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[Transcript]

        A deep breath in. A deep breath out. Ángel’s lungs filled with fresh air that told a story, a tale of loam and life and countless centuries of nourishing decay. Seafoam spritzed his senses, a reminder of the blue beyond the green he was immersed in. Here, deep in the forests of Nevermoor—Bayview’s third, forbidden island—Ángel had found the silence he was seeking: the kind of quiet only birdsong and a thousand screeching insects could provide.

        “Isn’t it just blessedly beautiful, Cherub?” Isabel’s father asked thin air. His spirit’s bell was tied around his wrist. She could enjoy the sights and sounds and smells of nature, too, if he kept the trinket she was haunting close at hand.

        “Through your reverent senses, servant Mine, there is no corner of creation left unpolished by the hand of the divine.” 

        Atop Ángel’s shoulder, Cherub perched in a peripheral pocket of spirit trance, sparing most of his surroundings a celestial redecorating. Their bond was plastic, pliant and strong, and Ángel had poured his heart into his spiritual training. He’d uncovered countless tricks like this, and honed them until they were true techniques.

        “I recall how your sight sparkled, once, to find a common worm beneath a rock. You cried at the perfection of its lustrous, writhing form.” Often, Cherub looked at Ángel in the same way. She’d sunk her hooks in him with such little resistance. The task had been almost addictively satisfying in its simplicity, like a video of someone putting slime in a machine press. “Beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. To be held by you, then, Ángel, is the true blessing, for indeed My world does shine when We admire it together.”

        Ángel threw back his head and laughed. His was a deep, rich, resonant laugh, one unembarrassed to turn heads at restaurants and parent-teacher conferences (much to Isabel’s chagrin).

        “You’re a flirt, Cherub, a flatterer! My eyes may be unclouded, but the sky, without my help, is still a blue beyond compare!”

        “...Who but a man of merit could be flattered by the truth?” Cherub twinkled with a dainty little giggle. “Alas, I fear that My sincerity may smother the same smile it inspired: lest you forget, My fair servant, these fair skies are dependent on your aid.” The tiny spirit looked up past her halo, through the canopy of trees bejeweled by motes of scattered sunlight, to the unsolved azure puzzle of the atmosphere beyond it. “Even now, Our enemies assuredly conspire to ensure that darkness wins... and the bright future We dream of never dawns.”

        A sprightly breath of summer air left Ángel as a leaden sigh.

        “...Storm clouds gather,” he agreed, smiling sadly at his partner. He scratched the purring puppy underneath her fluffy chin. “For now, let us enjoy the sun, and make use of the light that it provides us.”

        Excursions to Nevermoor had become a frequent ritual for Ángel, a chance to set his mind straight on his days off from antiquing. He’d row out on a dinghy—an invigorating workout—and stroll its shores and cliffs and sprawling forests, far away from the tourists and commerce and constant construction that clouded his mind on West Island. He would shut his phone off, shut himself off, and become a single stroke in nature’s masterpiece. The ghost stories and dangerous terrain and rumors of cryptids and curses that had kept Nevermoor uninhabited were no deterrent to Ángel. As a spectral, he could see every beast that went bump in the night in broad daylight, and they were just as wondrous as the rest.

        The island of Nevermoor was absolutely teeming with spirits and specters, from ghostly wildlife that grazed on waves, to phantom flora that bloomed only in the shade, to strange, reclusive entities that spoke in liquid languages, which trickled down the cataracts they’d claimed to spread their wisdom. Here was a vision of a land unmarred by humans... and the grudges that they fostered with their avarice and cruelty. Would that all of Bayview—all the world—could be this peaceful and harmonious.

        Ángel knelt to study the campsite he had paused his hike to survey, bracing himself against the bamboo staff that held the sleeping wight, Polaris. Though he found solitude when he sought it here, Ángel was far from alone on the island. He was with Polaris, with Cherub, and had brought the Ghost Ship, too, which hung from his hip in the lantern that his pupil, Penny Spender, had stolen and delivered to his door. Less furtive spirits native to the island would sometimes speak with Ángel, too, whispering from the comfort of shadow, exchanging his company and counsel for their secrets. Then there was the undisputed ruler of the island, a creature he had sought since they’d last met: the West Hill Horror.

        Ángel blinked, absentmindedly running his hand through the still-hot ash of a campfire. The West Hill Horror? No, no, that wasn’t it. He must have been getting his cryptids mixed up. Ángel was a little tired—he had woken up feeling winded and sore, despite his early bedtime and extensive yoga regimen—and those goofballs on the radio were constantly jamming the airwaves with fresh Horrors, Terrors, Creeps, and other make-believe monstrosities. Each new addition to the Bayview bestiary had Lore and Proper Nouns that Ángel had to filter for a trace of his true target—no one could blame him for getting a little confused in the process. 

