The Talisman by Cameron Dokey

**This blog contains adult language.**

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/evil mist is.

Tag Line: "Dear Gina: By the time you read this, I may be dead...."

From the Back of the Book: Gina Serventi is looking forward to meeting her best friend, Diane Patterson, at the Medieval Faire.  But when a dead body turns up near the fairgrounds, Gina is horrified to discover that it's Diane!  Gina's only real clue is a letter Diane had sent her just before she died.  In it, she told Gina about a magic pendant she hid near the Night Owl Club.  Gina finds the ancient talisman - only to discover that it possesses supernatural powers.  Now, as a weird shadowy guy starts stalking her, Gina must figure out the secret of the Talisman before the wicked forces that destroyed Diane destroy her as well!

That is the oddest tag line we've ever seen in one of these.  I think.  Who remembers tag lines anyway?

This book was published in 1994 and it's my first time reading it. I thought it was my first time reading Dokey but when I did a Goodreads search I realized that I previously tried to read one of her books and DNF'd it after throwing it at a wall.  See, if I had remembered that before I picked this one up, I might have saved myself a stroke or two.

((Also, full disclosure, for some reason I thought Dokey was a dude when I made all my notes.  She's a woman.  So if I miss anything in editing and my pronouns are fucked, I apologize.))

So chapter one of this book reads like terrible fanfic. And not the sexy kind. We're in some guy's head. He's the apprentice to someone named Jude of Goldenhollow and he's holding her severed head in his hand. In his other hand he's holding an amulet. A great battle was just fought. Darkcloth was defeated but only temporarily. Someday he will return and mankind will suffer. Jude knew this. She had two choices: she could continue to live or she could die and let her power go into the amulet so that someday someone could use it to fight Darkcloth. She chose the hero's route.  And she had to be decapitated for reasons we only learn late in the book.

We skip to present day. The unnamed apprentice awakes from a long slumber to find a disturbance in the force. Darkcloth is back and the amulet is searching for a new person to take up the fight.

So....this does not seem like our typical YA horror book.  It's like someone slipped a fantasy book in my pile and I am not happy about it.

Thank god it's chapter two. I hope it gets better from here.

We're with Diane now. She's camped out at Cooper Hollow Lake with a bunch of people for the medieval fair. She tells us she's planning an escape. She's wearing the amulet and it's pulsing against her chest. She knows she has to get out of there to a safer place because she's being pursued by members of the House of Darkcloth. After all the fires are put out and everyone is in their tents for the night, she makes a run for it.

Chapter two did not get better. Here's hoping for chapter three.

Now we're with Gina reading to her much younger sister Angela. Except a sentence later it's Angelina and then it's just Angie. I'm not sure Dokey knows what the fuck this girl's name is. I'm going with Angie because it's shorter. Angie is terrified of the dark and has been ever since her father died. Gina checks to make sure all the nightlights are working and then she leaves the room.

Angie's dad was named David and he wasn't the greatest guy. He married Gina's mother when Gina was six but he never wanted to be her stepfather. He resented having to take care of a child that wasn't his and was physically and emotionally abusive to Gina for years. Her mom didn't stop him. He was thrilled when Angie was born and was a really good dad to her I guess since she was his.

Chapter four brings us back to Diane and that brief period of normalcy I got with chapter three is jarringly ended. She's running and tired and dirty. Her goal is to hide the amulet in the only safe place she can think of. Guys......now Dokey is referring to this group as the HouseHOLD of Darkcloth. She can't keep track of ANYTHING! I'm just going to call it HOD because it's all too stupid to type out every time anyway. So Diane met the people of HOD at the fair. She joined the group which seems to be a coven of some sort and she had a lot of fun at first doing rituals and casting spells.

HOD was a bit of “grown-up make-believe” to Diane and she didn't take it seriously until The Voice started talking to the members. Dokey doesn't bother to explain how The Voice did this or what it said. I mean, even if she did, she'd probably forget and tell us something else a page or two later. Anyway, we hop from this to Diane mailing a letter. I'm hoping the amulet is at least inside it or Dokey's really lost her damned mind.

Diane knows she can't let the amulet fall into the hands of HOD and there's one person she knows would never, ever be a member of that group. So apparently she's mailing the amulet to Gina despite the fact that she's pretty sure HOD will kill for it. Nice friend, that. After the amulet is in the mailbox, Diane takes off for a place called The Night Owl Club. At least for now. I'm sure Dokey will call it something else in a minute.

