2

He was back in the forest. Leaves crunched beneath his feet, and high above his head, starlings flittered between thick oak branches soaked in sunlight. The old grist mill was looming up ahead, indolently churning the swollen waters of late afternoon. The front door opened, and from its gloom stepped Beatrice as he'd seen her only once after he clipped her wings, a tall, glum-faced redhead.

"Come on, Greg!" he called over his shoulder. "Come on, we're almost there!" He raised a hand to wave to Beatrice as he ran up the road. She looked about for the commotion, but when her eyes landed on him her expression turned to one of confusion and worry.

"Wirt?" she asked as he slowed to a stop before her. She sounded scared. "What are you doing here?"

He was about to respond to her when he looked around and realized that Greg wasn't with him. He spun in a circle, but saw him nowhere. A thrill passed through him as he realized that if he was in the Unknown, he must be dead. He had died, and left Greg behind.

She put out a hand toward him. "Beatrice –" he started to say, but all of a sudden found himself being pulled from her by the heady waters of the river, flooding across the ground to bear him away. He tumbled through the cold water and reached out for air but couldn't find it. Looming rocks swept by, threatening to break his body, and deeper he was pulled into the dark as his lungs burned and burned –

And Wirt woke up with a gasp.

He sat up immediately at his desk, nearly knocking his history of music textbook to the floor as he gripped the lip and panted. His lamp was pushed askew and shone over the back wall of the dorm, lighting upon his roommate's dresser and lending an incandescent glow to the many marching band trophies and pennant flags atop it. Wirt took a minute to calm down; his heart was pumping so hard that he could feel his hands pulse with it. He shook his head and finally sat back in his chair, squeezing his eyes shut and slapping himself gently on the face.

Everything was alright. It was just a dream. His felt as though there was still water clinging to his skin, but shook off the sensation as well as he could. This sort of thing was just par for the course, this time of the year.

The sun had finished setting at some point while he slept, and through the window now drifted the faint sounds of drunken laughter. The clock on the wall said that it was 10:03; his roommate, Reggie, wasn't back yet, and likely wouldn't be for hours, if at all.

"You sure you don't want to come?" he'd asked Wirt earlier in the evening while he fitted his false teeth in the bathroom as the last touch to his werewolf costume. "It'll be fun, man. I'll introduth you to thome girlth."

"I appreciate the offer, Reggie," Wirt had said, still sitting at his desk, uncostumed, "but I have a test tomorrow morning and I've really got to study."

"Thuit yourthelf," the big sousaphonist had said, grinning down at him through the brown hair glued to his face. "'But ith only one night, man. Live a little."

The truth was, Wirt just hadn't been feeling the spirit this year. He'd never been that much for holidays, and ever since a certain Halloween four years back, this one's glimmer in particular had faded for him even more. When he was still at home he'd participated because that just was what you did as a kid, and because Sara loved it so much. Last year, his first at school, he'd even put in the effort to buy fangs and dye corn syrup red so that he could be a vampire for the night and try to have some fun, but it didn't really work. He'd ended up sitting on the stained couch in Boltzmann Hall's damp UV-lit basement, talking to no one, drinking weakly-spiked punch while the crowd laughed and sung along to the Monster Mash slammed out on the untuned marimba on the other side of the room. He knew very well that his isolation was his own fault – it always had been – people tried so hard to make him feel welcome – but it just wasn't something he could fake anymore. Not on Halloween.

This year, Wirt hadn't even considered going out. He felt distracted. Tired. So he'd lied about a test to the people who asked him, and made plans instead to – to what? To fall asleep on his desk, apparently. Typical.

He pushed his chair out and stood up, bending the cricks out of his neck. He put his hands on the windowsill and leaned out into the cool night air, hoping it would burn some of the tiredness out of his eyes. Halloween-time always came with dreams like this one, as well as a pervading sense of sad, clinging nostalgia. This was, in fact, the third dream of the sort he'd had this week, but the first he'd had about Beatrice in months. He wasn't sure why he'd placed her at the mill, because to his knowledge she'd never even known about it, let alone been there, but that was just one weirdness of many, and he wouldn't let it bother him too much.

