A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 Read online

  A QUARREL CALLED

  By

  Shannon Wendtland

  A Crossed Arrows Title

  First Edition, 2016

  Copyright © 2014 Shannon Wendtland

  Cover Art Copyright © 2015 James T. Egan, Bookfly Design

  http://www.bookflydesign.com/

  Edited by Leslie Karen Lutz, Elliott Bay Editing

  https://elliottbayediting.wordpress.com/

  All Rights Reserved.

  For information, address:

  Book Editor

  [email protected]

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936711

  ISBN 0-9790889-9-2

  ISBN-13 978-0-9790889-9-5

  For my parents, Carl and Moralee.

  This is our story. We wrote it all down; that way when it happens to you, when you’re called to be a Steward of the Plane, a member of a Quarrel, you’ll know what to do.

  ~Melody, Tara, Sam & G.

  00. MELODY

  The screen door slammed as I entered the kitchen from the backyard. The sound of crickets and tree frogs wafted over the late spring breeze; I’d have smiled at the thought of all those little guys romancing each other with their song if I weren't so worried about my brother. Matthew hadn't been home in two days.

  He'd moved into the spare apartment out back after graduation, which meant we would see him at least once a day at dinner, and sometimes he’d even stay to watch TV with me. But a few weeks ago, his routine changed – dinner a couple nights a week maybe, and zero TV time. Gramps said he had probably met a girl. Gram said he was a man now and he didn't have to answer to them anymore.

  But I disagreed; he still had to answer to me. He might be six years older, he might be a grown man, but I still get final say over any and all girlfriends.

  But it's not just that. Ever since Gramps got sick and started using a wheelchair, Matthew's been different. He's not as easygoing, he doesn't laugh as much. In fact, sometimes his mood is downright foul. Gram says that's to be expected. But I don't buy it. In fact, I think it stinks.

  "I'm going over to Matthew's shop to see if he wants to come over and watch Supernatural later," I said to Gram, who was busy stirring a pot of something that looked saucy and delicious.

  "Don't pester him, Melody."

  "Spending time with me is awesome. It's not pestering."

  "If he says he has plans, then just let him be. He'll always be your brother." She reached up to pat my cheek and then turned back to her saucy pot. "And while you're out, grab some eggs. If you want pancakes for breakfast tomorrow, we need eggs."

  "Sure," I said, grabbing some change from the change jar. As I left, I could hear Gram humming to herself, tree frogs and crickets chirping in the background.

  I liked my town. It was big enough to have a few restaurants, a coffee shop, and a movie theater, but small enough that you could walk almost everywhere, and old enough that most of the houses were interesting to look at unless you were in the newer neighborhoods that were full of cookie-cutter tract homes. My friend Tara lived in one of those, and she was jealous of the old white Victorian town house I lived in with the big, shady live oak and pecan trees in the backyard. I didn't blame her. I liked her house well enough -- the air conditioning worked really well and her bedroom was bigger than mine, but she had brown wooden fencing around her whole yard and only one tree in the front. Her yard was small, too, not like the half-acre we had. Tent camping in the backyard had always been done at my house. It was her tent, but I had trees and lightning bugs; she just had noisy neighbors.

  I had lost some of the anxiety I felt over Matthew's absence during my walk. It was hard to stay mad or worried when the sun was setting and turning the sky pink. A breeze blew; soft satin against my skin. Spring in North Texas was just about the most perfect time of year. Some of my irritation began to fade. Matthew hadn't forgotten me; he hadn't replaced me with some random girlfriend. He was just really busy. Maybe he was working on a carburetor rebuild or replacing someone's transmission? Maybe he’d gone to work early this morning and I had just missed him. That had to be it. That's all it was.

  But as I approached the shop, low brick storefront, windows dark, bay doors rolled down, I knew he wasn't in there. I glanced at my watch. It was late. He wouldn't still be open, but he might still be inside. His car was still parked in his spot, so he had to be there, didn't he? Something began to gnaw at my gut; uncertainty, fear. I remembered my keys. I’ll just stick my head in.

