A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 (31 page)

90. TARA

My head pounded mercilessly in time with the receding
thunderstorm. Every time the lightning split the sky I had to squint to keep
the pain from bursting my eyeballs.

To my right, Sam was sitting on the ground with his head in
his hands, face slack with what looked like disappointment. Lily was nearby,
but she was giving him the cold shoulder. To my left, Esme sat still like a
statue, her face a mask. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

A wail cut through the stillness and I turned around to see
Melody and Gram hunched over a still form lying on the ground. There was
someone huddled on the other side of the little group and I let loose a sigh of
relief until his dark head bobbed up and I could see that it wasn’t G. after
all. It was Matthew.

“Hey,” I said to Sam, whispering though I wasn’t sure why.
“What’s happening over there?”

Sam stared straight ahead. For a long moment he said
nothing, then “Harold’s dead.”

A wave of cold washed over me. I licked my lips, feeling a
sudden surge of emotion. I slumped to the ground in a heap. I’d known Gramps
for as long as I had known Melody.
In other words, forever.

Sam and I sat there for
awhile
and
tried not to eavesdrop on the grieving. It was good that Matthew was home,
Melody and Gram would need him now that Gramps was gone. I got the urge to lean
on someone and looked around again, for G. Where was he? I scanned the area. He
wasn’t near the abandoned building, he wasn’t near the car – Thompson’s vehicle
was long gone I was betting. He wasn’t sitting with Esme, either.

“Where’s G.?” I asked Sam in a soft whisper. He shrugged. I
called over to Esme who gave me a baleful stare. “Where’s G.?” I said. She
turned her gaze away without giving me an answer.

I got up to pace around the building, each step further
turning my insides into a quivery mess. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

“Hey,” I tried to say but my throat had tightened in the
grip of sudden fear. “Hey,” I said again, louder this time, licking my lips,
forcing the words out, “has anyone seen G.?”

Empty, defeated stares met me wherever I looked.

The fear gave way to a sudden burst of anger. Why wasn’t
anyone saying anything?
“
I
said
, has anyone seen G.?”

Nothing.
Nothing
at all from Esme, Sam, or Lily.
Melody and Gram didn’t even look at me.
Finally Matthew
did,
his face grim and tear streaked.
He worked his jaw back and forth before grinding out an answer.

“He’s gone, Tara. Something snatched him away as he pulled
me out. No one knows where he was taken.”

Epilogue ~ MELODY

The next few weeks were just awful with a capital A. We had
a funeral for Gramps, and it was small and intimate; he would have hated it.
He’d always said he wanted us to bury him in a cardboard box in the backyard
with no pomp and circumstance, but in the end, funerals aren’t for the dead,
they’re for the living.

I couldn’t quite get over the fact that he was gone. I know
he saved me. I would have burned up even worse than he had if he hadn’t reached
out to take the damage into himself. Whatever joy I had regained by having
Matthew back, was made bittersweet by losing Gramps.

And Gram?
She was a wreck, in her
quiet and reserved way. She was angry, and she blamed him for being foolish,
and then a moment later she would burst into tears and tell me how fortunate I
was that he loved me so much to sacrifice himself. It was going to take some
time. Maybe having Matthew back again would help.

Tara on the other hand, was inconsolable. We never found out
what happened to G. We think he was sucked back to the other side – though not
like Matthew – who as it turns out, was stuck in between planes in a tesseract
and never actually made it all the way through to the other side.

But that didn’t really matter, did it? G. was gone, and we
didn’t even have a good story to give his dad. So right now they have a bulletin
out for him as a runaway or worse, and what can we tell them? Call off your
search because you’ll never find him?

I went over to Tara’s to spend some time with her and to
give her a shoulder to cry on, but she won’t even speak to me. I can’t blame
her, but it’s hard to be in most of the same classes together and have her give
me the cold shoulder every day. I just have to give her some time. We’ll figure
out how to find G. somehow. Matthew has a few ideas that we’re going to try –
the sooner, the better.

Sam and Lily were on the outs for about a week after he
kissed me and Lily saw the whole thing. After he told her everything, including
the details of his dreams, she finally forgave him and they’re a hot and heavy
item again. It’s been hard for me; since the kiss, my feelings for him are even
more quixotic than before.
And now that I don’t even have
Tara to talk things over with…

No one has seen Esme since she threw the sulfur into the
vortex and collapsed it. And she didn’t just destabilize the thing –- she
collapsed it. There is no longer a vortex in Orla. We have no idea how long it
will last, but we’ve already heard that the vortexes in Sedona, Arizona, are
losing their energy, and since they are on one of the same ley lines, it seems
that she set off a chain reaction. Whether that was her intention or not, no
one knows. Well, maybe Gram knows, but she still won’t talk about Esme’s
“politics.”

