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  “Well, we know it existed a couple thousand years ago. Gramps said Chiron’s family kept the arrow, but no one’s seen it for a long time.”

  “I know it’s the arrow that poisoned Chiron, but why’s it so special?”

  Drake didn’t take his eyes off the road, “Hercules had been walking on the beach and found a ship wrecked high on the rocks. When he explored the debris, his uncle, Poseidon, rose from the sea, warning Hercules to leave the ship alone.”

  “Poseidon didn’t want Hercules to touch the ship?”

  “The crew had neglected to pay homage to Poseidon before they sailed. Poseidon sent a sea creature to the ship to remind them to ask for Poseidon’s safe passage. The crew refused and slaughtered the sea creature. In retaliation, and as an example to others, Poseidon threw the ship onto the rocks for all the other sailors to see.”

  “Okay?”

  “Hercules wanted to make his own arrows. He asked Poseidon if he could use the wood from the mast for the shafts of his arrows. Poseidon agreed, telling him a god’s weapon should be born of a god’s wrath.”

  “So the arrow was magical because of Poseidon’s shipwreck?”

  “Partly. Hephaestus was the god of fire, metalworking, and stone masonry. He made the arrows’ tips. There were no sharper tips to be found on or off Mount Olympus. They could puncture a person’s flesh just as easily as a pool of water.”

  I remembered back to the endless lessons in Zandra’s garden, “Zandra told me something about the tips, but it wasn’t how sharp they were.”

  Drake nodded, “Right, the poison. Hercules made a trip to Hades and dipped the tips in the blood of a Hydra. Not only could they slice through skin with no effort whatsoever, when they sliced, they deposited the most toxic poison available into the wound.”

  “And, this is what we’re looking for? Nice. Why don’t we just see if we can find some plutonium to walk around with? It might be safer.”

  Drake laughed, “Plutonium might be safer, but I’m not sure how much of a deterrent it would be for Zandra.”

  “If we are able to get the arrow, what’re we going to do with it? We’re not going to kill her. I mean, I don’t have any love for her, but I don’t want her dead, either.”

  “Just having it will be enough of a protection. It’s Hercules’ arrow. No harm can come to us if we have it – not from Zandra, not from anything.”

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. I didn’t know how we would find the pasture, or even how we’d know when we found it. Lost in my own thought, I was jolted back to reality when Drake pulled the car into what looked like an abandoned gas station. A faded metal sign hung proudly advertising “Petrol,” but from the looks of the place, no one had gotten gas there in a very long time.

  I stood looking at the terrain in front of us. I’d always heard Ireland was the Emerald Isle and expected it to be lush and green in all directions. What we discovered was the terrain was rugged, areas were steep, and fields of rocks were far more prevalent than the grassy fields I had expected. We walked for over an hour across pastures, over rolling hills, through ravines, before I asked, “Drake, how are you going to know when we find it?”

  He shook his head, “I’m not sure. Dad always said that the field was magical. I’d like to think I could feel the magic if we got close, or maybe you’ll be able to.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Defective. . . remember?” He already knew I couldn’t read thoughts, see the future, or anything else other Centaurides could do.

  Drake stopped in his tracks, looked down at me and said, “You’re not defective. You just haven’t worked all the kinks out yet.”

  Smirking at him, “Kinks? You mean like I can’t read minds, see futures, move objects. . . Those are kinks? Whew, here I thought there was something really wrong with me.”

  “You’re such a smart ass, Cami.”

  I playfully grabbed his shoulder and leaned in toward him, “Just one of the many aspects of me you love.”

  A gruff voice echoed at us from off in the distance, “What are you doin’ o’ this way?”

  I froze. It was the first person to notice us traipsing all over the countryside, and from his stance he didn’t look pleased to see us. Drake picked up the pace and began walking faster toward the man, “Hello, I’m Drake and this is Camille. We’re looking for some long-lost relatives.”

