Per General Wilson’s orders, the US Marines began evacuating every building within a ten-block radius of the New York Public Library. Watching the soldiers move from building to building and forcing people out of their homes and businesses made Conner feel like he was watching a scene from an apocalyptic movie. Judging from the looks on the New Yorkers’ faces, everyone knew the situation wasn’t a gas leak—something far worse was happening in Midtown Manhattan.

The homeless man led Conner and his friends covertly from alley to alley, careful not to attract the attention of the Marines. With every step Conner wondered if they were doing the right thing by following him, or if they were putting their trust in a complete lunatic.

“Where are you taking us?” Conner asked.

“Shhhh!” the homeless man said, and placed a finger over his mouth. “If they catch us sneaking around, we’ll never get to your sister.”

“Sorry—where are you taking us?” Conner whispered.

“We’re going to a subway entrance on the corner of Fortieth and Broadway.”

“We’re taking the subway?” Conner asked. “But a train won’t get us inside the library!”

“We don’t need a train where we’re going,” the homeless man said.

The homeless man dashed across the street to hide behind a pile of trash, and the others followed him. They moved from building to building very slowly and only crossed streets when they were certain no Marines were watching. By the time they reached the intersection of Fortieth and Broadway, Midtown Manhattan was practically a ghost town and it was getting dark out. After a quick huddle behind a large delivery truck, the homeless man raced across the intersection to the southwest corner and hurried down the steep steps into the subway station. A moment later, he popped his head up and whistled to the others.

“The station’s empty!” he called to them. “Hurry—while the coast is clear!”

Conner and his friends joined him underground. Their footsteps echoed off the station’s title walls. The homeless man jumped over the turnstile to avoid paying, and the others copied him. Red was the least agile, and her gown got caught in the revolving turnstile. Goldilocks had to slice off a layer of her dress to set her free.

“Now everyone follow me to the end of the platform,” the homeless man said.

“Wait!” Conner said. “We aren’t going any farther until you tell us exactly where we’re headed.”

“Kid, I promise it’ll make sense once we’re there, but until then, you’ll just have to trust me.”

The homeless man reached the end of the long platform and jumped down onto the train tracks.

“He can’t be serious,” Bree said. “We’re not actually going to follow him down there, are we?”

“What choice do we have?” Conner asked.

“Don’t stop now—we’re almost there!” the homeless man said.

Conner, Bree, and Jack jumped off the platform and then offered their hands to help Goldilocks and Hero, but Red took their hands first. The homeless man removed a flashlight from inside his coat and sprinted down the train tunnel.

“You might want to hurry—trains usually run through here every ten minutes,” he warned.

Fearing a speeding train would hit them at any moment, Conner and his friends ran after the homeless man as fast as they could. The farther they went, the darker the tunnel became. Soon the shaky light from the homeless man’s flashlight was all that was keeping them from tripping over the train tracks. Suddenly, the homeless man made a quick left turn and disappeared from sight. When the others caught up with him, they entered a different tunnel they would have never spotted on their own. Unlike the previous one, the new tunnel had no visible cables or train tracks on the ground.

“Welcome to the Calvin Coolidge Express!” the homeless man announced. “Or at least what’s finished of it.”

“The what?” Conner asked.

The homeless man chuckled. “Don’t worry, very few people know it exists,” he said. “In 1928, construction began on a new transit system to take New Yorkers from Staten Island all the way to Central Park. The following year the Great Depression hit and construction came to a halt. Later, the need for steel was so high during World War Two that plans were scrapped altogether. By the time the war ended, the Calvin Coolidge Express was completely forgotten.”

“Whatever it is, it smells awful,” Red said. She took the can of Febreze out of her purse and sprayed the air around them.

“Unfortunately, the tunnels were built right beside the sewers, but you get used to the smell after a while.”

“Why would you bring us to an abandoned subway tunnel?” Conner asked.

“Because one of the many stops planned for the Calvin Coolidge Express was Bryant Park,” the man explained. “The city didn’t want to obstruct the park, so they decided to place the stop in the basement of the New York Public Library.”

Conner’s face lit up so much, he practically glowed in the dark tunnel. He heard the man loud and clear, but it sounded too good to be true.

“So you’re saying we can get to the library from this tunnel?” he asked.

“Like I said before, they aren’t guarding every entrance,” the homeless man reiterated. “See why I didn’t tell you where we were going? You wouldn’t have believed a bum like me unless you saw it with your own eyes.”

Conner was embarrassed to admit it to himself, but the homeless man was right. If he had been just a tiny bit more critical of their guide, they would have been rounded up and sent away like all the other New Yorkers in Midtown Manhattan.

“I just realized we haven’t been properly introduced,” he said. “I’m Conner Bailey, and these are my friends Bree, Red, Jack, Goldie, and their son, Hero. What’s your name?”

“The name’s Rusty—Rusty Bagasarian,” the homeless man said with a quick bow.

“Thank you so much for leading us here, Rusty,” Conner said. “How did you even know this tunnel existed?”