Except she's not really going to the club at all. Fucking hell, Dokey. KEEP UP WITH YOUR OWN DAMN STORY. She's going to a tree house that she and Gina used to play in all the time. AND SHE DIDN'T MAIL THE FUCKING AMULET AFTER ALL. Because she puts the fucking amulet in a goddamned box in the fucking tree house.

I guess she mailed a letter explaining things to Gina? Do you even know, Dokey? I don't think you do.

AND I JUST NOTICED THAT THE TITLE OF THIS FUCKING BOOK IS THE TALISMAN AND IN THE BOOK IT'S CALLED AN AMULET. A TALISMAN AND AN AMULET ARE NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOOK IT UP, DOKEY!

Diane leaves the tree house and heads back toward the lake. Before she can get there, she's confronted by members of HOD. She feels a cold chill and then she hears The Voice. It says that she has something that belongs to it and it wants “the talisman” back. So apparently Dokey's just going to call it a talisman now because someone must have reminded her that it's the title of the fucking book. A knife appears hovering in the sky. The Voice tells Diane that either she hands over the talisman or she will lose her life. Diane refuses and then picks up the knife to plunge it into herself. I can't tell whether it's willingly or if The Voice is using some kind of influence over her.

Then we skip our asses into a new person's head. Somehow someone on the top floor of that Night Owl Club that we didn't actually go to and isn't even anywhere near where we are now, has witnessed everything. I think it's the apprentice from before. He knows the evil is back but he also knows that the evil didn't take possession of the amulet. Yes, it's back to being an amulet again. Sigh. Anyway, suddenly he's outside which makes no sense and a storm has come up. A woman named Jenny and her father Jake take him into their house for some reason. He tells them that he's the protector of the talisman {{{{{{{{SIGH}}}}}}}}}}}}} and they ask him his name. He can't remember it because it's been forever since he heard it but then he tells them that his name is Ian. Nothing in that section made any sense at all.  This book is all just a fever dream of Dokey's isn't it?

It's the next day and Gina is at the fair to meet Diane as promised. She's not thrilled to be there (despite what it claims on the back of the book) and thinks everyone is nutty for enjoying it. I mean, she doesn't have to like it because it's not everyone's scene but calling people who are having a good time there “crazy” is kind of a dick move.  Just sayin'.  Some guy named Thomas in a jester's costume harasses her as she's waiting in line because she's not in costume. She just ignores him but he catches up to her later and apologizes. He offers to show her the “cool” parts of the fair and together they watch some jousting and an archery demonstration.

One of the archers is completely hot and Gina enjoys looking at him very much. She feels like they are destined to be together or something dumb like that. It shakes her up and she takes off for the entrance hoping to find Diane. Instead she sees a group of police officers going into the woods.

We abruptly hop into a random police officer's head. He and his partner are standing over the body of a young woman. It looks like a suicide (which I am not going to describe because of who my readers are) but they are having doubts. Another young woman with a similar wound was found not long ago. It seems odd that two would be dead in the exact same way. That's all that happened there.

The first page of chapter eight is just The Voice AKA Darkcloth whining about not having the talisman.

Now we're back with Gina at Diane's funeral. She doesn't believe that Diane would kill herself. The two of them were close and shared everything and Diane never told her she was in any distress. Gina looks around at the mourners and sees three that stick out. One is a man with white hair that sticks out from his head like he's been electrocuted. The other is a woman that seems kind of familiar. The third is the archer from the fair. I'm guessing that's Ian and the other two are Jenny and Jake but who knows. As she watches, the archer walks back into the woods and disappears.

We hop into Ian's head. He's upset that he couldn't protect Diane like she'd protected the talisman. He wonders why the talisman didn't “choose her” to hold the power and wonders who the special girl will be.

I'm not even going to put odds on it because we all know it will be Gina.

Back with Gina. Her heels keep sticking in the mud and in her effort to free one of them, she accidentally kicks it off and it goes sailing several feet away. A young man offers to help her. She describes him as looking like Michael Douglas.

So, this picture is Michael Douglas in the 1994 movie Disclosure.  So.....yeah, he's not cute.

