After the cops leave, Apollo runs away from the bus stop to take shelter at the women’s restroom of the neighborhood visitors’ center. He briefly considers going to the forest to find Emma, but he figures it will be safer to search for her in the daytime.

Apollo calls Patrice, who cautions him against being tracked by Kinder Garten through his phone. He reports that Dana had gone to work only to find that all her employment records had mysteriously been erased. He directs Apollo to the address of Jorgen Knudsen, the man who owned the boat William claimed to have rented.

The following morning, Apollo sets out for Jorgen’s house. He waits for hours outside before he sees the same old man from the day before enter the house. Jorgen leaves the door open. Apollo thinks better of this and enters through the back door. He goes to the dining room, where the old man brandishes a boning knife against him. Thinking quickly, Apollo reaches for a newspaper to defend himself. Jorgen begins to tell him a story.

Jorgen narrates his story, saying that several brothers have been traumatized by something they’ve seen in the woods. Each one was attempting to collect wood to earn the family keep, but they all cannot speak about what they saw. The youngest brother, Askeladden, goes to complete the task himself and is surprised when a troll appears. Askeladden hides up in a tree, with the sap covering his hands and feet.

The troll is unable to smell the boy because of the sap and demands to meet his trespasser. Askeladden tricks him by pretending that a stone is his skull, which the troll bites down on, breaking his teeth. Askeladden then pretends he is made of wood, prompting the troll to take Askeladden’s father’s ax and chop the whole forest down. The last tree standing is the one where Askeladden is hiding. However, the sun rises, turning the troll into stone. Askeladden decides he cannot retrieve his father’s ax from the troll. Nevertheless, he has enough wood to make his father rich.

Jorgen asks Apollo to guess why he told him this story. When Apollo cannot answer, Jorgen explains that Askeladden is a common figure in Norwegian folklore. Jorgen says he is repulsed by “happily ever after” as a fairy tale trope since it is extremely inaccurate, but he theorizes that this trope was invented to force children to sleep so they wouldn’t ask what happens next. He says that “[e]ternal happiness is a fruitless pursuit” would be a more accurate ending to fairy tales (348).

Jorgen lowers his weapon and says he is about to prepare food for Emma. He says he had brought her the food from Starbucks at her instruction—she had specified the time and place. Jorgen thinks that Emma did this because she was expecting Apollo and wanted him to see them.

Apollo watches Jorgen prepare smalahove—a traditional Norwegian dish—for Emma, and he is disgusted by the sight of a sheep’s head in the kitchen. Jorgen indicates that Apollo needs to give an offering to see Emma.

Over the past few months, Emma has been appearing to Jorgen, filling his head with the words from Outside Over There. Apollo deduces that Jorgen has a relationship with Kinder Garten. While he wasn’t responsible for taking Brian from Apollo, Jorgen offers to explain himself in the living room.

Jorgen’s den is hot because of the multiple space heaters he has running inside. He describes a glacier that had migrated from Canada to New York, ensuring that Queens and Brooklyn would remain over water 20 millennia later. Jorgen then recalls a group of Norwegian sailors popularly known as the Sloopers, who had migrated to America in the 19th century on a small ship without any casualties. The story became popular because of their improbable odds of survival. Jorgen explains that they had been helped by “the big one” that Cal had referred to during the escape from North Brother Island.

Jorgen identifies his ancestor, Nils, among the Sloopers and adds that Nils’s first wife, Anna Sofie, had given birth during the voyage. While the baby, named Agnes, is reported to have eventually died, Anna Sofie was convinced that she was still alive, which caused her to search for Agnes. Nils did not aid in the search since he was the one who had taken Agnes to the woods and left her in the cave for the troll.

Jorgen reminds Apollo that the first Puritan colonists to arrive in America would always speak of demons residing in the forest. Jorgen says that the monsters might have come with the Sloopers. Nils had struck a deal with a troll for safe passage to the US, appeasing its needs once they had settled on the continent. The troll’s only demand was a child.

Apollo looks at the portraits of children that line the wall—all the troll’s victims. Jorgen clarifies that the troll merely tries to raise them as a father. Instead of sacrificing his later children, Nils and his descendants turned to other immigrants, stressing that their sacrifices were necessary for the good of the nation they were building. Jorgen himself had traveled the country in his younger years, seeking out children who had been left out unattended. Thanks to the Internet, however, nothing can stop him from infiltrating someone’s house and taking their child; he finds it especially easy because parents are so willing to share details about their children on social media. He says Apollo, being a New Dad, is guilty of this.