“It’s on a need to know basis,” she says, and I don’t need
to know.

And finally, Thompson and his friend have split. The garage
is up for sale again, and I’m thinking that maybe Matthew will buy it back, but
to be honest, if I never see the place again it will be too soon, so I’m hoping
he picks something on the other side of town. As to why Thompson and his friend
with the strange eyes were there in the first place, Gram says that they were
up to no good and that’s all she’ll say about it. I did manage to get her to
admit that they might be something other than strictly human, but it was very
late and she was feeling very tired. When I tried to get her to tell me more
the next morning, she just gave me chores.

It’s not the same around the house without Gramps, and I
feel his loss keenly. Not only was he my mentor in this new crazy life I lead,
he was the only father I’ve ever had. But we still have Tara’s Spirit Board out
in the clubhouse – sorry, Matthew’s place – so maybe I’ll sit down and give it
another shot one of these days, and see if maybe Gramps is still hanging
around.

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Acknowledgements

Gabby, I could not
have done this without you.

My daughter was there
at the beginning, when the concept was first being born, to the moment I
finally put my fingers on the keyboard and let the ideas flow out of my head.
She’s patiently hashed out the finer plot points with me over coffee and
roadtrips
and she’s read every page I asked her to –
multiple times. She’s given me her expert opinion on all matters teenager
whenever and wherever it was needed. And most of all, she encouraged me even
when I didn’t ask for encouragement. Thank you, baby girl.

Another great
influence on this story early on must be acknowledged: between the Universe and
Maggie
Stiefvater
I knew I was on the right track due
to myriad synchronicities that occurred in the early stages of the draft. You
see, I was researching vortexes and ley lines in Texas when I came across the
information on Orla, TX in Dan Shaw’s book
The Vortex Field Guide
. It was at this time that I picked up a
copy of
The Raven Boys
by Maggie
Stiefvater
. To my utter amazement I discovered that her
book was about ley lines and that one of her characters was named Orla.

I thought this might
be a coincidence, but it wasn’t. A few months later as I was finishing up my
draft, Maggie produced a beautiful set of tarot cards to complement her Raven
Cycle series and I was utterly dumbfounded to see the same landscape I had used
several times in Sam’s iconic road trip dreams depicted clearly and with eerie
familiarity on her major arcana card ‘The World’. By the time I saw the card, I
had encountered so many synchronicities that I had no doubt that I was writing
something that was meant to be written by me. What a journey! So thanks,
Maggie. Even though I’ve never met you, and possibly never will, you impacted
me at an important time.

Loa Ledbetter and
Kristi Hutson must also be named. These two intrepid ladies threw their lots in
with me for the vortex hunting road trip. We drove and drove and drove for
hours, to see if we could find signs of actual vortex activity in Orla, TX.
Without these two, I would not have ventured on such a significant trip on my
own. I would have missed out on much more than vortex-sign. I would have lost
the opportunity to cement a friendship that until then had been jovial
acquaintance at its best.

We camped like
bohemians, drank moonshine like rednecks and found what we were looking for: a
vortex, a friendship, an experience we will always share between us. Loa – you
found the arrow building, you were the one who knew we had to go there. Kristi,
your feedback proved we found what we came to find. I miss you guys. We should
do another trip soon.

Thank you especially
to Dan Shaw, who not only answered my email when I inquired about Orla and the
vortex there, but talked to me on the phone for a good ninety minutes, and
answered every question I had and then some.

Thank you to my beta
readers: my daughter Gabby, Kiara Tomlinson, Loa Ledbetter, Kristi Hutson, John
Brewer, and Carl and
Moralee
Wendtland, my parents.

Also, many thanks go
out to Carrie Vaughn and the
FenCon
2014 Writing
Workshop for letting me know that I was onto something; to my editor Leslie
Karen Lutz of Elliott Bay Editing, and to my cover artist James T. Egan of
Bookfly Design. Thank you for your words of wisdom and criticism, your mad
editing
skillz
and your cover design kung
fu
. Because of you guys, this book looks amazing.

Finally, thank you to
my husband Jason, who put up with my manic research, my road trip proclivities
and my incessant chatter about ley lines,
orgonite
,
crystals, energy sensitivity and other metaphysical subjects ad
nauseum
. Without you babe, this would have been a lonely
road.

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