Sorry for the rather belated posting. I wanted to stay more on top of the story and writing and thought posting the first chapter would make me feel more responsible for keeping up with it. But, apparently I was wrong. For some reason, I just can't get into this story like I thought I would. Maybe it's just the starting over, having to build the plot up from the ground. Anyways, here's the next chapter. You can thank my beta for reminding me I can do other POVs than Clarke, because otherwise this probably would have taken even longer before I updated.
Bellamy was walking through the woods, scanning his surroundings. It was his job to do so. Twice over. Though if he really thought about it, he probably only applied to the ranger post because of his other inherited job. No one would ever question the park ranger consistently walking through the forest and checking up on things. It really was the best job he could have to maintain the Blake family's role as gatekeeper. Gods knew, Octavia wasn't going to keep up with it. Even if she was the reason they became the gatekeepers.
He spotted a wisp floating along, not too far ahead of him. They were the bane of his existence as a gatekeeper, always trying to lure people over to the other realm. Damn near got Clarke the other day. And as much as she always talked about the faeries and their magical homeland, he doubted very much that she would be happy to find herself in the dark forests of Arkadia.
"Shoo! Scat!" he told the wisp, gesturing emphatically with his arms. "Why must you and your friends always cause trouble?"
If a wisp could cock its head, that was the attitude Bellamy was getting from this wisp. Sure it looked like a floating ball of light, but Bellamy knew there was more to it. Those buggers had some intelligence to them. They had to, to give him the trouble they always did.
"And what was up with three of you showing up? You usually don't come together like that. Did you think I wouldn't notice that kind of activity in my woods? Didn't think I would catch you before you could lure an innocent civilian into your world?"
The wisps bobbed away from him, headed into the trees.
"Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you. You know how dangerous Arkadia is to people from this realm. You could kill them if you get them to cross and they're not prepared for what's on the other side."
The wisp drifted further away from him before winking out of existence.
He looked at the ground near where the wisps had disappeared and sure enough there was a perfect little stone ring, the largest of the rocks marked with a small carving. He knelt and picked the offending stone, dropping it in his pocket before kicking the other stones to disrupt the circle. "Goddamn, faeries," he muttered. "Why have you been so much more active than normal? Creating new gateways, changing their locations. You never gave my mom this much trouble. I'm lucky I only have to keep an eye on this forest. I hope you're not giving all the other gatekeepers out there this much trouble…if there are other gates and gatekeepers."
Bellamy shook his head and continued on his survey of the land. Several hundred feet later he bent down to pick up a plastic water bottle. "Goddamn people, too. This is a forest preserve, not your personal trashcan."
"Hey, Bell. How was work?" Octavia called as he walked into their home.
"Same old, same old," he called back. "Faerie rings and wisps making trouble. And, of course, people not respecting the trail."
She groaned in response. "Couldn't you at least try to make it sound interesting? This town is so boring. You'd think being right near a gateway to another world would make it interesting, but nope. Boring as you could get."
He laughed as he plopped down onto the couch next to her and ruffled her hair. "Talk to me, oh greatest of muses. Aid me in telling the story of my day," he began dramatically.
Octavia shoved him. "God, you're such a dork."
"What? You used to love me reading you the classical epics. They all start with an invocation of the muses. I thought it would help you be more interested in my day."
"I have no idea how I'm related to you."
"I was there the day you were born. I can assure you that we are related."
"Sure, but who's to say you weren't dropped on mom's doorstep as a baby and she just felt bad for your crying, pudgy face and took you in? There's no one who can prove that that's not true."
He shrugged. "Either way, you're still stuck with me."
"Ugh. It sucks to be me," she teased. "Well, not brother, I got us burgers from the diner after my shift. They're in the fridge if you want dinner."
Bellamy got up from the couch, pausing when he was standing behind where Octavia sat to ruffle her hair again. "What would I do without you?"
She squawked indignantly and tried to pat down her hair. "Warm up my hamburger, too," she demanded.
"And why would I do that for someone who isn't my sister?" he yelled from the kitchen.
"Because you love me anyway!"
"Eh. Only sometimes."
