She was an amalgamation of the cultures she'd been in and out of in the past six years. A glance at her and anyone would think she was just a tourist. But travel was an obsession of hers. She loved to travel, to just be other places.
Now she was going to Canada. It had been too strange, hearing of this city, this Harper Rock, a city with an entire district under quarantine. Too strange not to make a visit. She'd made the expense of taking a first-class seat, spending the last of her full inheritence from her grandmother on that bit of comfort. A glass of pinot noir rested in her right hand, while her left clung to a box that she had purchased specifically from one of the attendants. A box of Hostess Cupcakes. The box was open, one wrapped confection missing from its contents. She was going to eat them slowly, unlike normally. It was the first box she'd gotten her hands on since the Hostess factories had returned to production, and she would savor them.
"Is everything all right, Miss Crowley?" the main attendant of the first class section, Elena, asked softly, a gentle smile on her face as Yvette pulled a single earbud from her head.
"Everything is quite all right, Elena," Yvette said smoothly, the faint twang showing as she spoke. Born and raised Texan, the accent would likely not go away. Not that she'd ever want it to. The accent was part of her, something she still held of her mother and grandmother. Her father was a generic American accent, as were her younger sisters, Rochelle and Renée, but she, Nadia, and Samandra all shared the slight twang of their mother and grandmother. It made them feel like the sisters they were.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Yvette flagged a taxi, clinging to the strap of her suitcase as she stood on the airport sidewalk. The cab pulled up, the driver helping her to load her luggage into the trunk, and they were off. She leaned into the seat, watching the city pass by. She glanced momentarily at the walled section of the city, curious at the level of military protection."What happened there?" she asked the driver.
"I've never been sure," he replied. "It's been like that a couple years, though, and some people go in there."
"How do they get in?"
"I'd guess the sewer system, but I've never gone looking."
The conversation ended abruptly as the driver stopped at her hotel, unloading her luggage at the front door of the lobby. She quickly signed in, received her room key, and went to the elevator with a bellhop, settling into her room quickly and giving the bellhop a few bucks.
As the day wore on, she began to plan her time. Planning is everything, that was always one of her grandmother's favorite sayings. Harper Rock wasn't a tourist town, but it was a pretty good place in general. There was stuff to do. As she looked at the town on Google Earth, she spotted something that normally wouldn't have caught her attention the way it did. A temple, not quite like a church or any of the temples she'd ever seen, but it was definitely a temple. The doors were always closed during the day, but it seemed that the doors opened every night. So at sunset, she slipped into a new dress and made her way on foot across town from her hotel to the temple.
The door was open. She walked in slowly, looking around in astonishment, one hand at her side, the other over the pendant over her heart, not covering completely, but with her fingertips lightly caressing the metal. The temple was almost like a palace. Its beauty was staggering - she had to sit down to take it in fully. She took the aisle seat of the third pew on the right, her earthen green eyes not focusing on any one thing, instead following the curves and shapes of the room.
This was a place of beauty and worship, just like the churches she'd been to over her twenty-seven years. It was sacred, and so she could respect it.
