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.
54. SAM
Melody’s hair was mussed and there were dark circles under her eyes. I also noted that she was wearing her trademark bitchy expression. “So what you’re telling me is that we have basically nothing? I saw the computer screen lines get all jiggly. There has to be something there.”
I combed my fingers through my hair and shook my head. “Maybe there is, Melody, but I can’t seem to get it to play, at least not here, not now, not like this at three o’clock in the morning. I need some sleep and I have a gig to prep for.” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.
“Right, you know Lily for like, what, a month and suddenly she takes precedence over me—your friends? Over this?”
“Look. I’ll get right back to it on Sunday, okay? I have to go to work in six hours, and then after I get home I have a few more hours to finish my mixes. Then work on Saturday and the gig on Saturday night. I promise I will look at it on Sunday as soon as I roll out of bed.”
I paused and put my hand on top of hers, where it rested on the couch next to me. “I promise,” I said softly.
I acted like I meant it, and mostly I did, but the rest of me was groaning at the thought of all the work ahead of me between the store and the gig and the prospect of pretty much no sleep for almost three days straight.
Her dark blue eyes shimmered a little bit, but she didn’t cry. I could tell she was just frustrated and didn’t know what to do, and I felt bad about that. But just cuz I had weird, cryptic dreams, didn’t make me the guy with all the answers, either.
“We don’t exactly have ‘nothing,’” G. said slowly. I mean, we do have the stuff I wrote down when the planchette was flying all over the board.
“That’s right, we do!” Tara’s expression perked up.
Even Melody leaned forward, her expression clearing a little. “What does it say?”
G. looked down at the tablet and frowned. He handed the tablet to Tara who looked at it and passed it to Melody. I leaned over Melody’s shoulder to read G.’s chicken scratch.
“She’s not who she seems,” I said aloud and looked up at G. waiting for him to explain.
G. held his hands out, palms up. “Don’t look at me, man. I was just writing down what you guys were pointing to.”
“We weren’t moving the planchette,” said Tara, sounding frustrated for the first time that night.
“Maybe it’s talking about Melody?” I admitted that didn’t make much sense, but I didn’t want to admit to myself what did make sense either – who she might be.
Tara slumped. “Don’t worry, Mel. We’ll figure it out. I’ll ask the records tomorrow. Maybe I can come up with something.”
I figured that was my cue to vamoose. I picked up my stuff and bent down to give Melody a squeeze. It was way too early for decoding secret messages from the Great Beyond, and I needed some shut-eye.
Caterwauling and screeches came from beyond the door, so loud and sudden that we all jumped in our skins. I recognized that screech and ran to the door to look out into the yard. G. came up behind me. The shadowy silhouette of Mr. Smith, back arched and tail puffed, stared up at a spot on the roof of the clubhouse.
I stepped out the door followed by G. and the girls to look up at the roofline and saw a flurry of wings as an owl took off in the night. Could it be the same one? My skin began to crawl. There was something weird going on with that creepy-ass owl. It couldn’t be coincidence to see both it and Mr. Smith out here at the clubhouse at the same time, after a séance.
G. was squatting down near the cat, holding his hand out for it to sniff. Mr. Smith approached, reluctant at first, and then bumped up against his leg in a warmer hello.
“I think he likes you,” said Melody, stooping down next to him. She reached a hand out toward the cat, who gave her a perfunctory sniff, and then ignore
d her in favor of more leg rubbing on G.
“Well, he certainly doesn’t think much of me,” she said after the rebuff.
“Don’t take it personally,” said G. as he scratched the cat behind its ears. “I saved his life last time we met. Maybe he remembers.” G. looked over at me then, and we shared a moment. An owl had been there, too.
A creepy vibe was making its way between my shoulder blades. “Shit,” I said under my breath.
“Go home,” G. said to me.
“Yeah, get some rest and stuff,” Tara said.
“Right. See you guys. Get some sleep, Melody. You look like crap.”
She threw an empty Solo cup at me, but I saw the ghost of a smile on her lips, and for now, that was enough.
