Chapter twelve: The Trail
"Nu-uh".
"Oh, come on."
"I am not doing this!"
"Erin, you're already doing this."
I whirled around and tried to poke Ryan in the chest. Of course, he was way faster than me and grabbed my wrist before my hand even touched him.
I glared at him.
"Let. Go."
"Only if you stop acting like a child,." He snapped back and squeezed my wrist to prove his point.
I'm going to kill him. I thought, but swallowed the remark.
He was right, of course. Iwas acting like a child and I should have stopped, but I was just so annoyed!
Still, I breathed in deeply and said, quietly and with a lot of control: "Okay."
Ryan opened his fingers and I immediately slipped my wrist out of his reach.
After our midnight chat with Chiron, it had become clear that Ryan had had a very similar dream to mine. The only difference, really, was that he hadn't actually talked to Rachel.
He'd said he'd watched her, wandering around in a dark room with a basin of fire in the middle, muttering the same phrase again and again:
"Find it. They need to find it."
When Chiron had said that it was obvious this meant Ryan was supposed to accompany me on the quest, I'd stared at him in disbelief.
I'd wanted Jake to come. But Chiron said that wasn't possible as he was working on a project for his dad, Hephaestus, at the moment. And apparently putting a god off wasn't very advisable.
Then I'd tried to persuade Chiron to let me wake Jayne up.
"I bet she would come," I'd said, keeping the plea out of my voice.
But again, the centaur denied my request. He'd told me that it would take too long to wake Jayne up and get her informed on everything. He added that Jayne probably wouldn't want to go on a quest.
To my question as to why she wouldn't, I'd gotten no answer.
So here we were, and now I had to stop ignoring Ryan when he tried talking about the quest.
"Okay, so I get that we have to start immediately." Ryan said, and I brought myself back to the present, walking slightly ahead of him, my flash light pointed at the ground so we wouldn't stumble.
"But why does Chiron think there'll be anything at Rachel's cave? We checked everywhere for clues."
I didn't answer, not because I was still ignoring him but because I had no answer. Eventually I sighed.
"To be honest I guess he just can't think of where else to look." I told Ryan, who blew air out between his lips in resignation.
The forest around us was dark, and kind of creepy. I kept hearing things moving inside, and I was secretly thankful that Ryan never really went anywhere without his golden sword, which was loosely strapped to his belt right now.
Finally, we arrived at the cave, the entrance of which loomed ahead of us, dark and uninviting.
Nobody had removed the ripped curtains yet, and so their remains were still hanging by the entrance, long tendrils fluttering as if beckoning us forward.
"How about you switch your light on as well?" I whispered to Ryan, and felt him get a torch out and press the ON button.
Another beam of light joined mine and slowly, we both crept forward.
Why does it have to be in the middle of the night? I thought to myself and tried not to completely freak out when an owl hooted loudly on a nearby tree.
It was a good thing I had taken my bag with me to the Big House. I hadn't even noticed that I'd done it until I'd seen it lying on the floor in Chiron's office.
Ryan had hurried to his cabin and grabbed some stuff, then Chiron had met us on the greens and given us a few drachmas, some normal, sorry,mortalmoney and the advice to start where we now were.
But so far, nothing looked like it might be a clue.
I was starting to doubt my decision to go on this quest without proper preparation. Where did one even start? What were we supposed to do if we didn't find anything?
Shaking my head, I continued to look closely around the entrance of the cave and even stepped inside a bit. There was nothing, just the usual amount of stuff Rachel had and scribbling all over everything.
"Maybe we should read some of this?" Ryan suggested, pointing at some writing on the wall.
"You can." I replied. "I can't read it."
Ryan opened his mouth as if to say something, but then closed it again. He turned his back on me and leant closer to the stone, obviously trying to decipher the markings.
I sat down on the floor, closing my eyes for a second and trying to picture the dream again.
Something told me I should start looking there for clues...
"Erin."
"Erin. You have to find it."That was Rachel's voice, sounding as clearly in my head as if I was having the dream right now. I concentrated harder.
"The spirit. It's gone and I can't see!"
"You can find it...You have to follow the trail! You have to travel!"
"Only you can follow the trail..."
