you’re not powerful because you’re strong, christopher. you’re powerful because you’re good.
Christopher saw his own light spread through the imaginary world. He saw the nice man squint from the glow of it. Then, smile. His eyes as blue as the sky.
i love all people, christopher, but I have no illusions about them. in here, we see their real thoughts. their secret wishes. their dreams. people can be loving. but people can also be selfish. they can be cruel. some are as dangerous as others are good. but no one is better than you. she can’t touch your goodness. good terrifies her. she can’t control it. can’t predict it. so, she WANTED it. she put the mailbox people everywhere to keep us from helping you. i could only speak to you through hidden messages. but david…she didn’t trust him to keep quiet…so david got the worst of it.
“How?” Christopher asked.
she cut out his tongue.
Christopher thought of the serpent tongue she had given David. He thought of all the messages David had to hide from her. The thought made him shudder.
and if we don’t get you out of here, the same thing will happen to you.
Christopher’s eyes began to fill with tears. He didn’t know who the tears belonged to anymore. David. Himself. The nice man. Or all three.
christopher, we don’t have much time, so listen very carefully. there are four ways into the imaginary world. you already know two of them. the tree house, which you control, and nightmares, which she controls. there are two more that no one controls, so she only uses them as a last resort. coma. and death.
Christopher could see all the nice man’s words laid out in front of him. He saw himself walking into the tree house. Having the nightmare in school. Refusing to take the pill and being hit by the car on the highway and thrown into a coma like a bird hitting a glass window. When he felt his own death, he almost let go of the nice man’s hand. The air left his lungs and didn’t return. Like a corpse crawling through the dirt. Just get out. Get to the light.
there are three ways out of the imaginary world. the first way is the tree house, which she locked. the second way is waking up, which is much easier from a nightmare than from a coma. and then, there is the third.
The nice man was quiet for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. Christopher could feel him weigh each word carefully to make sure that he didn’t scare him too badly.
“What is the third way out?” Christopher finally whispered.
we have to kill the hissing lady.
Christopher closed his eyes in horror. Suddenly, the bunker in his left eye and the nice man’s words in his right were replaced by one vision. The hissing lady. Standing in front of him. Smiling with dog teeth. The most terrifying person he ever saw.
that is the only way to get the key that she has buried in flesh around her neck. that key will get you back to the real side. but we need to do it before midnight.
Christopher opened his eyes and saw the question that started it all. Written in a hurried hand on the notepad in the bunker. He didn’t even need to say it anymore. He just needed to think.
What happens at midnight?
at midnight, the glass between the imaginary world and the real will crack. you will die. the town will go mad with fear. and they will blame your mother for it. they will torment her, ambrose, the sheriff, and your friends. you have already seen a lot of this beginning to happen. the town is like a frog that has been put in cold water and the heat has been turned up. the heat is her. disguised as the flu. i have seen her plant madness in people’s ears like seeds. i have seen the seeds grow. and at midnight, the garden will bloom. the frogs will boil. and the real world will drown in its own shadow like floods. what happens at midnight, christopher?
Everything.
The nice man let go of his hand. Christopher blinked through the pain in his eyes. He had seen it all unfold before him. The death spreading over the town. The people insane with fear and rage and hatred. Torturing his mother, Ambrose, the sheriff, and his friends. Not knowing that it was all because of her. Not knowing that they were