The Name of This Book Is Secret

Cass and Max-Ernest watch from the window in Cass’s room as an influx of guests arrive at the Midnight Sun. They appear to come from various places and times. As they all congregate by the pyramid, Cass notices that they are all wearing gloves. Owen reveals himself as an ally when he enters the room and, now speaking in surfer lingo without a trace of a stutter, helps Cass and Max-Ernest escape. However, Cass and Max-Ernest can’t leave without Benjamin. Cass and Max-Ernest return to Ms. Mauvais’s office to look for the secret pyramid entrance that Cass suspects is hidden there. Inside, they find a series of panels that conceal hidden rooms; in one, there is a blonde wig and a filing cabinet with the Symphony of Smells sitting on top. Cass and Max-Ernest find newspaper clippings and medical charts in the filing cabinet, as well as records of other children who were kidnapped over the years—almost all of them are marked deceased.

Fearing for Benjamin, Cass and Max-Ernest quickly move on and find a hidden door behind the next panel; the room within contains a library filled with ancient and rare texts. Max-Ernest flips through a few of them and finds a reference to alchemy. Although neither Cass nor Max-Ernest know what alchemy is, the narrator defines the term for the reader, revealing that this is the “True Science” Dr. L spoke of and that the essential substance is the Philosopher’s Stone, which is believed to be a formula for immortality. The narrator also reveals that the Midnight Sun is a front for a group of ancient, evil alchemists called the Masters of the Midnight Sun. The narrator is sharing this information so the reader will have an advantage that Cass and Max-Ernest did not, implying that an ill fate will befall them due to this lack of knowledge. Back in the narrative, Cass finds a door at the back of the library engraved with Egyptian hieroglyphics; she is certain it leads to the pyramid.

Beneath the hieroglyphics on the door, Cass and Max-Ernest find a riddle written in English and a dial surrounded by letters of the English alphabet. Surmising that the answer to the riddle must correspond to a password they must input through the dial, Cass and Max-Ernest set to solving it. They discover that the password is the name of the Egyptian god Thoth. Behind the door is a narrow passageway reminiscent of the one from Cass’s dream. The passageway dead ends into a wall, but Cass and Max-Ernest notice that there is a small door in the wall with an eyehole on it. They peer through the eye hole and see the pyramid’s interior room.

Cass and Max-Ernest look at the pyramid’s opulent interior room from the eyehole. Light from the Midnight Sun’s giant lantern orb illuminates a large iron bowl containing a flame on top of an altar in the middle of the room. Cass and Max-Ernest observe that the guests are seated on all sides of the altar. Dr. L steps forward and addresses the audience, giving insight into what they are all doing there that evening—according to him, the “real real world” (287) is one where all the senses are connected, as they are when one is an infant and the senses have not yet separated. Because those with synesthesia have a blending of the senses, they can access this “true” reality and thus are the key to attaining the Secret.

He reveals Benjamin, “strapped inside a strange and intricate contraption” (287) on the altar. Dr. L plans to extract  spinal fluid by sticking a reed up Benjamin’s nose to get to his brain, in the Egyptian fashion of removing a corpse’s brain before burial. This procedure will certainly kill Benjamin. Dr. L pours a vial over the flames in the iron bowl, releasing the smell of sulfur into the room; Max-Ernest realizes that Dr. L must have taken the vial from the Symphony of Smells, which gives Cass an idea as to how they will save Benjamin. Cass and Max-Ernest retrieve the Symphony of Smells from Ms. Mauvais’s office and then scale the side of the pyramid from the outside until they are sitting at the very top, at which point Max-Ernest asks Cass what the plan is.

While they were watching the ceremony, Cass realized that the pyramid is designed to allow sensory stimuli to be “reverberated” throughout the room. Taking advantage of this fact, she plans to use the vials from the Symphony of Smells to cause a distraction. As Ms. Mauvais calls upon the god Thoth, Cass drops four vials, one at a time, into the flames. The first is violet in color and emits a floral scent, like heliotrope; the second is pale green and emits the smell of echinacea. At this point, the scents have Dr. L’s attention, but he quickly shakes them off and continues prepping for the procedure. Cass drops the third vial—licorice—into the flames. Dr. L is visibly shaken, and Ms. Mauvais pauses the ritual to ask what is going on. Atop the pyramid, Cass looks to complete her message with the final scent—peanut butter, for P. However, the vial is not in the Symphony of Smells, so Cass must improvise by crushing up some old peanut butter chips she found in her backpack and mixing them with the butter vial. Luckily, this is successful—she and Max-Ernest finish spelling out the word HELP, according to the Symphony of Smells’s secret code, and it has the intended effect on Dr. L. He thinks it is Pietro, trying to communicate with him; he frantically calls out for his brother, running off the altar and out of the room.

Ms. Mauvais follows him out. Cass takes rope out of her backpack and drops it through the skylight, tying it to the sun orb so she and Max-Ernest can climb down the rope into the pyramid. Max-Ernest is not too eager about this idea, but Cass says she will go without him if she must. She has only just started to lower herself down when the end of the rope catches in the flames in the iron bowl, and fire quickly races up the length of the rope. Luckily, Cass pulls herself back up in time to escape the flames. She apologizes to Max-Ernest for trying to climb down without him, and he accepts her apology. Meanwhile, in the pyramid, the fire has spread, causing mass panic as people flood toward the exit. Looking down the side of the pyramid, Cass and Max-Ernest realize that Dr. L is still searching for his brother and is now climbing up the pyramid toward them.

