It had taken quite awhile to trek through the fields to the forest. By the time they reached it, the sun had gone down, and they couldn't see a thing.
"I wish I brought a lantern," Gobo said. "Then again, a lantern wouldn't do much good unless we brought some matches, and then we'd have to go all the way back to . . . . whoa!"
Gobo tripped over something, and fell flat on his face.
"Gobo, are you all right?" Lou asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Gobo said, picking up a strange metallic object. "I just tripped on this . . . . doohickey. You have any idea what it is?"
"Not one clue," Lou said, taking the object from Gobo. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, and stepped forward. "Look at this. It looks like some kind of a lamp base. I wonder if this doohickey is part of it?"
"Well, put it on the base and we'll find out."
Lou nodded, and placed the doohickey on the base. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit.
"I'm sure it goes with this," she said. "Maybe there are other parts to it."
"If there are, they must be hidden in the bushes," Gobo said. Immediately, he began digging through one bush, while Lou searched another. Finally, the two of them came up with two more metallic objects. Gobo took his and put it on the base. Then he heard a click.
"Oh good, that one fits," he said.
Lou put her metal object on top of Gobo's, and it clicked into place. Then she put the first doohickey on, and it clicked into place as well, but nothing happened. Then she began turning the doohickies to see if that would do anything, while Gobo began searching the bushes for more parts.
"Maybe we should wait until morning," he said. "We'll be able to see better."
"I'm kind of afraid to fall asleep," Lou said. "If we do, we might end up under Lilith's sleeping spell, and then what will we do?"
"Good point," Gobo said, as he picked up what looked like a light bulb on a stick. He placed it into the metal doohickies, while Lou found a wooden board. She placed it on the stick, but still nothing happened.
"Here's another board," Gobo said, and he placed the board he found above Lou's. The minute he did, a bright light came on, and the two Fraggles were able to see.
"We did it!" Gobo shouted.
"But which way do we go?" Lou asked.
Gobo and Lou studied the two sign boards. One looked like it had three little houses on it. The other appeared to have a larger house on it, with three turrets. Gobo looked at one of the trees beside the sign post, and saw a group of squares in the trunk, which were removable. He looked over at the trunk on the opposite side, and saw the same thing.
"You know," he said, "the design on these tiles kind of look like the picture on the sign boards. Except they aren't in the right order."
"So let's put them in the right order and see what happens," Lou said. "I'll take the left, and you take the right."
"Right," Gobo said.
Gobo and Lou went to their corresponding trees, took out the tiles, and began to rearrange them. The minute they got them in the proper order, the squares in the trees began to glow, as well as one of the boards on the sign posts. The boards turned in two opposite directions, and the sign with the large house picture glowed.
"I think we go this way," Gobo said, following the glowing arrow on the sign. Lou nodded, and followed Gobo down the path.
When the two Fraggles reached the end of the path, they found a large house at the end of it. They ran to the door, and tried to open it. It did open a crack, but then it slammed shut on them.
"Wow!" Gobo shouted, moving his hand back almost immediately. "Almost lost a couple of fingers that time! I think this is Lilith's cave, or whatever Silly Creatures call these things."
"Gobo, look on the path," Lou said. "Some of the stone circles rose!"
"Let's investigate, shall we?"
Gobo and Lou looked at the raised circles. One of them had shapes on it. The second appeared to have some of the cycles of the moon on it. The third had Roman numerals going around it in a circle. The fourth and final one had the Zodiac signs on it, though Lou and Gobo had no idea what the Zodiac was, so they couldn't make heads or tails out of that stone.
"What do you think these mean, Gobo?" Lou asked.
"I don't know," Gobo said, walking over to the second stone. "But if this stone represents the cycle of the moon, they're out of order! I'm gonna put them in the correct order!"
Gobo picked up the smaller stones in the larger stone, and put them in the correct order. Once one of the cycle pieces was in it's correct slot, it began to glow, and then it sank into the ground.
"I've got it!" he shouted. "We have to put these markings in the correct order, and maybe then the door will unlock!"
"That figures," Lou said.
"Yeah, it sure does. Okay, listen, you take the ones with the shapes and the funny looking pictures, and I'll take this one. Uncle Matt send me this ticking thing once, and it had markings just like these all around it, so I know the correct order."
"But how am I supposed to know what the correct order is?"
"Fake it. They'll start to glow when they're in the right spot. Trial and error."
"Okay, I guess."
