It covered everything from New York City to Miami to Seattle to Hawaii to Barcelona to Edinburgh and finally Wandermere, the capital city of Aldayne.
Neither Fern nor I had any idea how to pack for this.
Fortunately, this crazy schedule gave us a week between stops, so we trusted we could find ways to adapt.
After one or two (or ten) trips around the pool house to double-check what we might have missed, it was time to say goodbye. Mom, Dallas and Dash had joined Dad by then, helping to see us off. Dallas gave us a long list of new songs to check out, and a wish list of things she wanted us to at every stop. A photo from the top of the Empire State Building, chocolates from San Francisco, a lei from Hawaii, that sort of thing.
“Don’t forget to get a photo in front of the Olympic stadium in Barcelona,” she said as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“I won’t forget,” I promised, hugging my little sister goodbye.
I knelt to address Dash. He held out his beloved sparkly rainbow tutu. “Here,” he said. “Take this.”
“Aren’t you going to need this to dance?” Fern asked.
He shook his head. “I won’t be dancing without you,” he said. I watched Fern’s lip quiver. “This way I get to go with you, at least a little bit.”
I crushed him to me in a powerful hug. “I always take you with me everywhere I go, Dashie,” I told him. Fern joined our hug. We held on extra-long.
We stood and Mom stepped forward with another recycled container from somewhere in the 80s. I had to laugh. I opened it to find the cocoa dusted protein bites. “Why do you keep making them if the kids don’t like it?”
She shrugged, wearing her mischievous grin. “I like the faces they make.”
I hugged her close. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”
She squeezed me hard, pulling Fern into her fierce embrace. “My girls have never been so far away from me.”
The hitch in her voice made me break down in emotional tears yet again. “It’s only five months,” I promised. “Then we’ll see you in Aldayne.”
She nodded as she pulled away, wiping tears of her own. She took my hand. “Take care of yourself. If you need anything…”
“I’ll call,” I promised.
I turned to Dad. He was a mountain of a man, but his eyes welled with tears. It damn near broke me. He didn’t have to say one word. Fern and I both hopped up to hug his neck. “Love you, Daddy,” we said, and he hugged us tight.
After he released us, he turned to Sean. “You take care of my girls.”
Sean tipped his hat. “It is my honor, sir.”
I stood for a moment, looking at my family. I was super excited about my new adventure, but I didn’t want to leave. Growing up was hard.
And to think, I was about twenty years from being on the other side of it.
Finally, Fern and I climbed into the Alda. We waved out of the back window until our family faded from our view. I held onto Dash’s tutu, softly sobbing, and Fern wrapped an arm around me and shed a few tears of her own.
We had pulled ourselves together by the time we reached the airport in Santa Barbara, which is where our trip officially began.
Unlike the other travelers, we were escorted to a private jet that was black with gold and purple detailing the Quinn coat of arms. Audra was waiting at the bottom of the gangway, standing next to uniformed officers I assumed (correctly) were part of the flight crew.
Audra reached for my hand. “Peaches,” she greeted. “So good to see you again.”
I shook her hand and echoed the sentiment. “This is my sister, Fern,” I introduced. “Fern, this is Countess Audra Tremwell.”
My sister reached for her hand. “So nice to meet you finally.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Audra assured. “Come,” she instructed before leading us up the gangway into the plane.
I say plane. The thing I stepped into wasn’t like any plane I’d ever seen. It was nicer than my apartment. Hell, it was nicer than the offices at Headliner Pulse. The only thing it rivaled was Fifty Oaks.
We stepped into the first of three different cabins. The first looked like a conference room, with a large black oval table and gray upholstered chairs fixed all around. There was a desk to the side nearest the pilot, and a tinted plexiglass divider to separate this cabin