What did bother him was the speed with which the pictures had already faded. He tried to think, but the vision of Beatrice's shocked face from the end of the dream had blurred; for a minute he'd been able to remember what she looked like as a human, but like a lot of things from then, the real details had faded long ago. There was a sorrow in that fact which was hard to express. And it was something he couldn't talk to anyone else about.

Well, there was one person.

What he wanted, he realized, was for Sara to be here. They had a kind of understanding: she listened and responded to the things he had to say about the night he and Greg fell into the water as if he were bouncing short fiction ideas off of her, and he never tried to tell her otherwise. The conversations always made her smile, but she never fully said what she thought of it all, and he appreciated that. She was a hundred and thirty miles away from him right now, though, probably operating the lights or fog machine for her much larger school's campus Halloween party, dressed in a real costume, hanging out with other friends and having a good time, and he shouldn't bring her night down by calling just to tell her about a dream. And it was just a dream.

Wirt wandered from the window to the kitchenette, but didn't really feel hungry. His feet were heavy, but his hands felt restless, so on an impulse, he peeked his head out the front door and looked both ways to check for foot traffic. No one was around, so after a moment's hesitation he started slinking down the half-lit hall in his socks. Paper pumpkins smiled widely at him from the walls, but he'd had trouble for the last few years seeing them as anything other than masks. The floor phone was next to the east window, and Wirt picked up the receiver and dialed in the number for Sara's school with practiced roteness.

It picked up after three rings. "West State University Switchboard," intoned the operator, "how may I direct your call?"

"Hi," he said. "Could you please put me through to Berkshire Court, fourth floor?" He rubbed his head as they transferred him, feeling a little nervous, causeless though it was. He'd yet to hear back from Sara that she'd received his most recent cassette in the mail, and they hadn't seen each other since late July, but he always talked to her about this stuff when it came up. The phone started to ring. It was true that it was just a dream, and he didn't want to ruin Sara's good night if she had other things going on… But on the off-chance that she didn't, he might as well call.

It was picked up very quickly. "Hello?" a girl's voice asked.

"Hi," he said. "I'm, uh, trying to get through to Sara. She's not around…?"

"Uh," said the voice distractedly, and it moved away from the phone. "Guys, is Sara around? Georgia? Listen to me, Georgia, is Sara here? Well, then where is she? …Okay, fine." The voice drew back up to the receiver, sounding grumpier than before. "I don't know where she is. Somebody drank half a bottle of peppermint schnapps on Halloween, Halloween – get away from the button, Georgia! – and isn't being very helpful."

"Oh, well, that's alright," Wirt said, twirling the cord distractedly. "If you see her tonight, could you tell her Wirt called? I mean, unless it's really late, then don't bother her, because it's not like it's really that big a deal and I don't want her to go out of her way –"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell her," said the other voice, which was starting to become garbled by distance again. "Oh, wait, Wirt, you said? I know that name." There was the sound of whispering. "Are you the guy who makes those clarinet recordings she listens to in her room all the time?"

Wirt was starting to turn red. "I –"

"You're pretty good, man!"

"Oh. Thanks."

"Okay, okay, crap, I'm getting off the phone now, she's puking – I'll tell her if I see her, dude." And the line clicked and went dead. Wirt sat bemused and disappointed for a minute. He couldn't say he was surprised she wasn't slinking around her room like he was tonight, but the affirmation of it made him feel like even more of a failure than before.

He sat down in the armchair by the window, phone still in hand, not quite sure what to do next. The moon this year was halfway to full, a familiar crucible shape in the sky that always made him anxious. As if he needed another thing to keep his mind even further from the real world right now. For a few minutes he was quiet, thinking to himself; then he leaned in toward the dialpad again. This time he rang home.

An automated operator took the line. "You are about to place a long-distance collect call. Please record your name for the recipient at the tone."