#
Before I knew it, Saturday arrived, work was over, and I had a couple of hours to prepare for the rave. I had already packed all my gear, but paranoid me, I had to unpack and recheck it to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. I threw a couple of red bulls in my bag too, just in case Lily tried to give me another concoction to drink again.
I heard a car door slam outside in the driveway and I peeked out the window to see my mom pulling her suitcase out of the trunk of her car. On the one hand, I was really glad to see her. Despite her faults she was still my mom, and since she had gotten promoted and started to travel so much, I felt like I had hardly seen her. On the other hand, her being home, right now, complicated things. She would never let me stay out all night DJing a rave. Shit.
“Dude, I need you to cover for me,” I said into my phone the moment G. picked up.
“Sure. What’s going on?”
“My mom just got home and I have to DJ that rave tonight. There’s no way she’s going to let me stay out until four a.m. doing that. No freaking way. I need to tell her I’m going to your house to spend the night.”
“Yeah, man. That’s cool. I’ll tell her you have to help me with a project or something.”
“During the summer? That won’t fly.”
“It will if I tell her it’s for an Eagle Scout badge.”
“You’re an Eagle Scout?” I asked, feeling like I suddenly didn’t know G. at all.
“Yeah. I don’t talk about it much. It’s something I usually do with my Dad.”
“Whatever. That’s brilliant. Thanks – I owe you one.”
“Yeah, you do.” We hung up. G. wasn’t so bad.
“Hey, you!” mom said from my doorway. “Long time no see!”
I turned to give her a big hug. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until just now. “No kidding! How was the flight from Tokyo?”
“Long. Too long. My ankles are swollen and my head is killing me. I hope you don’t mind if I pass out early tonight and we catch up tomorrow? Jet lag is a killer.”
“No sweat. I was just headed out, actually.”
She smiled and touched my face for a second, like she did when I was a kid. “Well, don’t be too noisy when you come back in, okay? I hope to be in a coma by then.”
“Okay. Pancakes for breakfast then?”
“You bet.”
I was suddenly very glad I had cleaned the kitchen, finally, or there wouldn’t have been any dishes to eat pancakes on.
“Who’s that?” she said, glancing out the window as a car pulled up alongside the house.
My heart thumped in my chest as I realized it was Lily coming to pick me up. “Ah, it’s my… Lily.”
Mom quirked an eyebrow. “Your Lily, huh? Well maybe I can meet her tomorrow when I don’t look like death warmed over?”
“Sure, Mom. That’d be cool,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t look like death warmed over after being up all night spinning. “Gotta go. See you in the morning.”
“In the morning,” she promised. “No trips for at least two weeks.”
“Awesome,” I said, and I was surprised to find that I meant it. I was glad I had thrown out all the liquor, too. Maybe she’d dry out a little bit if she stayed home that long. I didn’t want to tell her that she smelled like stale airplane air and scotch but… she really needed a shower. I picked up my bag from the bed, gave her a peck on the cheek, and headed out.
“I need some food,” said Lily. “You hungry?”
My stomach rumbled a bit, and I realized I was. “Yeah, I haven’t eaten since breakfast. And one breakfast taco is not enough to keep me going all night.”
“I know this little place over on Henderson that has good burgers. It’s called The Blossom.”
The idea of running into Melody or G. and Tara tonight before my gig made me groan inside. “I was thinking pizza? There’s Tony’s over on Broadway.”
“Oh, good call,” she said, and made a left at the next intersection. “I’ve haven’t had Tony’s in forever.”
Conversation lagged a little as we drove, and finally she said, “What’s eating you? Something on your mind?”
“My mom,” I lied. I’d actually been thinking about the cryptic Spirit Board message. I cast a sidelong glance. “She just got home from a business trip, and I feel guilty about leaving, but she’s jet lagged anyways, so I offered to make her pancakes in the morning.”
“Pancakes, huh? I like a guy who can cook.”
“You know it, baby. I make hot cakes like nobody’s business.”
