Tagline: Someone isn’t playing by the rules….
Back tagline: When you can’t sleep, there’s always Nights./Things go bump in the Night…
Summary: Dana Fear isn’t thrilled about spending her senior year at Shadyside High. The Fear family history goes way back in this town, and she’s not so into lugging around the baggage.
But then she gets in with the Night People. Shadyside’s pretty cool when it’s 3 a.m. and you’re chilling at a bar called Nights with your new best friends.
Until the evil returns, and the Night People start mysteriously disappearing one by one. Dana swears she has nothing to do with it. But all fingers point in one direction. Because there is, after all, a new Fear in town….
First impressions: This cover is just as boring as the first one, but it sounds much more interesting at least. And since I actually enjoyed that one, I’m looking forward to this! Introducing a new Fear into the mix sounds fun! Also, for whatever reason, it just clicked in my head that the Night People works not only because they hang out at night, but they do it at a bar called Nights. Why am I so dumb? Let’s read! [And don’t forget to check out the Dustin Can Read podcast, where me and Dustin discussed this trilogy!]
Recap
Meet the gang:
Dana – The new Fear on the block and Jamie’s cousin.
Nate – Ada’s boyfriend and Dana’s love interest.
Jamie – Dana’s cousin who’s a lot nicer to her now than when they were kids.
Ada – Nate’s possessive girlfriend of a few weeks.
Whitney – Ada’s best friend and a source of torment for Dana.
Part 1
The book begins with Nate Garvin, our protagonist from the first book [God, please don’t be our main character again!], doing a quick recap of the previous book, including some new information about the Fear amulet – Angelica Fear used to say it ‘gave her immortality.’ [It’s new information to me, at least! I don’t recall this little tidbit being in the Saga, but it could be from the Sagas, plural, which I haven’t read any of yet!] It’s a month after Candy’s death, and Nate’s been having terrible nightmares about poor, dead Candy and the amulet. Recently, however, a new incarnation of the nightmare has occurred:
This time, a girl was wearing the pendant. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear her whispered words: “Kill again… kill again!”
I don’t think I screamed. But I woke up in a cold sweat. Stood up in a blue haze, as if the pendant were in the room, the glowing blue light floating all around me.
“Kill again!”
So unfair. I didn’t kill anyone. Why can’t I lose the frightening dreams?
[Well, you didn’t directly kill her, but your actions that night certainly led to her death. The nightmares are probably manifestation of your guilt over how you treated my girl Candy 😠] The book is now told in first person present tense instead of the first person past tense the first book utilised, which I’m curious about [I usually do my recaps in present tense anyway, but Point Horror/Fear street tend to be past tense, so it feels sort of weird!]. Anyway, Nate’s sneaking out to Nights and he’s totally on edge because of his nightmares, so instead of going the usual route which would take him past Candy’s house, he decides to cut through the Fear Street Woods [Five seconds to walk past one house vs several minutes alone in the Fear Street Woods? I see you haven’t learned from your previous poor decision-making, Nate!].
He’s about halfway through when he hears a hoarse caw of a bird overhead, which is super weird because ‘everyone knows there are no birds in the Fear Street Woods.’ Looking up, he spots a large blackbird staring intently at him with one blue eye, its other eye just an empty socket. After a brief staring match, the bird ‘lets out a terrifying cry’ and swoops down to attack Nate [Please kill him, blackbird! Please!]. The bird’s long, sharp talons dig into his shoulders to keep him in place while it pecks at his face. It’s too strong for weak little Nate and he soon collapses to the ground, still trying to protect his head as blood pours over his face:
This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
No way I’m being attacked by a one-eyed bird in the middle of the night in the Fear Street Woods.
But it is happening.
[It sure is!] Some undetermined amount of time later, Nate arrives at Nights with no memory of how long he was in the woods, what happened to him there or why he’s caked in dried blood. He kisses the plaque [Why is everyone still kissing this thing after what happened to Galen?] and grabs a Budweiser from Ryland, the bartender, then joins Jamie and Ada, his girlfriend of a few weeks [Oh, so they’re dating now?!? Literally the only romantic development we ever got was her randomly kissing him out of absolutely nowhere before they almost drowned in the river]. The girls are concerned over his bloodied, dishevelled appearance, but since Nate just tells them he must have fallen and cut himself on some brambles.
Ada leads him to the bathroom in the back, which is a filthy mess with a rusted brown sink [Gross, why has no-one cleaned it? And why is it so rusty when the place has only been opened for like a year, if that?], where she mops up the dried blood on his face with some wet paper towel – ‘It really hurts, but I don’t flinch or anything. Gotta be tough, right?’ [It’s not a Fear Street book without toxic masculinity!] They have a lengthy make-out sesh before returning to the table, where they’ve been joined by Shark and Lewis, Jamie’s boyfriend.
The topic of conversation is how tense everyone at school is, and Ada, who presumably is the only one of this fivesome who doesn’t know about Nate’s, Shark’s and Nikki’s quasi-involvement in Candy’s death [In case you forgot, Shark and Nate told Jamie and Lewis about it at the end of the last book for some reason], mentions that kids at school believe Candy was murdered; not by another person, however, but by ‘”the curse of Fear Street.”‘ ‘”That’s so over,”‘ counters Nate, who can’t believe anyone still believes in all that crap despite experiencing some pretty unexplainable incidents himself [He really is a fucking moron].
