A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 (4 page)

08. MELODY

It felt like the get-together was winding down just as Tara
and G. came back in. They were both smiling, and I swear I saw
them
holding hands. Tara gave me a covert thumbs-up sign and
I felt glad for her. G. didn’t look unhappy either.

“Hey, you guys, now that it’s dark out I thought maybe we’d
give the video games a break for a while. Anyone
wanna
try out my Spirit Board?” Tara pulled the box
out from one of the cupboards and put it out on the table.

“I don’t know,” said Shelby. “Isn’t that devil worship
stuff?”

“Nah, it’s for talking to spirits,” Tara said, unboxing the
board and planchette. “You know, like that guy on TV who talks to dead people.
Only with a Spirit Board, anyone can do it.”

Everyone looked at me then, and I realized they were waiting
for me to say something. I shrugged, only a little uneasy. “I don’t believe in
that stuff,” I said. “I think that guy on TV is fake, too.”

Brittney walked over and grabbed the information booklet
that came with the board. “Has anyone used one of these before? Do we need to
read the…like, rules?”

Tara looked at me. “Mel, do you have any candles or
anything? You know, mood lighting?”

I looked around and shrugged. “Not out here, but Gram
definitely has some back at the house. I’ll get a few.” Ignoring Brittney who
was now reading the ‘rules’ aloud to the rest of the group, I pushed through
the door and out into the night. It was beautiful out, the stars were crisp and
clear, and the moon was now setting behind the house.

“Hey, I’ll come with you,” Sam said as he jogged up next to
me.

“Thanks,” I said. I led him into the kitchen and motioned
for him to grab the matches off of the windowsill while I dug in the cavernous
pantry for the basket of candles. “You think we need anything else?”

Sam cocked his head and grinned. “If we were on some TV
show, we’d have some sort of recording equipment. Like, at least a voice
recorder or a camera.
Unless you have a spare EMF reader
around?”

I laughed. Knowing my grandparents, anything was possible.
Before Gramps got sick, he was a notorious flea-market hound. The closets were
stuffed full of things he thought might be useful or worth money someday, not
to mention what he’d crammed in his workshop and the library. “Who knows?” I
said. “But doesn’t everyone already have a cell phone? Couldn’t we use those?”
I flicked the kitchen light off and made toward the back door.

“Hey, I might even have an app for that,” he said, fishing
his phone out of his pocket and thumbing through the widget screens. “I do! Not
an EMF meter but better, an EVP recorder… I’m going to try it out.” He held the
light of his phone up under his face, illuminating it from below. “You never
know what we might find,
muahahaha
.”

“Dork,” I said over my shoulder and walked back out into the
night. As I stood on the stoop waiting for him to catch up, there was a sudden
chill, despite the lack of breeze, and I shivered. Sam came up next to me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” he said, half-joking. But
when I looked into his dark, narrow eyes, I saw something else there; something
serious.

“Your dream creeping you out again?”
I asked, watching to see his reaction. Sam didn’t like to talk about his dreams,
so when he did, I actually paid attention, because sometimes they came true.

He hesitated and then laughed it off. “It’s nothing. Let’s
just get this party started.” He strode off to the clubhouse. “You
coming?
Or you chicken?
Buh-
kah
!”

“
Shh
, you’ll wake my grandparents
with that chicken cackle!” I said, but it made me grin.

We set the board up over by the love seats, since the low
table was a little easier to get everyone around. Tyler and Colton were
mocking, but cooperative, Shelby hung back, doubtful, and Brittney was all-in.
Tara was in the middle, and Sam and I sat off to the side. G. just sort of hung
back behind Tara. Not really fitting in, I suppose, but he still wanted to be
part of the group. It’s just as
well,
the planchette
was really crowded with so many eager fingers in the middle.

“This will never work.
Too many arms in
the way.
How am I supposed to read the board?” Tara complained.

“Here, I’ll step back. Give me the notepad and the pencil. I
can be record keeper,” I said, secretly relieved to not have Sam pressing
against me in order to fit his fingers on the planchette.

“Me too,” said Colton, falling back. “I need to use the john
anyways,” he let out a big root beer–fueled belch and trudged off to the
restroom.

“Okay, that’s better,” said Tara. “We can do more than one
session anyways, and switch out people if we need to, right? Hey Shelby, will
you light those candles? G., will you turn off the lights?”

