They headed towards the bus stop with Aggie speaking, "And I've never understood why you bother with that Internet thing, when my witch's glass can show you anything you want to know."

They stopped and Maisie realized something seemed off. She looked around and spotted nothing. "Where is the bus stop sign?"

Marnie agreed, pointing at the ground, "Yeah, isn't this where the bus stop's supposed to be?" 

Aggie looked around, "Oh yes. Oh, Arnold must have forgot to put the thing out again."

"Oh, good," Maisie replied, feeling relieved.

"I swear, that man would lose his head if his wife didn't put it in his lunchbox," Aggie continued.

Maisie felt a relieved laughter leave her. 

"Well, I'll summon the bus," Marnie said.

"Good," Aggie said. 

Marnie cleared her throat and said, "Gestum ex alius mundus nos te appello ut adduco domus."

Nothing happened.

"My turn," Maisie said, with a grin. She said the spell, putting as much feeling as she could into it and nothing. She felt her face warm up in embarrassment. But why didn't the bus come? She and Marnie couldn't possibly suck at magic, right?

"Well, I guess we'll just have to call up the portal ourselves," Aggie told them. 

"I suppose," Maisie said and they stood around, putting their hands together and closing their eyes. It must've been a sight to behold if some people were to walk by.

"From the mortal world depart we now on this night, the night, All Hallow's Eve, back into Halloweentown," they said in unison, wiggling their fingers. "Through the portal we take our leave. 

They looked over at the doors and at the countdown that was above the door. 

"We have four hours before it closes for a year," Maisie pointed out. 

"We'll be back in plenty of time," Aggie assured her.

They went through the portal and down the alley.

"Oh, it feels great to be back," Aggie told them. "Sophie was right." She did a twirl and clapped, "I needed to come home." She hugged both Maisie and Marnie. "I've been missing my friends terribly."

"And I'm sure they've missed you too," Maisie said. She stopped, realizing how wrong Halloweentown looked. 

It was so...gray.

And boring. 

"W-where's the big jack-o'-lantern?" asked Marnie.

The jack-o'-lantern was just a cube made out of concrete blocks it looks like.

"Why is everything so gray and boring?" asked Maisie. It wasn't Halloweentown anymore, that's for sure.

"I-is this some kind of joke?" asked Marnie.

Aggie said, "As goes the jack-o'-lantern so goes Halloweentown."

Maisie was feeling terrified as she looked around Halloweentown. She asked, "Is this why the bus stop wasn't there?"

"I don't know," Aggie told her.

Someone walked by them, as they carefully treaded forward.

"Grandma, what's happened?" asked Marnie. "Like Mai said, everything's gray and boring."

"Not just everything," Aggie pointed out. "Everybody."

There were people in the street, looking hunched over. 

A female elf, wearing gray clothes, walked by them and Aggie said, "Uh, wait, please." The elf looked at them, "Um, could you tell me what's happening here? I would – I would just like—" She trailed off, "Astrid? Is that you?"

Maisie looked at the elf. 

"I'm Astrid," she said in a monotone voice.

"Astrid, what's happened to you?" asked Aggie.

"What do you mean?" asked Astrid, still speaking in a monotone.

Maisie looked at the gray clothes, the only thing that wasn't gray was the red wedges with orange puff balls on the toes.

"You're gray," Maisie said.

"And your bell bottoms are gone," Aggie added. "And your shoes—"

Astrid's wedges suddenly turned into gray socks and shoes. Astrid looked at her new footwear and monotoned, "These are very comfortable. Sensible shoes are important. I think I'll buy some more."

"Ohh, Astrid," Aggie said, as Astrid walked away.

A teen suddenly walked right in between Aggie and Marnie.

"Hey," Maisie said.

"Oh, excuse me," Aggie said, smacking at the teen. It seemed like the only color on the teen was his hair and the orange on his jacket. "I was talking."

"Whatever," the teen said and continued walking. 