Soon, the front door opens and a girl steps into the bar, but there’s a dark shape rising above her – a large blackbird with one blue eye that seems to be staring straight at Nate! Although he’s not sure how or why, he recognises the bird and starts to scream [Nate, please].
Ada is all like “wtf Nate, why are you screaming you loser” [She doesn’t say it in those exact words, though, of course] and since the blackbird seems to have disappeared, his lame excuse is that he thought he was seeing double because the girl ‘”looks so much like Jamie.'” [Why does everything Nate does and says piss me off?] Of course she looks like Jamie, though, because it’s her cousin, Dana [Is that a thing? Do cousins really look alike? I don’t know any cousins like that], who’s come to live with Jamie’s family for the rest of senior year. Jamie apparently doesn’t like Dana much, but wants everyone to be nice to her because ‘”she’s had a horrible year.”‘ [Ooooh, why? 👀]. After kissing the plaque as per Ryland’s instruction, Dana joins the gang at the table, and Shark introduces everyone except Ada for some reason [Like, no-one even acknowledges Ada, it’s super weird]. Then, as if we didn’t learn her last name from the blurb and it’s a big surprise, the chapter ends with Dana politely introducing herself as Dana Fear [So is Jamie a Fear too?! Maybe Jamie is Angelica Fear reincarnated?!? Either way, Angelica’s g-g-g-g-ghost is definitely inside her].
Part 2
The protagonist baton is passed over to 17-year-old Dana now, and we’re also back to the usual first person past tense style of writing [What was the point of the present tense, Stine? Why bother?]. It’s a week after Dana’s arrival, and she provides us with a little insight into her past relationship with her cousin – ‘My first memories are of Jamie pulling my hair and not letting me play with her dolls.’ Jamie grew up in a big house in North Hills, the fancy part of Shadyside, while Dana’s family was poor and lived in a rundown house on the edge of the Fear Street Woods. To further emphasise how Jamie was a bully during childhood, we learn that one time, Jamie spilled a big basket of tennis balls over the family tennis court and ordered Dana to pick them all up. Then when Dana had refilled the basket, Jamie spilled the basket all over again, tossing her head back and laughing [Jamie sounds awful lol].
Luckily for Dana, her family moved away from Shadyside when she was 10 she hasn’t seen Jamie since. After Jamie’s accident last year, Dana gave her a call and they talked about seeing each other again some day, but neither of them could have guessed Dana’s life was about to crumble and she’d have to return to Shadyside [Or did Jamie know?? Hmmm]. Last week when she first arrived at Jamie’s door, she wasn’t sure what to expect – would her cousin be glad to see her, or would she still treat Dana like ‘the poor cousin she was forced to hang out with?’ [Wow, not Jamie being classist. She seems like a nice girl now though, so I’m sure she’s changed from when Dana knew her] Before she could ring the doorbell though, Jamie burst outside and wrapped her in a big hug, misdirecting her with a compliment about looking fabulous before starting with the criticisms:
She picked up my heaviest bag. “You’re tall now,” she said. “I was always taller than you, wasn’t I? I remember those awful yellow Reeboks you used to wear, without any laces, right? You thought that was so cool, but it was so geeky.”
[Nice to see you too, Jamie!] Jamie then acknowledged how bossy and mean to Dana she was back then, but doesn’t apologise; instead, she blames her behaviour on Dana ‘”because you were so quiet and sad-looking and… shy.”‘ [Because bullying will get someone to come out of their shell, right?]. No-one would ever call Dana shy now, though – ‘For one thing, I’m really into guys. And I know how to get their attention.’ [You go, girlfriend!] Guys think Dana’s hot, and she loves ‘to go out and party and get trashed and get crazy,’ [Same, Dana, same] because it helps her forget how bad her life is [Oh :(].
Jamie’s pleasant greeting meant so much to Dana, who’s looking forward to trading her shitty life for a fresh start. Along for the ride is Dana’s pet hamster, Hammy [It’s astounding how unimaginative Stine is when it comes to pet and store names], who Jamie advises is best kept away form her mother, who’s allergic to all kinds of animals [I’m praying that Hammy survives this book. NOTE FROM FUTURE: Hammy is literally never mentioned again in this book, or the third one. I’m glad he survives but like why bother even including him for two sentences?].
Jamie lead Dana up to the attic, which is her room from now on [You’re telling me this huge house in North Hills that has it’s own tennis court doesn’t have a spare bedroom for Dana? She really has to sleep in the attic?], and then offered condolences for Dana’s recently deceased mother. She made the mistake of asking how Dana’s father is doing, who must be in shock since his wife died so suddenly, but Dana didn’t even know because instead of talking to her and mourning her death together, he sent her here to live with a cousin she hasn’t seen in seven years. Dana’s super bitter and upset about it, [And rightly so, might I add], and her face must show it because Jamie reckons she looks like she could kill someone:
Kill someone?
No way. What a strange thing to say.
Did I really look like that?
Kill someone?
Me?
