Conner and his friends could hear the commotion between the witches and the Marines as if it were happening right in front of them. It was terrifying knowing his sister was outside in the line of gunfire, and pure torture knowing there was nothing he could do to help her. Conner fought against the metal bars wrapped around his body until his skin bruised, but the railing never budged.
Just as a thunderous round of gunfire commenced, Morina reappeared in the Rose Main Reading Room. She sauntered through the room to the bridge between worlds without even looking at the captives twisted in the railing above her. Conner and the others called her every foul name they could think of as she passed by, but the metal bars across their mouths muffled their words.
“Save your strength—you’re going to be up there for a very long time,” Morina said with a laugh. “Now that my pawns are in place, it’s time to secure a checkmate. Enjoy these moments while you can—it’ll be the last time the Otherworld belongs to you.”
Morina blew them each a kiss and the metal bars wrapped around their bodies even more tightly. The witch stepped into the fairy-tale world and disappeared in the forest on the other side.
Conner and his friends squirmed in their painful constraints. They were pinned so tightly they could barely breathe and were starting to lose feeling in their limbs. Hero was woken by his mother’s frantic twisting and began to cry—but the infant’s crying was drowned out by Red’s high-pitched weeping.
There hadn’t been many moments in Conner’s life when he’d felt completely out of luck, but this was one of them. With his sister under a terrible curse, his friends imprisoned around him, and no way to contact anyone outside the library, Conner thought the Otherworld might be doomed.
Suddenly, the conflict outside went dead silent and Conner feared the worst. Either the Marines had exterminated the witches and his sister, or the battle had moved. Footsteps entered the Rose Main Reading Room, and Conner worried that the witches were retreating into the library. Since his head was stuck facing forward, he looked out of the corners of his eyes until the muscles in his sockets were strained. He saw the shapes of four familiar young women—and they were the last people on earth he was expecting to find.
“As I live and breathe,” said a familiar voice. “If it isn’t Conner Bailey… and he’s exactly where I’ve always wanted him—vulnerable and in need of a favor!”
Mindy, Cindy, Lindy, and Wendy walked farther into the Rose Main Reading Room and stood where Conner and the others could see them clearly. The Book Huggers stared up at him and his friends with matching smirks, crossed arms, and devious expressions. The teenage girls looked like vultures surrounding a pack of injured animals.
“Hmm hmmhmhm?” Bree mumbled in disbelief.
“Oh, look, girls!” Cindy said. “Bree Campbell and Conner are in a suspicious circumstance together! What a surprise—NOT!”
“Hmmmm hmm hm hmm hmmm!” Conner grunted.
“What’s that, Conner? After all these years you finally have something to say?” Mindy asked. “Wish I could hear you through the all lies and trickery you’ve planted in my head!”
“HMMM HMM HMMM!” Conner grunted angrily.
“Lindy, go back to the abandoned subway tunnel,” Mindy ordered. “I believe there was a handsaw on the platform. That should help Conner loosen his lips.”
Lindy followed the command and promptly left the reading room. Conner wasn’t sure if the Book Huggers’ plan was to free him or torture him with the saw, and judging by their questionable behavior in the past, either was possible. A few minutes later Lindy returned carrying a foot-long handsaw like it was a poisonous snake.
“Great work. Now remove the bar covering his mouth,” Mindy instructed.
Lindy paused nervously. “Maybe Wendy should do this? She was the only one of us who didn’t fail woodshop.”
Wendy nodded confidently and took the tool from her friend. The quietest Book Hugger placed the handsaw between her teeth and climbed a bookshelf toward Conner like a pirate ascending the side of a ship. With two quick strikes on each side, the metal bar across Conner’s face fell to the floor.
“What the HECK are you guys doing here?” he asked.
“We’re on vacation with our families,” Cindy said. “That was, until we saw you in a taxi outside Cheesy Street! Then pleasure quickly turned into business.”
“We’ve been following you ever since,” Lindy said. “We told our parents the pizza bagels gave us diarrhea. They still think we’re in the bathroom.”
“The homeless janitor didn’t want to tell us where you went, but his friends weren’t so loyal,” Mindy said. “They sang like canaries for a couple of granola bars and a box of Tic Tacs.”
Conner had never thought he’d be so grateful for his eccentric stalkers. Usually he found just the mention of the Book Huggers quite repulsive, but now he looked upon the girls as if they were each wearing a superhero’s cape. They were his only hope of rescuing Alex and saving the Otherworld.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m genuinely happy to see you guys,” Conner said with a thankful smile. “Now you’ve got to saw off the rest of these bars and let me down! It’s kind of an emergency!”
Wendy started sawing the bars around Conner’s legs, but Mindy held up a hand to stop her.
