A Snake Falls to Earth

The group helps Nina’s grandmother get ready for the hurricane. Mockingbird makes an appearance, disguising herself as Nina’s father and stealing chocolate. Nina’s grandmother tries to make everyone promise to leave if conditions get too dangerous, but the group refuses. The animal people can survive a dangerous storm and have promised not to leave her behind. Nina’s video has received tens of millions of views since being uploaded.

The group and Nina’s father want to test a hypothesis about Grandma’s connection to the land: Before the storm hits, they will see how far away she can go before she begins to feel ill and risks passing out. If the hurricane forces them to leave, they want to know how far they can take her. They get about 30 miles away from her house before she can’t go any further. The land helps her access residual spirit world-shaping powers and keeps her healthy in her old age.

When the group pulls over, Nina learns how much her video has earned. Due to fine print in the contract, Nina only receives $58.31 from a video that received 80 million views. Nina flees to the rest stop bathroom to hide her tears from the others. There she meets Mockingbird, who is disguised as an old woman. Mockingbird accuses Nina and the others of not trusting her due to her shapeshifting pranks. She wants to prove she cares about them by disguising herself as Dave and signing away a chunk of his wealth to the Dallas toad sanctuary. Mockingbird leaves before Nina can stop her from doing so.

The storm makes landfall: The power goes out and Nina’s grandmother tells Oli about the climate change she’s witnessed over her long life. The humans hide in the basement while the animal people decide to lasso an incoming tornado with the coyote sisters’ world-shaping skills. Risk, in making a giant lasso out of wires, expends her remaining time and returns to the Reflecting World. Brightest flies the lasso into the tornado for Reign and Oli. After securing the lasso, Brightest also returns to the Reflecting World, leaving Reign and Oli to fight the tornado. Paul runs from the tornado toward Grandma’s house. Oli and Reign hold the tornado in place but are not strong enough to alter its course. Nina suggests Reign trap the tornado in a container.

Reign uses a nesting doll to successfully trap the tornado. Paul has disappeared and is nowhere in sight.

Reign disappears after trapping the tornado, having expended her energy. Oli suspects he also needs to return to the Reflecting World soon, but when he does, he worries about the fate of Nina and her family. Wanting to help them, he dives into the bottomless lake to return to Earth. He resolves to keep returning until he is sure Ami will be safe.

While the animal people make the lasso, Nina makes a private video diary about the Reflecting World and how the Nightmare came to be. She wants to preserve the knowledge for her family and future generations.

Oli returns to Earth. He helps Nina’s family clean up the debris left by the passing storm. Nina’s mother returns to help clean up. Just as she meets Oli, Paul shoots Oli through the heart from a tree line where he has hidden himself. When the animal people saved him from the tornado, it confirmed his suspicions about their identities.

Paul reveals himself to be a Nightmare Knight, an agent of the King (i.e., the Nightmare) who hunts and kills spirits. He doesn’t care that the animal people saved him from the tornado. Nina’s father, who left to tape up the tornado-containing doll, returns and sets the doll down before Paul, who then forces him to kneel alongside the rest of his family. Nina’s grandmother saves Oli from dying. Oli uses his ability to summon cottonmouths and manipulate water to distract Paul while he himself escapes with Nina’s family to the Reflecting World.

Paul is left alone after Oli takes the other humans with him. With no other clues, Paul picks up the strange doll Nina’s father put on the ground. He takes it back to his trailer home and opens it, unleashing the tornado.

One week after Paul disappears in the tornado, Nina is back on Earth. She busies herself making a new, public St0ryte11er account (“Child of Refuge”) to document the destruction and recovery in the wake of the hurricane. She receives an email from Thou Own Dave with a link to a livestream. Tuning in, Nina sees Mockingbird, disguised as Dave, making a public show of signing away money for the Dallas toads and their sanctuary.

Oli and Zale visit Ami. Grandma mentioned seeing toads like Ami in the area before, and Oli hopes Ami can call the toads to him. Dozens of baby Dallas toads come to Ami. A sanctuary for them is established on grandma’s land and the stream supplied by the bottomless lake from the Reflecting World. With the presence of the other Dallas toads, Ami finally wakes up.

Oli and his friends plan their future together. The coyotes have built Oli a permanent home on the lake. The group has commandeered a catfish steamboat and plans on taking it through the various lakes and rivers in search of adventure and Oli’s siblings. Oli feels that he has finally found a home.