  All the anxiety and worry I had felt at home came crashing back. My insides began to feel a little bit like jelly, and my knees were weak. I didn't run to the main door of the shop because I didn't want to look silly when he poked his head out and saw me acting like a little girl, but I did pick up my pace.

  I fished the keys out of my pocket and pulled the big brass one around. This was the main key that unlocked the door to the lobby of the shop. When he first opened his business, he had given me the key, solemnly promising me that I was his co-pilot. That moment pressed behind my eyes now. I swallowed past a lump in my throat. I fumbled as I tried to unlock the door.

  But the key wasn’t needed; the door swung open as soon as I touched the knob. It was dark inside, illuminated only by patches of sunset on the floor. Something strange…there was something strange about this place, this moment. As if I had been here before. Deja Vu. Ugh. The brief disorientation just made my anxiety worse.

  And there was something else – an odor, like thunderstorm mixed with copper. "Hello?" I scanned the room for movement before I fully stepped inside. "Hello?" I called again. "Matthew, I'm here."

  The lobby was empty. The swivel chair behind the counter was pushed back like someone had sat in it earlier in the day, and the computer hummed quietly next to it. The monitor was shut off, so while it appeared that Matthew may have sat there earlier, he wasn't coming back anytime soon. I felt uneasy about the unlocked door and turned behind me to close it fully, twisting the deadbolt; it made me feel a little better.

  I made my way back to the storage room and poked my head in. It was very dark; everything looked normal except for a strange shadowy form in the corner. My heart stopped for a moment, and I felt a deep thud in my chest as it pushed through a suddenly thick and paralyzing fear. I had seen dark shapes like this before -- in the middle of the night, in the corners of my room. I focused on moving my hand, on the light switch, on flicking it with my finger.

  Greenish light from the fluorescent fixture on the ceiling flooded the room, chasing the darkness away. All of the shadows dissolved into reasonable shapes and sizes, and even the one looming in the back turned into a mop and broom leaning, head's up, in the corner. My heart began beating normally again.

  Only one space left to check - the main garage. Common sense told me that my brother wouldn't be in there, in the main bay, without the lights on. It was dangerous to walk around a space like that in the dark -- you could trip, you could bump into something that would drop pounds of steel on a foot, you could fall into the pit. I shrugged, forcing myself onward with false bravado. I’m already here, right?

  I went back to the main part of the lobby and turned left, toward the glass door that separated it from the garage. When I pulled the door open, that strange odor wafted into my face, overwhelming me for a moment with the scent of ozone and copper. It was a very strange combination; nausea began to build.

  There was more light here because of the squares of glass at the top of each of the bay doors. It streamed in like shafts of liquid gold. As I glanced through them, at the sky above the trees, I saw that the red-gold clouds above had turned a
remarkable, unsettling shade of crimson. I suddenly wished I were back outside. I suddenly wished I had never decided to come here. I almost turned around…almost. But I saw a shiny, slick spot on the floor and got distracted. I couldn't make sense of it at first; there was a mop in the storage room, why would there be oil all over the floor? Surely Matthew would have cleaned it up.

  And then I saw another dark shape in the back of the room, except this one was different from the last; this one was moving.

  The darkness unwound itself like a snake, rustling with malice. I was rooted to the spot. "Matthew?" my voice quavered. Maybe he had fallen and hit his head. Maybe that was him in the back, finally regaining consciousness?

  My gaze was fixed on the black shifting shape, but the nausea from the strange odor was welling up in my stomach. I leaned over to retch on the floor. As I got closer to the oily slick and got a noseful of the smell, thick and coppery, I realized what it was. It wasn't oil, it was blood; a lot of blood.