“As much as it pains me to see you like this, I’m afraid we can’t help you just yet,” Mindy said. “You see, we’ve had questions about you and your sister for a long time now—questions only you can answer. So if you want us to scratch your back, you’ve got to scratch ours first.”
“Are you crazy?” Conner snapped. “I just said it’s an emergency! People are going to get hurt unless you help me down!”
“PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY BEEN HURT!” Mindy yelled, and slammed her hands on the nearest table. “Do you know what it’s like to have your parents, peers, and school administrators treat you like a lunatic? It’s HURTFUL! Do you know what it’s like to be the laughingstock of conspiracy blogs and chat rooms? It’s also HURTFUL! Do you know what it’s like to get blocked on social media personally by the mayor, the governor, state representatives, and the Pentagon? It’s really HURTFUL! Despite our overwhelming catalog of evidence, our valid suspicions and valiant quest for the truth have left us humiliated, stigmatized, and institutionalized at every turn—but still the Book Huggers persist! Now, if you ever want your feet to touch the ground, you’re going to give us the information we desire and deserve! You’ve kept the truth from us for four years, Conner Bailey, but your web of deception ends today!”
Despite their uncomfortable restraints, everyone in the Rose Main Reading Room froze and stared at the Book Huggers in silence. Even Hero was taken aback by the teenagers’ emotional display.
“Okay, fine,” Conner said. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know as long as you help me down afterward.”
The Book Huggers were so anxious to finally get answers, they practically vibrated. They shined a reading lamp directly in Conner’s face and their interrogation began.
“I’m going to ask you a series of questions and I want you to respond with either a yes or a no,” Mindy instructed as she paced below him.
“Wouldn’t it be faster if I just told you every- thing—”
“I’ll ask the questions!” Mindy roared. “In the sixth grade, you and your sister missed school for two weeks. According to a note we found in the nurse’s office, which a source confirmed was written in your mother’s handwriting, you and Alex were both absent due to chicken pox. But you weren’t really sick with chicken pox, were you?”
“No,” Conner said with a sigh.
“Precisely what I predicted,” Cindy said.
“In the seventh grade, your sister allegedly moved to Vermont to attend a school for advanced learners,” Mindy said. “Shortly before her departure, we witnessed Alex talking to a book in the school library and whispering covert messages like ‘Take me back’ and ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’ The transferral paperwork we obtained indicated she was going to live with her grandmother, but after a thorough scan through public documents, we discovered your grandmother didn’t own any property in Vermont. So, Alex never moved to Vermont, did she?”
“No,” Conner replied with a massive eye roll.
“I knew that was a lie!” Lindy said with a fist pump.
“In the eighth grade, you and Bree abandoned our school trip on the way home from Germany,” Mindy said. “Bree has claimed several different motives for committing the stunt, ranging from underground concerts to food festivals. But you didn’t run off for music or cuisine, did you?”
“No,” Conner said.
Wendy used the handsaw like a guitar, indicating she had known all along.
“The following year you never returned to school,” Mindy said. “Mrs. Peters informed us that you had transferred to Vermont to live with your grandmother and sister, but we all know you didn’t move to Vermont, either, right?”
“No,” Conner said, and began to lose his patience. “Will you please get to the point? You’re wasting time!”
“One more question,” Mindy said. “Recently, the girls and I were innocently walking by your house on Sycamore Drive when we saw a group of strange people in the window. We were afraid your house was being robbed, so we took a closer look—and that’s when we saw pirates and a massive ship appear out of a beam of light connected to your binder! We were told they were just actors and set pieces, but they weren’t actors and set pieces, were they?”
“No!” Conner snapped. “You guys were spying on my house? That’s illegal!”
“This leads us to believe that everything from your strange school absences, to your phony transfers, to your European excursion, and even the evacuation happening right now in New York City, are all related!” Mindy declared. “Admit it! You and your sister have been involved in an interdimensional conspiracy for years, and the Book Huggers have been right to question you every step of the way!”
“YES!” Conner shouted. “YOU’VE BEEN RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING! FOR THE LAST FOUR YEARS MY SISTER AND I HAVE BEEN TRAVELING BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THE FAIRY-TALE WORLD, THE WORLDS OF CLASSIC LITERATURE, AND THE WORLDS OF MY CREATIVE WRITING! THAT IS THE TRUTH—ARE YOU PSYCHOPATHS HAPPY NOW?”
Judging by the sheer bliss surfacing in their faces, the Book Huggers were more than happy. They jumped for joy, glad tears filled their eyes, and Wendy climbed down to join the girls in a massive group hug. After years of mistreatment, disrespect, and false diagnoses, the Book Huggers’ entire existence had finally been validated.
When their embrace was over, Lindy removed a folded piece of paper from her pocket and read a chart printed on it.