Lou shrugged, and she and Gobo immediately got to work putting the pictures on the circles in their correct slots. The one with the shapes was easy. Lou put the triangle in the first slot, and it started to glow. Then all she had to do was count the sides of the other shapes to find out the sequential order. Next came the square, then the pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, and finally, the circle. Since Gobo knew what a watch with Roman numerals looked like, he was able to figure out that stone pretty quickly. Once he was finished, he helped Lou figure out the correct order of the last stone.
"I wonder what these pictures are?" he asked.
"I don't know," Lou said. "Must be some kind of Silly Creature thing."
"Probably. Well, that's the last of them."
The minute Gobo placed the last picture in it's correct spot, the stone sank, and the front door opened. Immediately, the two Fraggles ran inside Lilith's mansion. They found themselves in the front hall, and were about to run up the steps, when the lights suddenly went out.
"Oh great!" Gobo shouted. "She must be onto us! Now what are we going to do?"
Gobo heaved a sigh, and leaned against something metallic. When he did, he inadvertently pushed a button, and the chandelier blinked four times. Lou walked over to another post, and pushed the button on it. The chandelier blinked once. Gobo pushed another button on another post, and the chandelier blinked three times.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked.
"Yep," Lou said. "We'd better find the correct order, though."
Gobo nodded, and he and Lou began pushing the buttons on the posts in order to find the right order. It took a bit of trial and error, but they managed to get the order down. Once the lights came on, the two Fraggles raced up the stairs. They were about halfway up, when the steps suddenly disappeared, and Gobo and Lou slid down the ramp.
"Hey, no fair!" Gobo shouted.
"That's too steep for us to climb," Lou said.
"Oooohh . . . . rock beetles!" Gobo shouted, and he kicked the staircase. When he did, a pattern of lights appeared in the posts that lined the wall. Lou walked around the posts, and pushed the buttons in them, repeating the patterns. When she was done, a section of the staircase reappeared. A framed picture also appeared behind the staircase.
"I think I've got something here, Gobo!" she shouted. "You try the staircase, and I'll repeat the patterns!"
"Okay," Gobo said. He climbed up the section of stairs, and pushed on the next empty section with his foot. Another light sequence started, and Lou repeated it. Just as before, another section of stairs, and a framed picture appeared.
The two Fraggles kept this up, until all the steps appeared, and the staircase was fixed. Gobo ran back down the stairs, and helped Lou gather up the rest of the pictures. Then they put them on the wall.
"I don't know what this is going to do," Gobo said, "but it wouldn't hurt to get these back up."
Lou agreed, and she and Gobo got to work. Most of the pictures were of Silly Creatures. Gobo was about to put the last one on the wall, when he suddenly gasped and dropped it.
"What's the matter?" Lou asked.
"It's . . . . it's this picture!" Gobo shouted, picking it back up.
Lou walked over to Gobo and took a look. There was a Fraggles in it. The picture was in black and white, so Gobo and Lou didn't have any idea what color she was. She wore a muumuu printed with tropical flowers, and had a tropical flower in her hair, which was in a ponytail.
"It's Wini!" Gobo shouted. "Wembley's mother! What would a Silly Creature fairy be doing with a picture of her?!"
"There's only one way to find out. Put it up, and see what happens."
Gobo put the picture on the wall, and a door opened. The two Fraggles stepped inside cautiously. Inside the room were four doors. Beside the doors were signs. The first one said "Simply Green," the second said "The Essential Powers," and the third said "Those That Are Hardest, Then Sorted From Lightest to Heaviest." The fourth door didn't have a sign on it. There were some gems embedded in it, instead. All four doors had stone indentations on them, running vertically, and stone tiles running horizontally on the bottom with pictures on them. Gobo looked at the door entitled "Simply Green," and saw a tile of a space frog his uncle had brought back from Outer Space once. He knew they were green, so he took it out of the bottom of the door, and stuck it into one of the vertical slots. Then he looked at the slots on the other doors. He found a picture of a plant, and one of a lizard. He took those, and put them in the other two slots on the "Simply Green" door. Once he did, a circle of light appeared on it.
"I've got it!" he shouted. "We have to take the pictures from the bottom of the door, and put them in the side of the door. We'll have to do a lot of trial and error, though, because I'm not sure what all these mean!"
Lou nodded, and she and Gobo began gathering up the picture tiles. The second door was easy. All the two Fraggles had to do was find tiles that representing earth, wind, water, and fire. They found pictures of the Earth, a card with the symbol of air, a watering can, and a match. The third door wasn't so easy, however.
"I don't understand what it means," Gobo said.
"There are a lot of pictures of items made of metal," Lou said. "And metal is hard. Maybe we're supposed to take the picture tiles of the metal items, and put them in order from lightest to heaviest."
