Chapter 175: 137. Feeling Useless

After lunch the first thing we did was check the notebook. It didn't have Rick Kovacs' name in it, but what we found inside definitely sounded like the stuff he was studying.

There were observations about the landscape in the nature preserve, with words and phrases like 'glacial till moraine' and 'shale' and 'dolomite caprock' underlined. There was a sketch of the cave mouth, annotated with details like measurements of the entrance and what kind of rock could be observed from the outside. Next to that were some observations about the cave's location partway down the side of a ravine, and comments on how improbable that was for this kind of terrain.

Then there were some drawings of the mysterious runes, along with more notes about the kind of rock they were carved into and details about the lichens growing on the rock and in the runes. That led to a bunch more notes about lichonometry, and some numbers and rough calculations that had been scribbled out.

In addition to the geology and stuff there were also a lot of funny little notes and comments in the margins of the page. They mostly seemed obsessed with rhyming words, like there was a thing about how 'terrain' rhymed with 'moraine' and a dozen rhyming options for 'till'. There was even a little complaint about how 'glacial' and 'fluvial' should rhyme but didn't really work when you put them together.

Overall we couldn't say for sure the notebook belonged to Rick, but the technical stuff definitely sounded like his area of study. And we figured someone familiar with him and his handwriting could probably confirm if the notebook was his.

After that we all split up to focus on different tasks.

Kaylee took the broken camera into our bedroom to examine it and the memory card, to see if she could get anything useful out of it. Sasha asked my sister to help her with something, so the two of them went into my cousin's bedroom to deal with that. And Cerys followed Willow into her room to see if they could access that 'dark web' stuff the sorceress told us about. Our club leader was hoping that might lead to some more information regarding the cave or the strange runes.

That left me and Melanie, and the two of us stayed in the living-room. Cerys gave me the baggie with the key-ring, and I needed to try and scry with that. It wouldn't be like when I was searching for Kaylee way back when she'd been kidnapped by Mrs. Reeves, this would be more like clairvoyance. I'd be attempting to get a visual impression of the person who owned the keys, along with a look at the immediate area wherever they were.

"Thanks for what you said earlier," the werewolf said once the two of us were alone. "I appreciate it Cass."

"You're welcome," I replied as I gave her a weak smile, before my attention drifted back to the baggie with the keys in it.

Melanie watched me for a few seconds, then offered "Anything I can do to help?"

"Not really," I grimaced. "Thanks for asking though."

She gave me a worried look, "Are you going to be ok? I get the feeling you don't really want to do this?"

I sighed and shook my head, "Not really. I'm afraid of what I'll see? If this works it'll let me see him, wherever he is and whatever condition he's in."

"Ah," she frowned. "And odds are he's dead, which means you'll have to see that."

"Yeah," I nodded.

We were both quiet for the next minute or so, while I stared at the plastic baggie. I didn't make any move to open it up though, I just left it sitting on the coffee table for now.

Eventually Melanie asked, "So I've got no idea how this stuff works, and I really hope this isn't offensive or anything Cass? But I was wondering, if you don't want to do this maybe Cassandra could do it instead?"

"I uh, get the impression she's less sensitive than you. About this sort of thing?" she added.

I grimaced again, "Maybe? I um, I'd rather not talk about that right now. Sorry Melanie."

She shook her head, "No need to apologize Cass. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"It's ok," I shrugged slightly.

The two of us were quiet again for a bit, as I continued staring at that little zip-lock bag. I had something else on my mind though. Now that her name had been mentioned I was thinking about Cassandra again.

I still hadn't tried to talk to her or anything, I'd mostly been trying not to think of her since the therapy session on Wednesday. Melanie asking about her like that left me wondering how much the wolfgirl knew about my other self. Kaylee seemed to think me and Cassandra were the same person, but the way Mel asked about her left me thinking she saw not-me as someone separate.

After another minute or two I finally looked at the wolfgirl and asked, "Do you know her? Cassandra, I mean? Have you... I don't know, have you met her or something? Or is it just that one time at Nina's party?"

Melanie frowned as she watched me for a couple seconds. Then she replied quietly, "She introduced herself to me and Cerys back in May? The day you... The day she got us the house. It was Friday afternoon before the long weekend, you and Nina and Kaylee went home after school but me and Cerys came here? I wanted to see if the new owners had moved in. And we found you... We found Cassandra here waiting for us."

My eyes widened at first, then I frowned. I had no memories of any of that, but I knew roughly when it happened.

She was still watching me, and she asked quietly "You don't remember huh?"

"No," I whispered as I shook my head.

The wolfgirl sighed, "I'm sorry Cass. It sounds scary and freaky and weird, and I wish there was something I could do to help. Maybe you should talk with your moms about this? They might know what to do."

"Yeah," I nodded slowly. "They're trying to help. It's hard though."

She watched me for another couple seconds, then moved closer and gave me a brief hug. "If there's anything I can do just ask, ok? After everything you've done for me and Cerys, I'll do whatever I can to help. I mean it."