Shelby grimaced. I could see she was truly not comfortable
about any of this. “How about G. can light the candles and I can turn off the
lights,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

Tara shrugged, the rest of us laughed, and G. was happy to
oblige. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, getting up from the table to dig
around in her purse. She pulled the new quartz crystal out and raised it up.
“This should make you feel better, Shelby. The quartz will keep anything 'dark'
away.”

Shelby seemed dubious that something witchy like a crystal
was going to help keep devil-worship things from happening. I wanted to laugh
at the irony, but didn't. It would just piss her, and/or Tara, off.

“
Ooooh
,” said Tyler “Spooky.”

Tara glowered at him. “Whatever. You don't have to
participate if you don't want to.”

“Oh no, I want to. I just think you're lame for putting a
crystal on the board is all. Like that will actually help.”

At moments like these, I actually admired Tara; when she
wanted to let things slide off her back, she just did it.
Like
water off a duck.
If it were something I felt strongly about, I would
have tossed off some smart-ass reply to Tyler's teasing.
But
not Tara.
She just smiled and said, “Better safe than sorry. Besides,
this is supposed to be fun, not like that movie,
Ouija
.”

“Right,” I said, getting her back. “No
Doris
here.”

Tara put the crystal down on the board next to the 'yes' in
the upper left corner. She moved it this way and that, until she settled on the
more pronounced point facing in, toward the letters. “Okay, Brittney. What do
we do next?”

“It says: To open communication, everyone places their right
hands on the planchette - pointer thingy - and closes their eyes and
concentrates on being open to communication from the spirit world. Then when
the medium - that's you, Tara - is ready, he or she asks for a spirit to come
through. It says you can introduce yourself, or you can just ask if anyone is
there.”

Tara nodded at the group, and everyone touching the board
closed their eyes. The room was dim, but the candles were bright points of
light, illuminating everyone sitting on the loveseats, and pushing the dark
back into the corners of the room. Beyond the circle of light, G. looked on
with interest, the angles of his face thrown into shadow. He caught my eye and
grinned. His hand was resting lightly on the loveseat behind Tara.

“Hello spirits of the ether, we greet you as students of
John McIntyre High School. Please commune with us.”

G. was now grinning like a maniac, and I had the hardest
time not giggling out loud. Sam shifted on the loveseat next to me, and I could
tell that he was probably rolling his eyes as he frequently did whenever Tara
opened her mouth (and wasn't looking directly at him).

“Is anyone there?” Tara
asked,
her
voice low and serious sounding. Obviously she wanted the spirits to know that
she meant business.

The planchette vibrated a little and began slowly,
haltingly, to slide toward the crystal and the word 'Yes' in the corner.
Shelby's sharp intake of breath made me look up at her, and I could see her
concentrating very hard on what was happening on the board. Uncertain myself, I
couldn't help but hold my breath just a little bit.

The planchette landed on the word 'Yes' and stayed there.

“Holy shit,” whispered Tyler.

“You’re moving it,” Brittany said, wide-eyed.

“I’m not,” said Tyler, emphatically. “I swear.”

“Hello, Spirit of the Ether,” Tara said, ignoring them. “We
welcome you to our circle. Please tell us your name.”

Nothing happened for what seemed like a long time, and then
the planchette began moving again. I vaguely remembered I had a notepad and
pencil in my hand and adjusted so that I could write down whatever was
indicated. I still didn't quite believe something was happening, but was nearly
mesmerized by the moving planchette anyways.

“F,” said Tara, breathless. “R
,E,D,D,Y
.
The planchette was moving faster now. “Mel, are you getting this? K, R.”

I nodded, totally transfixed now. A shadow from across the
room caught my eye, and I looked up, notepad forgotten. There was something
there. My heart began to thud in my chest, and I lost track of what was
happening on the board. There was something there—I knew there was.

Sam looked from me to the area across the room and got very
still.

The shadow moved just an inch or two, but it was enough to
make even Brittney glance over her shoulder, eyes wide. A soft scraping
slithered across the room from the corner and Shelby cringed. G. moved closer
to her, protective, even as he tried to hover near Tara, who was busy watching
the planchette move from letter to letter.

A picture fell off the wall and crashed to the floor. I'm
ashamed to admit it, but I screamed like a little girl, and so did everyone
else in the room. Sam surged to his feet and G. was across the room in an
instant. Suddenly the lights came on and the sounds of a scuffle and two
out-of-focus shapes were taking all of our attention. My eyes tried to adjust
to the sudden change in light; I could not interpret what I was seeing.