“You learn a lot about a city when you live on its streets,” Rusty said.

“Have you always been poor?” Red asked.

“Red, don’t be rude!” Goldilocks reprimanded her.

“It’s all right—I get that all the time,” Rusty said. “Homelessness is a recent chapter for me. I used to live in Brooklyn and worked as a janitor at the Belvedere Castle in Central Park. A couple of months ago I was fired and lost everything.”

“Why were you fired?” Jack asked.

“Well, to put it bluntly, I saw something magical and it changed my life forever.”

“Was it Hamilton?” Red asked. “I keep seeing signs about him posted all over the city. If he’s anything like Shakeyfruit’s Hamhead I hope we get a chance to meet him.”

The others rolled their eyes and ignored her.

“Earlier, when you told us about the library, you mentioned it wasn’t the first time you’d seen magic in the city,” Bree said. “I didn’t think you were being serious, but now I’m really interested to hear about it.”

Rusty let out a deep sigh before telling them. Clearly, it was a difficult subject for him to talk about.

“It happened a few months ago when I used to work night shifts at Belvedere Castle,” he said. “I was in the middle of cleaning the joint when this strange vibration suddenly came out of nowhere. I figured it was just an earthquake and went back to work, but when I got home, none of the morning news stations were reporting an earthquake. I was convinced I had just imagined it, but then a few weeks later, the vibration happened again. The second time was much stronger and lasted longer than the first. I called the police to report an active fault line, but they assured me it was just a subway running underneath the castle. However, when I got home and looked at a map, I saw there aren’t any subway lines that run below that part of Central Park. The rumbling didn’t happen again until a few weeks later. The third time rattled the castle so hard, it shattered windows and left cracks all over the floor. I was nearly knocked off the balcony I was cleaning. I remember it didn’t feel anything like an earthquake or a train, but like something enormous was hatching from an invisible egg. I looked up and that’s when I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Conner asked.

“The best way I can describe it is a window into another world,” Rusty said. “For a brief second I saw a huge forest of evergreen trees and a bright starry sky. It looked like something out of a storybook—couldn’t have been more different from the hustle of New York City. Then the window disappeared as fast as it had appeared.”

Conner and Bree exchanged a grave look. Without any solid proof, they knew exactly what Rusty had witnessed—the bridge between worlds was starting to form.

“I went to the police station and filed a report about what I saw, but none of the officers believed me. A copy of the report was sent to the castle’s property manager and they fired me. They thought I had caused all the damages myself and was making up a ridiculous story to cover it up. Word about my police report spread all over town, and no one wanted to hire me after that.”

“That’s terrible!” Bree said. “Did the window ever appear again?”

“I didn’t see it again, but others have seen it appear all over the city,” Rusty said.

“But who? And where?” Conner asked.

“You can ask them yourself,” Rusty said. “Follow me.”

They continued down the Calvin Coolidge Express line. Flickering lights came into view ahead, and soon they discovered a vast underground campsite that was home to dozens and dozens of homeless people. The tunnel was full of tents, sleeping bags, and furniture made from cardboard and newspapers. The homeless people were spread out through the camp in groups; some kept warm standing over blazing trash cans, some played musical instruments, and some watched a man teaching a family of rats to fetch.

Rusty escorted Conner and his friends to a group who sat in the corner of the camp. The group included an older man in a blue suit, a woman in a fur coat, another woman in a Yankees baseball hat, and a third woman wearing a T-shirt that said READ BANNED BOOKS and tinfoil wrapped around her head. They were gathered around a radio listening to a patchy broadcast.

“There you are, Bagasarian!” the man said. “We heard there was an evacuation in Midtown. We were worried you got swept away.”

“Conner and company, allow me to introduce you to my underground family,” Rusty said. “This is Jerry Oswald, Annette Crabtree, Judy Harlow, and Roxie Goldberg.”

“I hope you aren’t from the papers!” Judy said, and hid her face behind the collar of her fur coat. “If I get included in another one of those savage Where Are They Now editorials, I’ll just die!”

“For the hundredth time, Judy, you aren’t famous!” Annette said.

“How dare you!” Judy said. “I was on Broadway!”

“It was Off-Broadway, and it was in the eighties,” Roxie reminded her. “No one’s looking for you now.”

“They’re not reporters, they’re just trying to get inside the public library,” Rusty explained. “But since we’re passing through, they want to hear your stories about seeing you know what.”

Rusty’s friends were as mortified as if he had just disclosed a nasty secret. They looked around the tunnel to make sure no one else had heard him.

“Why do you always have to bring that up?” Jerry asked.

“They’ll only mock us like the rest of the world,” Judy said.

“Haven’t we been through enough already?” Annette asked.

Rusty’s friends got to their feet and tried to walk away, but Conner and Bree blocked them from going too far.

“We’re not here to insult you,” Conner said. “We just want to know what you saw and where you saw it. Please, it might help us answer a lot of questions.”

“And it’s not like you have anything to lose,” Red added.