  The man had a light complexion and a forced smile. He wore a gray wool jacket hanging open over a flannel shirt, well-worn blue jeans and scuffed leather boots. He grunted. “Americans?”

  Drake nodded. The man continued his interrogation. “Who might ya be lookin’ for?”

  “Chiron. Zethus Chiron. We were told he lived south of Dublin.”

  “Zethus Chiron?” The old man took a tobacco pipe from his mouth and spat at our feet. His eyes narrowed, and I was thankful they couldn’t actually fire the daggers that were staring back at us. “He’s been gone for years.” The man turned his back on us and walked slowly in the other direction.

  After I was sure he was out of ear shot, I asked Drake, “What do you make of that?”

  He shook his head, “I don’t know.”

  That pit in my stomach that I’d had while I was at Zandra’s began to form again. Zethus was her twin. It wasn’t a stretch to think he would be just as ruthless as she. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”

  “It was one person, Cami.” Drake took a step forward in the direction we’d been traveling, “At least we know we’re in the right country.”

  Ireland was a whole different world from the United States. The never-ending pastures stretched on forever, and the rocky terrain caused us both to stumble. In my mind I had pictured pastures like I’d seen in northern California, lush and green. Ireland looked nothing like the nicely aligned fenced-in pastures flanked by roads skirting nearly every fence I had always seen in the US. We occasionally came across fences: most were made of rock, some had gates to go through, others had rock steps to easily climb over them.

  I was still nervous from our first encounter with the older man when we came across an older couple crossing through a pasture perpendicular to us. The woman gave us a welcoming smile. I returned her greeting and asked, “Excuse me, we’re looking for a distant relative. Do you know where we could find Zethus Chiron?”

  The woman’s eyes widened and her smile morphed into an angry grimace. She put her head down, reached over to her husband’s coat sleeve, yanked hard, and scurried quickly back the way they had come without a word.

  “Wait, wait! Please, won’t you help us?” She neither answered, nor did she look over her shoulder in our direction. I stood there watching them speed-walk over the field, and that pit in my stomach began to throb. Drake sensed my fear, reached down and squeezed my hand, “We learned that we’re close. We’ll find him, Cami.”

  The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “So, what if he’s just like Zandra? What if we’ve escaped one prison only to be locked up in another?”

  Drake didn’t answer me. I waited for him to reassure me that things would be fine, that these last three people we ran into were flukes. He didn’t.

  For the next few hours we kept up our pace and only came across sheep, goats, cattle and the occasional horse grazing. I looked at my watch; we’d been searching for almost six hours.

  A person walked our way off in the distance. I planted my feet, waiting to see where he would go. The man continued toward us. He was younger, late twenties or early thirties, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. As the man strolled up to us, he gave us a happy greeting as he approached. “Well, hello! Are you two los’?”

  Since I had struck out with the couple we’d met before, I signaled Drake that it was his turn to try to strike up a conversation. “A little. We’re looking for a distant relative. We were told that Zethus Chiron lived out this way, but we’ve had some difficulty finding him.” That was an understatement.

  Looking perplexed, the man asked, “Some
one told you he lived ou’ this way?”

  I liked his question much better than the response we had gotten from the last three older people we’d talked to. “Yes, in this area.”

  “Not by anyone who knew anythin’, that’s for sure. No Chiron family’s lived in these parts for as long as I’ve been alive.”

  I felt my heart sink. I couldn’t make my eyes meet the man’s when I asked, “Did you say you’ve never heard of Zethus Chiron? I was under the impression he was well known.” No one had actually told me he was well known, but since Drake knew who he was and the first three people we asked seemed to have heard of him, I had to assume he wasn’t a wallflower. Judging from the response we had gotten from the first three people we met – I had an idea of what his personality might be like, too.

  The younger man shook his head, “No, I can’t say that I’ve heard of him.”

  I forced a smile, “Thanks. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “You weren’t a bother, lass. You looked like you mighta’ been los’. Sorry I can’t help.”

