A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1
Page 20
There was static. There was a sort of metallic scraping noise, like that of heavy machinery in the background, and faintly, very faintly, was the sound of Matthew’s voice.
“You missed,”—some static—“garage. Watch out for”—some more static—“she’s not who she seems. Stop”—a loud grating mechanical sound and the squeal of microphone feedback, then finally—“vortex at Orla.” The sound faded away, and then there was one last whisper: “You’re running out of time.”
I never swear, but “Holy shit,” I breathed. I looked, wide-eyed at Mel, and then at Sam and Lily. Lily was the only one who didn’t seem completely spooked, but I wouldn’t exactly say she was ‘calm’ either. Agitated maybe. I made a mental note.
“What the hell was that?” Lily said at last.
“That,” Melody said, for the first time seeming like she had control of the situation, “was the voice of my dead brother’s ghost.”
#
“No, I am not going to break into the garage with you,” said G. firmly on the phone. “And I really don’t want you to go over there with them, either. It’s a bad idea.”
I knew he was right, but the audio from the séance was compelling. “I know you said you were spending time with your dad tonight, and I don’t want you to worry about me, so I promise to keep my phone with me, and Sam and Lily are going to come. It won’t be just me and Mel this time.”
“It’s a bad idea, Rapunzel.”
“I know. But we’ve got to do it. Matthew said we were running out of time. And I believe him.”
G. sighed on the other end of the phone. I know he believed it, too. We’d talked about it before. Both of us felt this sort of underlying anxiety – that whatever Orla was, it was big. And somehow we were all tied up in it – all a part of this quarrel. I’d heard Melody’s grandparents talking about it and I’d asked some questions of the Akashic records on my own. We were supposed to be a part of this.
“I have to go,” I said softly. “I’ll be really careful, I promise.”
“Okay,” he said at last, sounding tired and unhappy. “Keep me posted.”
“I will. We won’t be going until way after dark, probably around midnight or so… so if you change your mind,” I said, trailing off.
“I won’t,” he said.
Melody and I spent the rest of the evening watching stupid old movies that we weren’t really paying attention to. Half the time we were lost in our own thoughts, and the rest of the time we were talking over the movie, discussing the evening’s plans and what we might need.
I suggested taking some pogs, and Melody thought that was a good idea. She thought maybe we should take some black tourmaline to keep in our pockets to keep us grounded, and I thought it couldn’t hurt. I didn’t know if it would work or not, but what the heck, right? We both agreed that we couldn’t let the grandparents know what we were up to, so we agreed to pretend to be hanging out in the clubhouse, and when we left, we would just leave the television and lights on in there to make it look like we were home. It would be late enough that her grandparents probably wouldn’t even check.
And then it was time to go.
60. G.
I couldn’t sleep. Dad had nodded off during the movie, and I channel surfed for a while before deciding to go to bed. But no matter what I did, I just couldn’t fall asleep knowing that Tara and my friends were breaking into the garage against my advice. If they got arrested, it would serve them right.
This self-righteous train of thought did not make me feel any better.
I heard a muffled thump coming from my bedroom window and sat up for a second, debating on whether to get up and see what it was. The sound came again, and I skulked to the window to pull the blinds back, prepared to see some criminal lurking in the bushes. To my surprise, it was not a criminal at all, but a cat. Mr. Smith, to be exact, standing on the exterior windowsill to my room and rubbing up against the glass. His mouth opened and closed in what I could only assume was a meow, and curiosity got the better of me. What was the cat doing all the way over here? I had never seen him outside of Sam and Melody’s neighborhood. Maybe he was hungry?
I headed into the kitchen to grab a slice of lunch meat and then out the back door to see if the cat was still there.
Mr. Smith was perched on my bedroom windowsill, licking his front paw and very deliberately ignoring me as if he were displeased that I had taken so long.
