Revenant Wings immediately set to work the moment they walked back into the Guard offices.
After lengthy talks with Captain Iron Shield and presenting of the evidence of Fluttershy and the early stages of the conversation with Zecora, Revenant Wings had presented the berries to the Captain. Once a berry had been separated for evidence and the others marked for sending off to the main Guard forensic offices in Canterlot, Revenant decided it was time to spring his idea.
“Sir,” he said respectfully, “may I present to you another lead that has been shown us this whole time. There is a patch of these blueberries somewhere within the Whitetail Woods. Perhaps we could see if we can’t get to this area and if there is any evidence that hides itself from us there.”
It was at this remark that Captain Iron Shield suddenly became rather wary.
“I am sure your judgment is not hindered by foreknowledge of Caramel, his brother, Zecora, or Fluttershy,” he said. “But without much else to go on – Hoofprint’s own interview returned nothing more than what was revealed in the Doctor Stable interview – I need you to present a good, sound, and logical case as to why we ought to pursue this lead.”
“Caramel knew the location of these berries,” Revenant Wings said. “The Doctor’s interview revealed that Caramel was going to go there after he had finished work and from that point he disappeared. No one saw him come out. Perhaps we may find evidence of a creature or a pony that had been there, perhaps in the brush around the location of the berry patch.”
“We do not know the location of the berry patch,” the Captain remarked slowly. “Unless you know where it is.”
“Garnet Heart does,” Revenant Wings replied. “He told me this morning before work that Caramel told him where to find them and gave him some.”
“...you mean Garnet Heart knows Caramel?” Captain Iron Shield exclaimed. “Revenant Wings, why didn’t you tell me this before!?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Revenant said politely though taken aback, “but I did not remember it until now. And I never hear more than passing conversation; Garnet himself often is put on a beat that goes by where he works. I do not believe the day of the disappearance was his route, however.”
Captain Iron Shield made a somewhat disgusted face. “Revenant Wings, I am appalled at this information being hidden from me regardless of when you remembered it. I am going to give you a warning for now, but you must tell me anything else you know right now otherwise you face suspension.”
Revenant Wings sincerely regretting his idea now, but Iron Shield’s word was law and he had every right to be angry at him. “Zecora hinted at the existence of two creatures inside the Whitetail Woods, one of which came from the Everfree Forest. But her memory was impaired somehow and she could not give specific details. That is also part of the interview we heard from, but we had not gotten to that point yet.”
Captain Iron Shield raised an eyebrow and folded his hooves on his desk. He stayed silent for a long while, Revenant Wings not even daring to move, as though thinking.
Finally, the Captain looked at Revenant. “Get the information from Garnet Heart. Then send word to Zecora. You two will go tomorrow with Watchful Eye and see if you can’t find anything at the clearing. Take the forensic toolbox with you. I will be interviewing Garnet tomorrow.”
Much to Revenant’s own surprise, Garnet Heart had taken this information relatively well when he explained it over dinner of stuffed peppers.
“First of all, we could have collaborated and found a decent way of explaining it to him,” Garnet said. “You might not have gotten in trouble that way. However, I am not surprised I didn’t tell him before. I suppose I got caught up in our own investigations I didn’t think my own information may be helpful. I’ll let him know tomorrow it’s partly my fault and it might take the blame off you.”
“So, where is the patch of berries?” Revenant Wings said. “I’ll be getting Zecora tomorrow to go there.”
“Not too far north of Fluttershy’s house is a westward path that winds behind the hill where her house is located and through the Whitetail Woods. This leads to a clearing. Go north again and the berry patch is there, but I have no idea where the path goes if you continue westward.”
“Is it within sight of Ponyville?”
“There are a few twists and turns,” Garnet Heart said, “but it’s pretty easy to determine how to head back. The path to Ponyville is well-worn and much wider across. It could have been used as a creature migration path before Ponyville was settled. The other is thin and very rocky before long, and the woods are thicker there.”
“Well... wish me luck, then,” Revenant Wings said. “I’ve gotten myself into quite a mess. I only hope that, with Zecora’s and Watchful Eye’s help, I might be able to get myself out of it.”
“The Captain did merely give you a warning,” Garnet Heart pointed out. “He’s probably interested in seeing where the lead goes himself. But the facts being that we’re essentially cops and this is a rather sensitive case right off the bat, he needs evidence to move on.”
Revenant Wings poked his red pepper with his fork. “That’s what I’m afraid of: I won’t be able to produce anything.”