However, something about that guy seemed familiar. 

"Oh, I hate that word," Aggie replied.

"That guy," Maisie started, "He seems familiar."

"Yeah, hang on," Marnie said, going after the teen.

"Marnie," Maisie started and went after her.

"Oh, you two," Aggie called after them.

Maisie grabbed the guy's arm, "Do we know you?"

The guy looked at them, "Duh."

Maisie looked at the guy, "Luke?"

"Yeah," Luke replied, messing with his ear.

"Are you under a spell?" Maisie said, "You look like how you did when Calabar turned you human."

"Whatever," Luke replied, turning to walk away from them.

The worst part?

He didn't seem to feel anything. There was no emotion coming from him, just like how nothing came from Astrid. 

She can feel growing fear and confusion from Marnie, but nothing from Luke and Astrid.

Marnie grabbed Luke's shoulder, "Would you stop that?"

It looked like Luke's goblin ears suddenly vanished, leaving regular human ears behind. Luke started touching his human ears.

Maisie asked, "What's happening, Luke? What happened to your goblin ears?"

"W-why are you turning gray?" asked Marnie.

"Everybody's doing it," replied Luke, in a monotone voice.

Marnie groaned, "That's not what I mean."

Aggie came up to them, "It's the spell, dear."

"A spell?" asked Marnie. "Y-you think someone put a spell on all of Halloweentown? How could they do that?"

Maisie said, "My question is: who would do that?" 

"I'm not sure," Aggie replied. "But the spell seems to be turning the creatures, not only gray, but once it progresses far enough, into humans."

Even Luke was still standing there, watching, like he was curious, but he wasn't feeling anything.

"Come on, Grandma," Marnie said. "Humans aren't this boring."

"No," Aggie said. She motioned at Luke, "I should say this is the caricature of humans in Halloweentown."

"So, the creatures think all humans are gray and boring?" asked Maisie. 

"Just as humans make fun of us from the mortal world at Halloween," Aggie agreed.

Maisie wasn't surprised that prejudice existed in Halloweentown, because it existed everywhere else in the mortal world. 

"But who would cast a spell like this?" asked Marnie.

"How do we reverse it?" asked Maisie. 

"I don't know, but someone is destroying my home," Aggie replied.

"Can we please focus on one thing at a time?" asked Maisie. "We need to save everyone first, and then focus on who cast the spell. We're running out of time."

"Right," Marnie agreed. "Undoing spells isn't that hard, right? You just say 'em backwards."

"I remember – I remember something from my spell book," Aggie said. "It was a spell..." She paused, "I haven't looked at it in years, but it was s-similar to this."

"That's great," Maisie said. "We just go back to the mortal, look at the spell in your book so we can cure it." 

"Or we can have Dylan look at it with the head phone," Marnie told her.

"It's worth a try," Aggie said. She took out the head phone and Maisie watched as Luke walked away. Aggie spoke in the head phone, "Dylan? Dylan? Oh, Dylan? Are you there? Can you hear me? Dylan, will you please answer this? Dylan. Can you hear me? Dylan, are you there? Dylan, will you please answer me?"

While Aggie spoke into the head phone, Maisie watched as Marnie went over to grab Luke and bring him back over to them.

"All right, I hear you," Dylan finally replied. "What you want?"

"I want you to go into my room and read me a spell out of my book," Aggie instructed him. 

"Grandma, I'm busy," Dylan replied.

Maisie took the head phone from Aggie before Marnie could, "Can you do it before Halloweentown gets destroyed forever? And chances are, you're not impressing Cindy. She's probably laughing at you behind your back. And Sophie would gladly do this thing for us."

Marnie took the head phone from Maisie, "Just do it before I spam your diary all over the net."

"You don't know my password," Dylan replied.

"Wanna bet? Iron buns?" replied Marnie.

Maisie tried not to laugh at the password.

"Shh. Okay, I'll do it," Dylan replied.