Night Flying
Rita Murphy
Random House
Young Adult
ISBN: 038532748X

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The Hansen women have always flown at night, even in bad weather. Aunt Eva actually prefers storms. She says he makes better time that way. Though often she ends up on the east end of town and has to walk back along the railroad bed if the wind isn't blowing in her favor.

Flying is something we do at night when everyone is asleep. Twice around the meadow or once over the ridge clear our heads before settling in for the evening.

My aunt Suki stayed out all night once when she was sixteen. She went to the county line at Madison. She wanted to see how far she could go.

"That's the danger with young fliers," Mama says. "They don't know when to turn back." Suki was in bed for two days with a fever and cramps.

It's not an easy thing to do. Flying. Not like you'd think. There are wind currents and air pockets, and birds. Don't ever underestimate birds. It can be difficult to see a swallow coming in at dusk. And even though owls have excellent night vision, there have been collisions, and they aren't pretty.

"It's best to stay close to home when you're starting," Mama says. "It's best not to take too many chances."

***

The first woman in our family to fly was Louisa Hansen, my great-great-great-grandmother. She came to America from Albania more than one hundred years ago. A dark, wiry woman full of Gypsy blood. They say it was her broken heart that propelled her soaring over the sea.

Louisa lost her husband and little boy in a shipwreck off the coast of Newfoundland in 1884. She survived along with seven others, rescued by a fishing schooner. She eventually married one of the fishermen aboard, Jonathan Hansen, and went to live with him in his house by the ocean. They say she started flying in her sleep out over the cliffs, searching for her list loved ones, returning in the early hours of the morning drenched in seaspray.

Since that time, every Hansen woman has flown. Aunt Eva says it's like a family full of acrobats or mountain climbers. Once one generation believes they can fly, it makes it possible for the next to believe too. The only thing that's unique about our family is that we haven't forgotten. We still believe.

As far as I know, we are the only family of fliers in Hawthorne. There are perhaps hundreds, thousands of women in the world who fly, but it’s hard to know who they are. You can never tell just by looking at someone. Most fliers lead rather ordinary lives.

Aunt Eva believes any woman can fly regardless of body shape or weight. It is only those who believe they can, who feel it with no doubt, who succeed. You can never let doubt creep in. Not even into the smallest corner of your mind, or you'll fall right out of the sky.

Like all the women in my family, I have been flying since the day I was born. My aunt Eva was the one chosen to take me up the first time. She is my godmother and the strongest flier. She has the arms of a swimmer. Arms that never give up. She's been known to fly for five or six hours without landing.

I know why Mama chose Eva to take me. She wanted me to feel Eva's confidence. When I was strapped to my aunt's chest, the feeling off lights went deep into my bones, and it has never gone away.

***

Three generations of Hansen women live in our house. We're out on the country road as far as you can go. It's a rambling old Victorian that belonged to my great-grandmother Isadora Cooney Hansen. She painted the entire house blue in 1928. Inside and out. It was her favorite color. The kitchen is teal blue and the third floor is sky meadow blue and the outside is periwinkle with navy trim. Over the years, my aunts have painted their own rooms rose and cream, and the pantry is no longer sea green but a mellow yellow. Everything else is still blue, though, including the insides of all the closets.

There are eight fireplaces and six bathrooms, four with claw-foot tubs so deep you can lose yourself in them, and one long, winding staircase reaching to the third floor. A ladder leads from the third-floor landing to the widow's walk on top of the house. I am the only person who goes up there anymore. Mama and my aunts used to smoke in the walk when they were my age, and there are still a few momentos left of their time there. A stack of old fashion magazines filled with pictures of skinny women in bell-bottom jeans and shag haircuts, a case of empty Coca-Cola bottles, a couple of ashtrays shaped like fish.

I go to the walk in the early morning when everyone is asleep except Mama, who gets up before dawn to cook or hang out laundry. My aunt stays up late flying, so they tend to sleep in. Often they don't come down for breakfast until noon. Grandmother never rises before ten.

I have two aunts who live with me. Suki and Eva. Suki is the youngest. She has fair skin, blond hair, and blue with horn-rimmed glasses. Suki plays the clarinet and piano and most any other instrument she can get her hands on. A consistent flier with superior navigation abilities, Suki can find true north without a compass in the fog.

Eva is two years old that Suki. She is a painter and wears bright silk scarves, which hang haphazardly from her tall frame. Her curly auburn hair is cut close to her head and always looks messy, as if she just woke up. She wears silver earrings that stretch halfway down her neck. Eva can talk about anything to anyone. She is my prime source of information about family history.

