“Wh-what’s, huh, what’s wrong, tiger?”

Lavinia’s voice, like a deep gruff mother goddess. She had pulled herself out of ecstasy to comfort Sally.

She tried to talk but could only cry helplessly. God, she hated this!

“Hey baby, ‘s okay, ‘s okay. We’ll go down for a while, we’ll, I dunno, let the sharks nibble at our toes. That was a joke!” Sally wailed afresh but clung to the words “we’ll go down for a while.” Yes, yes! Down from the blind, hateful sky! Her mind scrambled together an image: there’d be a big floating log they could cling to and rest.

The rush of wind died away as Lavinia breezed to a stop and undulated her way down. It got easier to breathe quickly. They were over the clouds, she saw, as she risked a tear-blurred glance down…

“Honey, no no, go back up! Don’t land!” she screamed. The cloud layer was all around them now, great castles and drifts reaching up damp fingers. “Once you’re out of the sun we’ll have no way to take off again!”

Lavinia pulled up in time. “Shit, my brain just can’t, huh, fuckin’ work in the sun.” She focused on Sally’s face, reached up to wipe Sally’s eyes.

“Don’t let go!” Sally screamed. The hand quickly firmed itself behind her back again. They floated just above the tops of solid, cream-puff clouds.

“Does it, hunh, does it help that the clouds look like ground right down there?”

Sally was almost angry to realize it did help. She wasn’t a kid to be comforted by illusions of fairy castles and soft, bouncy cotton canyons.

The clouds kindled into molten gold. What should they do? Turn around and chase the sun so that at least they’d stay in the air? Or fly desperately east and hope? In twenty minutes, the sun would be gone and Lavinia would sink like a deflating balloon. Could they survive a night on the North Atlantic Ocean?

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She could handle sharks, she thought with crazy confidence. She’d stake their cold hearts. She could handle anything if she wasn’t high in the air. And she could eat that fucking granola bar and that bag of chips!

All too soon the sun eased below the clouds, turning them fiery red. And right on schedule, Lavinia sank. Closer and closer to those fabulous cloud castles they glided, and then with a whoosh they went in.

Sally was surrounded by a chill damp blanket which whipped tiny droplets into her face. She buried her face against Lavinia’s warm bosom, heart beating with terror of what they were about to go through.

They emerged from the cloud roof. She risked a look around through the grey evening air.

Directly in Lavinia’s path an island rose like a broken, mossy bone from the heaving sea. Light flashed from a white lighthouse nestled in its folds. From the island’s peak rose a plume of white steam. Just below the peak clustered mysterious lumps which for all the world looked like stone beehives.

And Lavinia was going to make it, there was no doubt about it. She had enough height and speed to land on the island and not in the sea. Sally was exuberant with relief.

“Um, babe?” Lavinia sounded rational now. “I got almost no control. We’re comin’ in like a glider and we might could land hard.”

“What??!” Sally looked at the snapping waves getting nearer with each second and the rocky green hill approaching like a cement wall. The terror of falling threatened to gag her. Gasping for air, she clung tighter, burying her face in Lavinia’s breast.

But Lavinia was calm. “Get ready, tiger. I think I got just enough oomph to land in the notch between those two peaks. Otherwise we skim over the top and land in the drink on the other side.”

Gasping, Sally nodded against the warm skin. She couldn’t look as the sound of the sea grew louder. The cries of gulls slipped through the rush of air, a briny smell filled her nostrils. The thunder of waves crashing against sheer rock hundreds of feet below made her weep with terror. Her stomach lurched as Lavinia dropped.

Then came an intense smell of heather and grass. Sally, risking a brief look, saw a dragon’s-head and a line of stones like scales on the dragon’s back. She hid her eyes again.

Lavinia, however she did it, braked them hard. Sally surged against her strong body.

For a glorious moment, she thought they were safe in the grassy notch. Then they were plunging down the steep other side of the island toward the sea.

Sally screamed as the rush sent needles through her hands and feet. She registered wild images of a crazy stone stairway snaking like something from a fairy tale as they headed straight for an outcrop of rock.

Another surge as Lavinia tried to stop them. Sally squeezed her eyes shut again.

“Shit! Almost had it!” Lavinia’s voice came from far away as Sally spun toward blackness.