The Ring of the Queen (The Lost Tsar Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
Part VII
As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it.
-Beth Ditto
“Well, here we are,” mom said.
She’d just parked the car at Fort Wayne International Airport. I wasn’t sure what was international about it. It was our local airport, and it was only 40 miles from where we lived. My mom had insisted on giving me a ride to the airport, even though everyone around us knew that she didn’t want me to take the trip. I hadn’t talked to her about it since I told her in the first place. She’d tried on several occasions to bring it up, but I refused to discuss it. I was pretty sure that she’d taken the opportunity to drive me to the airport to nag me about it, but she hadn’t said much about it all the way to Fort Wayne.
“Here we are,” I replied.
“Do you have all your papers? Passport, visas, confirmation for you class, confirmation of you dorm room?”
“Yeah, I have all that.”
“Now, you said that you would be meeting this stranger, Tania at the airport in Boston and flying from there to Moscow?”
“We have to change flights in Frankfurt, Germany.”
“You made sure your bag wasn’t over the allowed weight for overseas flights?”
“Yes. I did everything. Now, aren’t you going to yell at me?”
“Yell at you. Is that what you think of me?”
“You do yell.”
“You might consider that I know things. I know a lot of things that I haven’t explained to you. Right now I wish that I had, but I am intelligent. This is a dangerous idea. I can list everything from international terrorist groups to random street violence in a place like Moscow. You’ve never even been to a real city. What will you do?”
“Tania is from Boston. She’s lived there her whole life. What I haven’t learned from day trips to Chicago, she can help out with. I know you don’t like the idea that she’s an internet friend, but she’s a friend. She’s a good person. I know you don’t believe that I can know that, but I can. She gets me. She likes the stuff I like, and she’s studying the things that I’m studying. She’s like a dorm roommate, but she lives in Boston. She’s the closest thing I will ever have to a best friend from college.”
“You really trust her?”
“I really do. Now, are we good?”
“The ring. Did you leave the ring at home?”
“Of course I did,” I lied.
My grandma had told me never to let the ring out of my sight. In addition to that, I wanted to have it with me so that I could find out more about it. I didn’t even know if it came from Russia, but I was pretty sure that it did. I remembered grandma telling me about a trip that she’d taken to Russia when she was younger. Grandpa had the Russian roots, but he wasn’t interested in his roots. He farmed, and he didn’t really care about going anywhere but his corn and soybean fields. Grandma had taken some kind of a group tour and had a wonderful time. She had pictures of the Kremlin and the Hermitage and Red Square and so on. It was one of the reasons that I wanted to go there as well. She never said that she’d gotten it on that trip, but I was pretty sure about it. Why else would it have been so important to her?
“What is it with you and grandma’s ring anyway?” I asked.
“It’s a long story. I know I should have talked to you about it, but I kept putting it off. I guess now is the time.”
I looked at my phone. We’d made our way through the baggage check in while we were talking, and I had to run in order to get through security in time to make my flight.
“I wish I could hear that, but I have to go. It takes a while to get through security, and I don’t want to risk missing my flight,” I told her.
“I really want to tell you about the ring.”
I kissed her on the cheek and started to walk away toward the line for security checks. “Text me or call me. I mean, it’s just a souvenir, right?”
“Stacey, it’s not a souvenir. Let me explain!” she called after me.
“Bye mom! I love you!” I yelled as I got in line.