Prologue
"Greg!" Wirt nudged his little brother gently. "Greg, wake up!"
The boy blinked and shook his head, immediately straightening up from where he sat leaning against his brother's shoulder. "I wasn't sleeping, Wirt! But Jason Funderburker was!" He hoisted the frog in the air like a trophy. The frog, by now used to such manhandlings, merely blinked his big frog eyes and croaked loudly.
Wirt rolled his eyes (he suspected it wouldn't be for the last time tonight) and stood up, pulling Greg up with him. He squinted through the darkness and checked the clock on the wall. The time was 11:51. Perfect for a Halloween trip to the Eternal Garden Cemetery.
It had been three years since their first foray into the Unknown, and dressing up in their old costumes and taking a midnight stroll to the cemetery had become something of a Halloween tradition for the two brothers. Although, of course, nothing had ever happened, there was a certain nostalgia in recounting their adventures to each other, year after year.
Wirt donned his cloak and hat with a vague feeling of regret. At eighteen years of age, he was leaving for college soon and he felt as if he owed the Unknown one last visit.
The two brothers walked in silence down the road, one with a cone on his head and the other skillfully balancing an old teapot. The trick-or-treaters had gone home, and they were the only ones out on the streets. The silence of the half-full autumn moon lay upon the world, broken only by the soft scuffing of their feet, the hopping of the frog beside them, and the distant, soothing calls of the crickets.
They walked through the gates of the Eternal Garden Cemetery and wound their way through the gravestones. Greg patted Quincy Endicott's stone as he walked by. "Hiya, Uncle," he whispered softly. The frog gave a croak of greeting and they continued on their way.
When they came to the garden wall, they stayed there for a bit, filling their minds with the sight of its mossy, magnificently decaying stones. Wirt was the first to begin to climb, his long legs making short work of the sturdy tree beside the wall. He reached down to give Greg a hand as the nine-year-old struggled to pull both himself and the frog up to the top.
With a soft thud, Wirt landed on the grassy slope of the hill and motioned for Greg to follow him. Deftly, he caught his younger brother in his arms and deposited him on the ground.
Wirt cautiously looked along the train track, remembering the consequences of being careless. Deeming it safe to cross, they set off down the hill (both walking, despite Greg's attempts to roll down the hill "for old time's sake"). When they reached the creek, they both sat down and watched it flow past the cemetery in silence.
Finally, Wirt looked over at Greg and caught his eye. "You ready?" he asked.
Greg smiled and nodded, then turned to the frog to pass on the message. "You ready, Jason Funderburker?" The frog blinked his eyes, then nodded his head in an unmistakable yes.
"Alright, then." Wirt picked his way over the small stones lining the bank of the creek until he was standing knee-deep in the frigid water. The others followed him, Greg holding the frog above the water so that there was no accidental drownings (not again, at least).
"On three," Wirt whispered. "One, two, three!" Simultaneously, they plunged under the rushing water.
None of them actually expected anything to happen. Wirt had given up hope of seeing that mysterious place again (many poems had stemmed from his regret of leaving it) and even the ever-optimistic Greg had low hopes of actually piercing the veil. The frog– well, the frog had decided long ago that the life of a ferry-singer was not for him, and that he much preferred the company of a young human boy.
But something about this night was different.
Maybe it was the way the moon hung in a perfect semicircle in the velvet sky, or the way the soft calls of the night birds hovered, liquid, in the air. Or maybe it was nothing at all. Just sheer and utter luck.
But as they gave themselves up to the stream again, something shifted around them and they were thrust, spinning, into darkness. A flurry of bubbles left Wirt's mouth as he involuntarily gasped. He reflectively clutched Greg closer to him as the tug of the Unknown, gone for so many years, returned with a vengeance.
Author's Notes: Leave a comment or a like if you enjoyed! Thank you for reading!