He braced himself for a second waiting for the beep, and when it came, said, "Momit'sWirtcallmeback," as quickly as he could. The recording concluded and he was instructed to stay on the line. He waited for the call to be rejected, and then placed the handset back in its cradle, where it immediately began to ring again. He picked it back up.

The voice on the other end couldn't have sounded more thrilled. "Honey!"

"Hey, Mom," he said, kicking back in the chair, eyes still on the sky. "How are you? Yeah, I'm doing fine. Happy Halloween to you too." He uncurled the cord slowly from his fingers, and then started to do it up again. "No, I'm not partying. I never party. I'm studying for a test. …I don't know how she is. I haven't talked to her in a while." He took a minute to be quiet as she spoke. "Of course I still care, but we're not –" He pulled the handset away from his ear and rubbed his temples gently as his mother took the opportunity to share with him, not for the first time, her opinion on what a mistake his and Sara's breakup had been. He shouldn't have given her that opening.

"Yeah, Mom, I know you think that, but I told you. It's over. We're still friends. You talk to Sara's mom all the time, you should know how she's…" He stopped again and waited for his mother to finish. "…Yeah, okay, Mom, alright. Anyway, I was hoping I could talk to Greg? I know it's a little late, but if he's still up…"

His mother, however, assured him that Greg wouldn't go to bed so early on Halloween. "He's got the sugar-shakes," she said cheerfully as something audibly broke in the background. "I'll get him for you." There was a lot of shuffling on the other end of the phone for a moment, and a muffled voice, and then she came back on to say, "Here he is! Also, your father says hi."

"Okay, yeah. Say hi to Phil for me too." And then there was a second longer before the phone shifted again.

"Wirt!" Greg cried so loudly that the older boy had to pull the set a few inches from his ear. "Happy Halloween!"

"Hey, Greg," Wirt said. "Happy Halloween to you too."

"Oh man, I'm so glad you called!" He heard rustling. "We went out late and I got like seventeen peanut smackers from Mrs. Lettersby because she wanted to empty the bowl. I was gonna save them for you when you come home for Thanksgiving –"

"You don't need to do that, Greg."

"Yeah, but I want to. They're your favorite." There was a croak from somewhere on the other end. "Jason Funderburker says hi!"

"Hi, Jason Funderburker," Wirt said dutifully. He croaked again, and Greg laughed.

"Oh, that frog. What's Halloween like at college, Wirt?"

"Hmm," he said, peering down onto the grounds through the window. Someone looked like they were throwing up at the base of a tree. He'd heard a joke, once, about music school being stuffy, but certainly not dry. "Not very exciting."

"I don't believe you. I think you're just not doing fun things."

"Ouch. Very sharp, Greg. I think you're starting to catch on to me."

"You're not that hard to figure out." Another croak sounded. "Jason Funderburker says he had you figured out from the first moment he saw you!"

"Yeah, I'm sure," Wirt said, swiveling in the chair to put his legs over the arm. A thought occurred to him, and he said, "That was four years ago."

"Huh?"

"Uh… We found Jason Funderburker four years ago tonight, Greg."

"Oh, wow!"

"Yeah." It actually was pretty weird to think about. "Guess that makes it kind of like his birthday, huh?"

"Wooooah!" Greg's voice diminished for a moment. "Get over here, you great green guy! Hnnnm…" There was a muffled ribbit, and he picked the phone back up. "I gave him a hug."

"Well, it's the least you could do on his birthday." Wirt watched a cloud drift lazily across the face of the half-moon with a little bit of a smile on his face, but a strange sinking feeling in his belly. He and Greg never really talked about that night, not anymore. Once upon a time he'd engaged with his brother in little plays about the things they'd seen under the water, but he hadn't been able to stomach it for years now. As time deepened the gulf between now and then, his self-assurance seemed more prone to betray him.

"Greg?" he asked after a minute.

Greg stopped crinkling what sounded like candy wrappers. "Yeah?"

"How much do you remember about the night we found your frog?"

"Our frog," Greg corrected him. "I remember stuff."

"How much?"

"Lots! You know…" He could almost hear Greg shrug over the phone. "The trees. The bluebird."

