The Strangers

As they explore beyond the front yard, Chess struggles with fear and confusion. As the eldest, he feels the extra burden of remaining calm for the sake of his younger siblings. His mind wanders, and he worries he will be separated from Emma and Finn if their mother never returns. As they venture out on to the street, they see five older boys approach. One of the boys recognizes Natalie, calling her by name. He then tells them a story about a criminal being captured after eight years in hiding, and about how the authorities spread a story of her children being kidnapped to lure her out of hiding. The coincidences overwhelm Chess: the kidnapping, their mother’s possible involvement, and the odd timeline—their father died eight years ago. However, his thoughts are interrupted by a shouting voice: “’Natalie Marie Mayhew! Just what do you think you’re doing?” (175).

The voice, as it turns out, belongs to Ms. Morales, calling from the door of the house. Upon seeing her, the boys scatter. She is furious with Natalie for wandering off with the kids, but they try to defuse the situation by assuming the blame themselves. She leads the kids back through the house, remarking on the “stench everywhere.” Finn thinks it smells like a mixture of death and evil. As they make their way back through the secret room in complete darkness, Natalie argues with her mother. Finn infers some secret between Chess and Emma that they don’t want to share with him.

Retracing their steps, Emma notices the physical layout of the secret room has changed. It is now more of a tunnel—longer, darker, and mustier than the spinning room and without the bookshelves. They emerge from the tunnel into the Boring Room, and everything is familiar once again. As they ascend from the basement, Emma suggests they meet once again at ten o’clock that night. Natalie agrees.

Back at the Morales’s home, while the Greystones sit down to do homework, Ms. Morales takes Natalie into the office for a talk. Although the office is soundproof, Chess reveals that Natalie slipped him a phone in secret “’if there’s something she wants us to overhear’” (187). When the phone vibrates, Chess and Emma share the earbuds and listen in on the conversation. Ms. Morales chastises Natalie for her carelessness with the kids, but Natalie defends her actions. She then turns the tables on her mother, asking her how well she knows Mrs. Greystone. Natalie suggests that maybe Mrs. Greystone is involved in something dangerous, and that it was irresponsible of her mother to agree to watch the kids. Ms. Morales responds that women sometimes need protection, and that is why she agreed to help She is under the assumption that Mrs. Greystone is involved in some kind of domestic abuse case. When she tells Natalie that the Greystones moved after their father’s death, it triggers a vague memory for Chess: waking up in a new house, their mother having moved them in the middle of the night. 

As they sneak back to the office, Chess suggests that Finn stay in bed, but he refuses, with Emma’s support. They are all in this together, she argues. They meet Natalie—who brings a couple of extra laptops for good measure—and get to work. Emma tries to decode the letter while Natalie looks at a map of the Greystone’s neighborhood to try to determine the location of the mysterious house. Finn tries to help, but he feels excluded. When Natalie implies their mother may have been the victim of a crime, Chess tries to keep it from Finn, but Finn understands the implication nevertheless and resents being sheltered. Meanwhile, Chess searches for his father’s obituary, but he closes out the page before anyone else can see it. Finn thinks about the kidnapped kids from Arizona and searches for updates. He discovers they still haven’t been found. When he accidentally stumbles on a video of their mother, Mrs. Gustano, pleading for her children’s return, he is shocked to see his own mother on the screen. 

Emma tries to make sense of the image in the video. She wonders if the Arizona version of their mother with shorter hair and a darker tan is an identical twin. Natalie speculates whimsically that perhaps the Greystones and the kids in Arizona are royalty separated long ago for safety reasons. Emma resents the idea that a fairy tale could comfort them at this moment. Chess then forwards the video to look at the father, and he determines that the man in the video is not their father. Ultimately, the video is too painful to watch, and Emma delegates the job to Natalie. She, Chess, and Finn then turn their attention to deciphering their mother’s letter.

Chess has a sudden memory of the days immediately after his father’s death. He recalls lying on the floor crying and his mother comforting him. She tells him she can’t bring their father back, but they have “other choices, though…” (212). She then begins to laugh, and even at four years old, Chess knows that this is not an amused laugh, and it frightens him. Seemingly to herself, she says, “I have to do this. There isn’t any other choice” (212). The memory of his mother reminds him of Emma in this moment, and he takes solace in the fact that, working together, they can all summon that same inner strength. He then reasons that the key to reading Kate’s letter is their unique, cumulative knowledge of her that only they possess. They begin to list some of their mother’s memorable quotes, hoping to find the key.