  I looked at Drake; he wore the same defeated look that I did. We walked back in the direction we’d left the car. Drake’s fingers curled around mine. His touch reminded me to put our adventure in better perspective. No one was chasing us, at least not that we knew of. We were together on a mission to save our future, and luckily, we were doing it together. Even if we weren’t successful, this time together was a gift in itself.

  We found our rental car and went back to the hotel. On the drive back I asked, “So, if that man’s never heard of Zethus, maybe we aren’t in the right place? The first people we asked were older, and one even sounded like he’d moved away.”

  Drake kept his eyes on the winding road, “Maybe, but let’s give it a few more days. It was just one man. The others seemed to know him.” He reached his hand over to mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  I was glad he had more faith than I did. Even if we never found Zethus, spending time with Drake and spending that time away from all the crazy Centaur rules was something I couldn’t take for granted.

  We logged mile after mile on the winding roads on our way back to the city, and I savored each minute.

  Chapter 4

  (Camille – Southern Ireland)

  By our third day ambling over the countryside, talking about our friends, families, dreams – I felt like there wasn’t a person I’d ever known better in the world. Maybe Daniel, but even he had never been this open with me. Drake wasn’t secretive about anything. He never tired of my questions, and the more I learned about him, the more I wanted to know.

  Drake wasn’t like the Stepford-Centaurs I’d met at my brother Bruce’s wedding. He wasn’t trying to be the guy I wanted him to be – but he was exactly who I had pictured in my future. When the massive earthquake had hit Haiti a few years ago, he didn’t send a donation to help; he got on a boat and was digging people out of the rubble for days. Afterwards, he helped with reconstruction for weeks.

  Drake was wealthy by human standards, but worked anyway. He said he liked the way it made him feel when a house was finished – like a piece of him would be around for the next hundred years.

  A human neighbor’s house burned down when a brushfire spread out of control. Their insurance company wouldn’t cover the repairs. They were living in tents in their yard because of the damage to the structure. Drake bought the supplies and convinced his whole crew to give up several weekends making the house livable again. His father fumed about his crew helping humans, but Drake refused to back down. He volunteered for Habitat for Humanity two weekends a month and had a hand in building more than thirty houses. In a word, Drake was perfect.

  Ireland’s landscape was breathtaking; the rolling hills were grassy but didn’t feel overgrown. It looked as if the land had somehow made a pact with the animals; it wouldn’t provide them more food than they could eat, but none would ever go hungry. There seemed to be endless streams and lakes nestled between the shoulders of hills.

  After cresting the top of another hill, we came across a deep valley and looked down into a lake that was completely still. It mirrored the sky perfectly, and I had to wonder if a bird had ever flown directly into the water, mistaking the mirrored clouds for the real thing. I stood at the top of the hill, mesmerized by the image in front of me – if there were a magical place, we had just found it.

  Drakes fingers flexed around mine, “Cami, are you okay?”

  He was still holding my hand, but I could sense his worry. I wondered if he saw it the same way I did? “What do you feel when you look out here?”

  His gaze looked out over the still lake, just as mine had done. I felt his fingers constrict around mine. “I feel it, too.”

  When Drake told me we would feel the magic when we found it, in my mind I had pictured the rush the first time I’d seen a magician saw a lady in half as a child, or maybe when a friendly neighbor had pulled a quarter out of my ear and handed it to me. I expected that feeling of wonder that only a child can feel – the one that ingrains itself in your memory as if it’s actually a part of your physical make-up.

  This valley didn’t feel like those things at all. It was energy, a sense of oneness, in a word – home. The terrain was vast; we had a clear view of the entire valley. We’d been walking for hours; I was hungry and exhausted, but all of that seemed to diminish – this was our destination.

