A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 (19 page)

51. SAM

I pushed through the clubhouse door, arms loaded with bags
of chips, sodas, and my rig. Tara said I needed it for tonight’s Spirit Board
session, though I thought it might be overkill since the phone app thing worked
so well last time. Why bother with anything more complicated? Besides, I
resented dismantling it from the cords and cables where it lay nestled so
comfortably in my room. Somehow, I thought she might hold it against me (yes,
my rig is a “she” named Fiona), and the new dubstep mix I was working on for
Lily was really coming together… and I did not want anything to get between
Lily and my mix… and my manhood.

“Where do you want me to set up?” I asked Melody as I
dropped the snacks on the small table.

“How about over here on the couch where we were sitting
before?”

I put my gear down on the loveseat and sat down. The photo
was still on the floor from where it had fallen before. Glass still lay in
shards, catching the yellowish fluorescent light overhead. “Mel?”

She looked at me and I saw the skin tighten around her eyes
and mouth. She was stressed. She was trying to pretend she was okay with all of
this, but clearly she wasn’t. “Maybe we should sweep that up? You got a broom?
I can do it.”

“Oh, yeah.
Good idea. I haven’t
been in here since… I’ll get the broom. You just get your rig booted up and
stuff. Tara says you have a webcam on that thing too?”

She was out the door, heading toward the kitchen before I
could answer, so I just pulled up the webcam utility along with my mixing board
software.

Before long, Melody was sweeping up the mess and Tara and G.
had arrived. I nearly did a double take, but made my saving throw, when Tara
walked in the room. She was wearing some little teal number with spaghetti
straps, and I practically had to peel my eyes from her bosom before either she
or G. caught me looking. Holy Shit, she looked hot. Not as hot as Lily, but
damn
.

“Okay, I’ve got the board, and the crystal,” she said,
breathless, settling down onto the loveseat next to me and gently moving my
computer over a little bit to make room for the Spirit Board setup. “Can you
set up to record on multiple tracks?”

“Sure,” I said. “What are you hoping to get from that?”

“I just think that if we can get layers of sound, we might
be able to isolate things better. Instead of, for instance, our voices talking
over something–like Matthew’s ghost—and then us trying to scrub it clean to
understand what he’s saying.”

She really did just say Matthew’s ghost, didn’t she? And how
much my outlook on life, the universe and everything had changed, that I didn’t
cringe when she said it. Or when she pulled the crystal out of her purse and
put it on the board. Maybe it wasn’t
all
new age crap.
Seems like at least some of it was very old
crap indeed.
“Yeah, I can manage that,” I said and pulled a couple of
microphones out of my bag. I didn’t do much audio work, but I did like to
capture ambient sounds, like train sounds or traffic or nature, for layering
effects over my own tracks. Never thought ghost sounds would make it onto that
list.

“Should we ah, light some candles and stuff like we did last
time?” Melody asked, standing a little apart from the rest of us.

Tara looked up at her and smiled. “I don’t think that’s
necessary this time. We already know it works. We don’t need mood lighting to
make it spooky.”

“It’s plenty spooky with the regular lights on, in my
opinion,” said G.

I smiled grimly. “I agree. Let’s just get through this as
smoothly as possible. Besides, lights off will make it hard to see my
keyboard.”

Melody wasn’t wringing her hands, but looked like she wanted
to.

“You want to come and sit by me?” I nodded toward the empty
spot on the loveseat next to me. “You know, like last time?”

She seemed relieved. “Yeah, thanks. Maybe that will help.”

“Who knows?” I gave her a crooked grin.

“Indeed!” said Tara, leaning over and waggling her brows.

I had to hand it to Rapunzel. She knew how to lighten the
mood.

“So, are we ready?” she asked, surveying the set up. “Mel,
are you going to be note taker again?”

“Uh,”

“I can do that this time,” said G. taking a seat next to
Tara. He had already grabbed the pen and pad from the table with the snacks on
it. He turned the page to a fresh, blank sheet and pretended like he was an old
granny secretary from the 1950s, ready to take dictation. We all laughed. He
was very convincing. Finally, with everyone meeting everyone else’s gaze, I
knew we were ready.

