Synopsis (spoilers):
The second part opens with a boy named Gordie Wilson. He is hunting in the woods. He starts to see shadows and hears noises in the trees. Something jumps out at him and his heart stops before it can even sink its teeth into him.
Cut to Jenny. She is in the bathroom at school. A girl comes up to her saying Slug and P.C. didn’t kill her friend Summer. Slug & P.C. are the boys who at the end of book 1 stole the game and who had been following Jenny. She starts crying, saying she hates Jenny and she can prove that Slug & P.C. didn’t kill Summer. She runs out before Jenny can ask how. The payphone outside the bathroom is ringing. She picks it up. Static and “a….ish…shhhh”. Gibberish. She hangs up.
She tries to gather all her friends to tell them about the girl from the bathroom. Tom hasn’t been in school. She flashes back to them telling the police about Summer being missing. They didn’t believe the truth of course, so they finally said they couldn’t be sure that’s what actually happened. So an ongoing search team has been looking for Summer.
Brian Dettlinger, football star and senior, walks up to Jenny and asks her to prom. She declines – she’s with Tom. Cut to Tom’s point of view. He’s been watching Jenny. He thinks about how she’s changed since Julian and how he’s sure she has feelings for him, even if she can’t admit it.
Jenny and Audrey go to help out putting up posters all over town of Summer to get information (even though they know what happened to her). They see kids playing a game of lambs and monsters. Lambs go and hide, monsters try to find you, if the monster tags a lamb, the lamb goes to the monster lair until another lamb comes to let you out. One of them is Jenny’s little brother Joey, the other is Cam – Summer’s little brother. She tells them to be on the lookout for a cardboard house (but to not touch it) and described the girl from the bathroom, saying they were looking for both and to let them know if they saw either by telling her they found it and she’d know what they meant.
As they’re leaving, Audrey and Jenny are being chased by a shadow animal, Tom jumps from the bushes and saves them. Later they see a dog, figures that’s what it was and they overreacted. Audrey drives herself home and Jenny goes with Tom. He brings up her connection to Julian again, saying he’s been avoiding her because he just knows he will lose her to him. He says she’s changed. She tells him if she’s not the same person maybe they should break up. He doesn’t object. Once she’s home she gets another phone call “Ahh…issht”. Jenny thinks they’re saying “Vanished”. After she’s gone to bed she receives yet another phone call. This time she realizes it’s not “Vanished” but “Famished”. She remembers the hungry eyes of the Shadow Men from her grandfather’s closet.
Jenny tells her friends she thinks Tom and her broke up. Audrey suggests she accept Brian’s invitation to the senior prom after all to make Tom realize he could really lose her, and she will find a date and go with her. Everyone starts to have dreams and imagine they are being stalked by the Creeper (snake) and the Lurker (wolf). In computer class, Jenny freaks out when she feels something slithering up her leg, Audrey has a dream of a wolf licking the back of her neck and when she wakes her neck is wet, Dee and Michael both have similar experiences. Michael rationalizes that it was their imagination. Tom is still not in school. Cut to Tom’s POV. He’s in the forest where Gordie Wilson disappeared. He finds black muck, when he scrapes it up realizes it’s dark red, not black.
Jenny runs into Cam who tells her he’s found the girl from the bathroom. Jenny and Dee track her down and after some convincing, she shows them a place her, Slug, and P.C. used to go. The dollhouse is there, but it’s ruined. It looks like it has exploded from the inside. Jenny breaks the news to the girl Angela that her friends are dead. The ring, however, is nowhere to be found.
Jenny goes to prom with Brian, even though guilt over the fact that she doesn’t care for him the way he seems to care for her and over hurting Tom when he found out she was going with him was gnawing at her. While at the masquerade dance she is asked to dance by a boy. She does and soon realizes it is Julian. He reminds her that she’s sworn to be his and she can’t help a part of her that is still drawn to him. He slips the ring back on her finger, she knows it will not come off now. He admits to taking Gordie as he stumbled upon the Creeper and Lurker. He offers her another game because genies like to gamble. If Jenny wins, she is free of her promise to be with him always. She accepts. She had assumed the game would be between them, but no – it is the original players of the game – including her friends. The game? Lambs and Monsters. On his side the Creeper and the Lurker, on her side – her friends. If she finds them before he gets them all, they’re free, if not he keeps them. He mentions little Red Riding Hood. Audrey has copper hair. He’s after Audrey first.
