I remember this part of the game because I got permanently stuck and wasn't able to finish it; apparently the game is quite finicky and glitchy here. I don't have any specific help to offer to get you past this stuck point, unfortunately. The only suggestion I have is to read the Big Fish forum for the game
here, because there are many posts discussing this problem and possible solutions/fixes. Maybe you already looked there, but there are numerous posts in this forum about this place in the game, and maybe something there will help if you check out all the discussions.