“Okay, I’m clicking ‘record,’” I said.

Tara leaned in and put her hand on the planchette, and I
followed. We looked to Melody, but she hung back. “Uh, maybe…
G.?”

G. shrugged and started to hand the tablet to her so that he
would have his hands free, but Tara stopped him.

“That’s okay for now. Melody, can you just sit back and
concentrate on Matthew for us? Sam and I will do the heavy lifting. Let’s see
how that goes.” She looked around one more time and then cleared her throat.
“Hello, spirits of the ether, we greet you as friends. Together we are Tara,
Sam, G., and Melody. Please commune with us.”

I let my left hand sit on the planchette with Tara while I
moved my mouse cursor over my laptop screen, making sure that the window didn’t
fall asleep. I watched the equalizer for each audio input from the spare
microphones, but there was nothing. I looked around the group and shook my head.

“Is anybody there?” asked Tara, her voice clear.

I kept my eyes on the computer screen, and for a long moment
I think we all held our collective breath, but still, there was nothing. As I
was about to shake my head again, I noticed a tiny little jag on the equalizer
graphic that belonged to my
omni
-directional mike. I
took a sharp inhalation and heads all around jerked in my direction. I watched
the screen, hoping for another jag, but after a long moment, I shook my head
again.
Nothing.

“Is anybody there? Matthew Walker, are you there?”

There was another tiny jag on my computer screen from the
same microphone, and this time, Melody was leaning in over my shoulder. She
gasped softly. We waited, and we waited, and there was nothing.

And then Melody reached out a tentative hand to touch the
fingers of her left hand to the planchette, and holy hell broke loose, except
she and I were the only ones who could see it.

The moment her fingers touched the planchette, my entire
laptop screen flickered as if it were experiencing some massive denial of
service attack, and the equalizer graphics for both microphones jagged all over
like crazy. If I had seen something like that on the United States Geological
Survey website, I would have hunkered down next to a large piece of furniture
and braced for an earthquake.

“Holy shit,” I breathed.

Melody’s eyes were glued to the computer screen, and she
almost didn’t notice when the planchette started to move.

But I noticed, and so did Tara.

“G.!
are
you getting this?” she hissed.

“Yeah, yeah, wait, slow down…”

“I can’t, I mean, it’s not me, us, that’s moving it.
It’s...”

“Matthew,” finished Melody. We all looked at her then, but
she was no longer looking at the computer; she was looking across the room,
eyes wide.

I looked, and I saw him, too.

52. G.

I was writing as fast as I could, but I couldn’t quite keep
up with how fast the planchette was moving. And the room was getting very hot,
much hotter than normal. It wasn’t like the AC was out—it was like
I
was heating up. I wanted to close my
eyes to see if I could detect that faint glow I saw before, but I didn’t want
to miss any of the letters or words. But when I saw the expression on Melody
and Sam’s face, I had to turn to look over my shoulder. What I saw made me burn
bright like a freaking torch.

There was a man there, but he was not alone. And he was
struggling to stay where we could see him. Something was reaching for him,
trying to pull him back; long inky black tendrils were clutching at him, and
before I knew it, I lunged over the couch, a flaming sword of light in my hand,
and slashed at the tentacles as hard and fast as I could. There was a sound not
unlike a peal of thunder, and as my sword encountered the nearest tentacle,
lightning flashed and the air between myself and the man undulated like the
surface of a pond in a strong wind. But there was nothing physical to stop or
halt the force of my swing, and I went tumbling to the floor in an all-out,
head-first dive.

I skidded to a stop, my head hitting the baseboard of the wall
and I heard the girls call out and Sam swear. The world had turned vaguely red,
and I realized that I must have hit my head pretty hard for it to be affecting
my vision like that.

Tara squatted down next to me. “Are you okay?
G.?”

I looked up and saw her golden hair cascading over her
shoulder with the fluorescent light flaring behind like a halo. “You look like
an angel,” I said, and then, “It’s really hot in here.” Everything faded to
black.

