Bear in mind, the only part I liked about flying was the take off.

For some unfortunate reason, I always thought about all the airplane crashes that have occurred, and it was just a matter of time before one of those mishaps was going to happen to me at an altitude of30,000 feet, but that is just my paranoia getting the better of me.

Within no time, at all we were taxiing for the runway, getting ready for takeoff. To me this was the only part about flying that I liked, and the most exciting for me, but was always over the quickest.

2

TRIP TO ENGLAND

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W

e were finally on our way to England, and the first thing that came to mind was how much I really hated to fly. It was boring, nothing to do except sleep, play games or watch movies for hours and hours. Nonetheless, I was also hoping that the answers that we were looking for were waiting for us in England. Elizabeth and I sat quietly and downed glass after glass of red wine. I did not know if it was just me at the time, but with the look on Elizabeth’s face, it seemed as if we both disliked flying. However, I knew that she had a lot on her mind. I knew that the thoughts that she had of what happened back at the Blackwood Manor weighed heavily on her mind. Nonetheless, I can surly say that we were more relaxed now than back at the Blackwood Manor, sitting here on this airplane. Although it could just be the wine talking, since we have had so many glasses of it, and we were not even half way to England.

I could not stand the unbearable silence that had somehow engulfed the two of us any longer, so I broke it by asking, “Elizabeth what family member’s do you have left in England?”

“Actually, I have no blood relation left at all. There is my widowed aunt Cassandra who was once married to my father’s brother until his untimely death, and that is all. Cassandra Vablatsky is her name, and after my uncle Laurence died, my aunt went back to using her maiden name. I must tell you Mason, she will not be of any help to us at all because she is senile. Please do not think of me as unkind, but it is the truth, and a known fact to everyone who knows her. My humble servants in England are the closest thing to family that I have left in this world.”

“Elizabeth, can you tell me anything about your aunt Casandra, anything at all would help? How old is she?”

“I am afraid there is not much that can be said about my aunt Cassandra. I know that she is getting up there in age. If I am not mistaking, and I might be, I believe that she is ninety-three years old, and she has lived in the same dilapidated shack at the edge of Devil’s Elbow most of her life. That is except for the sixteen years she and my uncle Laurence had spent on the Devil’s Island, which is located somewhere in the Pacific.

“Actually, their extended stay on Devil’s Island was not completely by choice. Something terrible had gone wrong with their single engine plane and they crashed on the island, and from what I have been told, they were the only two that survived the plane crash. The funny thing was is that the natives on the island thought of them as Gods because they had fallen from the sky. Laurence and Cassandra lived there on Devils Island for sixteen years. I do not recall anyone ever saying exactly how my aunt Cassandra had made it off Devil’s Island after my Uncle Laurence’s death, but somehow she did, and made it back to England.

“When my aunt Cassandra did return to England my father told me that she had completely gone insane, he called her a 5150, whatever that means. I always liked her myself, and even felt a little sorry for her because my own father had never visited her, and she grew to be a rather lonely old woman. I remember back when I was a small child that I would sometimes sneak off to see her, unbeknownst to my father. Mason, if I do say so myself, and being a small child at the time, I thought that she was very interesting, and often a very funny lady to boot. It was unfortunate that I always had to promise her that I would never tell my father that I had gone to see her. She never explained why, and I never asked.

“It all seems rather odd now, looking back.