"Same to you," came the reply from Octavia as she entered the kitchen and situated herself at the breakfast bar across the counter from him.
He got out plates and the burgers and threw them both in the microwave. "Shit, I almost forgot," he muttered to himself, fishing the carved stone out of his pocket and dropping it into the jar of similar stones on the window sill.
"Another one?"
He shook his head. "I don't understand it either. I swear there have been more improvised gates popping up, the mushroom rings and stone circles. I've been finding at least two every week. And the wisps? Don't even get me started. There were three of them the other day."
"You saw three in one day?" she asked, astonished.
"Not just three in a day. Three of them together. And of all people, they were trying to lure Clarke into one of the rings."
Panic flashed briefly across his sister's face. "Shit. Why her?"
Bellamy shrugged, "You know Clarke, she's always wandering on the trails. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm just pissed I didn't find that faerie ring before she almost stepped in it."
"You almost let my best friend get sent to Arkadia?" Octavia's voice raised an octave with the accusation.
"I stopped her before it happened. Would have tackled her to the ground if she had gotten any closer."
Octavia's demeanor abruptly changed as she burst out laughing. "I would pay to see her reaction to that." She chuckled to herself once more, "I can imagine the black eye you'd be sporting. You wouldn't be able to give her a reason and that'd make her even more pissed." She shook herself out of her dream world of Clarke beating on Bellamy. "And the main gate? Anything there? I haven't sensed anything approaching it. Not like Mom said we would."
"I haven't either. And whenever I got to check on it, nothing seems out of the ordinary."
"This is a sucky ass job we inherited. There's no one to even explain what's going on and Mom was always rather tight-lipped about Arkadia."
Bellamy barely withheld his scoff at her use of "we." Bellamy had been gatekeeping since he was eighteen. Octavia had barely put any interest in helping, even after their mom had passed.
"I saw that face, Bellamy. Don't think I didn't. I keep an eye out for things when I go on my runs."
"Yeah, and that's about it," he grumbled.
"What is there really to do? Destroy the mushroom circles when you see them? You just said you only see one maybe twice a week and that's up from normal. With your job you're already patrolling the forest; there's no point in me doing the same."
Bellamy fished the plate out of the microwave and pushed the burger over to his sister. "I said, at least twice a week. That stone," he jerked his head toward the jar, "it's from the fourth circle I've come across in as many days."
"You're just blaming me because it's my fault we're gatekeepers," she mumbled, taking a bite out of her burger.
He heaved a sigh and went to the seat next to her. "You know it's not your fault; you had no control over your getting sick. Mom's the one who went to the fae and made the deal." He pulled her into a sideways hug. "You know I'd rather be stuck with this responsibility and still have you here any day, even if the job is getting harder and more confusing."
Octavia gave him a tight smile. "And there's no way to get in contact with anyone and ask what's up with all the faerie rings popping up?"
"If there is, Mom never told me it."
"One of us could go through the veil and find the fae and ask," she perked up a little bit. This was something she would bring up every once in a while ever since she found out the truth of where they were born.
"That was one thing Mom did tell us: do not under any circumstances cross through the veil unless it's one-hundred percent necessary. And even then think twice before you do."
"But aren't you curious? It's this whole different world. It's where we were born. And Mom barely even talked about it."
Bellamy tried to think back to his own memories, but they were fuzzy at best, a snippet here, and afternoon there; four-year-olds don't have the best memory. "Maybe it was hard for her. She wanted to separate what she had then from what we had here? She told us we shouldn't go back—we couldn't go back, so she didn't want us to know too much about it?"
Octavia huffed a laugh. "Her not telling us just makes me want to know more. I've never dealt well with mysteries."
"Oh, I know. You sneak a peek at your Christmas presents every year no matter what hiding place I find."
"Maybe you just need better hiding spots," she grinned.
Bellamy shook his head, returning the grin. "I thought I had it last year with the old boxes in the garage. You hate going in the garage."
"Not when there are presents involved. Plus, you kept bragging I wouldn't find them, so I had to."
"Ah, the only thing more likely to get you riled up than a mystery is a challenge. I should have known better." The two dissolved into laughter. Their previous conversation left behind.