My mother, Maeve, is five years older than Eva. Petite and pretty in a delicate way. She never soloed and hasn't flown since the day I was born. Even though Eva says Mama was the best flier in the family once, Grandmother will no longer allow it. In our family, Grandmother makes all the rules. She can't have anyone around who is better at something or more powerful than she is. Motherhood empowers a flier, and Grandmother could never live in the same house as a daughter who was both a mother and a talented flier.

Grandmother is not someone you want to cross. Even though she had many lovers when she was young, you'd never know it now. Her face is taut and severe and she is built exactly like a house. She wears practical shoes with thick waffle soles and prefers the color gray to all others. There is something about Grandmother that reminds me of a piece of granite. Cold, dusty, dry. The kind of surface you wouldn't want to land on hard or come up against if it was moving fast in your direction.

I must look like my father --- except for my eyes, which are like Mama's. I have long black hair and olive skin. I am tall and thin and extraordinarily flat-chested.

The only thing I know about my father is that he wandered down our road one spring evening looking for access to the river. He was a scientist from the University of Vermont, studying the migration of geese, and our property extends down to the wildlife reserve. His hair was black as a raven's and his skin was a deep olive. Mama was so young, only fifteen at the time. She was in love. She said my father reminded her of the night. Cool and dark.

He left the day after Mama met him and she never saw him again, which was convenient since Grandmother would never have permitted him to stay. She is clear about this with all of us. No men are allowed to live on the premises. Grandmother believes that if the men found out about our flying, peace would be lost, the magic would be gone. They'd want us to fly in the daylight so they could keep an eye on us. I don't believe Mama or my aunts hold to this way of thinking, and neither do I. I actually think it would be nice to have some more men around once in a while for variety.

The history of the Hansen fliers is full of ridiculous rules like that. Grandmother says, "No men living on the premises." Great-grandmother Isadora said, "No meat." Great-great-grandmother Gilda said, "No flying in the daylight." Great-great-great-grandmother Louisa said we must keep Hansen as our last name. Maybe if I stay around long enough, I'll make up a rule of my own and it will be "No more rules."

No one in my family works in the traditional sense. Grandmother has taken care of that. Her father invented the clasp that connects the little read float in the toilet tank to the skinny metal arm that moves up and down. The Cooney Clasp generate a fortune, which Grandmother invested wisely. It is not used on modern toilets. But, of course, every toilet in our house still has one.

Grandmother had me study that little arm, float, and clasp once when I was six years old and had thrown a box of crayons down the toilet.

"Do you see this little arm here, Georgia?" She flicked it with her finger. I nodded.

"See how it will not move?"

I peered over the edge into the rusted tank, afraid of what I might see floating in there. But there were only water and the arm with a red rubber ball attached to the other end of it.

"Well, we cannot have that. No, we cannot. Your great-grandfather, Harold Esmit Cooney, devoted his life to making things easier for people. He designed this little clasp to move up and down." She pointed to a small rusted piece of metal at the elbow of the arm.

"Because of your little experiment today, it cannot move at all. Paralyzed." She stood looking down at me, hands on her wide hips, waiting for the impact of her words to seep into my six-year-old brain.

"I think the arm looks awfully tired, Grandmother. I think it need a rest," I told her.

Grandmother was not to be led off course. "Georgia you must free the arm. That is your mission this afternoon. I am leaving a plunger, scoop and bucket." She pointed out each object, laid neatly on the floor by the tub.

"These are your tools. I do not care how long it takes you. You must free it. Good luck." She turned and walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Mama and Suki told me later that night, after I had successfully freed the arm, that they had been given the same lecture when they were my age for throwing marbles and carrot sticks down the toilet.

"It's a rite of passage in this house, honey," Suki told me.

I did not understand what sort of passage she could mean. All I could imagine was a long, dark, narrow tunnel winding down from the toilet to a secret cavern beneath the house.

"The clasp has a special meaning for Grandmother," Mama offered in explanation. "For all of us, really. It’s what allows us the freedom to fly, to pursue our individual…" She could not find the word. "Our individual…pursuits."

"We call it the toilet money," Suki said, and we all laughed.

