Where Have We Come and Where Shall We End (An Over the Garden Wall story)

Chapter 11

~Wren~

•••

I stand there as Gregory and Wirt (that was his name, right?) stare at me.

I can't believe I just said that. Why did I say that?!

"The unknown?" Gregory says. "We've been-" he gets cut off as his brother slaps his hand over his mouth.

"No, no. We don't know anything. What's the unknown?" Wirt says nervously, his voice cracking.

He's obviously lying, maybe just avoiding this is the best way to go...but if they know about the unknown they could help me find Adel!

I have no idea what to say, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind as I try to piece together exactly what's happening.

"You helped get rid of the beast!" I say, thinking back to what happened in the woods that night.

"Uhh..." Wirt says removing his hand from Gregory's mouth.

Gregory seems to feel the need to speak up again, and he says "Yeah, well this brother o' mine did! I'm not really sure if I helped." He says, smiling up at his brother.

"Y-yeah, sure." Wirt says, "Look, uh...Wren, I don't think that we're really...I mean...uh..." He mumbles, not seeming to be able to come up with anything to say.

Actually, I don't know what to say either, so we just stand there. A minute passes, but it feels like an hour.

This is the most awkward conversation ever. I just want to run, to get out of here.

"Listen. I need help..." I say, using every speck of confidence in me, which doesn't really add up to much. "...my sister...I...she...the beast..." I can't even string my sentence together.

So I run. All the way back to the graveyard, and I don't stop until I reach the little section I like the best. It's weird to have made a little space for myself in a cemetery, I know, but it's nice here, really. It's the small area, closest to the wall, where the headstones are really close together. Well, they really aren't headstones, since no one is buried over here. It's an area where people who weren't buried are remembered or people who are buried somewhere else but wanted a stone here for some odd reason.

I make my way to my favorite stone and sit down next to it. My mom's stone. That's how Adel and I got all caught up in this stuff...because mom's remembrance stone is right here next to the wall.

It was a year and a half after she died, the middle of last winter. Adel and I had gone out in the woods, playing a game she'd made up. We were dressed up in costumes that mom had made when we were younger. She never told us what they were for, though.

We had been out in the woods for hours before we found the gap in the cemetery fence. It took us a few minutes to realize we were in the graveyard, but once we did, Adel bravely suggested that we go visit mom. We found her stone, over by the wall. Neither of us wanted to be near it, so we climbed up the wall. For a few minutes we just sat there, staring at the stone. After those minutes I looked over to Adel to see she was crying, silently. I leaned over to put my arm around my little sister, but that put us both out of balance, sending us tumbling over the garden wall.