16. The Stowaway.

“Where’d that damn hitchhiker get to?” Twelve men were strapped into two rows of six, each in a U.S. Navy uniform. The engines roared and the man standing near the front had to yell to be heard. Ava turned quickly back to the opening, that vicious rip in the hull she’d just pulled herself through. But it was gone, sealed up as though it had never been. 

Well, she reminded herself, at this point it technically hadn't.

She had not yet been noticed by the men thanks to a large cargo box blocking her from view, so she snuck a glance out of the oval window next to her. A warm evening sky greeted her, and tufts of clouds drifted over the English countryside far below. 

The propellers whirled and the sight pressed into her a sudden feeling of panic. She willed herself to be calm; more than anything, she needed to keep a level head right now. There was nothing for it but to get this finished as quickly as possible.

It was really happening. Charlie had been right. 

This was not a haunting.

15. The Figure.

Click-click. 

Ava jumped at the sound and pulled her hand away from the siding. It had come from inside the plane! She glanced back at Abe, waiting a few yards off. He looked paler than ever, and watched her progress with a pained but attentive gaze.

She steeled herself. Once she got inside this dump she was bound to see some loose old screw or other, fidgeting around as old things do.

Click-click.

With a deep breath she moved around the edge of the tail, which had snapped off and lay embedded in the frozen dirt. The grove of trees came back into view, and with it-- Click-click. 
A figure stood at the edge of the grove, watching them. Watching her. She blinked and then--it was gone. But she thought--she could have sworn--had someone been following them? 

Click-click. 

The sound echoed out more clearly on this end and pulled her attention back to the crash; whoever it was would have to wait. The metal siding was torn on this end, and the shadowed opening was just barely wide enough for a person to step through.

Click-click.

14. The Wreckage.

An enormous crow burst from the wreckage with a scream as Ava approached. It flapped away angrily, circling once, before flying towards a nearby grove of trees and disappearing in the shadowy twilight. Ava didn't believe in ghosts, but she also hadn't believed her grandfather when he'd told her about that clock so long ago. And now here she was.

She reached forward to touch the cold metal hull, below where the front of the cockpit had been ripped away. The opening was too high for her to climb into, so she began to walk slowly along the length of hardened earth towards where the wing would have been. She could hear nothing but her own breath as she went; that, and the soft hiss of her hand sliding across the frozen skin of the great machine. The air had that same unnerving stillness as the attic from before, and yet the destruction here was anything sterile.

13. The Reminder.

Ava was starting to resent how many fields and brambles she'd been forced to march across at this point. At least before, she'd been left with the quiet of her own thoughts. But Charlie, as Abe's father finally had introduced himself, insisted that she'd need an assistant "on the outside," and he sent Abe north with her as well as two days' provisions in their packs. As there was no road to or from the crashed plane, there was no point in attempting it by car--and so, to Abe's apparent delight, they trudged.

She tried to tune out his chatter and let her mind drift to the last time she'd been in a place like this, before everything had happened. She realized with some pain but no surprise that it had been with Allie. Allie, the perpetual hippie, had insisted they find a "wild place" to celebrate the first day of spring. Of course, Ava refused to actually dance--she was annoyed at being pulled out of bed so early on a workday--but she went along anyway and waited patiently while her twin twirled it out of her system. And she'd bought them both coffee afterwards.

Ava rolled her eyes even now at the memory. It might have been better if they'd been in high school. Or even college. But no--they were a full twenty-eight years old at the time.

12. The Coordinates.

The coordinates weren't too far from where they stood, right there in the old man's study. "'Bout a day's walk north of here," the man confirmed. He looked, for the first time, perplexed. "Thought they mighta written more, though..." He flipped the parchment over, as if expecting there to be a hidden line of the odd language tucked into one of the folds. 

Abe spoke up nervously. "A day's walk north? That'll be right near the old crashed plane." He glanced at Ava with a shudder. "That thing's haunted. We'll have to walk wide around it." Ava just glared at him. She wasn't sure she even believed the story this old man was spouting, but if he was right, she didn't plan on recruiting a sidekick.

The man slapped the parchment down. "Of course the plane's not haunted," he snapped. "Not in the sense you're thinking of, at least. And neither of you will be going around it." He caught Ava's eye, she knew, to try to make her nervous.

She returned his gaze without so much as a blink. "No?" she asked coolly.

He grinned. "Around it? Certainly not!" Abe's face lost several shades of color as he waited for his father to clarify: "You'll be going inside it."