"Seventh-grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he is being sent to heal from the trajedy. On his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie's journal. Tristan chases it - is that a doll? - through the forest, and a tug-of-war ensues by his grandmother's mysterious and off-limits Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature's hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping a hole in the sky above the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this strange world. Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left Black American gods John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding and seal the hole in the sky. But bartering with the trickster Anansi always comes at a price. Can Tristan save this world before he loses more of the things he loves?" --from dust cover.