The area they'd ended up at was greatly foggy and the temperature had dropped significantly. While the girls took two roughly made rafts, the boys used a wooden outhouse.
"Home! Home! Home?" Greg was calling out as though it were something that would answer back.
Zaira looks around the place and speaks a la Boris Karloff. "This swamp is alive, crawling with creatures of death. Creatures that lurk, camouflaged in the undergrowth waiting patiently for an unsuspecting victim."
Theo gave her a pointed look, "Z, you ain't helping here."
"I'm just saying it's quite common in these types of scenarios for one unsuspecting character to wander off and vanish."
Greg didn't seem to grasp the grim meaning of the older girls' conversation. "Could be around any corner now."
Just then a dreadfully familiar tune drifted from the fog, Haruna began to get goosebumps from fear.
"Tra-lalala! Tra-lalala! Chop the wood to light the fire!"
"Hey Captain, do you hear that singing?" Greg noted.
His frog croaked.
"Not you, Skipper, I'm talking to the captain!" He was referring to Wirt.
Kylie looked over to the older boy, "And our friend here, barely bats an eye to the singing of the dreadful fiend trailing us as we speak."
"Which brings us back to our earlier suspicions, didn't want to bring this up at first. But now's a good a time as any… don't you notice a significant difference between the voices?" Haruna indicated.
"I don't know much of anything anymore." Wirt didn't even glance their way.
"Oh, did you know that dinosaurs had big ears, but everyone forgot cuz dinosaur ears don't have bones?"
"No, I didn't know that Greg." Wirt sighed.
"Not possible." Sara G. shook her head.
"That's cuz it's not true. It's a rock fact!" answered Greg holding up the rock he carries around.
"The Beast…" Wirt lifted his head lethargically, "It must be the Beast out there. The obsidian cricket of our inevitable twilight singing our requiem."
Greg looked a little thoughtful, "Hmm, yeah. Must be a really fat cricket."
"He's describing it poetically, Greg," Dana explained.
Haruna looked a little concerned with the older boy's forlorn disposition, "Anywho… as I was saying, that singing voice sounds nothing like the Woodsman's."
"What's your point?"
"The point being is the Beast is the one we're hearing right now. Meaning they're two different individuals."
"So what? That only proves me wrong on yet another matter."
At that moment their transportation hits land, and the crew climbs on shore.
"Can we please stop pretending we're gonna get home and admit we're lost for good? This fog is deeper than we can ever understand, we are but wayward leaves scattered in the air by an indifferent wind. Can we just admit we're never gonna get back home?" Wirt bemoaned.
"Sheesh, whatever happened to your panicky self-preservation?" Theo pursed her lips.
"You can do anything, if you set your mind to it." Greg interjected, "That's what the old people say."
"Yes, let's do that." Wirt replied sarcastically.
The little boy took his words literally and continued playing with his frog and blowing on the trumpet he'd found.
"Greg!" Wirt suddenly interrupted him, "You need to stop acting ridiculous all the time!"
"Huh?"
"Look do you even know why we got lost in the first place?" The older brother demanded, "It's cause you were goofing around and getting into trouble like you always do."
"Really it's all my fault?" Greg was taken aback.
His words were so uncalled for the girls went quiet.
"Now wait just one minute…" Kylie began.
"Yeah, so it's not my job to get us home okay? I'm done." Wirt grumbled, taking a seat under a tree.
"Knock it off, Wirt! Nobody made you come." Theo glared at him. "No need to pick on the little guy! If anything, my girls and I were completely unprepared for this mess when we should be carrying bags of potions and spell books!"
"It was supposed to be a worry-free night just for once!" Zaira protested in exasperation.
"What difference does it make now?" Beth hollered angrily, "We're stuck in stuck some spooky forestal wonderland, our powers are halved and a monster out to get out us! I've done this before, and I DID NOT like it. "
"Oh, so it's all my fault!" Zaira snapped, "So things didn't work out exactly the way we planned."
"If we had the right tools, we'd finish the job!"
Haruna, who had been watching warily, took this chance to say her piece. "PLEASE!" She all but shrieked causing everyone else to look at her. She then said firmly: "Can we all just calm down? Look it's already been a few days since we've strayed so the best thing we can do is wait until help arrives. Girls? Wirt?"
Wirt only frowns and turns over in his spot under a tree followed by Greg and his frog.
The best they could all do right about now is rest up, gather their strength then talk things over in the morning.
Sometime later, Dana gets up and awakens Yui, shaking her. "Psst! Yui!" She whispered loudly.
