A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1

by Shannon Wendtland

  It was my turn to dust the shop and I complained while I was doing it, but secretly I liked it. It gave me the opportunity to examine the contents of the shop in depth. I saw when new items were put on the shelves and was reminded when others sold. I got a chance to move the trinkets around so that they would catch a customer’s eye, and the right to a Cheshire cat grin when my placement turned into a purchase.

  “Tara, when you’re done over there, can you polish the silver jewelry? I like to make sure that gets done once a month, and it’s about that time.”

  “Sure,” I said, grinning. A chance to touch all the pretty sparkly stuff? Heck, yeah. I finished wiping down the crates that held the scented votives and threw the rags into the laundry pile. Since Esme kept real cotton hand towels in the bathroom and liked to keep those well stocked, there was a lot more laundry than you would think there would be for a metaphysical shop, at least one full load every few days.

  I grabbed the silver polishing cloth from behind the register and pulled it out, prepared to spend an hour on the floor, sitting crisscross applesauce, admiring baubles made from silver, copper, brass, and semiprecious gems. I felt a little bit like a jealous dragon guarding her hoard just thinking about it.

  “I’ll be back in a few – I have to run the cash down to the bank.”

  “Okay,” I said without looking up. I was already admiring myself and a pair of green onyx earrings in a nearby mirror. Maybe with my next paycheck…

  A few minutes later, the door chimed and I looked up expecting a customer and was pleased to see Mel standing there instead.

  “Hey, doll,” I said. “What brings a girl like you to a place like this?” I gave her my best Humphrey Bogart impression.

  She put a drink carrier from Smitty’s down on the counter and handed me the nearest, steaming cup. I could smell chai with a hint of vanilla, and my insides began to swoon, jewelry all but forgotten.

  “Yum.” I took a sip and peered at her over the lid of the cup. She didn’t meet my gaze. Either she felt guilty about something or… “What’s up? You ready to cry or something? Mel?”

  She shook her head, but I could tell she didn’t mean it.

  “Mel, what’s wrong?”

  Silence; nothing but crickets. Then she took a sip of her coffee and I was hopeful for a response. When she finally looked up at me, still silent, I wasn’t surprised to see her morose expression.

  “Don’t make me use my psychic powers on you,” I said.

  “I think I have a crush on Sam.”

  “Hello, Othello,” I said, pretending to be surprised. “What brought this on?”

  “I mean, I don’t know for sure. But I feel really conflicted about him and Lily, and I keep wanting to call him in the middle of the night – but I don’t,” she added hastily. “Which is weird, because we used to talk on the phone in the middle of the night all the time.”

  “No matter where you go, there you are.”

  “What?” she said, clearly not getting my meaning.

  “Never mind. Forget I said that. Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. He seems really happy with Lily, and she doesn’t seem like an evil bitch, so… I mean, why would I mess that up for him? What kind of friend would I be?”

  My own vibes about Lily were also as clear as mud. She didn’t seem like an evil beeyatch, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t one. We’d all seen Cruel Intentions, right? “I guess you just have to ride it out. Take it from me, the harder you push Sam, the faster he runs away. So I guess the best tactic is just to settle back and be… cool?”

  “Right. Like I used to be.” Her brow furrowed. “Now I’m just a freaking mess. Up is down and left is right. Magic is science and Sam is unavailable.”

  “Do you think that’s it?” I said, taking another sip of my deliciously foamy vanilla chai latte.

  “What? That since he’s unavailable I suddenly want him? I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think I’m that kind of person. Do you think I am that kind of person?” The furrows on her brow deepened.

  I didn’t. But hormones did strange things to people our age. Then the door chimed and Esme walked back in.

  “Ah, Melody! I can see you’ve been through some changes!” She stopped to put a hand out and stroked Melody’s cheek and straight brown hair. “And you look so very, very tired. Are you getting enough vitamins? This goes deeper than sleep, I think.”

  Melody nodded. “Yeah. Some stuff has been going on at home, and then there’s guy trouble.”