“Hey man, cut it out,” said Colton. G. had him pinned to the
wall by his shirt, and Colton pushed him off roughly. “It was just a joke.
Settle down, dawg.”

G. took a step back, his hands raised. “Sorry. Guess my
fight-or-flight kicked in.”

Tyler leaned back on the couch and laughed like a maniac.

Another moment ticked past while everyone realized that
Colton and Tyler were just pranking, and suddenly there were peals of laughter.
Shelby looked like she was about to bolt, but even she managed a half-assed
smile.

“That was a dick move,” Sam said, glowering at Tyler. Then
suddenly he grinned. “But I couldn't have done it better myself.” He leaned
over to bump fists with Tyler.

“Guys, Guys, guys...
GUYS!”
Tara
was waving her hands frantically for everyone to shut up, her gaze fixated on
the board. The planchette was vibrating again, only this time no one was
touching it.

“Holy shit,” Sam breathed.

My heart was pounding so loud it drowned everything out. The
planchette skittered across the board, haltingly, as if it were heavy and hard
to move. It stopped on a letter.

“O,” said Tara.

It scraped along a few inches and stopped again. “R,” she
said. We watched as it moved, by itself, and halted over the L. Tara licked her
lips, her voice horse. “L.”

The sound of the plastic sliding over the cardboard game
board was dry and raspy. It seemed to take forever to come to rest, finally, on
the last letter before it stopped moving for good.

“A,” said Sam, turning to look at me, a wild, primal fear in
his eyes. “Orla,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

Another crash across the room, this time
in the opposite corner, nearest to where Sam and I were sitting.
A photo
frame slid to the floor, silver splinters of glass
spidering
out from the frame like a small explosion. The color drained from my face. It
was a photo of Matthew and
I
.

“No way,” said Shelby, drained of color, scrunching her face
to hold back a sob of fear.
“No way.
I told you this
was devil worship stuff. No way am I sticking around to see what comes next.
Screw you guys!” She threw a look of fear and loathing over her shoulder as she
fled the clubhouse.

I stood there and watched her flee and wondered if I should
do the same myself. But my feet were rooted to the floor, and the room was
closing in around me. Why did everyone sound so far away?

“Melody!” someone shouted, I think it was Sam, as I slid
into darkness.

09. G.

“I feel terrible.” Tara sat across from me in the back
corner booth at The Blossom. “We had an argument after you guys left, you know?
The whole thing with the picture of her and her brother crashing to the ground;
I think it brought it all back to her. I didn't mean to. I thought I knew what
I was doing, using the crystal. But turns out, I remembered what I read wrong.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, reaching across to put my hand
in hers. Even though this wasn't a romantic moment, just my skin on hers made
my heart skip a beat. I tried to concentrate on what she was saying instead of
what it might be like to kiss her. She was wearing shimmery pink lip gloss
today, and it made her lips look extra ripe.

WTF, G.? Concentrate.

She squeezed my hand back and gave me a half-hearted smile.
“After I left, I went home and did a search on the Internet about using the
crystal on the board like that. It turns out that it's not protective. Instead
it makes it easier for the spirits to communicate. If I hadn't put the stupid
thing out there, we might just have had a good time with Colton and Tyler's
prank, but instead... God, I'm dumb.”

“That’s not true.”

She shook her head, cutting me off. “I should have thought
about it before we tried it in the clubhouse.
Of course
that was a bad idea. Maybe we shouldn’t have tried it at
all.
Sometimes…
I just don’t
think
.”

I was out of my depth. I didn't know anything about the
occult or whatever, being more of a facts versus fiction kind of guy, but I did
know one thing for sure. The only thing on my mind when Colton was fooling
around was keeping Tara safe. It felt good and weird at the same time, to have
that surge of adrenaline pumping through my system. I wondered why I never felt
that way back at my old school, when douchebag Dixon harassed me.

“Don't worry about it,” I said. “Melody won't stay mad
forever. I'm sure she just has to get over the shock.”

“Right?” she said, looking up at me, hoping.

“Anyways, I was thinking, maybe we could go see a movie
tomorrow night? I've got hot dog night with Dad tonight, but tomorrow that new
horror movie is opening--”

“How about we go see a regular movie instead?
Maybe not horror.”

“Deal,” I said. “Pick you up at eight?”

“Deal.”