He introduces himself as Jim and suggests that she just take her shoes off. She feels pretty dumb for not figuring that out for herself and does as he suggests. So now I guess she's just walking in mud with her stocking feet. That's better. \\\sarcasm font///  She tells him that she has to get moving because she has to get home to watch Angie so her mom can go to work and he offers to give her a ride. For some reason she thinks getting into the car with a complete stranger she just met in a cemetery is a good idea.

Protagonist that seriously needs to watch Discovery ID? Check.

On the ride home, he asks her a ton of questions about how she knows Gina and how long she's lived in town. She doesn't reciprocate so we learn absolutely nothing about Jim. At least he doesn't murder her on the way home. On the other hand, that would have ended the book.

Odds that Jim is with HOD: 80%

When Gina gets home, her mom is pissed to see her in the car with a random stranger. She lectures Gina on stranger danger and Gina snaps back that her mom hadn't bothered to protect her from her stepfather so why was she pretending to care now? I feel you, Gina. I really do. Gina's mom leaves for work majorly butthurt.

After Gina gets Angie to bed, she goes through her mail. There's a letter from Diane. Diane tells her about finding the talisman in an old piece of cloth she was going to use as part of her costume for the fair. She's convinced there's some kind of magic to it and The Voice must never be allowed to have it. She warns Gina that Gina will be in danger and she needs to get the talisman from the hiding spot and get rid of it somewhere where The Voice will never find it. She also tells Gina that she doesn't actually know who the other members of HOD are because they always wear masks and hooded robes.

Gina reads the letter several times and then she burns it in the fireplace. After it's turned to ash, she gathers up the ashes and flushes them down the toilet. I'm not sure that's good for the plumbing but what do I care?

Meanwhile Ian is in some kind of magic circle praying to the spirit of Jude to help him with his mission.

We hop back into Gina's head as she goes into the forest to the hiding place where Diane left the talisman. She finds it easily enough and as soon as she touches it, she feels her being split into two. One part of her is still Gina in the tree house but the other part is Jude kneeling before the fire. She is Jude and Jude is her. In the other place she sees Ian come up behind her and she knows that she trusts him. He is the only one who has always been there for her, steady and loyal. She knows no fear until she sees the knife in Ian's hand. Of course, we know that he was killing her per her wishes but Gina doesn't and she's terrified when she sees the knife coming for her/Jude. She is so startled that she falls backwards out of the tree.

Back with Ian. He hears Jude scream in his soul and he goes running. He finds Gina at the base of the tree holding onto the talisman and he knows that talisman has chosen her. He thinks it's a wise choice because she is fierce and strong and has already survived a lot. Gina wakes up and sees Ian standing above her and freaks the fuck out. She takes off running and Ian worries that she'll run right to Darkcloth.

Gina runs directly into the Night Owl Club. She's greeted by Jenny who Gina recognizes as the ticket seller from the medieval fair. Jenny asks if she's okay and Gina tells her she had a fright in the woods. Then, for some reason that I really don't understand, she holds the talisman out and shows Jenny. Jenny is dismayed and tells her to hurry and hide it and not to show it to anyone else. Gina puts it on, hiding it under her shirt. Jenny muses that Ian was right about Gina being “the chosen one” and then her attention is diverted by a rude group of patrons who want change for the jukebox.

Gina is trying to decide whether or not to leave when Ian walks in. She's terrified and thinks he's out to hurt her or something. To her relief, Jim comes up behind her and asks her if she wants to join him and his friends in the back room to play pool. She's super eager to do that and get away from Ian. As she's leaving she looks at him one last time and swears she sees a mixture of pain and love in his eyes.

Odds that Jim is with HOD: 99%

I don't know if he's actually Darkcloth because I'm not super clear on whether Darkcloth has a corporeal body or not but he's definitely HOD.

Jim takes Gina into the room with the pool table and introduces her to all his friends except only one of them tells her his name: Ace.  Ace, the obvious plot device, and Jim play pool and generally heckle each other while Gina and the rest of them watch in awed silence I guess. I don't even know who won. I either wasn't paying much attention or Dokey didn't bother to tell us. Even odds on that one. And even if she'd told us, she would have changed her mind and told us something different a minute later so I don't even feel guilty for skimming over the pool game.

Gina decides that she really owes Ian an apology (she still doesn't know his name by the way, I'm just referring to him as Ian because it's easier on us). She decides that she had a hallucination in the tree house and poor Ian just happened to look like the guy she hallucinated when, in reality, all he was trying to do was make sure she was okay after she fell out of the tree. But when she goes back into the main room, Ian is gone.

