Furious at his father, and embarrassed that he cares so much about a "kid's game", Zach decides not to tell Alice and Poppy what happened and instead says he just does not want to play anymore.

They find a map of town and break into the closed library where they research the cemetery and inadvertently spend the night when they all fall asleep.

They are woken by Miss Katherine, a young, pink-haired librarian who locks them in a break room and makes them call their respective parents and guardians.

Zach finds the doll in a ladies' restroom in the basement near a display of Lukas Kerchner's exotic pottery and learns about Eleanor's father and her mysterious disappearance.

Barry Goldblatt and Jennifer Rofe, writing for Publishers Weekly, assert that "Black captures the adolescent sense that things are about to explode before they get explained.

As Cynthia Ritter of Horn Book Magazine writes, "The narrative is uneven: while the doll is believably creepy, the horror elements and the ghost story remain under-developed, as do Poppy and Alice's characters, and the resolution is rather abrupt.

But through Zach's complex perspective, author Black poignantly and realistically captures how adolescence inherently brings change; how growing up affects the ways children play; and the inevitable tests friendships face".