After being slammed into a building, a tree, and almost having been dropped in the the Atlantic ocean twice, I was ready to say that wind was not my favorite form of travel. Jack had apologized profusely after every occurrence of course, but that did not change the fact that I would not be traveling via wind hovering ever again if I could help it.

The sun was already high in the sky when we arrived in Halloween Town, and most of the nocturnal creatures were asleep, but there were still a fair bit of Forsaken meandering about in the town square. The surplus of witches meant Jack had refused to land until we had reached my tower.

"Skeleton Jack and I have very different definitions of clean," I mused, looking around at all the dust and cobwebs hanging about in the corners. I hadn't stopped to take stock when I'd been here just days earlier, but it was plain as day right then. "I'll admit though, it is better than it would be if he hadn't come in here every once in awhile."

"Well, it fits in with the rest of the town," Jack pointed out. "I guess he wanted to keep the theme of Halloween going."

"I left before Halloween really became what it is today," I said, leading the way up the stairs to my library. "So Halloween Town is still pretty new to me. When I was here, it was still referred to as 'The Hallow.' "

He hummed, and observed the sparse decorations which included torches, some old souvenirs from my travels, and the occasional tapestry.

"It's nice, but you could've use a better color for the walls," Jack said offhandedly. "It's a bit drab."

I raised an eyebrow. "It's cobblestone."

"At least add some pictures or something. How about those cool knight armors that Dracula had?"

"Too much work to keep clean, and I don't have a house-keeper."

Jack shrugged. "Well then, pictures."

"Photos didn't exist yet when I left, and I didn't have money to buy anything, nor the patience to make anything."

I stopped climbing the stairs at the third level, and opened the door to the library.

"Well if you did have the time to redecorate, what would you want it to look like?"

I paused at that, because it was a very difficult question to answer, and not one I had ever pondered before.

"I'm not really sure," I admitted. "Not anything too fancy, like in a 1500's palace, but maybe something more simplistic?"

"How about some more tapestries?" I rolled my eyes.

"I'll take that into consideration." We shared a look, and I noticed not for the first time how purely blue his eyes were. They seemed to actually sparkle and smile all the time and—

—And suddenly I was reminded of the whole "zing" conversation back in Transylvania, and felt I could no longer look at him without coming off as some flighty (or in my case, flightless) school girl.

I coughed awkwardly, and gestured up the spiral stairwell. "This way to the library."

He didn't seem to notice my sudden nervousness, or if he did he just played it off. "After you, princess."

"Please don't call me that."

"No promises."

"I'll turn you into a toad if you do."

"No you won't."

"Plants, Herbs, and Their Uses?"

"No."

"Magic for Beginners?"

"No."

"Casting Rules of Safety?"

"No."

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?"

"No.... wait." I turned to look at the book in question, and flipped through a few of the pages and sighed. "No, these don't include humanoid creatures."

"I'm still not completely sure what we're looking for," Jack admitted, tossing the red bound book into the pile of rejects.

"Neither do I," I admitted. "Anything on what this 'Slenderman' might be, or better yet, defensive or, I don't know, attack spells?"

"Well, this one apparently tells you how to turn someone into a bear," he offered half-heartedly, picking up a small greenish blue book.

I offered a small smile. "I don't think that would work well in our favor." He snorted and moved on while I flipped through, 'Dark Magic of the Ages.'

"You know, with all these spells on how to regrow teeth and whole limbs, you'd think there would be one for growing feathers," he said casually. I paused to show I was listening, but didn't look up.

"Having a spell to grow feathers would suggest that there was a spellcaster before me who had feathers," I explained. "And I believe I am the first and only."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him look up from his book. "What do you mean?"

I sighed. "Well, none of the spells I use are one's I've created. In fact, I've never actually made a spell or curse before. I don't know how. Everything I know is information I've gathered from ancient sorcery and witch books. None of the witches of the past had a reason to grow feathers, so they didn't waste their time making feather-growing charms."

"But they made spells to reincarnate little woodland creatures?" We both looked up to where Mini bat was hanging from the ceiling, fast asleep.

"I think I just misunderstood the nature of the summoning," I admitted. "I thought the summoning spell meant bringing the Wanderer to my location. Apparently it was more along the lines of necromancy."

Jack's brow furrowed in confusion, and I elaborated further.