"Thanks Melanie," I mumbled as I felt my eyes starting to sting a bit. I ended up wiping them as I sniffed once or twice, then I asked her "You said that's when you first met her, when she told you about the house?"

The wolfgirl sighed, "Yeah. She introduced herself to me and Cerys, she even told us how she was separate from you? Then she asked us both to keep that secret from you. She said it was for your own peace of mind."

Before I could respond she apologized, "I'm really sorry Cass. The whole thing reminded me of May Hawthorne, like suddenly there was another goddess asking me to keep secrets from you, about important stuff that directly concerned you. It rubbed me the wrong way, but..."

"It's ok Melanie," I told her. My voice was still quiet and I still felt really emotional as I said, "I forgive you. And Cerys too. I don't blame you for staying quiet. And um, she was probably right? I probably wouldn't have handled it any better if I'd known this stuff sooner."

Then I added, "And I'm sorry too, ok? I'm sorry she put you and Cerys in that position. It wasn't fair of her to ask you to keep that secret."

The werewolf shrugged slightly, "It's ok Cass."

We were both quiet again for a couple seconds, and I ended up wiping my eyes once more. Then I asked, "Have you seen her any other times?"

"Yeah," she nodded slowly. "Some of this is like, guesswork? But I'm positive she's been around since long before she introduced herself. The first time I can remember seeing her was when Mr. Ainsley..."

She hesitated for a second then told me, "I'm pretty sure Cassandra's the one who killed him. Not you. I didn't know that at the time, but that's one of the first times I can remember you acted like her. It's happened a lot since then? Enough that I started to notice it, like at club meetings or whenever. I can usually spot when it's her, but I didn't actually know what I was seeing until she introduced herself."

By the time she finished my emotions were all over the place. I felt sad, scared, confused, even a bit angry. And I wanted to deny what she was saying, but I couldn't. I had to wipe my eyes a few more times, then Melanie got up and grabbed a box of tissues. She set it down on the coffee table for me and I mumbled a quiet thanks as I took one. Mostly though I was just doing my best not to start crying or anything.

"Sorry," I mumbled after blowing my nose and wiping my eyes again. "I must look like a pretty useless demon goddess? Being so shy and timid all the time, and breaking down crying over nothing."

Melanie shook her head slowly, "It's not nothing Cass. You're going through stuff the rest of us can't understand, and that's on top of all the other stuff you've gone through in the past year or two? You're a lot tougher than you give yourself credit for."

I gave her a sad smile, "Thanks Melanie. I guess I may as well do this scrying thing. Get it over with so I don't have to stress about it anymore."

"All right," she replied. "I'm here for you if you need me."

"Thanks," I said again.

Then I took a deep breath and picked up the baggie. I opened it up and carefully pulled out the key-ring. After another breath or two I closed my eyes as I held it in my hand and started to concentrate.

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The particular scrying spell I was using wasn't anything that fancy or complicated. The magic would go from me through the keys, then seek out their owner. That would link me to the person, and the magic would allow me to see them and their immediate surroundings. It could take a bit of power depending on how strong or weak the bond was between the keys and their owner, but I figured house or car keys were the sort of thing people would have a good connection to. Not that power was a concern for me anyways, not for a simple scrying spell.

It only took a couple seconds for the image to come through. I saw rock and darkness, the interior of a cave. My view of the cave shifted as I tried to change my perspective and look around. I wasn't sure what part of the cave I was seeing, but I had to assume it was somewhere further in than we'd got when we were there earlier. I continued to slowly look around, I meant to do a full three-sixty turn, but halfway through I let out a gasp and dropped the keys which killed the spell.

"Are you ok?" Melanie asked, as she picked up the key-ring and put it back in the baggie.

I sighed, "I'm ok. I uh, saw something that startled me so I broke the spell."

"It was a bones," I added quietly. "And I think they were human."

"Crud," Melanie sighed as well.

After a second or two she asked, "Anything I can do to help?"

I sighed again, then sort of slumped over towards her just enough that she got the message. She gave me another hug, and I ended up leaning my head against her shoulder.

"Thanks Melanie," I mumbled. "It's not so much about what I saw, as everything else we were talking about earlier."

"It's ok Cass. I get it," the wolfgirl replied quietly.

She ended up holding me like that for another ten or fifteen minutes, and it was probably a little awkward but it actually helped a lot. Things got a bit more awkward when Cerys and Willow came into the living-room and found me and Melanie still cuddling like that. And to make it even weirder Kaylee was right behind them.

Fortunately neither the blonde werewolf or my kitsune girlfriend were jealous. They could probably tell just from looking that I got upset and Melanie was comforting me. Still, the two of us moved apart once our other friends arrived. There was a bit of a shuffle, and the two wolfgirls ended up cuddling together on one of the big cozy recliners while Kaylee snuggled up close against my side on the sofa.

"How'd the scrying go?" Cerys asked me. "Did you get anything?"

I nodded, "Yeah, I guess. Do you want me to tell you now, or should we wait for Sasha and Nina?"