“All right, time to see who won the Bailey Twins Disappearance Pool,” she said.
“What is the Bailey Twins Disappearance Pool?” Conner asked.
“We made bets in the sixth grade about where you and Alex were sneaking off to,” Mindy explained.
“I guessed alien abduction, tunnel to China, and wizards,” Lindy read from the chart. “Mindy had Illuminati, Bigfoot’s cave, and vampires. Cindy predicted an international kidnapping ring, lost continent of Lemuria, and the mines of mole people. Wendy had government espionage facility, Swedish cover band, and—well, what do you know—worlds of fiction! Wendy wins!”
Mindy, Lindy, and Cindy each handed Wendy twenty bucks.
“I was really hoping for the lost continent of Lemuria, but I’m not mad at worlds of fiction,” Cindy said.
“How do you get to the worlds of fiction, anyway?” Lindy asked.
“There’s lots of different methods,” Conner said. “Like that enormous hole in the back of the room leading to a forest.”
Until that moment, the Book Huggers hadn’t paid much attention to anything or anyone in the Rose Main Reading Room besides Conner. The four girls turned to the bridge and gasped when they realized just how out of the ordinary it was.
“I thought that was just a big plasma screen!” Lindy said.
“Nope, it’s a bridge into another dimension,” Conner explained. “And soon, thousands of terrible beings are going to charge out of it and attack our world. So, if you’re done asking questions, cut me down so I can do something to prevent it!”
Wendy hurried up the bookshelf and sawed off the remaining bars around Conner’s body. He took the tool from her and freed Jack, who used his axe to free Bree, Red, and Goldilocks. Once everyone was back on the floor, Conner and Bree went to the bridge between worlds and started brainstorming ways to close it.
“There’s got to be a way we can seal this thing before the Literary Army arrives,” Conner thought aloud.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can seal it with that the Literary Army can’t get through,” Bree said.
Conner angrily kicked the bridge, but his foot just went into the fairy-tale world and he almost slipped.
“I don’t know how we’re going to stop Morina!” he said. “She’s, like, one hundred steps ahead of everyone else!”
“That’s not entirely true,” Goldilocks said. “Morina revealed a lot about her plot to take over the Otherworld, but she never mentioned anything about our recruits at the hospital. I don’t think she knows we have an army of our own!”
“That stupid cow!” Red said. “Morina was probably so fixated on kidnapping Alex she didn’t even notice the people from Conner’s stories!”
“In that case, our odds haven’t really changed,” Jack said. “We knew we’d have to face the witches and the Literary Army, we just didn’t realize we’d be facing them in the Otherworld. I say we send for the others at the hospital and try to track down your sister in the meantime.”
Conner nodded. “Mindy, Cindy, Lindy, and Wendy,” he said. “I need you to go back to the abandoned subway and get as far away from here as possible. Once you’re someplace safe, find a phone and call my mom. Tell her we need backup and we need it fast. She’ll know what to do.”
To Conner’s complete surprise, the Book Huggers saluted him and left the reading room at once—cooperating with him for the first time in history. Conner, Bree, Red, Jack, and Goldilocks followed them out of the room and down the staircase. As the Book Huggers descended toward the library’s lower level, Conner and his friends headed to the entrance hall on the first floor.
As soon as they stepped into the hall, their stomachs dropped at the sight of all the destruction. The doors had been blown open, the front steps were covered in bullets, and the streets were filled with sharp icicles, but luckily, there were no bodies to be found—living or dead. The witches were gone, but not a single Marine was near the library, either. Conner and his friends stepped into the middle of Fifth Avenue and looked up and down the street for a sign of where the battle had moved.
“Look!” Red said. “All the soldiers are up the road by those trees!”
“It looks like they’re trying to get inside Central Park!” Bree said. “But what’s that weird bubble in their way?”
Conner recognized his sister’s magic instantly. “It’s a force field,” he said. “The witches must be inside the park, and Alex has put a shield around it.”
“Good thing the park is closed at night,” Bree said. “Otherwise the witches would have hundreds of hostages.”
Central Park’s strict curfew was a minor relief, but once Conner remembered why he knew the park’s hours so well, he was consumed by a horrifying feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“The park’s not empty!” he said. “The Boy and Girl Scouts of America are having a huge camp-out in the park tonight! The little boy I sat next to on the plane told me all about it!”
“You mean there are children trapped inside the park with witches?” Red asked.
“Yes! And we have to help them!” Conner said.
“How are we going to get into the park if Alex has put a force field around it?” Jack said.
“If we can’t get through it, maybe we can go under it,” Conner said. “Rusty said the Calvin Coolidge Express was going to stop in Central Park—let’s go back to the tunnel and pray we find another hatch beneath it. But we have to hurry—God only knows what the witches could be doing to those kids right now!”