It was a little over two weeks later when he was driving to the preserve to go on his hike/checkup on the trails when he caught sight of a wisp. He slammed on his breaks. Wisps usually kept to the depths of the trees, what was one doing so close to the edge of the forest? He pulled his car into the nearest driveway, not looking where he was. He knew everyone in town. No one would mind.
Getting out of the car, he started trekking toward the back of the house and the line of trees. It was only when he saw the extensive garden that he realized exactly where he was. Did the wisps have it out for Clarke or something? There were the three of them trying to entice her a couple weeks ago, and now one basically in her backyard? An unsettling feeling began to form in his gut. It only worsened when he spotted a perfect circle of mushrooms just twenty feet into the trees. He rushed forward and circling around the outside, began to kick the mushrooms aside, breaking the circle. Looking up, the wisp was nowhere to be found.
"Hey, Ranger Rick! Why you tromping through my backyard?" Clarke's voice called him out of his concerned musings.
He coughed and turned to look more closely at the garden and spotted the head of blonde among the azaleas. "Thought I saw something."
"It's just been me and the garden since I came out here. Though I did hear a couple bicyclists earlier in the morning," she teased. "Are you on the lookout for some off-trail bicyclists? Because I'm pretty sure they could out-pedal your run."
"Ha. Ha. You're so funny."
Her brow furrowed for a second. "Do you want coffee or something? You seem a little flustered. Did you not get enough sleep?"
He debated for a second. But his mind was still racing with worries about the increasing frequency of the gateways. He swore he found a new one almost every day last week. But with the one literally fifty feet from someone's house? Something was definitely different. He just wished he knew why that was. "Do you have any tea? That might be better." Calm me down a bit, he added in his head.
"Yeah. Of course," Clarke smiled, getting up from where she was kneeling and leading him into her house.
"I have a blackberry sage black tea, a honey ginseng green, and a peach blossom oolong," she told him as she began to fill the kettle with water and place it on the stove.
"The blackberry sage sounds good."
She rummaged through the cupboards and pulled down a tin before gesturing to her small table. He took a seat and waited in stilted silence until she sat across from him, leaning forward on her arms. "So, what's up? Did Octavia mention wanting to get out of Bridgewater? Is that why you're upset? I told her you wouldn't have a problem with it, but she seemed adamant about staying."
Bellamy shook his head. He was about to deny it, but realized it wasn't like he could tell her his actual worries.
She took his silence as confirmation. "Seriously, Bellamy? She's twenty-three years old. She can make her own decisions. You can't tell me you don't see how restless she is living in this town; it's too small for her. She deserves to go out into the big wide world and figure out who she wants to be."
Bellamy opened his mouth, about to retort. Clarke cut him off before he could.
"No. Don't say anything. You know I'm right. She can't keep working at the diner forever; she'll drive herself insane."
Bellamy couldn't help but smirk at Clarke's overprotective side. He remembered when she had used it for Octavia when the two of them were still in elementary school. It was good to see that Octavia had someone else who cared about her as much as he did. He just didn't need this protectiveness directed at him, especially over something he already felt guilty about. Clarke was right. This town was too small for Octavia.
"I'm not the one saying she can't leave this town. There are other things in play here that neither of us have control over."
Clarke took a deep, aggravated breath. "What is with your family and being cryptic about weird things? I've known you for almost twenty years and you're both still close-mouthed about why your family lives in Bridgewater, saying you can't leave. What? Your ancestors take a blood oath to protect the land?"
Bellamy snorted. She had no idea how close she was to the truth. "If we're so close-mouthed about it, it's for a reason," he replied aloud. "Like you said, you've known us for nearly twenty years, you should probably know that it's none of your business by now." Clarke looked like she was about to put her fighting face on; she always was quick to argue. "Look, maybe I should just go," he said, standing up.
Clarke shook her head. He could read her exasperation in the movement. She just wanted what was best for her friend and she couldn't understand what the problem was. "I'll lend you a travel mug," she told him, moving to where the kettle had just begun to whistle.
She wordlessly poured the tea and plopped into a spoonful of sugar and two tea bags, nice and strong, just the way he liked it. She handed it to him, quietly saying, "I'm sorry I snapped at you."