[She hasn’t even been here five minutes and Jamie (who I think is definitely possessed by Angelica) is already gaslighting Dana, presumably in preparation for whatever Jamie will frame her for. Hopefully Nate’s murder] The weekend after her arrival, Jamie throws a party for Dana to introduce her to everyone, and the first guys she bumps into are Shark and Nate, who she’d met the other night. Dana thinks Shark’s hot, but decides not to shoot her shot once she realises he’s with Nikki. Nate, on the other hand, reminds her of an old boyfriend, Dustin, so she flirts with him until Ada ‘practically bumps me out of the way.’
Jamie hurried over and introduced us. She said the girl’s name was Ada something. I didn’t catch the last name. I’d met Ada at the bar the other night, but we didn’t get to talk.
[See? Ada was literally sitting at the table the other night when Dana arrived, and no-one introduced them. Literally wtf? How awkward for both of them] Dana doesn’t believe in first impressions, but she has a strong hunch that she’s probably not going to like Ada [Over Nate? For fuck’s sake], especially when Ada is quickly all over Nate, clearly marking her territory [How come Dana won’t pursue Shark because he’s with Nikki, but she doesn’t care about Nate being with Ada? Either way, Nate isn’t worth it, ladies!]. Dana stares at them intensely for a while before she’s pulled aside by beautiful, white and blonde Whitney [No mention of whether she’s Stine usual ice-blonde archetype, or if she has the usual blue eyes!]:
“Ada had a crush on Nate for years,” she told me. “But he always looked through her like Saran Wrap or something.”
Saran Wrap? Excuse me?
[Hahahaha why does Dana’s reaction? Is she offended by Saran Wrap? I don’t get it. Did Stine have a quota of product placement he needed to include in this trilogy?] Whitney explains how messed up Nate was after Candy died, which she thinks is weird since he didn’t even like Candy, and Ada tried to snap him out of it and they eventually got together. Whitney warns that Ada is super intense about Nate, and Dana gets very defensive, insisting she was ‘”just talking to the guy”‘ and doesn’t need permission from Ada to do it [Dana, you probably would have been all over him if pretty soon if Ada hadn’t come over]. Whitney’s shocked by the outburst and Dana quickly apologises, blaming it on the sucky year she’s been having. Whitney asks about her relation to Jamie, and we learn that their mothers were sisters, meaning Dana’s dad is a Fear, so Jamie’s not one [Oh ok. so maybe Jamie isn’t Angelica Fear incarnate, but Jamie’s still possessed by her nonetheless].
Dana’s completely aware the other kids are constantly staring at her, ‘and not just because of my short skirt and glittery, tight-fitting midriff top,’ [Sexy gal!] and as the party goes on, she overhears people talking about the Fear family and the Curse of Fear Street [Curse seems to be capitalised sometimes, but not at other times, for some reason. We love inconsistencies!]. At one point, she hears a small group discussing Candy and the amulet she always wore, with one double-denim wearing ginger girl insisting the amulet was Angelica Fear’s and someone murdered Candy for it. The group bust Dana eavesdropping and stare at her with frightened, suspicious looks on their faces, and although she really hoped for a clean start in Shadyside, Dana can’t help but wonder ‘Am I going to be in trouble because of my name once again?’ [Once again, huh? Interesting]
Back in the living room, Dana is pulled outside by Nate so they can talk. He apologises for Ada dragging him away earlier, and when asked how long they’ve been together, he tells Dana ‘”I’m not even sure we are going together.”‘ [Are you fucking kidding me, Nate? You literally told us readers you were dating when you were our protagonist at the start of this book. Go die, please] Dana knows he’s lying and suspects he’s into her, which she’s not complaining about because she’s certainly into him!
He suggests they hang out sometime, but then ruins it by adding ‘”I’ve always wanted to meet a Fear”‘ because he’s got a lot of questions. Dana isn’t happy that he seems more interested in her family than her, but can see that he’s totally messed up by Candy’s death and weird things he briefly mentioned have happened recently. At one point he goes quiet and stares up into the branches of a tree, explaining he thought he saw a blackbird [Ooky spooky!]. Dana notices Ada glaring at them through the window, her face pressed up against the glass, and decides to give her something to stare at, sliding her arm around Nate’s shoulders and pulling him in close as she leads him back inside [Dana please, I really want to like you].
It’s a bit chilly inside, so Dana runs upstairs to fetch a sweater, and as she makes her way back down she finds Ada standing in her way on the landing [Move, bitch]. The ceiling light is reflecting off the tray of glasses Ada’s holding [Why is she taking a tray of glasses upstairs?]. The light is almost blinding, causing Dana to feel dizzy and off-balance, and after momentarily closing her eyes to help it pass, a shrill scream alerts her to Ada ‘toppling headfirst down the staircase.’ [Ugh, don’t tell me Ada’s so crazy about dipshit Nate that she’s framing Dana for pushing her down the stairs?].
Ada’s pretty much fine and quickly jumps up to accuse Dana of pushing her. Dana denies it, but it’s no use because everyone’s already staring at her accusingly. Do they think she shoved Ada because Dana wants to steal Nate? ‘Nate is cute, but he isn’t worth trying to kill someone!’ [He’s not worth anything, sweaty xx] Do they think that as a Fear, Dana is inherently evil? Distraught, Dana retreats to the attic and glowers in an armchair as the guests begin to leave.
Soon, Jamie enters the attic to check on her cousin and assures Dana that she believes she’s innocent and that emotional, high-strung Ada will get over it. Dana tells Jamie about the blinding light and overwhelming dizziness at the top of the stairs, and although Jamie once again agrees that Dana didn’t push Ada, she seems to be looking at her awfully suspiciously.
