Summerland

The faeries capture and imprison Ethan’s group in a cell with a fairy princess named Spider-Rose, taking all their supplies. The arrow that struck Cinquefoil was tipped with iron, which wounds him gravely, and the only cure is a piece of wood from the Tree of Worlds—such as Ethan’s stick, which the faeries took. Thor can use his shadowtail gifts to walk through the prison door. Taffy realizes that Thor is a changeling (a fairy raised by humans), which shocks the others. Ethan and Thor go in search of the stick, leaving Jennifer T. and Taffy behind with Spider-Rose.

While the boys are gone, Spider-Rose explains that she was imprisoned for listening to Coyote’s idea to make baseball more entertaining. Since so much of the game is wasted waiting for the pitchers to hit, Coyote suggested that someone else be allowed to hit for the hitter to liven things up. Jennifer T. recognizes this as the “designated hitter” rule and, disgusted, tells Spider-Rose “you deserve to be in here for that” (245).

Spider-Rose knew the designated hitter idea would get pushback but agreed to introduce it for Coyote because he promised her a little brother so that she wouldn’t be lonely anymore. The introduction of the designated hitter undid the magic keeping the faeries’ fields functioning, and they soon learned that Coyote tricked many other tribes as well. Spider-Rose’s little brother turned into a doll, and she was imprisoned for what she brought on her people. Jennifer T. doesn’t want to feel bad for someone who ever respected the designated-hitter rule, but she can’t help it.

Ethan tries not to think about Thor being a changeling as they search the faeries’ quarters for the stick. They wind up in the treasury, which contains everything that’s ever been lost, and Ethan laments they’ll never find the stick. Feeling like he failed his dad, Ethan puts on Padfoot’s glasses and is surprised to see a pair of claws scooping up white mice to eat them. Shuddering, he removes the glasses and finds Thor studying a map that he can fold and unfold to show maps of the four worlds. The Middling, Summerlands, and Winterlands are labeled, but the fourth world is blank.

Thor recalls a story of how Coyote tricked all the gods into the fourth world and sealed it off, adding that a lot of information has entered his brain since he came to the Summerlands. Ethan asks Thor if he’s okay with being a changeling. Thor says he is because he doesn’t have a choice. The boys put the map away to continue searching for the stick, and the narrator pauses the story to inform readers that treasure vaults are “always, carefully, and fearfully, and very often fatally, left in the hands of an ill-tempered and none-too-well-fed guardian” (260).

Back in the cell, Jennifer T. asks if Taffy heard a woman crying after Jennifer shouted about the end of the world. Taffy did but thought it was her guilty conscience from leaving her children years ago. Back when Coyote introduced death to the world, the sasquatch were hunted until only two (one male and one female) remained. They asked Coyote for help, and he offered them the choice to either wander the world or settle in one place. The male chose to wander, and the female chose to settle. All future sasquatches were supposed to abide by the choice of their gender. As Taffy listened to males tell stories of the world, she grew restless. One night, she went out to see a nearby bridge but never made it there because the giants captured her. Though Taffy only spent 200 years as a pet, 900 years passed in the outside world because time moves differently in different parts of the worlds, so her children and grandchildren are long gone. Learning this, Jennifer T. hugs the sasquatch, and the two lie down, “listening to the hollow echo of all those vanished years” (270).

True to the narrator’s words, back in the treasury, a young, poorly fed boy confronts Thor and Ethan, and the boy has Ethan’s stick. Introducing himself as Grim the giant, he attacks Ethan. Thor jumps in, and the two fight until Thor wins and gets the stick. Ethan asks why Grim works for the faeries, and Grim admits that he’s enslaved. Outside, the faeries pound on the door, and Ethan strikes a deal with Grim. If he and Thor let the giant pretend to capture them to satisfy the faeries, Grim will help their group escape. Grim agrees and loosely ties up the prisoners before letting the faeries in.

The faeries pay little attention to Ethan and Thor, instead ordering Grim to fetch their equipment so that they can go out and play. When they’re gone, Grim unties the boys and offers to reshape Ethan’s stick into a bat if Ethan lets him keep the shavings to help against his enslavement binding curse. Ethan looks to Thor for confirmation, who nods, saying, “[I]f a bat wasn’t better for hitting stuff than a plain branch, why would people bother to make them?” (284). Grim fashions a bat from the wood, leaving the last bit for Ethan because if Ethan does it right, he’ll create a bat unlike any other in existence. Ethan fears that the wood will somehow feel his lack of skill at baseball and become a useless stick, so he doesn’t finish the job, leaving a large knot in the bat’s handle. The three run back down to the cell but find the others gone. Thor uses his shadowtail power to step onto the tree to search for them.

Shortly before the end of Chapter 15, Jennifer T. decides they can’t wait for the boys anymore because Cinquefoil is getting worse, and “we have a better chance of finding a piece of ashwood out there in the world than we do in here” (291).