Jim doesn't have his car with him but he offers to walk Gina home. She takes him up on that. As they walk, he asks her all kinds of questions about her family structure and she ends up telling him that her mother usually works nights so she and Angie are home alone. I'd tell her to watch Discovery ID but I already did that.

Protagonist displays a shocking lack of survival skills? Check

That's close enough.

Jim asks her if she knows Ian and she says she doesn't. He plays it off as hoping to discover whether or not she's romantically available. She says she might be but he has to come home and meet her mom first.

Now we're with Darkcloth again. Dokey alternates between calling him “The Voice”, “The Voice of Darkcloth” and simply “Darkcloth”. It's EXHAUSTING!!! I'm just going to stick with Darkcloth because I like to be consistent that way. Darkcloth is asking some dude if he's located “The Protector” yet and the unnamed dude says that he has seen Ian. Darkcloth asks if he's located the talisman and the dude hesitates. He isn't sure. Darkcloth says that Ian will eventually lead them to the bearer of the talisman and then he can be destroyed.

THIS BOOK IS SO FUCKING STUPID.

We're back with Gina and I have no idea if this part is a dream or not. She's in bed and she hears voices calling out to her to join them so she decides to obey. Suddenly she's in the forest and she's surrounded by HOD. I have no idea how she knows it's HOD but she seems to. Dokey sucks. They invite her to join them but she's scared and wants to run away. A icy wind is keeping her in place though. Like us, Gina is struggling to figure out if she's dreaming or not. It feels real but it can't be. They ask her for the talisman but she pretends to not know what they are talking about. They surround her and press into her because I guess that's a good way to get information out of someone. When it doesn't work, they light a ring of fire around her.

Ian shows up to save the day. I have no idea where HOD has gone but he puts out the fire and picks up Gina where she's passed out in the center of it. He runs with her in his arms to get away before Darkcloth comes back. He ends up carrying her all the way home and somehow gets her into her house and into her bed.

Gina wakes up later and convinces herself that it was all just a nightmare. She gets up for a glass of water and looks out the window. She's terrified when she sees Ian standing outside her house watching her. Then she finds her sneakers all wet with dew from her walk in the forest and she realizes it wasn't a dream after all.

The next day, Gina takes Angie to story time at the library. While Angie is in the program, Gina wanders out to do a search for “magic” in the card catalog. It's about as helpful as you'd imagine it would be. After wasting her time sifting through hundreds of results, she give up and tries to think of a different angle. She decides she's going to research HOD instead but doubts the library will have any books on them. She doesn't bother to look it up though so whatever. She thinks maybe she can ask around at the fair which is just an incredibly stupid idea. Diane told her that she had no idea who the members of HOD are. Gina will probably just end up meeting one of the members that way.

Gina goes to pick up Angie and Angie asks if her new friend can come to lunch with them. Gina says it's okay and Angie runs off to get Ian. Gina is dismayed when it turns out Angie's friend is a full-grown adult and even more dismayed when he turns out to be the guy she keeps seeing following her around but they all go to lunch anyway. The talisman is vibrating against Gina's chest and she isn't sure what that means.

Ian is super cute with Angie. He listens to her chatter and answers all her questions. He cuts her sandwich up into four triangles for her and trades her his pickle. It's super sweet and I swear to god I'm having a Conor moment here. Ian is the only good thing in this fucking train wreck of a book. Gina doesn't miss how good he is with her little sister either and she thinks he's not so strange now that he's actually interacting with them and not just watching her.

I'm sorry. I love Ian and all but, Gina, THIS IS REALLY FUCKING STRANGE. Some adult comes up and starts showing all this attention to your 6-year-old sister and invites her to lunch out of the blue. Really fucking strange. And inappropriate. And possibly illegal. You should be concerned here. You should be very, very concerned.

Of course, we know he's doing it to get closer to Gina in order to protect her and the talisman but she doesn't know that.

Protagonist who should seriously watch some Dateline? Check.

Ian thanks Gina for agreeing to have lunch with him. He apologizes for scaring her and admits that he can be a little “intense” at times. She's happy to discover that he has a sense of humor and she finally relaxes a little. Angie is unhappy that Ian is paying attention to Gina and she starts stealing his CHIPS to pester him. A second later, Dokey says that Ian takes his stolen PICKLEs back from her. OMG. This is why I hate you, Dokey. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR FUCKING STORY.