A few nights later, Jamie appears in Dana’s room to talk about Cindy, their cousin who died before the events of the first book and had promised to send Jamie a sign from the other side. We learn here that Cindy was a Fear too, so I’m not sure how that makes her Jamie’s cousin, since Cindy is Dana’s cousin from her dad’s side… Anyway, Jamie admits to believing in the supernatural, which is a huge surprise for Dana since Jamie was ‘kind of a bubblehead’ when they were younger [Great insult. That’s going straight into my vocabulary!]. Jamie drags Dana to her bedroom where she’s set up five burning black candles in a circle and explains she’s been secretly teaching herself magic through the one of the books she’d found in the Fear Mansion’s hidden room last year.
Jamie’s confident she can contact Cindy and Dana agrees to help her, so they lean into the circle of black candles, holding hands as Jamie whispers some foreign words before they both both start chanting ‘”Cindy, where are you?”‘ And to their surprise, there’s a soft reply from nearby saying ‘”I’m here…”‘ It turns out to be Jamie’s pesky seven-year-old brother Danny, who’s pretty pleased with himself over his little prank. He quickly leaves, and Jamie decides not to continue with the spells.
The next day is Dana’s first day at Shadyside High, and she gets lost several times, despite Jamie showing her around in the morning. After school, she spots Ada and Whitney talking at their lockers, but they go quiet and plaster fake smiles on when they notice her approaching. Dana asks them to point her in the direction of the music room, where she’ll be trying out for chorus. Ada coldly informs her that she and Whitney are in chorus and all the spots are filled, but little does she know that Dana’s won awards for her singing, so the teacher has allowed her the chance to try out. Dana’s super grateful for this because she’s applying for the Collingsworth Music Scholarship and needs to be in chorus for that very reason.
Again Ada and Whitney are flabbergasted, because they’re both applying for that scholarship too, and only two students from each school will be selected [How dare Dana want to go to college!]. Dana daftly tells them she can’t going to college without that scholarship, and I’m sure Ada’s formulating a plan to ruin her chances already as she points Dana down the hall [Probably in the wrong direction, surely] and tells her to break a leg [Literally, she means].
Dana is dismayed that she clearly won’t win either of those girls over as friends, and wonders if everyone here really believes she shoved Ada down the stairs. Getting the scholarship to go to college is much more important than making friends right now, though, so she can’t dwell on it too long. To my surprise, Ada’s actually given Dana the correct directions to the music room [What a plot twist! I’m genuinely shocked] and as she’s about to start her audition, Dana spots Ada watching her through the slightly open door. That just makes Dana more determined, and she absolutely crushes her performance. Ms. Watson is full of praise and believes Dana’s a real contender for the Collingsworth scholarship, and Dana heads for the door after grabbing the rehearsal schedule.
Ada still hasn’t moved from the doorway and blinks several times, ‘as if coming out of a daze,’ [I reckon she’s getting the Candy red herring treatment], and Ms. Watson is glad she’s around because she wants to speak to her. Dana bids farewell and then returns the favour, eavesdropping at the door while Ms. Watson tells Ada she’ll have to step up her singing game if she wants to make finals, since the competition will be a lot harder now that Dana’s in the picture.
Ada’s so livid as she storms out of the room that she doesn’t even noticing Dana standing there. Knowing Jamie won’t want the two of them being arch enemies, Dana decides to go after her, but Ada’s disappeared by the time she makes it around the corner. She’s grabbed from behind by nitwit Nate, who apologises for scaring her. ‘”You like to make girls scream, don’t you?”‘ Dana teases [Gross, Dana 🤮], and a cringe flirting match ensues [Kill me now], although Dana knows perfectly well she should be staying away from him.
Nate invites her to go to a skating party on Fear Lake with him Saturday night [So fuck Ada, right?], and Dana’s hesitant at first, but she quickly accepts after he calls her interesting [At least make him work for it, Dana]. But then she wonders – is he actually interested in her, or is he interested in her knowledge of the Fear family? She hurries home to seek advice from Jamie, who’s in the garage doing her pottery stuff. As Dana starts to pull up the roller door, though, Jamie shouts ‘”Stay OUT! I mean it! STAY OUT!”‘ [Rude]. Jamie rushes out to apologise for screaming, explaining she doesn’t allow anyone in her sculpture studio because it’s her own private space, her therapy after her accident last year. Apparently she’s got a huge kiln in there too, ‘”like a blast furnace,”‘ which I’m sure is foreshadowing for a later scene, because death by furnace sounds like a Fear Street kind of death.
The girls move to the kitchen to talk, and Dana tells Jamie all about her day including her run-in with Ada and Whitney about the scholarship. Jamie reckons this is strike three for Dana, because although Ada is as unassuming as a mouse, she’s got a fiery temper – ‘”Red hair, you know.”‘ [Everyone knows personality is dictated by hair colour, Dana!]. Dana doesn’t want Ada to hate her, but she has no choice – she needs that scholarship, and she’ll do anything to win it. Anything [!!!!].
