Chapter 124: 98. Unanswered Questions

"Hey you two, hop in!" Melody said from behind the wheel of her compact car.

I settled into the passenger seat while Nina sat behind me, then as soon as we were ready the shape-shifter pulled out and set off to our next stop.

We were more than a week into April, it was a Saturday afternoon and it felt like spring had finally arrived. And now that the weather was nicer we were finally going to have another look at that cave. Or at least, some of us were. Melody wanted to see it for herself, even if her boyfriend thought it might be dangerous. And both Cerys and Melanie wanted to go back again, so me and Nina agreed to go with them.

Actually I realized it was all the supernaturals in the club who were going, while the three human girls were staying home. Which maybe made sense in a way, like if there was some danger or something the humans were more fragile and more likely to get hurt. Which felt kind of weird when I thought about it like that.

A couple minutes later we pulled up to a stop in front of Melanie's place. The two wolfgirls were waiting out front, but what really caught my attention was the for-sale sign on the lawn next to the driveway.

As Cerys and Melanie climbed into the back I asked, "When did they put up that sign?"

"Just yesterday," Melanie replied. From her voice I could tell she was upset about it, with good reason. She pointed out two other for-sale signs in front of nearby houses, "Apparently our landlord owns a few of these, and he's put them all up for sale."

"That sucks," Melody frowned as she looked back at the two werewolfs. "Is there anything you and your dad can do?"

The older wolfgirl sounded grumpy as she replied, "Not really. Dad tried to buy the house himself, he was looking at mortgages online? Apparently the mortgage would have been like half what he's paying in rent, so he thought it was a no-brainer. Except turns out the bank won't give him a mortgage."

"They gave him some crap reason," she added, as her tone got more angry. "Like because his recent work history is all over the place and because we only moved to Ontario less than two years ago and stuff. Like he can obviously afford it, he's been paying twice that in rent for all this time? But no, it's like they'd rather give a mortgage to some rich guy who doesn't need it. So right now our best bet is another landlord buys the place, then we just have to hope the new guy doesn't raise the rent too much."

Nina frowned, "That's so unfair!"

"That's banks for you," Melody said with a scowl as we started moving again. She glanced back at the werewolfs again and added, "How are you and your dad holding up?"

Melanie sighed, "The whole thing's been really stressful for my dad. Same with the divorce stuff? He finally signed the papers last week and sent them back to the lawyer, so that's going to be finalized soon. I already told y'all my mom's completely disowned me, now her and dad's marriage will be officially over so she'll be rid of him too."

I asked, "How are you handling that? And um, how are things between you and your dad?"

"The stuff with my mom sucks," she stated in another angry tone. "I already knew she didn't want anything to do with me, I guess it's not that surprising she's moved on and turned her back on dad as well. As for me and my dad..."

Her voice trailed off for a few moments, then she sighed again. "My two-year anniversary of becoming a werewolf was a couple days ago. Dad's never been comfortable with any of that stuff, I think the only reason he never kicked me out or abandoned me like mom did was because he knew I didn't choose it. But me and him barely ever talk, and when we do talk it's usually just superficial stuff."

"Maybe this thing with the house will be it?" she added with a frown. "Maybe he'll go find himself a something on his own, and leave me and Cerys to fend for ourselves? I don't really know anymore. I'm pretty sure he still doesn't know Cerys is a wolf now, but if he found out that'd probably be the last straw. So I really don't know what's going to happen."

"I sure hope things turn out ok for all of you," Melody stated. "You deserve some good luck and good news for a change."

We all agreed with that assessment. Then Nina asked, "Cerys have you heard anything else from your mom?"

The blonde wolfgirl sounded upset and bitter as she replied, "She hasn't sold her house yet, but she's still trying to move out east. There's more going on, but I don't want to talk about it. Sorry."

My little sister shook her head, "You don't have to apologize Cerys. I'm sorry for bringing up an upsetting subject."

We were all quiet for the rest of the drive, until we were almost there. Melody made the turn onto Third Line then asked, "Someone will have to tell me when we're at the right spot, ok? Since you four have already been there."

"It's just up ahead on the left," Cerys responded. She had the GPS app on her phone and she had the coordinates saved on there, so she could find the cave again.

A minute or so later the car was parked on the side of the road and we were getting ready to head into the woods. Melanie had her backpack over one shoulder, and Melody pulled a small backpack out of her car's tiny trunk. The rest of us just had our purses, but we were all ready for a hike in the woods. Everyone was wearing boots and jeans. I had a light jacket over my hoodie, Melanie was in her usual leather jacket, Cerys had a cute jean jacket on over a hoodie, and both Nina and Melody wore warm jackets too.

