The Strangers

While Chess and Emma try to detach Finn from his mother, Judge Morales’s voice booms over the sound system, implicating “saboteurs” for their attempts to disrupt the trial. She then announces the appearance of “witnesses,” and a blinding spotlight shines down on the stage, illuminating a frightened Chess, Emma, and Finn Gustano.

With the Gustano kids in the spotlight, Emma realizes the authorities are using them as leverage against her mother, still under the assumption they are Kate Greystone’s children. She beseeches Joe for help, but he seems to be out of ideas. Kate urges her children to stay out sight, reasoning that the only thing keeping the Gustano kids safe is the misconception they are the Greystones. Emma, however, worries that the Gustanos will know Kate is not their real mother. As the guards usher the Gustano kids toward the stage, Natalie, Joe, and the Greystones have nowhere to hide. With nothing left to lose, Emma holds her breath, trying to block out the bad air of the alternate world and clear her mind. Remembering her mother’s words to her, “love and logic” (360), Emma formulates a plan.

As the guards approach the darkened stage, Emma hands Chess a smoke bomb given to her by Joe. They hurl them toward the guards, who are startled, thinking they’re under attack. In the confusion, the crowd panics and runs for the exits. Emma suddenly understands that the simple little smoke bombs, which come from the other world, contain “better” air which does not cloud the mind. She urges Chess to breathe in some of the smoke, and, doing so, he becomes energized and focused. With little time left, Kate exhorts Chess to rescue the Gustanos and meet her “on the other side” (365).

The purer air from the smoke bombs disorients the guards enough that the Greystone kids are able to pry the Gustanos away from them. Amid the darkness and chaos, Natalie, the Greystones, and the Gustanos flee the auditorium and try to escape through an emergency door, but they are met by more guards. 

Before the guards can drag them back into the auditorium, Emma and Chess use Natalie’s status to intimidate them, and Natalie, picking up on the cue, assumes an authoritative air, ordering the guards to stand down. After some indecision, they relent, allowing everyone to pass. Once outside, they run for the house and the tunnel leading back to their world. 

The Gustanos stop mid-flight, wondering what’s going on and where they are. With no time to explain and the wail of police sirens filling the air, Natalie urges everyone to keep moving. Searching for familiar landmarks, Chess reckons that the park with the retaining pond that they passed on the way should be just ahead. He orders everyone to get off the road and seek the bike path behind the pond. 

They flee along the overgrown bike path, hidden from view by the weeds and bushes. They eventually emerge from the sheltered path so they don’t miss the house. Running down a wide, empty street, they nearly collide with a woman who steps out from a gap in a fence: Ms. Morales.

As the Greystones and Gustanos orient themselves to the presence of Ms. Morales, police suddenly appear over the fences. When Ms. Morales demands to know what’s going on, the police temporarily confuse her with Judge Morales. As Natalie takes advantage of the confusion, the kids race through a gap in the fence, and the abandoned house is directly in front of them. They bolt up the porch steps and through the front door. When everyone is safely inside, Emma locks the door, but as soon as everyone heads for the basement, the police start to break it down. 

While Chess tries to convince the terrified Gustano kids to follow him, the police start hacking through the walls of the house. With Finn in the lead, Chess desperately urges the Gustanos forward and into the small room leading to the tunnel. With light only from Natalie and Ms. Morales’s phones, they flee through the tunnel until they find themselves back in the panic room in their own world. They hear the police close on their heels, and Natalie reveals the secret way to close off the tunnel: pull the lever that opened the door in the first place. Chess bounds across the room and wrenches the lever until it breaks off in his hands. “A split second later, everything exploded” (394).

Amid the settling dust, the kids search the debris for each other. Everyone is safely accounted for except Ms. Morales who, it seems, has been trapped in the other world by the explosion. The tunnel—and any hope of passing back through—is gone. Natalie finds her mother’s phone in the rubble, and Rocky Gustano, Chess’s counterpart, calls his mother in Arizona to inform her that they’re free. Feeling empowered by their rescue of the Gustanos and realizing that Kate, Joe, and Ms. Morales are still trapped on the other side, Finn resolves to find a way back in and rescue them.

Emerging from their house, Chess, Emma, and Finn find it surrounded by police and firefighters, having responded to the explosion. They quickly concoct a story about kidnappers leaving the Gustanos in their basement while their own mother was on a business trip, and the police, without further questions, take the Gustano kids away to reunite them with their parents. Natalie mourns her mother’s disappearance, and Chess, Emma, and Finn ponder the possibility of separation. Natalie, however, tells the firefighters that she and her father will take the Greystones in. As Emma suggests decoding the rest of her mother’s letter, they realize they are each other’s only support network. They vow to rescue those trapped on the other side.