Gina is getting pretty entranced by Ian but it's all interrupted by Jim coming up to the table. Ian instantly goes on high alert and Gina can tell he's seething with anger and hatred toward Jim but she doesn't understand why. She introduces them and Jim holds his hand out to Ian. Ian doesn't take it. He stands up and tells the girls that he has to leave and then he just takes off. Angie is instantly upset and starts to cry. Jim apologizes for ruining their lunch and asks if he can call Gina later. She agrees.

I have to admit I don't know why Ian left there.  I'm confused.  Dokey tells us that it's his job to protect Gina and the amulet and Jim is clearly HOD so why would Ian leave?  It doesn't make sense in the story at all.  In the very first pages we were told that Ian was constantly at Jude's side and never left her back undefended.  So........did you forget, Dokey?

As they walk home, Angie tells Gina that she doesn't like Jim. She calls him “weird” and “scary” and Gina doesn't understand it at all. She can't figure out how Angie could adore Ian who, with his white streaked hair and amber-colored eyes, looks like some kind of movie villain but hate Jim who is as all-American as you could possibly get.

We hop into Ian's head as he's confronted by the “Servant of Darkcloth” that we're supposed to be too stupid to figure out is Jim. Sigh. He taunts Ian, saying that if Ian hadn't saved Gina the night before they never would have been sure that she had the talisman.  I guess because Ian would only save her because she has it??  Ian knows he can't attack this guy on a public street because no one would ever understand that's he's fighting a force of pure evil. The guy says that Gina will give the talisman up soon enough and all will be over for Ian.

When Gina and Angie get home there's a police car in front of the house. Officer A and Officer B want to talk to Gina about Diane. They ask her some routine questions about Diane and her state of mind and then mention that Ace was killed the night before. Oh, Ace, we hardly knew you.  But that explains why Dokey gave you a name and no one else.  We had to know it so we could know who was dead.  They ask her if Diane was involved in anything “weird or occult” which seems like a super bizarre leap for the police to make but Gina tells them about HOD and then rats out Ian as being shady.

We hop into the heads of Officer A and B. Jim also mentioned Ian as being a suspicious person so they head over to the Night Owl Club where both Jim and Gina had mentioned seeing Ian. Then we hop right into Ian's head as they arrive.

I'm getting dizzy, Dokey.

Ian panics at the sight of the police. He knows if they take him prisoner HOD will have a free shot at Gina and the talisman. So he runs. Which is the worst possible thing to do but I kind of understand what he's thinking at this point. He's from another time when police weren't very ethical or helpful and he doesn't know any better. He runs through the woods but.......OF COURSE.....trips because authors can't think of anything original. Officer A catches him and Officer B cuffs him. He's not under arrest (THEY SAY) but they keep him cuffed and put him in the back of a police car and haul him down to the station. Ian is devastated because he knows he's failed his mission to protect Gina and the talisman. Jim is there, smiling and waving to him as the police take him away.

We land briefly in the middle of a HOD meeting where Darkcloth vows to get the talisman that night and then we're in Gina's head having dinner. Jim calls and asks if he can bring by a video later for them to hang out and watch. I guess this is the dinosaur version of Netflix and chill. Gina gets Angie to bed and then they settle in to watch Addams's Family Values. Afterwards they make out for awhile and then he goes home. It was a very uneventful chapter.

For some reason that I'm not real clear on, they keep Ian in a cell overnight. He should really call a lawyer because I'm pretty sure this is all highly illegal since they never fucking officially arrested him. He spends the night praying that Gina will be safe.

Then Dokey completely forgets that she just told us it was the next morning and suddenly it's a few hours earlier in the middle of the night again.

Gina wakes up hearing something loud beating against her house. She realizes HOD is out there pounding on the siding which just seems like the stupidest thing ever to me. Way to be incognito, HOD. Her room is freezing cold and she feels like she's half-frozen too. Angie begins to scream and Gina tries to run to her but she's too cold to function. The talisman heats up on her neck and she's able to run into Angie's room. Angie has four nightlights because she's scared of the dark and they've all come to life. They're snarling and growling and trying to get to Angie who is terrified on her bed. The Cinderella nightlight-being tells Gina that if she gives HOD the talisman, they'll leave Angie alone. Otherwise her sister will be destroyed.

