My already unsteady state from the strange glowing drink became increasingly more unbalanced. I was losing control of my equilibrium and that actually bothered me quite a bit – but when that scented smoke billowed over the stage and into the DJ booth, I suddenly didn’t care anymore. My libido was up and Lily was there, pressing herself against me. I opened my mouth to say something but she just reached up to grab me by the back of the neck and pull my mouth down onto hers. One second into that hot, wet kiss, and I had forgotten what I was going to say, forgotten about the crowd enthralled by my music, forgotten to be angry about her drugging me with her potent mixture of booze and scented smoke.
My hands slid down her back, smooth skin beneath my fingertips as we sunk deeper into the kiss -- her lips tasted like cherries. Behind us, the owl head exploded with fireworks and flaming red eyes; euphoria and desire washed over the crowd and over me in waves. Witching hour, Lily had said. Indeed, I was bewitched.
Then the song was over and the lights came on, harsh and unfriendly. Lily pulled back, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and pushed me away. A white envelope appeared in her other hand which she then tucked into the front of my pants, lingering for a moment to drag a fingernail up the skin of my abdomen. Her eyes were dark, pupils still dilated.
“Next time,” she said. Then she spun on her heel and walked away.
I stood there, unsteady for several minutes, wondering what had just happened and how long it would take for the effects of the drink and the smoke to wear off. I pulled the envelope out of my waistband and looked inside. There was a check for a thousand bucks, just like she’d promised, and a white card with a phone number on it, a little heart drawn next to it in red ink. I guess there would be a next time.
35. G.
I waited for Sam on his front stoop. We had gotten back from the casino around midnight or so, and I knew I had another few hours to kill before the rave was over, but I couldn’t go home, because then I would have to make up something to tell my dad.
The first couple of hours passed quietly. My phone kept me occupied for a little while until it started running out of battery, so I put it away, you know, in case I needed it to call 911 or something.
Once I put the phone away and didn’t have its electronic glow for comfort, I began to notice just how dark it was on Sam’s street. There was one lonely streetlight down at the corner, but that was about five houses away. It was enough to see my hand in front of my face, but just barely. The bike trail was two houses over to my left, and it was really dark down there. The occasional firefly blinked its little light, but otherwise the only thing that came from there was darkness and sound – the sound of wind in the trees, tree frogs chirping and the grating song of cicadas. Altogether it was a menagerie that reminded me of home—I mean Ohio—and even though it was spooky sitting on Sam’s porch, the nature sounds were grounding.
Across the street a shadow darted out between two houses. What was that? Some sort of critter, no doubt, too small to be a coyote, too big for a rabbit. The creature slinked along the side of someone’s car and then pranced across the driveway to the bushes in front of the next house. A long tail like a question mark followed behind it and I grinned – it was a cat. A large, yet lean gray cat with white splotches and a long, question-mark tail meandered from one house to the next, until it was only two houses down, where it paused in front of the car in that driveway and lifted its tail to spray the bumper with enthusiasm and excellent aim.
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. As I laughed, an owl hooted and the flutter of heavy wings and wind swept over my head. I looked up, startled, and the cat looked over at me, clearly spooked. I couldn’t tell if it heard the owl or not. The cat crouched, its back legs like coiled springs, ready to dart at the next sound from my direction.
I didn’t want to scare it away, so I stayed still and quiet, and eventually the cat relaxed. I assume it was done spraying the neighbor’s car and was ready to do a number on the guy’s front door. I covered my mouth as I watched, ready to smother any laughter that might come out as I watched its antics. Cats are a fairly good judge of character, so I surmised the neighbor must be a jerk.
Without warning a dark shape plunged downward, claws extended, and grabbed the cat by the fur on its back. There was a tussle between them and tremendous racket as the cat fought back with all of its terrified might.
A sort of rage welled up inside me, and before I realized what I was doing, I had launched myself from Sam’s steps and run out into the street. “Hey! You can’t do that! Put him down!” I bellowed, not thinking at all about the people I would wake up, thinking only about the life of one gray alley cat.
The owl must have seen me as a threat, because as suddenly as it had lunged for the cat, it let it go, flying away with great, broad strokes of its wings, a haunting hoot lingering in its wake.
I turned to check if the cat was okay, but it was just as scared of me as it was of the owl and took off like a streak to hide under the next neighbor’s car.
“It’s okay,” I said, squatting down to meet its shiny, reflective gaze. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I held my hand out, but it was having none of that, thank-you-very-much. I shrugged. “Don’t blame you, I guess.” I went back to my perch on Sam’s steps, and there the cat and I pretended not to watch each other for another hour or so until headlights lit up the street and Tyler’s car swung into the driveway to drop Sam off.
“Hey man,” I said, helping Sam with his gear. “How’d it go?”
“Not bad, not bad. Made my thousand bucks and scored her real digits.”
“Yeah? And was she as hot as you remember?”
“Man, you know how those girls dress in those videos we watched online?”
“The ones in the ballerina tutus and bikini tops?”
“Yeah. She put those chicks to shame. Red vinyl heart pasties, black stretch pants.”
