She gasped with excitement and shouted over the noise of the propeller:
"The islands in the clouds are real!"
"This is a joke right?!" Lydia questioned glaring out the window of the plane at the hovering landscape in disbelief. "The altitude is messing with our heads, I'm sure of it." She bit her lip. "There's no such thing as...floating scenery."
Carter shook her head. "No, this is real. This is way, way real! And way cool! I can't believe it. The stories that I've heard as a child...they were true all along!"
Carter reflected on the days of her childhood; her mother tucking her into bed, a glass of warm milk on the nightstand, and the glowing lava lamp across the room on her dresser. Her mother's short, jet black hair tucked behind her ears with her reading glasses propped on the top of her head. Even back then, she appeared pale, sick looking. She never read bedtime stories from a book, which Carter found quite odd as she thought back. The islands in the clouds, otherwise known as Drijvende Wereld, was one of the stories that she knew best, word for word. Were all the stories that her mother told not fiction after all? Were there actually portals to other dimmensions? Our anti-selves on the other side?
"And there were islands in the sky," Carter began to recite. "Its sun was not ours, and neither was its moon, but it resided under the same blanket of stars."
"We gaan raken een beetje turbulentie!" The pilot yelled through the intercom. "Don't let it startle you!"
"What did he say?" Lydia said frowning.
"We're going to be hitting a little bit of turbulence - wait - how did I know that's what he said?" Carter covered her mouth with both of her hands and her eyes grew wide.
"What language is that?"
"Dutch." Carter mumbled through her hands. As she took her hands away from her mouth, they began to shake. "I-I never - my mother spoke Dutch as her first language, but I never learned. I don't - what in the hell does this mean?"
"I don't know. M-Maybe it's another one of those things that your mother told you in a story once?" Lydia could feel the goosebumps rise on her skin.
Carter drew her mouth into a line in concentration. She tried to remember everything that her mom ever told her. "Well, there was this one thing..."
"Well, spit it out, so we can figure out what the hell is wrong with you!"
"When your parents die, you receive some of their characteristics. Almost as if a part of them now becomes a part of you. Some of them are chosen by your parents for you to have while others aren't. Well, I guess I got her tongue of our motherland." Carter touched her lips.
"So, maybe your mother wanted you to be able to speak Dutch as an apology for not teaching you?"
Suddenly, the plane began to tilt and quake. Lydia quickly grabbed for Carter's hand and continued to look out the window, bracing herself against the rumbles and shakes that came with turbulence. As they got closer and closer to the array of islands, she could see other planes landing and taking off. The ones that were leaving the landing strips appeared to just fall off the runaway, back down to Earth. People visited this place like it was a normal thing to do? Like going to Orlando or Las Vegas?
The pilot shut off the engine and allowed the plane to glide down toward the hovering island, landing with a slight thud and drifting down the runway.
"We're here!" The pilot stood in the doorway with a grin on his face. His teeth were point, resembling a shark or a piranha. It rose the hairs on the back of Lydia's neck. "Please enjoy your stay in Drijvende Wereld."
Dope ;)
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