Audrey is in the woods outside of the hotel the prom is in with her date. He gets knocked out and she hears growling behind her. She runs and sees a hole in front of her, but it’s too late. Luckily, Tom has been watching them again. He grabs her as she’s about to fall in the hole. Audrey is safe.
They gather all the friends and go to Michael’s apartment. Jenny tells them all about the new game. She offers to save them again by actually going to Julian willingly this time. They tell her no, they will play. Jenny gets a clue in her cracker jack about who will be first. “In the midst of a word she was trying to say, in the midst of her laughter and glee, she had softly and suddenly vanished away – for the snake was a Boojum you see.” Audrey starts to pick up empty soda cans and goes into the kitchen talking away. Mid-sentence she stops, and everyone runs in. Audrey is gone. They decide they need to find Julian’s home base in order to ‘set the lambs free’. It must be a place like the game store – somewhere that is between worlds.
They all tell their parents they are sleeping over each other’s houses so they can all stay at Michael’s and keep an eye on each other. Only Zach’s parents won’t let him. He’s been gone too much. Jenny and Zach talk about imagery. How a picture of a pipe, is not actually a pipe – it’s just an image of a pipe. So they have to leave him. While at Michael’s Jenny has a dream. Julian is in it. She gets a new riddle that points her to Zach. They go to check on him the next morning. He’s gone, in his place is the paper doll he had made when they started the original game.
They go see Dee’s grandmother. She tells them the story of Ibis the prince of darkness and genies who took this boy. The girls who loved him dived into a river of fire (the fire burned her of course, but it didn’t kill her) then she swam in a river of water and then stumbled through a river of snakes to save him.
The next clue Jenny figures out is about Dee. Although she puts up a fight and is with Michael, Dee is taken as well. Just Jenny, Tom, and Michael are left. Julian visits Jenny’s dream again. She asks for a hint about the base. His hint – “you can find your friends behind a door.” Jenny asks “have I been though it?” “Yes and No.” Jenny has no idea. She wakes up and finds a new clue. The clue is “Pas de lieu Rhone que nous.” Michael and Jenny look it up in French while Tom sleeps. It doesn’t make sense. Jenny sounds it out. It’s English – “Paddle your own canoe!” Yes! She’s figured it out and they’re still all together. She looks over, Tom’s sleeping bag is just pillows.
Cut to Tom’s POV. He’s in the forest and has taken Michael’s father’s shot gun. He deduces that the black/dark red gunk he found is blood from the Lurker. That means you can kill them. He is attacked by both and manages to kill them both, but not before the snake bites him.
Jenny reaches the forest. In the river is Tom’s paper doll. He’s gone. She and Michael goes back to his place. Michael is freaking out, doesn’t even want to go to the bathroom alone. They go up and Jenny’s talking to him outside the door, he flushes the toilet and it keeps flushing. She opens the door – Michael is gone, his paper doll in his place.
Jenny figures out where the home base is. When she was talking to Zach she had seen a portrait of a door. She reaches for the knob and it’s solid. She found it. She jumps in, avoiding Julian who has been chasing her since he realized she figured out where the base was. All her friends are waiting for her. She has won. She’s free from her promise. The ring comes off. Julian has one more surprise. He sets a fire around the door. One so powerful they can’t cross it. Again – the door is open, they just have to get through it. So Julian hasn’t broken any rules.
Jenny remembers the story Dee’s grandmother told about the girl going through the obstacles. Mind over matter. She convinces them all to go through the fire but not to think about it. They all hold hands, but she loses Zach when he trips at the last minute. Everyone else makes it through the door. It is still open. She wants to go back in, but Tom won’t let her. He goes in instead. And the door closes behind him. A message is left behind on the door – I have your friends with me in the shadow world. If you want them – come on a treasure hunt. If you lose, it’s the devil to pay.”
Jenny has another game to play…
Cut to Jenny. She is in the bathroom at school. A girl comes up to her saying Slug and P.C. didn’t kill her friend Summer. Slug & P.C. are the boys who at the end of book 1 stole the game and who had been following Jenny. She starts crying, saying she hates Jenny and she can prove that Slug & P.C. didn’t kill Summer. She runs out before Jenny can ask how. The payphone outside the bathroom is ringing. She picks it up. Static and “a….ish…shhhh”. Gibberish. She hangs up.
She tries to gather all her friends to tell them about the girl from the bathroom. Tom hasn’t been in school. She flashes back to them telling the police about Summer being missing. They didn’t believe the truth of course, so they finally said they couldn’t be sure that’s what actually happened. So an ongoing search team has been looking for Summer.
