A Quarrel Called: Stewards Of The Plane Book 1 by Shannon Wendtland

veins, I
struggled against the shadow, the nightmare in my face, but I was paralyzed. Helpless. My throat closed tight. I couldn’t scream. I
couldn’t even look away.
    A thump sounded at my window. The thing on my chest glanced
up. When it did, I suddenly had the ability to move. My limbs felt heavy and I
couldn’t muster the coordination to thrust the creature away from me, though I
did manage to shove it to the side and off the bed.
    The thump from my window turned into a feral growl. I
looked. Another one? No, it was a cat, backlit from
the streetlights beyond. Its back was arched, and it had the creature in its
sights. It issued yet another feral caterwaul and I covered my ears; the sound
was like an ice pick in my ear and made every hair on my body raise up to
attention.
    The creature did not care for the sound either. After a hiss
at me and a growl at the cat, it slinked away into the darkness at the far
corner of the bedroom. I watched it lurking there, waiting for the cat to go
away.
    My cellphone rang, and I knew now that this was what had
woken me the first time. It was Sam. Grateful for the light of the LCD, I
thumbed the screen to answer and almost sobbed in relief. “Sam?”
    “Melody. Are you okay? I just had
the worst dream about you,” he said, his voice tight. “When you didn’t answer,
I—”
    “Oh my God, Sam. There is something
here.” I clutched the phone to my ear and leaned out to turn on the bedside
lamp. The cat in the window yowled at me and leapt down from the sill, but I
was watching the corner. The darkness hunched there. My heart in my throat, I
watched the light reach that corner of the room and was stunned that all I saw
there was my chair with an armload of folded laundry.
    “It was right there,” I said, disbelieving and utterly
relieved at the same time. “It was there, I know it was.”
    “I believe you.”
    He stayed on the phone with me until dawn. We didn’t talk
much, but neither of us could sleep. He confessed that he had left his closet
light on, and I decided that might not be a bad idea for me from now on,
either.
    When the rosy light started filtering in through the
windows, we finally hung up, him to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before
work, and me to get dressed.
    #
    I didn’t have a summer job, but it felt like I did
sometimes. There were a lot of chores to be done, like weeding the herb garden,
dead heading the rose bushes, general house cleaning, lawn mowing, etc. And
with Matthew gone and Gramps ill, the chores fell to me and Gram. Mostly to me.
    Manual labor helped take my mind off of things, and the
smell of fresh basil and tarragon soothed my terrified soul. By the time I was
done with the weeds, I still had time to shower and have some toast. I felt
much better, having distance and daylight between me and the events of last
night.
    When I got out of the shower, the telltale scent of sage was
in the air. I ducked around the corner, wrapped in my robe, and was caught by
Gram in the hall.
    “Hold still,” she said, reaching toward me with the burning
bundle of sage leaves. “There’s something in the air, and I mean to get rid of
it. Woke up with a terrible headache and a case of the
heebie-jeebies.”
    I groaned to hide my sudden anxiety over the thought of the
creature in my room. “Hurry up, Gram. I have to meet Sam for coffee and I only
have a few minutes.”
    She passed the smoke in front of me, wafting with her hand
and directed me to hold up one arm, and then the other, so that she could pass
the bundle underneath. When she finished, I obediently turned around, trying
not to be impatient while she wafted smoke up and down my back.
    “You’ve got plenty of time, child,” she said and smiled,
brushing past me to sage my room. “That Sam’s a nice boy. And he sure likes
you.”
    Sigh. “I know, Gram. But we’re just friends. He
understands.”
    She arched one artfully plucked eyebrow. “Does he , now.” She took a few steps into the