Nightbooks

Yasmin enters the library and compliments Alex on his writing. Hoping to keep the conversation going, Alex asks questions about her life before. She explains that her best friend lived in the building and, one day, when Yasmin came to visit, the elevator stopped on the 4th floor. She could smell Kusa mihshi, a dish she used to make with her grandma, or sito. Although Sito was dead, Yasmin believed that if she knocked on the door, her grandmother would answer.

Later that night, Natacha settles into her chair and turns on the oil diffuser. She tells Alex that this could be a “good home” for him because he can be himself. She asks what happened to make him decide to burn his stories, and his instincts encourage him to hold back the truth. Natacha is mystified by Alex’s wish to be as “boring” as other children, insisting his mind possesses a “beautiful darkness” that should be celebrated. She compares him to herself, which horrifies him.

He reads her a story called “The Shape in the Mirror,” about a girl who loves vampires. The girl’s family moves into an old house, and she finds a mirror in her bedroom. For days, she watches the reflection of a dark shape move closer to her window until, one night, it is just outside. Her brother laughs when she tells her family what she sees. That night, when Katie looks in the mirror, the figure is right behind her; it grasps her arms and flies away with her reflection. When she wakes up the next morning, she hates sunlight and grows fangs. That night, her stomach grumbles, and she sneaks into her brother’s room.

Natacha is displeased with the story because Katie became a vampire without being bitten by one. Alex explains that he reversed a common idea—that one loses one’s reflection after becoming a vampire. Though Natacha doesn’t like it, after listening at the wall again, she declares that Alex’s story “still got the job done” (92). When Alex asks what that means, she tells him that the apartment’s dark magic is old and worn. The magic, she says, thrives on nightmares, so reading it a scary story soothes it so that it can rest easily again for a while. Still, Alex can tell Natacha is keeping something from him.

Alex settles into a routine, though he frequently finds himself distracted by the books as he searches for more of the unicorn girl’s handwriting. He considers the way Natacha describes them as “one and the same” (96) and how Yasmin rebuffs his friendship. Alex notes the way Natacha is careful not to let either child catch a glimpse into her room when she opens that door.

He finds five more notes penned by Unicorn Girl, including one that describes a unicorn pin she was given by her parents and which she vows never to take off. She was planning her escape. Alex is too distracted to write, but he figures he has 40 more stories in his nightbooks he can read to Natacha.

Yasmin comes to get Alex because she needs his help. She leads him through the closet door, telling him to close it behind them. It’s so dark, however, that Alex leaves it open just a crack. He sees a nursery full of magical plants growing under blacklights. Yasmin cares for them and uses them to make the oils Natacha sells. She explains that she accidentally fed one of the plants the wrong food, and it has grown “danglers.”

Danglers are sacs that have formed on a thick vine, and they each contain a vile creature. Yasmin says she will separate each one gently without waking the creature inside, hand it to Alex, and he will drop it into the “void” beneath a trap door. Lenore settles in to watch. Though Alex feels the activity creates trust that brings them closer, Yasmin insists that they are not friends and never will be. When he presses her, she gets upset, telling him he doesn’t know what it’s like to watch the terror in his friends’ eyes when Natacha “loses it.”

Distracted, she drops a dangler and a monstrous centipede emerges. When it passes over some fallen leaves, its feet shred them, so Alex names it a shredder. Alex, Yasmin, and Lenore chase the creature, but it cuts through the electrical wires, putting out the lights. Next, Alex hears the shredder cutting other danglers loose. Lenore attacks them and gets wounded. Suddenly, all the lights go out and it gets eerily quiet.

Alex and Yasmin make their way through the darkness. When Alex’s foot connects with something soft, he reaches down to feel the cat. She is breathing but bloody, and he picks her up. Yasmin is happy that the dangler-born creatures can’t get into Natacha’s apartment, but Alex tells her he left the door open a crack. By the time they reach it, the apartment is infested. They begin killing the creatures. When the dangler-born fight back, the kids try to retreat to the library but find the path blocked by huge, metallic webs. Natacha arrives and uses magic to kill the creatures.

When they are all gone, Lenore sits by her master, covered in wounds. Natacha, however, blames the cat for allowing things to go wrong and shoots a fireball at her. Yasmin defends the cat, and Natacha tries to kill Yasmin, but it’s as though her magic has been drained from overuse. Alex steps in front of Yasmin, claiming the destruction is his fault. He says he begged her to take him to the nursery, and then he fed a plant the wrong food. The apartment begins to shake, and Natacha demands a story. Alex reads one about a playground for dead children. A boy called Todd is saved from murderous ghosts by his recently deceased best friend, Jenny. Natacha hates the story because it ends relatively happily when Todd escapes with his life. Alex privately concedes that the story is more about friendship than it is about ghosts. Nonetheless, Natacha goes to her room, too tired to make sure the kids cannot see inside. Alex spots a forest through the doorway, and he thinks all they need to do is steal Natacha’s key and they can escape outside. He hears a rustling from the closet and opens it to find that the shredder destroyed his other two nightbooks.