The Talisman

Richard and Jack go to the common room. Everything is silent and Richard says he is scared. Nelson House is empty; Jack believes that all the students have vanished to the Territories. They find a group of upper classmen smoking marijuana outside. One of them is the senior, Etheridge. Half of his face is scarred. Jack thinks they are all Twinners of the students who were there when he arrived the previous day. Etheridge demands that Richard give him his “passenger” (471).

Richard and Jack block the doors and window with furniture while the Twinners howl outside. Richard thinks he has a fever as they try to sleep. He keeps trying to convince himself that he is hallucinating.

Etheridge’s Twinner keeps shouting for the passenger. Jack tells Richard that if they must confront it, that he can’t look in its eyes. A rock smashes through the window as Richard moans in his sleep and calls for his father. Jack slaps him to wake him up. Richard faints in front of Reuel Gardener’s doorway as they try to leave.

The common room is destroyed. Richard blames the chaos on drugs. They hear dogs bark frantically in the courtyard as they head to the third floor. Richard asks Jack if he’s on drugs after they settle into a new room. Before Jack can answer, a rock crashes through the window and lands on the floor.

Jack orders Etheridge’s Twinner to leave in the name of the Queen. It says she is dead, but it looks nervous. Jack suddenly remembers arguing with Richard about the value of made-up stories. Richard once saw his father go into a closet when he was six or seven. His father hadn’t come out after 15 minutes, so Richard went into the closet. The closet was empty, and he had no idea where his father could have gone. Richard smelled fire and the carpet changed to black dirt. There were insects in the dark. A creature grabbed him, and he ran. Four hours later, his father came in from upstairs. In that moment, Richard rebelled against anything fantastical. He put all his storybooks in the basement and always told himself it had been a hallucination.

Jack gives Richard an aspirin the next day, and Richard sleeps. He thinks he must flip into the Territories and take Richard with him. When he wakes, Richard puts on his glasses and looks out at the quad. It is filled with things with glowing eyes. He takes off his glasses and stomps on them; if he can’t see the creatures, he doesn’t have to acknowledge them. That night, brown spots appear on the walls. White bugs push themselves through the spots and wriggle out onto the floor, oozing towards the boys.

Richard is frantic. They run back to the common room, then outside to a building called The Depot. As they run towards it, the campus bells ring and dogs bark. Wolf-like creatures chase them, and some of the dogs they see are half-human. A creature that was Mr. Dufrey joins the hunt. There is a white wolf, and Jack realizes that it is the man with white hair who exited the limo. Jack flips and brings Richard with him.

The next morning, Sloat arrives at Thayer. Gardener called him the previous morning. He flips and enjoys his new, thin body as Orris. He compares going into a Twinner as a type of innocent possession. He watches the dazed students at Thayer and remembers the first time his Twinner visited his world. Morgan was driving, and they both delighted in the tour that he gave to Orris.

In the quad, Sloat asks Etheridge about Richard. He believes that that they are headed for the Blasted Lands. He flips to pursue them. When he arrives, he reminisces about Rushton’s drowning. The boy was left in the house in the Territories when Orris and his wife were asleep. Six weeks later, Rushton’s mother, Margaret, killed herself. In Jack’s world, Sloat’s son Richard almost drowned in a YMCA pool seven months later, but a lifeguard resuscitated him.

Sloat remembers that he has always sent Orris to do his killing. It was Orris who tried to smother Jack, and who supervised Phil Sawyer’s killing. Sloat hears Osmond drawing closer and flips back to Thayer.