Realizing that they can’t wait for the boys to return, Jennifer T. consults the book her uncle gave her, finding a section on secret passages that leads her to a hollow section of wall. A wererat comes through from the other side, and Jennifer makes a deal—she’ll give it the sausage the group has in the car if it helps them walk along the Tree of Worlds to escape. The wererat agrees and takes them to the tree, where strange, flickering lights hypnotize the group.

Meanwhile, Ethan’s dad works to create the material that Coyote wants, and Coyote has retrieved Cutbelly to help. The more Ethan’s dad works, the more concerned Cutbelly becomes. The man hasn’t slept and has barely eaten, and the back side of his body is increasingly flat. Cutbelly thus refuses to help anymore because he knows that Ethan’s dad isn’t doing this for Ethan but “because [he] like[s] what [he’s] doing” (306). Ethan’s dad says that isn’t true, but when Coyote arrives to say that he doesn’t have to work anymore, Ethan’s dad says he wants to finish the job.