On Wednesday night, Ada’s having a beer with the boys [🤙🏻] at Nights. She’s the only girl there tonight, so she’s flirting with each and every one of them, the little tramp [Something just occurred to me – how do these teenagers have enough money to sneak out and drink at a bar all night, every night? None of them seem to have jobs?]. Nate is extremely handsy and soon starts getting on Dana’s nerves with all his questions about her life back home and being a Fear.
He recaps the events of the last book in more detail for her, including how everyone thought Candy Shutt was behind it all because of the amulet she wore, and then asks if Dana knows any spells or sorcery. She snaps at him that just because she’s a Fear doesn’t mean she’s into all that stuff, and he’s super apologetic, planting a kiss on her cheek. This cheeky little kiss is witnessed by Ada, who’s standing at the table, staring at them. She pulls Nate away to scold him, and everyone can hear them arguing about how Dana is trying to steal Nate and the scholarship from Ada, and Dana flees from the bar in frustration.
At Fear Lake on Saturday night, Dana hangs with the guys and Nikki for a bit before going for a skate with Nate. They end up pretty far out, and Nate takes the opportunity to pull Dana in close for a smooch [Why is he doing this to Ada? Nate is the worst]. Of course she kisses back, and they don’t pull away from each other until Jamie comes limping up to them with a warning – Ada found out Dana’s here with Nate and now she’s searching for Dana to confront her! Jamie hobbles away just as Dana spots Ada skating over, and Nate once again shows what a flog he is:
Nate shook his head angrily. “Forget it,” he said. “I don’t need this.”
“But, wait—,” I protested. “Don’t leave me here.” My heart started to pound in my chest.
He skated off, head down, taking long strides.
“That’s not fair!” I shouted.
[Neither Nate or Ada are being very fair. Nate needs to face the consequences of his actions, and Ada needs to direct her anger at Nate, since Dana really doesn’t owe her anything] Ada comes roaring over, shouting that Dana can’t ruin her life like this, and quickly wraps her hands around Dana’s throat [!!!] until Dana starts to feel dizzy…
Dana opens her eyes a short time later and realises she must have blacked out and collapsed as she takes in her surroundings – ‘I was sitting on the ice, with my legs spread.’ [I bet you were, Dana! 😏]. She feels super weak and dizzy still, and soon she spots bunch of people skating towards her, including Jamie. The group had heard screaming and want to know where Ada is, but Jamie quickly spots her nearby:
I turned to see what she was staring at. And uttered a sharp cry.
Ada?
Yes. Stretched out on her back on the ice.
Ada… Ada in a dark pool of blood.
Ada with an ice skate… the blade… the blade… driven into her head. Standing straight up. Poking out from between her open, glassy eyes.
Without realizing it, I jumped to my feet.
I saw Jamie’s accusing scare.
I raised my gloved hands to the sides of my face and I started to scream: “I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it! I didn’t do it…!”
[A more brutal ice skate death than Al in The Confession! Reminds me of Jimmy’s death in ‘Halloween H20’]
Part 3
Accompanied by Jamie’s parents, Dana is taken to the police station for questioning, where she’s super cooperative and tells them about blacking out thanks to Ada strangling her before waking up to Ada’s corpse. The police make Dana go over her story several times, likely hoping she’ll trip up, but Dana really is telling the truth so there’s no changes to her story. The bruises on her neck indicate she’s not lying about Ada strangling her, but it’s not until she lifts her arms and shows them how skinny she is that she seems to convince them she’s ‘”not strong enough to shove a skate blade through someone’s skull.”‘ [You can do anything as long as you believe in yourself, xx].
Jamie’s father asks if Dana she blacks out often, and she silently wonders if maybe she did murder Ada during her blackout and just doesn’t remember. They’re free to go since Dana’s not being arrested, and Dana feels ‘like a limp noodle’ as they head back to the car [Hahahaha why is that so funny].
We jump to 1:30am on Wednesday morning now, and Dana, Jamie and Lewis are hanging out at Nights. Unfortunately for Dana, Galen, Whitney and Whitney’s often-mentioned-but-mostly-irrelevant boyfriend Aaron are at a nearby booth being stare bears and definitely bitching about Dana. Dana apparently hasn’t seen or heard from Nate since he scurried off Saturday Night, and she’s super upset about it:
I tried to understand it from his side. Yes, he’d been going with Ada. Yes, he’d cared about her too.
But I thought he had real feelings for me. Isn’t that why he invited me to the skating party?
[Dana, you’ve known him for literally two seconds, calm down] Speak of the devil, here comes Nate now, and he pulls Dana aside and apologises for not being around, admitting he’s just scared. Not of Dana, but of the fact that two of his classmates have died. He’s not really accusing Dana of being responsible, but she’s defensive anyway, insisting she’s a good person and would never kill anyone. They embrace in a tight hug until they realise Galen, Whitney and Aaron are in front of them:
“We heard what you were saying,” Whitney said. “Well, why don’t you tell us this? If you’d never kill anyone, Dana, what about your boyfriend back home? Tell us you didn’t kill him, too!”
The boyfriend they’re referring to is Dustin, the one that Nate reminds Dana of [Lol no wonder she’s obsessed with Nate], and Whitney knows all about Dustin’s death because she heard it from a friend at Dana’s old school [Very convenient that Whitney happened to have a friend at Dana’s old school]. Dana explains that one lovely afternoon, she and Dustin were hanging out by her pool [Aren’t you poor, Dana? Poor people don’t have pools] when she went inside to rustle up some sandwiches. She’d heard a splash while inside, and when she returned to the pool, Dustin was facedown in the water, which was turning pink from his blood.