At eight o’clock the next morning, Garnet Heart went into the office to have his own interview with Captain Iron Shield, while Revenant Wings and Watchful Eye prepared themselves for an outing into the Whitetail Woods.
Revenant Wings took the job of a sketch artist and note-taker, in addition to bringing along the tape recorder and a blank tape in case it was necessary. Watchful Eye brought along his camera and took the entirety of the forensics toolbox in his saddlebags. With the necessary items packed, the two each took a spear for defense as mandatory for explorations outside Ponyville’s boundaries, and set off.
Their first stop was the path to the southwest and into the Everfree Forest to find Zecora. Revenant Wings, having taken the path before, led the way as they walked in silence. Compared to the previous evening, the woods were silent as they walked and Revenant did not feel the same feeling of being watched as he did before. Even so, he kept his spear at the ready and did not relax it for any reason.
At last they came to Zecora’s door.
“She may not be an evil enchantress,” Watchful Eye commented as they approached the giant tree, “but she definitely has the looks and home for it.”
“Be quiet,” Revenant Wings said. “It’s rude to talk about her that way.”
Revenant Wings knocked on the door and called inside yet again. Zecora opened up, already looking wide awake despite the hour.
“Good morning, Revenant, here once more,” Zecora said politely. “What brings you here today to my door?”
“Miss Zecora,” Revenant Wings asked equally politely. “We would like to ask for your assistance. We are going to find the blueberry patch we were telling you about yesterday. But we want you to come with us and let us know if you see any signs of those creatures you were telling us about.”
“I can make no guarantee I will spot any sign,” Zecora said. “But, to accompany you, the pleasure is mine. I’ll see what I see and nothing more, but if this is my task, it’s an easy chore.”
Revenant Wings introduced Zecora to Watchful Eye. Zecora merely smiled and nodded before Revenant excused her to collect some supplies she might need. She came out with saddlebags filled with herbs and three blue bottles and offered one to both Revenant and Watchful Eye.
“Drink these potions to increase your guard,” Zecora said. “If we find the creatures, your mind will be barred.”
Revenant Wings and Watchful Eye drank the bottles in one gulp; to Revenant, it tasted like the berries but as though they had been pressed and juiced. The concentration was stronger and it tasted sweeter and caused Revenant to shake his head in surprise. Zecora was not bothered by it and took the bottles back when they were done, placing them back in her home before leading the way out of the Everfree.
The way out was as silent as the way in. Zecora led them confidently through the Everfree and back out to Ponyville, at which point she let Revenant take the lead once more. Revenant himself led them first to Fluttershy’s house, but stopped slightly before the approach to the front door and went around behind the house, heading slightly northwest. Looking around, Revenant Wings could see Fluttershy peeking out one of the windows of her house in their direction, along with the white rabbit.
Sure enough, there was the path that Garnet Heart had mentioned. It seemed little used; there was only one pair of hoofprints going into the forest, and they led straight in.
“Someone’s used this trail,” Revenant Wings said. “And rather recently. Watchful Eye, come here and take a few photographs.”
Watchful Eye took out his camera and a small ruler. Placing it next to one of the hooves, he found a set of hoofprints that seemed clearer than the rest and took a few pictures.
“In this dry earth, hoofprints will easily hold,” Zecora said. “They look to me a few days old.”
“Then there’s a possibility these are Caramel’s...” Revenant Wings mused. “There’s no way to confirm this right now, but certainly somepony’s been this way and he’s the one that knows this secret.”
Revenant Wings headed off down the path, followed by Zecora with Watchful Eye taking the rear. The path was wide and the trees were spaced in rather large intervals. White pine, birch, and oak mingled with one another with a clear floor lightly populated by bushes. The trail through the trees winded around larger stems but mostly traveled fairly straight into the woods and soon the trees became denser and denser, and Ponyville was soon out of sight.
By the time they had been walking for nearly twenty minutes, Revenant Wings guessed they had gone up a small hill then down into something of a gully. The trail turned north for a while before going south-by-southwest, and they passed over a river heading southwards and probably flowed into the Everfree Forest given enough time. It may have been pony-controlled, but the woods seemed wilder than almost anywhere else Revenant Wings had seen.
At last, they came to a clearing. They stopped for a moment and noticed the trail of hooves turned northwards. They followed the hoofprints northwards a few hundred yards more and they disappeared into a large patch of grass and what Revenant Wings soon recognized as the berries.
“These are the berries, aren’t they Zecora?”
“It seems we’ve reached the berries’ source,” Zecora agreed, “Now, let us look for this Caramel horse.”