***

In a house full of women, it is nice to have a place to escape to. A place away from the chatter. I am a listener. A watcher. I am most at home in the widow's walk, writing down my dreams in an old leather-bound journal I keep hidden beneath the sofa, and looking down on life at the Hansen estate. I am scientist of sorts, like my father. I watch the comings and the goings of the women in my family as if they were tiny ants on the floor of the rain forest. In and out. Up and down. Talking all the time.

In the mornings I climb the ladder, push open the hatch, pull myself up onto the bare wood floor of the walk. It is a round room with no walls, only windows. There are sun catchers hanging from each one, so when the light strikes, it sends strips of watery color across the old red velvet sofa and along the floorboards.

From up here, I can see south all the way to Garrison and down into Hawthorne Valley. On clear days, the Redborn Mountain Fire Tower is visible to the east. The light at sunset reflects off the solver skeleton atop the rangers' station, making it look like a tall, skinny man holding his arms out to his sides as if to say, "I don't know, do you?"

To the north there is nothing but open meadow and hills to the Missiquoi River. In the fall, the snow geese come to the river to rest on their way south. One day, usually near my birthday, they arrive. A formation of solver-white bodies like a troop of angels blanketing the sky above our house.

To the west is the ridge. It is a cliff that drops off fifty feet into a deep ravine. That is where we take off from. It is the best place to catch the wind. Takeoff is usually the hardest part for young fliers. It can be scary, if you think about it too much. It takes practice, but it isn't nearly as difficult for me as landing is.

Looking down at the ridge, I remember last night's practice flight with Eva. As always, it was dark when we went, so I couldn't see the edge. I had to feel with my bare feet where the grass gave way to sharp rock. Since I'm still in training, Eva ran with me and held my hand until I was ready to let go. "Run as fast as you can, honey, so you won't think," she told me. Enough air had to build up under my stomach and chest so by the time I reached the edge I just lay into it real easy and it took me.

Once I caught the breeze, it was pretty much up to me. I knew I couldn't go higher than Eva, so I stayed within the boundaries she laid out. Eva is always right beside me, so I couldn't just fly away even if I wanted to, which I do sometimes. I have dreams of taking off into the night sky alone. Soaring up and over the treetops. No one watching me. No one telling me where I can go or what I can do. No rules to follow. I am as free as a hawk or falcon. Flying up into the inky blackness where the air is thin and the stars seem within reach.

We wear black when we fly so if we're spotted we're only a shadow against the sky, like a very large bat. We can fly pretty high. Ten thousand feet before we get the giggles and maybe another two thousand before we have to start back. It's a myth that anyone could fly to the moon or near to the sun. No one would get close to going above the oxygen level. Some have tried, but it's a sad thing when a flier goes too high, when she doesn't know her own limits. Sometimes she doesn't come back, or if she does she won't ever fly again.

I can imagine how it happens, though. How you could forget yourself when you're alone and fly higher and higher. There is no feeling in the world like giving in to the wind when it picks you up. It's like being lifted by a gentle hand. When you fly solo and start climbing there isn't anyone beside you telling you to stop. It's just you and the ocean of air around you. The earth below is so small, so unimportant, there seems no reason to ever come down. That's when you have to remember the words of your mother or aunt, whoever taught you. You have to remember your duty to keep the tradition alive. You have to follow the first rule of flying: Be home before dawn always and without exception.

The Hansen women are good at keeping a low profile. If we're blown off course by bad weather we come down in a quiet spot. No one knows about our flying, but they suspect us of other things. we are not witches, though that's what some folks say. We have no power to cast spells or work charms, except Aunt Carmen, whom I never met. Suki says Carmen is like a witch, but not as predictable.

Carmen is my third aunt, the eldest of my mother's sisters. She lives on the other side of the country, in a house by the ocean where the winds are strong. No one mentions Carmen except Mama, and she only talks about her at night when the others are in bed or out of the house flying. It's strange the way Mama speaks if her sister in hushed tones, as if she has dies. Mama says that in the Grandmother's eyes she has.

I don't know what Carmen did to be sent away forever. I imagine it must have been something horrible or maybe nothing much at all. Perhaps she was cast out of the family for painting her room the wrong color. Who knows? That's the hardest part about living under Grandmother's rules: not knowing when or if you'll be told to leave one day.

I've asked Mama many times to tell me what Carmen did, so I can make sure never to do it myself. But Mama only says, "Carmen didn't follow the rules, Georgia. She can't be trusted. She'll hurt herself one day. But at least since she's gone, she can no longer hurt us."


Excerpted from NIGHT FLYING (c) Copyright by Rita Murphy. Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Random House. All rights reserved.

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