Of course it's the Cinderella one.  I've never trusted that bitch.

Gina is understandably pissed off to be threatened by some idiotic princess-shaped piece of sentient plastic. She hears a voice in her head telling her to trust the talisman and she goes into the room, prepared to do battle with the nightlights. This has to be the dumbest two sentences I have ever typed.  (((Sigh.)))  Gina holds the talisman over her head like she's fucking She-Ra or something and then she can hear HOD screaming in pain or fear and all the nightlights explode.

Now Dokey says it's morning again. I don't trust her. I would believe it was Thanksgiving on Friday the 13^th in July before I believed anything Dokey tells me at this point.

Darkcloth is pretty pissed. Now that Gina has seen the power in the talisman, she's not going to give it up willingly and he can't take it from her unwillingly or it will be destroyed. I don't know why. Dokey doesn't bother to tell us. Darkcloth wants a body but he can't make one of his own without the talisman so he just invades one of his followers. I don't know if it was Jim but I'm kinda assuming it was.

Odds that Jim is now Darkcloth: 68%

So Dokey told us at the end of the chapter before the HOD scene that Gina wakes up with the nightlights in fragments on the floor all around her. But now she says that Gina and Angie unplug all the nightlights and throw them away.

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR FUCKING STORY!!!!!!!!!!

Gina heads out to the Night Owl Club to talk to Jenny. She asks Jenny to explain the talisman to her so Jenny tells her about Jude and how Jude put all her power into the talisman before she died. Jenny says the person the talisman picks to be the bearer has a responsibility to protect it and make sure it doesn't fall into Darkcloth's hands. Gina doesn't want the responsibility and she can't figure out why the talisman picked her to be the next bearer. Jenny says it's because she has enough inner strength to rise to the task but Gina thinks she's weak. They argue for a bit about that and about magic being real in general and then Jenny tells Gina that she's going to have to trust someone to be with her through her journey. Now clearly Jenny is talking about Ian but she doesn't actually mention him by name which is just hella dumb. Gina decides to take off.

Before she can leave, Jake comes back in with Ian. Jake is clearly pissed at Gina and brushes by her coldly but Ian stops to make sure she's okay. He looks like hell and he's very shaken up by the entire experience of being unlawfully imprisoned in jail overnight. (CALL A LAWYER) After he takes a good look at Gina and reassures himself that she's okay, he goes upstairs to take a shower and get some rest.

Gina goes back to the tree house to think about everything Jenny told her. She finally accepts that the talisman might be magic and that she might be the next chosen one. She also decides to follow Jenny's advice and pick a person she can tell the entire story to and trust them to help her on her quest or whatever. She decides that Jim will be her partner in all this and she sets out to find him.

Gina asks Jim to meet her at the fair grounds where she explains everything about Darkcloth. She asks Jim to help her destroy them. Jim is acting weird. The light seems to be really bothering him and he's ice cold. Gina is worried that he might be getting sick or something. No, Gina, he just has the spirit of an evil magician inhabiting his body. He's fine. Jim asks her how she knows so much about HOD and Darkcloth and she tells him about the letter Diane wrote to her. His flabber is pretty gasted by this information and he mutters that Diane was smart but not smart enough to keep herself alive.

Jim asks Gina why HOD is after her and she tells him that she has something they want. He asks why she doesn't just hand it over and she says she can't. Then she shows him the talisman. As soon as he sees it, he starts to shake and he begs her to put it away again. For some reason she doesn't think this is weird at all.

Protagonist who seriously needs to just buy a fucking clue? Check

Gina's plan is to contact HOD but I'm not sure why. She thinks she can find them at the fair but she wants to actually dress up this time so she looks more the part. Jim agrees to come with her and they make plans to meet there at some later time. No clue when. Dokey doesn't know either. And even if she did, she'd change it a sentence later.

We're back with whatever body Darkcloth has take over (((Jim::cough::Jim))). The body is starting to die because Darkcloth is so cold or whatever so Darkcloth has to abandon it for awhile. The reigning personality (((Jim::cough::Jim))) comes back into control and tries to warm up.

Gina goes to a consignment shop to get her dress for the fair. On her way out of the shop she trips and almost takes a header into the ground but Ian arrives to save the day again. The first thing she notes is how warm he feels against her and how the talisman throbs as if to say hello to him. She awkwardly admits that she told the police he was acting suspiciously and that she's the reason he spent the night in jail although technically it was an abuse of police power and a miscarriage of justice that allowed him to be wrongfully imprisoned without actually being arrested. Ian looks gutted by this and Gina feels the pain in his eyes all through her. They part ways but he tells her she can call on him anytime she needs protecting.

