Some months have passed since Slim departed [rough game date: March 1999], and in that time Waldren House has become practically deserted, with Lady Catherine its only real inhabitant.
Rising early one morning, as is her habit, Lady Catherine was understandably surprised when, exiting her bedroom she found herself in a different corridor from the one which normally lay outside her door. Calling on the Shape, she received no response, and with some trepidation she set out to explore the new realm of her house.
After some minutes of creeping about, she saw round a corner first a painting she had made of Jacoby, and then a humanoid, but definitely not human, shape, staring at the picture. When challenged (in the meekest possible way), the figure began to advance on her, talking all the while. It declared itself to be the Shape, and that something was wrong, some part of it was missing. Lady Catherine retreated before him, and then called upon Shape to stop - and at that moment she found herself in the Waldren House she knew and recognised, and the Shape was nowhere to be seen.
Lady Catherine immediately tried to speak with Shape, who responded that he knew something was wrong, and that it was all very strange. Lady Catherine reassured herself that the house was still in order, checking out those parts which didn't venture too deep into the Dreaming. Finding nothing, she checked the painting of Jacoby, which she had painted over some time before. She found nothing amiss with it, left her investigations at that for the day.
The next day, much the same thing happened. This time there were two paintings, one of Jacoby and one of Slim. Of those one she had painted over, and the other had been destroyed, yet here they were. The Shape made another appearance in humanoid form and went off down a long corridor into darkness. Lady Catherine, filled with misgiving, followed down the increasingly cramped passage, until finally emerging out in the garden, at the Wild Run - having exited the passage at exactly that place where the tunnel from the hearthroom ends. Much perplexed, and spurred by the Shape's continuing insistence that part of itself was missing, and that it had been ever since it woke up, Lady Catherine decided to invite Jellybean, Stig, Richard and Robert to lunch, so that they might help her investigate.
Jellybean, hair and clothes no longer so stand-out, arrived with Polnoch and quickly fell to playing in cat form. With Stig's arrival she raised the matter at hand, and avenues of investigation were put forward. Exploration of the garden was the first thing to be done, once Robert appeared, and that continued with the aid of the late, but brightly suited and newly bald Richard. The three paths were wandered down in different orders and patterns in the hopes of finding some clue, while Stig also investigated the passageway.
While Jellybean explored the second storey of Waldren House, making a map of the impossible Dreaming areas, Stig discovered engravings on the large flagstone in which the cover to the passageway lay. Once Robert had cut through the bush that grew up through and over it, it was revealed to be a depiction of a tree divided in twain, one half leafless with the moon overhead, the other showing the abundance of summer and lit by the sun. A hook rose up out of the trunk. Here was the symbol that Mick had talked of at Lady Catherine's Sain Day.
Encouraged, but with the day drawing to an end, Lady Catherine dismissed the others (leaving Robert especially with instructions not to touch the symbol or the hook). Alone once more, she took her easel outside and painted the scene, using parts of the bush Robert had cut down as brushes. And in that painting was revealed a golden rope forking away down the left and right paths from the glade, and looped around the hook.