"If I'd been thinking ahead, I would have brought their pram. It was silly of us to leave it home, but then again, it would have been hard to push on the soft ground."

Sally walked by Isabel's side, her hand on the girl's arm, along a path carved between nodding palm trees and alocasia leaves. The twins traveled in their sling against her. The children's babbling occasionally lifted into a shared musical note, sustained for several seconds, then allowed to subside once more into typical infantile mutterings.

"Are they...okay?" Harold ventured, after the third such instance. He followed behind the women, still not entirely certain why he was selected for this excursion. His suspicion was that Isabel held some blame there, but he couldn't say for sure.

"They are!" Sally said cheerfully over her shoulder. "They're very happy! Babies like to go out and see new things. They can see better than I can here, I'm quite sure of it." The radiant moonbeams of previous evenings were apparently off-duty this night. Everything was clouds and shadows, pierced only by the lantern in Isabel's free hand. Isabel had changed her clothes before leaving the inn, forgoing her usual black and white maid's uniform for one of those flowery wrapped dresses that Sally found fascinating for their lack of stitchery. Harold decided that a change of clothing could be yet one more opportunity to commit a faux pas, and therefore ambled along in his uniform pants and white shirt. After much prodding, Isabel had at least convinced him to leave his vest behind. The queen after all, was only wearing a lavender sundress of sorts, thus indicating their outing to be a casual one.

"There will be lights just up ahead, m'aam." Isabel offered. She was correct. As the party reached the edge of the thick vegetation, the ground widened and smoothed, hemmed by glowing torches of the kind surrounding the inn. The flames were greenish white. They cast dancing patterns on sandy stone pathways that splintered off between lines of small buildings with wind-tattered awnings. Creatures roamed the shops and eateries, their voices carrying on the warm air. Here at last was something that reminded Sally of Halloweentown, albeit with an obviously different flavor.

"Fabric, fabric, fabric..." Isabel breathed, mostly to herself. "M'aam, is it just any kind of cloth or fabric you need?"

"I suppose what I'm hoping for, is something I can't find anywhere else." Sally answered thoughtfully. "There are colors here that we don't simply don't have in Halloweentown, and with pictures of flowers, too! You'd rarely find anything with flowers at home."

Isabel regarded her guest's wistful gaze at her flowered skirt, struck for not the first time by how young the Pumpkin Queen seemed. Spending time with her, particularly away from the order and procedure of the inn, it was too easy to forget that she was who she was, and not just one of the girls Isabel larked about with in her free hours. She thought for a moment, eyes narrow, then said: "I know exactly where." The words "Follow me" perched on her lips, but she caught them before they took flight. One couldn't order a queen to do anything, much less something that by definition would require the monarch in question to trail behind. "This way!" seemed little better. At last, Isabel gestured to one of the pathways before them, saying: "There's a place down there, your majesty."

"Perfect." the Pumpkin Queen responded. "I'll follow you."