I got down into a crouch, ripped off a piece of lunch meat, and tossed it on the ground a few feet away. I made a little noise to get the cat’s attention and then waited to see if he would come investigate. After a moment, he stopped licking his paw, gave a nonchalant cat stretch, and hopped down. Giving the meat a perfunctory sniff, he looked at me and blinked a long, slow, yellow-eyed blink. He meowed and walked a few feet away, stopping to stare at me over his shoulder to see if I was paying attention.
I got a very strange, very intense feeling that he wanted me to follow him.
“You don’t want the meat? I can’t go with you. It’s late.”
Mr. Smith meowed at me again and walked another couple of feet before stopping to look at me over his shoulder. His eyes glowed from the streetlight that shone through the trees, and I got a very distinct otherworldly impression that Mr. Smith wasn’t just any cat.
I looked back toward the house. Dad was asleep. I knew where the spare key was to get back in, and if he woke and found me gone, he would probably assume I went over to Tara’s. Not that he’d be pleased about it but… I looked back at the cat. “Okay,” I said, aware that I was talking aloud to a cat. “Just let me get my shoes and lock the house.”
Mr. Smith sat on his haunches, gave me a slow blink, and then promptly began licking the fur on his shoulder, head and neck twisting at an awkward angle – impossible for humans, but just an ordinary feat of biology for a cat.
House locked, shoes and socks on my feet, I approached Mr. Smith with caution, not wanting to scare him off. As soon as he could see that I was ready, he gave me another slow blink, the yellow glow of his eyes almost seeming alien in the lamplight, and then took off at a fair clip, me jogging along behind.
It didn’t take long for me to figure out where we were going. I knew the neighborhood, and I knew the alley behind the strip. At the far end of this alley was a vacant lot, and on the other side of that was the garage that used to belong to Melody’s brother, Matthew.
“Son of a bitch,” I said under my breath and watched as Mr. Smith’s tail went from a question mark shape to a swift flick back and forth. I couldn’t decide if I was more amazed or irritated that the damned cat got me to go back on my word.
Movement across the distance caused me to look up, and I saw a dark form slide along the road. It was a sports car, one that seemed vaguely familiar, headlights off and motor idling as it coasted in neutral to a stop in front of the garage. I looked toward the garage doors and could see the telltale bob of a flashlight inside and realized that the car was not full of my friends; my friends were already in the garage. Tara was in the garage. I began to sprint.
61. MELODY
It wasn’t as scary breaking into the garage as it was before when it was just me and Tara. Maybe because we had done it once already, and maybe because we had more people this time, but the whole experience was vaguely energizing. I’m not the criminal mastermind type, but this felt a lot more like a secret agent mission than it did like a crime.
Tara and I skipped ahead, repeating our moves from last time, with Sam helping to remove the dry erase board and Lily keeping a watch by the door. I didn’t like her, and I especially didn’t like Sam insisting that she come along, but in the end, it was useful to have another set of eyes and ears since Tara was holding the flashlight and Sam and I were busy pulling the board down.
“Okay,” I whispered, “there’s the cubbyhole where we found the other stuff last time. Since you’re taller you can probably reach further back. Maybe we missed something way in the back.”
“I do see something,” he said after a moment. He stuck his arm in the hole, shoulder-deep, and there was a rustle as he snagged the item with his fingertips. As he pulled it out, we were startled by Lily’s harsh whisper.
“There’s a car outside.”
“Shit,” Sam said. “Here, take this,” he thrust the flashlight and the item into Tara’s hands and turned to grab the screwdriver from me. “Let’s get this back on the wall,” he said.
Tara flashed the light around so that we could see what we were doing, but then she stopped, pointing it directly at the back of the whiteboard. “Hey, you guys. Stop for a second. Look at this.”
I was irritated and nervous. “What?” I said, more loudly than I intended.
“There’s something drawn on the back of the whiteboard. I can’t really make it out. Quit moving it so that I can get a better look.”