As Ian walks away, he runs into “Jim”. He knows immediately that Darkcloth has taken residence in Jim's body.

EXCEPT........I THINK I MIGHT HAVE JUST HAD A STROKE FROM HOW FURIOUS I JUST GOT.....DOKEY, YOU JUST FUCKING TOLD US THAT DARKCLOTH LEFT THE BODY SO IT COULD WARM UP AND NOT DIE. NOW YOU'RE TELLING US THAT NOT ONLY DID DARKCLOTH NOT LEAVE THE BODY BUT THAT JIM ACTUALLY DIED AND DARKCLOTH IS ESSENTIALLY JUST WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S-ING A CORPSE RIGHT NOW. FUCKING KEEP TRACK OF YOUR FUCKING STORY, YOU BRAIN-DEAD ASSHAT!

Darkcloth taunts Ian a bit about being “toothless” which is a polite way of calling him a pussy. Ian bites back a little. Nothing really happens other than that.

Time passes. Ian spends the night around a bonfire in the woods. He's preparing his arrows and doing some chants of protection for the final battle. He's expecting it to occur the next day which is the summer solstice.

The next paragraph is about Jim laying on his bed without Darkcloth in him EVEN THOUGH HE WAS JUST FUCKING IN HIM A PARAGRAPH AGO. Oh, and Jim is miraculously alive somehow EVEN THOUGH HE WAS JUST FUCKING DEAD A PARAGRAPH AGO. Then Darkcloth enters him again and Jim dies. AGAIN.

Holy fuck. This fucking paragraph is out of fucking order isn't it? This was meant to go before the paragraph where Darkcloth confronts Ian. Dokey did some edit or something and put this part in the wrong place and no one fucking noticed. What kind of editors do they have over at Z-Fave? An entire paragraph is in the wrong fucking place and none of them caught it.

I seriously feel like this book is making me channel Jessie.  She would have loved reading it and seeing me lose my ish.

Gina is dreaming of dancing at the fair around a maypole with lots of people surrounding her. Everything is pixies and unicorns but then the people start to wrap the ribbons of the maypole around Gina. She's trapped and at their mercy. Suddenly she feels a warmth behind her and she knows it is the protector that Jenny told her about. The one who serves the talisman. She feels him fight the others back and free her from the ribbons. He carries her through the woods and she feels the love he has for her inside her heart and she knows she loves him too. He puts her down and they kiss and she wakes up feeling pretty giddy and swoony from the whole thing.

As she's making breakfast, she decides that she had the dream because she asked Jim to go to the fair with her and protect her and it's clearly a sign she chose well. He's obviously the one Jenny was talking about and clearly her OTP. But when she thinks back to the dream she realizes that Jim isn't the one who saved her. It was Ian.

We're at the fair now. The body of Jim is waiting for Gina at the entrance. I think Darkcloth is using some kind of magic glamour to make her think everything is fine even though Jim is pretty much the walking dead right now. He kisses her and she again notes how cold he is. I'm just cringing because she just kissed the lips of a rotting dead guy.

They go through the fair hoping to see someone from HOD even though there's no possible way Gina could recognize them. Gina notices that Jim avoids anything with fire. Eventually they run into that jester guy Thomas from the first chapter. Since he goes to these things all the time, Gina asks him if he knows anything about HOD. He gets very uneasy and says he does. Jim finds this very interesting and asks how. Thomas says he just hears things. Gina asks him if he can put her in touch with them and he reluctantly agrees.

Jim suggests they split up at this point. She doesn't understand why and he doesn't give her a good explanation. He mumbles something about trying to cover more ground and she ends up agreeing even though she doesn't get it. She wanders around a bit and eventually takes out the talisman to hold it in her hand. For awhile she just stares at it, admiring the beauty but then it vibrates in her palm. When Ian puts his hand on her shoulder, she isn't exactly surprised. The talisman always seems to recognize and react to him but she never questions why.

Ian is getting ready to participate in an archery contest. Without stopping to think about it, Gina takes the ribbons out of her hair and ties them around his upper arm as a token for luck. He gently touches her face and thanks her. As he walks away, she wonders if she can trust him.