  “Oh yes, how are you feeling after your terrible attack the other day? Perhaps that is what has you so drained.”

  I felt a weird flutter in my stomach, and I looked over at Mel. She looked at me, her brow furrowed further, and then back to Esme.

  “Um, I’m getting better, thanks.”

  Esme continued around the counter to the back of the shop where she deposited her heavy bag and a plastic sack and came back up behind the counter. “That’s very good. You should definitely drink some vegetable juice to help replenish your vitamins A and C? And if you don’t get enough sun – vitamin D you know – you should spend some time soaking it up. It will help, believe me. Those nasty creatures can literally suck the life out of you.”

  Did you tell her? Mel mouthed at me. I shook my head, I definitely had not. “How did you know about Melody’s… attack?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

  “Oh, I forget. Maybe your grandmother told me the other day when she stopped by? It must have been quite frightening for you!” Esme gave us each a sympathetic smile.

  I felt the flutter in my stomach resolve. Of course Melody’s Gram had told her. That made perfect sense. Melody looked relieved as well.

  “It was terrifying,” put Melody simply. “I went from not knowing anything about anything to being attacked by multiple somethings, and it was … terrifying. And then Sam was there and G. and…” her face cleared and she suddenly smiled. Switching subjects abruptly in the middle of the conversation, she looked at me and said, “That’s why.”

  “Why what?” Esme asked, confused.

  Mel looked at her briefly and then back to me. “That’s why I have a crush on Sam all of the sudden. Because Sam was there. He smashed the window to save me. I mean, G. really was a hero,” she said quickly, in case I got offended.

  I didn’t. “No, you’re right. Sam was there when you needed him. That makes total sense.”

  “Ah, boys. I remember what it was like to be your age. They like you and you don’t like them. You like them and they don’t like you back. Then one day, something magic happens.” She smiled and gave a slight chin nod to Melody. “You’ll see.”

  Melody shrugged. “I’m not worried about it anymore. I mean, now that I know why I suddenly like him when I was so resistant before – maybe it will make things easier--”

  “Sam has a new girlfriend,” I said to Esme over my shoulder. I finally bent down to pick up another piece of jewelry to polish, my vanilla chai latte cup suddenly empty.

  “Oh, I see,” said Esme. “Well, with things like this, it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Until what?” I asked.

  “Until the boy figures out what he is missing.” She turned to head back to the store room again, her blouse fluttering behind her like butterfly wings. “Oh yes,” she said, pausing midstride, “I forgot to tell you, Tara. I need you to watch the store this weekend – I have some urgent business to attend to and won’t be back until Monday. So make sure you open and close – I will pay you double for the trouble.” She smiled.

  Double pay? Heck, yeah. “No problem,” I said. “I see a trip to the mall in my future,” I said to Melody. I checked my latte cup again—nope, still empty—and then stole a quick sip out of Melody’s cup.

  “Hey!” she said, grabbing her cup back.

  “What are friends for?”

  67. SAM

  The rain was coming down so hard outside that it resembled a
hurricane. But the person on the opposite end of the phone number we called assured us that the auction was still on. I groaned. That meant I had to go. In fact, G. was already on his way over to get me.

  His Dad had bowed out this time, claiming he needed to work on his column, but G. and I figured he just didn’t want to be stuck all day in the rain, at an auction in which he had no intention of buying any cars. G. said that if they had been auctioning off military memorabilia, we’d have to tie him up to keep him from coming along – but old cars? Not so much.

  I didn’t mind. This way, G. and I could talk freely about the car, Lily, and Orla without feeling like we had to watch what we said in front of his Dad. But the truth was, right now I didn’t want to talk about any of that, because my stomach was in knots. I’d never tried to tempt fate with my dreams before.

  Before – the dreams came, and later on, the event would unfold, more or less in the same way. Usually more than less.

