized beside us and looked to the two young children with a tired smile. “Come on, time to go.”

The young girl took the boy’s hand and then the stewardess’. The two followed her out like ducklings down the aisle, another stewardess giving the boy pilot’s wings he was obviously unimpressed with as they left the plane.

I was one of the last people out, wanting to prolong the reality of Ireland for as long as possible. What would I do in Cloverfield, a small town a few hours drive away from anything interesting? “Trees, grass, and a bunch of superstitious old people,” my father had said, that’s what he had growing up there. That’s what I would have to keep my company for the next few… weeks I hoped. The possibility of having to stay for months was something I didn’t want to dwell on just yet.

“Thank you for flying Aer Lingus.”

My computer bag was falling off my right shoulder as I carried the duffle with my left.

“Miss, do you need help with that?”

“No thanks,” I answered, shifting my weight a little to the left so my laptop bag wouldn’t hit the floor. I liked carrying my own things, like the idea of not having some guy do it for me like my mom always did. I stopped for a breath, letting the duffle drop to the floor for a few seconds before picking it up again and continuing on past the other passengers on my flight towards the waiting area.

Who would come to claim me?

“Okay you two, your parents left me in charge of you until I hand you over to your new guardian so try to behave until then,” the stewardess said wearily as she sat the kids three seats down from me, fidgeting in her seat.

Bored, I pulled out the Shakespeare play and tried to focus on the text unsuccessfully. I’d finished everything but the last three scenes of the play on the plane before stopping to mentally prepare myself for the change.

My corner of the waiting room was incredibly empty, save me, the two kids and the stewardess. It was the farthest from the doors, the farthest from anything I might see that would remind me this was not New York. The others that had come to wait for family and friends had gone further out, waiting expectantly for them, excited at the promise of something different. I watched them until they reached the center of the waiting room and then looked back at those still coming from bag check. I didn’t want to see what waited for me outside those doors.

“Ma’am?” It was the stewardess talking to me again. She was standing in front of me, shifting her weight from one side to the other uncomfortably. “You were sitting next to these two during the flight right?” I looked at the children who looked back at me. I nodded my head. “Well, I was wondering if you could watch them for me for just a few minutes. You see I really have to go to the bathroom and I can’t take him in with me but I can’t leave them alone either. So if you would please…” she was practically pleading, eyes frantic as I realized that her awkward shifting movements was her adult version of the pee pee dance.

“Sure,” I cut her off before she thanked me and ran off, leaving me and the children staring at each other. After a few seconds of inspection, the youngest one, the little girl with the curly blond hair and light brown eyes smiled and waved, getting up from her seat.

“Hi,” she said brightly, her voice and appearance so childishly adorable she reminded me of a more modern Shirley Temple.

“Hey.”

“I’m Emma. That’s my brother Dylan. We’re going to Ireland,” she said as she came to sit next to me. Her brother, who was slight annoyed at her change in seats lifted himself up and moved down too, oblivious to anything outside the speakers in his headphones and the music coming out of the ipod he was staring at in his hands.

“I’m Fae. And guess what? You’re already in Ireland.”

She smiled as though it had been the funniest joke she had ever heard and was trying hard to keep from laughing. “We’re going to visit our cousin in the country. We go every year. It’s really fun,” Emma said as a giggle escaped her.

She looked barely old enough to cross the street by herself without getting hit and her brother was comatose when under the influence of his ipod. It was unimaginable that responsible parents would let her and her not much older brother fly alone for seven hours. Even my parents had never let me fly alone. But then, the kids at my school had been doing it since they were seven. Beach houses on the coast, trips to Hawaii with their maids, summer boarding programs in Europe, the wealthy had no problem sending their young off into the unknown as long as some adult was held responsible if something went wrong, which explained the tired stewardess. Minors boarding planes were always stalked by their air nannies.

“Where are you going?” Emma asked, biting on her fingers as her free hand took her brother’s ipod.

The sarcastic part of me was begging to be released, a complete cynic especially now that I’d been sent off, like some wrongfully accused heroine who’d been banished from her domain. Still, I didn’t want to ruin Emma’s fun. She seemed unreasonably excited to be visiting her relatives for the summer.

“I guess I’m going visit my grandfather.”

“Really? Are you excited?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Not that one. Pick something different,” Dylan said, pushing away the left side of his headphones, a large black shell that had covered his ear completely, away so he could hear.

“What are you listening to?” I asked, mostly from curiosity.

I wasn’t a music person in the way most people seemed to be. I didn’t listen to the radio, didn’t download music, and wasn’t interested in going to concerts. Mostly, I just listened to mixed cds my friends made me on my cd player. Still, there were a lot of people who live their lives as though music was everything. I knew a few around my school, girls who wanted to sing, guys who wanted to produce but I’d never seen someone so serious about at the age of ten.