"I don't think you've ever apologized for that before," he huffed a laugh.
Her face pinched for a moment before she relaxed it. "There are certain topics I've learned I shouldn't push with you and your sister. That's one of them."
"Thanks for the tea," he said as he saluted her with the mug and headed toward the front door.
"Anytime."
Early the next morning, he headed in the direction of the main gateway. When he and Octavia had been watching TV the night before, he had felt a sudden rush of something run through him and he just knew it had something to do with the veil. Octavia had immediately looked at him with a wide-eyed gaze. "That was something to do with the main gate, right? You felt that, too?"
Bellamy had nodded.
"So, like someone's approaching it from the other side? Should we go out and wait? Intercept them? I vaguely remember that happening once with Mom."
"No. She had been antsy all day leading up to that. She said she could feel someone coming towards it. This was just a sudden blip."
"Maybe one of the wisps was by it. You do say sometimes you feel something from them, too."
It hadn't taken them long to decide to go check it out. They were the gatekeepers after all. But they had felt the blip near dusk, and between the darkness by the time they reached the site, and the light rain that was pitter-pattering down, they had given up on finding anything after an hour of searching and called it a night.
Now, in the light of day he was on his way back with strict instructions from Octavia to text or call the minute he found something. From the moment he left the path, he scoured the ground for any clues. There were plenty of footprints, sure. But he and his sister had crisscrossed the entire area three dozen times the night before.
He growled his frustrations. Something happened last night. He knew it. Octavia knew it, too. But he just couldn't see any evidence of it. Then a thought occurred to him. The small gates, the rings of mushrooms and stones, maybe it had something to do with one of those. Maybe he had missed one yesterday. He returned to the main trail and began trekking down it, keeping his eyes peeled, a nagging feeling leading him in the direction of Clarke's house.
He had destroyed that ring though. He had never seen one pop up in the same place twice. His steps picked up pace. Eventually he saw her house through the trees and went to inspect the area of the mushroom ring. Sure enough, it was in the exact state he had left it, broken and destroyed. He let go of a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
That was until he spotted a trail of small, booted footprints leading into the woods from Clarke's backyard. There were no tracks headed back to the house. He quickly followed the footprints in the still soft mud. They wandered on the trail for a good quarter mile before they veered off into the trees.
With a sinking feeling, he followed them. Then in the mud, just outside a perfect ring of stones, the footprints ended mid-step, leading directly into the circle. His heart was in his throat. That blip he and Octavia had felt, it could have been someone passing through a gateway. It would only take a second for someone to do that. One second for the gatekeepers to feel something off.
He turned and sprinted back up the path toward Clarke's house and didn't even bother to knock before he tried the door. It swung open, slamming into the wall with force. "Clarke!" he screamed. "Clarke! Are you home?"
He ran from room to room, shouting her name as he threw open doors and closets. He even looked under the bed. "Goddamnit, Clarke," he muttered. "Please for the love of all things good in this world and the others, please just be out somewhere in town."
He yanked his phone out of his pocket. Clarke or Octavia? Clarke or Octavia? He pressed dial over Clarke's name. One last stitch of hope before he panicked his sister. "Pick up, pick up, pick up," he muttered, bringing the phone to his ear.
"Hi! You've reached Clarke Griffin. Sorry I can't take your call right now. But if you leave your name and number, I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a good day!"
Bellamy growled his frustrations at being sent straight to voicemail. He held his phone in his hand and hesitated over Octavia's name. She was already on edge with not knowing what they had felt the night before. And he knew, he just knew that Clarke had crossed through the gateway. He should have seen it coming with the three wisps luring her away. And then the ring literally in her backyard. But he had been an overconfident idiot who thought he had it under control. He fought the urge to throw his phone against the wall. Octavia would literally murder him if she found out he didn't call her as soon as he discovered Clarke's disappearance. He hit dial.
She picked up halfway through the second ring. "What'd you find?" she demanded, not even bothering with a greeting.
"Please. Please tell me you've seen or talked to Clarke at some point today."
There was silence on the other end of the line, before he heard it clattering to the floor. He was going to take that as a "no."