She turned into the parking lot then, just as her phone rang, preventing me from saying something even more awkward. She retrieved her phone from her cup holder and looked at it. “Hey, I gotta take this. It’s my boss.”
“Sure, I said. “I’ll just go inside and find a table.”
But she’d already stopped paying attention to me; her body posture changed from open and engaging to stiff and businesslike as she took the call. I thought that was strange and filed the info away for later.
I watched her from the restaurant for a little bit while she finished her conversation. I had gotten us a booth next to the window and took the liberty of ordering her a soda. I didn’t realize how pale she was until just now, with the late afternoon Texas sunlight hitting her skin hard. She wasn’t sweating, but her face was flushed from the heat, and although her posture was rigid, her hands moved in an agitated manner. She took one glance toward the restaurant and saw me looking at her through the window, and then turned her back so that I couldn’t see the rest of the exchange.
“Sorry,” she said a few moments later as she came in and sat across from me. “He wanted me to, ah, work tonight and I told him I was otherwise… engaged.”
She gave me a grin and her eyes twinkled, but I could feel some sort of weird tension now that wasn’t there before.
“No sweat. The waitress only just brought the menus over a minute ago anyways.”
“Sausage and mushroom?”
“Sure, as long as we leave off the mushrooms.”
“Not into fungus, eh? I see how you are.”
“Not so much. But sausage and onion, that I can do.”
“Mmmm, I’m not really into onion breath, you know, later.”
I blinked. “Well, in that case, load up on the mushrooms.”
55. G.
“So you and Melody broke into someone's garage?”
Tara sighed in exasperation. “Yes, we did, and we found clues left by Matthew. And we didn't get caught, and oh yeah, did I mention that she had a key? Can we be done talking about this now, I'm trying to tell you about the Akashic Records.”
I guess I just couldn't let it go. "But you could have been caught. You could have gotten arrested."
“I know. It’s not my normal modus operandi, but I swear, it felt like something we had to do.”
“What did you find?”
“Besides the evidence of a whole lot of blood? An old photograph from a few years ago, a small pyramid made from stone with something carved on it and some other stuff. Esme thinks it was a kind of warding spell.”
I flopped down on her bed and pulled a pillow over my face. I was beginning to sympathize with Melody a little bit. It seeme
d like too much to believe in too short a time. We didn’t have anyone to teach us what to do, and we didn’t have anyone to tell us what we should or shouldn’t believe. I mean, really? Stone pyramids and plastic hockey pucks with crystals in them? And yet, I had wielded a glowing sword made of light that only one other person claimed to be able to see, and somehow that was okay. “I just wish I knew what was going on so that we could formulate a… you know, a plan or something.”
“That’s what I have been trying to tell you. I can help with that.”
“How?”
“By accessing the Akashic Records. You just need to think of some very specific questions that you have, and I can do my trance thing and you can ask them. But you need to be literal with your questions or else you’re going to feel like you’re trying to solve a riddle.”
“What like, ‘what is 2 + 2’?”
“Not exactly, more like, ‘In mathematics, what is the sum of 2 + 2?’. It’s like asking a computer. You have to be specific. You can’t just ask what color the sky is, because you might get a scientific explanation of why it appears to be blue instead of just the answer ‘blue’.”
And then suddenly I didn’t really care about the Akashic records at that moment, because I was staring at her and thinking about how cute she was when she got all worked up about something—her hands gesticulating and her crazy Rapunzel hair blowing around as she really got into her argument.
“I know what else is blue,” I said, my voice suddenly a little deeper, huskier. I couldn’t help it. She tripped all my triggers.
“What?” she said, stopping in mid-explanation. Then she saw the look in my eye and pursed her lips coyly. “And what is that?”
“Your eyes are blue. I bet they’d be even bluer without those glasses on.”
“You think so?” she took the glasses off and tossed them to the side. Then she batted her eyelashes at me like some sort of Shakespearean damsel.
“I’m not sure. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I need a closer look.” I scooched up along the bed to meet her face-to-face, where she was sitting on the floor.
A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 Page 18