“Mendelssohn.”

The name didn’t ring a bell. Dylan rolled his eyes shoved the ipod, still in Emma’s hands, closer so that I could take a look. Oh.

“Oh…” I said unintelligibly, looking at Dylan unbelievingly. “What kind of ten year old boy listens to classical music out of his own free will?” It had come out more like an insult than I had wanted it to.

“I’m twelve,” he said in annoyance, “What kind of teenage girl reads Shakespeare just because she’s bored?”

I sighed. He had a point. Feeling as though I should make amends – what kind of adult allowed herself to fight with children – I shoved the book back into my computer bag.

“Summer reading for my Intro to Shakespeare class,” I admitted, as much of an apology as he’d be receiving from me.

“My cousin plays for us when we go to visit. Emma and I download a bunch of song and we ask him to play it for us when we get there. It’s actually pretty cool.” He grumbled back with a reluctant smile. Getting anything other than the bored slightly annoyed expression from his face I found myself smiling too. He was also kind of cute when he wasn’t acting like a prepubescent teen.

“Kin plays real good,” Emma said, “and real loud for the sheeps and cows.”

I laughed at the image I’d gotten of their cousin, a lanky teenage boy fiddling away on ridiculously large bagpipes and a plaid skirt – kilt? while butchering classical favorites to calm down his farm animals.

Bad Fae, I reprimanded, it’s not good to stereotype.

“That’s good, I’m glad you guys are ready to have a good time. Is he picking you up?”

Emma shook her head but it was Dylan who answered. “Our Aunt Muriel picks up from the airport. Kinley’s usually working or sleeping.”

“Kin works a lot.”

“Who’s picking you up? Your grandfather?” Dylan asked the headphones completely off and resting around his neck like a giant necklace.

“I don’t know.”

I’d been wondering the same thing since I’d sat down the in waiting area, not exactly sure who it was I was waiting for. Still, grandfather obviously didn’t evoke any warm and fuzzies. He didn’t seem the type to be excited for any sort of family reunion.

“Does he not like you?” Emma pressed and I frowned. Had she been older, I would’ve gotten annoyed at her prying. Being that she was so young, I assumed she just didn’t know better.

“I don’t think so. I’ve never really met him.”

“Then why are you going to visit him?” Dylan asked a slight hesitation in his voice before asking. He knew I wouldn’t want to answer the question but had asked it anyways. I shrugged not ready to answer, knowing that all I had was the watered down reason my mother had told me, that I was only here until her and my father got things settled, what ever that may be.

Dylan looked as though he might have say something, like he would’ve called me out had the stewardess not returned then with a grateful smile before grabbing the kids by the hands and pulling them off towards the exit.

“Bye Fae,” Emma had said with a slight frown and she allowed the stewardess to pull her forward. Dylan, who had pulled his headphones back on as soon as he had seen the stewardess, offered me an awkward wave before following behind them. And then I was alone again, in my little corner of the waiting area, wondering for the first time, if mom had really called ahead to let someone know I was coming. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she didn’t.

Mom forgot things easily, penciled in appointments that were important but forgot anything important in between. She had told me about my trip here during a five o’clock dinner she had penciled in between a hair appointment and a school charity event she definitely couldn’t miss. I’d been elated to spend time with her and self conscious. I was still wearing my school uniform, the white and green plaid skirt, knee high socks, and a button down white shirt with a green vest that proudly showed the school crest on the left. “Don’t be shy Fae, you look accomplished,” she’d said reassuringly as we were led to our seats, everyone looking at her in her bright red top, black pencil skirt, and high heeled shoes. Though not exactly rich, my mother did not enjoy being “background noise”.

She’d waited ten minutes before telling me, just long enough to let me eat bread and have three bites of my penne ala vodka. It had tasted amazingly marinated, more vodka than sauce but after she’d not so subtly suggested I leave for Ireland for an early vacation, it had tasted like cardboard and was soon forgotten.

“But I’ll miss senior prom, and the honor’s ceremony, and grades come out next week,” I whined, something I almost never did. It was something that was too infantile and humiliating, for me to do, I had my self respect but I was too thrown off. I wasn’t expecting this.

“You’ll be there next year for senior prom and I’ll accept the award for you,” she answered easily, as though she knew what my complaints would be. I stared at her in complete disbelief. Where had this come from? Why hadn’t she told me earlier? What about my life? My plans for the summer?

“What did dad say?” I asked quietly, waiting, knowing that if there was one hope I had left it was him and his lawyer’s negotiation skills.

