Alchemy of Secrets

As the afternoon draws to a close, Tom identifies the missing item as a chained book. A crash echoes in the department, and a colleague tells Tom the book is on Stage 10 for the show Knife and Cross. Tom looks through Adam as if he isn’t there, repeats questions, and bleeds from his scalp and fingertips. Shaken, Holland and Adam leave.

Outside, the sun drops unnaturally quickly. The disorienting darkness makes Holland unsteady. Adam steadies her, but she pulls away, afraid she could hurt him with prolonged touch. They head for Stage 10 to retrieve the book.

Holland and Adam take a golf cart to Stage 10 and split up on a vampire court set for Knife and Cross. Holland senses a pressure in the air and follows it to a pedestal holding the chained book. Adam recognizes Bank chains that require a specific key. Holland tries her sister’s key; it sparks and fails.

A studio guide enters with Gabe Cabral. Adam pulls Holland into a prop coffin to hide as footsteps approach the pedestal.

From the coffin, Holland and Adam watch Gabe unlock the book’s chains with his own key. A faint buzz from Holland’s phone makes Gabe pause, but he does not find them. He opens the book, glances inside with a dismissive noise, and leaves it on the pedestal.

Holland and Adam emerge and discover the book is a hollowed-out decoy containing only a yellow pencil.

Night falls with under five hours left until Holland’s death. She listens to a voicemail from the Professor, who offers help in exchange for the Alchemical Heart. Holland studies the pencil, recalling the notes on her father’s screenplay pages, and realizes it points to the next location.

The annotations lead to the My Neighbor Next Door set. Holland uses details from the pages to identify the correct yellow house by its tree and swing.

At the base of a sycamore tree, Holland finds her parents’ initials carved in the bark. They dig up a glass jar containing the final screenplay page and a note that reads, “You already have everything you need. You just have to see it” (299). Gabe appears with a gun, demanding the scroll.

Holland hands the scroll over, giving Adam a chance to run. She bolts into the yellow house, opens the trapdoor Tom mentioned, and drops into a tunnel. Gabe follows and catches her. Blood leaks from their eyes, and Holland hallucinates Gabe’s features shifting into Adam’s.

Holland wakes in the tunnel at 8:03 pm. Gabe and the pages are gone, but January’s backpack remains. When Adam finds Holland, she tells him she memorized the final clue: a bowling alley with Spanish colonial revival architecture, which she identifies as the Hollywood Roosevelt’s gaming parlor. Adam reveals that he has magically imprisoned Mason in the Hollywood Roosevelt as a powerless ghost. Nevertheless, he warns that his brother is still dangerous.

They follow the tunnel into a JME tour hall. Holland spots her mother’s dress from Mirrorland and decides they need costumes to enter the Roosevelt’s Halloween party unnoticed.

Holland wears her mother’s dress at the Roosevelt’s themed party, which is based on the board game “Clue.” In the crowd, she sees the Professor and Gabe. Adam tells her to wait while he goes after Gabe.

Chance Garcia pulls Holland into an elevator and shows her archival photos of Adam over decades, ageless, alongside people who later died in suspicious circumstances. The last image shows Adam with Benjamin Tierney and Isla Saint on the Mirrorland set.

Suspicious of Adam, Holland wonders if he is the villainous brother. Recalling her father’s faith in her ability to solve clues, she decides to investigate alone. Holland heads to the Spare Room bowling alley and sees Mason. Suddenly appearing before her, he speaks as if he knows Holland, observing she is “running a little late tonight” (293). Mason explains they have met many times before and are in a time loop that resets whenever Holland dies. He ushers her through a hidden door into a secret library to talk before Adam finds them. Holland follows, realizing her visions may be memories from earlier loops. In some loops, she trusts Gabe, and in others, Adam. Her nosebleeds are a side effect of these disruptions in time.

In the library, Mason explains that every Halloween, just before midnight, Holland dies and the loop restarts. Mason offers to reveal how she dies if Holland promises to resurrect him and kill Adam after finding the Alchemical Heart. Holland refuses to kill anyone. Mason states that in every loop, Adam murders her.

At 19 minutes to midnight, Holland finds January’s necklace in her backpack: a mirror image of her own. The two necklaces fuse, forming a choker etched with the Alchemical Heart symbol. Convinced she has found the Heart, she tries to leave.

Adam intercepts Holland and uses his ability to persuade her that she was looking for him. Compliant, she follows him into a dark corner. He kisses her, rips the necklace from her throat, and stabs her in the back, leaving her to die.

As Holland bleeds out, she realizes the necklace was a decoy. The Professor’s journal in her bag is the true Alchemical Heart. She staggers into a secret room, where Mason appears. She asks the Heart to heal her just as the clock strikes midnight. Mason urges her to kill Adam. Instead, Holland turns Adam into a ghost bound to the Roosevelt. As Adam becomes a trapped spirit, Mason’s corporeal essence is restored.

Moments after midnight, the Alchemical Heart reshapes into Manuel Vargas. Holland longs to ask him to bring her parents back but realizes that this is not what her father wanted. Instead, she asks the Heart to activate her own latent ability. Manuel agrees, saying it will manifest later. Holland then sends the Heart forward in time to find a new owner who will use it wisely.

In the early hours of November 1, Holland finds the Professor waiting on a bench outside the Roosevelt. The Professor accepts that Holland no longer has the Alchemical Heart, observing that it will reappear on the list’s next date. She renews her offer for Holland to work at the Bank. Holland says she will consider it, keeping her options open.

The next morning, Holland runs along the beach feeling a new sense of vitality. She is unexpectedly joined by Mason Bishop, who acknowledges that he owes her for bringing him back to life. Holland’s phone rings; it is January. When Holland looks up, Mason is gone. In the sand, he has left a black-and-gold business card.