Returning to the kitchen, Jorgen explains that if they do not appease the troll’s demand for children, it will destroy their settlements. Apollo admonishes him for sacrificing children this way. Jorgen replies that he was merely doing everything he could to protect his family. Nevertheless, Jorgen’s son, William, is incensed with the way the balance of the world has shifted, favoring racial equality over the birthright of the white man. William decided to leverage their connection to the troll to try and restore “the old ways” of white supremacy (369). To achieve this, he sacrificed his daughter Agnes by leaving her in the forest for the troll, and this act scared Gretta and Grace away. William was hurt that they abandoned him, since he loved them deeply.

Jorgen reveals that he had left the front door open not to invite Apollo in, but to warn William—it is a sign for William to run to safety. Apollo stabs Jorgen’s throat and kills him.

Apollo packs the sheep’s head that Jorgen had cooked. He also takes a bottle of aquavit—a strong-scented alcoholic drink—and slips it into his pocket before heading for the park. He notices the quiet of the park and soon after, the sound of whispered words. He makes the offering, and then “the witch,” who is Emma, appears.

A storm tears through the forest with Emma’s arrival. Apollo hears the words to Outside Over There in his head. He tries to get Emma’s attention, but she ignores him. He follows her into the woods, talking to her, and when he finally tells her that he sees now that it truly wasn’t a baby, he gets her attention. When Apollo acknowledges that there were goblins that he couldn’t see, just like she had said, the storm around her calms and she finally notices him.

Emma throws a big rock at Apollo’s knee and then quickly walks away, bearing the tray with the sheep’s head. Apollo’s leg is hurt; he struggles to follow her as it gets dark. He uses his phone to follow the trail of Emma’s footprints.

Apollo reaches a clearing, where he finds Emma sitting at the mouth of a vertical cave entrance. She is gazing into the cave and devouring the sheep’s head. Apollo realizes that this is the cave where William must have placed his daughter, Agnes. As he approaches Emma, he trips and the bottle of aquavit in his pocket breaks and the alcohol soaks his clothes; he smells of the strong flavored drink. He sits next to Emma and tells her he’s been looking for her; she looks bedraggled and exhausted, so he asks her when she slept last. Emma says she never sleeps. She points to the cave, saying she keeps watch over Brian.

Emma confronts Apollo over his accusation that she was the problem in their family, and Apollo apologizes. He offers to watch over the cave for her while she sleeps. She agrees and tells him to descend into the cave and look at the rocks.

After Emma falls asleep, Apollo enters the cave. He initially thinks the floor of the cave is covered in stones, but when he looks closely, he sees that they are the bones of children.

Apollo climbs back out and sits with Emma until dawn. He asks her if she is sure that Brian is in the cave, and she says her mother’s instincts tell her so. They decide to return the following night since the troll sleeps during the day. Apollo invites Emma to go with him to Jorgen’s house so they can clean up and rest.

On the way back to Jorgen’s house, Apollo leaves Brian’s grave marker in the forest. At the house, Apollo and Emma examine Jorgen’s corpse. Emma claims to have forced Jorgen’s death. She was tired of eating sheep’s head, so she asked him to bring her Starbucks. She also claims to have seen everything that Jorgen had done in his life to deserve death.

Apollo washes Emma several times, then takes her to the master bedroom. He changes her clothes, then applies almond oil onto her feet. Apollo says that he should have believed her, and Emma forgives him. They then have sex. Afterward, Emma notices that Apollo is wearing the red string on his finger. He is ashamed of the wish he had made, but she encourages him to hold on to it until he can get back his real wedding ring.

After Emma falls asleep, Apollo calls Lillian.

Lillian once again talks about the time she started leaving Apollo at home alone when he was a little so that she could work on weekends. The lawyer who had attempted to seduce Lillian, Blackwood, told her that he was punishing her with extra work hours to make her seem more valuable to the company. Over time, Blackwood believed that this was really the case and forgot that he wanted to seduce her at all. Lillian had similarly attempted to revise Apollo’s understanding of his father by withholding the details of what really happened.

She tells Apollo that she returned home from work one afternoon to find that Brian was attempting to kill Apollo by boiling him in a tub of hot water. Angry and upset over Lillian’s desire to seek a divorce, Brian intended to kill her next and die by suicide afterward. Lillian then explains the significance of the book Outside Over There: The book represents Brian’s fear that he would lose Apollo. Lillian says that Brian loved him very much, but at the same time, he also tried to kill Apollo.