“No time,” said Sam, now very tense. “Get out of the way, Tara!”
“But look,” she said.
“Oh shit, you guys, time to go,” said Lily, tiptoeing in from the front door. “That car is still there, and two guys are getting out. We need to go.” She stopped in midstride and stared at the back of the whiteboard as Sam and I struggled to get it up on the wall. “What the heck is that?”
“I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to get them to look at.”
“NO TIME,” said Sam, sparing the back of the whiteboard a brief, irritated glance. “You can tell us about it later.”
“Shit,” I said, my hands getting sweaty with nerves. I was losing the grip on the whiteboard.
We heard the front door to the garage open and the little bell tinkled. We froze. Someone else was inside.
62. G.
The two guys had gotten out of the car and were making their way toward the front door of the garage. I could still make out a faint glow of flashlight inside, so I knew that the crew was still in there.
It was a good thing that I was running every day as a part of my Muy Thai training, because the sprint would have worn me out before. But not now, and with the additional surge of adrenaline I felt coursing through my veins, I was picking up speed. Tara was in trouble. I had to get there.
Mr. Smith was in a full out gallop now, easily keeping pace with me, and I knew he had brought me here for a reason. Somehow this crazy cat had known that my friends were going to need me. I didn’t have time to wonder about that right now. And I was pretty sure I owed Mr. Smith something better than a piece of lunchmeat, too.
The men were inside now, and the flashlight had turned off in the main part of the garage. I reached the parking lot and the low-slung sports car, and without even thinking of what I might do, I grabbed the nearest heavy object I could find, which just happened to be a fist-sized rock, and used it to smash the driver’s side window. The car alarm started blaring and I heard some muffled shouting as the two men came running out of the garage. I took one last look at the garage doors and didn’t see the flashlight bob, but there was no time to linger. One guy came careening around the car toward me, and the other stopped under the lamppost, already on his cell phone. I hesitated for another second and took off running again, this time further down the street, dodging up between a hedge and another old building.
I looked behind me, the guy was giving chase, though I was much faster than he was. I didn’t see any sign of Mr. Smith or even of Tara and company, but that didn’t matter right now. If they weren’t smart enough to find a way out of this mess, then there was nothing else I could do to help them, except maybe show up to bail them out later… if my Dad would lend me the cash.
I got a couple of blocks away before I realized I was running along in the dark, with no pursuers, and I stopped to rest and catch my breath, propping myself against a nearby tree. I heard a noise in the underbrush nearby and was glad to see that Mr. Smith had been keeping up with me after all.
I was exhausted, my breath coming in ragged gasps, and realized that whatever cardio I was doing for my weekly routine wasn’t quite enough. I guess I’d have to add some more – sprinting really took a lot out of you.
And then I heard a muted swoosh and a slight breeze pushed against the skin of my neck as a dark shape plunged from the tree I was leaning against. It swarmed over the suddenly hunch-backed and puffed up form of Mr. Smith.
The owl was back, and this time, it clearly had the cat in its talons.
I didn’t think. The glowing sword sprung to life in my hand and I slashed through the air, making a clean, decisive swipe at the shadowy form of the owl. The blade met resistance and the owl gave a terrible cry – like it was choking on its own hoot.
There was a curious, rank smell that reminded me of rotten eggs and singed feathers, and the owl veered away, dropping Mr. Smith to the ground as it fled my glowing blade.
I fell to my knees, suddenly drained—no more energy, no more breath. I had to rest. As I struggled, I looked over to see the cat gingerly licking the spots on its back where the owl had clutched it. Shiny, dark red patches showed on his fur… the owl had drawn blood. Mr. Smith had just survived a very close call.
63. TARA
“That was close,” I said, my hands shaking a little as I fumbled to turn the flashlight back on.
We had snuck out the back door of the garage at the last possible moment. Melody and Sam had gotten the whiteboard loosely reattached to the wall, but if anyone looked too closely they would see that it wasn’t fastened down all the way.