Did she try to help him? No. Did she do anything but stand there, gawking at him? No again! Authorities decided Dustin ‘”tried a dive and hit his head on the side,”‘ knocking him unconscious and causing him to drown [Well, Dana didn’t kill him, but he may have survived if she’d done something other than stand there, ya know? She loses brownie points for that].
Whitney thinks she’s full of shit and ends up attacking Dana in a rage, accusing her of murdering Ada over Nate and the scholarship. In Whitney’s mind, Dana’s last name ‘”means you’re a killer!”‘ Whitney is eventually pulled off and escorted her from the bar as Dana despairs that Whitney’s going to further convince everyone that she’s a murderer [I think they’re all already convince, darl].
On Friday while Dana’s home alone, Nate IMs her to ask if he can come over. Dana’s all for it, changing into a ‘bright pink sweater over straight-legged black pants. Very sexy.’ [Very sexy indeed, Dana] She also slips on a necklace, and when she greets Nate at the door, he stares at her chest in shock! Turns out this isn’t just any old necklace, but a home-made replica of Angelica Fear’s amulet, which Dana copied from old photos she has of her ancestors. After a quick make-out sesh on Dana’s bed [Ada’s barely cold in the grave, guys], she shows Nate the photos of Angelica and gives us some more insight:
“…She was one of the most interesting Fears—and one of the most evil. She was into all kinds of witchcraft and sorcery. She did a lot of experiments, trying to bring dead people back to life. She said she would live forever. She told people she had found the secret.”
Nate confesses to Dana that he, Shark and Nikki were in Candy’s house the night she died and explains they were there to steal the amulet, which they mistakenly thought was Angelica’s original one and Candy was using it to cast spells on them. He then tells her about pig’s head he found in his bed at the end of the last book and of his belief that Candy didn’t simply fall, but actually went flying, ‘”like an invisible force pushed her,”‘ [Pretty sure the book described her as falling though] insisting ‘”there’s something evil out there.”‘
Now to Monday afternoon, and it’s the first round in the singing competition for the Collingsworth scholarship! Jamie, Lewis and Nate have all come to support Dana, who’s up first and although it’s not her best performance, she does pretty well. Dana starts to feel dizzy as Whitney steps up to the microphone to sing, but instead of any words coming out, Whitney begins to sneeze over and over [And apparently the sound we make when we sneeze is ‘Aaack’ according to Stine]. But this isn’t any normal sneeze attack, because Whitney starts pulling white feathers from her nose [Omg lol], one after the other. Soon, blood starts flowing along with the feathers, and Whitney’s quick to accuse Dana of ‘”using her Fear powers” in front of the whole auditorium.
Dana’s classmates continue to ostracise her over the next few days, which is incredibly upsetting for the poor girl. Jamie comforts Dana in her room one evening and offers a sage piece of advice – ‘”Don’t wear that amulet to school.”‘ Even though it’s just a replica of Angelica’s, everyone is still afraid of it, so Dana rips it off and throws it straight into the trash [This little homemade necklace subplot was pointless lol].
Later, Dana sneaks out to Nights to meet Nate, who really wants to talk to her. He’s done some online research on the amulet and has discovered that Angelica believed she could return from the grave and inhabit a living person’s body [Hey, that’s my theory! So maybe I’m wrong :(]! He proposes that Angelica’s grave was disturbed when they tore down the Fear Mansion last year, and now she’s living in someone’s body and doing all these horrible things to everyone.
Shark and Nikki arrive and cut the conversation short, with Shark suggesting they go run amok around town like they used to. So off they go, exploring the sleeping town of Shadyside until they end up at the Fear Street Cemetery, where Nate starts hooting and hollering about a one-eyed bird in a tree up ahead! He drops to his knees and shields his face as he screams at the others that it’s about to attack, but no-one else can see whatever he’s pointing at, and Shark reckons Nate’s probably just had too much to drink [What is up with this blackbird? Is Angelica’s spirit inside that or something?].
After school the following Monday, Dana arrives at the gym to meet Nate, who’s currently in the middle of a casual game of basketball with some kids from school, including Shark and Whitney. Dana’s got a massive headache and is feeling dizzy once again, so just watches from the bleachers, but that doesn’t stop Whitney not-so-accidentally hurling the ball at her chest and then faking an apology [Whitney’s definitely dying next].
Jamie stops by at one point to tell Dana she’s heading to pottery class [Which seems innocent and irrelevant enough, but I’m sure it’s being mentioned because Jamie is our bad guy. After all, she’s been at every accident that’s happened so far, and another one is probably about to happen], and once the game is over, everyone heads to the locker rooms to change, besides Whitney, who wants to practice her jump shots, and Dana, who waits on the bleachers for Nate.
As she watches Whitney do her jump shots, a familiar wave of nausea and dizziness rolls over Dana, and she shuts her eyes as she waits for it to pass. She evidently passes out because the next thing she knows, she’s being shaken awake by Nate, and when Dana’s eyes finally focus, she spots Whitney lying on her back on the gym floor with her head missing [!!!]:
I stared at the headless body on the floor. And then I raised my eyes and saw the head—blond hair falling over her face…I saw the head up in the basket.
