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

and Dad let me. “I would say I wanted to feel the earth
bubble.”
    “That’s right, you did. Do you think you can still feel it?”
    I looked sharply at him, but he was leaning back with his
eyes closed.
    “I don’t know,” I said after a long moment. Was I actually
considering the question? A few weeks ago I would have dismissed it out of
hand. Could I afford to just dismiss things like that now? No, I didn’t think I
could.
    “Why don’t you give it a shot? You and me,
sitting here together with our feet in the grass. It’s a good night for
it.”
    It didn’t hurt to humor him. And maybe I was a little bit
curious myself about what was happening to me, so I chucked off my Converse
sneakers and peeled off the little footie socks I always wore and planted my
feet squarely in the grass. I folded my arms over my knees and then after a
moment, I decided just to sit crisscross in the grass, bare legs and feet on
the ground. And for a long moment all I felt was prickly from the green blades,
and cool from the moist earth.
    And then, I felt a bubbling sensation, as if tiny little
fizzy bubbles were zooming up my skin. Just a little at first, like the buzz in
my legs or feet on the verge of falling asleep, a mild vibration. It started in
my left calf muscle and spread to my left leg and foot. After another moment,
the same buzzing, only slightly less, spread through my right leg and foot.
“Holy cow,” I said, not quite believing what I was feeling.
    “Just wait,” said Gramps. “It gets better.”
    “What do you mean?” I said, but suddenly I knew. The slight
buzzing began to increase in frequency and crescendoed .
The buzz became more of a wave and it spread from my feet, up my legs, into my rear-end , through my back and shoulder. Suddenly I felt
light, like I could float away if I wanted to. My hair got staticky and rose
around my head like a halo. “Gramps?” I said, a catch in my throat. “What’s happening?”
    He looked at my wide eyes and chuckled. “You’re completing
the circuit, my dear girl. The earth has a flow to it. Anyone can feel it when
they are paying attention. For them it feels like a buzz, or a bubbling, like
when you were little. But for some, the buzzing takes hold, gets a little
faster and when you’re ready, it just flows right through you like you’re a
live wire. A part of the circuit.”
    I listened to him with half an ear, but the rest of me was
overcome with awe. I could feel the energy around my body, and I could feel the
frequency of the earth. It had a deep, slow crest and trough to it, like a sine
wave. I remembered hearing about that in physics class; my teacher had called
it the Schumann Resonance.
    I tried to concentrate on the wave and make it spread across
me, but it grew fainter, farther away, and it was gone. I was disappointed for
a moment and then euphoric. “Holy cow,” I said again, my voice reverent.
    “Holy cow, indeed,” said Gramps as he made fists in the
grass with his toes. “It gets even better with practice.”

 

25. SAM
    The crowd responded to the change in lighting and music like
a cat who’s found a warm spot beneath it’s feet. Guys started leaning in, girls started laughing, it was almost as if they liked each other instead of circling like a pack of
hyenas, wary and hungry. I suppose it helped that a crew of hot girls showed up
and started dancing in the middle of the living room, but I didn’t mind taking
credit for that. A couple of them even checked me out, which was weird, since they
were at least two or three years older than I was. Maybe there was a shortage
of good-looking guys at college? Could be the only ones they knew had billy goat beards? I turned to look at Lily, who was at
that moment studying me with sleepy eyes and a slitted smile.
    “You’re pretty good,” she said. And then her eyes slid from
my face, down my torso to my crotch and back up again. Her grin widened.
    I felt my face flush. “I bet you say that to