  This time it was like I was deliberately pushing to make this one come true, and that bothered me a lot. Because it put Melody in danger (at least in the dream, she was in danger) and if G.’s dream was anything to pay attention to, it made Lily look ghoulish and scary, and that was something I definitely didn’t want to hear about my girlfriend.

  There I said it. Girlfriend. Friend who’s a girl who also likes to make out and have sex. I felt my crotch tighten. I wondered how long it would be before I stopped getting hard pretty much every time I thought of her naked. I asked G. what he thought.

  “I don’t know, man. I’ve never… I mean, Tara and I are taking things slow. You know.”

  “Yeah, that’s cool. I wouldn’t have gone so fast either, but between you and me, I think Lily’s a little more… experienced.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  Yes. “Heck, no.”

  The windshield wipers swung furiously back and forth while the rain came down in freaking buckets. I hadn’t seen it rain this hard in forever. I was glad for the rain, anyone who lived in Texas for any length of time was always glad for the rain, but man, the timing sucked. It could have waited to downpour at least until after the auction; it looked like as much water was splashing up from the ground as was coming down from the sky.

  “I hope they put the top up on the convertible,” G. said.

  “If they didn’t, I guess there’s no reason to worry about buying the car. Because it will have all kinds of electrical problems.”

  “Maybe. But a lot of that stuff can be repaired, right?”

  “How the heck should I know?” I said. “You’re the one with a Dad to teach you stuff like that. All I know is that water and electricity go boom.”

  We pulled into the parking lot of the auction house and found a parking space. The lot had more cars parked than I would have thought, considering the weather, but by the size of the lot, I assumed this would be considered a light traffic day. I supposed that was a good thing.

  We grabbed our umbrellas from the back seat and unfurled them. The rain had lessened for a moment, and I could clearly see the cars for sale at the end of the lot nearest the building. There was a blue canopy set up down there with a registration table under it. We made our way over to it.

  I had to produce my driver’s license and sign a waiver saying that I was good for my bid on penalty of my life, and first-born son, and then was told I could go inside for a bottle of water or free coffee while we waited for the action to start.

  A weird crawling sensation ran down my back and I turned to see a man from across the room staring in our direction. Tall, athletic, short-cropped hair, neck tattoo and black sunglasses. He wasn’t staring at me, he was staring at G. Intently staring at G. I recognized him – Thompson, the neighbor guy from across the street. The very same who’s car got pissed on every other night by the wandering Mr. Smith. Picturing the cat backing up to spray Thompson’s car, I almost snickered but held it in check. I nudged G. with my elbow and motioned behind us. It didn’t occur to me that there might be a reason I shouldn’t have done that.

  G. turned to look over his shoulder at Thompson and then whipped his head around, fast, inhaling sharply through his teeth. “Shit,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, my smile fading. There was something in his tone I didn’t like.

  “That’s one of the guys from the garage. I think it was his car.” He looked at me, a long meaningful stare, and finished, “The car I threw the rock at.”

  “Was the car a low slung, dark gray sports car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit,” I said, staring ahead. “What do we do?”

  G. shook his head. “Be cool, I guess? I mean, he won’t start a scene here, right?”

  A shadow moved behind us. I turned to see Thompson, looming just behind G. He reached out to put his hand on G.’s shoulder, and I saw G. tense in anticipation. This did not look good. “Oh, hey, Mr. Thompson. Weird seeing you here,” I said, trying to be cool like G. had suggested, but failing as my voice cracked. I stuck my hand out to shake his anyways, hoping he wouldn’t crush it.

  The PA system came on announcing the start of the auction, and Thompson looked down at me briefly, the reflection in his sunglasses dark and cold. He flashed a brief look at G.’s back before he turned on his heel to head out to the lot. Strange to head out in the rain with sunglasses on, stranger still as I realized I had never actually seen him without them.

  68. G.

  I felt it the moment that Thompson backed away and headed outside. It was as if a hot, needle-y rash suddenly receded and smoothed away. The skin on my back was irritated and itchy now, and I had a slight headache clustering in the front of my head. My hands were still clenched though, prepared suddenly for a fight. I hadn’t even realized I had clenched them, but as I let them relax, the blood rushed through them, pounding in my veins like battle drums. That was close.