Brian Dettlinger, football star and senior, walks up to Jenny and asks her to prom. She declines – she’s with Tom. Cut to Tom’s point of view. He’s been watching Jenny. He thinks about how she’s changed since Julian and how he’s sure she has feelings for him, even if she can’t admit it.
Jenny and Audrey go to help out putting up posters all over town of Summer to get information (even though they know what happened to her). They see kids playing a game of lambs and monsters. Lambs go and hide, monsters try to find you, if the monster tags a lamb, the lamb goes to the monster lair until another lamb comes to let you out. One of them is Jenny’s little brother Joey, the other is Cam – Summer’s little brother. She tells them to be on the lookout for a cardboard house (but to not touch it) and described the girl from the bathroom, saying they were looking for both and to let them know if they saw either by telling her they found it and she’d know what they meant.
As they’re leaving, Audrey and Jenny are being chased by a shadow animal, Tom jumps from the bushes and saves them. Later they see a dog, figures that’s what it was and they overreacted. Audrey drives herself home and Jenny goes with Tom. He brings up her connection to Julian again, saying he’s been avoiding her because he just knows he will lose her to him. He says she’s changed. She tells him if she’s not the same person maybe they should break up. He doesn’t object. Once she’s home she gets another phone call “Ahh…issht”. Jenny thinks they’re saying “Vanished”. After she’s gone to bed she receives yet another phone call. This time she realizes it’s not “Vanished” but “Famished”. She remembers the hungry eyes of the Shadow Men from her grandfather’s closet.
Jenny tells her friends she thinks Tom and her broke up. Audrey suggests she accept Brian’s invitation to the senior prom after all to make Tom realize he could really lose her, and she will find a date and go with her. Everyone starts to have dreams and imagine they are being stalked by the Creeper (snake) and the Lurker (wolf). In computer class, Jenny freaks out when she feels something slithering up her leg, Audrey has a dream of a wolf licking the back of her neck and when she wakes her neck is wet, Dee and Michael both have similar experiences. Michael rationalizes that it was their imagination. Tom is still not in school. Cut to Tom’s POV. He’s in the forest where Gordie Wilson disappeared. He finds black muck, when he scrapes it up realizes it’s dark red, not black.
Jenny runs into Cam who tells her he’s found the girl from the bathroom. Jenny and Dee track her down and after some convincing, she shows them a place her, Slug, and P.C. used to go. The dollhouse is there, but it’s ruined. It looks like it has exploded from the inside. Jenny breaks the news to the girl Angela that her friends are dead. The ring, however, is nowhere to be found.
Jenny goes to prom with Brian, even though guilt over the fact that she doesn’t care for him the way he seems to care for her and over hurting Tom when he found out she was going with him was gnawing at her. While at the masquerade dance she is asked to dance by a boy. She does and soon realizes it is Julian. He reminds her that she’s sworn to be his and she can’t help a part of her that is still drawn to him. He slips the ring back on her finger, she knows it will not come off now. He admits to taking Gordie as he stumbled upon the Creeper and Lurker. He offers her another game because genies like to gamble. If Jenny wins, she is free of her promise to be with him always. She accepts. She had assumed the game would be between them, but no – it is the original players of the game – including her friends. The game? Lambs and Monsters. On his side the Creeper and the Lurker, on her side – her friends. If she finds them before he gets them all, they’re free, if not he keeps them. He mentions little Red Riding Hood. Audrey has copper hair. He’s after Audrey first.
Audrey is in the woods outside of the hotel the prom is in with her date. He gets knocked out and she hears growling behind her. She runs and sees a hole in front of her, but it’s too late. Luckily, Tom has been watching them again. He grabs her as she’s about to fall in the hole. Audrey is safe.
They gather all the friends and go to Michael’s apartment. Jenny tells them all about the new game. She offers to save them again by actually going to Julian willingly this time. They tell her no, they will play. Jenny gets a clue in her cracker jack about who will be first. “In the midst of a word she was trying to say, in the midst of her laughter and glee, she had softly and suddenly vanished away – for the snake was a Boojum you see.” Audrey starts to pick up empty soda cans and goes into the kitchen talking away. Mid-sentence she stops, and everyone runs in. Audrey is gone. They decide they need to find Julian’s home base in order to ‘set the lambs free’. It must be a place like the game store – somewhere that is between worlds.
