~*~

Well, Daria thought as she headed back toward where she'd last seen Quinn, she should probably pencil in "aphrodisiac" on the list of those berries' properties. No, wait. She couldn't. Her eyeballs had fallen out.

The forest was very quiet around here. Apparently all the little forest creatures were dumbstruck too. Poor little forest creatures. They shouldn't be subjected to that sort of thing. Nor should she, for that matter. She was undoubtedly in for years of therapy. She shuddered and walked on. She'd probably never be able to get married now. Or take an ocean cruise. Or hug a tree.

Daria suddenly pictured herself walking into Mrs. Manson's office, plopping down on her couch, and unburdening her tortured soul of this whole sordid incident. Her suppressed giggle came out as a snort, and frightened a nearby squirrel.

She wondered how long she should leave Quinn to settle down before having another go at her. She'd need a fresh strategy. What bait should she use to capture a fairy princess? Or an air-headed sister hallucinating she's a fairy princess? How long would the effects of those damn berries last, Daria wondered. Would there be after-effects, like a hangover? She wouldn't be a bit surprised.

She didn't want to wait too long, though. Quinn might meet a Sasquatch, and she certainly didn't want to stumble onto that scene. And the possible niece or nephew didn't even bear thinking about.

~*~

Daria checked her compass every so often to be sure she was still headed in a southerly direction. She'd had to detour around a thick canebrake in the bottom of a little draw, but overall it was fairly easy to maintain her direction. She stopped to mark her trail again with a couple of convenient fallen limbs.

Up ahead on the next ridge, several trees had fallen, and a blackberry thicket had grown up around them. She remembered reading in a magazine a couple of years ago that such blowdowns in a forest were evidence of microbursts from passing thunderstorms. The fact that all these tree trunks pointed in more or less the same direction agreed with that explanation. Daria smiled. It was no Grand Canyon, but she enjoyed seeing things like this, and understanding how they came to be.

As Daria detoured around the east end of the blackberry thicket, she couldn't help noticing that there were many ripe blackberries on the bushes. Her stomach growled. Oh, what the heck. Quinn could be anywhere around here. Quietly looking, listening, and lurking near a food source was as good a search strategy as any other, at least for a while.

Daria walked over to one blackberry bush that stood a little apart from the thicket, and had a number of plump-looking ripe berries on it. She'd just reached it when there was a thrashing in the underbrush, and a hideous hairy beast burst out of the blackberry thicket only feet away.

Daria screamed and jumped back. The beast charged off in the opposite direction, along the edge of the thicket about twenty feet, then turned and hissed at her. It was a possum.

Daria sized up her adversary. She was considerably bigger, but he had way more teeth. His mouth reminded her of a crocodile's, except for that little pink nose and the catlike whiskers. Noting that her heart rate was recovering more quickly with each of these nature encounters, and that the possum had run farther, she concluded that he was the more frightened of the two of them. Damn stupid wildlife.

The possum hissed again. "Oh, yeah?" she called. "Bring it, fuzznuts! I'll have you for dinner and the berries for dessert. I'm an omnivore too, you know!"

The possum, seemingly disconcerted by her voice, ran another ten feet or so, then turned and hissed at her again. "Rrrrrr!" she replied. She felt it was her duty to her species to defend her place at the top of the food chain. Although to do that, she thought, she should probably actually eat the possum. She looked distastefully at the hairy little scavenger. Well, maybe next time. She had more pressing duties at the moment.

The possum stared at her a few more seconds, then turned and resumed eating blackberries. Daria considered its behavior, wondering if the fact that it didn't run off entirely might indicate that it was rabid. No, she decided, if it were rabid it wouldn't be eating, just staggering around bumping into things and possibly foaming at the mouth. She knew that possums were very stupid. This was probably an example of that.

Daria watched the varmint, so ugly he was almost cute, for a few seconds, then turned and began picking and eating blackberries. They were delicious, much plumper and sweeter than fenceline blackberries. She kept her ears peeled, and straightened up and looked around often, but she intended to eat her fill of berries. Everyone else had had berries for breakfast, to her great dismay and inconvenience. She felt she was entitled.

A short while later, Daria popped a last blackberry in her mouth and stood up. After the possum had moved off, she had seen or heard nothing that might have been Quinn. Daria sighed. It had been worth a shot. This blackberry patch undoubtedly attracted many forest dwellers. It might well have attracted Quinn too. Berries weren't fattening. Checking her compass, Daria resumed her southerly course.

~*~

Having passed through the area where she'd last encountered Quinn without seeing or hearing any fresh indications of her presence, Daria was straining her senses even more. Quinn could be just ahead, preparing to lure her into a den of rattlesnakes. Or humping a crew of lumberjacks.

Daria began to look for some distinctive tree or other landmark that could be seen from a considerable distance. If she didn't find Quinn soon, she thought, she could make a loop and head back northward. That is, if she could find something to loop around. Otherwise, she supposed, she could just go west a couple of hundred paces, then turn north. She should be able to walk north a mile or so by compass, then turn and walk east, and be confident of hitting the main trail at some point.

Daria sighed and wished she'd had some actual training at this sort of thing. It would certainly have been a better use of her time, and more interesting, than, say, color war at those stupid summer camps her parents liked to dump her and Quinn at. The only useful skills she could remember learning at camp were fire making, archery, and escape and evasion. Daria smiled crookedly. Escape and evasion hadn't actually been taught, but she'd gotten quite good at it.

~*~

As she came to the edge of a grassy clearing studded with tree stumps, Daria stopped. She could plainly see evidence of someone's recent passage. Daria was no tracker, but she could tell that this track was recent, because the grass was still straightening up as she watched, and that it must have been made by either a human or a bear. No other woodland creature would flatten so much grass with its passage.

The thought of walking up on a bear gave Daria pause, but only for a moment. The possibility of a bear in this vicinity was remote, she knew. She remembered reading that nine out of ten human-bear encounters ended harmlessly, with the bear retreating. It wouldn't affect her decisions anyway, because a hypothetical bear could be anywhere around her, and could just walk up and eat her if it wanted to, no matter what she did. Daria resolutely set out following the spoor. Hey, looka me, she thought sardonically, I'm following spoor.

Ahead, at the clearing's far edge, Daria saw something white on the ground, and also something light blue. Quickening her pace, she soon saw that it was clothing. Quinn's clothing. And Quinn wasn't in it.

~*~