Whitney’s head staring blankly down at me from the bloodstained net.
Part 4
[And I oop—] Dana is more alone than ever now, because Jamie seems to be the only one who believes she’s innocent. By late Wednesday night, Dana is dying to talk to someone, so she calls Nate’s cellphone. He’s surprisingly in bed and not at Nights, and complains that she woke him up, but Dana doesn’t care and starts talking his ear off. She tells him how her Dad is apparently too busy on a business trip and can’t make it down, and how the police suspect Dana killed Ada and Whitney to increase her chances of winning the Collingsworth scholarship.
Nate contributes nothing but one-word answers to this conversation, and Dana wonders if it’s because he’s just tired or if he thinks she killed the girls, just like everyone else does. Dana lets him return to sleep, but because she really wants to talk to someone, she heads down the hall to Jamie’s room, hoping she also stayed home tonight. Jamie’s door is slightly open, and when Dana peers in, she spots Jamie kneeling in a circle of black candles with her back to the door. Jamie’s chanting something foreign and pouring a dark powder between several bowls on the floor [This has to be Angelica, right?], and when Jamie turns, Dana’s able to see her face:
But it wasn’t her face.
Older eyes. A turned-up nose. An aged, ragged, half-smile.
Definitely not Jamie’s face!
[Angelica’s face?!] Frightened, Dana scurries back to her room and hides under the covers. She soon hears someone coming up the attic stairs and pretends to be asleep, keeping her eyes open just a crack to sees Jamie creep into the room, her face hidden in shadows.
Jamie hesitates in the doorway, presumably making sure Dana’s asleep, and then makes her way to the couch, where Dana’s laid out her clothes for the next day. Jamie reaches into the bowl she’s carrying and sprinkles black powder over Dana’s outfit, and as she begins to chant softly in another language again, Dana realises it’s not Jamie’s voice at all [!!!!].
When Jamie finally leaves, Dana’s left with one thought in her mind – ‘I’ve got to get out of this house!’ [So Jamie’s definitely possessed by Angelica, or some other spirit at least, but there has to be more to it, right? We still have a whole other book to get through, so it’s much too early for the big reveal!] Dana grabs her cellphone and calls her dad, insisting he come get her asap because something weird is going on and Jamie’s responsible for it. Useless as ever, Dad thinks she’s either high or drunk, but promises to clear his schedule and come visit next weekend, insisting she’ll feel better in the morning before hanging up.
The next morning, Dana throws on a different outfit and makes her way downstairs where Jamie and her mother are in the kitchen having breakfast. Aunt Audra announces she’ll be taking Dana to a doctor today to get her the help she needs, revealing Dana’s father called her early this morning and told her about the phone call. The adults are super worried, but Jamie’s livid and tells Dana she really shouldn’t have said those things about her [Maybe you shouldn’t be doing all your witchy-poo spells on her, Jamie!]
Dana retreats to the attic and waits for Jamie to leave for school before sneaking into her room and finding the big spell book Jamie had shown her when they tried to contact Cindy. The book is already open and as Dana scans the two pages, she finds what Jamie had been chanting last night – ‘A spell to fog a person’s mind.’ She realises that Jamie used the spell on her before murdering the Ada and Whitney, making it look like Dana was responsible since her only excuse was that she blacked out. What she can’t work out, though, is why [Yeah, why is Angelica framing Dana? She didn’t steal anything from the hidden room? Maybe she’s just a casualty]?
Dana sneaks out and runs to Nate’s house, but no-one’s home, so she runs to school instead, where she spots him climbing out of his car in the parking lot [So even though he was driving to school while she was on foot and he left his house before she even arrived there, she got to school at the same time he did? Dana should ditch the singing scholarship and find a sprinting one!]. As she gets closer, Dana realises that Jamie’s there too, obviously telling Nate all about Dana’s call to her dad. Because he seemingly has no loyalties to anyone, Nate suggests that since Dana trusts him, maybe he can trick her into going ‘”to the mental hospital.”‘
Upset, Dana wanders around aimlessly for the rest of the day and eventually decides she has to confront her cousin. She waits outside the garage that afternoon for Jamie to disappear into her studio, and then as quietly as she can, Dana lifts the garage door and slips inside [There is no way a fkn roller door is that quiet]. Jamie’s putting some pottery into the kiln and has her back to Dana, who takes the opportunity to examine her surroundings. Of particular interest is three pedestals by the work table, upon which sit extremely lifelike replicas of the heads of Ada, Whitney and who Dana assumes is Candy. In shock, Dana approaches the pedestals and touches clay-Ada’s cheek:
And opened my mouth in a wail of horror.
The heads…they weren’t clay. They weren’t sculpted.
These were the real heads of the murdered girls!
[What is she planning to do with their heads?] Jamie realises she’s not alone when Dana screams and quickly closes the garage door with a remote control. As Dana stares in shock, Jamie’s face begins to change, transforming ‘until she wasn’t Jamie anymore.’ Dana recognises the face from last night, but it takes a little longer for her to realise what’s been obvious for quite a while – it’s Angelica Fear’s face [Duh, Dana]! Angelica explains that Jamie fell into her grave last year, which enabled Angelica to take over her body and come back to life. She then whips out the amulet from beneath her collar, the real one, and explains this is what’s made her immortal.
