Wirt squirmed around, trying and failing to get properly comfortable in the pile of leaves that was functioning as his mattress tonight. Usually, walking around all day would leave him too exhausted to care about comfort by the time they set up camp. But his thoughts were whirling around in his mind like autumn leaves caught in a little whirlwind against a building corner, skittering against the dirt and kicking up gracefully into the sky, dropping and lifting, a neverending cyclone in miniature.
At least Greg was asleep already, snuggled up against his clammy bullfrog as if it were his Robber Raccoon doll from back home. Beatrice was sleeping too. The way her feathers fluffed out and she nuzzled her head into her wing, it was easy to imagine that she was a sweet, adorable,silent bluebird instead of the snappy grump she was by daylight.
Wirt raised his eyes to the deep indigo expanse of the night sky spread out before him like a tapestry, pinpricks of stars glittering around the forefront subject of a half-formed moon.
Wirt liked to complain, but at times like this, as prickly and makeshift as his bed was tonight, the Unknown wasn't the worst place to be. After all, when was the last time he'd gotten such a beautiful view of the stars unclouded by light pollution? And that moon, a perfect half-circle hung in the sky. It was like that on Halloween, he remembered. And Halloween was… huh, the last time they were home? It didn't seem like that, a distant and foggy memory he had trouble getting a clear grasp on. But it must have been. After all, he and Greg had been dressed in their Halloween costumes ever since.
Was it a month they'd been in this forest, then? A whole lunar cycle? Wirt pushed himself up, propping his elbows on his knees as he stared up at the moon. That didn't seem right. After all, that one night sailing on an old bicorne inhabited by those four looney navy soldier guys, Wirt had spent the whole night following the moon, sundown to sunup. It was a half-moon, he remembered vividly. And… come to think of it, the entire time he'd been in the Unknown, from that very first evening when the Woodsman had pointed toward the moon and told them to go north to look for a town, the moon had never changed phases.
"Beatrice," Wirt whispered to the roosting bluebird beside him. Then, when there was no answer, he insisted, "Beatrice!" and scooped her up in his hands.
Beatrice startled awake with a "No, whah, gotta, I need, scissors!" and floofed herself up, taking wing out of Wirt's hands. "Oh, geez, it's just you, Wirt," she said from tree-height, lowering herself back to the ground. "You bozo, I was sleeping! What's the big idea?"
Wirt pointed to the moon. "Is there anything weird about that to you?"
"You're asking if there's anything weird about you waking me up in the middle of the night after twelve straight hours of flying cross-country?!"
"No," Wirt said impatiently. "The moon! Is there anything odd about the moon tonight?"
"It always looks like that, Wirt!" came her annoyed reply.
"The phase, I mean. The way it's cut in half and turned like… like a teacup, about to drizzle fresh warm chamomile upon the Earth."
"I told you, it always looks like that. Though I wish it was a teacup. Then it'd give your fool head a good soaking."
"I'm not even sure that's a phase that's supposed to happen," Wirt said to himself and bent over the ground, brushing leaves out of his way as he started doodling in the dirt.
Beatrice groaned beside him, torn between going back to sleep or figuring out what Wirt was yammering about. Evidently she decided he'd wake her up again if she didn't figure it out, as she hopped over to his dirt-drawing and peered at it.
"See, look!" Wirt told her. "These are all the phases the moon's supposed to go through. A full moon, then waning gibbous, half moon, waning crescent, new moon. Then from new moon to waxing crescent, half moon, waxing gibbous, and a full moon again." He pointed at each little circle he'd drawn as he talked through it. He wasn't an astronomer, but moons came up enough in poetry that he'd at least memorized the basics. (Confuse "gibbous" for "gibbon" in an English Lit analysis one time and you never forgot it.)
"All right, so it's a half moon." Beatrice yawned.
