Worlds Collide (The Land of Stories #6)(42)

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.