When I was little, I was always the kid who put 'flying' down on ice-breaking questionnaires about your dream job, favorite superpower, and what you'd do with a billion dollars. It was up there with bumper cars on the list of Sammi’s favorite things. I had a lot of dreams about flying. Now, granted, some of the times they were falling. Some of the times I was given the controls to an airplane and told to land it on a busy highway. Some of the times I was parachuting and my parachute didn’t open right. But most of the times, I was just soaring, like an eagle or Superman or something.

And for the record? Nine times out of ten, I landed the plane safely. Surely I’d be a pro at this, right?

Well, the answer is… maybe, because I didn’t really get a chance to find out. Between you and me, I’m not entirely convinced that I’m not a pro at flying. But in this unfortunate first chapter of Sammi Tries to Fly Without an Airplane, Sammi actually wasn’t the one flying. She wasn’t at the controls, wasn’t even in the cockpit. She was a passenger in the plane while three ghosts tried to land the plane on the busy highway.

Boy, let me tell you, those ghosts were pretty ass at it.

Within moments of agreeing to the whole flying thing, I’d been yoinked in the air by six chilling, ghostly hands. Christopher grabbed my wrists, Joni my ankles, and Blair kinda just grabbed my hair and shirt. She meant well.

And just like that, we were off across the countryside, soaring through the air, guided only by the moon… which turned out to be a poor guide, as we were about one mile in the wrong direction before anyone realized it.

And just like that, we were off over the countryside, soaring through the air, guided only by Joni's snide directions and the occasional signpost. Apparently, those things only light up when you shine a car's headlight on them, which made them pretty useless for anyone navigating the mountainside in the dark without a light. Which probably wasn’t a lot of people, but apparently there’s a fringe case for everything. So it took us a few false starts but we made it to the closest town.

We snuck in pretty stealthily, keeping a low profile until we got to the ER. I headed to the main gate, accompanied only by Christopher. Blair had a hole in her head and half of Joni’s body was visibly out of order, so if anyone was gonna pull off a ‘oh no, my skull has always been a bit concave’ it’d be Christopher. You know, just in case someone could see him. Besides, he could keep his head the best.

...okay, technically speaking, Christopher had been the worst at literally keeping his head, but he at least had chill.

Luckily the nurse–who gasped upon seeing me stumble all bloodily into the ER–didn’t notice any ghosts at all and rushed to get me seen by a doctor. I’d never been seen so fast, though the only other time I’d been in ER was the first time I’d been hungover and thought I was dying. They hadn’t been half as impressed then.

So I told Christopher, 'coast's clear,' and he floated off to get the others. Apparently, ghosts can fly through walls, which means beyond me, they can’t touch things. So we were batting three for three on the usual ghost stereotypes.

"All right, what's your name?" asked a nurse, as a few other people hooked me up to some machines. A little clamp went over my finger, a cuff on my arm, someone was shining a light in my eyes.

"Jane Doe," I said, confidently if a bit distracted.

"Ok, Jane, and what's your date of birth."

"April thirty-one, 1962," I said, just as confidently pulling whatever random date I could out of my ass.

"All right, and what did you say happened?"

"I got hit by a car while walking down the road.”

"Idiot," hissed Joni. I flinched, not realizing how fast they’d returned, nor expecting the attack. "You were supposed to say you didn't remember. That was The Plan."

I wanted to remind her that we hadn't gotten that far in The Plan, but I'd watched enough movies to know that talking to invisible people got you loony looks, so I wisely held my tongue.

"Where were you walking? Do you remember?"

"Route 30."

"Route 30? Where is that? There's no Route 30 within an hour of here!" Joni was losing her mind, and my cheeks grew redder and redder, sapping precious blood from my body to make sure my embarrassment was clear. "They're gonna call the police."

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"Do you need us to call the police to report the driver?" The nurse looked up at me, eyes serious behind her spectacles.

I laughed. "Ah, no, it's all good. We just exchanged insurances, but you don't need to call the cops on him or anything. It’s all taken care of."

She nodded and took a few more notes. "Okay, just a few more questions. Have you been drinking tonight?"

“No,” I said.

Joni glared at me, and I swallowed. Right. Lying about drinking was number one on the list of things not to lie about to doctors about to pump your system with drugs.

