You gasped and looked around. "Luke? Marnie? Guys?" You asked. "(Y/n)?" Marnie asked. You saw Luke and Marnie walk over. "You know, I think I liked this place better when it was gray." Luke said. "Oh thank goodness. Marnie are you okay?" You asked. She nodded. "Yeah I'm fine." She said. You smiled. "Where is Gort? It's almost 11:00 in the mortal world. We've got to find him." You said. Suddenly a door slammed open. "Ugh. Yeah I think you found him." Luke said. "Um, it's OK. Aggie sent us." Marnie said. "Well, that doesn't make you welcome here. I hate Aggie!" He said. "Don't feel bad. He hates everyone." Luke said. You and Marnie nodded. "Um... Well, Aggie has the greatest respect for you." You said. He walked closer. "She does?" He asked. "Yeah.She said that you were the smelliest, foulest,meanest inhabitant in all of Halloweentown." Marnie said. "Marnie, ixnay." Luke said. "She said that?" Gort asked. You nodded. "Ehh... She's just trying to butter me up." He said. "No, no, no. She meant it, really." You said. "That's very sweet of her, and I hate it when people are sweet! Now get out! I have messing up to do." Gort said. "No. No, but there's something that we need." You said. "Oh. Well, in that case, take a number. I'm now serving nobody!" He shouted. "Uh, but..." Marnie said. "Little girls, you stink like a Cromwell, and I want you out of my cottage!" Gort shouted. "OK, OK. Nice Gort." Marnie said. You began to follow her out. "Well, um, it was nice seeing your place while it was still messy." You said. "Wait. What do you mean, "still messy"?" He asked. You turned around. "There's this thing called the Gray Spell, you see, and in a few years, Kalabar's son is gonna make your whole house neat." Marnie said. "What?!" "What does it look like?" Luke asked as you three looked around the house. "It's a big leather book." You said. "It's gotta be around here somewhere." Marnie said. Gort walked through the mess as you kept looking. "I can't let this happen. My beautiful dirt, clean?" He asked. "My wonderful junk sold in a yard sale?" He asked. Marnie sniffed a pillow and threw it away. "Ew." She said. "Don't you have some sort of, I don't know, a filing system?" Luke asked. "Of course I do. I keep all my scabs under the porch." Gort said. "Ew!" You said. "Ugh, I'm sorry I asked." Luke said. Marnie screamed as she saw a giant bug in the pile and jumped up. You looked at her. "What?" You asked. "Hey, Spike. My boy, my boy. Come to Papa." Gort said as he picked it up. "That's disgusting." You said.

"I don't think the spell book is here. We've looked everywhere." Marnie said. "Maybe we came too far back in time, maybe before she even lost the spell book." Luke said. "Well, Grandma said she hasn't seen it for decades. We couldn't have come back that far." You said. "Hey, is this book you're looking for leather?" Gort asked. Marnie nodded. "Yes." She said. "With some kind of fancy writing on the front?" Gort asked. "Biblio Magica. Yeah." Marnie said. "I remember it." He said. "That's really good." You said. "Kalabar bought it from me about 50 years ago." Gort said. "That's really bad." You said. "Kalabar must've been working on this world-domination thing for decades." Luke said. "Well, then that means Cal must've had Grandma's other spell book all along with the Gray Spell in it. And the only reason he took it out of our house..." Marnie said. "Was to stop you from undoing the spell." Luke said. "Ugh! I can't believe it. We came all this way for nothing." You said. You then sat down in the pile of clothes. "You know, you did undo Cal's spell once." Luke said as he and Marnie sat next to you. "What do you mean?" You asked. "With me - the Gray Spell." Luke said. "No, it just wore off." You said. "It didn't wear off of Benny of Gort. It had to have been something you did or said." Luke said. "You know, he might have a point." Marnie said. "Like what?" You asked. "Well, uh, all right, you were searching through Aggie's house..." Luke said. "Right, so I was trying to get Grandma to think of something else, some other way to break the spell." You said.

"No, but you didn't say spell. You said something else." Luke said. "So?" Marnie asked. You got up. "So maybe whatever she said undid the spell." Luke said. "I would've had to be talking backwards to undo the spell." You said. "Maybe it was in there backwards somehow." Luke said. "OK. Um... I think I called it a trap. Uh... Something to get us out of this trap." You said. "All right, why don't you just say it all again?" Luke asked. "OK, it was something like, something to get us out of this trap. A spell or a charm." You said. "This trap. A spell... or a... You didn't say "charm," I know that." Luke said. "Something backwards. Uh...Trap, no. Spell or a... no." You began to walk away. "Wait. Wait. Here. Trapa." Luke pointed. "Trapa?" Marnie asked. "Yeah, it's "apart" backwards." Luke said. "So?" You asked. "So, does every spell have to be long?" Luke asked. "No. Some spells are short." Marnie said. "Then say this like a spell." Luke said. "But it's one word." Marnie said. "Marnie, let's just try it." You said. "Fine." She said. She turned to Gort. "Apart." She said. Gort then changed into a gray human. She smiled at you and you smiled back. "Whoa." Gort said. "Oh, my. Oh, my. Tsk, tsk, tsk. This place is very, very messy." Gort said. "All right, now say it backwards." You said. "Uh...Trapa?" Marnie said. Then he went back to normal. "That was awful. I wanted to... clean." He said. You laughed. "Try it again." You said. "OK. Apart." Marnie said. Then Gort went back to a gray human. "Oh, my. Oh, my." He said. You chuckled. "Does anyone have a, uh... a dustpan perhaps?" Gort asked. "Trapa." Marnie said. Then he went back to normal again.

"Will you stop doing that?" Gort asked. "You were right. We figured out how to break the Gray Spell, and now we can get our full powers back." Marnie said. "How much time do we have left before the portal closes?" Luke asked. "15 minutes. Oh, my gosh, Mom doesn't know about the Creature Spell. What if she's still wearing that mask?" You asked. "We have to get back to the present before we can warn her." Luke said. "Right. Uh... Where's the time-travel spell?" Marnie asked as she looked around. "What do you mean? You had it." You said. "Right, well, I put it over there on that table when I had to dig through the garbage." Marnie said. "Oh...You shouldn't have done that." Gort said as he walked past you. "Uh... Why not? What happened to it?" You asked. "It's lost." He said. "Well, that's OK, right, because things that get lost end up here." Marnie said. "Everything that's lost other places ends up here. But things that are lost here go poof." Gort said. "Poof?" You asked. "Poof. Gone... forever." Gort said. "Please tell me that one of you remembers the spell." Luke said. "It was Welsh. I could barely read it." You said. "So we're stuck here?" Luke asked. "So we're stuck here? We can't be stuck here." Luke said. "OK, OK, all right. Let me think." You then tried to repeat the spell. There was a bright light. Then you saw blonde hair on Gort. He growled at you. "Uh... No, that's not it." Marnie said. "Pooh bear thenatos 23 skidoo." Marnie said. Gort then had more flowers added to him. "Will you just stop saying that one?" He asked. "We can't remember the spell." You said. "You have to." Luke said. "This is stupid. Why don't we just use my timeline?" Gort asked. "Your what?" Marnie asked. "My timeline. Some wizard must've lost it. Come on, I keep it in the closet." He said.