Disappearing Act

Ironic, isnt it? How a person's worst nightmares can come true. How the thing that scared Ellie the most was happening all around her. She had had a bad feeling about this flight. She shouldve stayed home. She should never have bought that ticket.

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It was 8 AM on a tuesday in a little farm town in northern Ireland. In a little house on a long, flat road sat Ellie Murray Ross at her kitchen table eating her breakfast and sipping at her coffee. Black, two sugars. She was watching the news, where they were reporting a plane vanished over the Atlantic.

Oy, mum, have ya seen this? Ellie asked her mom, who was behind Ellie washing dishes, facing opposite the television.

Yeah, but its all hornswoggle, replied Lindsey Ross. She was a short, petite blonde lady who believed strongly that you shouldnt believe anything that you cant see with your own two eyes. An airplane cant simply vanish out of thin air. They have those black boxes in em now, theyd be able to tell what happened to it.

Ellie had a dangerously wild imagination, and it didnt help that she was afraid of nearly everything. Heights, falling, flying, blood, the dark, you name it. This wasnt really helping her current situation, as she was flying to New York City not five hours later.

Nonetheless, she had to go. She had just been offered the biggest promotion of her life.

She applied to style a couple of models in the 2018 New York Fashion Week in September, and they must have liked her work, because they put her in charge of nearly the entire thing. The theme, setup, even a couple of the models. This show was going to pay for her and her mother for years. Her only problem with it was that she had to fly to New York City. One of her worst fears was flying. But, the people putting on the show were paying for her ticket, so now all she had to do was get over a stupid childhood fear.

Ellie realized that she had stopped packing, and that she was sitting on her bed with her hands in her strawberry-blonde hair, looking down at several wet spots on the carpet where her tears had dripped off her face. She put herself together and finished packing.

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Since they only had one car between them, Lindsey took Ellie the one hour drive south to Dublin. Im gonna miss you, Lindsey smiled through tears. Ellie cried a little too. Ill miss you, too. They hugged, and Lindsey whispered something in her daughters ear that stopped her cold. She didnt say anything though, as her flight left in 30 minutes and she still had to go through security. I love you, Ellie said, wiping away tears in the side mirror. I love you, Lindsey echoed, and gave her daughter another hug, maybe for the last time.

Ellie got all of her things from the trunk and made her way to the entrance. She was almost at the doors, and she looked back at her mother one last time. It must just be that shes far away, thought Ellie. But she swore she saw her mother grinning at her, with eyes the color of polished coal.

********

Ellie found her seat on the plane next to an American man. Jim Clark, he said his name was. He told her that he was from Brooklyn and was vacationing in Ireland. They didnt talk

much after introductions.

Ellie had dozed off about 15 minutes into the flight. She dreamt of a terrible, terrible plane crash, that phrase her mother had uttered to her echoing to a deafening roar. She was jerked awake by a bit of turbulence. Just a dream she thought. Just a terrible, horrifyingly realistic dream. Then she realized that the turbulence wasnt stopping. She counted a full five minutes of it. After a while, Ellie was getting sick of it and asked the hostess if she knew what was going on. She didnt know either, so she went into the cockpit to ask what was going on. There was a blood curdling scream, and then silence.