As the bark spread across her face, Astrid opened her mouth and let out a scream that was so loud, the entire forest heard it. Then the bark covered her mouth as well.
——-
Afton and Nicolas heard a shriek come from within the forest. They jumped up, "Astrid is in trouble!" They said together. If she ever made a sound, it was to release all of the sound she had stolen and she never did this.
They rushed in the direction of the shrieking, which had become muffled and then eventually stopped.
"Where do we go now?" Nicholas exclaimed, turning in circles. All directions looked the same. He couldn't even tell where he had come from.
"Hey!" Afton exclaimed, "That's Klaus' ax!"
The ax lay next to a fallen tree and their brother was nowhere to be found.
"This forest is more menacing than I thought," Nicolas said. "How could Klaus disappear too?"
