A few months later, Lisey and her sisters clean out Scott’s office. They remove everything except for the stack of periodicals, which Lisey begins thinking of as a “booksnake,” and the white carpet underneath that still has faint bloodstains. In the summer, Lisey goes to a party at Cantata’s, but she is too afraid to get intoxicated, wondering if the long boy would find her if she weren’t fully herself.

Deputy Alston calls one day to tell Lisey that they found Dooley’s PT Cruiser three miles from her home. He explains that his real name is John Doolin and that he stole the car. However, they were unable to find any of his prints in it.

Often, Lisey wakes up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and still feeling the remnants of a nightmare. In those moments, she touches her sheets and the headboard, confirming that she is still in her bedroom and not in Boo’ya Moon. Sometimes, when she goes by a mirror or reflective surface, she thinks that she sees movement in it.

One day, Lisey falls asleep on the couch. When she wakes up, she is lying on Sweetheart Hill. Although it is in broad daylight, she is terrified nonetheless. She instantly wills herself back onto the couch, staying in Boo’ya Moon only a few seconds.

The next day, Lisey calls a professor at Fogler Library at the University of Maine. She describes the “booksnake” to him, and he excitedly agrees to have a few students come collect the books immediately to add to their collection.

An hour later, Lisey is eating in the kitchen when she thinks of Amanda sitting by the pool for the first time in months. She tries to remember what she said about Scott, but it keeps escaping her. Her thoughts are interrupted by the phone ringing. Boeckman tells her that Dooley’s car was missing the cover to the dome light. He took it off to break the bulb, then discarded it. Since then, he and Alston have been searching for it. They finally found it, and it had two fingerprints on it, confirming that the car was stolen by Dooley.

Two librarians come to help move Scott’s books. After, Lisey sits with them in the kitchen. The girl, Cory, excuses herself to use the bathroom. When she returns, she quickly leaves, giving her colleague a strange look. When Lisey goes into the bathroom, she realizes that, at some point, she put a sheet over the mirror without realizing it. She checks the rest of the mirrors and sees that she did it with most of the ones in the house. She covers the last two, deciding that it can’t hurt. She always feels as though she is on the verge of entering Boo’ya Moon, whether she wants to or not.

Two days later, Lisey remembers Amanda’s words about her story and decides that she has to find Scott’s final “prize” for her. She notes how hot it is, recorded as the hottest of the year, as she sits on the floor and is already sweating. She wills herself to Boo’ya Moon.

Lisey looks around beneath the tree and spots Paul’s grave marker, where Dooley threw it. She now realizes that there is a yellow string tied to it—an unwound thread from the afghan. She follows the thread, and it leads her along the edge of the forest. At the end, she finds the rest of the shawl. Inside, she finds a manuscript box labeled with her name. There are several handwritten pages that are written in the first-person point of view from Scott’s perspective, a few months after Paul’s death.

In the pages, Scott describes worrying about his father’s mental health. He came home one day from sitting in the shed, and his father accosted him about going to Boo’ya Moon. Scott defended himself, insisting that he only went to put flowers on Paul’s grave, which pacified his father. However, he could tell that Sparky was becoming fixated on the “bad-gunky.” He stopped eating and going to work.

One night, Scott woke up, and his father was standing over his bed. Scott tried to talk to him, but Sparky told him to go back to sleep. He then walked from the room, and Scotty heard him fall down the stairs. He tried to call to him, but his father scolded him to be quiet, or the bad thing would hear them. Scott was too afraid to get up and check on his father.

Here, Scott pauses in his narration and addresses Lisey directly. He tells her that he is certain that whatever happened to Paul was also happening to his father. He knows that it is separate from the long boy; instead, it’s something genetic that he doesn’t know the cause of.

The next morning, Scott was surprised to find his father alive. The next few days continued as normal, with Sparky staying on the couch all day and not showering or working. One day, Scott was coming out of the kitchen with food when a car came into the driveway. Scott could see that it was from Sparky’s work, Gypsum USA. Sparky jumped from the couch and retrieved his rifle. Scott pleaded with him not to kill the man, and he responded that Scott needed to get rid of him.

The man knocked on the door. When Scott answered, he introduced himself as Frank Halsey, Head of Personnel at Gypsum. He asked about Sparky. Scott immediately lied, telling him that he was in Pittsburgh caring for his dying sister. He assured him that he and Paul were alright on their own.

After, Sparky hid the gun in the well, then told Scott that he needed to leave. He showed him a stash of money, then instructed him to make his way to Pittsburgh where he could get help from social services. Scott pleaded with him to stay, insisting that he couldn’t be on his own. In an aside in the narration, he explains to Lisey that, despite everything his father did, he still loved him and did not want to lose him. 

Sparky hesitated, then agreed not to leave. However, he told Scott that he would one day do something to him that would cause him to go to Hell. He made Scott promise to stop him. That night, Scott woke up in the middle of the night because of a hailstorm. He heard his father’s footsteps in the hall, so he hid under the bed. Sparky came into the room, then paused by Scott’s bed. After a moment, he grunted, then Scott saw the blade of their axe come through the bed and stop just before his face. Sparky tried to free the axe, but failed. Then, he bent over to check under the bed, so Scott willed himself to Boo’ya Moon.

When Scott returned, his bedroom was destroyed. He made his way downstairs and saw that it had been wrecked, too. He found his father sleeping on the couch. Nearby, the axe was against the wall with a note hung from it: “Kill me then put me with Paul please” (502). Scott writes that he had to choose at that moment: If he hated his father, he could run and leave him to whatever punishment or treatment the authorities decided on; if he loved him, he could kill him. He asked Paul for help and heard Paul whisper, “Daddy’s prize is a kiss” (503), affirming that, despite everything, their father loved them.

Lisey pauses reading. She notes that the last two pages are written directly to her. She is crying as she finishes.

Scott explains that he killed his father. He thought of it every day thereafter, haunted by it. He then tried to transport his father to Boo’ya Moon for five straight days and failed each time. He reminds Lisey that some things are “anchors,” keeping you in Boo’ya Moon, and he believes that his father is one for the real world. He notes that he knows he will be dying soon and that he needed to tell someone the entire story. In the final lines, he reminds Lisey that the yellow afghan is an anchor. He tells her that she can use it to stay in the real world and away from Boo’ya Moon.

When Lisey finishes reading, she instinctively knows what to do. She collects the manuscript and the remains of the afghan, then returns to the tree. She replaces Paul’s grave marker on his grave, then puts the manuscript beside it. She then goes to the pool and wades in, wearing the afghan. When she emerges, she is able to transport herself back to the real world with the afghan.

Lisey returns to the study. She notes that she is happy with the life she has built and has no reason to return to Boo’ya Moon again. She stands at the door looking back into the study. She tells Scott that she loves him, and the room is silent. She turns and leaves.