The curly haired girl in the red riding hood outfit raised her head, "Mm – what?"
"C'mon, let's go find Beatrice." The little girl began tugging on her sleeve. "I think it's time we got some answers."
"But it's too early and dark out. Why not wake one of your sisters?"
"Beth'll never let go through with it!" Dana scowled. "And I know she didn't want to let that old hag get us. She said we weren't supposed to be there, remember?"
Yui blinked sleepily as the memory flooded back. "Now I do."
Dana was already on her feet and ready to leave. "C'mon, C'mon! Maybe she can help us talk some sense into them."
"Alright! Someone has got to keep an eye on you too you know."
Something didn't feel right.
Haruna's eye fluttered open and to her astonishment, it was snowing already. And something was moving by her right. She turned her head to see Wirt, Kylie, Zaira and Beth slowly becoming engulfed in growing Edelwood branches! Before she could even cry out, just as quickly the growing foliage suddenly stopped.
"Okay, you and the girls keep sleeping, I'm sorry I got us lost, Wirt." Greg was saying. "Will you take care of Ronald for me?"
But why? It sounded as though the little boy was saying goodbye to them. Haruna slowly sat up as Greg turned and began walking away into the forest.
"Yes, come Gregory." said a deep, lugubrious (and masculine) voice. "There is much to be done."
Her sight adjusted seeing a tall, black silhouette with stag like horns and glowing, faded white eyes. When the dreaded gaze fixed itself upon her she'd almost screamed. This could only be the infamous Beast of the Unknown.
"And then you'll show us the way home?" Greg asked innocently.
"Of course, we made a promise didn't we?"
Quick as lightning she was on her feet and running after them. "No wait, don't!"
Her horrified shout stirred the others.
"What – Haruna?"
"Greg?" Wirt whispered sleepily. Why did his brother ask him to take care of the frog?
A sinister sounding chuckle echoed from all over the forest as the Haruna's frantic footsteps faded away.
The other girls began to awaken gradually, those that were nearly enveloped in the edelwood noticed the plants and had begun breaking loose in alarm. Part of it was also due to visions of familiar faces urging them to wake up.
"Greg? Where did he go?" He'd lost the look of hopeless despondency, now it was filled with genuine worry when couldn't see his brother anywhere within his sight range.
Beth was the next to voice her concern. "Oh no, where's Dana?"
"Wait a minute? Where's Yui?"
"Haruna's gone too!"
"You don't think he ran off upset because of what you said to him did he?" Theo asked Wirt in alarm.
The older boy didn't want to think about that possibility. Just then, they heard something else that made them see the awful truth.
"Tra-lalala! Tra-lalala! Chop the wood to light the fire! Tra-lalala! Tra-lalala! Tisn't much that I require!"
Wirt glanced around, fear grew rapidly in his heart. What did I do? He whispered to himself.
"Oh why did we leave them alone?" Kylie wailed.
"We can't just stand around, we've got to find them!" Beth cried.
They ran into the forest trying to follow the Beast's singing and calling the names of those missing. No doubt wherever he was, their missing friends would be there too.
"Where are you?"
They stumbled upon a frozen lake and no close to their quarry.
Then to their shock they could hear Greg's voice babbling away.
"Greg?"
"Lavender's blue, Dilly-dilly, Lavenders green. If you love me, Dilly-dilly, I will love you."
"Wait, that's Haruna's voice too!"
"Help us find you!"
Suddenly the ice under Wirt breaks and he falls into the lake.
"Wirt!"
Frantic, the remaining girls begin searching the ice to find him. In the process they almost run into a boat belonging to fish and right there -
"Yui! Dana! Beatrice?"
"Where are the others?" Yui questioned, doing a silent head count with her eyes.
"We can't find Greg or Haruna!" Kylie gasped. "And Wirt just fell into the lake!"
Zaira then called out and pointed to a spot in the ice, "He's over here!"
Beatrice, Yui and the Fisher Fish toss a fishing net into the icy water and pull him out.
"You got him!"
"Is he alive?" Beatrice asked worriedly, "Wirt!"
Wirt blinked, trying to clear his vision, "Greg?"
"Wirt, are you okay? Wirt!"
"Greg? I-I-I—" Wirt proceeds to pass out.
Beatrice continued calling his name worriedly. Kylie had placed her purple shawl around him, with Theo using her powers to keep his body temperature warm.
They found Yui and Dana with Beatrice, but Haruna and Greg were in very grave danger.
To be continued…
