FLIGHT 237: THE BABY WHO SCREAMED AT 30,000 FEET AND THE RULES THAT KEPT US ALIVE

I stood in what should have been the cockpit, staring at my mother in a hospital bed that could not possibly be there.

For one wild second, I wanted to run to her.

Then the rules stopped me.

Nothing on Flight 237 was what it appeared to be.

"Prove you're my mother."

Her expression broke.

"Garrett—"

"Prove it."

The screaming black mass had stopped somewhere beyond the open cockpit door.

That silence frightened me more than the pursuit.

My mother took a trembling breath.

"When you were eight, you broke the kitchen window throwing a baseball indoors. You blamed the neighbor's cat."

Arthur glanced at me.

I didn't move.

"Anyone could know something from my memory."

She nodded slowly.

"You're right."

Then she looked at Lily.

"Ask me why you hate peaches."

I frowned.

"I don't hate peaches."

"You tell people you do."

My chest tightened.

She continued.

"When you were five, three months after Hannah disappeared, I made peach cobbler. You walked into the kitchen while I was crying. I told you it was because the onions were making my eyes water."

I remembered.

God help me, I remembered.

"There weren't any onions," I whispered.

"No."

"Why were you crying?"

"Because that was Hannah's favorite dessert."

I stepped into the room.

Mara caught my shoulder.

"Careful."

My mother looked at her.

"Mara Ellison."

Mara stiffened.

"You remember me."

"I've spent twenty-seven years trying to forget you."

The words carried bitterness.

Mara looked wounded.

Arthur entered behind us and pulled the cockpit door closed.

The black mass slammed into it.

The room shook.

Mom flinched.

"How long do we have?"

Mara asked.

"Not enough."

"What is this room?"

"A memory it can't fully control."

"Whose memory?"

"Mine."

I looked at the hospital monitor.

"Are you actually in a hospital?"

Mom's eyes filled.

"Yes."

My stomach dropped.

"What happened?"

"I collapsed this afternoon."

"What?"

"Your sister found me."

"Why didn't anyone call?"

"They did."

I pulled out my phone.

No signal.

No missed calls.

Then I remembered ignoring emails.

Silencing notifications.

Always working.

Always telling myself I'd call later.

"Am I dreaming?"

"No."

"Then how are we speaking?"

"The same way I spoke to Hannah for six nights after Flight 237 disappeared."

Silence.

Arthur sat slowly.

Mara whispered, "Elaine."

My mother looked twenty years older suddenly.

"I thought I was losing my mind. Every night at 9:43, I'd hear her. Sometimes through the baby monitor. Sometimes the telephone. Once through the car radio."

"Lily?"

"Hannah told me the baby had survived."

I looked down.

Lily had fallen strangely calm in my arms.

"But this baby hasn't aged."

"No."

"Twenty-seven years?"

"Time doesn't move normally there."

Arthur gave a bitter laugh.

"Understatement."

Mom continued.

"Hannah said the plane was trapped somewhere between moments. It fed on regret, fear, guilt. Every passenger carried something unfinished."

"And me?"

"You were never a passenger."

"Then why does it want me?"

Mom closed her eyes.

"Because I made a bargain."

The room seemed to grow colder.

"What bargain?"

The door behind us buckled.

Once.

Twice.

Arthur braced against it.

"Elaine, hurry."

Mom looked at me.

"When Hannah realized Lily was still alive, she begged me to help. We discovered the Hold could reach people outside when the barrier weakened."

"How?"

"Through grief."

Mara went motionless.

Mom stared at her.

"You already knew that."

Mara lowered her eyes.

"I knew part of it."

I looked between them.

"What aren't you telling me?"

My mother answered.

"Mara was supposed to work Flight 237 that night."

Mara whispered, "I called in sick."

Arthur stared.

"You never told me."

"My younger brother had been arrested. I lied to the airline and said I had food poisoning."

Mom's voice sharpened.

"Hannah took your shift."

Mara's eyes filled with tears.

"I know."

Everything clicked.

Mara hadn't aged.

She wasn't a normal flight attendant.

"What are you?"

She looked at me.

"I boarded the Hold voluntarily in 2001."

"Why?"

"To bring Hannah out."

Arthur shook his head.

"You said you didn't remember how you got here."

"I lied."

"How many resets have we survived together?"

"Too many."

"And you lied every time?"

"I was trying to protect you."

Arthur laughed without humor.

"People always say that right before they destroy you."

The door cracked.

Black smoke curled through the seam.

Mom's monitor accelerated.

"Garrett, listen."

I stepped closer.

"What bargain did you make?"

"In 1999, Hannah told me the Hold wanted an exchange. A life outside for a life inside."

My skin went cold.

"You traded someone?"

"No."

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I offered myself."

"But you came back."

"It rejected me."

"Why?"

Her gaze fell to the baby.

"Because I was pregnant."

Emily.

My sister.

"The Hold wouldn't take two lives for one."

"Then what happened?"

"It asked for something else."

Mom could barely say the next words.

"My firstborn."

The room disappeared around me.

"What?"

"I refused."

"Obviously."

"I thought I did."

Her face crumpled.

"It told me refusing had a cost. That one day, when my firstborn had wasted enough years running from love, family, grief—when he had enough unfinished things inside him—it would call him."

My breath stopped.

"You knew this would happen?"

"I spent twenty-seven years trying to stop it."

"How?"

"Every rule."

I stared at her.

"What?"

She pointed toward my pocket.

"The cream paper."

"You wrote it?"

"Some of it."

Mara nodded slowly.

"That's why the handwriting changes between resets."

Mom looked at her.

"Every person who escapes partway leaves a rule."

Arthur opened his coat.

The tally marks suddenly made sense.

"Nobody escapes completely," he said.

Mom shook her head.

"Someone can."

"Who?"

"Lily."

The baby stirred.

Mom's gaze sharpened.

"She is the only living passenger who still belongs to the original flight. If Lily reaches the ground alive, the Hold loses its claim on everyone it trapped afterward."

Arthur stopped breathing.

"Everyone?"

"Everyone who hasn't surrendered."

Mara whispered, "That's why it keeps resetting."

"Yes."

I looked at Lily.

"How do we land?"

Mom's expression became terrified.

"You don't."

"What?"

"Flight 237 cannot land."

"Then how does she reach the ground?"

"At 11:17 p.m., the plane passes through the exact geographic location where it disappeared."

Mara understood first.

"The breach."

Mom nodded.

"For seventy-three seconds, the Hold overlaps the real world."

Arthur stepped toward her.

"We can jump."

"No."

"Parachutes?"

"No."

"The emergency slide?"

"No."

Mom looked at Garrett.

"There is only one object on the aircraft that crosses between both realities."

I waited.

"The black box."

Mara frowned.

"The flight recorder?"

"On the original aircraft, yes. Search teams found intermittent locator signals for almost two weeks after the disappearance, though no wreckage was located."

Arthur's eyes widened.

"The recorder exists in both places."

"Exactly."

Mom looked at me.

"If Lily is touching it when the breach opens, she can cross."

"How do we get to it?"

The cockpit door exploded inward.

Arthur screamed as black tendrils wrapped around his ankle.

Mara grabbed him.

I passed Lily to my mother instinctively—

My hands went through her.

The hospital bed flickered.