Cass and Max-Ernest climb down the opposite side of the pyramid without being spotted, but by that point, Dr. L has made it to the top. From the ground, Cass sees him holding her backpack, which she had to leave behind. She knows Dr. L will figure out it was her and Max-Ernest who sent the message, not Pietro, but Max-Ernest says they don’t have time to worry about it now. Cass and Max-Ernest reenter the pyramid and free a half-conscious Benjamin from the contraption on the altar; as the three make their way toward the entrance, Benjamin warns that there is “gray smoke” outside. Misunderstanding him, Cass tries to reassure him that there is no fire outside, but he is insistent and explains that the gray smoke is Ms. Mauvais. Outside, the sound of Ms. Mauvais screaming at Dr. L becomes clear, and the three kids quickly make their escape through the pyramid’s back door. At this point, the fire has spread to the entire complex. The passageway that Cass, Max-Ernest, and Benjamin crawl through is filled with smoke, and when they make it back to the secret library, that is beginning to burn as well.

Outside, guests are fleeing in every which way; the three kids sneak away in the chaos. They make it to the gate when the spa staff catch up with them; the gate slams close and all seems lost, particularly as a spa limousine is heading right toward them. However, the driver turns out to be Owen. Cass, Max-Ernest, and Benjamin climb inside the limousine and escape with Owen, who now has an Irish accent. As they speed away, Cass watches Ms. Mauvais’s fruitless attempts to stop the limousine; Dr. L, still holding Cass’s backpack, now throws it into the flames in rage. Cass feels “as if it were part of her that had been tossed into the fire” (310). Owen drives down the mountain “at a maniacal speed” (310), and the four successfully get away. However, as they round a curve, Owen slams on the brakes; there’s a pickup truck parked across the road and honking wildly at them. Fearing the worst, Owen prepares to plow through it—but then Cass recognizes Sebastian’s bark, and Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne exit the pickup truck.

The narrator interjects to let the reader know that he has chosen not to write an ending because “endings are hard to write” (314). However, he details a series of events, broken down by character, so the reader can “rearrange events as [they] see fit” (315). From this breakdown, the reader can piece together the general scope of events. Owen drives off once he sees the kids safely into the custody of Cass’s grandfathers, who take Cass, Max-Ernest, and Benjamin home. During the ride back, Max-Ernest comments that his doctor must have been wrong: Cass doesn’t only save people because her father was hit by lightning.

Grandpa Larry overhears this and makes a comment implying that Cass made this story up. Cass decides to tell Max-Ernest the truth: She did make the story up because she doesn’t know anything about her father. Although Max-Ernest is curious, he accepts that Cass will learn the truth and share it when she is ready.

Cass reunites with her mother, who came home early from her trip when Cass failed to return her calls; meanwhile, Max-Ernest’s parents have interpretated his excursion to the Midnight Sun as him running away to make a point. They deduce that their living situation is putting too much stress on Max-Ernest and agree to split up for real. Cass and Max-Ernest try to relay their knowledge of the Midnight Sun to the proper authorities, but no one believes their story. Benjamin is no help either, as he has almost no memories of his experience. Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais manage to escape the Midnight Sun unscathed. They are certain to commit more misdeeds in the future.

Chapter 33 consists entirely of blank, lined pages, representing space in which the reader can write their own version of the ending.

The narrator explains that Chapter 32 wasn’t really “the last chapter” (333) and that now he must wrap up the story with a denouement, which he defines for the reader as “a final part in which everything is made clear and no questions or surprises remain” (333). Although the narrator acknowledges that this true final chapter will likely do neither of those things, there is one major event left to relay that will leave readers with “a sense of closure” (334). This final event takes place at the fire station not long after the incident at the Midnight Sun. Cass, Max-Ernest, and Benjamin Blake are having tea with Cass’s grandfathers. Gloria stops by, and it is revealed that her memory was erased; she remembers nothing about the Midnight Sun.

With her, Gloria has brought another large box from the magician’s house. Apparently, while she was showing it to some buyers, the gardener appeared and instructed her to bring the box to the fire station, claiming it was full of possessions that Gloria missed. Cass is eager to go through the box, thinking it might contain clues for her and Max-Ernest, but she is disappointed when there appears to be nothing out of the ordinary inside. Her grandfathers, however, are thrilled by the antiques, and Cass knows this will occupy their attention for quite some time; she thinks “the gardener couldn’t have chosen better things to send if he’d intentionally set out to give her grandfathers the most distracting items possible” (341).

Once Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne leave the room to attend to their new antiques, Sebastian begins sniffing at the empty cardboard box. Upon further inspection, Cass and Max-Ernest realize it has a false bottom. The hidden compartment contains two packages, one addressed to Cass and the other to Max-Ernest. Cass’s contains a backpack with high-quality survival gear inside. Max-Ernest’s package contains a device called the ULTRA-Decoder II, which is capable of decoding any secret code he encounters. He gets an opportunity to use it when he and Cass look up and realize there is a message written on the fog of a nearby window. Max-Ernest uses his Decoder to decode it, and it turns out to be a letter addressed to Cass and Max-Ernest. Its writing style feels familiar somehow.

The letter congratulates them for their bravery and success in rescuing Benjamin Blake and burning down the Midnight Sun, but warns that Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais are still out there, and that time is of the essence to defeat them and their army once and for all. The letter invites Cass and Max-Ernest to become full members of the Terces Society, which is dedicated to opposing the Midnight Sun and protecting the Secret. The writer leaves instructions for how to convey their acceptance or denial of the offer and tells them to keep a close eye on Benjamin Blake. He closes with a final imploration to keep everything contained in the letter a secret. The letter is signed P. B.