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Camryn
It was dark outside. I was getting both mentally and physically exhausted. And Ace was driving me absolutely nuts. Actually, nuts wasn’t even the word for it. I was about to go apeshit on him soon.
I wasn’t sure what had happened to him claiming that he was going to be on his A-Game with this whole scavenger hunt. No, it was very much the opposite. So far, he had managed to create a rope to swing from tree to tree like he was Tarzan, bury himself in the biggest pile of leaves ever so that I wouldn’t be able to find him (and then thought it was the funniest thing ever when I screamed his name at the top of my lungs because I was worried that something bad had happened to him), and had fallen into a hole because he was goofing off. He was lucky that he hadn’t gotten into a hornet’s nest. I knew that it wouldn’t kill us, but I doubted that it would have been pretty.
I was too nervous to take him anywhere near the Black River of Death. Fortunately, Mom and Demetrius and Zoe and Bash had been covering that area, for the most part.
Anyway, needless to say, we hadn’t found anything yet. To say that I was getting nervous would’ve been an understatement. I was downright scared that we weren’t going to find this thing in time. I felt like I had gone through every pile of leaves that had crossed my path, examining each of them for even a hint of gold color, and I hadn’t found anything yet.
I feared the absolute worst, which made it hard to keep going. But I knew I had to. I had to try everything I could to find what we were looking for, even if time was running out.
“Ace, I’m getting worried,” I told him. I knew that he wasn’t the best person to console me at the moment, but I needed to tell someone how nervous I was and he was the only one who was nearby.
“Relax, Camryn. I told you I’m gonna find this thing,” Ace replied coolly.
“Yeah, I know. That’s half of the reason I’m so worried,” I replied with a sigh.
“You are such a worrier. Has anyone ever told you that?” he asked, shooting a sideways glance at me. Before I even had a chance to answer him, he was charging past me at lightning-like speed.
“What are you doing?” I narrowed my eyes at him, almost afraid to see what type of mischief he was about to get himself into next. Now that it was nighttime, I was afraid of him landing himself in a pickle that he wouldn’t be able to get out of.
As he lunged himself onto a tree, he glanced down at me. “Calm down, Camryn. I’m just climbing this tree. I need to get some of my energy out.”
“I don’t think I ever want to see you on caffeine,” I commented. How did he have any energy left after what he’d already gotten himself into?
He laughed. “No, you probably don’t. Right now, my spirit animal is a monkey. When I drink coffee, my spirit animal is a monkey on steroids. Seriously, it’s not pretty for anyone.”
“Well, just make it quick, okay?” I asked him. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”
There was no time for us to waste on climbing trees, but I knew that I couldn’t really do anything to stop him. Asking him to come down would probably only make it worse.
“I’ll make it fast. Don’t worry,” Ace called down to me. His voice sounded really far away. I glanced up the tall tree. He had already climbed so high that I couldn’t even see him anymore.
A few long moments passed. I heard the sound of twigs snapping somewhere in the distance. I was sure that it was probably just one of the others, but it still made me feel uneasy.
“Ace?” I called out to him. “Are you almost done?”
He didn’t respond.
“Ace?” I called again.
Nothing.
A knot twisted in my stomach. The last thing we needed was for something to happen to another one of the Sherwood’s.
I eyed the tree. I had never actually climbed a tree before. I wasn’t sure if I even knew how. It couldn’t have been that hard... could it have been? Ace had made it look so effortless, but I honestly wasn’t even sure where to begin.
As I eyed the tree trunk, trying to figure out how to begin climbing the thing, I heard the sound of something fall to the ground behind me.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Ace brushing his knees off as he climbed off the ground. There was a big grin on his face.
“Camryn, I told you.”
“Told me what?” I asked, eyeing him curiously.
“I told you I would find what we were looking for, and I did. Look.” He opened the palm of his hand.
It was a leaf, except it wasn’t just any old leaf. It was a gold leaf.
“W-where did you find this?” I questioned.
“It was just up there on one of the tree branches. It looked like someone laid it up there. That’s 24-carat gold right there,” Ace told me with a proud smile.
My eyebrows lifted questioningly. “Are you, like, a gold expert or something?”
“Yeah, I actually used to work in a jewelry store about twenty years ago,” he replied with a nod. “And that right there is worth a fortune. I’m pretty sure this is what we were supposed to be looking for this entire time.”
I took the gold leaf from him and studied it. Then I thought about the riddle again.
It’s gold and thin,
But don’t be fooled.
When it shakes,
It will not break.
Hint: You’ll find it in the woods.
I decided to take Ace’s word about it being 24-carat gold. I measured the gold leaf’s width. It was a thin piece of gold that I held in my hands. I knew that if I dropped it, it would not break. And we had found it in the woods.
The gold leaf met all of the qualifications of the riddle. Besides, what was a gold leaf doing just sitting on a tree branch?
It was almost as though someone had planted it there – someone who thought we wouldn’t climb every tree in the woods and find it. It had been strategically hidden in the worst possible location. But they didn’t know Ace. If it wasn’t for him climbing that tree, there was no way that any of us would’ve found it before midnight.
I glanced over at Ace. “I think you’re right, Ace. It matches all of the qualifications of the riddle. I think you found what we’re looking for.”
He grinned. “Let’s go find the others.”
I nodded. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but it was hard not to.
It felt like we actually might’ve won.