"Worth a shot," Gobo said.
The two Fraggles gathered up the picture tiles of a nut, a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, a saw, a crowbar, and a weight, and put them in the vertical slots in that order. Sure enough, the light circle appeared on the door. Once it did, Gobo and Lou stood in front of the final door, and stared at it.
"There aren't any instructions on it," Lou said. "How do we figure this out?"
"Hmmm," Gobo said, looking at a tile that pictured the moon. "Hey! Remember what Herbert said in the greenhouse? The moon is always first! Maybe this is what he meant!"
Gobo took the moon tile and placed it in the vertical slot. Unfortunately, that didn't help much. Lou looked at the door, and touched one of the gems.
"Pi is followed by the book," a voice said. "The book's contents follow."
"Huh?!" Gobo shouted. "What was that?!"
"I don't know," Lou said. "I just touched the rock and that voice came out of nowhere!"
"Hmmm," Gobo said, thoughtfully. He reached up and touched another gem.
"None can precede the white round night lady," the voice said.
"That must be the moon," Gobo said. Then he reached up and touched another gem.
"The two is three," the voice said.
"Now what does that mean?" Gobo asked.
"I think that means either two goes in the third spot, or three goes in the second spot," Lou said, and she began to look around the doors for the numbers. She found the Roman numeral for three, but none for two, so she stuck the three in the second slot. Gobo pushed another gem.
"Three times two equals three point one, four, one, five, nine, two," the voice said.
"That doesn't tell us much," Gobo said.
"Except it's lousy at math," Lou said. "Three times two is six. But we'd better keep going, because I'm not sure what that means."
Gobo nodded, and pushed another gem.
"Fourth with seven horses following," the voice said. Gobo and Lou looked at each other and shrugged, and then Gobo pushed another gem.
"The agile one goes between three and seven," the voice said.
"And there you have it," Gobo said. "None of that makes any sense to me."
"Me neither," Lou sighed. "What are we going to do? If we don't figure this out, Wembley will be asleep forever!"
Lou sat down and started to cry. Suddenly, some of the picture tiles on the doors came out by themselves, and landed on the floor by Lou's feet.
"There, there, little Fraggles," the voice of Marjory the Trash Heap said. "Don't cry, I can help you!"
"Oh please, Madam Heap!" Gobo shouted. "Please, can you tell us where these tiles go?"
"No, I can't do that," Marjory said, as one tile floated into the air. "What I can do is tell you what's on the tiles. This one is of a stick horse. This is the number seven. And this tile is pi."
"Doesn't look much like a pie to me," Gobo said.
"No, no," Marjory said. "Not that kind of pie. I mean pi. Pi equals three point one, four, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. These two tiles are of the book you had to find in the library, and the crystal that was inside of it. And last, but certainly not least, this tile has a picture of a cute little pussycat on it! Pussycats are very nice, and they are very agile, too! Now, then, touch the gems again to repeat their instructions, and you'll be able to figure out what to do. Good luck!"
Gobo and Lou looked at each other, as the tiles clattered to the floor. Then they shrugged, gathered up the tiles, and began to touch the gems again. It dawned on Lou that the pi tile belonged in the sixth slot, and the seventh slot contained the book, and the eighth, the crystal. That left the cat, the Roman numeral of seven, and the stick horse. As Gobo was staring at them, he snapped his fingers.
"Seven goes in the fourth spot!" he shouted. "And the stick horse goes in the fifth spot!"
"And that leaves the cat, which goes in the third spot!" Lou shouted.
Immediately, Gobo and Lou put the tiles in their proper spots, and the circle on the door appeared and glowed. In a flash of light, a tall, female Silly Creature wearing a red flowered shirt and red flowered pants appeared in front of the two Fraggles. She carried a crystal ball in one hand and a book in the other. She looked down at the two Fraggles, and glared at them.
"Are . . . . are you Lilith?" Gobo asked.
The Silly Creature said nothing, and suddenly vanished. Gobo and Lou looked at each other, and the ground began shaking.
"What's happening?!" Lou shouted.
"I don't know, but we'd better run!" Gobo shouted.
Gobo and Lou ran out of the room as fast as they could, and to the staircase. Unfortunately, as they were climbing down the stairs, they split in half, due to the sudden shaking, and the two Fraggles were thrown into the hole separating the upper and lower levels of the mansion.
"What are we going to do now?!" Lou shouted.
"Hold on, and wait until we land!" Gobo shouted. "I think that's all we can do!"
Gobo and Lou screamed as they fell, and they both landed with a loud thump, hit their heads against the floor, and lost consciousness.