MOM! DAD!

Brookey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this is happening.

We feared from the beginning that this would be The End. We only wanted to spare you from watching it all coming.

There has to be some way we can help! The girls have come so far. They’ve done all they can do. It’s not fair!

Stories aren’t always fair to their characters. Sometimes talking spiders die. Sometimes little boys get sick and their stuffed bunnies get thrown away. Sometimes bad things happen to characters.

But… but there’s got to be something! Mom, can’t you narrate the characters free? Dad, can’t you change the story?

Narrators don’t have that kind of power, Brooke. Ms. Direction got that power for herself, but with it came the Unmaking.

If we tried to narrate the story to make it do what we wanted, that volcano could erupt again, bringing The End even faster.

We can only narrate what the characters do.

I wish I were a character in the story, and then I’d do something. Me and Frankie and Raven together. And… and if we were in the Margins, we could imagine everyone away from Ms. Direction. Wait… there was something I read about imagination in school. The entire World of Stories exists because the Readers have incredible imaginations. Right?

The job of Narrators is quite small, really. Though we put the words to the story, it’s the Readers who do most of the work by making the story come alive in their minds.

So, Mom, you’d say that the Readers are powerful? Even more powerful than Ms. Direction?

Wait, I know what you have in mind, Brooke.

Please, Dad?

That is a very dangerous idea, young lady.

Please? I need to enter the story. I need to be a character. So that means I need a Narrator to narrate me.

I’m worried about our baby girl.

Me too. But she’s the best chance these worlds have.