        Ángel’s mind had truly missed the mark by a mile, however, in reaching for the nickname of his reclusive acquaintance: there was nothing West about the Horror he was searching for (his home island’s forests were far too sparse to conceal such a specimen), and Nevermoor was not a Hill—it was a steep and craggy Mountain.

        No, the beast that Ángel hoped to meet was none other than the Nevermoor Nightmare... a one-eyed, bone-white boogeyman that prowled the pitch-black forest, seeking prey. 

        “This fire... it was lit last night,” Ángel noted to his spirit. “You don’t think that it could be her, do you?”

        “I do not,” Cherub chimed in, snuggling closer on his shoulder. “Nor should you.”

        “No...” Ángel sighed, standing up as he dusted the ash from his hand. “No, you’re right. Shrike would be too wise to leave a trace someone could track... or too wild to start a fire in the first place.” He shook his head. “This is an amateur’s campsite. Look how many tries it took for them to pitch their tent! They must have driven the stake into the ground at least a dozen times, and none of their attempts pierced deep enough to kill a vampire. It can’t be her,” Ángel laughed.

        Cherub laughed along, a modest, sweet “Ufufufu...” Ángel hadn’t noticed the crushed tin of caviar at the edge of his vision, which had clearly been opened with a hefty rock instead of a can opener. Earlier, too, he’d missed signs of a pricey speedboat shipwreck when they’d first set foot on Nevermoor, but Cherub wasn’t about to point out tedious details like that unless she had to. If Ángel realized that some prissy glamper was potentially stranded and struggling to survive on the island, he’d drop everything to try and play the hero. Booooring. He was supposed to be playing with HER. They were SUPPOSED to be admiring the beauty of the island! Everyone else could STARVE, for all she cared!

        Ángel sighed and leaned against his staff.

        “I wish that I could understand what went wrong, if the rumors of the ‘Nightmare’ really mean that Shrike still suffers here on Nevermoor. Then, perhaps, I’d know if we had helped her—if we still could.”

        “Hark, My herald: you cannot bear every burden, and We’ve shouldered much already. Let Us continue Our pilgrimage to the shore, where a choir of soft, lapping waves will serenade your soul...”

        “You dogs do love your long walks on the beach,” Ángel laughed, petting Cherub’s head.

        “Arf!” she said phonetically, then paired it with a “Woof!” for extra cuteness.

        The stroll down to the forest’s edge was a peaceful one. Every route was a scenic route on Nevermoor, at least through Ángel’s eyes, and soon the green gave way to stunning blue. The soft sighs of the ocean slowed his heart’s pace to its rhythm. Ángel took a grateful breath and set his gaze on the horizon. 

        “That anyone could want to change this—to corrupt it...” The spectral shook his head. “I’ll never understand it.”

        “Ignorance is blessed bliss,” chirped Cherub. “You need not know what lies within the heart of a wicked man like Davy Jones, for what besides ‘a wooden stake’ would bring Us satisfaction?”

        “You make it sound so simple,” Ángel laughed. “Garlic, holy water, a couple crucifixes? What we’ll REALLY need to stop that monster is a miracle.” 

        Still taking in the sea and sky, Ángel had set off down the shore, stepping over craggy tidepools and stray plumes of withered seaweed. Here, on the northern side of Nevermoor, the beach was flush with Bayview’s barrier, so that a wooded cape not far away extended out beyond it. The murky copse that crowned the bulbous brim of the promontory had a haunted air; it would have made a marvelous hideaway for a spirit if any could have reached it from the mainland.

        “...But I suppose we can’t expect one, can we, Cherub? We’re the Angel, after all—Doorman and Nin and all the allies that we’ve lost, they’ve looked up to us for divine intervention. I... I want to give them more than thoughts and prayers... for all that they have sacrificed.” Ángel clutched his staff a little tighter. It was wasted as a walking stick. “You’re right, Cherub. We’ve meditated on our enemies, our struggle, and the unknown long enough. It’s time that we took action.” The spectral sighed. “As much as I have yearned for one, there’s no such thing as—”

        “Ángel!”

        He looked up at Cherub, then followed her gaze to the sight that she was seeing through his senses. Ángel’s eyes went wide. Sitting on the beach, snagged on moss-rimed rocks and swaying softly in a tidepool’s push and pull, was a soggy, bright red book that he knew well.