"Beatrice."

"Yeah! Beatrice. And… the witch? And the dog?" He paused. "I mean, I remember about them, it's just the pictures are kinda fuzzy."

"Mm." He wasn't sure what he'd expected to hear. Greg had been just five then; the only memories Wirt still had from being that young were things to do with his dad, and even those were only impressions, nothing clear. No one could be expected to remember everything at that age, no matter how big.

But Wirt didn't like the idea of being the last person in the world left to forget it all, either.

When he was fifteen, he never would have thought that having a secret could weigh so heavy on a person, as if just the act of keeping it quiet was a little lead ball in your pocket all the time. Four years on, that ball had grown heavier to bear, not lighter, and it had been even more difficult to ignore lately. Some nights, dreaming of it was like going back all over again, and he didn't know why he always felt so disappointed when he woke to find it wasn't true. Even the nightmares, the ones where he was bound to the ground with leaves slowly growing up around his throat, made him feel vindicated, somehow, and sadder for losing them in the morning; in dreams' brief moment, fantasy had the same clarity as reality, and he felt like he wasn't crazy.

Always at the change in season, it felt like with one wrong turn, he might find himself suddenly stepping over roots and moss and crumbled leaves instead of cigarette butts and plastic bags, as the buildings around him turned to thatch and stone and the lamps to warped oak trees. Sometimes he anticipated it. Sometimes that worried him. When his fellow woodwinds got hazy-late-night-philosophical in the disused sixth-floor utility closet, he always let them go at it, but never spoke himself, because in matters of life and death he simply didn't know what to believe anymore. And he couldn't tell anyone about that. No one but Sara, who couldn't ever know the whole story, and Greg, who'd started to forget it. Whenever he thought about it too much, he was overwhelmed with the twin sensations of isolation and doubt, and so for a long time now, he'd stopped thinking about it at all.

That was probably what made it so hard when the memories were foisted on him from time to time.

"Wirt?" Greg said after a while.

"Yeah?" he asked. His eyes were idle on the sky outside the window, thinking of things that he would never see again.

"Are you okay?"

Wirt didn't answer for a minute. "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

Greg shifted. "Because it's pretty weird to call someone and then not say anything."

"Oh. Right." Now it was his turn to shift in the chair, putting his chin against the headrest so that he faced the window. "Sorry, Greg. I didn't mean to take up your Halloween. I should probably go."

"Hey!" He heard scrambling on the other end, and then a closing door. "Don't go, Wirt. You can talk. I'm alone."

"Did you just go into your room?"

"Yeah. Dad bought a cordless phone."

"Wow. That's pretty fancy."

"Yeah! He gets mad at me for leaving it in the backyard. Now –" there was a squeak of bedsprings "— tell me what's on your mind, brother!"

Wirt couldn't help smiling at that, but he had the feeling that his thoughts were not something he should be burdening a nine-year-old with. "It's nothing, Greg," he lied. "Just thinking about how weird our lives are."

"They are pretty weird." Jason Funderburker croaked. "I don't know anyone else who has a frog. And the bassoon is a weird instrument to go to school for. Also we scared away a demon once, and lived in the woods for a couple months, and went to an animal school. That's weird."

"You remember all that?"

"Yeah. Most of it. I mean, you know." There was fidgeting on the other end of the line. "Like I said, I remember that it happened more than I remember seeing it."

"Does that…" Wirt stopped himself for a second. "Does that make it feel any less real?"

"Huh? No." Greg's tone sounded amused that he would even say something so silly. "Not remembering a lot is still remembering. I only got one brain, and I gotta trust it. Tok-tok." He made a sound to mimic knocking himself on the head. "Plus, you remember it too! And I trust you." Wirt smiled a smile that he was glad no one could see, because it probably looked pained. "But you know something? Sometimes when I dream, I can remember all of it, and I think I went back for the night."

That line seared in Wirt's chest, but he didn't say anything. "That's neat."