Guys, Ian is the only thing keeping me from tearing this book into confetti and declaring it's New Year's Eve. I 💗love💗 him. He doesn't deserve to be in this trash book. You want to know the truly evil thing? If this was 30 years ago I would keep this book just for Ian. I would reread this book just for Ian. That's how much I truly love this character. He's quiet and steady and loyal and he only thinks of other people. I heart him big. Luckily it isn't 30 years ago and I have my own quiet, steady, loyal being and I don't have to hold onto this crap fest of a book for Ian.

The archery contest isn't really a contest. Ian blows everyone out of the water. Gina is suitably impressed. Jim and Thomas come back at the same time. Thomas tells Gina that to meet up with HOD she has to be part of the “woods battle”. It's apparently a game of capture the flag with two teams competing to be king of the hill. He tells them to be at the clump of trees by the entrance at 4:00. He plans on coming too even though Gina tries to talk him out of it.

As soon as Jim and Gina walk off, Thomas goes immediately to Ian. He recognizes the ribbons around Ian's arm as the ones that used to be in Gina's hair and he thinks that means something. He tells Ian about the plan and Ian thanks him. Ian plans to be there, in the background protecting Gina. When he goes to his gear to change the blunt points of his arrows into the sharp points, he finds one of them missing.

Thomas, Gina and Jim are to be scouts. Their job is to fan out and try to find where the opposite team is hiding their flag. They're divided into teams of two and Gina and Thomas are paired up. They take off into the woods.

Ian joined the other team but he took off his colored arm band pretty much immediately and started trailing Jim instead. He sees Jim go up into a tree. Jim fires Ian's missing arrow directly at someone Ian can't see. Clearly he's trying to make Gina think Ian shot at her since the feathers on his arrows are pretty distinctive.

Turns out Darkcloth/Jim didn't shoot at Gina. He shot Thomas right through the throat. As intended, Gina assumes it was Ian and thinks that he might be after Jim so she takes off to warn Jim about it. I can't even call her stupid this time because 1) the arrow DID belong to Ian and 2) it was a hell of a shot – one that Ian would be capable of.

She sees Ian a little down the slope and Jim not far from him. She sees Ian reach for his arrows and screams out to Jim in warning. Jim takes off running and then the entire HOD drops down from the trees, engulfing Ian. Gina realizes her mistake immediately. HOD left Jim alone which would seem to indicate that he was one of them while attacking Ian who clearly is not. She realizes that Ian was the protector all along and she just handed him to HOD on a platter.

Gina runs to the stupid club to ask Jenny and Jake what to do. They are super alarmed to hear that HOD has Ian. They tell Gina that she is going to have to make them think she'll give up the talisman and then she's going to have to fight Darkcloth. They don't tell her how. So that was super helpful and I'm wondering why it was even necessary.

Gina goes back to the forest and finds them in a clearing. They have Ian tied up, preparing to cut off his head. You see, in the magic world, you have to decapitate someone to truly end their power so they cannot ever come back to fight you.  That's why Jude made Ian decapitate her in the beginning - so all her power would truly go into the talisman.

Gina is terrified. Darkcloth/rotting corpse of Jim walks up to her and the glamour is off so she can see that Jim is well and truly dead. She tells Darkcloth that she'll trade the talisman for Ian. He asks why and she says that she loves Ian and she doesn't want to live her life without him. Ian tries to protest but he's pretty messed up.

Darkcloth agrees that she won't have to live without Ian and Gina's too dumb to realize that the dude just admitted he was going to kill her. She takes the talisman out of her dress and dangles it in front of Darkcloth. He reaches for it but a split second before he takes it, she holds it high over her head and pictures everything she loves about the world. This activates it or something and everything related to Darkcloth, including the members of HOD, burst into flame. As everything burns, she begins to doubt herself and that gives Darkcloth an opening to try to grab her. She grabs him instead and cuts his head off.

The battle is over. Good has won. The talisman is pretty much destroyed but it doesn't matter because Darkcloth is gone and he can't come back. All the members of HOD are nothing but ash. Gina goes to Ian and, at first, he's unresponsive but he eventually awakens. They go to her tree house to hide what's left of the talisman in the secret hiding place. Ian asks her if she really loves him and she says yes. They kiss and the book ends.

That was a fucking train wreck, y'all.  I'm exhausted.