I'm a failure. My name shouldn't be Tristan Strong, it should have been Tristan Coward or Tristan Fake.
HEY!
Tristan feels horrible after he and his best friend, Eddie get in a car crash and Tristan fails to save Eddie. Eddie's mom gives Tristan Eddie's journal that contains all of the stories that Tristan's grandma told them. Tristan notices that it glows but nobody else seems to notice.
While Tristan is trying to sleep, he hears a thud. He sees a small doll on the ground. Suddenly, it grabs Eddie's journal and jumps out the window screaming. Tristan runs after it, trying to get back the journal, which is all that he has left of Eddie
He chases the doll (Gum Baby) into the woods. She stops in front of a small, colorful tree and is about to go into it when Tristan stops her, trying to retrieve the journal. He gets mad and punches the tree ripping off the top of it. Then he and Gum Baby fall right in.
They fall into a burning ocean where they are almost run over by ships made of bones. They are saved by Ayanna who is a friend of Gum baby's and a rescuer of villagers in need. She brings them back to Mid-pass where they would be safe.
On their way home they are attacked by iron monsters. They steal Eddie's journal and leave. Ayanna explains that they are called fetterlings and they have been dragging away villagers and bringing them to their leader, the Maafa, ever since the hole in the sky appeared which was about a year ago because time is different in the two worlds. That is why she has been out rescuing villagers and bringing them to safety.
When they get to Mid-pass, Tristan exitedly meets all the characters of stories that are in Eddie's Journal. These stories make it magical and the characters in it are considered gods in Mid-pass. They make a plan to find Anansi, the original storyteller and bribe him with the original story box that had all of the stories in to close the rip in the sky. Anansi is a magical spider who could weave it closed. They also had to get Tristan home.