“Well you know your father, whatever’s best,” she’d said, exhaling the smoke of a cigarette she had lit minutes earlier. The smoke blew up slowly and then drifted back down. Anyone I’d ever seen smoking before had looked juvenile, tasteless. But she knew how to hold the cigarette just so, in a way that was classy, and reminiscent of old starlets in black and white movies.

Despite everything, the overload of information being thrown on me, the wave of insecurities from being sent away by my mother, there was one thing that my mind just would not let go of.

“But I won’t be here when grades come in.”

Mom offered me her signature smirk. I hated the look in her eyes, the amused glint the made me feel inferior and stupid. Poor kid, it said, all she wants is to see her grades before I ship her off.

“I’ll let you know what you get. You’re not worried are you?”

I tired my best to look unaffected, force the vacant look to cover the open glare I imagined in my head.

“I have nothing to be worried about,” I said evenly, taking a bite of the tasteless penne as though to prove my point. All she ever asked me about were my grades at the end of the semester, “wouldn’t want to embarrass me and our father would you”. So I did it. Straight A’s for ever semester since freshman year. It was hard, I gave up a lot, but it was always done. Her sudden doubt of my abilities struck me worse than her trying to get rid of me.

“Well then, I should probably get going. I’m already fashionably late. Tell them to put it on my tab dear, I don’t have the time to wait,” an with that she left me sitting there at the table with her salad and my pasta, a ten minute conversation she’d forget before pulling up in front of Nightingale Academy.

God I hated her.

And I hated being here waiting for someone I was now sure wouldn’t be coming. The waiting area was all but empty by then, after thirty five minutes of waiting. What would I do if two hours later still no one had come? I had some money in my bank account, probably enough to pay for a plane ticket back to New York if I no one came and I’d have to find a hotel near the airport to spend the night, something within my desired price range that wouldn’t suck me dry or have me sleeping in the waiting area.

Then I turned towards the entrance of the exit. I hadn’t wanted to but was drawn there by the woman who had sagged next to a wall. Her hand was over her heart as she panted her way towards hyperventilation. Then with large calming breathes that reminded me of pregnant women giving labor, she straightened and looked around the room. She was probably late to pick someone up, a little kid probably from the panicked look on her face. Then her eyes met mine and widened, her strides picking up until she stood in front of me.

“Faelynn McCarthy, I am so sorry I’m so late in picking you up. You see, Neal had a bad dose so he couldn’t drive. And then I had to call my son Liam home early from college to bring me on over since I can’t drive myself. But anyways, look at you all pretty and grown up,” she said affectionate, taking my computer bag and slinging it over her arm. She was a small woman, shorter than me and my five feet three inches with short black hair and brown eyes. She was a little round too but seemed more energetic than most people,

I picked up my duffle and followed. “So, who are you?”

The woman stopped suddenly, as though realizing she hadn’t introduced herself. She laughed. “How rude, I’m Tully,” she said walking again, “I work as Mr. McCarthy’s housekeep. Poor thing, so lonely after you granna died – God rest her soul – that he’s locked himself away in his room. Barely eats too. It’s very sad,” Tully continued as she led me out of the waiting area I had been so hard pressed to stay in.

Outside, the night was dark and hazy from the fog. Beyond the pavement of the airport entrance everywhere green and grass and trees. Even the air smelled too fresh in the too cool weather. The airport seemed out of place to me around it all, nothing like the pavement and concrete that surrounded JFK. It was being ambushed by nature.

“This is us,” Tully said again, voice no longer sad, as she opened the door of an old blue pick up truck and sat herself in the shotgun seat. Having no choice but to follow, I threw my duffle into the bad and slid in beside her. “This is my son Liam. Liam, Faelynn.”

Liam looked at his mother with an exasperated expression, as though he were too tired to humor her good mood. Then he turned his brown eyes on me, offered me a slight smile, and pulled away from Dublin Airport.

At first we drove in silence for a while everything too dark to see outside my window, I didn’t want to look anyways before I closed my eyes to manage my pounding head.

“How long tell we get there?” I was suddenly hungry and tired and soar.

“About three hours,” Liam answered, his black hair stirring in the window where his window was rolled down. “We’re in Dublin. That’s in Leinster and it’ll take a while to go south into Munster near Cork.”

I sighed and closed my eyes again. I had no idea what he was talking about and it bothered me. I wasn’t used to being left in the dark. I was used to answering questions. Frustrated and tired, I leaned my head against the dusky window and tried not to think.

It was only a matter of time until I drifted off. And as I tittered between half awake and dead asleep I found wishing, hoping, that I would somehow find myself waking up in my bed in New York, hopefully in time to not be late for school.

A/N:

Bad dose – (Irish slang) severe illness

Please review! I plead, I beg, I grovel.