The trouble all began when they found the third underground lake. Denara knew it the moment she smelled the lilacs. Sweet scented and still, the lake lay serenely, directly across the path they had to take. It shimmered in the dim light. It exuded calm and relation. It rivaled aromatherapy. Denara hated it.

            Tasha was in seventh heaven. Maybe eighth. "Ooooh….lilacs!"

            Sparki grinned. "Totally organically cognizant of you, Dudette! Most decidedly pretty."

            Tasha stared at the lake, filled with the sudden urge to strip off all her clothes and frolic in its fragrant depths. Craig smiled encouragingly.

            Mollie glared, "no, no, no, no, no…"

            Denara agreed. "I'm not swimming, wading, splashing or dipping anywhere near that flower scented puddle. For-get it!"

            Hamish sighed. "You willna have to, Lass. I'll carry ye across…"

            Denara sighed and looked at the Scotsman, decidedly swooney. "You WILL?"

            Hamish rolled his eyes. "Are ye going to cross the thing any other way?" With that, Hamish scooped up one after the other of the band members and carried them across the lake, except for Craig, who surfed across using his fiddle as a boogie board. While Craig peeled the ziplock watertight swimsack off the fiddle, Hamish went back for Denara. All went well halfway across the lake. Maybe nearly two thirds, give or take a little. But on the last leg of the journey, Denara chose to make known to Hamish her eternal vows of love, fidelity and everlasting devotion. Hamish was shocked. Hamish was appalled. Hamish dropped Denara in the Lake of Lilacs.

            It was an accident. Really.

            Denara surfaced, sputtering and thrashing, and Hamish hauled her out by the scruff of her neck.

            "Och, lassie, I dinnae mean to drop ye!" He protested. "But I was a bit shocked when ye suggested we wed on Thursday and honeymoon in England!"

            Denara glared, furious. "And what is WRONG with the idea of us getting married?"

            Hamish shook his head, still horrified. "Och, Lassie! ENGLAND?!?!??"

            Denara straightened her clothing and wrang out her person, prepared to forgive Hamish any injury or betrayal. Except one.

            "I smell like Tasha!" Denara howled, stamping an angry foot. That's when Hamish did it. The unforgivable. The unpardonable. The…well…heinous. He laughed.

            Denara's eyes narrowed and she picked up a rock to hurl at his head. The others ducked as the missile sailed by.

"Well," commented Craig. "I guess the love affair is over."

            Mollie nodded as the next rock missed Hamish by merely inches. "See how much easier the breakup is when lawyers aren't involved?"
            Denara climbed up onto a large nearby boulder to get better aim at her erstwhile intended. Hamish prepared to duck, but stopped mid-stride ad Denara suddenly began to age before their eyes, growing and stretching and filling out, before coming to a stop at a very voluptuous twenty-something. Hamish's jaw hit the bedrock.

            Denara stared in horror at her brand new chest. "My God," she gasped in surprise. "I've got…"

            "My God," Mollie said jealously, "you do!"

            Craig whistled. "That was one hell o' a makeover."

            Denara aimed another rock. "Shut up!"

            Tasha hurried over. "Now don't you worry," she soothed. "All you need are quality foundation garments. A little `lift and separate' can go a long way towards…"

            Denara leaped from the rock and bowled Tasha over. Mollie waded into the fray and tried to separate the combatants. "Cut it out…you'll break my sister."

            Sparki, who had been thinking, suddenly brightened. "Like, say, most excellent friends, I have a total theory! Check this. The rocks have aging properties in them and contact with their most bogusly active surfaces ages the person that touches them. These rocks were left here, and our most young and whiny companion sat on one, I'm so totally sure!"

            Craig shouldered his fiddle. "Rocks of ages, left for me…now Denara's twenty-three..." The object of his ballad hefted another rock, to halt the progress of verse two, but Tasha was sniffing miserably over a tear in her lace stockings, and Craig gallantly went to comfort her. As the young Scotsman patted her shoulder in a most brotherly fashion, Tasha stepped on a rock, turned her foot and tumbled into his arms. A moment later, Craig was very surprised to find himself holding a startled infant with blue eyes and blonde tresses, who immediately began teething on his fiddle.

            Hamish pulled his eyes away from Denara and hollered, "Where did that baby come from?!"

            The baby smiled at Craig and began to coo. "Macys…trust fund…ice sculptures…"

            Mollie screamed. "My God, it's Tasha!"

            Craig almost dropped the baby.

            Sparki was flabbergasted. "Bogus…" she whispered.

            The infant gave Craig's eyebrow a sturdy pull and, giving up on that avenue of sustenance, reached to a nearby rock ledge, grabbed a small stone and popped it into her mouth. A moment later, a doubly surprised Craig found himself holding a Tasha restored to her normal age. The change in weight was unexpected and sudden, and he lost his balance and sat down, hard, on a rock beside Mollie.