Wirt made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, pointing between the drawing of a half moon and the one in the sky. "But it's all… tilty. Crooked. And it's been like that every single night. Hasn't it?" He really wasn't sure. His head was in the clouds too often to look any higher sometimes.
"Yep. Crooked half-moon. Glad we got that mystery solved. Goodnight Wirt." Beatrice insistently buried her head in her wing again, feigning sleep.
Wirt obediently lay back on his mattress of leaves, now flattened and scattered, and stared up at the moon. It hadn't always been like that. He had vivid memories of going stargazing after everyone in the house had gone to bed on the night of a new moon, and of writing some moon observations down every day for a week in science class. Until Halloween, he'd never seen a moon like this one before.
So, okay. Organize his thoughts. He was in a place where the moon didn't change. He was in a place where the heavenly bodies themselves bent to the unknown laws of some unknown place. Wirt rubbed his forehead. Someplace where the moon he was looking at now wasn't the same moon he'd grown up with. And he'd gotten there on Halloween night.
Wirt's eyes widened. He reached a hand up to run through his hair, mussing it. "Beatrice," he said again frantically, but got no answer.
Halloween night. Greg had wanted to go on a frog hunt. The party, Greg made them crash it. Sara invited them to the cemetery. The police chasing them, and he and Greg had scrambled over the stone wall at the back of the graveyard.
Wirt's breaths were coming hot and fast now, enough air to reach his head to make him dizzy but not enough to actually fill his lungs.
That was where Greg found the frog, and then a low noise-a train's whistle piercing through the night. They'd been thrown headlong to the ground, away from the tracks but toward the riverbed the frog had come from, and… pain, and….
Wirt gulped. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. He could feel his fingers going numb at the tips, and the skin on his face started to buzz and crackle like static, and his thoughts were dying down. He was drowning. There was air around him, but he was drowning.
And his head smacked against the forest floor, sending a flurry of leaves up around him as Beatrice clutched him by the collar in her talons and shook him. Gosh, for a tiny bird she was strong when she wanted to be.
"Get a grip, Wirt!" she was scolding. Wirt sucked in a breath like he was taking a gulp of water, and held it for a moment. And another moment, and another. He was pretty sure that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing if his brain was getting oxygen-starved but it helped smooth over the panicky allegro of his heartbeat and interrupt the cadence of his breathing. He held his breath until the features of Beatrice's face were swimming before him. He finally let it out, long and slow, before taking in a deep breath. He was okay. Listen to Beatrice and get a grip.
"What the heck, Wirt?!" she was squawking at him.
"Sorry, sorry," he said dopily, propping himself up with his arms. "Beatrice, I think-I mean, I realized-we're not getting home this way."
"What?" Beatrice asked, dumbfounded and perching on his knee. She sounded offended.
"Nothing against, um, Adelaide, but she can't help us get home, I don't think. Or anybody else here. I mean, I think I figured it out."
"From staring at the moon?" Birds' facial features weren't made for human expressions, but Beatrice gave it her best to mold them into something approximating disbelief.
"Yeah. Um, hold on. I don't know if I can… yeah. Let me just try it, okay?" Wirt stood, walking to Greg as Beatrice fluttered off his knee.
"It's the middle of the night, Wirt. We're not going anywhere 'til morning," Beatrice said sharply. "I'm tired. Your brother's tired. I don't know what kinda weird vision or whatever you just had but now's not the time."
"Now is the time," Wirt countered, hoisting his little brother onto his back in an attempt at a piggyback. Greg was down for the count; he stirred but didn't wake. "It might be the only time."
Whatever Beatrice said in response, Wirt didn't hear. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other, balancing his brother on his back, and thinking of home. Not just of home, but of forcing himself home. If his guess was right, physical obstacles didn't matter here. Physical directions were useless. "You follow that compass inside ya heart," he quoted to himself with a grimace.
