Chapter Ten
The next morning, I slid the van door open and poked my head out.
It wasn't raining anymore. Actually, it was bright and sunny.
I inhaled deeply.
Ah. Fresh air.
We spilled out of the van one by one to stand happily on the rocky shore.
"All right," Leander clapped his hands together. "Search time."
Andromeda, Tobi, and I stared blankly at the young man with wings.
"What exactly are we looking for?" I asked, since I had no clue.
"Oh yeah," Leander rubbed his chin. "I forgot that you guys wouldn't know."
Tobi rolled his eyes. Andromeda and I giggled.
"If I remember right, Boreas has a palace somewhere on the North Shore. It's called Enbane."
"Oh boy. And the North Shore is like, how many miles long?" I scoffed.
Leander ignored my snide remark. "Let's get going!"
We reluctantly trudged down the beach. Andromeda went with Leander, and Tobi and I were partners.
Both of us struggled over the rocky terrain.
"You'd think we would be able to see a darn palace if it were here," Tobi grumbled.
I groaned in agreement.
We spent the rest of the morning in an unfruitful, and very, very annoying, search for the palace Enbane.
.-^-.
"Uuuugh," I moaned, falling flat on my back on the sandy beach.
"My feelings exactly," Tobi grumbled, imitating my movement.
Andromeda collapsed dramatically next to us.
Leander fluttered his wings cheerfully. "Come on you lazy bums, a quick lunch and then back to the search!"
He was altogether way too excited about the hunt for Enbane.
The three of us moaned a chorus of disapproval.
We had met on a stretch of beach that was actually sandy, rather than rocky. It was one of the only ones like it for miles around. Most of the beaches on the North Shore are rocky.
Eventually, we did finish lunch and jumped back into the game of hide-and-go-seek-with-a-palace.
The four of us stuck together this time, however. We had scoured most of the beach-y parts close by, so we went for the more grueling part: scaling the cliffs so we could search there.
The rocky, uneven environment made hard going. I was exhausted very, very fast.
An hour or two later, I was about to throw myself off the edge of the cliff and into the water rather than spend one more minute searching.
A cry of triumph caused my head to jerk up in excitement.
"I found something!" Andromeda sounded truly excited.
We all rushed over to where she was studying a sheer rock wall.
"Look," she cried, pointing to something in the stone face.
I looked closer, and saw something inscribed in the rock.
It said:
"Seekers of Enbane,
Must search in vain.
It is not reachable from the ground.
It is found where birds abound.
Searchers must take a leap of faith,
Or never find the palace-wraith."
"What in the world?" Tobi burst out.
"I know," I agreed. "Whoever wrote that really stinks at poetry."
Leander looked confused. "I don't get it. We aren't looking for a palace ghost. We're looking for Enbane."
Andromeda sighed heavily. "Not palace ghost. Palace wraith or the wraith palace. Meaning the palace that can't be seen."
"Aaaahhh." I could almost see the light-bulb illuminate above Leander's head.
"So, what does the rest mean?" Tobi asked Andromeda.
She shrugged. "I have no idea."
"Oh, boy," I heaved a sigh. "This is going to be fun."
The four of us sat with our eyes trained on the poem inscribed in the rock as if it would suddenly tell us the answer.
It didn't.
An idea flashed into my brain. A wild, crazy, utterly insane idea, but an idea all the same.
I stood and paced to the cliff's edge. The rock on either side of me rose straight up, reaching for the sky. A few feet up, it began to tilt inward…. Almost like a doorway.
I laughed to myself. Leap of faith, here I come.
I turned back to face the others. Their eyes were focused on me, but they were deep in thought, not really seeing me at all.
I waved perkily, lifted a foot off the rocky ground, and leaped backwards into the open air.