Dana wants to know why she’s killing the Collingsworth scholarship contenders, but Angelica just scoffs because ‘”the idiotic prize doesn’t mean a thing to me,”‘ and reveals she’s killing everyone who broke into the Fear Mansion last year, making them pay with their lives for looting her belongings [Sounds fair to me!]. Dana was being framed as a distraction, but now it’s time to die because she’s outlived her usefulness [Are we going to get an explanation as to why Angelica, as Jamie, drowned herself in the first book? She was only revived because of Ada, so what was the point? Also, she’s been in Jamie’s body for a year, why has she only decided to kill everyone who looted the hidden room now? What about the other seniors who were there last year, besides Jamie and Lewis, who are all in college now and nowhere near Shadyside? What was her plan for them?].
Gripping Dana by the shoulders, Angelica backs her towards the giant kiln and sends her toppling backwards with a powerful shove. Dana reaches out for something to grab onto as she falls, and one hand grasps Angelica’s amulet, ripping it from her throat. The amulet clatters to the floor and somehow Dana manages to avoid falling into the kiln. As Angelica bends down to retrieve the pendant, Dana leaps up and shoves her with all her might, sending her into the kiln [Wait, so despite being in front of the kiln originally, Dana managed to land a certain way that put Angelica between her and the kiln?].
Dana covers her ears as ‘a scream of horror like the sound of a wild animal burst from inside the kiln,’ and a thick, green, foul-smelling cloud rises from the flames. Jamie’s body stumbles out and collapses into a smouldering heap on the garage floor, unmoving, as the howl of pain continues inside the kiln. Jamie opens her eyes and is surprised to see Dana in Shadyside, let alone in her garage, so I guess she doesn’t remember anything from the past month [OK, but how was she not burned alive?].
The screaming from the kiln stops abruptly and the putrid green smoke fades away, and Dana realises with joy that she destroyed Angelica Fear [Doubt it. Or maybe you destroyed Angelica, but Lewis also fell into the grave, and their were two skeletons there… Is Simon Fear inside Lewis? But then if Angelica needed the amulet to be immortal, I don’t see how Simon could have been resurrected?]. Noticing the amulet on the floor, Dana decides to toss it into the kiln so it can burn with Angelica ‘and be gone forever.’ [Which I personally think is a stupid plan, because why would you dispose of the source of Angelica’s immortality in the same place where she just died? It already survived the original Fear Mansion fire anyway, right? Even if it has no chance of bringing her back to life somehow, it’d still be smarter to destroy it some other way, or at the very least in a separate fire at another location]
As Dana’s about to fling it into the open kiln, there’s a fluttering sound at the open garage window, and a huge, screeching blackbird comes swooping in at her, talons raised… and it’s only got one eye [I forgot about this bird for a while. Maybe this has something to do with her immortality as well? Maybe it’s Angelica’s familiar?]! The bird snatches the amulet from Dana’s hand and escapes back out the window, leaving the two girls in stunned silence. Then the books ends with one final scare as they notice something happening with the three dead girls’ heads:
Their eyelids began to blink. Their mouths opened. They licked their dry, shriveled lips with purple-black tongues.
And then, as I grabbed Jamie and held on to her in terror, all three heads began to cry out in unison:
“The evil lives! The evil lives!”
[Ooky spooky!]
Final thoughts
I think this is a worthy sequel to its predecessor, and maybe even slightly better thanks to some actual murders taking place, although plot-wise they were both pretty fun. I’d be surprised if anyone didn’t see this book’s twist coming at some point before the big reveal, but we still had some mystery with the blackouts and the one-eyed bird at least.
Dana is a pretty middle-of-the-road protagonist, I think – she wasn’t a complete idiot, but her feelings for Nate got on my nerves. And Nate wasn’t a great guy to begin with, but he’s even worse here, so hopefully he’ll die in the next book. I wasn’t expecting anyone to actually die in this one, since the blurb claimed people would be disappearing, so that was a nice surprise. The body count is still way too low for my liking, but at least the deaths were cool. There’s so many Night People left to kill, so I’m hoping the concluding chapter in the trilogy will axe more of these losers [I’m looking at you, Nate and Shark].
As is the norm with Fear Street, we’re left with a bunch of unanswered questions that will likely never be cleared up – why did Angelica drown herself in the first book? Jamie wasn’t at the top of the stairs when Ada tumbled down them, so had she cast a spell to make Ada fall, or was it simply an accident? Why was Angelica trying to contact Cindy with Dana [I know she was pretending to be Jamie, but it just seems unnecessary, since it’s not like Dana knew Jamie had been trying before that point anyway? I also don’t think it was just a cover for casting a spell on Dana, since she’d already had a dizzy spell and almost blacked out before this]?
Another thing I’m confused about is this: we know Jamie doesn’t remember the past month since Dana moved in, but Angelica basically said she’d taken over Jamie’s body last year in the hole, so wouldn’t that mean Jamie has been absent from her own life for a year? And if that’s the case, how the hell was Angelica successfully able to pass herself off as Jamie when surely she can’t have known anything about her or her personality before taking over? It makes more sense that Angelica was inhabiting the body the whole time but only taking control at certain points, but that’s not what seems to be implied.
Overall I’m enjoying the trilogy, so 110 severed heads in a basketball hoop out of 149 for this one!