  The shadow was moving, pressing me toward the bay doors of the garage. I took one step back, and then another, into a square of ruddy sunlight and the shadow stopped short, just in front of me, almost reaching, almost touching. A dark finger unfurled itself and inched toward my chest. I shrank back from its touch. My brain wanted to run away: from the ozone and copper and vomit, away from the darkness, away from the blood – but my legs would not obey.

  "Melody, RUN!" shouted Matthew's voice in my ear, loud and impossible. Just as the finger was close enough to flick a button my shirt, I ran.

  01. MELODY ~ Two Years Later

  “You’re probably more psychic than me,” Tara said as she squinted at me through the crystal lens. One eye was closed, the other impossibly large and blue where it was framed by the clear disc.

  “What are you talking about? I only come here with you because you’re so hell-bent on turning into a new age groupie.”

  I looked around; the shop was stuffed to the gills with things like kachina dolls, crystals, and books with the word “magic” in the title. Cinnamon and sage competed for dominance over the smoky smell of patchouli and charcoal, and dust motes floated lazily in shafts of afternoon sunlight.

  Tara put down the lens and picked up a large double-terminated quartz crystal. She glanced toward the front before she whispered, “Regular people don’t see ghosts like you did that day. I mean they can see the effects, or maybe feel them, but only really psychic people see them.” She hefted the crystal in her hand, considering its weight, and then peered through it. “See these inclusions?” she continued at normal volume as if we were talking about any old thing.

  I ignored the small stab I felt in my gut at the mention of what happened to Matthew. I didn’t blame Tara for mentioning him, it had been two years. For most people that was long enough to move on, but then, normal people weren’t witness to their own brother’s murder. Well, perhaps not a witness exactly, but I had seen the crime scene, seen the blood, and hadn’t seen my brother since. It was enough; we even had a funeral.

  Tara waved me over; she wouldn’t be happy unless I came over to see what she was pointing at. I lugged my messenger bag through the maze of display cases, catching the strap on a shelf of glass figurines. I felt my heart stop for just a second, and then I relaxed. I hadn’t broken anything…yet. I untangled the strap and let my breath out in a huff. “What inclusions?”

  “These veins here, and this little rainbow shiver in the middle next to these triangular marks?” She tilted the crystal one way and then another so that the inclusions would catch the light of the afternoon sun as it streamed through the plate glass windows.

  “I see them.”

  “That’s where the Akashic records are stored.”

  The what? “Oh come on, Tara. Be real.”

  She peered at me owlishly over the rim of her wire-framed glasses. Long, wavy dark blonde hair floated around her face like a cloud, her blue eyes piercing. “Seriously, I’ve been reading a lot about this stuff. Edgar Cayce said the Akashic records hold all the information about everyone and everything in the universe. Other people say that the information is stored in crystals. Scientists agree that someday soon we will be able to store computer data on a crystal. So it all makes sense.”

  I tried to follow her logic, and while it looped around instead of coming full circle, I had to admit there might be something there—if I was willing to believe for a second that any of Tara’s mumbo jumbo was for real, that is. “Okay, let’s assume that what you’re saying is true.” I paused for a dramatic moment with my finger held up to forestall her next comment. “Then how do we get this information off of the crystals? You know, since science hasn’t figured it out yet?”

  Tara grinned. “Why meditation of course, my dear Melody. You clear your mind and commune with it.”

  I gave her that look, the one that said I was done with woo-woo crap for the day. “Whatever, I give up,” I said. “I’m starving and Sam is waiting for us at The Blossom. I’m going to leave without you if you don’t hurry up and buy whatever it is you’re here to buy.” I thought about Sam, black hair flopping into his narrow brown eyes, crying crocodile-emo tears into his drink. I could practically hear him despairing of how we were never, ever on time for anything. Especially when Tara was involved.

  “You’re not a believer yet, but one day you will be.” Tara tossed the annoying comment over her shoulder as she made her way to the register, quartz crystal still in hand, her hair floating behind like a bridal veil.