“That’s it?” I whistled. I don’t think I want Tara to dress like that in public, much less at a rave, but what kind of guy would I be if I didn’t admit that seeing her dressed like that in private hadn’t crossed my mind? I grinned. “You lucky dawg.”
We dragged his gear into his room where I sat on the bed and watched him put it all away. By the time he was done, it was after four in the morning and we were both yawning.
“Damn, I’m tired,” he said, tossing me a pillow and sleeping bag from a closet in the hall. “I almost forgot – how was the river boat thing?”
“A total bust. The Spirit Board didn’t work at all, and we got caught by Melody’s grandmother, who escorted us home.”
“No kidding? Guess you guys weren’t cut out to be vagabonds and thieves.”
I laughed. “I think we were made by casino security, and all he had to do was put in a call to Melody’s grandmother to verify the reservation. Anyways, we came back early and I guess the bonus is that her grandmother made us promise not to try anything with the Spirit Board again until she can show us how to protect ourselves, whatever that means.”
“You guys got off light.”
“Melody didn’t.”
I felt kind of guilty about that, but not guilty enough to help her do chores, I had to admit. My gaze wandered out the bedroom window and I saw the cat skulking about again, this time heading across the street, toward us. “That is one crazy cat,” I murmured.
“Who?” Sam followed my gaze. “Oh, Mr. Smith. Yeah, almost every night he stops at Thompson’s house and sprays the guy’s car.”
“He did tonight too, and then he almost got taken away by an owl, but I managed to scare it off.”
“No kidding.”
We both watched as Mr. Smith made his way across the street, stopping every so often to scan the sky, the trees, the rooftops for signs of the owl. Seeing none, he continued on until he was in Sam’s front yard, sitting down a few feet in front of Sam’s bedroom window.
“Has he ever done that before?” I asked.
“Sort of – onc
e he sat on the windowsill outside when I was having a bad dream. That was weird, but this… is weirder.”
I watched the cat. “How so?”
“Because I could swear… I mean,” he paused and shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “It’s late and I’m really tired – and there was probably something in that smoke bomb that’s lingering on, but I could swear that the cat is telling me to tell you ‘Thank You.’”
“What?”
“It’s the weirdest thing. I keep seeing this image in the back of my mind, of you standing outside and the cat rubbing up against your legs. Like he likes you, and he’s saying thanks. Maybe for scaring off the owl?”
“That is weird,” I said. “Tell him ‘anytime.’”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. Think a picture at him. Like, maybe I reach down to pet him under the chin or whatever? Don’t cats like that?”
“Dude, you’re smoking crack.”
“You’re the one who told me the cat was thinking pictures at you. I merely suggested you think one back at him.”
“I’m going to bed. This has been a weird night, fun, but weird. If you want to think pictures at the cat, be my guest.” Sam rolled over in his bed, his back to me and the window; clearly he was done talking for the night.
I grinned and did my best to think the picture of ‘you’re welcome’ at the cat. I’m not sure if it worked or not, but the cat’s ears twitched, and then suddenly it got up and sauntered off into the darkness followed only by its question-mark tail.
36. MELODY
I knew I should be exhausted after doing all the yard work that Gram piled on me, and especially after being up all night, but beneath my fatigue a bright thrum of energy coursed through me. I suspected it was from spending so much of my day outside, with my fingers in the dirt – I had really enjoyed feeling the earth’s energy as I plucked weeds from the garden. And there was the strange black stone I had found as well. It was black, about the size of my thumb, and it buzzed brightly when I touched it. Its edges were a little sharp, but it was covered in dirt and I couldn’t tell much else about it until I washed it off in the sink.
I turned it to and fro in the early evening sunlight and figured that if there was one person in our household who knew what it was, it would be Gramps. Shower first though! I didn’t want to wander into his workshop stinking to high heaven.
A little while later, clean and smelling of soap, my hair towel-dried, I wandered downstairs and into the back of the house where Gramps had his workshop. Weaving through stacks of old books and boxes of antiques, I stopped outside his workshop door and knocked on the jamb. “Gramps?” I called. “You in there?”
“Melody!” he called from the back, “Come on in. I’m back here.”
I found him in the back, bent double over his work bench, an acetylene torch in one hand and a hunk of metal held between clamps in the other.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
He stopped, put out the torch, and flipped up his visor. “Oh, you know me and my experiments. And what are you up to, my dear? No more jaunts to the casino, I trust?”
I felt my cheeks flame. “Gram told you about that?”
“Oh yes, she tells me everything. Of course I need her to, you know, since I don’t get out on my own very well anymore.”
“I trust my brush with the law brought you some amusement?”
“Would you have it any other way?” He waggled his brows at me and sat back in the wheelchair. “What brings you back here on such a lovely summer’s evening?”
“I found this rock while I was weeding the garden – and since you showed me how to feel the energy of things… it sort of jumped out at me as a more than ordinary rock.” I handed him the black chunk of stone. “Do you know what it is?”