53. MELODY

Shit.
Two times in one evening.
It
was getting almost mundane to see the ghost of my dead brother. And yet I was
shivering. Why was I shivering? It was hot in the clubhouse, come to think of
it, it had started getting hot the moment we saw Matthew’s ghost. Wasn’t that
the opposite of what was supposed to happen? I reached behind me to pull the
afghan off of the back of the loveseat and threw it over my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” Tara was squatting down next to G. “Let me
get you some ice for your head.” Tara jogged out of the clubhouse, letting the
screen door slam behind her.

I knew I should get up off my butt and check on her and G.,
but I just couldn’t do it. My body wasn’t reacting normally. It was like all of
my limbs were lead.

“I think I’m in shock,” I said aloud.

Sam tossed a brief glance at me over his shoulder. He
stopped messing with his computer as soon as he saw me. “Jesus, Melody. You
look white as a sheet.”

“I’m cold, too,” I said, shivering again. I just couldn’t
stop the shivering, and it didn’t make any sense at all. It was
hot
in the room. “Is G. okay?”

A brown hand connected to a muscular arm shot up from the
floor across the room, and G. called out. “I’m okay. Just bumped my head when I
dove toward the…
the whatever
you want to call it.”

“That was intense, man. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Like what?” I asked as Tara came back in.

“The way G. flew at the ghost like that, his hands were
glowing like… almost like he had a weapon and he was going to swing it at
Matthew’s ghost.”

“No, not his ghost,” G. said, his voice muffled.
“At the tentacles.
I was swinging my sword at the
tentacles.”

“I saw the tentacles,” I said, thinking about the earlier
apparition of Matthew and how they seemed to be wrapped tight around his heart,
squeezing it…

“I saw the tentacles too,” said Tara, “But I didn’t see any
glowing sword.” She crouched next to G. and tenderly put the bundle of ice on
his forehead. “Should he sit up? I can’t remember what it said about treating a
concussion in health class.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” said G. as he struggled to sit
up. “I didn’t hit my head that hard. And the sword thing is new. It happened
for the first time when we rescued Melody from those parasite things, and it
happened again just now. I’m not even sure how it happens, because it’s not
like I’m chanting “By the power of
Greyskull
” or
anything. I just knew I needed to do something and the sword just appeared.
It’s kind of cheesy.”

“I think it’s cool,” said Sam. “You really couldn’t see it?”
he said, looking from me to Tara.
“Really?
It was as
clear as day – bright like a freaking torch.”

“No,” I said, thinking back to the other night, “and I
didn’t see it in my room that night either.”

“Weird,” said G. “He and I can see it and you guys can’t. I
wonder why?”

The shivering was starting to calm down a little bit, and
the afghan was keeping me warm, even though I shouldn’t have needed it since
the room was still warmer than normal even with the AC on. “So many secrets,” I
said, my voice trailing off.

“What do you mean?” Sam was busy with his laptop, trying to
move buttons and slide bars on his mixing software to get some of the audio
scrubbed and tuned from a few moments before.

I had an intense urge to snuggle in next to him, but I
squashed it. Sam was with Lily now, and honestly, what was wrong with me? “I
just mean… you said you could see G.’s glowing sword thing. That’s like a
secret between you and G., and Tara learned how to meditate and get information
from—”

“From the Akashic Records,” she finished for me. “I was
going to tell them about that tonight anyways, since I guess we’ve all seen
enough crazy stuff now that maybe they would actually believe me.”

“And I have a secret sigil from Matthew, only I don’t know
what it means.” I looked at Sam, suddenly very, very tired. “What’s your
secret?” I scrunched in the corner of the
loveseat,
my
legs curled under me, and leaned my head on the back cushion as I watched him
work on his computer.

Sam paused for a second as if he were going to say something
and then shook his head.
“A sigil, huh?
Where’d you
get it from?”

I yawned.
“From Matthew’s garage.
Tara and I snuck over there a couple of weeks ago and broke in at night –”

“You what?”
G.’s jaw dropped, and
he looked vaguely pissed.

“Well, it wasn’t really breaking in since she had a key,”
Tara said.

“Right,” I said. I had a key. My eyelids were getting very
heavy. “Hey, you guys, wake me when you find something.” This time I didn’t
even bother to try and keep my eyes open. Sleep took me.