  I took a step forward, expecting Drake to be in lock step, but he held his position at the crest of the hill. “Not today, Cami. We’ve found it. We don’t want to get lost in the dark. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  I’m sure the look I’d given him was confused because, well, that’s how I felt. We belonged here. Couldn’t he feel it calling to us, welcoming us home? Drake stepped behind me, pressed himself against me, while his arms snaked around both my sides and his chin rested on my shoulder. I could feel his breath on my neck, “It’ll be here tomorrow, Love. We’ve found it. Let’s get some rest.”

  I’ve never been an outdoorsy person. I had plenty of opportunities to camp growing up and found a good reason to avoid each one, but walking away from this place felt wrong. If this really was the pasture of Thessaly – I couldn’t fathom why any Centaur would ever have left. The weather had been rainy most of the day. I didn’t want to go back to civilization; not even the lure of a hot bath or dry clothes was much motivation to leave.

  Drake looked down into my eyes, brushed a stray strand of hair behind my ear and said, “I promise, we’ll be back tomorrow. It’ll be dark soon. We’ve found it.” He took my hand and gently tugged me back in the direction of the car. A twinge of dread began to seep into my consciousness, beckoning me to stay, but I reluctantly followed.

  Still distracted by the strange pull of the valley we’d walked away from, I looked back over my shoulder to catch one more glimpse, and I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking. Drake was already twenty feet ahead of me at the car. I took two steps directly into a peat bog, was waist deep and sinking before I realized what had happened. “Drake!!”

  He turned around and saw me stuck in the bog. He looked at the ground and saw the outline, carefully making his steps back to me. I tried to walk out of the muck and back to the solid soil I had just come from, but the more I moved, the further I sank. A feeling of panic gripped me. “Drake, I’m sinking!” I struggled to get closer to the side but felt the bog pulling me down further with every move.

  His voice was calm, “Don’t move, Cami. I’m right here.” Drake kept his feet firmly on the ground while he reached out to me. I was only four feet from the edge, but I couldn’t reach his hand; I had sunk too far.

  Images flashed through my mind, not the comforting ones you’re supposed to see when your life flashes before your eyes. I relived in a fraction of a second all the things that had scared me most in my life: the fear of the ocean’s undertow pulling me hard out to sea, the first time glancing over the side of a twenty-story high rise, a brown tarantula starin
g at me from the banister on my front porch, riding a galloping horse on the beach that refused to stop. . .

  I cried out, not sure if it was from the images or the fact that this peat bog threatened to swallow me whole. Beads of sweat peppered my brow while another ear-splitting scream escaped me.

  Drake squatted down closer to the ground, extending his hand all the way to me. I grasped his fingers. “Okay, I’ve got you. Just relax. I won’t let you go.”

  His fingers steadied me as I let him gently pull my hands to him; I took a step in his direction but lost my footing. I tried to pull my back foot free of the muck, but the bog was holding me, refusing to let go. I felt my fingers slipping. Panic overtook me as I tried desperately to free my foot, only to find out my struggle took me deeper.

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Drake tugged the tips of my fingers in his grasp hard and got a better grip on my hands. “On the count of three, I’m going to pull. Are you ready?”

  I nodded that I was, as the fear threatened to envelop me. I heard, “One. . . two. . . three.” Still clasping just my hands, he pulled me smoothly free of the muck, out of the bog, and to his side on the ground. I lay on the ground, my pulse rapid, my hands shaking. I looked down at myself: the waterline had been just inches below my shoulders.

  I grabbed hold of him as he cradled me on the ground. He stoked my hair and crooned, “You’re okay, Cami. You’re okay.”

  We had heard about the bogs and had been warned by the hotel staff to be careful of them. But they told us the bogs would be clearly marked and fenced off. This one was in the open. I didn’t know how I could have missed it to begin with.

  When described to us, I had thought they were a little like the swamps that surrounded Zandra’s home, but after being in one, it was more like quicksand. I sat on the ground, wrapped in Drake’s arms, thankful that he had reacted so quickly. His strength was as much of a surprise to me as finding myself free.

  A friendly voice came from behind the car. “Welcome home. Was just coming to give you a hand.”