14 ~ It's a WHAT?!

                                    

                                          
3 days and 4 inches in, Cecil was beyond bored. He spent every waking hour (meals and school excluded) poring over the scroll. However, his dyslexia combined with the fancy calligraphy and the fact that the writing was minuscule and all in some ancient language that not even google translate recognised, made it a living hell.
                          
Giving a frustrated sigh through his nose, Cecil put down the magnifying glass and did his best to not throw the parchment straight into the bin. The only part of it he'd actually been able to partially read so far was an enchantment for a good luck charm that looked like the sort of thing you could buy at a circus or amusement park, or off some old woman at the market. It was in some strange symbolic language that was apparently close enough to Ancient Greek for Cecil to make out parts of what it said. He knew that it required four leaf clovers, pixie dust and bottled moonlight, but that was about it.
                          
He bashed his head off the table, and scrolled another millimetre downwards, exposing a new line of unrecognisable text that blurred in front of his tired eyes. Even the pictures were too tiny to be practical, and without legible captions, they were about as helpful as the rest of the scroll.
                          
He was probably wasting his time - Lou, who had been working with potions and enchantments for years, had barely been able to make the Mist, even with heaps of resources back at camp. What made him think that he could do it with just one scroll, that most likely didn't have any relevant information at all and that he couldn't even read?
                          
Not for the first time, he wished that Lou Ellen was there.


                          
Lou Ellen felt terrible. She'd tried to go up to Cecil, to reason with him, but he either ignored her completely or walked away whenever he saw her coming his way. He wouldn't even meet her eye.
                          
Her friends, despite still obviously bursting with questions, bit their tongues and gave her space. Mia seemed just about ready to blurt one out at any moment, but Charlotte elbowed her every time she opened her mouth. Ariyah remained a steadfast friend, never leaving Lou's side.
                          
The four of them were the talk of the school - the demigod, the flying girl, and their friends. Some teachers were harsher on Lou Ellen, others more sympathetic, or afraid. The cheer captain had come up to her in the corridor one day to personally thank Lou Ellen, and to ask if she wanted to join the team. "Imagine - a flying cheerleader display!" She'd said, starry-eyed. Lou, who had been trying to catch Cecil's eye at the time, had declined as politely as possible and hurried after him. 
                          
The worst part was, it seemed as if Cecil was only avoiding her. Ariyah said that once when Lou had just gone into the loo, Cecil had approached the three of them. Before he could say anything, however, Charlotte had loudly told him that if he wanted to apologise, he could do it to her face, and if he didn't, then to go to heck (Charlotte had a strict no-swearing policy). Lou Ellen had come out at the end of this speech, and Cecil had run off. 
                          
Mia, Charlotte and Ariyah hadn't left Lou's side since.


                          
Almost a week had passed, and for Cecil the times he wasn't at his desk staring at the scroll became a blur. The only thing that stood out to him was her face, always coming towards him. He always had to turn away, his brother's smirk lingering at the corner of his vision. He'd tried to talk to her friends, but they hadn't let him explain, and it was near impossible to catch them away from Lou. The longer this stalemate went on, the wider the chasm grew, and the harder it would be to build a bridge across it. 
                          
He glared back at the scroll with renewed vigour. He was almost at the end - he'd taken to skimming it just to see if anything familiar caught his eye - an achievement which was considerable seeing as the scroll had to be at least the length of Cecil's bedroom once unrolled.
                          
Nothing
                          
Nada
                          
Nil
                          
Eventually, Cecil's headache grew too bad, and he decided to go through all of the pictures again. Rolling back to the top (he'd borrowed a rolling pin and found a round-ish branch to use instead of rulers), he began going through again at an increased speed, focusing on the sporadic coloured images.
                          
They were quite disturbing, really. There was a drawing of a headless chicken whose anatomy had been carefully labelled in what looked like an ancestor of Arabic, an inking of a forked bone which had been carved with symbols, a sketch of a plant that appeared to have eyeballs and a magnification of a four leafed clover.
                          
Cecil shook his head and glanced at his clock. He was shocked to find that it was almost one o'clock in the morning. Hastily, he put away the scroll and got ready for bed. He had been so focused on the writing that he hadn't even heard his parents going to bed. He switched off his light and did his best to get to sleep.
                          


                          
 "No, silly, I said the ambergris! That's amber dust."
                          
 "Sorry... It's just so long and confusing. Isn't there something fun we could do instead?"
                          
The young girl considered this.
                          
 "Oh! I know what we could do!" She buried to a drawer and pulled out a notebook, checking that the door to her bedroom was closed. "Don't tell, but the other day I went into big brother's office and saw a scroll open on the desk. The spell looked really cool, so I wrote it down here. See, it looks easy!"
                          
 It didn't look easy to him, but he nodded anyway. "What's it for?"
                          
 "It's for granting wishes. Look, all you need is a wishbone!"
                          
"What's a wishbone?"
                          
"It's a bone, silly. They're really easy to get - it's actually just from a chicken. Look, I have one here!" 
                          
Cecil jolted awake in bed. For a moment, his mind was blank before the dream of his childhood rushed back and he shot out of bed. Fumbling the light switch, he hastily retrieved the scroll from his drawer. He opened it up and ran his finger down the length of it.
                          
There - the tiny picture of a carved bone, forked at the end and seeming to glow. 
                          
He had to talk to Lou Ellen.