“Did you see what happened outside?” Sam asked Lily. They were holding hands, though neither of them looked particularly loving at the moment—more scared than anything, but pretending not to be. Which is exactly how I was feeling. Only Melody hadn’t said anything yet. I swung the flashlight over to look at her, and that’s when I noticed that she hadn’t stopped to rest. She was now twenty or thirty feet away.
“Mel?” I said in a mock whisper. “Melody?”
She paused for a moment and kept going. “I don’t have a good feeling,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m not stopping until we get back the clubhouse.”
I looked over at Sam and Lily, and they shrugged. The fact was, we were all feeling a little nerve wracked. We followed behind in silence.
When we finally arrived at her house and crept around the back to the clubhouse, no one was more surprised than I was to see G. sitting there on the stoop, the stray cat from the other night keeping him company. The lights were still on inside and the television sent its drone and mumble over the sound of crickets and tree frogs chirping. As soon as he saw me, he leapt from the stoop and ran over to give me a hug.
“You’re okay,” he said, breathless. “I couldn’t stay to see what happened – one of the guy’s was chasing me and the other was on his phone. I had to run.”
“That was you? Dude,” said Sam appreciatively, clapping a hand on G.’s shoulder.
He held me close for a moment longer, and I breathed in the scent of him, Dial soap from the shower mingled with sweat. The back of his neck felt a little moist and my heart swelled. Suddenly I was on the verge of tears, so glad that I had a boyfriend who cared so much for me.
He let me go. “Yeah. I smashed the driver’s side window with a rock and made sure they saw me, and then I ran like hell. I was really hoping you guys had a way out somehow.”
“We were able to dart out the back,” said Melody. “Thanks, G.,” she said. “They’d have caught us red-handed if it weren’t for you.”
He didn’t really smile. “Actually, I wouldn’t have been there if not for Mr. Smith.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused now. What did the cat have to do with it?
“He came to my bedroom window. I wasn’t able to sleep, being worried about you guys,” he paused to grab my hand, “and I thought maybe he was hungry. So I grabbed some lunch meat and went out to give it to him. But he didn’t want the meat. He w
anted me to follow him. So I did. I know it sounds weird.”
“Not that weird,” Sam said thoughtfully.
“I figured you would understand,” he said. He looked at me and then at Melody. “He led me straight to the garage. And when I saw that sports car slide up, I just knew I had to do something. They came up silent – lights off, engine idling in neutral. They weren’t there just to check on the place – it was like they knew you were there.”
“Shit,” Sam said. Lily just blinked and looked from G. to Sam as if she were trying to figure something out. Her eyes narrowed slightly and I wondered what she was thinking.
“Hey Lily, I’m sorry, we didn’t introduce you yet. This is my boyfriend, G.”
G. looked at her and she looked back and there was a strange, tense moment, and then Lily smiled and held out her hand. G. took it.
“You seem familiar,” she said. “Have we met before?”
“No, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Sam.”
She nodded, tilting her head to the side. “You have great energy.”
“What I am is freaking exhausted,” he said. “I need to add more cardio to my workouts.”
“But you already run, like, four miles a day,” I said.
“Yeah, but I don’t sprint. And it feels like that was all I did tonight. Full tilt, baby. And then there was the… thing with Mr. Smith.”
Melody was squatting down near the cat, reaching a hand out to pet him. “What’s wrong with his fur? It’s all wet – ew, it’s blood!”
“Yeah, he got attacked by the owl. But I was able to, um”—he met my eyes for a minute, and raised his eyebrows, and then he looked at Sam-“to deflect the owl, and he dropped the cat. Probably why I am so zapped right now. I could really use a sports drink.”
I understood; he’d used his sword of light again. That’s why he was so tired. Like Gram said, his electrolytes were low. “Mel, do you still have some of those drinks in the fridge?”