"Yeah. But I don't think you can just go back, Wirt." Wirt was in agreement with that; he wasn't sure Greg fully remembered what bad shape they'd been in when they came out of the water, but there's no easy way to tell a small child that he almost died. "I visited the lake and walked around in it, but I didn't find anything."

"Did you expect to?"

"Not really," he said sadly. "I thought I'd try." There was a soft fwoomp sound; Greg seemed to have flopped over into his pillows.

Wirt asked, "Do you wish we could go back?"

Greg didn't answer for a minute. "…Sometimes. Just 'cause I want to remember." The admission was painfully familiar. He heard him pull the blankets up; Greg always tucked them in around his ears, and they ruffled loudly in the receiver. "There were so many neat people, and things," Greg yawned into the phone. "Sometimes it was scary, but you were the hero. I'm still gladder it happened and I can't go back, than I would be if it never happened at all."

Wirt looked up at the starry purple sky through the window, the same view he'd seen from between the Edelwood trees all those years ago. Someday the memory itself might fade, but the feeling of it would always remain.

"You know, you're right," he said after a minute. "I think I am too."

They talked for a little longer, some about the Unknown, but then about school and neighbors and Greg's junior acting troupe, with the younger brother growing steadily sleepier on his end of the phone. When the campus belltower tolled eleven, Wirt finally told him he should go to bed. Phil was going to be angry about the calling charge as it was.

"Yeah," Greg said sleepily with the receiver mashed up against his face, but then he perked up. "Oh, by the way, Wirt, Sara told me to tell you she finally got your cassette with the, um… flight of the conchords."

"What?" Wirt sat up. "The solo de concours? When did she tell you that?"

"Last week."

"You talked to Sara last week?"

"Yeah, at the park. She said she was visiting town 'cause it was her sister's birthday. That's the 22nd." He yawned widely. "I remembered for you 'cause you're gonna have to know this stuff for when you get married."

Wirt smiled at that, then sobered up, then let himself smile again. "Sure, Greg," he said. "Sure I will."

"Yeah," Greg said, beginning to mumble again.

There was a sound on the other end of the line, and he heard a door creak open. "Gregory?" was said at a distance. "Oh my goodness, are you still on the phone? Did you brush your teeth? They're going to rot right out of your face…"

"Goodnight, Greg," Wirt said as their mother's voice drew closer.

"G'night, Wirt," Greg mumbled in return, and finally, he hung up the phone.

Wirt laid the receiver in its cradle and leaned back in the arm chair, casting his eyes up to watch the very last sliver of the moon slip past the top of the window, where he could no longer see it. He felt kind of strange. He closed his eyes and thought about his dream again, about the mill in the sunshine. He couldn't get a good picture of it any longer, but he felt better. It wasn't bothering him as much as it had before.

He was just starting to stand up to stretch his legs when the phone rang again.

"Hello?" he answered, worried that he might have been preventing an incoming call for the last hour, but the voice that answered on the other end was welcomingly familiar.

"Wirt?" he heard. "Is that you?"

"Sara!" he said, scratching his head. "Hi!"

"Hey! I'm really sorry I missed you when you called earlier. I was out."

"It's okay," he said. "Probably a really big Halloween party at West U, huh?"

"That's what they said," she said. "I wouldn't know. I was watching a movie with Jacinda downstairs."

"Oh," Wirt said. And all of a sudden he felt like a little less of a loser.

Sara said, "Hey, is everything alright? Kaylee gave me your message and said you sounded kind of worried. I mean…" She paused. "I know it's Halloween and all. And what that means."

But Wirt had his eyes on the sky outside, dark and clear. With the moon gone now, the stars seemed much more bright. "Thanks, Sara," he said finally. "But I think I'm actually okay." He looked down at his stocking feet and started suddenly running ideas through his head. He had a black vest from his rehearsal getup in the closet, and a capgun and holster from his one-time cowboy costume stowed somewhere under the bed. It was not yet too late. With some emergency modifications, he wouldn't make a half-bad Han Solo.

"In fact," he said finally, "I just wanted to say happy Halloween. I think I'm going to go to a party."