My eyes opened again. Okay, so Rachel had told me to follow a trail only I could follow, to travel, in order to find a spirit she had lost.
What spirit was she talking about? Well, that could only really mean one thing: The Spirit of the Oracle of Delphi.
I didn't know how exactly it worked, but I knew that somehow the Spirit used Rachel as a sort of medium to warn or guide the demigods by giving them prophecies.
And now, the Spirit seemed to be gone. Had it abandoned Rachel? Could that even happen?
What about the trail Rachel had told me to follow? Why was I the only one able to follow it? Perhaps it was somehow barred to Half-Bloods...
I was about to relay everything I was thinking to Ryan, who was still reading the wall writings, when something at the edge of the path caught my eye.
I blinked and looked closer.
There it was again.
Slowly getting to my feet, I kept my eyes trained on the trees to the right hand side of the path.
There was something there, something that looked like a...ripple?
A ripple in the air, like waves on water.
Completely intrigued, I moved still closer, leaving my flash light behind. The moonlight was enough to see this...phenomenon.
My whole body felt warm all of a sudden, and I knew that this was right, this was supposed to be.
I was supposed to find this.
It was like a sign. Like a trail...
"Erin?"
Ryan's voice cut through my trance and I realised I was standing right in front of the trees, my right hand outstretched, only inches away from touching the mark.
"I...I think I found something." I whispered, my voice hushed.
I heard footsteps and sensed Ryan stand next to me, looking towards where my hand was reaching for the air in front of me.
"What?" he asked, leaning in closer. "Why are you touching the air?" His voice was doubtful, and it made me finally take my eyes off the ripples and look him in the eyes.
"You can't see it?" I asked, my eyebrows raised. It was right there, right in front of us!
"No." Ryan shook his head, returning my gaze. We were standing so close I could see the uncertainty in his eyes, which seemed almost black in the dark.
"There are ripples in the air. Kind of like waves on the water." I explained, realising I was still whispering.
"Ripples...As if something went through?"
"Yes!" I cried, making him jump backwards.
"Sorry, sorry," I hastily apologized. "It's just that that's exactly what it looks like. I couldn't put my finger on it, but now it makes perfect sense!"
"What are you talking about?" Ryan grumbled, rubbing the back of his head where he had hit a tree branch.
"In my dream, Rachel said there was a trail that only I could follow, and now we're here! And here this is and this has to be it, so we should follow it but Rachel said only I could, so I don't know if you-"
"Woah, woah" Ryan interrupted my rambling, holding his hands up. "Slow down."
I shut my mouth, too excited to form coherent words.
"Start again, but slowly." Ryan ordered me, and I nodded, took a deep breath and tried again.
"Okay, so in the dream I had, the one where I was talking to Rachel, right?"
Ryan nodded. I continued.
"She told me I had to follow a trail, that I had to travel. Only I am supposed to be able to do it. And if this" I pointed at the ripples "Is what we think it is, then we've found the trail! We only have to follow..." I stopped talking, realising what I was saying.
"Yeah." Ryan agreed, obviously knowing what I was going to say. "How do we follow this?"
But my mind was already racing on, and the only logical solution presented itself almost immediately. It was as if I'd known all along what I had to do, from the moment I saw the Trail flickering in the air.
"Of course..." I breathed, my gaze fixed once again on the soft ripples of air. They seemed to be getting smaller.
Letting myself be guided completely by instinct, I approached the spot where Ryan was still standing, his eyes trained on me.
"Erin, what are you doing?" he demanded, and his tone was reproachful, but also a little afraid, I thought.
I didn't respond. It didn't feel like it was me leading my body any more, some other instinct had taken over, telling me what to do.
Go closer.
I walked closer to the trail marks, and stretched out my hand once more.
"Erin. Erin, stop." Ryan told me.
Just a little closer...
I was almost there, almost touching the marks in the air.
Touch it.
Okay.
"Erin!"
Ryan's shout was the last thing I heard before the world turned upside down.
There we go, like I promised, I updated quicker this time!
I quite like this one to be honest :)
Argh, I've just started watching Teen Wolf and I'm completely obsessed with it! *_*
No spoilers though please 3
Hope you enjoy, tell me what ya think!
And thanks to StoryWebber xxx