Chapter fifteen: The Trail Continues

When I woke up, I forgot for a moment where I was. The ground underneath me was soft, and smelt like earth. My ears picked up on birdsong and sunlight shone through my eyelids.

Slowly, I sat up and looked around: Dark green trees surrounded me. The remains of a camp fire lay nearby, its flames long gone. Two empty bowls were perched on the ground beside it..

One by one, the memories from last night came back to me. Visiting Rachel's cave, looking for clues, touching those mysterious ripples in the air...a trail...

My head swam from it all and I had to breathe deeply for a few seconds to regain my grip.

I needed to speak to Ryan so we could decide on what we were going to – Ryan!

Slightly panicky, I looked around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

I jumped out of my sleeping bag and ran over to his, which was empty. His bag lay beside it, open and some of the stuff falling out. Had he been dragged away while I was asleep?

"Ryan?" I called, my voice shaking. Had he left me here on my own? If so, why were his things still here?

"Ryan! Ryan!" I shouted, as I walked around the outline of the clearing, not daring to enter the forest that lay beyond. "Where the heck are - "

"Holy Hera, woman, stop shouting!" came a harsh voice from behind me.

I whirled around and saw Ryan – blonde hair ruffled and scratches down his arms, clambering out of the trees from across to where I stood.

I shut my mouth, too relieved to be affronted. "Thank god you're here." I mumbled, going slightly red.

"Did something happen to make you behave like a maniac?" Ryan asked, his voice criticising.

"No, I just woke up and you where gone and – I freaked okay?" I snapped the last part, feeling defensive all of a sudden. "It's alright for you, with your sword and your training and demigod powers. But if something finds me, I'm dead!"

A little of the irritation seemed to vanish from Ryan's face, and for a moment I thought I saw something like sympathy there. Then he smirked, and said

"So you admit your not prepared for this quest?"

Gods, he was annoying. And what was worse was that he was also right, though of course I'd rather the red eyed monster from yesterday got me than admit it.

"I just need a weapon or something to defend myself, that's all." I spat at him, bending down to stuff my sleeping bag into the little pouch attached to its bottom.

"We'd better find you one then. How about a stick?" Ryan laughed, obviously amused by my annoyance.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath to stop myself from walking over and smacking him.

What was Chiron thinking, sending me on a quest with this self-absorbed, vain, egoistic moron?

Fuming, I packed up Ryan's sleeping bag as well, stacked the bowls on top of each other and stuffed them into his bag. We'd eaten all the food, which, in retrospect, had not been a wise move, as my stomach was already growling again.

When I'd calmed down a little bit, telling myself to just ignore Ryan's irritating ways, I turned back toward him and found him watching me.

"What?" I asked, my resolve faltering for a second.

"Nothing." he answered, but there was no smirk in his voice. Instead it sounded...curious?

I decided to ignore this for the time being, there were more pressing matters at hand.

"So where were you?" I wanted to know, pawing through our bag in search for a muesli bar I could have sworn I'd seen in there yesterday.

"Checking the forest out, trying to find out where we are." he answered, pulling said bar out of his pocket and offering me half.

I accepted it, my stomach rumbling loudly, which made Ryan's mouth twitch.

"And did you?" I asked, trying to bring his attention back to the conversation and not my over-loud tummy.

"Not really. I think we must be pretty far up North, cause the ground about a mile away in that direction" he pointed "is frozen. Might be the North Woods or something, as there's oaks, fir trees and mountain ash around."

I stared at him. The North Woods were a pretty long way away from Camp Half-Blood.
"But...how could we have travelled that far in...seconds?" I asked him, and my voice had become a whisper.

"That's something we need to find out." Ryan stated grimly, and I knew he was just as confused as I was.

"It's obviously got something to do with those ripples you found yesterday."

"The trail..." I breathed, so quietly that Ryan didn't hear me.

"They must have been some kind of portal, or something - "

"The trail" I said again, louder this time. "That's the trail Rachel wanted me to follow, the one she told me about in the dream I had."

Ryan nodded slowly. "She said something about how only you could find it, didn't she?"

I nodded.

He continued "and I didn't see anything. When you stretched your arm out I wanted to stop you, so I grabbed hold of the back of your jumper and..."

"...I pulled you with me, through the portal." I finished for him.

"Yeah, and nearly killed me by doing so." Ryan muttered, though he sounded more worried than angry.

That's when I remembered in what kind of shape Ryan had been when we'd arrived here.

"How are you feeling now?" I asked.

"Fine." he replied, then after a moment added "just a little dizzy."

"Yeah, me too."

For a while neither of us spoke, and I knew we were both going over what had happened yesterday.
I was thinking of the dryad, and of her goddess who had protected us tonight.

"Thank you, Cybele" I said out loud, and Ryan looked at me.

"What? It's polite to say thanks." I explained.
He seemed surprised but said "Thank you" as well, then took out another muesli bar and tossed it into the fire place, using a lighter to burn it.
"Sacrifice." he explained, then chuckled. "It's polite to say thanks, you know."
I couldn't help but smile.

For several minutes both of us sat there, watching the bar burn slowly down to a crisp.

"Well, we'd better get going" Ryan told me, when the flames had gone out, and hoisted himself up.

"We've got a long walk ahead of us."

"Where to?" I wanted to know.

"We should find a road. Walk along it, find some food and maybe a map. Then we can go through everything and try to decide whether to-"

But while I was listening, Ryan's voice suddenly grew quiet, even though I could still see his mouth moving. I shook my head, trying to say something, but my own voice was gone as well.

Ryan didn't seem to notice anything and kept on talking, gesturing with his hands.

The whole forest seemed to have gone silent, and instead, a light humming drifted to my ears. I turned my head to the right, and it grew a little louder. Slowly, I got up, and then it was just like that day I'd found Ryan in the abandoned house. Something seemed to be pulling me forward, toward the humming noise, and I...let it happen.

The same calm certainty filled me, and I knew it wasn't me but some other force that made my feet wander to the right hand edge of the clearing, yet I wasn't afraid any more.

I stepped across the line that separated our campsite from the woods, and walked between the trees, dodging low hanging branches without even thinking about it.

Almost there...

Quite abruptly, the humming stopped and I came to my senses again.
I was standing next to an old oak tree, its branches hanging low with age and gnarled roots sticking out where the trunk met the earth.

And there, in front of me, was a rippling in the air.

Okay, so I know I haven't updated this story for a long time, but I've been travling the past few months so there were virtually no opportunities for me to do so.

I hope some of you are still willing to go on reading Erin's story, and I apologize for the long wait!
I only own my OCs.

Have a wonderful day :)