Page 24

Old Bertha knew how to dance with the wind. Five thousand feet up and she swayed like a girl at prom, her red and yellow envelope catching sunlight in all the right places. Tessa patted the basket's wicker rim. Some pilots gave their balloons fancy names - Spirit of Adventure, Heaven's Chariot - but Bertha suited this old girl better. Reliable. Sturdy. A hint of sass when the thermals got frisky.

The Hudson River cut through the landscape like liquid mercury and caught the early afternoon sun. Three counties was quite a haul for a balloon, but Bertha had made longer trips. The festival committee up in Columbia County wouldn't wait forever though. Good thing the wind was cooperating – a straight shot up the valley would get them there by sunset.

‘Just you and me today, beautiful.’ Tessa adjusted the burner. The familiar whoosh of flame sent another pulse of hot air into the envelope. ‘Though I wish that poor girl had stayed.’

Shame about the girl this afternoon - Hermes. Strange name for strange times. Poor kid, finding out about her uncle that way. That professor in the quarry. Tessa had caught the story on the morning news, but it hit different when tragedy wore a familiar face. Still, the balloon needed moving, festival grounds weren't going to come to her, and there were worse ways to spend a Wednesday afternoon than dancing with clouds.

Perfect flying weather, at least. Clear skies, good visibility. No trace of the usual smog that rolled up from the city. Higher air pressure than normal for November, which meant smooth sailing. She checked her instruments again out of habit. Old pilots lived to be old pilots by staying paranoid.

The afternoon sun painted Westchester County in watercolors. From up here, you could pretend the world made sense. Everything looked perfectly arranged: toy cars following their roads, miniature houses dotting their cul-de-sacs, tiny people living their tiny lives. No messy details. No dead uncles in holes.

‘At least I treated myself to the good beans this morning.’ Tessa eyed her empty thermos. The pre-flight coffee had been worth every penny of that fancy roast. When your office was the sky, you learned to appreciate the little luxuries.

The Tappan Zee Bridge – she refused to call it by its new name – glinted in the distance. Beyond it, the Catskills rose blue and hazy on the horizon. Her route would take her past Croton Point, then up along the river's eastern bank. She'd done this run dozens of times, though usually with passengers who paid good money to see the valley painted in autumn colors.

A red-tailed hawk wheeled past, checking out this strange neighbor in its territory. Tessa waved. ‘Morning, Frank.’ She'd named all the local hawks Frank. It made things simpler.

The altimeter showed 5,200 feet. Perfect cruising altitude for this time of day. The forecast had promised light winds from the northwest, and for once the weather boys had gotten it right. Old Bertha rode the currents like she was born to it, which technically she was. Twenty years of flights and this bucket of wicker and nylon still handled better than most of Tessa's ex-boyfriends.

She checked her instruments again. Routine was everything up here. Fuel gauge steady. Vertical speed indicator happy. Envelope temperature right where it should be. Most passengers thought hot air ballooning was just floating wherever the wind took you, but there was an art to it. Reading wind layers. Spotting thermals. Knowing when to climb and when to descend.

‘Unlike commercial pilots,’ she told Frank Two as another hawk investigated her balloon, ‘we don't get autopilot. Just good old-fashioned...’ The word slipped away from her. Strange. ‘Physics. That's it. Physics.’

Something felt off. Not with Bertha – the balloon was performing perfectly. But Tessa's head had gone fuzzy around the edges. Like someone had stuffed her skull with cotton wool.

Maybe the thin air was getting to her, though that shouldn't happen at this height. Could be the temperature differential – hot above from the burner, cold below from the November wind. Those kinds of gradients could mess with your inner ear if you weren't careful.

‘Probably that new front moving in.’ Her voice sounded wrong. Echoy. ‘Barometric pressure does funny things to your... head.’

She'd seen it before. Changes in air pressure could mess with your equilibrium. Especially during seasonal transitions. That's all this was. Just her inner ear adjusting to her new environment.

The horizon tilted .

‘Whoa there.’ Tessa grabbed the basket rim. Her fingers felt thick, clumsy. ‘Getting a little jiggy today, aren't we Bertha?’

Could be an inversion layer. The weather service had mentioned something about trapped air masses. Sometimes that created weird effects - visual distortions, balance issues. Though in twenty years of flying, she'd never felt her ears pop like they were doing now.

No reason for altitude sickness to kick in, but the pressure behind her eyes suggested otherwise. Below, the Hudson Valley Naval Museum's ships looked like children's toys in a bathtub. She needed to radio her position to ground control - standard procedure every fifteen minutes during transit flights. But which frequency? The numbers swam in her head like fish in murky water.

Another wave of dizziness hit. Worse this time. The world smeared like wet paint.

‘Okay.’ She fumbled for the radio. ‘Maybe we should call this one early.’

Think. She had to think. Emergency procedures existed for a reason. But which ones? The festival grounds lay somewhere ahead - or was it west? The controls swam before her eyes. Each breath came slower than the last. A small part of her brain, the part still clinging to twenty years of training, screamed that something was very wrong. Her hand wouldn't cooperate. The radio kept sliding sideways. Had it always been so hard to focus?

The last thermal had pushed them up another thousand feet. Storm King Mountain rose ahead like a gray giant, but the landmark meant nothing now. Emergency landing sites. She should remember them. Had memorized them. But the knowledge slipped away like water through her fingers.

The sun felt too bright. The sky is too blue. Even the wind seemed to whisper with too many voices. She tried to reach for the burner controls, but her arm moved like it belonged to someone else.

‘Control...’ The word came out mushy. ‘This is... this is Webster. I'm...’

What was she? The thought dissolved before she could catch it. Dark spots danced at the edges of her vision. Her knees buckled.

The last thing Tessa saw was her coffee thermos rolling across the basket floor. Then the sky reached down with gentle hands and pulled her into darkness.