The weather was ok, we had some clouds but it wasn't raining or anything. The ground was still really wet and squishy in places though, and it was obvious we were all going to get muddy and dirty.

The two werewolfs led the way, Cerys was still following the GPS in her phone while Melanie was either going from scent or memory. And like last time the older wolf switched to her wolfgirl form as soon as we were away from the road.

"So this isn't illegal is it?" Melody asked at one point. "I mean, we're not trespassing or anything, as far as I could tell?"

Cerys shook her head, "It's a nature reserve, but it's public land. There's designated hiking trails all through it. As long as we don't start cutting down trees or deliberately messing with nature we're cool."

Speaking of cool, there were still patches of snow here and there, even though it was the ninth of April. They were mostly in the lower areas or sheltered spots though, where the sun couldn't reach them. Which meant we didn't have to walk through any, but we did have to be careful regardless since the ground was very slippery in some places. Going up and down the hilly parts was the most treacherous.

Despite all that I didn't think it would take us that long to find the cave again, but it was still almost forty-five minutes before we got to the right area. Then it took us another five minutes or so to locate the cave entrance. There was a bit of snow just inside the cave, and the area around it was muddy.

"This is it," Melanie stated. "That rotting fruit smell is still here, but it's really faint. Like weeks old. If there really is some offering back there, it probably hasn't been touched since the last time we were here."

Melody opened up her backpack and got out a funny-looking flashlight with straps and stuff, that she put on her head like you'd see on a miner's helmet. She also had a second hand-held light, and finally she took out some kind of fancy camera, the kind with interchangeable lenses and stuff.

Cerys and Melanie also had flashlights, the blonde wolf was carrying a small but bright light, while the older wolf had more of a lantern that cast all around rather than being focused like a spotlight.

The shape-shifter took several pictures of the cave entrance, and the area around the cave. Like the slope of the hill, the trees, all that kind of thing. We also had a close look at all the trees in the area, for any sign of cameras or anything like that. None of us could find anything though, so we figured it was safe.

Then when we were all ready we crouched down and started making our way inside.

The wolfgirls were in the lead, Melody was behind them, and Nina and me were at the back. And all five of us stopped as soon as we got to the first set of runes. We all gathered around, and with a couple proper flashlights pointed at them we got a much better look at the markings.

"There's something growing in these," Melody announced as she leaned in for a closer look. "I think it's some kind of lichen? I'm positive that means the markings aren't new or recent. Like I'm pretty sure they'd have to have been here at least a year, for something to be growing in them like this?"

She took several pictures, including some close-ups and some from further back. The shape-shifter even used a pocket knife to scrape out some samples of whatever was growing in the runes. She had a couple zip-lock bags in her backpack, the little black flecks she got out of the stone markings went into one of them then back into her pack.

As she did all that she said, "I don't know for sure we'll be able to find out what this stuff is, but I'm going to give it to my boyfriend Craig. He's attending a natural sciences college and he might know someone who can analyze or identify it. That might give us an idea how long the runes have been there."

"Cool," Cerys grinned. "The Wiccan stuff was a little further into the cave."

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Once again the two wolfgirls led the way. Melody snapped a few more pictures of the cave walls and ceiling and stuff as we walked, then we all stopped and gathered around at the next location. There were a couple faint chalk markings on the stone, but someone had done a good job of erasing most of them.

"Dang," Melanie frowned as we all looked at the mostly-blank cave wall.

Cerys crouched down, "There's still wax down here. More than there was the first time. The eggshells are gone though."

"Maybe our mystery witch cleaned up after himself?" Melody suggested.

Melanie frowned, "If so then why not clean up after himself the first time around?"

I responded, "Maybe whatever he was doing was finished at the last full moon? Maybe he actually invoked Hecate?"

That left everyone quiet for a few moments, until Nina asked the two wolfgirls "Can you find a scent maybe, from the person who did the rituals?"

Melanie leaned closer and sniffed at the cave wall, then crouched down and sniffed near the wax, before she finally shook her head. "It's been too long, and there's some other scents covering any human scent here. All I'm getting is some kind of floral thing, from the wax. Is that a thing, do Wiccans usually use scented candles?"

Cerys shrugged, "It's possible, modern Wicca is pretty casual about stuff like that. If our mystery Wiccan thought using scented candles would help with his rites there's no reason not to use them."