“Ah, yes. You have acquired yourself a piece of natural obsidian. Quite rare to find something like this here in Texas. It is fairly common in Oklahoma though.” He handed the rock back to me. “Tell me what it felt like when you picked it up.”
He squinted up at me while I pondered his question. “It buzzed a lot, like what I feel from putting my hands or feet in the earth – but more pronounced, stronger. And it had a pulling feeling? Almost like a magnet, but different.”
Gramps nodded, his smile wide. “My girl, you are a natural. Obsidian is one of the strongest stones for drawing off negative energy. That is what you felt when you said a pulling sensation.”
“Like what kind of negative energy?” I cleared off the table opposite his desk and sat on it, the obsidian firmly in the palm of my left hand. Even now, the buzzing of the stone was quite strong. I liked how it felt.
“Obsidian grounds you. You learned in school about batteries, right? And how you should not store batteries on the ground because it will draw off the energy in the battery until it’s dead?”
I nodded. I had heard that – never store a car battery on the garage floor. Always put something underneath it unless you want to have a dead battery on your hands.
“Obsidian is like that. It draws negative energy off of things – specifically off of your etheric body – your aura. It grounds you. It can help draw off dark emotions when you are feeling down, especially if you are under attack–”
“Attack?” What?
“Psychic attack, when an entity or individual is feeding off of your energy field, obsidian is one of the stones that can help prevent that.” He turned back to his task, pulling out a rasp to smooth the edges of the metal hunk he had been working on.
I thought back to the little pog that Esme gave me, and my hand went to the necklace I still wore with the ring strung on it. There hadn’t been any more attacks like that since I had been wearing it. “So it works like this thing does, then?” I pulled the necklace off and handed it to Gramps.
He put down the rasp, took the chain with the pog on it and examined it closely. “Who gave this to you?”
“Esme did. She said that I was being attacked. Will obsidian work like that?”
“In a way, yes. Obsidian grounds you and it’s natural. This item here is a positive orgone device and will not only help remove the negative energy but transmute it to positive energy. It’s a valuable thing to keep with you, especially if you are already experiencing attacks.”
“What do you mean already?”
Gramps pretended to be busy studying Esme’s ring.
“Gramps, what do you mean already?”
He sighed and handed the ring on the chain back to me. “If Esme gave this to you and told you to wear it, then you should definitely do that. You should also keep the obsidian piece with you in your pocket. Both are useful, powerful tools. And just because Gram said it was time for you to learn some things, doesn’t mean I am going to spill all the beans in one day.” He waggled his eyebrows. “If I did that, you wouldn’t come back to visit me in the workshop tomorrow to ask me more!”
“What? Of course I would.”
He flipped his visor down and turned on the torch again, using the clicker to light it. “Well, good then. Come back tomorrow and we will talk some more about this. It will give me time to dig some things out of boxes to show you.”
I sighed. “Oookay,” I said like I had when I was little. I put the necklace back on, shoved the black rock into my pocket and waved at him as he got back to work on his project. I decided to see what Tara was up to – I wondered what she would make of the chunk of obsidian.
37. TARA
“It’s really cool,” I said, handing the obsidian back to Melody. “I don’t feel the super buzzy thing you’re talking about, but then you don’t talk to the big computer in the sky, so I guess we’ll just have to take each other’s word for it.”
Melody grinned. This was the happiest I had seen her in a long time. Dread fluttered in the pit of my stomach, but I tried to ignore it. Now was not the time to remind her about her dead brother and the picture I got from the Akashic Records, of her taking his hand.<
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“What’s that like?” she asked, idly playing with the black stone. “The Akashic record thing?”
I considered for a moment. What was it like, really? “I guess calling it a computer is the closest I can come to relating it to everyday things. I mean, it’s bigger than that, you know, and it’s not at your fingertips, but as if my brain is jacked into it somehow, like a hologram unfolding, and as soon as I think of something, I can see the answer. I’ve been practicing, too.”
“Yeah? Can I ask you—it—a question?”
“You mean you want me to go all Rain Man on you for a minute so you can ask the universe a question?”
“Well, when you put it like that –”
“Sure, why not? I haven’t tried it with anyone else since that first time with you, and that was totally on accident. What do you want to ask? Wait – no don’t tell me. Wait until I am in the zone and then ask your question, but be very clear with the phrasing. Getting the information back really is a lot like using a computer.”
We were sitting on my bed in my room, which was perhaps not the most ideal place to try this kind of thing, but I figured that I wasn’t always going to be in the ideal place, so this would be better practice than doing it on the lawn in the summer sun. I pulled my crystal out of my pocket and looked around for a good place to put it so it would catch the light. I settled on propping it up on the window ledge and scooched down to the floor so that my eyes were only slightly higher than line of sight with it.
I crisscrossed my legs, used the bed to brace myself, and practiced grounding like Esme showed me – linking the energy of my spine and my chakras with the energy of the earth by sending a tap root, like a tree, into the ground. The blue energy of the earth spiraled up the tap root and up through my spine until my forehead felt tight– my third eye chakra was charging and I could feel the top of my head opening up… expanding outward like a lotus flower.
A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 Page 12