Lillian reminds Apollo that he is not his father. To save her son, she had overcome Brian and left him somewhere undisclosed. Apollo is about to tell Lillian to come over, but then he suddenly notices that the space heaters are off. He realizes that someone must have come into Jorgen’s house to turn them off.

Apollo and Emma inspect the space heaters, wondering if Kinder Garten had seen Jorgen’s corpse. After Apollo explains everything he has learned about Kinder Garten’s lineage, Emma says Kinder Garten is a troll, too. She reactivates the space heaters and throws one down, hoping to start a fire.

Before they leave, Apollo grabs the knife he had used to kill Jorgen. When Apollo and Emma notice a bloody handprint on the door to the basement, they decide to investigate. Apollo pries it apart. They hear William’s voice announcing that he will “activate subject twelve” (399).

Downstairs, Emma and Apollo find William (or Kinder Garten) in front of a massive computer set up, conducting surveillance on a family. There are several men on other screens, and Apollo realizes that all these men together have hacked into the family’s technology and are observing them through their own laptops and phones. Emma knocks Kinder Garten out of his chair with a mattock. She hits him again with the sharp end, prompting him to beg Apollo for mercy. Emma tells him that she has set his house on fire.

Apollo tells Kinder Garten about killing Jorgen, but he had assumed that Jorgen had died by suicide. He resented his father, but he respects his family’s legacy of kidnapping children. He offers to prove that Brian is alive, then gets on his computer to show the spectators “subject zero.” The screens show a camera inside the cave, and Kinder Garten proudly explains that he monetizes the video stream to make money off his family tradition. He sells monthly subscriptions to the videos on Internet message boards. Kinder Garten explains that Brian has somehow survived longer than most children have. Before Kinder Garten can show them proof that Brian is alive, Emma kills him with the mattock.

Smoke fills the basement. Apollo and Emma notice Kinder Garten’s blood streaming toward a large hole cut into the floor. They deduce that this hole leads to the troll’s cave.

Apollo calls Patrice to ask if he can raise the price of his light app—which is called “Daylight”—to $70,000, so that he can buy the app on Kinder Garten’s iPad. Then, Apollo pays for it and downloads it. Apollo tells Emma that the light generated by Patrice’s app might just be strong enough to kill the troll. They descend into the tunnel.

Apollo asks Emma to use her glow to light their way through the tunnel. She explains that she could only do it when she was alone because she needed it to survive. She asks him to forgive Kim for lying to protect Emma.

They reach an opening in the tunnel. They feel their way through the room and eventually bump into a storage box. They open it and find Brian inside, still alive. A wall opens to reveal the troll.

Apollo and Emma behold the massive troll as it tries to crush them with its hand. The two are separated by the fog created by the troll’s breath. The troll can barely see, so it smells its way toward them. However, the troll cannot smell Apollo because of the alcohol smell on his clothes.

Emma tries to take Brian back into the tunnel, but when she tries to grab the iPad, Brian stumbles away and walks back to the troll. Emma turns on Patrice’s app and shines it on the troll, but it does not turn to stone. Apollo and Emma try to lure the troll out of the chamber by convincing it that the sun is rising inside the chamber. Instead, the troll swallows Brian.

The troll follows Apollo out into the open. Apollo sees the remnants of the sheep’s head that Emma ate, and he uses it to draw the troll after him. The troll runs after Apollo into the forest. Apollo uses the story Jorgen had told him about Askeladden to distract and hide from the troll. Eventually, the troll thrashes against a tree that pins it down.

Apollo and Emma reunite, at which point Emma reveals that the troll ate Brian. Apollo uses the knife he had taken from Jorgen’s corpse to open the troll’s belly and rescue Brian. The sun rises and turns the troll to stone. Apollo finally finds closure for the trauma of being abandoned by his father.

Apollo reunites with Emma and Brian. As they return to the city, they wash up at the visitor center, where Apollo realizes he has lost the red string while rescuing Brian from the troll. Apollo suggests going to the hospital, but Emma decides to consult Kim instead, knowing she will remain discreet about what had happened.

Apollo imagines how the good and bad moments of his life with Brian will play out in the future and feels grateful for these possibilities. Emma reveals that her third wish to the witch was “a life full of adventure” (430). Apollo remembers that he still has the MetroCard the police officers had given him, and he uses it to board his family onto a bus, remarking that, as in fairy tales, they will live happily ever after. Emma corrects him, saying that they “lived happily today” and that is all that matters (431).