They all tell their parents they are sleeping over each other’s houses so they can all stay at Michael’s and keep an eye on each other. Only Zach’s parents won’t let him. He’s been gone too much. Jenny and Zach talk about imagery. How a picture of a pipe, is not actually a pipe – it’s just an image of a pipe. So they have to leave him. While at Michael’s Jenny has a dream. Julian is in it. She gets a new riddle that points her to Zach. They go to check on him the next morning. He’s gone, in his place is the paper doll he had made when they started the original game.
They go see Dee’s grandmother. She tells them the story of Ibis the prince of darkness and genies who took this boy. The girls who loved him dived into a river of fire (the fire burned her of course, but it didn’t kill her) then she swam in a river of water and then stumbled through a river of snakes to save him.
The next clue Jenny figures out is about Dee. Although she puts up a fight and is with Michael, Dee is taken as well. Just Jenny, Tom, and Michael are left. Julian visits Jenny’s dream again. She asks for a hint about the base. His hint – “you can find your friends behind a door.” Jenny asks “have I been though it?” “Yes and No.” Jenny has no idea. She wakes up and finds a new clue. The clue is “Pas de lieu Rhone que nous.” Michael and Jenny look it up in French while Tom sleeps. It doesn’t make sense. Jenny sounds it out. It’s English – “Paddle your own canoe!” Yes! She’s figured it out and they’re still all together. She looks over, Tom’s sleeping bag is just pillows.
Cut to Tom’s POV. He’s in the forest and has taken Michael’s father’s shot gun. He deduces that the black/dark red gunk he found is blood from the Lurker. That means you can kill them. He is attacked by both and manages to kill them both, but not before the snake bites him.
Jenny reaches the forest. In the river is Tom’s paper doll. He’s gone. She and Michael goes back to his place. Michael is freaking out, doesn’t even want to go to the bathroom alone. They go up and Jenny’s talking to him outside the door, he flushes the toilet and it keeps flushing. She opens the door – Michael is gone, his paper doll in his place.
Jenny figures out where the home base is. When she was talking to Zach she had seen a portrait of a door. She reaches for the knob and it’s solid. She found it. She jumps in, avoiding Julian who has been chasing her since he realized she figured out where the base was. All her friends are waiting for her. She has won. She’s free from her promise. The ring comes off. Julian has one more surprise. He sets a fire around the door. One so powerful they can’t cross it. Again – the door is open, they just have to get through it. So Julian hasn’t broken any rules.
Jenny remembers the story Dee’s grandmother told about the girl going through the obstacles. Mind over matter. She convinces them all to go through the fire but not to think about it. They all hold hands, but she loses Zach when he trips at the last minute. Everyone else makes it through the door. It is still open. She wants to go back in, but Tom won’t let her. He goes in instead. And the door closes behind him. A message is left behind on the door – I have your friends with me in the shadow world. If you want them – come on a treasure hunt. If you lose, it’s the devil to pay.”
Jenny has another game to play…
The Forbidden Game Part 3 – The Kill - coming soon…
Review: 5 out of 10. Okay. This is getting a little redundant. Her friends are still in mortal danger, she has to figure out how to get out of Julian’s game and getting past his trickery. She does it, but oh he still has something she wants. So here we go again. And I have to say her friends are pretty stupid. They all refused to believe that anything was after them, convincing themselves it was their imagination, even after everything they had been through. And even though Tom going off to kill the Creeper and the Lurker was beneficial (they had 2 less opponents to deal with), all I could think when he snuck out was wow you’re asking for it. Jenny is also stupid to keep agreeing to his games. Obviously he’s going to put a twist on things. In my opinion this middle book was a little annoying because it was more of the same of the first book. And I still don’t know why amazon readers love Julian. Here’s to hoping the 3rd book will make the first two worth it.
Review: 5 out of 10. Okay. This is getting a little redundant. Her friends are still in mortal danger, she has to figure out how to get out of Julian’s game and getting past his trickery. She does it, but oh he still has something she wants. So here we go again. And I have to say her friends are pretty stupid. They all refused to believe that anything was after them, convincing themselves it was their imagination, even after everything they had been through. And even though Tom going off to kill the Creeper and the Lurker was beneficial (they had 2 less opponents to deal with), all I could think when he snuck out was wow you’re asking for it. Jenny is also stupid to keep agreeing to his games. Obviously he’s going to put a twist on things. In my opinion this middle book was a little annoying because it was more of the same of the first book. And I still don’t know why amazon readers love Julian. Here’s to hoping the 3rd book will make the first two worth it.
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