  “Fat chance,” I muttered. My stomach growled. I needed sustenance, not mumbo-jumbo.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” Esme said. She was wearing a diaphanous kimono in muted pinks and greens, something you might see Richard Castle’s mother wearing on TV, and her salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a loose, chunky braid. Her earrings tinkled as she turned to look at me while Tara dug through her purse. “You’ve got an interesting road ahead of you,” she said to me, her eyes slightly unfocused, her unplaceable accent a little thicker than usual. “Your aura already knows it, even though you don’t.”

  I tried not to roll my eyes.

  “I keep telling her that she’s way more psychic than she thinks she is, but she just doesn’t believe me,” Tara said as she yanked her wallet triumphantly from the depths of her turquoise bag-of-holding.

  Esme held her hands out toward me, bangles clinking along her wrists, silver rings gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. “Let me see your hands,” she said and gestured for me to reach across.

  I looked dubiously from Esme’s face to her hands, to Tara, who smiled at me in encouragement. “No thanks,” I said. As an acquaintance of my grandmother, Esme had known me for a really long time, since I was a kid even, but in reality she wasn’t someone I was ever comfortable around. When she wasn’t busy being mysterious, she was being overly friendly. It’s not that I disliked her, I just didn’t quite trust her.

  “Go on. She’s really good,” said Tara with a nudge to my arm.

  There was no escape without being rude, so I reached out to put my hands in hers. Esme’s grip was firm, smooth, comforting. I’m not sure what I expected, but “comforting” was not it; it was weird.

  “Close your eyes for a moment and just rest your thoughts, as you would if you were staring out over the desert, a golden sunset with mountains in the distance.”

  “Okay,” I murmured, uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment and the fact that I was holding another woman’s hands in broad daylight in front of the main windows of her store. And yet, I didn’t find it as hard to relax as I might have. There was something compelling about her voice, and there was something strange happening to my hands. Heat bloomed between us, and my fingertips began to buzz. At first it was so faint I could hardly feel it, but then it built until I could swear that my hands were vibrating in hers—or perhaps her hands were vibrating in mine. I yanked my hands away.

  “What was that?”

  The woman opened her eyes and st
ared at me, no longer unfocused, but determined. “Melody Ann Walker, you are about to begin a journey of the soul, and you are not at all prepared.”

  Shit. “What was that buzzing feeling?” I asked her again, irritated. “My hands felt like they were falling asleep.”

  She studied me for a moment and then nodded to herself before taking off a ring on her left hand. She handed it to me without hesitation. “You’re going to need this,” she said. “Go on. Take it.”

  I took the ring from her, careful not to actually touch her hands again. It was silver set with some sort of large amber-looking stone. Metal flecks swam in it, and a tiny embedded crystal sat on top. I didn’t know what it was, but I could see now that it definitely was not amber. “What is it?”

  Tara leaned over to get a better look and smiled. “I know what that is,” she said. “It’s a pog.”

  “A pog?” What an ugly name for a piece of jewelry. I turned it over again, looking for a battery, anything to explain the strange buzzing sensation I had felt. There was nothing.

  “A P.O.G.—positive orgone generator. Some people make jewelry out of them. Did you make this one, Esme?”

  Esme smiled. “No, it was a gift from someone special. And now I am gifting it to you.”

  Give me a break. “Then I can’t take this. It wouldn’t be right.” I tried to hand it back.

  “But it’s a gift,” she said again, firmly. “It would be rude to give it back.” Gently, she pushed my hand way.

  “Thanks, I guess.” I didn’t know what to do with the thing. Shoving it in my pocket would seem ungrateful, so instead I stuck it on the middle finger of my left hand; it was too loose to wear on the ring finger. “What should I do with it?”

  Another customer entered the store through the door behind us; Esme looked at them and smiled. She turned to me again, the smile fading somewhat. “Wear it. In a few days, when you’re ready, come back and I’ll tell you more.”