Our club leader decided to wait, but we didn't have to wait long. It was only another couple minutes before our last two club members emerged from Sasha's room. My cousin had her laptop in hand as she and Nina came and joined Willow on the other sofa.

"I take it everyone else is done now?" Sasha asked. "Is it time to compare notes?"

Cerys nodded, "Yeah. How about you go first?"

The fallen goddess nodded, "Very well. I was doing a sort of scrying, to locate any ley lines in the area? I thought since Willow mentioned that cave was supposed to be a convergence there should be at least two of them, and I expected the cave would be the point where the two lines crossed."

"Nina helped me with the scrying, and better still she was able to use my computer to create a graphic representation of what we found," she added as she opened up her laptop.

As we all took a look at the screen Nina said, "The green pin is the cave's location, and the pink pin is the house here."

"Wow," Cerys frowned. "Ok, so that kind of explains why this area's so popular with supernaturals, right?"

There were a total of seven lines drawn on the map, all of them seemed to originate at the cave. Two of the lines passed on either side of our town, and a third line went straight through the middle of town. In fact that third line appeared to pass awfully close to where our clubhouse was located.

"That's correct Cerys," Sasha nodded. "The actual lines aren't so noticeable unless you're searching for them, but supernaturals will likely find this area feels like a nice place to be, simply because of how easily and readily magic flows here."

"What's that mean for the cave then?" Willow asked. "Shouldn't supernaturals be flocking to it? If there's seven lines all joined up there it must be amazing."

Melanie responded, "It's too much of a good thing, right? It crosses over from feeling good to feeling creepy or unpleasant."

Sasha nodded again, "That's correct Melanie. That's probably why the area immediately around the cave wasn't settled, especially to the south and west. That's why it was available as a nature preserve, it was likely never farmed. Ironically the only people who'd be comfortable living too close to it would be those who were especially insensitive to magic and the supernatural."

That seemed to be all my cousin had to say, so Cerys took over again. "Thanks Sasha and Nina. Kaylee, did you get anything out of the camera?"

My girlfriend replied, "Yeah. I spent some time on the phone with Paige, she helped out with some details. I got a few dozen pictures off the memory card, and I was able to access the camera's internal storage and settings."

She let go of me as she got up, then turned on our big TV and plugged a USB drive into a port on the side. It took a few moments then she got the images up on the screen. She used the remote control to start paging through the shots, but we all recognized them as they flipped past.

There were photos of the cave entrance and the ravine, of trees, that sort of thing. Then we got pictures from just inside the cave, the walls, floor and ceiling. More shots of those strange runes carved into the wall, including close-ups of the lichen and the carvings. Finally there were a bunch more shots from deeper in the cave.

There had to be at least fifty or sixty photos that went by before Kaylee finally stopped, and the one that remained on the screen sent chills up and down my spine. It was crooked and blurry, like the camera was moving when the picture was taken. It was from somewhere deep inside the cave, and the view was looking further down the tunnel. The creepiest thing about the picture was the blurry pale green thing in the middle.

It was impossible to tell for sure what it was, but it was easy to imagine it was some sort of humanoid figure. On the other hand it could have been someone's finger in front of the lens, it was hard to say for sure.

"What the heck is that?" Willow asked.

Cerys grinned, "Some sort of monster? Cave creature? A supernatural cryptid?"

My girlfriend shook her head, "I have no idea what it is. It looks like the camera was moving when this was taken, and the object in the foreground is way out of focus. This was the last picture on the memory card though, it was taken at two forty-seven in the afternoon, Monday August first."

"Oh and I can confirm the camera belonged to Rick," she added. "His name was in the settings, and the images are all tagged with his name in the metadata."

Our blonde wolfgirl looked excited as she said, "So we know Rick started exploring the site around noon, based on the text he sent Melody. Now we know he ran into trouble just under three hours later. And that cave creature is probably responsible."

"That might be what me and Paige saw back in March too!" she added. "Remember when Paige was looking into the cave with her phone flash? She saw something move and dropped her phone? Then when me and Melanie were deeper in the cave I thought I saw something too."

Her girlfriend grimaced, "So maybe it's lucky we got out of there when we did."

"Maybe," Cerys sighed. "Anyways, thanks Kaylee. Cass, what did you get with your scrying?"

I took a deep breath then sighed, "I saw the inside of a cave, I assume it was the same cave but somewhere deeper in? And I saw, um... I saw bones, and they looked human. I think Rick might be dead."

"Damn," our club leader sighed. "Thanks Cass."

After a couple seconds she added, "I'm glad the rest of you got results. Me and Willow hit about a hundred dead ends. We couldn't find anything about those runes, and no more information about the cave."

"The person that told me about it in the first place has completely disappeared too," the sorceress added. "Their account was deleted or something. It seems like they've vanished without a trace."

We were all quiet for another half minute, until my little sister spoke up.

"So what do we do now?" Nina asked.

Cerys shook her head, "I'm not sure."