But the grass obscured any further footsteps. If the dirt wasn’t at the entrance of the patch with their hoofsteps joining the other pony they had followed, Revenant Wings wouldn’t have known that was the way they had come from. There were multiple small bushes not much taller than Revenant’s chest scattered around but no sign of anything nearby.
“Do any of the bushes look recently plucked, Zecora?” Revenant asked.
Zecora shook her head.
“And I’m not seeing any more hoofprints,” Watchful Eye said. “It seems they just kind of stop at the edge of the berry patch, almost like whoever made them just... vanished.”
“Well, that narrows it down somewhat,” Revenant Wings said. “Either something strayed off the path by now, or a unicorn came and teleported him.”
“Except teleportation is a rather rare spell, especially compared to telekinesis,” Watchful Eye said. “Heck, not even Iron Shield knows it, and he’s pretty skilled in defensive and evasive magic.”
“Your companion here is on the money and rather bright,” Zecora responded. “The only teleporting unicorn I know is Princess Twilight.”
“And she’s an alicorn now,” Revenant Wings said. “Castle and everything. She’s supposed to be one of the most talented magicians of the age.”
“So that rules teleportation out, most likely,” Watchful Eye said. “So, what do we do now?”
“There’s got to be something,” Revenant Wings said. “Check the edges of the clearing where the bushes stop growing. They don’t seem to grow much farther than the trees.”
So they set out to work again. Revenant looked around bushes and around the trees at the edge of the patch but found nothing. Neither did Zecora after a long stretch of searching. Watchful Eye didn’t see anything for a long while, but suddenly gained an interest in a nearby tree.
“Hey, you two!” he called over. “You might want to come check this out...”
Revenant Wings and Zecora trotted over to where Watchful Eye was standing. He was under a large oak tree with the nearest branches nearly fifteen feet off the ground. The tree seemed rather thick with branches and full of leaves that blocked out the sun and placed them all in a dark shade. He was pointing to the trunk of the tree.
“...what is that?” Revenant Wings asked.
It looked like a place where the bark had been rubbed off and worn down. Instead of the rough contour of the bark, the tree felt smooth and polished like a stone. So something had not only rubbed against it, but rubbed against it for a very long time. Moreover, the worn area wrapped around the tree and looked to spiral upwards until it disappeared into the thick cover of leaves.
“Very few things could make that mark,” Zecora replied. “The scales of a snake cling like that to the bark.”
“Scales? Snake? I’ve heard of some garter snakes around here or some other small ones, but those things are huge!”
Watchful Eye brought out his smaller ruler and placed it against the bark, but it was quite plain the smaller ruler was not enough to measure the distance. He then pulled out a tape measure, extracted a long piece of the tape, and set it up against the tree.
“Certainly big,” Watchful Eye commented. “They’re almost ten inches wide.” He looked over to Revenant Wings, the biggest of the lot only slightly, and measured him up in his head. “If it wrapped around you, it’d cover you from your neck to the bottom of your hooves in five or six loops.”
“Nothing that big should live around here,” Revenant Wings said. “We’re temperate enough no snake that big should be able to survive in these woods. Rainwater’s not frequent enough to keep the scales wet and this place experiences winter like everywhere else, which would force them into hibernation.”
“Unless there is serious dark magic at work,” Zecora spoke up. “Or something crawled out from Everfree and came here to lurk.”
Revenant Wings held the tape measure as Watchful Eye took photos of the tree branch. They took pictures at a few different locations and it was all the same fourteen inches wide.
“Hey!” Watchful Eye exclaimed as they came to the back of the tree away from the berry patch. “There’s a trail leading deeper into the Whitetail Woods!”
He was right; Revenant Wings looked over and noticed a definite depression that formed a slight S-shape deeper into the Whitetail Woods. The trees became thicker and the shadows darker and Revenant thought better than to pursue whatever it was into the depths of Whitetail.
“Take a few photos of the depression,” Revenant Wings said. “Then we should head back. It’s already mid-afternoon.”
“Yeah,” Watchful Eye said. “I don’t want to be anywhere near this thing, and I’m starving as it is.” He took a few photos and packed up.
All three were eager to leave as Revenant led the way back. They went south to the clearing, then followed the trail of hoofprints going east as fast as they could. They passed back over the river in a steady gallop and went through the winding woods and back into lighter territory. The trees spaced out again and suddenly they burst out from the forest and into the path towards Ponyville.
At the edge of the woods, Zecora took their leave and headed southwards towards home. Revenant Wings and Watchful Eye headed back to the Guard station and were welcomed back by Garnet Heart and Captain Iron Shield, who had bought sandwiches for the two.