Despite the rude comment from his friend, the homeless people sensed the sincerity in Conner’s voice. They looked at one another and shrugged.

“I used to be a maid at the Plaza Hotel,” Annette said. “Late one night, I went into the Presidential Suite for the turndown service. As I was making up the bed, the room began shaking. All the furniture was knocked to the floor and the guests’ belongings rolled everywhere. The next thing I knew, a forest appeared out of thin air. It hovered in the sitting room for a few minutes and then vanished. The guests returned shortly after; they saw all their belongings scattered around the floor and accused me of stealing their things. They reported me to the hotel manager and I was fired. Nobody wanted to hire a maid with a history of theft, so now I live down here.”

“I was on the verge of a comeback when I saw the forest,” Judy said. “I had just been cast as Nurse Number Seven on the soap opera The Cute and the Complacent. Anyway, I was sitting in my dressing room at Rockefeller Center—that’s where they film the show—when it was hit with a terrible tremor. The forest appeared over my vanity and I screamed for help. By the time a producer came to check on me, it was gone. They thought I was crazy and had my character written out of the script. I’ve become the laughingstock of the Screen Actors Guild and haven’t been hired since.”

“I was a teller at National Bank on Forty-Fourth Street,” Jerry said. “I was working late one night and went into the vault to store a deposit. Suddenly, the vault started to rattle. It was so powerful it knocked all the deposit boxes open and money spilled onto the floor. The commotion set off the alarm and police arrived within the hour. Had they showed up just a moment sooner, they would have seen the forest for themselves. My boss fired me for carelessness and I couldn’t find another job. I told my wife what had happened, but she didn’t believe me and threw me out of the house.”

Everyone turned to Roxie Goldberg, anxious to hear her story next.

“Why are you looking at me? I never saw a forest appear. I live down here because I hate paying taxes.”

Conner sensed there was a pattern to the homeless people’s encounters. He paced back and forth as he thought about the information they had provided.

“How long ago did each of you see the forest appear?” he asked.

“Four months ago,” Rusty said, then scrunched up his brow. “As a matter of fact, it was four months ago to this very day.”

“What a coincidence,” Annette said. “I saw it exactly two months ago.”

“Precisely one month ago for me,” Judy said.

“Two weeks,” Jerry said.

“And how long did the apparition last?” Conner asked.

“It only lasted a few seconds at the castle,” Rusty said.

“It was quick, but I’d say a minute or two,” Annette said.

“Fifteen minutes at least,” Judy said.

“About forty-five minutes, I suspect,” Jerry said.

“Interesting,” Conner said. “So the sightings are happening faster and faster, and each time the apparition appears, it stays twice as long. If it continues in this pattern, that would put the next sighting tonight and it could stick around for an hour or two. I just wish we could tell where it’s gonna be.”

An idea popped into Bree’s head and she gasped—startling Jack and Goldilocks beside her.

“Actually, I think the locations may be just as predictable,” she said.

Bree looked around the tunnel and snatched a map off a sleeping homeless person. She spread it against the wall of the tunnel and had Jack and Goldilocks hold it in place.

“Mr. Oswald, what street was National Bank on again?” she asked.

“Forty-Fourth and Fifth Avenue,” Jerry said.

“And Ms. Harlow, where is Rockefeller Center located?”

“Between Forty-Eighth and Fifty-First,” Judy said.

“And the Plaza Hotel?”

“It’s at Fifty-Ninth and Fifth,” Annette said.

“And Rusty, I know there are no streets in Central Park, but if Belvedere Castle were on a street, what would it be?” Bree asked.

“That’s easy,” Rusty said. “It’s just north of the Seventy-Ninth Street Transverse.”

Bree pulled a marker out of her pocket and made a note of all the locations. Once she was done, she took a step back and studied the map.

“Just what I thought,” she said. “The bridge first appeared on Seventy-Ninth Street at Belvedere Castle. Next, it appeared at the Plaza Hotel—exactly twenty blocks south of the castle. After that, the forest appeared at Rockefeller Center—exactly ten blocks south of the hotel. And finally, it appeared at National Bank on Forty-Fourth Street—exactly five blocks south of the center. The bridge is traveling in a semistraight line through New York City, and each time it appears, it covers half the ground it did before.”

“So everything is a pattern!” Conner said. “That means we can trace when and where the bridge will appear next! According to the formulas, that would place the next appearance tonight at two and a half blocks south of National Bank on Forty-Fourth Street.”

Goldilocks gulped. “So what’s located between Forty-First and Forty-Second Street?”

Conner and Bree traced the map, and their fingers arrived at the same spot at the same time. They exchanged a long, fearful glance before turning to the others.

“The New York Public Library,” they said in unison.

“This practically confirms everything we’ve suspected,” Bree said. “Whoever took Alex to the library definitely knows about the bridge between worlds. But this time, I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Just like the Sisters Grimm predicted, this might be the bridge’s final stop. Tonight may be the night when worlds collide!”

Conner’s eyes filled with panic. “Rusty, you’ve got to take us to the library,” he said. “Now.”