"Uh. Yes."

"How much would you say?"

"Uh, one... cup?"

"Okay. Any drugs or tobacco in your system."

"Yes. No. Uh, weed count as a drug?" I wasn't a fan of tests or pop quizzes and it had been a rough night. The woman stared me down again. "Yes. Weed. I smoked, like, a few hours ago? Before heading to the party. I was good to drive. And that was like, way before the crash. Uh, accident."

This went on a bit longer before the woman finally left, saying the doctor would be in soon.

"Sammi, girl, you’re busted. No offense but like, daaaamn.” Even Christopher looked impressed with how badly I’d answered. "Could you have answered a single question like a normal person?"

"I'm concussed! Remember? I didn't magically fix like you did!" I winced at my poor choice of words. “Mentally fixed. You know what I mean.”

"Even I know April only has 30 days," Blair said. She stuck her head into my IV. "Ooh, morphine. My favorite."

"Gross Blair. You're screwed Sammi."

"Thanks, Joni."

~~~

But here's the thing. I wasn't screwed.

When the doctor came in, he didn't comment on my nonexistent birthday. He didn't comment on me claiming I was 60 years old. He didn't comment on the location of the crash. No one treated me like a Jane Doe. They genuinely seemed to believe that was my name.

And that's when my brain started ticking. I looked over at my chart, peering over the doctor's shoulder.

"Sure looks like I could use some pretty strong painkillers."

He frowned. "You've got a twisted ankle, but that should heal on its own. We can give you some Toradol for the stitches, but nothing too strong. Mostly you’ll be on a blood transfusion and we’ll monitor that concussion of yours."

I shifted in my seat. Verity Tongue. Not 1000% sure on what verity means, but I was definitely getting an idea. "Well, I'm a doctor, and my professional opinion is that I need something stronger. Maybe like oxy or something."

Joni’s jaw bottomed out, even as Blair's face lit up.

"Oooh, me gusta," she said.

"You think an opioid is right for this?" the doctor asked, scratching his head.

"I need oxy," I said, making the lie as blunt as possible. "Now."

He nodded and got up. “All right, I can do that.” And with that, he left the room no further ado required.

“Bro, that works?” Christopher asked, eyebrows zooming up his forehead. “No wonder there’s a crisis.”

"That's never worked for me!" Blair said, her big faint blue eyes pouty.

They hadn’t remembered my magical powers, and it made me feel even smarter that I’d put it together before them. “Verity Tongue.”

Joni stared for a second before shaking her head. "So can you do mind controlling? Hypnosis?"

“Yoooooou are getting veeeeeery sleeeeepy,” Blair intoned.

“Naw naw naw.” Christopher waggled his hand. “Verity, that’s like truth or something. Was a vocab word on the SAT.”

Now Joni looked even more shocked. “You took the SAT?”

Christopher shrugged nonchalantly.

I grinned. Truth or something. I could work with that. "I think I can get them to believe any lie I say. That's why no one freaked with my stupid answers. Joni, I never have to tell a good lie again in my life."

“To be fair,” Blair smiled at me serenely, “you never really have. Why start now?”

Joni’s mouth rearranged itself in an ugly frown. "So this is hell. Listening to your blubbering lies and hearing everyone fall for them."

Christopher laughed though, leaning back in the air with his hands cupped behind his dented head. “Naw, this is great. Bro we’re gonna get in, like, so much shit. Like, if you think about it, you kinda got a blank check for shenanigans. Not like you got any other responsibilities."

His comment on responsibilities took the wind out of my windsock though. “I actually kinda do I think. Like especially if I want to level up my godness, but even then, someone cosmic is gonna get pissed if I don’t do my job. Right?” No way would the cosmos be cool with a God slacking, and I didn’t want to figure out what kind of punishments the universe would have if I didn’t follow through.

“Yeah, but you’re the God of Schemes, Sammi.” Blair wooshed around me, her 90% attached weave trailing dramatically behind her. “This is your job.

Her words spread through me, filling every inch of my veins like the meds now happily numbing my body to the pain. For the first time since the accident, I felt actually happy. Maybe giddy was a better word, but not panicked, sad, or angry. "Oh man, Blair, you might be right. We're gonna have a lot of fun."