She crouched down as well and sniffed at the wax before announcing, "I'm no expert on flowers, but I want to say lavender maybe?"

"Is lavender important to Hecate?" I asked. "The ritual was an invocation to her."

"The first one was an invocation to her," Cerys pointed out. "We have no idea what ritual was done at the last full moon, since the markings are gone now."

Melanie frowned, "I didn't pay attention to the smell of the wax last time. I'm not even sure I noticed it had a scent? The rotting-fruit smell was stronger on our first visit, that might have been enough to distract me from the wax."

"Same," the blonde wolf agreed. "I don't remember any human scents last time, other than from our friends who were here with us."

Meanwhile Melody was down on her knees next to the wax. She had her pocket knife out again, and she used it to pry up several samples. That went into another one of her zip-lock bags. Then she got back up, and took a bunch more pictures of the spot with her fancy camera.

After that the five of us started moving again, going even deeper into the cave. We were moving a lot more slowly though, and we were all really quiet as we watched and listened for anything unusual.

We followed the cave as it turned slightly to the left, and it was definitely sloping downwards. A quick glance back revealed we couldn't see the entrance anymore, which actually made me a little nervous for some reason.

"Hold up here," Cerys said. "Those weird footprints we found should be right here."

Melanie agreed, "We were careful to go around them, but I'm not seeing anything now."

All the flashlights were pointed at the cave floor. It was kind of rough and rugged most of the way in, but there was a smooth bit that would have been good for catching prints. Except there was nothing there now. Melody crouched down for a closer look, and discovered there wasn't even any dust there.

"So that's weird," the shape-shifter commented. "It's like someone cleaned up the dust?"

Cerys frowned, "Very weird. Let's keep going, I want to find out what made that strange noise last time."

It was hard to get a feel for how far we'd gone, but the cave started to turn back to the right again. It was still sloped downwards, and it was getting smaller which made it feel even more cramped. After another ten minutes or so our exploration came to an abrupt end, as we found what looked like a fairly recent roof collapse. A huge pile of rock, gravel, sand, and mud blocked our way.

"Ok this is why Craig said cave diving would be dangerous here," Melody stated. "I think we need to back away from this, we have no idea if the roof above us is stable or not."

The two wolfgirls were both frowning at the pile of debris, and Cerys definitely looked like she wanted to try and push through it somehow. There was no way though, it filled the entire cave from side to side and up to the ceiling. Even if we had shovels or something it would be too dangerous to try and get through it.

So we took a few pictures of the cave-in, then we all turned around and started slowly making our way back out. Melody took a few more pictures along the way, but we didn't waste too much time. Soon enough the five of us emerged from the cave, and we all straightened up and stretched our backs and necks after being crouched over for so long.

"Well that was disappointing," the blonde werewolf stated as we began the hike back out to the car.

Melody agreed, "I wonder if the noise you heard last time was the cave-in? Or something that led to the cave-in? Like rocks cracking or shifting maybe."

Cerys shrugged, "Maybe. I'm no expert, maybe it was a natural sound. If a crack opened up that might explain the wind we felt. Like instead of a secret door opening, maybe that's all it was."

The blonde wolf added with a sigh, "I hate that we're basically giving up though? We usually solve all our incidents, but it feels we're going to have to leave this one open."

"We don't even know for sure it is an incident," Melanie pointed out. "Maybe just a bunch of coincidences and a couple hunches."

I reminded her, "Someone sent Brooke those weird texts. And there was someone doing rituals to Hecate in there. I think it's definitely an incident, we just don't know where to start looking."

"Right," Cerys agreed. "We have a whole bunch of questions, and it feels like every time we come out here we end up with even more questions. But none of them have answers. So as far as I'm concerned, this incident is open and unresolved."

The five of us were quiet for a bit after that, until Melody asked "Why do you refer to these things as incidents? I'm not complaining, just curious. Why not investigations, or occurrences, or sightings, or something like that?"

The two wolfgirls exchanged a glance, then they both grinned.

"It's a Touhou thing," the young blonde explained with a wide smile. "When there's trouble in Gensokyo it's referred to as an Incident. I started using the term for Club Luna investigations a year or two ago, and eventually it stuck."

That left me and Nina smiling too. I had no idea it was a Touhou term or that Cerys was the one who got the rest of the club to use it, but it totally fit. More than that though, it was nice to see her smiling and talking about one of her old interests again.

And as far as I was concerned, that was more rewarding than resolving the incident of a mysterious cave.

~ End of Episode Twelve ~