  “You didn’t tell me that the guy who was at the garage was your neighbor,” I ground out accusingly. Sam looked at me, his skin a sort of pale yellow, and the pulse in his throat jumping underneath.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “It was Lily that got a good look at the two guys. The rest of us were in the main part of the garage where we couldn’t see anything. And when we ran out the back, we didn’t look to see if they gave chase.”

  “It was dark,” I said. “Maybe…”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you were home doing hot dog night or whatever with your dad, right?”

  “Right,” I said, more confidently than I felt.

  We decided to avoid that Thompson character for as long as we could and waited inside while they rolled the cars out, one at a time. We watched them come and go, some going for a few hundred dollars, and others for as much as ten thousand. This made me hopeful that the convertible would be in Sam’s price range; while it was in good shape, it was an older car.

  And then it was her turn and they drove the beauty out, top up, lights on. We were up.

  I followed Sam, since he was the money bags, and decided that maybe what I needed to do instead of handholding him was keep an eye out for his neighbor.

  The bidding began. It started at five hundred dollars and escalated quickly from there to a thousand and then fifteen hundred. Sam tensed up. He hadn’t jumped in yet, because he said he was going to wait to see where it would go. He had watched enough reality shows that he said you weren’t supposed to show your hand too soon.

  Whatever, at this point I wasn’t interested in the lousy car anymore, or even in our shared dream. I was busy watching for Thompson, hoping we didn’t get jumped on our way out of the parking lot later.

  The auctioneer was barking off numbers but slowing in pace. The current number was two thousand and the bids were becoming more thoughtful.

  “Twenny-two? Twenny-two? Do-I-have-twenny-two?” called the auctioneer.

  There was a long pause, and just as the auctioneer was about to pull his microphone up to his mouth again to announce the sale, Sam threw up
his paddle. Apparently he’d made up his mind to bid after all. I had begun to wonder.

  The auctioneer pointed to Sam and nodded. “Twenny-two. And Do-I-Have-A-Twenny-Three?”

  I saw Thompson over at the far end of the crowd, his head down, talking to another man. I breathed a sigh of relief that he wasn’t looking at us… me.

  “Twenny-four!” hawked the man on the stage, pointing at Sam again.

  “How high are you going to go?” I asked Sam in a low voice.

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m mostly going on instinct right now. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Three grand,” called a voice from the edge, and I looked over to see Thompson snarl at us, his paddle up in the air.

  “That asshole,” Sam said through gritted teeth. He turned to look at the auctioneer and pretended to hesitate for a moment. Then he put up his paddle and nodded slightly.

  “An-I-have-thirty-one. Do-I-have-thirty-two?”

  “Thirty-two!” shouted Thompson again. This time he glared at me instead of Sam.

  “He’s punishing you because of me,” I said, my gut suddenly hollow. We were just kids. How the heck were we supposed to compete with a dude who had enough money to drive a sports car and owned his own business?

  “Probably,” Sam said. “Thirty-five!” he shouted, holding up his paddle again.

  The auctioneer called out the number, once, twice, three more times, but Thompson shook his head.

  “Sold to the kid in the blue shirt, number twelve, for thirty-five hundred dollars,” the auctioneer said. “Sheila will take care of you in the tent. Next up…”

  Thompson sidled up to us just then, smirking. “You’re lucky I already bought three cars earlier today. Or I’d be taking that little rag top home with me, too.”

  “Hey, Mr. Thompson. I didn’t know you came out to these auctions,” Sam said, doing his level best to be friendly and unsuspicious.

  “You keep your friend in check,” Thompson said, speaking to Sam, but looking at me.

  I met him, stare for stare. I was ready.

  “Sure, man,” said Sam, looking from him to me and back. “Whatever you say.” Then he turned to the lady behind the table. “Are you Sheila?”