Chapter 24: Return Manifest

The morning came up clear for the first time in three weeks.

The sky over Woods Hole was pale blue and washed clean, and the grass on the flight line was white with frost.

Signe stood on the apron in a borrowed flight jacket with her aunt's arm through hers.

Dane stood a step away with his hands in his pockets.

He had walked them out himself, and he had not been asked to.

The crew chief came across the concrete with the clipboard and a pen behind his ear.

"Passenger manifest, Vineyard run," he said, and his voice was careful and formal. "Two passengers, one crew."

He read the first name, and Signe's aunt raised her hand.

"And the second."

He cleared his throat.

"Hallowell-Mayhew, M."

Signe heard it said out loud across the cold air, in a stranger's flat voice, and her eyes filled before she could stop them.

It was her name, with his, on paper that someone would keep.

Dane's lips moved.

She read it without trying.

That's you.

"That's me," she said.

The pilot lifted a hand from the cockpit, and the rotors began to turn.

The noise rose from a mutter to a roar, and the downdraft flattened the frosted grass in a wide ring around them.

Her stomach clenched.

She turned to Dane, and he was already close, with his hand on her face.

He did not shout, since he knew she could not hear him anyway.

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