Soaring Home by Christine Johnson
Chapter One
1918 Pearlman, Michigan
Darcy Shea squinted into the bright September sky, trying to make out the rigid, oversized bird approaching Baker’s field. Her pulse skipped and bounded. Could it be? Seven years since she last saw an aeroplane. Seven years waiting. It had to be, it just had to.
“Why did you stop?” Best friend, Beatrice Fox, pirouetted under her lace-trimmed parasol. “We’re already late.”
“Just wait a moment.” Darcy stood still, listening.
The sun’s heat shimmered off the baked road. Grasses rustled and crickets hummed, but no low drone of an engine. She absently tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Perhaps she was mistaken. She sighed and resumed walking to the grange.
“Blake’s cousin George from Buffalo is visiting this week,” chattered Beatrice. She was lately engaged to the only son of the richest family in town, and every relation seemed to be paying respects. “You’d like him. Perhaps you could spend some time together.”
Darcy cringed. Her friend was forever trying to create a match for her, quite as bad as Papa. “What’s wrong with the man?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Beatrice wove an arm around hers. “He’s handsome, intelligent and our age.”
“Then why isn’t he in the war?”
“Because he’s studying to be a physician. A doctor, Darcy, a professional.” Beatrice tugged slightly, urging Darcy to walk faster. “I have a thought. We can go on a picnic, all four of us. You can’t object to a picnic.”
Darcy did not want to go anywhere with a man she’d never met. “I don’t know anything about him.”
“Blake says he’s a real sport.”
“Blake would say that. It’s his cousin.”
Beatrice tsked her disapproval. “He’s perfectly charming. And educated. There aren’t many opportunities to meet eligible men, so if you want to catch one—”
“I don’t.”
Beatrice planted a hand on her hip. “Darcy, you must be reasonable. You’re twenty-three. People are starting to talk. The war can only be an excuse for so long.”
“I’m not using the war as an excuse. I don’t want to marry. Ever.” She shuddered at the drudgery of children and housework. “Better to fight for women’s rights.”
“Are you still following Prudy and her lot of suffragists? You’ll get a bad reputation. Felicity says some people already wonder if you’re one of those man-haters.”
Darcy didn’t care two pins what Felicity Kensington said, and she didn’t see why Beatrice placed such stock in her uppity future sister-in-law. “I don’t hate men. I just don’t want to marry. I have things to do.” Such as flying. She scanned the sky for the plane. Gone.
“Just meet him and talk a little.”
“No.”
“It’s just a picnic, not marriage.”
A faint drone froze Darcy. The aeroplane. Within seconds she located it low in the eastern sky, heading toward them.
“What is that sound?” Beatrice looked everywhere but up.
The plane dipped and veered toward town. It was landing. It had to be. No plane would fly that low if it wasn’t landing. If only she could be onboard. If only she could fly. Darcy danced across the road.
“Where are you going?” Beatrice called. “We’re already late from the nickel show. Your mother will be furious.”
“No she won’t.” Which wasn’t quite true.
“She’ll make us roll extra bandages.”
Darcy motioned for her to wait. “Just one moment longer.”
The hum intensified until it sounded like a whole hive of bees. An aeroplane. Darcy hung transfixed at the edge of the field. She couldn’t leave now. She hadn’t seen an aeroplane since the 1911 Chicago air exhibition, the day she knew God intended her to fly. In the air, women flew alongside men as equals. That’s where she belonged, not in lowly Pearlman, where not even the scent of an aeroplane could be found.
Until now. The biplane wobbled slightly as it descended, the left wing dipping before the pilot righted it at the last minute. It did not resemble the planes she’d seen in Chicago. This pilot sat farther back, below the upper wing, in a partially enclosed cockpit. The engine was located forward, giving the machine a sleek, fast appearance.
Beatrice shaded her eyes. “What is it?”
“The answer to my prayers.”
The aeroplane headed straight toward them at low altitude. Beatrice shrieked and clutched at her impossibly flowered hat as the plane zoomed overhead and banked to make a run down the length of the empty field. The grass bent flat under the roar, and the turbulence sent Darcy’s hair swirling. The plane swooped onto the field, bouncing once before mowing a wide swath through the grass.
“Whooee!” Darcy ran after it, and then, seeing as Beattie was still hunched on the ground, came back. “An aeroplane. Here, in Pearlman. Imagine.” God had sent Darcy’s dream on canvas-covered wings.