“Well?” Captain Iron Shield said. “Did you find anything?”
“Plenty,” Watchful Eye said. “Though let me develop the photos first. It’s admittedly a bit strange, and will make more sense. Revenant can tell you the details once that’s in.”
Captain Iron Shield and Garnet Heart looked back and forth between Revenant Wings and Watchful Eye curiously. After a while, the Captain’s eyes fixed firmly on Revenant Wings.
“Give me the short version,” he said.
Revenant Wings gulped. “Well, we got Zecora and headed down the path Garnet mentioned,” he said. “We found a set of hoofprints, and followed them down the path that Garnet told me about. They led to a clearing full of the berries, but then disappeared. But, on the opposite side, we found evidence of something roaming around the woods that seems similar to a large snake, including worn-down bark on a tree and depression of grass leading deeper into the Whitetail Woods and off the beaten path.”
Captain Iron Shield raised an eyebrow and looked at Revenant Wings warily. “You mean to say something is living in those woods that, in all likelihood, shouldn’t be? And that it’s been sitting there under our noses this whole time without us knowing?”
“Watchful Eye has pictures if you don’t believe me. Give him time to develop them and we can go over them however much you want. But know that, at the moment, it seems like a rather large snake.”
Captain Iron Shield’s face softened. “Yes, you mentioned that before. And I should apologize for earlier. You barely knew about the case, and I shouldn’t have punished you for information Garnet Heart had not revealed yet. So I’m going to rescind my warning and leave your record clear.”
“Thank you, sir,” Revenant Wings said.
The Captain’s face became stern again. “But keep up your work, and if anything else comes up from either of you, report it to me immediately. Now go on and do the transcripts of your latest interviews; I’ll let you both know when I have more work.”
Revenant Wings took the sandwich that was brought for him, opened it up, and headed back to his desk. It was already one and he was surprised how long he’d spent in the Whitetail Woods searching for Caramel. He ate his sandwich quietly and transcribed one of the tapes he’d made not long ago; Garnet Heart stayed quiet temporarily as he transcribed another.
Around four thirty, both tapes were written down and given to Quick Quill as part of the evidence for Caramel’s case and the office went quiet. The photos had been developed and Iron Shield was now looking over them in his office and wasn’t saying a word to anyone yet.
“You were there in Whitetail a long time,” Garnet Heart said. “What happened?”
“Well, picking up Zecora first took some time,” Revenant Wings said. “Then we had to find the trailhead. We found hoofprints leading in, too, so we took some pictures. I honestly didn’t think we spent as much time as we did, but following the hoofprints and scouring the berry patch for any signs of evidence must have taken some time.”
“...do you think Caramel was eaten by a giant snake?”
“I doubt it,” Revenant Wings. “I’d think it would be more likely if it scared him off. All the same, something that large needed to be reported anyways.”
“True,” Garnet Heart said. “I just wonder why something that big would be around here. With scales as wide as the pictures say, that thing has to be at least twenty-five to thirty feet long.”
“Scares me to no end, honestly,” Revenant Wings replied with a shiver. “Especially considering our house is not far from the Whitetail Woods’ trailhead and not very far from the woods themselves at all; just a quick jaunt across that small grassy area.”
Captain Iron Shield emerged from his office and looked at the now quiet main room. “Were you discussing the creature and the markings?” he asked.
Revenant Wings and Garnet Heart nodded.
“Well, hopefully it’s too scared to come out into the open,” the Captain said. “Fluttershy has a few extra pairs of eyes and ears available for us if everything went as you said. It might not try leaving the Whitetail Woods if it thinks it’s going to be spotted.”
“Heck, maybe Fluttershy could deal with it herself,” Garnet added. “If it’s a snake, no matter how large it is, Fluttershy ought to be able to communicate with it. She does so with all the garter snakes, rat snakes, and hog-nosed snakes we see around here occasionally.”
“Yes, but those are much smaller,” Iron Shield pointed out. “Only about four to six feet long. And we’re dealing with something potentially five or six times longer than that, something that could easily loop and crush a pony. And remember not even Fluttershy can control the rock-o-dile.”
The guards were left in silence. The clock struck five o’clock and Revenant Wings and Garnet Heart started packing up and getting ready to check-out for the day. A call came in to Quick Quill, but all of them were silent and ignored it for a long while.
But suddenly Quick Quill turned around and spoke.
“Garnet Heart?” she asked. “Fluttershy just called me. She says that one of her songbirds noticed a sleeping pony lying just inside of the Whitetail Woods behind her house and wanted to let you know. She said it looked like Caramel.”