And sure enough, he started feeling different as he walked. He wasn't kicking aside dried-up leaves anymore; he was slogging through thick wet mud. He wasn't cold from a late autumn breeze; he was chilled to the bone by water that seemed to pervade every pore. The weight of his brother threatened to anchor him to the floor but he forced himself forward. Beatrice was still beside him, he thought, flying and asking questions and wholly unaffected by the soggy riverbed surrounding Wirt and Greg. Trying to figure out why Wirt wasn't able to respond.
But her questions faded and new ones rang in Wirt's ears.
"Is that them?"
"Officers, over here! What do we do?"
"They're not coughing up water anymore, but they're not breathing, guys!"
"I know," a loathsome, nasally voice interjected, far-off but still instantly recognizable. "I can do mouth to mouth!"
Wirt's steps faltered in horror.
"Jason, you never even finished the first aid course!" An equally recognizable but much more welcome voice interjected. It was closer, louder than Jason's had been."I'll do it. I'm certified, officer, he's my friend, please let me try!"
Wirt stood in place, stuck in limbo and not sure what to do. Greg heavy on his back, Wirt stumbled forward a step. He was getting closer; the trees of the Unknown had disappeared and Beatrice was gone. He could blearily feel his eyes slipping shut, his body shutting down. He was almost there.
And then he felt it.
Soft lips on his mouth.
His eyes would have popped open if they could have, but Wirt's body remained intransigently determined to play dead during the most important moment of Wirt's life. In shock, Wirt forced his hand to twitch, then to reach up. He found fingers.
An eyelid rose just enough to see the blurry form of Sara over him, her Halloween make up smeared into a mocking impression of a skull. She was crying, and the teardrop that hit his face was warm. It made Wirt realize just how cold his skin must be. She'd pulled back, seeing if her attempt at first aid had restarted his heart. And it must have, because Wirt felt the blood pooling in his cheeks as the corner of his lips pulled upward. He'd managed to crack a smile at her.
But then she said, "Wirt?!" and Wirt was horrified.
No way. No way had he just done that. What kind of presumption had he just made, what kind of person was he, what would Sara think of him? Smiling, like she'd kissed him on purpose! He couldn't believe he just did that! He stumbled backwards, landing on his backside.
Wait. No. Wait!
He frantically patted himself down. His regular body, his regular Halloween costume, his regular temperature, and his regular brother landing with a dazed "oof" when he'd accidentally let go. And the regular confused shouting of a bird somewhere behind him.
No no no no no no no!
Wirt hoisted Greg on his back and shakily pushed forward again.
There was a wall. Something between them.
He couldn't feel it anymore, no water, no Sara, no matter how hard he pushed or how long he tried to keep walking.
Fearfully, he felt his stomach drop. They really were in limbo now, and he was stuck here holding Greg. He'd tried his best, but he needed to get them out of there.
Trying not to choke, he retreated, hurrying back the way he'd came. Though it had taken what felt like hours to fight through the muck and reach his body again, it was only seconds before he and Greg were spat back into the forest as if they'd never left.
Beatrice was flying in circles around Wirt's head as though he was a cartoon character who'd gotten knocked on the head. Wirt sunk to the ground, letting go of Greg, who finally had the self-awareness to wake up and ask "Huh?" Greg was still clutching his frog, holding it up and asking it "What happened?" as if he expected an answer.
Wirt would have forgotten the frog behind. Whoops. Not like it mattered now.
"Wirt," Beatrice's demanding voice said for the umpteenth time.
Wirt sucked in a breath and let it out. His face still felt hot. "Yeah. Sorry."
"What the heck was that? What were you trying to do with your brother?!"
"I was too late," Wirt said, half to himself. He curled in on himself, hugging his cape close as if it could shield him from the truth of his guilt. "I almost had it. And I was a second too late."
"Almost had what ?!" Beatrice demanded. She and Greg were both staring at him. The frog too, perhaps most judgingly of all.
Wirt covered his face with his hands.
"I think, I mean, I did, I-I just died." Wirt groaned, low and despairingly. "Of embarrassment."