Cory and his family attend the Zephyr Arts Council awards ceremony, where his friends and their families have also come to support him. The event is briefly interrupted by the arrival of the Lady, the Moon Man, and their associate Charles Damaronde, whose presence causes a stir among the white townspeople. Cory overcomes his stage fright to read his story, Before the Sun, and, in doing so, discovers the deep power of storytelling to connect with an audience.

After the ceremony, the Lady approaches Tom Mackenson. She tells him the dead man from Saxon’s Lake is psychically “callin’” to him and that she can help him find peace if he will let her. Cory asks her if she has had dreams about four girls, but she has not. The Lady also mentions that a new civil rights museum is being built in Bruton. Later, at home, Tom hangs Cory’s award plaque on his bedroom wall between two monster pictures, right over the typewriter Cory now thinks of as his “magic box.”

Impressed by Cory’s story, the town’s eccentric, Vernon Thaxter, invites him to dinner. Cory’s father, Tom, accompanies him to the Thaxter mansion, where they are greeted by the butler, Mr. Cyril Pritchard. Inside, Vernon shows them his vast and complex model train layout of Zephyr. While observing it, Vernon theorizes that the Saxon’s Lake killer is a local “night owl” who is averse to milk.

Tom is sent to eat in the kitchen while Cory dines alone with a naked Vernon, who serves a fantastical meal of children’s favorites. During dinner, Vernon recounts the tragic story of writing his novel. He explains that his original town-life novel was titled Moon Town and portrayed the quiet day-to-day life of a little town much like Zephyr, but his New York publisher demanded he add a murder mystery plot and renamed it The Moon My Mistress; Vernon complied out of desperation to be published, though the addition of violence to the small-town story felt like an act of brutality against his work. His cruel father, Moorwood Thaxter, relentlessly belittled his son’s literary ambitions. The painful memory triggers an emotional breakdown, and Mr. Pritchard gently leads a distraught Vernon to bed, leaving Cory shaken. The question of whether Moorwood is still alive or secretly dead remains unresolved.

For Show-and-Tell, Johnny Wilson brings his arrowhead collection. Looking at a specific black arrowhead, Johnny names its imagined maker Chief Five Thunders, and Cory takes over with a story about the fictional Creek chief. Later, bullies Gotha and Gordo Branlin ambush the boys. They destroy Cory’s monster magazine and seize Johnny’s collection, scattering the arrowheads across the playground and losing the one attributed to Five Thunders.

Provoked beyond his limit, Johnny fights back. Having secretly spent the summer studying a boxing book, he soundly defeats Gotha. Meanwhile, Gordo pursues Cory on his bicycle. Cory’s bike, Rocket, seems to act with its own intelligence, taking control and leading Gordo into a ditch. There, Gordo lands in a patch of poison ivy and is attacked by Lucifer the monkey. The Branlins’ reign of terror is broken. Afterward, the friends search for the scattered arrowheads, but the black one belonging to Chief Five Thunders is gone. Johnny accepts its loss, viewing himself as only the arrowhead’s temporary caretaker.

Cory’s dog, Rebel, is hit by a truck and taken to the town veterinarian, Dr. Frans Lezander, who determines his injuries are fatal. As Cory’s father prepares to sign the euthanasia form, Case #3432, Cory prays desperately for Rebel not to die. Just after the dog’s heart stops, he miraculously returns to life. As Dr. Lezander monitors Rebel, his wife Mrs. Lezander invites Cory to feed the birds currently being treated by her husband. One of them belongs, Cory is shocked to learn, to Mrs. Harper. She also shows Cory her collection of ceramic birds, one of the few items she was able to bring with her when she fled from Europe with her husband during World War II. 

