Chapter 3: Warning

"Greg, hey Greg, can you hear me?" The little boy struggled to open his eyes from still being tired. "Wirt?" the boy asked, unsure. "No, Greg, just wake up, you've been sleeping in forever." The voice sounded familiar, but Greg couldn't piece it together just yet.

Finally, his eyes adjusted and he was able to see the owner of the voice. He was in the presence of a teenage girl with brown hair and a long blue dress. The boy was confused. "You're not Wirt!" "I know, I just told you that." The girl rolled her eyes. "Well then, who are you?" "Greg, it's me, Beatrice." "You're not Beatrice, Beatrice is a bird."

Beatrice scoffed. "Remember those golden scissors?" she asked. "Uh huh" Greg nodded. "I used them to turn me and my family back into humans." Greg gasped. "You're a human?!" "Yup." "Whoa!" The girl glanced back up at the clock that was hanging on the wall. "We don't have much time" she said.

"Greg, I need to talk to you. It's incredibly important." Greg gave the girl a salute. "Yes ma'am" he said and put his hand at ease. Greg looked around the room they were currently in. "What room is this?" he asked. "This is my bedroom." The former blue bird answered. "How did I get here?" "Come with me Greg, and I'll explain everything."

The boy and the blue bird sat in Beatrice's living room, drinking tea her mother made. They were sitting in two chairs across from each other. "I really need to talk to you about something important." The girl spoke.

Greg slurped his tea. "What is it?" Beatrice grabbed her hair in her hands, looking like she was having an internal conflict with herself. "Ugh, I was struggling about how to tell you, but I'm just going to come out and say it." The teenage girl closed her eyes and took in deep breaths. When she opened her eyes, she looked Greg straight in the eye.

"Wirt is in danger."

Greg was shocked. "Danger!? He was fine the last time I saw him! Why is he in danger?!" Beatrice sighed. "Greg, do you remember when Wirt found out that the Beast's soul was in the lantern?" Greg nodded, remembering the terrible night. "Well, it seems that the Beast isn't entirely gone." The girl glanced back up at the clock, than turned back to Gregory. "The Beast was afraid that his secret would be found out, so he implanted his legacy curse on Wirt."

Beatrice stood up and walked to the other side of the room, with her back facing the boy. "It actually makes perfect sense, considering….." "Considering what?" Beatrice mumbled under her breath, so quietly that Greg couldn't hear what she had said.

"….the legend of how the Beast came to be…."

A few seconds went by. Beatrice looked up from her thoughts and turned back to Greg. "That's nothing for you to be concerned about." She said "The point is, your brother is in danger." Greg didn't know what to do with the news he had just received. If Wirt was in danger, he knew he had to help in whatever way he could. "How do you know all this?" the young boy asked.

Beatrice sighed. "Whispers told me. She appeared here the other day and told me she saw a terrible vision of the future and that I had to bring you here and warn you of the terrible premonition."

The two were silent. A minute passed before the youngest of the two spoke again. "What will happen to Wirt?" he asked, sounding almost on the verge of tears.

"If that curse sets in, then Wirt will eventually become the Beast. He will be a formless creature without a soul. He will become heartless and care for nothing or no one. He will travel the unknown in search of lost souls and eventually turn them into the horrid Edelwood trees." Beatrice paused, reluctant of what she was about to say next. "He would even do it to you if he got the chance."

Greg couldn't believe she was saying this. If he knew his brother, than he knew that he would never do anything to hurt him. If anything, he would be the one to save him if he got into trouble.

Their tete a tete was interrupted as a woman walked in with a tray of cookies. "Here you, go you two" the woman said as she sat the tray on the table in the middle of them. "Piping hot dirt, fresh from the oven." Beatrice rolled her eyes. "Mom, would you please stop calling it dirt?"

The woman looked at her daughter, smiling. "Are you going to turn us into blue birds again if I don't?" Beatrice eyed a rock lying randomly on the table, than smirked. "That can be arranged." She said, slyly. Her mother laughed. "Just eat up." She left, leaving the two to their cookies.

While the two were eating, Beatrice looked across from her and noticed that he wasn't eating much. He had taken little nibbles of his cookie, which was unusual for him, considering when cookies were presented to him, he would eat so many that in the end, he'd already be on a sugar high. "Are you okay, Greg?" Beatrice asked, already knowing the answer to her own question. Greg shrugged. "I just don't want Wirt to become a scary beast." A tear slid down from his eye.

"I'm sorry Greg, I shouldn't have told you all of this at once, I know it must be hard to take in." The girl stood up from her chair and made her way over to the little boy. She enveloped him in a tight embrace, and he hugged her back, tears flooding from his eyes. "It's okay Greg" she said to the boy, but before she knew it, she was shedding tears as well.

All this time, she was just using the brothers to get her family's curse lifted. She would always tease Wirt, calling him a dork or whatever name she could think of, but after a while, she began to really like Wirt. She even thought she might be starting to like him as more than a friend.

Greg finally made up his mind. "I want to go home." He said as he broke away from the hug. "What?" Beatrice asked, unsure of what he just said. "I said, I want to go home. I want to help Wirt in any way I can, so he doesn't become the Beast."

Beatrice stood and silently made her way over to the window. She pulled the curtains back to reveal that the sun was already going down. "You woke up so late in the day, I can't believe we had this much time to talk." Beatrice turned back to the little boy. "You have to fall asleep in my bed to get home." She said "It's how you got here, so it's what you have to do."

Greg nodded in understanding. The two made their way upstairs and opened the door to the former blue bird's bedroom. Greg, without any hesitation, hopped into the girl's bed. Beatrice tucked him into the bed with the blankets tight. She then kissed him on the forehead. "Say hi to the dork for me when you get back, okay?" she smirked. Greg gave a thumbs up. "Sure thing, ma'am" he said, saluting. Beatrice smiled, then walked out the door, leaving the boy to a peaceful slumber.

"Greg, Greg, come on, wake up already." The sleeping boy squinted. "Beatrice?" he asked. "Beatrice? No, I'm not Beatrice." The voice said, annoyed. Greg had adjusted his eyes to see a brown haired boy as the source of the voice. "Hey, you're not Beatrice."

Wirt sighed. "Yes Greg, I know I'm not Beatrice." All of a sudden, Greg recollected in his memory about what had just occurred in the Unknown. "Wirt!" Greg gasped. He pulled his brother into a hug and looked up at him with his shiny eyes. "I'm gonna make everything okay Wirt, I promise." The older boy had no idea what he was talking about. "Um….okay…..yeah, yeah you go do that, you go make everything okay." He said with a smile "I know you will, you always do."

Greg smiled up at his brother. "I will." Just then, Greg realized something. "How long have I been asleep?" he asked. "Well, judging by the clock, you slept in till almost noon. I guess you got so tired from staying up last night, that you completely slept in." Greg smiled.

"Beatrice told me to tell you she said hi, I remember, she specifically told me 'Say hi to the dork for me when you get back, okay?' and I was all like 'Sure thing ma'am'" Greg saluted like he did in that moment. Wirt smiled. "Yup, that sounds like something Beatrice would say."

Wirt then remembered something very important. "So Greg, tonight is the Tree Lighting Ceremony in the town square, and I was wondering if you would like to come with me to see it." Greg then smiled brighter than the tree itself.

"YEAH! TREE LIGHTING CEREMONY!"

The little boy ran excitedly out of the room and around the house, yelling in excitement. Wirt smiled. He still had little idea about the curse however, but he shouldn't have anything to worry about. After all, Greg had promised he would make it all okay. Little did he know, that this was one of the last few times he'd see his brother smile.