Page 6 of The Apple Cider Orchard

The woman’s badge read ‘Cheryl’ with a golden star beside it, marking her as some kind of supervisor. Even at this late in the evening, her lipstick was perfect, her airline scarf knotted with geometric precision.

‘How much is the fee?’ Molly asked, already reaching for her wallet. Time was money and right now, the line forming behind her was ticking like a meter.

‘A hundred and fifty dollars.’

Molly’s hand stilled. The rational part of her brain – the part that managed marketing budgets in the millions – knew this was a trivial expense. The stubborn part, the one that sounded suspiciously like her grandmother, balked at the principle of it.

‘I’ll repack,’ she said, hefting her suitcase off the scale with a grunt.

‘There’s an area over there.’ Cheryl gestured vaguely toward the terminal’s center, where the fluorescent lighting seemed particularly harsh against the darkness outside.

Molly dragged her suitcase to an open spot on the floor. She knelt on the hard tile, her cream blouse and tailored black pants – chosen for comfort but still unmistakably business attire – already collecting dust. With quick, efficient movements, she unzipped her meticulously packed luggage.

She began removing items, mentally calculating their weight. She could swap the ballet flats she was wearing now for the considerably heftier suede boots she’d packed, and maybe take out her cardigan and bulkier coat as carry-on along with her laptop case (old habits …).

As she made the footwear switch and tucked away the flats, her fingers brushed against something soft – the velvet parcel – as she realized she’d forgotten to take this out to pack in her carry-on. So maybe the luggage snafu was a blessing in disguise. Molly tucked the pouch protectively alongside her travel documents in her laptop case, then continued sorting the suitcase with renewed determination.

Ten minutes later, she approached the counter again, hair escaping her neat bun of earlier, a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead despite the terminal’s aggressive air conditioning.

‘Let’s try again,’ Cheryl said, lifting the suitcase onto the scale. The digital display flashed: 49.8 pounds.

Molly exhaled. ‘Thank you,’ she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was thanking the woman for.

The agent handed over her boarding pass with that same professional smile. ‘Gate 42B. Boarding to Shannon begins in an hour.’

Security was its own special form of torment. Molly joined the snaking line, shuffling forward in socked feet, her boots and coat in one plastic bin, electronics in another. Ahead of her, a harried mother struggled with a toddler who’d decided that the checkpoint was the perfect place for an impromptu dance recital.

Molly checked her watch; forty minutes till boarding. Her stomach growled, reminding her that coffee and perhaps actual food should be a priority. The line inched forward.

When she finally cleared security, she made a beeline for the nearest refreshment kiosk. The line there was mercifully short, just one person ahead of her – a man in a rumpled suit jabbing at his phone while he waited. His agitation was palpable, radiating from him in waves that pushed against Molly’s own frayed nerves.

‘Coffee, splash of milk please,’ she told the barista when her turn came. And a sesame seed bagel. Simple, efficient, enough to power through until she ate on the plane.

Drink secured with a plastic lid, she turned to head toward her gate – only to collide with the rumpled suit, who had decided to backtrack at precisely the wrong moment. The lid went flying and hot liquid sloshed over the rim of her cup, splashing across her cream blouse in an impressive display of physics.

The brown stain spread instantly across the silk, a Rorschach test of her misfortune.

‘Jeez, sorry,’ the man said, jumping back. ‘I didn’t see—’

‘It’s fine,’ Molly cut him off, though it was anything but. It wasn’t his fault, really.

The restroom mirror reflected a woman she barely recognized. Her hair was mussed, dark circles shadowed her green eyes, the left one smudged where her mascara had started to migrate. The coffee stain on her blouse formed an irregular continent across her abdomen. She dabbed at it with thin paper towels that disintegrated on contact, leaving tiny white pieces across the silk.

‘Perfect,’ she muttered to her reflection. ‘Just perfect for a seven-hour flight.’

She did her best to clean it with what was available, then pulled on the cardigan, and buttoned it over the damage. The temperature in the terminal was somewhere between refrigerator and meat locker, so at least the extra layer wouldn’t seem out of place.

The gate agent’s voice crackled over the intercom, announcing priority boarding for her flight and Molly looked up, startled by how quickly the time had passed.

Only when she’d settled into her window seat, belt fastened across her lap, did she finally switch her phone to airplane mode. The small act of digital disconnection felt both terrifying and liberating – like stepping off a ledge, unsure if she’d fall or fly and she fidgeted a little.

‘First time to Ireland?’

Molly turned to find her seat mate – a silver-haired woman with kind eyes and an Irish accent – watching her with interest.

‘Is it that obvious?’ she asked, smoothing her hair self-consciously.

The woman smiled. ‘You have the look. Part excitement, part terror.’