Cory often visits Rebel at Dr. Lezander’s clinic, where he directly asks Dr. Lezander to confirm a rumor that he “killed a Nazi” (375). Dr. Lezander is taken aback by the question, but confirms the rumor. Eventually, he allows Cory to take Rebel home, believing that there is no more he can do for the dog. Rebel survives but exists in an unnatural, deteriorating state: He doesn’t eat or drink, his body temperature drops to an impossible 66 degrees, and his flesh withers. One night, Cory sees the ghost of Carl Bellwood, a neighborhood boy who died in a fire, visiting Rebel’s pen. Realizing his selfish prayer has trapped Rebel in a painful state between life and death, Cory verbally gives the dog’s spirit to Carl’s ghost. The next day, he takes responsibility for his actions and goes to Dr. Lezander’s office, where he signs the euthanasia form himself, finally allowing Rebel’s body to rest.

When Cory brings a pie to the Lezanders, Mrs. Lezander explains that neither she nor her husband can eat dairy, as both are allergic to anything from a cow. She also mentions that the doctor stays up all night listening to his shortwave radio, sometimes until dawn—a combination that aligns with Vernon Thaxter’s theory about the Saxon’s Lake killer. Soon after, a drunken Donny Blaylock kidnaps Cory at gunpoint. Donny drives to the brothel run by Miss Grace, shoots her in the shoulder, and abducts one of the women, Lainie.

As they flee, the ghost car of Little Stevie Cauley, known as Midnight Mona, appears and pursues them. Lainie reveals that Stevie was her boyfriend. Panicked, Donny shouts that he killed Stevie and ran his car off the road—a confession he will later repeat to Sheriff Amory after his arrest. The spectral vehicle then drives directly through Donny’s car, an apparition that prompts him to lose his mind. He crashes the car and flees into the woods. After he is gone, Lainie seems to feel Stevie’s comforting ghostly presence.

Sheriff Amory confesses to Tom Mackenson that for years he has accepted bribes from the Blaylocks to ignore their illegal activities. With Donny Blaylock now in jail for the murder of Little Stevie Cauley, the family patriarch, Biggun Blaylock, threatens to kill the sheriff before Donny can be transferred to county marshals. After wrestling with his fear of being involved in the violence, Tom decides to stand with the sheriff as a volunteer deputy, joining Fire Chief Marchette and the Moon Man.

Unable to wait at home, Cory lies to his mother and follows his father. He watches as the Blaylocks ambush the small group at the bus stop, initiating a gunfight. They are unexpectedly aided by Mr. Owen Cathcoate, known as the Candystick Kid, who arrives on his own initiative against the sheriff’s explicit wishes and provides critical covering fire. With two Blaylock boys injured, the standoff ends when the Moon Man calmly walks up to Biggun and (seemingly) uses magic to fill his shotgun chambers and ammo bag with harmless green garden snakes. Biggun’s terror of the snakes sends him fleeing until his own weight crashes him to the pavement, and a large posse of armed men from Zephyr and Bruton arrives to complete the capture, bringing an end to the Blaylock family’s criminal reign.

The Brandywine Carnival arrives in Zephyr. While waiting for Ben Sears to finish his first piano lesson with Miss Sonia “Blue” Glass, Cory and his friends overhear the Glass sisters’ parrot shrieking. A visitor, Mr. Osborne, recognizes the sounds as German curse words mixed with other garbled German words, though he drops the matter after Miss Blue Glass dismisses him.

At the carnival, the boys are drawn to an exhibit called “From the Lost World” (440). Inside a filthy trailer, they are introduced to “triceratops,” held captive by its cruel owner, who says the beast was originally discovered by someone named Professor Challenger. After Davy Ray Callan throws the mysterious and docile creature a piece of a Zero candy bar, it becomes enraged and tries to break out of its pen. The next morning, the town’s civil defense siren awakens everyone: The triceratops has escaped, rampaged through town, and disappeared into the surrounding woods. Later, Cory arranges for Davy Ray to bring over his father’s chain cutter—hinting that someone intends to free the creature from any remaining chains.