            Tasha screamed.

A moment later, a small baby boy sat upright on the boulder and gave a deafening screech. "Fibble! Fibble! Want my fibble!"

            Hamish stared in shock. "Great William Wallace," he breathed in shock. "Tis Craig!"

            Mollie gushed. "Isn't he cute? He wants his fiddle." She tickled the baby under the chin. "What's the magic word?"

            The baby clamped budding teeth onto her tickling finger. "FIBBLE!" he roared.

            Sparki leaped forward. "That's it! Magic! The stones are way magic! Some age forwards and some age backwards, only we totally don't know which is which one!"

            Hamish paled. "Noobody sit down!"

            The baby crawled to the fiddle, hefted it and belted Hamish in the knee.

            "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

            Mollie cringed. "Stop that baby from wailing!"

            Tasha shrugged. "That was Hamish."

            Mollie waved her hands for silence. "Okay, just CALM DOWN!"

            Sparki nodded. "Like, absolutomundo," she agreed. "We totally have to chill way out." She bent to pick up the baby, who was bashing all and sundry with the fiddle, which just about equaled him in size. Sparki separated infant from instrument and baby Craig glared balefully up at her.

            "Fibble, Barky…" he demanded, prepared to howl for the next hour without pausing for breath.

            Hamish staggered over. "Best let him have it, Lass. If he starts an echo in here, we're…"

            "Shut up!" commanded the infant, drooling imperiously. "Fibble!"

            Tasha was still staring at the now stunningly gorgeous, statuesque Denara. "The mud mask worked," she sniffed, wiping away a tear. "Bruce would have been so proud."

            Denara stamped her foot. "I want to be twelve again," she insisted, her lovely (and non-collagen enhanced) lip trembling.

            Mollie let out a cry as Baby Craig reached the fiddle at last and clipped her a good one on the ear. A moment later, every woman in the cavern except Sparki was howling miserably.

            Baby Craig clapped his hands at the din. "Fibble tarty, fibble tarty!"

            Mollie sniffed and mopped her face. "I think he wants a fiddle party."

            Sparki cocked her head at Tasha and Hamish. "Like, that, or he just called Tasha a tart and Hamish a fribble."

            Denara glared and dashed away her tears. "WHAT are we going to do?"
            Hamish buried his head in his hands (so unfortunately never saw the fiddle coming until it knocked him over). "That's enough!" he bellowed, snatching the instrument away.

            Baby Craig stopped.

            Baby Craig sniffled.

            Baby Craig began to howl.

            "Hamstitch baaaaaaad!" he vowed, "Waaaaaaaaaahhhhh!"

            Hamish clapped his hands defensively over his ears.

            "Whoa," commented Sparki, "like hold it down, most spoiled and vociferous small one. Any loud noise in a place like this could cause a…"

            "Rockslide!" Mollie screamed, snatching baby and fiddle and fleeing down the tunnel.

            A distant rumbling and roaring grew louder as the ground began to tremble, and the Neon Lites fled after Mollie.

            Denara glared at Sparki. "Do you cause earthquakes EVERYWHERE you go?"

            The pile of rocks crashed at their heels as the Neon Lites dove into a small alcove in the wall of the tunnel, and escaped death by mere inches.

            Baby Craig sat down and calmly began eating dirt. Shaken and bruised, a dusty but decidedly twelve year old Denara spit out the mouthful of rocks she had inadvertantantly collected and hugged herself in happy reunion.

            "I'm back!" she cried.

            Hamish sighed. "There's that gone," he muttered.

            Baby Craig let out an extremely loud belch, and began sampling pebbles from the floor of the cave. "Boom boom!" He crowed happily, applauding the uproar. "More!"

            Hamish grabbed a giant stone, but Mollie stopped him in time. "We have to find some magic rock to bring Craig back to his proper age," she said firmly.

            "Fine," glowered Hamish, eyeing the baby darkly. "I'll hit him with THAT."

Tasha gently pried some stones from the baby's fingers and got swatted for her trouble.

            "FIBBLE!"

            Sparki shook her head and rose abruptly from the top of the pile of rubble that covered her. "Bogus…been a LONG time since I was THAT stoned…"

            Denara and Hamish watched in horror as a large rock dislodged from the top of the pile and rolled downhill to land directly on the baby.

            Tasha shrieked.

            Mollie was the first one brave enough to go peer behind the semi-boulder, and she shouted in relief as a decidedly indignant voice rose from the corner of the alcove.

            "Bloody blazes," Craig moaned from behind the boulder. "I feel like I just aged twenty years!"

            Fortunately for everyone, he had.