"Necromancy is most often times the practice of a mortal communicating with the dead, but it can also be the practice of someone creating Forsaken zombie slaves. This spell seems to work at a different level though, because Mini Bat and Jack Skellington have minds and wills of their own."

Jack stared at me for a moment before whistling in amazement and going back to page-flipping. "Just when I thought this world couldn't get any stranger."

I marveled for a moment at his ability to just roll with every strange thing my life was throwing at him, and was about to go back to my own reading, when a loud gong-like ringing filled the air. It rang through the entire tower like church bells at a cathedral. We were both caught completely off guard, and our immediate reactions were to leap to our feet, and stand back to back. Jack held his winter staff at the ready, and my fangs and claws were sharp and barred.

    Silence rang for a moment before the startling noise came again, and we both nearly jumped out of our skin. Then, my thoughts caught up with me.

    "I think," I said slowly, "That Jack Skellington may have installed a doorbell for me."

    I looked over my shoulder to meet Jack's wide eyed look just before he dissolve into laughter. I huffed and rolled my eyes, but couldn't help a small smile of my own.

    I hurried down the spiral stairs to the front door, and Jack came gliding after mechortling about monstrously loud doorbells all the way. A quick glance through the peephole revealed it to be Sally. I opened the door to greet her and inform her that Skeleton Jack wasn't back yet, but then my words got stuck in my throat, and all that came out was, "Oh."

Standing behind Sally, just down the steps on what would be the front lawn if there were anything alive here, was a crowed of perhaps twenty to thirty monsters of varying kinds. Witches, vampires (hiding under wide brimmed umbrellas), goblins, gremlins, and so many more. Sally had a pleasant smile on her face, which widened when she saw my gobsmacked expression.

    "I hope these are enough volunteers," she said sweetly. "They're all very excited about helping with your Wanderer."

"Yes, I said faintly, looking around at them all. "Yes this should be quite a big help."

    Jack drew up beside me and drew in a breath. "Holy horror of horrors," he muttered under his breath. "You really do have a lot of friends here."

    And then he was promptly surrounded by his adoring fans.

Heh heh... hi there....

PLEASE DON'T EAT ME! I'M SO SO SOOOOO SORRY I WAS GONE FOR SO LONG! I MISSED YOU ALL TERRIBLY AND FOR SO LONG IT JUST SEEMED LIKE IT WAS ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER THAT STOPPED ME FROM BEING ABLE TO WORK ON THIS AND THEN I LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT AND-

*Breathes* Heh, but I am here now. This chapter was kind of short and pathetic after me having been gone for so long, but hopefully I will have plenty of time to work on this before I have to dive into another semester of Hell in college. If I'm lucky and persistent, I'll even finish it before my winter break is over in three and a half weeks. As I have said before, I will finish this story, and I would never abandon it. I would literally die before I did that to a reader. I just don't think it's fare. I just sometimes take FOREVER to update.

...Like, a little over a year forever.

In all curiosity though, how many of you legitimately thought I was dead?

Anyway, before writing and posting this chapter, I went through and edited all of my previous chapters. Some of them look almost exactly the same minus some grammar and spelling errors, some of them look completely different. I think the two majorly different chapters are 17 and 18. One thing you will notice is that Animalia is now completely absent from the story. I'm sorry if there is anyone out there who really grew attached to her, but I just didn't know what to do anymore. She belonged to a fellow Wattpad writer when we were rooming together, but we haven't seen each other in a few years now, and she doesn't seem to have any interest in this story anymore, and I have no idea what to do with this extra character, so I just got rid of her completely and gave her lines away to everyone else, mainly Tooth and Bunny.

In terms of the art contest, I'm not really sure what to do about that. The person who won first place has kind of disappeared off the internet, and I wasn't able to get a hold of the second place winner before I disappeared off of Wattpad for a while. So... I guess, does anyone have any ideas?

I think someone commented a week ago asking if they could still send in an art submission. Unfortunately it's too late to be in the competition, but I absolutely love seeing fanart! (even if it's just RotG or something and not even related to Giving Way to the Light).

Until next time, happy holidays!

****I DO NOT OWN DREAMWORKS, RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, DISNEY, WINNIE THE POOH, SLENDERMAN, HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA OR ANYTHING ELSE!!!!! JUST THE STORY PLOT!