A Wizard Abroad, New Millennium Edition Read Online Free PDF Page A

thought they had to do with the process of flight. The plane had its own ideas.

    New York slid away behind them in the sunset light, replaced by a swift twilight falling over the open sea.

    ***

    Seven hours later, they landed in Dublin.

    Nita had thought she would be completely unable to sleep, but when they turned out most of the lights in the plane after the meal service, she leaned her head against the window to see if she could relax enough to watch the movie a little.

    Later she had faint memories of things going on in the cabin, around her, but the next thing she really registered was the sun was coming in the window; and there was land below. Nita looked down into the early morning—a little after six AM local time—and saw the ragged black coastline and the curling water, white where it smashed into the rocks, the Atlantic throwing itself in fury against this first eastern barrier to its will. And then green—everywhere green, divided by little lines of hedge; a hundred shades of green, emerald, viridian, khaki, the pale green that has no right to be anywhere outside of spring—hedgerows winding between, white dots of sheep, tiny cars crawling along little toy roads: but always the green. The plane turned and she saw the beginning sprawl of houses, and Shannon underneath them—a little city, barely the size of her own.

    The 737 passed over Shannon and kept streaking across central Ireland, already talking to the air traffic control systems in Dublin and feeling in advance how the morning tarmac would rumble under its wheels. The flight attendants came around with tea and croissants and scones, and Nita had hers and gazed out the window at the landscape under the morning light, all dappled with more of the many-shaded fields and streaked with bright rivers winding amongst the hills, these blazing like fire when the sun caught them. Her ears had started started popping an hour or so ago as the plane began its descent. Now Nita was swallowing almost every minute or so to clear them as she found herself and the plane sinking gently toward a great green range of mountains, and three mountains notable even among the others.

    Nita’s mother had told her about these three, and had shown her pictures. One of them wasn’t a mountain, but a promontory: Bray Head, sticking out into the sea like a fist laid on a table with the knuckles sticking up. Then, a mile further inland, and westward, Little Sugarloaf, a hill half again as high as Bray Head. And then westward another mile, and higher than both the others, Great Sugarloaf, Slieve O Cualann as the Irish had it:  the  mountain of Wicklow, its name said. It was certainly one of the most noticeable—a grey stony cone, pointed, its slopes green with heather—no tree grew there. She didn’t have much more time to spend looking at the mountains, though: the flight attendants were coming around to collect the breakfast refuse, and by the time Nita was getting herself tidied up and belted in again, the plane had passed over the eastern coastline and was heading out to sea before swinging around and back inland for its final approach for Dublin Airport.

    As Nita looked seaward, wondering if it was possible to see England or Wales from here, the Sun caught her full in the eyes. Nita shivered, a feeling that had nothing to do with the warmth of the sudden light. That was warm enough, but the feeling was cold. Something about to happen, something about the lances of light, the fire—

    Nita shook her head: the feeling was gone.  I may have slept, but not real well,  she thought. I’m probably pretty susceptible to weird ideas at this point.  But when wizards have weird ideas, they do well to pay attention to them. She forced herself to relive the feeling: to think again of the cold, and the fire, the sun like a spear—

    Nothing came of it. She shrugged, and watched the water beneath them as the plane started its wide swing back toward the land.

    It took them